The World At The End Of Time Part 15

Of course, their ways of keeping the population down differed from community to community. When Viktor found out about them he was startled, not to say repelled. The Reformers and the Moslems practiced nonprocreative s.e.x-frequently h.o.m.os.e.x. The People's Republic did their best at abstinence, with males and females housed firmly apart except on designated nights, when a couple who had deserved well of the state were allowed to dwell with each other. And the Great Transporters, so to speak, attacked the problem from the other end. Their religion forbade them to take life-well, except in war, of course. For that reason they didn't use contraception, nor did they practice abortion; they had babies, lots of babies, and when they pruned their populations it was among the adults-at least, mostly among the near near adults, anyway; if a Great Transporter child managed to survive his rebellious adolescence he had a fair chance of a natural death, sixty or seventy Newmanhome years later. adults, anyway; if a Great Transporter child managed to survive his rebellious adolescence he had a fair chance of a natural death, sixty or seventy Newmanhome years later.

What the Great Transporters did was dispose of their criminals, and they had a lot of criminals. In their community there were two hundred and eighty statutory crimes punishable by their supreme penalty-it came to about one crime for every two persons in the community, and the sentence was pa.s.sed frequently.

Of course, the sentence wasn't death. Not exactly, anyway. Execution was another of the life-taking sins that was prohibited. They had a better way. They put their criminals in the freezer.

It was fortunate for the Great Transporters that there was so much unused freezer s.p.a.ce. The freezers had been big to begin with. Then they had been further enlarged when Newmanhome began to get too cold to support outside life, and tens of thousands of cattle and other livestock were slaughtered and frozen. The freezers had their own independent, long-lasting lines to the geothermal power plant; they were fully automatic and would last for the ages.

But that was one more of the many sources of friction among the communities, because the Greats were rapidly filling them up.

The four communities rubbed abrasively against each other in plenty of other ways. The Great Transporters hated to see even unbelievers profane their Sabbath. The Moslems lost their tempers when they saw anyone drinking alcohol; the Peeps were constantly irate about the wasteful, sinful "luxuries" of the other three groups, while the Reformers simply hated everyone else.

That was where the work of the Four-Power Council came in. They usually made sure that the frictions were kept minor. The system worked pretty well. They had not fought a real war for nearly eighteen years.

Viktor slept badly that night, in his barracks with forty other unattached male Greats sniffling and snoring and muttering in their sleep all around him, and the next day at his loathsome job was no better than the last.

Even the children seemed to have second thoughts about their undisciplined behavior of the day before. When Viktor asked Mooni-bet if she had seen Reesa the girl hung her head. She looked worriedly to see if anyone was listening, then whispered, "We are on overload now, Viktor. She has been moved to the Peeps."

And then, when Viktor tried to ask Vandot, the boy from the People's Republic snapped at him. "We are here to work, not to chatter like religious fanatics."

"Watch your mouth!" the girl from the Reformers snarled at him.

"I only say what is true," Vandot muttered. "In any case, I know nothing of your wife, Viktor. It is not my business. Nor is it yours; because your duty is to pay us all back for reviving you from-" He hesitated, not willing to say the word. "For reviving you," he finished. "Now get to work."

Viktor didn't answer that. It wasn't because he had been ordered by a child. He hadn't quite figured out what an answer to that sort of remark ought to be. It was true that he was alive. That is to say, his heart pumped, his eyes saw, his bowels moved. Even his genital organs were still in working condition, at least he thought they would be if he were allowed to be with Reesa long enough, in enough privacy, to test them out.

But was that really a "life"?

It was certainly a kind of life, but Viktor could not believe that it was the only life he was ever going to have again. It was not at all his his life. life.

His life had been on a very different Newmanhome, with very different friends, family, and job. Especially job. Viktor Sorricaine's job had never been simply the thing he put hours into in order to keep himself fed. Viktor's job had been his profession. His life had been on a very different Newmanhome, with very different friends, family, and job. Especially job. Viktor Sorricaine's job had never been simply the thing he put hours into in order to keep himself fed. Viktor's job had been his profession. His position. position. His skills. It was the thing he could organize his life around, the thing he His skills. It was the thing he could organize his life around, the thing he was. was. And Viktor Sorricaine could not recognize himself as a shoveler of human dung. He was a trained pilot! More than that, he was at least an amateur, thanks to his father's endless lecturing, of such things as astrophysics-the very person these people needed to investigate this eerie ghost in the sky that they called the universe. That was what Viktor Sorricaine was . . . And Viktor Sorricaine could not recognize himself as a shoveler of human dung. He was a trained pilot! More than that, he was at least an amateur, thanks to his father's endless lecturing, of such things as astrophysics-the very person these people needed to investigate this eerie ghost in the sky that they called the universe. That was what Viktor Sorricaine was . . .

From which it followed that this chilly, weary dung shoveler wasn't the real Viktor Sorricaine, and this life was not his. his.

And when Mooni-bet came near him again in her gathering of dung beetles, he spoke to her, not keeping his voice down. "I do have a complaint, Mooni-bet," he told her. "I'm being wasted here. I have skills that ought to be used."

The girl looked at him desperately. "Please," she whispered, looking over her shoulder.

"But it's important," Viktor insisted. "That thing they call the universe. It needs to be understood, and I have scientific training-"

"Be still!" the Peeps boy cried, coming up to them. "You are interfering with the work!"

"Anyone can do this work," Viktor said reasonably, refraining from pointing out that it was a task that even silly children could handle. Obviously.

"We all all must work," Vandot cried, his shrill boy's voice almost cracking. He rubbed his hands nervously on his smeared kilt, staring around at the others in the gloom. Mordi, the Great Transporter girl, averted her eyes, but when she glanced toward Viktor her look was almost guilty. Vandot a.s.serted his righteous young masculinity. "The most important thing is survival," the boy declared. "And the most important part of that is food. Shut up and get those beds prepared!" must work," Vandot cried, his shrill boy's voice almost cracking. He rubbed his hands nervously on his smeared kilt, staring around at the others in the gloom. Mordi, the Great Transporter girl, averted her eyes, but when she glanced toward Viktor her look was almost guilty. Vandot a.s.serted his righteous young masculinity. "The most important thing is survival," the boy declared. "And the most important part of that is food. Shut up and get those beds prepared!"

Survival, Viktor thought bleakly. True enough. That seemed to be the central rule of the game. Viktor thought bleakly. True enough. That seemed to be the central rule of the game.

It was natural enough that the social structure for these people had to bend to conform. Their rigid ways were a pattern for survival. Earth's Eskimos, in their far milder climate, had developed unusual social inst.i.tutions of their own to deal with the brutal facts of their lives. True, the Eskimos had solved the problem in a different way-without rigid laws and stern central government, without punishment (and these people were absolutely devoted devoted to punishment)-but then the Eskimos had started from a different position. They hadn't had long-ingrained traditions of certain kinds of governments and religions to try to preserve. They came into their harsh new environment without the baggage of any real government or religion at all. to punishment)-but then the Eskimos had started from a different position. They hadn't had long-ingrained traditions of certain kinds of governments and religions to try to preserve. They came into their harsh new environment without the baggage of any real government or religion at all.

The people of this new Newmanhome, in Viktor's eyes, were both authoritarian in government and fanatic in religion. So they lived their dreary, deprived, regimented lives in the caverns under the ice crags that had once been the city of Newmanhome. They had a few things going for them-fortunately, because otherwise they could not have survived at all. The most important one was that, although their sun had gone pale, the fires inside the planet still burned as hot as ever. The geothermal wells produced heat to keep their warrens livable, and even power enough to run their little factories (not to mention their freezers). The supply was not at all lavish. There certainly wasn't enough energy to be had to keep Newmanhome's tens of thousands of people alive . . .

But then there weren't that many people left alive anymore. Not on Newmanhome. Not anywhere.

When, grudgingly, Vandot allowed that work was through for the day, Viktor tried to sc.r.a.pe some of the filth off his hands. He looked around for Mordi, expecting to walk back to the Greats residence together, but she had already left the growing cavern.

What a drag, Viktor thought irritably. He was fairly sure he could find his way by himself, but there was no reason she couldn't have waited for him . . .

She had.

She was standing outside the cavern, looking both frightened and resolute, and next to her was his supervisor, Mirian.

"You simply won't cooperate, will you?" Mirian said angrily. "What Mordi reported was true. You not only don't do your own job, you interfere with the others."

Viktor gave the girl a reproachful look. She shrugged disdainfully and turned to leave. "All right," Viktor said, "you've made your point. Now let's get something to eat."

"Eat!" the supervisor growled. "We'll be lucky if we eat at all this night, you've seen to that. I've got to bring you to the Four-Power Council for a hearing. Come on!"

There wasn't any use questioning Mirian when the man didn't want to talk. Viktor tried anyway, of course. He wasn't surprised when Mirian simply shook his head and pointed toward a rack of parkas.

That was the first Viktor had known that they were going outside.

And then, as they battled their way across the hummocks in the teeth of a freezing gale, he looked up and saw the thing that had puzzled him most: the "universe." It was like a sun, but it was immensely brighter than any sun, a pure, blue-white point in the sky that seared his eyes.

He tried to imagine how their little group of stars could possibly have been flung so fast, so far, that they were catching up with the light from every body in the universe. They had to be moving almost at the velocity of light itself! If only there were someone to ask, someone to talk to . . .

But while they were in the open it was too cold to talk, and then, when they were in the separate cavern that housed the meetings of the Four-Power Council, Viktor almost forgot his questions about the strange thing. For an unexpected joy was waiting for him.

Reesa was there.

It was the first time they had been together in the two weeks since landing, and as Viktor saw her sitting there, in the bare, cramped waiting room, with her People's Republic "hosts" watchful on either side, he felt a sudden, unantic.i.p.ated rush of longing, pleasure and-what was it? He thought it over, as he held her in his arms, while the Peeps grumbled menacingly, and decided it was simply love.

He understood that with wonder. It was a novel thought for him. Reesa had been his wife, of course. She had been a comfort, a pleasure, a partner-she had been a useful adjunct to his life in many ways; but he had never before realized that he had somehow grown to center his life around her in the cla.s.sical tradition of monogamous love. That sort of romantic fixation had been reserved for Marie-Claude Stockbridge.

It was a surprise to Viktor to realize that he had not even thought of Marie-Claude since they had come back to life in this icy h.e.l.l.

"Are you all right?" he whispered into his wife's fine, warm-smelling hair.

"I'm fine," she said. "I've been tending the gerbils and the chickens-you wouldn't believe what they feed them! Bugs and worms and-"

"Oh, I believe, all right," Victor a.s.sured her, hesitating at the choice: tell her about his own work, or tell her about the startling new truth he was bursting to share? He released her, looking at her consideringly. She didn't look look fine. She looked careworn. fine. She looked careworn.

Nevertheless, the impulse to tell the truth won out. "That bright spot we saw-the universe? Do you know what it means? It means that somehow-G.o.d! I can't imagine how!-our whole solar system and some of the others nearby are rushing through s.p.a.ce at relativistic speeds! We're traveling so fast we're actually sort of catching up with the light ahead of us! And-" He paused, blinking at the expression on her face. "What's the matter?" he demanded.

"Go on, Viktor," she said encouragingly. "You were saying about the stars that are moving at nearly light speed-ours and eleven others, right?"

He stared at her. "You knew knew that?" that?"

"The Peeps told me, yes," she said. "They say it's been like that for three hundred years, almost, except that it used to be brighter than it is now."

"Well, s.h.i.t," s.h.i.t," he said angrily. "If these people knew that, why wouldn't the Greats tell me?" he said angrily. "If these people knew that, why wouldn't the Greats tell me?"

She looked at him absently for a moment. Then she nodded. "I forgot you were with the Greats," she said. "They don't believe in it. I mean, they don't believe in asking questions about why. why. They go by their Bible. If there's anything that isn't in the Third Testament, they don't want to discuss it at all." They go by their Bible. If there's anything that isn't in the Third Testament, they don't want to discuss it at all."

"But-" he began, and then stopped. What was there to say? He was fuming inside, but there was no point in burdening Reesa with his anger against these people and their folly, especially when she herself was staring unhappily into s.p.a.ce.

It took that long for Viktor to realize there was something else on his wife's mind.

"What is it?" he demanded. "Are the Peeps giving you a hard time?"

She looked at him in surprise. "No harder than anyone else, really."

"Then what's the matter with you?"

She looked at him blankly, then shook her head. "It's just-" She hesitated. Then, looking away, she finished. "It's just that I keep-wondering, Viktor."

"Wondering about what?"

"I wonder if Quinn had a happy life," she said, and would say no more.

It was a long, silent time before the door to the council chamber opened, and Mirian came out.

He came over to them. "You are granted asylum," he said grudgingly. "The council has just made its decision."

"But-but-but I thought we'd appear before them!" Viktor exclaimed.

Mirian looked at him curiously. "Why would the council want you to do that? What could you tell them that they don't already know, from the transcripts of your questioning?"

"I wanted to talk about the universe!" Viktor shouted. "My father was an astrophysicist-I learned from him! The way that thing looks in the sky has to mean that our whole group of stars is traveling very close to the speed of light, and I want to help to figure out why!" why!"

Mirian looked suddenly gray. "Shut your face," he hissed, glancing around. "Do you want the freezer again? Most of us are on overload now, you know-if the orbital power plant doesn't start working soon there'll be a h.e.l.l of a big freezing bee! No, count your blessings, Viktor. The council thinks you two might be helpful in launching the rockets for the fuel transfer-that's a break you don't deserve. Don't screw it up by talking blasphemy!"

CHAPTER 17.

Wan-To's first few thousand years in the galaxy that was his new home went like the twinkling of an eye, and he was busy all the time. There was so much to do!

None of it was really difficult difficult for him, of course. There was nothing he hadn't done many times before-this was, after all, his twentieth or thirtieth star, not to mention that he was now on his third galaxy. He had had plenty of practice, and so he knew exactly what to do first and precisely how to do it. for him, of course. There was nothing he hadn't done many times before-this was, after all, his twentieth or thirtieth star, not to mention that he was now on his third galaxy. He had had plenty of practice, and so he knew exactly what to do first and precisely how to do it.

The first two things were to sniff out every corner of his star and to rebuild his external eyes. That didn't take very long. A century or two, and he was already at home. Wan-To had chosen an F-9 star this time-a little bigger and brighter than most of those he had preferred before, but he felt he deserved the extra energy, which was to say the extra comfort.

Then, of course, he had to check out the rest of this new galaxy. That necessarily took quite a lot longer. It meant creating a few thousand Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky pairs and sending them off to other parts of the galaxy, so he could keep an eye on everything that was going on in the new territory he had claimed.

Wan-To couldn't help feeling a certain tension during that period. After all, a galaxy is a big place. The one he had chosen had nearly four hundred billion stars, with a well-defined spiral structure-a pretty desirable neighborhood, and how could he be sure that some undesirable element didn't lurk somewhere in it?

But as the reports from his widespread ERPs began to arrive, they all came up empty. As far as he could tell, which was pretty far, every object in this galaxy was simply obeying the dumb natural laws of physics. There were no unwelcome signs of tampering. No unexplained patterns in the photospheres of any of the several billion stars he was able to examine in detail, no radiation coming in to any of his sensors that wasn't explained by the brute force of natural processes.

Wan-To began to relax. He had found a safe new home! Like any ancient mountain man, coming across a verdant Appalachian valley for the first time, he saw that it was his to clear and plant and harvest and own, own, and he might easily, like one of them, have said, and he might easily, like one of them, have said, This is the place. This is the place.

He was secure. secure.

It was only after he was well settled in, with all his sensors deployed and all their reports rea.s.suring, that it occurred to Wan-To to ask the next question: Secure for what? what?

Wan-To mused over that question for a long time. He was not religious. The thought of a "religion" had never crossed Wan-To's mind, not once in all the billions of years since he had first become aware that he was alive. Wan-To could not possibly believe in a G.o.d, since Wan-To, to all intents and purposes, was the most omnipotent and eternal G.o.d he could have imagined.

Nevertheless, there were occasional troubling questions of that sort that pa.s.sed through Wan-To's vast mind. A human philosopher might have called them theological. The most difficult one-it was hard for Wan-To even to frame it-was whether there was any purpose purpose in his existence. in his existence.

Naturally, Wan-To was well aware of one overriding purpose of a kind-self-preservation, the one imperative that governed all of Wan-To's plans and actions. Nothing was ever going to change that; but once it occurred to him to ask what he was preserving himself for for he could not quite see an answer. he could not quite see an answer.

The troubling question kept coming back to him.

Perhaps it was just that Wan-To was pa.s.sing through what humans called "a mid-life crisis." If so, it had come upon him early. Wan-To wasn't anywhere near middle-aged. He was hardly past the adolescence of his immensely long span of existence, for he wasn't then much more than twelve or fifteen billion years old.

Wan-To didn't spend all his time brooding over the meaning of it all. He had plenty to do. Just investigating every corner of his new galaxy, first to seek possible enemies, finally just to know it, took quite a while-there were, after all, those four hundred billion stars, spread over some trillions of cubic light-years of s.p.a.ce. Over a period of a few millions of years he studied the data coming from the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky pairs he had planted at strategic locations in the arms, in the core, in the halo, everywhere in the galaxy that looked interesting. A lot of it was interesting indeed-coalescing gas clouds heavy with the approaching birth of new stars, supergiants exploding into density waves that impregnated other clouds, black holes, neutron stars . . . He had seen them all before, of course, but each one was just a little different, and generally intensely interesting.

Then that permanent itch of curiosity that needed always to be scratched drove his investigations farther into s.p.a.ce. His galaxy was his own, uncontested; but Wan-To well understood that one little galaxy was very small stuff indeed in the vast scale of the expanding universe.

When he looked out on the distant rest of the universe he could not see that it had changed much in the few billion years of his investigations. There was a certain tendency for the distant blue fuzzies to turn greenish-they were farther away now, and receding relatively faster. And he saw that some of the older galaxies, even a few quite nearby, were beginning to show signs of senile decay. They were shrinking and losing ma.s.s-"evaporating" is the word that would have occurred to a human being. Wan-To understood the process very well. When any two stars happened to wander close to each other in their galactic orbits-as was bound to happen, time and again, in eternity-they interacted gravitationally. There was a transfer of kinetic energy. One picked up a little velocity, the other lost some. Statistically, over the long lifetime of a galaxy some of those stars would keep on adding speed and others would lose some-the faster-moving ones would sooner or later be flung clear out of their parent galaxy, while the slower ones would spiral hopelessly down toward collapse in the center, forming mammoth black holes. Such a process didn't happen rapidly rapidly-not in a mere few billion years, that was to say. in a mere few billion years, that was to say.

But Wan-To could see the process going on, and it made him wonder uneasily about his future.

He wished he had someone to talk to about all these things.

He wished, in fact, that he had someone to talk to about anything. He was getting really lonesome.

He brought himself up sharply every time he came to that point in his thinking, because he knew what the perils were of creating company for himself . . .

But in the long run he could not help himself. He succ.u.mbed. It was inevitable. Even Adam hadn't been able to stand the solitude of Eden forever.

Wan-To reminded himself that, whatever else they might be, any new copies of himself first and foremost had to be safe. safe. He wanted no one, ever, sniping at him from ambush again. He wanted no one, ever, sniping at him from ambush again.

So the first playmate he created in his new galaxy was stringently edited, with every character trait that led toward independence of action carefully censored out, and an unswervable devotion to himself tailored in. He omitted all the information that made it possible to use the gravitational forces that could wreck stars; he blotted out the parts that led to such emotions as anger and jealousy and pride. He made the new copy, most of all, content. content.

His newest copy was only a shadow of himself, really. It wasn't much smarter than his almost forgotten doppel, Matter-Copy Number Five. It didn't have enough personality to deserve a real name. Wan-To called it "Happy."

Happy was certainly happy. Happy took everything in stride. If Wan-To snapped at him, Happy replied with soothing burbles of good-natured sound-you might almost call them "giggles." When Wan-To was in a bad mood, Happy blithely ignored it.

Since one of the things Wan-To wanted from his dream companions was sympathy, he tried again. The new one was as dumb and f.e.c.kless as Happy, and as impotent to cause trouble, but it was designed to care care about Wan-To; he named it "Kind." about Wan-To; he named it "Kind."

Within the next few thousand millennia Wan-To had created for himself a "Funny" and a "Sweet" and a "Sympathetic" and even a "Motherly"-Wan-To didn't call it exactly that, of course, because he had no idea of "mothers"; but if it had been human it would have clucked over him and fretted when he fretted and every day made him chicken soup.

So for a while Wan-To was no longer alone. But they weren't real company. They were idiots.