The Greatship (50 page)

“Remember this,” the voice continued.  “The Union is the only power of consequence.  And the Union holds its interest only in those dark realms that appear on no worthwhile map.”

“A king happened to rule that warm, sun-washed island.  He was simple and rather old, and I was tempted to kill him in some grand public fashion before taking his throne for myself.  Yet my study of his species and its superstitions showed me a less bloody avenue.  The king’s youngest wife was pregnant, but the child would be stillborn.  It was a simple matter to replace that failed infant and then bury what was Me inside healthy native flesh.  Once born, I proved to the kingdom that their new prince was special.  I was a lanky boy, physically beautiful, endowed with an unnatural strength and the gentle grace of wild birds.  I didn’t merely walk at an early age, I danced.  And with a bold musical voice, I spoke endlessly on every possible subject, people fighting to kneel close to me, desperate to hear whatever marvel I offered next.

“The wise old women of my kingdom decided that I must be a god’s child as much as a man’s.  Like a god’s child, I predicted the weather and the little quakes that often rattled the island.  I boasted that I could see far into the skies and over the horizon, and to prove my brave words, I promised that a boat full of strangers would soon drift past our island.

“My prediction was made in the morning, and by evening, I was proved right.  The lost trireme was filled with traders or pirates.  On a world such as that, what is the difference between those two professions?  Whatever their intentions, my people were waiting for them, and after suitable introductions, I ordered the strangers murdered and their possessions divided equally among the general populace.”

The voice paused.

In the dark, Quee Lee leaned hard against her husband.

And the story continued.  “I was almost grown when that little old king stood before his people and named his heir.  Two of my brothers were insulted, but I had anticipated their clumsy attempts at revenge.  In a duel with bronze swords, I removed the head of the more popular son.  Then I turned my back, allowing my second brother to run his spear through my chest—a moment used to prove that I was, as my people had always suspected, immortal.

“With my two hands, I yanked the spear from my heart.

“In anguish, my foe flung himself off one of our island’s high cliffs.

“‘Someday I will follow my brothers into the Afterlife,’ I promised the citizens.  ‘But for the rest of your days, I will remain with you, and together we shall do the work of the gods.’

“And that was the moment, at long last, when the heart of my mission finally began.”

Their companion paused.

“Are you going to explain your mission?” Perri asked.

“Hints and teases.  I will share exactly what is necessary to explain myself, or at least I will give you the illusion of insights, placing you where your imaginations can fill in the unnamed reaches.”

“About these natives,” Quee Lee began.  “Your people…what did they look like?”

Quietly and perhaps with a touch of affection, the voice explained, “They were bipedal, as you are.  And they had your general height and mass, hands and glands.  Like you, they presented hairless flesh to the world, except upon their faces and scalps and in their private corners.  As a rule, most were dirty and drab, and on that particular island, their narrow culture reached back only a few generations.  But their species had potential.  Following ordinary pathways, natural selection had given them graceful fingers and an evolving language, busy minds and a compelling sense of tribe.  In those following years, I showed my people how to increase the yields and quality of their crops.  I taught them how to purify their water, how to carve and lift gigantic stones, and I helped them build superior ships that could chase the fat fish and slow leviathans that could never hide from my godly eyes.  Then in the shadow of their smoldering volcano, I laid out a spacious palace surrounded by a solid homes and wide avenues, and for three generations, my devoted followers built the finest city their species had ever known.”

Once again, the voice ceased.  But the silence was neither empty nor unimportant, accenting a sense of time crossed with clear purpose.  Then a smooth laugh came, and their companion remarked, “If the two of you were dropped into similar circumstances, you would accomplish most if not all of my tricks.  You are borderline immortals.  Spears through your hearts would be nuisances at day’s end.  Armed with the knowledge common to your happy lives, you could visit some nameless world and convince its residents that you were divine, and in the next breath, you could call for whatever riches and little pleasures that your worshippers might scratch together for you.

“But what pleasures me is serving the Union.

“What I wanted…what my orders demanded from this one place, inside this single moment…was the construction of a significant machine, a device that would demand the full focus of a half-born civilization…”

“What machine?” asked Perri.

“If it proves important to know that, then I will tell you.”

But Perri couldn’t accept that evasive answer.  “How many people lived in your city?  Five thousand?  Fifty thousand?  I don’t know what you were building, granted.  But you’re implying advanced technologies, and I’d have to guess that you’d need a lot more hands and minds than you would ever find on a tiny island in the middle of the sea…”

The first answer was prolonged silence.

Then the sharp creak of a limb or cold leather could be heard, and with quiet fury, the entity said, “You have listened carefully enough, sir.  Pay strict attention to everything that I tell you.”

“Remind me what you said,” Perri said.

Another silence ended with what might have been a sigh.  “I sat on my throne for seventy summers and several months,” said the voice.  “Then one day, I abruptly announced that my city was failing me.  With a wave of my fist, I told my followers that they were not truly devoted, and they were not sufficiently thankful for my wise counsel, and I was contemplating the complete obliteration of their island-nation.

“With the next sunrise, the great volcano erupted.  The rich rocky earth split wide.  Ash was coughed into the blackened sky, and lava flowed into the boiling sea, and boulders as big as homes were dropped onto the cowering, inadequate heads around me.  Then I pretended a sudden change of mind.  I showed pity, even empathy.  On the following day, after the dead were buried and the damage assessed, I dressed in a feathered robe and walked to the summit where I told the mountain to sleep again—which it would have done on its own, since the eruption had run its course.  But a single moment of theatre erased the last shreds of doubt.  Again, I had convinced my followers that I was supreme.  You could not hear one muttered complaint about me, or doubts about my powers, or the slightest question concerning each of my past decisions.

“That seamless devotion was necessary.

“You see, the eruption was not a random event.  And I didn’t make the mountain tremble and belch just to scare the local souls.

“Even as I sat on my throne, I had been working.  My assignment demanded the kinds of energy generated by top-grade fusion reactor.  But reactors produce signatures visible at a great distance.  Neutrinos are difficult to shield, and I didn’t want prying eyes to notice my industrial plant.  So instead of a reactor, I employed the lake of magma directly beneath our feet, creating an inefficient but enormous geothermal plant.  When that plant awoke—when the first seawater poured down the pipes and into the reaction vessels—my island was shoved upwards like a balloon inflating.  Watchful eyes noticed that every tide pool was suddenly baking in the sun.  Our island was significantly taller, and a thousand hot springs flowed out of the high crevices, and the black ground was itself warm to the touch.

“On that good day, I ordered every woman of breeding age to come to the palace, to arrive with the evening bell, and I welcomed each of them individually, giving them a feast and plenty to drink, as well as jewelry and robes finer than anything they had known.  Then to this nervous, worshipful gathering, I announced that each of them was carrying a child now.

“I promised my wives untroubled pregnancies and healthy, superior babies.

“Both promises came true.

“And you are correct, Perri.  Sir.  Fifty thousand followers would never have been enough.  No natural species can bring the mental capacity demanded by this kind of delicate, highly technical work.  So I enlarged the natives’ craniums and restructured their neural networks, flinging them across fifty thousand generations of natural selection.  Then I served as the children’s only teacher.  I taught them what they needed to know about the high sciences, and I made them experts in engineering, all while carefully preparing my kingdom for the next change.”

Perri said, “Wait.”

In the dark, Quee Lee felt her husband’s body shifting.  She recognized his excitement and interest, his emotions mirroring her own.

Again, he said, “Wait.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you’ve told us.”

“Good.”

“Where your logic leads…”

Silence.

“If you were willing to rewrite the biology of one species,” Perri said, “you could just as well reshape others too.”

“Ants?” Quee Lee blurted.  “Were you a god to the island’s ants?”

“Ants have no need for gods,” the voice corrected.  “They demand nothing but a queen blessed with spectacular fertility.  But you’ve seen my logic, yes.  You are paying attention.  But then again, I knew that the two of you would prove a worthy audience.”

Some small object clattered against hyperfiber—a clear, almost bell-like sound expanding and diminishing inside the gigantic room.

The voice returned.  “By the time my first grandchildren were born, the ocean around my island was lit from below.  Which was only reasonable, since the city above was just one portion of a much greater community—a nation numbering in the billions.  My people supplied the genius, but to serve them, I had built a multitude of obedient minds trained for narrow, exceptionally difficult tasks.  A full century of careful preparation had made me ready to begin the construction of a single mechanical wonder.

“Which was the moment, I should add, when all of my many troubles began…”

In the smothering blackness, Quee Lee held her husband by an arm, by his waist, and then she twisted her body in a particular way, inviting a groping hand, not caring in the least that the nameless entity might be able to perceive their timeless, much-cherished intimacies.

Perri started to ask the obvious question:  “What troubles?”

But the voice interrupted.  Louder than before, it said, “Human beings are an extraordinarily fortunate species.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I feel lucky,” Quee Lee said.

But Perri guessed, “You’re talking about something specific.  Aren’t you?”

“Tell me your opinion,” the voice said.  “Is this vessel a true blessing for you and yours?”

“You mean the Great Ship,” she said.

“I mean the machine that surrounds us,” it said.  “The name itself has zero significance.”

Perri laughed.  “Well, I know at least a thousand other species that could have found it first.  They were more powerful, more numerous, and far older than we are.  All of them should have grabbed it up before we ever knew it existed.”

“It is a magical machine,” Quee Lee offered.

The entity made a few soft, agreeable noises.  “Our galaxy has stubbornly refused to be dominated by any single species.  But humans stumbled across this prize, claimed it first, and have held on to it since.  A single possession has lifted the human animal into an exceptionally rare position.  Your best captains have no choice but thank the stars and Providence for this glorious honor.  Today, your artisans and scientists are free to drink in the wisdom of the galaxy.  Your wealthiest citizens can make this long journey in safety, sharing their air with the royalty of a hundred thousand worlds.  But I think your greatest success rises from the hungriest, bravest souls among you.

“Each year, on average, seventeen-and-a-third colonial vessels push away from the your ports.  How many of your willing cousins are dropped to the surface of wild worlds and lucrative asteroids?  How many homes and shops are being erected, new societies sprouting up in your wake?  Now multiply those impressive numbers by the hundreds of thousands of years that you plan to invest in this circumnavigation of the galaxy.  The totals are staggering.  No society or species or even any compilation of cooperative souls has enjoyed the human advantage, and there is no reason to believe it will happen again.

“And consider this:  How many species buy your berths?  Thousands arrive each year, and in trade for a safe journey, they surrender every local map, cultural experiences and open-ended promises of help.  That’s why each of your new colonies has a respectable, enviable chance of survival.  And that’s why your species is hugging a small but respectable probability of dominating the richest portions of the galaxy.

“So now I ask you:  When will this galaxy of ours become known everywhere and to every species as ‘the Milky Way’?

“In other words, when will this wilderness become your possession?”

Considering that possibility, the humans couldn’t help but smile.

But then Quee Lee sighed and shook her head, saying, “Never.  Is that the answer you want?”

The voice turned quiet again, nearly whispering as it explained, “That kind of success shall never happen.  No, never.  Even in your blessed circumstances, this little whirlpool of creation remains too vast and far too complex for any species to dominate.  Your makeshift empire is doomed at its birth.  The best result that you might achieve—and even this is an unlikely future—is for this machine to complete its full circuit of the galaxy without being stolen from you, and for you to leave scattered in your wake twenty million human worlds.  But what are twenty million names against those trillions of rocks big enough to be called planets?  I promise that no matter its blessings, each one of your colonies will struggle.  It is inevitable.  Your species is relatively late on the scene.  Easy rich worlds are scarce and typically walked by someone else.  By the minute, your galaxy grows older.  And with every breath, the sky grows more crowded.  New species are evolving, and thinking machines are designing their next generations, and almost everything that lives strives hard to live forever, or nearly so.”

The smiles had vanished.

For a long moment, neither human spoke.

Then Quee Lee suggested, “Maybe our empire should stop naming our worlds.  If we emulated your Union…if human beings decided to rule the dark and empty and the unmapped–”

“No,” the voice interrupted.

Then with a palpable scorn, it added, “I will share with you one common principle known by every true empire.  Whether you are British or Mongolian, Roman or American:  You may never, ever allow a competing empire to sprout within your sacred borders.

“My Union stands alone.

“Never forget that.

“And when the inevitable future arrives…when the final star burns out and the universe pulls itself into a great empty cold…my Union will persist, and it will thrive, living happily on this galaxy’s black bones:  A force as near to Always as that word shall ever allow.”