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beyond
the last star
a
bird in hand |
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You can read the first 50% of this story for free; if you like it, you can read the rest for $0.65 (payable by paypal or credit card.)
[ Read more about author Marianne Dyson ]
"Critical Factor" began when I read The Emperor's New Mind by Dr. Roger Penrose where he suggested that only life (versus artificial life) can achieve true consciousness. Thus was born the character of Trine, who was not born, but created, and is struggling to achieve full creative consciousness. The rest of the story came together after I attended a lecture at Rice University by physics Nobel Laureate Charles Townes. He talked about masses being gobbled up by a probable black hole at the center of our galaxy. The magnitude of it shocked me - ten to the tenth solar masses every second! What would it be like if one of those suns were ours? What if there really is no such thing as faster-than- light drive, and yet we get to the point where we could live forever? Trine, in just such a future, is left to wonder about the meaning of (conscious) life, and whether it ultimately matters to his collapsing universe. This story first appeared in Analog Science Fiction magazine in February 1992.
The Critical Factor
By Marianne J. Dyson
Part 1
Instead of the life-giving shine of a yellow star, the ugly corpse of yet another smoldering, red dwarf reached the eyes of Trine. Recently awakened from conservation sleep by the ship's automatic systems, Trine rubbed his eyes furiously, hoping to dispel the reality displayed on the screen before him. As he watched, the once lively star seemed to cough blood red spicules, offering a last gasp of energy in blessing to the small beings come to pay respects. Greedily, the ship's hull absorbed the radiation. But Trine feared it wouldn't be enough. Even in suspension the crew needed energy, and it would take all that was left of this old star just to feed them and charge the propulsion.
Trine looked at the star map spherical display that once had twinkled with the light of millions of stars within range of their ship. Now, like a console full of red warning lights, only the long-lived, low-luminosity dwarfs remained. All other types had burned out one by one. The universe was dying.
Trine ruffled small wings out of habit and placed hands over his face, weeping. All he had ever known would soon be gone, even the poor red dwarfs would be swallowed up in the collapse. They had dreaded this day ever since their sun had flared and engulfed the planet of his ancestors millions of years ago, leaving only a few to escape to the closest star. The ship was all that was left. Even the hope that they could somehow absorb enough energy to wait for a new creation seemed as dim and distant as the ancient light now reaching him from across the galaxy. As long as they had energy, Trine's people could live forever, and he could pretend bravery and belief as he navigated from star to star with the crew in suspension. But with nothing but dwarfs left within range of their ship, still thwarted from crossing the barrier of light speed, he could no longer hide from the unknown course ahead.
Chest heaving, Trine's toes uncurled from the perch below the viewscreen, and he drew knees to a hairless chest. He couldn't face this reality alone.
Flapping his small wings, he entered the leader's holding room. Even with skin white as starlight due to the suspension, Yachem was magnificent to look upon. One of the originals, his wings were the color of a warm sun, his hair black as space. As his name implied, Trine was merely a third generation clone, a copy of an original with standard olive skin and wings the color of a young blue star, for which they searched in vain.
Trine keyed the code to awaken Yachem. The light beams responded, illuminating the naked body held in place by straps at the wrists and ankles. The suspension field wrapped Yachem in light, warming him. Trine watched as the winged leader's skin darkened, absorbing energy directly to quicken his pulse, open his oval eyes. Yachem's head turned toward Trine, and fingers groped to release the straps and turn off the light. As a leader should, he never allowed himself to indulge in the glow of a little extra energy, even though he knew as well as Trine that conserving those few extra ergs would not do much to change their situation.
Yachem reached for Trine with still pale hands, and Trine blushed, ashamed of his own dark green color. He offered Yachem fluid, but he refused.
"You have awakened me, young one. What do you require?"
Trine felt awkward in the presence of the one who had conceived of the plan to survive through the collapse of the universe. He therefore said only, "Come," and gently guided Yachem to the Navigator's station in front of the large viewscreen. Yachem frowned as he gazed at the slowly dying fire of their last hope. They had journeyed a thousand light years to reach this place, but the star they had targeted had evolved into this decaying nightmare even while they traveled.
Yachem cycled the map arrays, shoulders drooping, wings quivering in anticipation. At last he raised his eyes to meet Trine's. "You were right to wake me. The end is indeed near. Soon all the bodies of matter will be in collision."
Trine shivered and moved closer to Yachem, so that his shoulder brushed against the cool flesh of his leader. Both stared at the faint sun, which, like an ember among ashes, would probably continue to put out its feeble light until the long fingers of a black hole's night closed over it forever.
Cosmology taught that the universe had a beginning in a large explosion, billions of years ago, and that eventually, it would collapse, and therefore have an end, at least locally. Even though Trine had done the observations that proved the fate of their sun had not been unique, that stars were no longer being formed, that the last supernova was only a memory of ancient history, he did not pretend to understand it. But Yachem told him he must keep trying. For the sake of those who had died because they had not understood. A whole planet of people who had been secure in their personal eternity.
Trine shivered again, remembering those first years when Yachem had nearly gone mad with grief and guilt over the destruction of his home planet - watching helplessly from his observatory on the outermost planet. Trine had been a lowly servant then, as all clones were to originals. He had never been expected to think for himself, let alone challenge a Master Cosmologist. But after the sun's death, all that had changed.
Yachem had insisted that Trine ask him as many questions as possible, and always take the opposite point of view in a discussion, saying this helped him come up with new ideas and solutions. Trine had not been as good at this as originals Yachem had known, but he had always tried to do his best, repeating ideas learned from study. It was his greatest hope that someday he might have a truly new idea of his own.
One of Yachem's ideas was the plan that had saved them so far: to enter a state of suspension, soaking up energy until it took more to gather it than was worthwhile, like the rays from red dwarfs. Then, with matter collapsing toward them from all directions, he planned for them to chart the Final Course, avoiding being yanked into one of the large attractors that would collect into the cosmic egg. Yachem assumed that at some point, the egg would reach a critical density and explode again, creating a new universe.
Another of his ideas was to skim the final event horizon, taking advantage of the non-uniform distribution of matter to be the last item absorbed.
But not even the esteemed Yachem, with his ancient wisdom, could predict how long they could resist the collapse. Trine remembered the questions he had been compelled to ask: could they risk a swing-by of one of the attractors? What would it do to their energy and field equations? What value should they use for the ever uncertain dimension of time? No one could guarantee Trine would not wake to discover himself eternally dying as the ship crossed the event horizon of the egg's black death.
"Master, should we initiate the Final Course?"
Yachem turned golden eyes at Trine, a slow nod causing him to bob up and down in the weak spin field of the ship. "Yes, it is time. We must plot it together."
Trine took a deep breath, trying not to think of this as his last living act. Working almost on instinct, he quickly generated the appropriate spherical display, remembering how Yachem had praised him and another clone for their application of his idea to simplify individual masses with large gray balls representing centers of mass.
He watched as Yachem analyzed the velocities of each major mass collection, estimating the time until absorption by an attractor, then each attractor to the others to form the egg. At Yachem's nod, he changed the coordinates of the sphere and expanded it so that Yachem was at the estimated position of the final mass concentration.
Trine remained silent as the Master Cosmologist examined the directions of motion, accounting for collisions between now dark objects whose positions were based on millennia-old observations. The course must not pass within the influence of these large masses. If it did, they would be captured, then crushed or squeezed into an unknown dimension as cold dark matter, black holes, and the remains of burned out stars fell one by one into a gravity well. A well so deep that only the force of a new creation could expel them from it.
Yachem drew a curving line in green light with the tip of his finger. The equation representing the curve was automatically entered into the ship's computer. Trine then suppressed the images of the mass centers, and generated the shape of the once smooth cosmic background radiation. From the outside, it appeared like a partially deflated ball, the pockmarks indicating those areas where the radiation, leftover from the creation blast, had begun to fall back to its origin, like a projectile that had not attained escape velocity. The mass of the universe was pulling all its scattered seeds back to itself.
Trine now caused the deflated sphere to collapse, carefully watching the course line until it poked through the boundary. He stopped the collapse, and adjusted the projection from the outside. The course must travel the path of least energy. Yachem adjusted it from the inside, making sure that the line remained just beyond the event horizon, the point where not even light could escape.
Finally, they were both satisfied, and let the computer determine at what point the uncertainty in the collapse rate would require Trine and Yachem to be awakened for a course correction. If they had enough energy, none would be required since they could just account for the uncertainty by plotting for the worst case. But if not, then they would have to refine the course to a minimum energy, that would require reducing the uncertainty through observations and incorporating these updates at regular intervals, something Trine, as Navigator, would be awakened to do.
The computer would have to iterate the course solution over millions of years. Trine waited impatiently for the response. Yachem surprised him with an offer to drink.
"We will soon sleep longer than ever before," he said. "We must load ourselves with fluid, so that minimal energy will be required to sustain us."
Trine nodded and sipped the clear liquid, feeling its coolness radiate throughout him. His wings fluttered in pleasure, opening slightly. Sensing Yachem was inviting conversation, Trine asked, "Master, do you think there are other beings in other universes who have done what we are doing?"
Yachem smiled. "I do not know, but I hope so. We only explored a very tiny piece of our universe, and though we encountered no other beings, it still seems hard to imagine that we are unique. Just as there were many stars, I think that our Final Attractor is but one of many."
Remembering a question on one of the cosmology tests, Trine asked, "But, Master, then why don't we see light from these other universes?"
Yachem affectionately stroked the top of Trine's head as he answered. "Because they also are expanding and collapsing, just like ours. Think of a universe as a super black hole, and ourselves hidden inside."
Trine twisted his mouth trying to understand. Yachem tried another approach. "Perhaps all the attractors are separated exactly so that they do not overlap one another in time or space, like you and your original."
Trine wondered what it would be like to be free of time's direction. "Do you think there could ever be a universe that is not bounded but finite? One that does not have enough mass to collapse?"
Yachem shook his head, causing his black hair to form a halo around his pale green face. "If such a universe existed, its first light would eventually reach us, first as a bright spot, then a deformation like that caused by two intersecting spheres. We have never observed such a phenomena. Instead we see objects in all directions that are of a generation with us, meaning if we could travel there instantly, we would find nothing but red dwarfs, not the third generation yellow stars whose light is just now reaching us. Remember, you yourself verified that there are no longer any supernovas or quasars."
Trine nodded. "But it could be that we have just not been observing long enough."
Yachem smiled again, obviously enjoying this exchange with a younger, still inquisitive mind. "That is true. We are young in terms of the age of even our own universe. Perhaps if we had unlocked the cage of mortality a billion years earlier, we might have observed the flash from such a thing."
He stared out the viewscreen as if looking for a distant light that was no longer there, then continued. "Let us postulate that such a universe existed, and beings such as ourselves evolved there. What would they do once they discovered this fact about their universe?"
Trine inhaled quickly. He didn't remember the answer to this question, so he restated the question. "You mean that it would continue to expand?"
"Yes."
Trine tried to imagine himself in such a situation. He speculated out loud, as Yachem had taught him to do. "They would realize that their energy resources would get farther and farther apart, and eventually burn out. They would not have the option of waiting for a new creation." He indicated the viewscreen image. "Even the red dwarfs would use up their fusion sources eventually. Therefore, they would either die or . . ." Trine flapped his wings in excitement. "Or find a way to cross over to another, younger universe!"
Yachem nodded, and Trine could see by the shine in his eyes that he had reasoned his way to an acceptable, if not totally unique, answer. "Yes, and since the constant expansion would spread resources thin, they would have to spread out in all directions. It is likely that at least one other universe would intersect their expansion at some time."
Trine burst out, "It could even account for our own appearance in this universe!"
Yachem fluffed his wings and tilted his head to look at Trine from a new perspective. "If you could devise a test of this theory, it could qualify you for promotion to Cosmologist."
Trine smiled and bowed his head, proud but embarrassed. It was their people's highest honor to originate a new theory that could be tested, something a clone had never done.
The computer chose that moment to announce completion of their time plot. Yachem and Trine checked the figures several times, then embraced. According to the calculations, they had enough energy to sleep through the collapse plus a million years into the expansion, assuming the explosion occurred as soon as all the mass was within the event horizon.
Trine saw to it that Yachem was secured in his holding, then he attached his own wrist and ankle supports, and drifted into suspension, dreaming of blazing quasars filling the heavens once again.
Copyright © by Marianne Dyson . All rights reserved unless specified otherwise above.
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