"Was this Earth?" Quee Lee asked.
There was a pause.
In the darkness, motion.
And then the voice told them, "When these particular events occurred, my dear, there was no world called 'Earth.' "
Quee Lee wrapped both hands around her husband's arm.
"Remember this," the voice continued. "The Union is the only power that truly matters. And the Union is interested only in those dark realms that appear on no worthwhile map."
* * *
VI
"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 its 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.
"On a daily basis, 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.
"I made my prediction 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 darkness, Quee Lee leaned hard against her husband.
Then, without comment, 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 own 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.
Finally Perri asked, "Are you going to explain your mission?"
"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 home and wide avenues, and for three generations, my devoted followers built the finest city that 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 came a smooth laugh, 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.
"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 kind of machine?" asked Perri.
"If it proves important to know that, then I will tell you."
Except 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 came the sharp creak of a limb or cold leather, and with quiet fury the entity replied, "You have not been listening carefully enough, sir. Pay strict attention to everything that I tell you."
"Remind me what you said," Perri snapped.
Another pause.
Then the voice continued, explaining, "I sat on my throne for seventy summers and several months. 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, that 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 sky, lava flowed into the boiling sea, and boulders as big as houses dropped onto the cowering, inadequate heads around me. But 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 theater 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 reactors. 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 upward like a balloon inflating. Watchful eyes noticed that every tide pool was suddenly baking in the sun. Our island was significantly taller, a thousand hot springs flowed out of the high crevices, and the black ground was itself war
m 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. My offspring were riding contentedly inside them.
"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 began, "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 sensed that the two of you would prove to be a worthy audience."
Some small object clattered against hyperfiber-a clear, almost bell-like sound expanding and diminishing inside the gigantic room.
Then the voice returned, explaining, "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 my troubles began."
* * *
VII
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 make out their timeless, much-cherished intimacies.
Perri started to offer a new question.
"What troubles-?" he began.
But the voice interrupted him, claiming, "Human beings are an extraordinarily fortunate species. Wouldn't you agree?"
"I feel lucky," Quee Lee said.
"Lucky because of the Great Ship?" Perri asked.
"Tell me your opinion: Is this vessel a blessing for you?"
Perri laughed. "I know at least a thousand other species that could have found it first. That should have found it before us. They were more powerful than we, and far more numerous. One of them should have grabbed it up before we ever knew it existed."
"It's a magical machine," Quee Lee offered.
The entity made a few soft, agreeable noises. Then it continued, saying again, "Our galaxy has stubbornly refused to be dominated by any single species. But your kind stumbled across the Ship while it was still drifting on the outskirts of the galaxy. You claimed the prize first, and you 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 to 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 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 Ship's ports. How many of your willing cousins are dropped to the surface of wild worlds and lucrative asteroids? How many homes and shopes are being erected, entirely 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 this human advantage.
"And now consider this: How many aliens buy berths on board the Ship? Thousands arrive each year, and, in trade for a safe journey, they surrender every local map, plus cultural experiences and open-ended promises of help. That's why each of your new colonies has a respectable, even 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 wilderness of ours, from its dwarf satellites to its black core, be known everywhere and to every species as 'the Milky Way'?
"In other words, when will the galaxy be your possession?"
Considering that possibility, the humans couldn't help but smile.
But then Quee Lee sighed, shaking her head as she said, "Never? Is that the answer you want?"
Quietly, the voice explained, "That kind of success shall never happen. Never, no. Even in your blessed circumstances, this little whirlpool of creation remains too vast and far too complex for any single species to dominate. And your makeshift empire is doomed at its birth. The best result that you might achieve-and even this is an unlikely future-is for the Great Ship to complete its full circuit of the galaxy without being stolen from you, and for you to leave behind twenty million human worlds. But what are twenty million worlds against those trillions of rocks big enough to be called planets? And I can promise that no matter the blessings it starts with, each one of your colonies will struggle to survive. It is inevitable. Your species is relatively late on the scene; easy rich worlds are scarce and typically belong to someone else. By the minute, our galaxy grows older. And with every breath, the sky grows slightly more crowded. New species are constantly evolving, thinking machines are being born every moment, 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 any 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 might ever allow."
* * *
VIII
The humans felt chastened and a little angry, powerless to respond but nonetheless intrigued by the stark implications. They held each other in ways that spoke—the touch of fingers, the pressure of a plump knee, and the shared tastes of expelled air carrying odors that could only come from Perri, and only come from Quee Lee.
The voice returned, quietly mentioning, "My mission had begun so easily, with much promise. Yet now its nature changed. In relatively quick succession, three problems emerged, each one capabl
e of threatening the project and my sterling reputation."
A thoughtful pause ended with a brief, disgusted sound.
"Remember the pirates mentioned before? The seafarers whom I let my people kill? They had floated out from the main continent, and with another hundred years of experience, their descendants were eager to return. That rocky green wilderness still lay over the horizon, but now it was speckled with dirty cities and fledging nations. Unlike my little island, those far places had always enjoyed culture and a deep history, every corner of their rich landscape adorned with some important little name.
"Bronze-and-brick technology was at work. Kings and educated minds were beginning to piece together the first, most obvious meaning of the universe. Their largest triremes could wander far from land, and their captains knew how to navigate by the stars and moon. That those captains would try to visit my island was inevitable, which is why I took precautions. The leviathans patrolling my bright waters were instructed to scare off every explorer, and, should fear not work, they were entitled to crush the wooden hulls and drown those stubborn crews.
"A few ships were sunk off our coast.
"The occasional corpse washed up on shore, swollen by rot and chewed upon by curious or vengeful mouths.
"One of the dead had been a scientist and scholar, and, while he drowned, he managed to grab hold of his life's work-a long roll of skin covered with dense writing and delicate sketches.
"The body was looted, and the book eventually found its way into the appreciative hands of one of my grandchildren.
"The island's original natives could never have understood the intense black scribblings. But my grandchild wasn't merely intelligent and highly creative, he was also curious and unabashedly loyal to me. Using code-breaking algorithms, he taught himself the dead man's language. In his spare moments, he managed to translate the text in full. His purpose, it seems, was to make me proud of his genius. He was certainly thrilled of his own accomplishment, which was why he shared what he had learned with close friends and lovers. Then he walked to the palace and kneeled before my throne, presenting both the artifact and his translation for my honest appraisal.
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