by Paul Anlee
Darian straightened up and looked at the damp tissue in his hands. His eyes searched for a nearby trash receptacle.
The still-flustered caretaker stepped briskly forward. He snatched the tissue from Darian’s hand, tossed it in a bin a few steps behind him, and rubbed his hands on his robe.
Stralasi stared at the bugs making their way around Darian’s waist and into the front pockets of his robe.
“Uh, Brother,” Stralasi said.
The monk’s eyes widened as Darian’s hands followed the insects halfway into the same pockets.
Darian wheeled around. A bright smile lit up his face.
“Right!” he said. “I’d forgotten all about our meeting.”
He wheeled back toward the caretaker, smiled from ear to ear, and bowed.
“Again, my sincere apologies, Brother.”
The caretaker waved him off.
“Don’t you trouble yourself a moment longer. I’ll get more water from the local Alumita. Enjoy Tranquility...or your meeting, whichever,” he said, not caring where they were going, so long as they left.
“Thank you, Brother. We’d best be on our way. Good day to you!”
The caretaker grunted in reply.
Darian set off toward the river, hands half-inserted in his pockets, shoulders hunched as if against a cold wind.
“Coming, Brother Stralasi?” he called.
The Good Brother hurried to catch up to his companion. Pressed to his limit to keep up to Darian’s brisk pace, he barely managed enough air to beg, “Darian, slow down, please. You’ll draw attention.”
Darian slowed to a more comfortable pace.
“Sorry, Brother. I wanted to get as far away from there as we could, as fast as possible. We’ve drawn enough attention.
“I saw something like bees land on you; they crawled into your pocket,” Stralasi whispered. “They weren’t spiders. I mean, Spyders.”
“Transports,” Darian said. “The Spyders are tiny, maybe a millimeter across. Walking across the starstep platform is too slow for something so tiny, and there’s a high risk of someone stepping on them.”
“Those were bees, actual, real bees?”
“Wasps, to be precise. They serve as carriers, primarily, and as protection when needed.”
The two men nodded a greeting at a small group walking toward them. As Stralasi dipped his head in greeting, he steepled his fingers over his heart, thumbs together, forming the stylized “A” for Alum. The other group smiled at receiving the blessing of Alum’s gratitude for their service.
After they passed, Stralasi asked, “So, what now?” out of the side of his mouth.
“Now, we have an appointment with the Proctor.”
“The Proctor? Why?”
“Apparently, someone lodged a complaint about your course. We’ve been called to review your plans for the semester.”
“A complaint!” Stralasi cried. “But we’ve barely discussed anything, certainly nothing controversial. Except for that one tiny slip, I kept within curriculum guidelines. Who complained?”
Darian turned his face so Stralasi could see his impish grin.
“I did,” he answered. “Anonymously, of course. Can you think of a better way to get close to Alum’s CPPU and QUEECH comm unit?”
Stralasi’s jaw opened and closed, twice, but no sound came out.
“At first, I thought to introduce our friends into the ventilation system from somewhere outside the building. But releasing them at ground level would take too long, and even if they made it to the target, they might not have the energy to complete their mission.
“It looks like you and I will have to serve as the long haul transports on this job. We’ll get our friends within striking distance and turn them loose.”
Stralasi stopped walking and stared at his companion.
Darian paused and cocked his head to one side.
“What? You didn’t think our direct involvement here was done yet, did you? I’m afraid it’s just beginning, my friend. Just beginning.”
Stralasi didn’t like the look of eager anticipation emanating from Darian’s face. He didn’t like it at all.
10
“It’s ready, John. The moment I’ve been building toward for more than ten million years has finally arrived.”
Alum and the latest edition of Trillian stood in the small study in Alum’s Hall looking at an impressive stylized display of the Deplosion Array hovering in the middle of the room.
A cloud of forty million bright dots clustered near SagA* at the center of the Milky Way. SagA*’s attendant stars, S0-102 and S0-2, were nearing the massive black hole and each other, as they did only once every few million years.
A pity that I won’t get to see it play out this time—Alum thought. My calculations suggest this could be the year they’re finally ripped apart by the tidal forces.
The orbital mechanics of the close approach were wickedly complex even for Alum and, in this case, the result was uncertain. It was a bit of a pity, yes, but there was no point waiting any longer, not when the end of everything was so close at hand.
As was the beginning of a new eternity.
“I’ve heard reports that the People are grumbling, my Lord,” Trillian said. “The absence of resources You’ve diverted to accelerate the construction of the array has had a considerable impact throughout the Realm. Delays in repair, shortages in certain manufactured goods, allocation problems, food shortages.”
“Their discomfort will get regrettably worse before it gets better,” Alum replied, “but it won’t last long. A few days. Perhaps a week or two.”
Trillian’s eyes went wide.
“Only days to destroy the entire universe?”
“Yes. Does that surprise you?”
“A little. The Realm spans galaxies millions of light years apart,” Trillian said. “The astronomical research stations calculate the size of the observable universe to be almost one-hundred billion light years. Their estimate for the entire universe, based on the lack of observable space curvature, suggests it’s over one thousand times larger than that. So vast. Vast beyond my comprehension.”
“And?” Alum prompted.
“I guess I expected it to take more than a few days to collapse all that matter back into a singularity.”
“Mm-hmm, yes, I see how you might have arrived at that conclusion. Incorrectly, of course,” Alum replied. “Your understanding is based on science that goes back to humanity’s infancy. From that perspective, you’d be quite correct.”
“But that’s not the way reality works. For starters, you must understand that as vast as the universe is, it’s little more than a speck in the infinite Chaos, John.
“All the matter of the universe is connected. At a deep enough level, quarks entangled from the beginning of Creation tie matter together instantaneously across trillions of light years.”
Alum moved closer to the hovering display. He swept His hands through the cloud of bright points and stepped back. The display changed to show the local supercluster of galaxies, and pulled back to reveal an extensive map of the observable universe and extrapolations beyond.
“The deplosion field will affect the entire universe almost at once,” Alum said. “Expansion of the physics of this universe into the adjacent Chaos was halted a few years ago. I’d have to change either this display or your perception to show this in the required twenty-four dimensional parameter space.
“For the time being, you’ll have to take My word for it.” He watched the Shard tracking the expanding display.
I’ve never given Trillian the capacity to understand this—Alum realized. I wonder if Darak Legsu is capable of comprehending it, whether he has risen as far above those minor Gods that attacked Me as I think he has.
An ache of something akin to loneliness caught Alum by surprise, a desire for the company of equals.
A little late in the game to be feeling regret. There’s only room for one at the pinnacle of Creation—He aff
irmed, though a little wistfully.
“If everything is instantaneously connected, why would the deplosion take any time at all?” Trillian asked.
“Reality, whether realized or potential, has to be conditioned to accept the new. All forms of matter will be swept away by the deplosion. That will take a small amount of time to propagate. Afterward, the only real matter that any universe will accept will be the matter of Heaven. I’ve seeded that universe inside Sagittarius A*, within the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole itself.
“From there, Heaven will grow and spread outward eternally. My perfection will never again face any threat from within this universe or any other. All of Creation will be Heaven.”
“It will be Your greatest triumph, my Lord,” Trillian agreed. “The greatest triumph imaginable. Its perfection will be worth the countless lives lost and the transitory pain caused within the Realm.”
Alum flinched.
That sounded a little critical. Is a little adjustment to this newest iteration going to be required?
He cocked an eyebrow at the Shard, but Trillian’s face remained placid and accepting.
No, I’m just being paranoid. The attack by the other Gods and the discovery that Darak Legsu still lives must have rattled Me more than I thought—the Living God admitted to Himself.
Will Darak and his allies present themselves and ask to join Me in the re-Creation? Or will they try to stop My Plan?
The Living God had modeled the numerous scenarios.
Yes, the People of His Realm would suffer as deplosion took hold. There were already some minor inconveniences, troubles that would seem large only because the People were accustomed to the Realm running smoothly for the past twenty-five million years.
They’ve forgotten what it was like during the Aelu Wars.
Among the earliest disturbances brought on by the deplosion field would be things most sensitive to disruption of the laws of nature: power, electronics, starstepping. Crop growth and oxygen production would be affected, too—the delicate quantum mechanisms of photosynthesis would experience significant drops in efficiency. But the re-Creation would be done long before ecosystem failure threatened the People.
As reality dissolved, physics would no longer support any form of life in the universe. Nor would it support the atomic fusion of the stars. People, animals, and plants would die on their many planets, within their asteroid habitats, and on their glorious ringworlds. Shortly after they died by the trillions, stars would begin to destabilize and go nova or supernova. Black holes would fizzle, pop, and evaporate into lengthy streams of ever-weakening energy as they compressed trillions of years of barely-perceptible dissolution into hours.
But long before the universe took any noticeable strides toward homogeneity of light and heat, and long before gravity waves emanated any great distance from disrupted supermassive black holes—limited as that process was by the speed of light—homogeneity of entanglement would spread throughout. Before matter or energy could diffuse far from exploded stars and black holes, it would lose the resonances that made real matter possible, and fall back to a chaotic state.
From this eternal and infinite Chaos, a new universe will arise.
One that springs out from the seed of Heaven I have sown inside SagA*.
One that reflects the eternal perfection I have designed.
No more endless uncertainty; no more endless threat of novelty.
The universe will fulfill My Purpose, rather than its own precarious and haphazard experimentation.
Alum, the Living God, thought on the single universe to come, and He saw that it was good.
11
How do you kill a God?—Darak wondered for the millionth time. Especially such a widely distributed one? To the best of his knowledge, Alum was the only one who’d ever killed another God. First the Aelu God and then five of the Six.
He reflected on various histories and possibilities as he walked alone along the creek that wound its way from a bubbling spring to a duck pond near the rim of Eso-La.
It was quiet out here. No one lived within a hundred kilometers of the imposing atmosphere-retaining wall that delineated the edge of the ringworld. Not that Eso-La was densely populated. For the most part, solitude was easy to find. But today as they prepared for war, he sought distance from the busy hum of other minds.
He paused to appreciate a tiny waterfall that bubbled and frothed at the end of its two-meter plunge into a small pothole. At the other end of the pool, the little creek continued along a gentle slope toward the ringworld’s distant central valleys. A kilometer farther, he crossed a simple but elegant stone-arch bridge spanning the marshy banks of the creek.
Not that the Aelu had any Gods, per se. They’d seen the power to alter the laws of nature for what it was, just another technology to be used, a neutral power that could be used for good or evil. The lack of a supreme being in their history had made them unsuspecting of Alum’s megalomaniacal treachery, which led to their ultimate defeat.
But why hadn’t the Six fared any better? Surely, they’d been better informed and prepared for Alum’s tricks. How had five out of six powerful, battle-ready Gods disappeared without putting up a fight? How had Alum disposed of them?
Darak was stumped. His visit to Depchaun’s empire had turned up nothing; there was no sign or sighting of the Neptune-sized God. Glenchax’s CPPU hardware sat intact, although empty of everything but a rudimentary concepta.
Could it have been Raytansoh’s doing? Was it possible the most xenophobic of the Gods had managed to plant invasive viruses into the others over the ages? If so, why did he not take over their empires himself? Why work through Alum? Had he computed his future and decided he could not succeed against the Living God? Or did Alum develop His own method for killing the other Gods, a little side project while He was destroying the entire universe?
A frown grew on Darak’s face. His mind was giving in to the maelstrom of questions.
He tilted his face upward to receive a stray beam of sunlight that had found its way through the leafy canopy. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Savoring the nourishing warmth, he focused on the sounds of the forest, the babbling water, and the chirping of birds. Far off, at the edge of his heightened hearing, hooves crunched dried twigs and scratched to expose the delicate, new greenery below.
Another deep breath.
Focus on this moment—he told himself.
Another deep breath.
He opened his eyes and resumed walking.
How will I kill Him?
Ages ago, during his youth, a now-distant time in which the Earth still existed, he’d been a big fan of action-adventure science fiction. Many of the books and movies he devoured depicted so-called gods that pummeled each other with fists, cast bolts of lightning, and hurled balls of energy.
How ridiculous!
While both he and Alum were capable of harnessing plasma from intensely hot, young universes and using it to hurl spectacularly devastating energy blasts at one another, that was all for show.
It played well on the movie screens of his youth, but it was nonsense. Unless their attention strayed during battle, there was no energy beam powerful enough to touch Darak or Alum.
They were, after all, Gods.
The real battle would be fought on a playing field different from any that the favorite storytellers of his youth had imagined.
We’ll hurl Chaos at each other; that’s where the real danger will come from.
Darak had put the quark-spin lattice of DAR-G’s expanded mind to work for weeks, modeling fields he could cast against Alum, and fields he expected Alum to project onto him.
If it came to violence—and he could see no way to avoid it—they would bring on a kind of battle unlike any the universe had ever seen. They would tear into each other with fields that changed the laws of physics upon which each relied for existence. They would try to disrupt the base matter and energy of which the other was composed. They would rend
apart time, and space, and information.
At the same time, Darak planned to employ more subtle attacks to undermine Alum’s strengths. Small changes to electron conductivity of the Living God’s silicene lattice would make Him a little slower to respond in defense. A flood of soltronic energy would poison His particle analyzers, making it harder to follow the rapid changes in the laws of physics that maintained His integrity.
No doubt, Alum would attempt the same on him.
There will be concepta attacks. He’ll try to invade my mind while I try to invade His.
Only some of the attacks would be physical, such as by nanite robots designed to interface with CPPU circuitry. Others would be attempted by signal. Each would try to penetrate the anti-virus security of the other, and break the code that made up their opponents mind.
Luckily, I have the quark-spin lattice at my disposal, thanks to the engineering ingenuity that passed from Kathy to Darya.
As far as any of them knew, Alum had not yet cracked the secret of the Cybrid’s unique computational substrate. On the other hand, they couldn’t assume Alum’s own lattice design had remained static over millions of years, either.
It wasn’t going to be easy to infiltrate the Living God’s CPPU while fending off attacks on his own mind and person but on some deep, primal level, the challenge excited him.
Would he be able to hold his own and keep Stralasi’s Familiar safe and connected to the judges throughout the battle?
The billions of judges whom Darak had been secretly equipping with enhanced lattices and appropriate background knowledge would be the key. One final infusion of data, a complete history and explanation of the economic sociopolitics of the Realm, would activate them.
It was crucial that Alum hear the voice of His People and feel the weight of their judgment of His Divine Plan.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
He and Alum held mutually incompatible philosophies and visions of what constituted a desirable universe. How could either God feel justified in deciding which was best for all inhabitants?
