Dragon's Egg

by Robert L. Forward

  Their elevator was in place.

  God

  TIME: 22:12:30 GMT TUESDAY 14 JUNE 2050

  God came to the cheela slowly. For many, many, many generations, the cheela had no God. The sky was empty except for a few tiny pinpricks of light scattered across the cold, black dome. Then God had become lonely and made the great volcano grow, driving the cheela from their home in the north to a new home in the south. There the god Bright had welcomed his chosen people into the Heaven he had prepared for them.

  Bright had been good to the cheela. Bright never rose or set like the other spots of light, but stayed up in the sky, keeping watch over all the cheela. Life was good, and the cheela let Bright know that they were happy by their prayers that they faithfully gave every turn of Bright’s throne.

  Then one turn, when the eyes of the cheela were lifted to the skies in prayer, one of the supplicants saw a new speck rise over the horizon. As soon as the prayers were finished, he brought it to the attention of the Holy Ones that interpreted Bright’s wishes.

  The Holy Ones were puzzled, but did not let it show. As masters of their profession, they had learned to say little and do even less until they were sure of themselves.

  “Yes—we expected something like that, but let us wait and we will study it further,” they reassured the excited discoverer.

  They did study it. It was still a speck in the sky, not much different from all the other specks, but it soon became brighter than any of the others. Fortunately, it was not nearly as brilliant as the god Bright, as it would have been difficult to explain two gods to a people that had been brought up to believe in the omnipotence and uniqueness of the One God—Bright.

  The new speck grew and grew in brilliance with each passing turn, and although the common cheela noticed the increase in brightness, it was only the Holy Ones who noticed that the speck was also slowly moving with respect to the other stars in the sky. A moving star! This was unheard of in cheela astrology, where the pattern of lights, dominated by the glaring red-yellow presence of Bright, had always remained fixed in relative position while rotating slowly about Bright’s throne in the sky.

  “If the stars are not fixed, but move around, how can one make any kind of predictions from them? The future would be constantly changing,” complained Bright’s-Second, the Chief Astrologer and next in line for the position of High Priest.

  “I am sure Bright has a reason for this change in the sky,” Bright’s-First said. “It is up to us to use our intelligence in the service of Bright and interpret its meaning.”

  The High Priest turned her eyes toward the young novice.

  “Are you sure of the motion?” she asked.

  “Yes, O Bright’s-First,” said Sky-Seeker. “In my training in astrology I have been learning how to estimate the angles between the star specks with the astrologer sticks and have memorized almost all my number tables. I had tried to add the new star to my memory but, still being a novice, I had failed to get all the numbers correctly. I realized my mistake many turns later when I was trying to cast a fortune. I then went back to the astrologer sticks to get the numbers correctly and I found that some of the old numbers that I had memorized did not agree with the new ones for that star.”

  “Unfortunately, he is correct,” the Chief Astrologer said. “At first I thought his memory was faulty or that someone had disturbed the astrologer sticks. However, when I checked the numbers against the ones that I had committed to memory on the fateful turn when that star blossomed in the sky, I found out that my old numbers were even further off than the novice’s, yet none of the other stars in the sky have changed their numbers at all.”

  “A moving star …” the High Priest murmured. “One that moves. It must be that Bright has sent us a messenger! Perhaps Bright will speak directly to us now.”

  Soon the religion of the cheela was broadened to include the new phenomenon, a star that not only grew brighter and brighter until it rivaled Bright in its brilliance, but which swept majestically across the skies. There was some consternation when Bright’s Messenger reached perihelion and its brilliance started to fade, but all the cheela were relieved when after a few greats of turns, it retraced its path in the sky.

  The new star set the small cadre of novices talking among themselves. Having been picked primarily because of their interest in numbers and their eidetic memory, so necessary for the position of an astrologer in a civilization without writing, they soon began to puzzle over the strange behavior of the motion of Bright’s Messenger.

  “If it were a circle, then it would make more sense,” said one of the novices. “We could say that Bright and the other stars are perched on a large crystal egg that rotates once a turn, and Bright’s Messenger would then be on a smaller crystal egg, turning at a slightly faster rate.”

  “But not only is it not a circle,” another said, “it does not even move evenly along its path.”

  “Another way of looking at it is that Bright and the stars do not move in the sky,” said a third, “but that Egg turns once on its axis every turn, and that Bright’s Messenger rotates about Egg in an elongated path.”

  The others looked at her as if she had spoken heresy (which she had come close to doing), and one quickly put her down with one of the first lessons in Holy School.

  “All stars rotate about the unique brilliance of Bright, worshiping the God of the Universe as all cheela do,” one of them said. “Your picture would have the stars standing still, when we all know that only Bright, the center of the universe, stands still, while all else must revolve.”

  Knowing she was treading on unstable crust, Sky-Seeker did not bother to reply, although she knew as well as the others, that Bright did not really stand still but moved in a tiny circle about an invisible point in the sky. This lack of perfection of Bright had been a nagging splinter in the tread of the philosophers of theology since it was first discovered by the use of the astrologer sticks. The High Priest had assured them that they would understand this in time, but it had been a long time and a dozen High Priests had come and gone and Bright still carried out the tiny motion, without bothering to explain.

  TIME: 01:15:33 GMT

  WEDNESDAY 15 JUNE 2050

  The Chief Astrologer had been wrong. The variable motion of Bright’s Messenger across the sky did not doom the science of astrology. Indeed, by adding some complexity to the sky it gave the astrologers much more to work with than a single set of memorized numbers that gave the relative position of the stars in the sky. Soon, the old technique of casting horoscopes by the star that was appearing over the horizon at the propitious time became obsolete. The position of Bright’s Messenger among the fixed positions of the rest of the stars became the dominant factor in predicting the future.

  It soon became evident that the technique of memorizing the numbers taken with the astrologer sticks was not going to work. Even the best memories of the novices could not cope with the flood of numbers that Bright’s Messenger produced every turn. The ancient accounting technique of the business merchants, who monitored their inventory with pod seeds in bins, was adapted by the astrologers. After an awkward time of trying to work directly with seeds, one of the novices discovered the device of scratching pictures of seeds on flat plates of rock, then shortly after that, because of the hardness of the rock and the laziness of the novices, a shorthand written number system was invented. Not only astrology, but business and science were soon revolutionized by the discovery of written numbers. Then, shortly after having gotten used to writing numbers on a tablet, the merchant scribes (as lazy as the astrologer scribes) found that they didn’t have to draw a complete picture of the object that was being counted for an inventory or delivery record, but only enough so that another scribe (presumably equally loath to make complete drawings) would be able to recognize what it was.

  Thus, although none of the High Priests ever realized it, the cheela were soon using the gift that Bright had sent by its Messenger—the gift of writing.
>
  TIME: 1:33:23 GMT FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2050

  For greats of greats of turns, the life of the cheela was smooth. Bright kept watch over Heaven and blessed the cheela in their growth and in their conquests of the north and east. Small, savage bands of leathery-skinned barbarians would often leave their smoky lands to the north and attempt raids on the croplands in the northern part of Heaven, but the cheela farmers in the north were well protected by roving squads of needle troopers.

  The needle troopers carried the dreaded weapon, the dragon tooth. A very long needle of melted dragon crystal, it was made by the forgers, who used fires of dried pod seeds blown to a blue white heat with bellows from Flow Slow skin to melt otherwise useless pieces of dragon crystal until they had a liquid melt. The glowing melt was poured into a groove cut into the crust along the easy direction. The long fibrous strings in the liquid became aligned by the strong magnetic field of the star. The liquid then recrystallized about the fibers, forming a two-component matrix material that was as strong as the original dragon crystal, except that now it was longer than any dragon crystal had ever been. A cheela trooper could envelop the blunt end of the needle and get enough leverage so he or she could extend the light, strong needle of crystal out a full body diameter without letting the point either touch the crust or rise too high in the air.

  The barbarians, not having the secrets of the forge, were limited to broken shards of dragon crystal for their weapons and were no match for a well-trained squad of needle troopers, who moved in disciplined circles, their dragon tooth needles bristling across the tops of their interlocked Flow Slow plate shields.

  TIME: 19:24:11 GMT FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2050

  Commander Carole Swenson was floating above the console, watching over Pierre’s shoulder as the outward-going asteroid met the first of the compensator masses still waiting far out in the asteroid belt. In the same manner as it had dropped the deorbiter mass toward the neutron star, the large asteroid overtook the first of the smaller masses and dropped it inward toward the star. It then went on to the next one. After watching the first two, Carole went back to the bridge. Nothing was more boring than the inevitability of the Newtonian law of gravitational attraction.

  One after another, the six glowing compensator masses were dropped from their far-flung orbits to a spot near St. George, where they were met by the deorbiter mass, which stopped them in their tracks and left them dancing randomly about each other in a 100,000-kilometer circular orbit not too far from St. George. Their huge bulk dwarfed the long, thin mother ship, and the heat generated during their formation made them glow like new stars in the black sky.

  TIME: 10:15:02 GMT

  SATURDAY 18 JUNE 2050

  One after the other, new stars began to blossom in the sky. The cheela in Bright’s Heaven continued to multiply and prosper, but their very numbers began to strain the ability of the crust to support them. Decadence set in and soon the needle trooper commanders despaired of ever adequately defending the expanding frontier with the flabby, ill-fed recruits they were sent to use.

  A fifth new light grew in the sky during the time the barbarians made inroads from the east. Alarmed, by both the losses and the new stars, the cheela rose under the leadership of a self-proclaimed General of the Clans and drove the barbarians back. The spasm of energy subsided—the General abandoned his post and went off to hatch eggs—and the cheela slipped back into their slow decline.

  Yet another star blazed in the heavens, and this time the flurry of worry and religious concern was brief. Bright’s-First still worshiped daily in Bright’s Temple, but few came to worship with him. Those who were still in need of a god had found six of them in a new religion—a popular pantheistic religion that had a little bit of everything for everybody, including religiously inspired orgies that took place every time Bright’s Messenger passed near “The Six”—which represented East, West, Sky, Crust, Food, and Sex.

  TIME: 04:02:02 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  Most of the crew of the interstellar ark were floating in front of the viewports on the bridge as St. George approached the site of the compressed asteroid collection. The rest were at various observation posts where the telescopes and scanners gave them a better view.

  Pierre looked up from the screen and rotated to face the Commander of the expedition.

  “I know it’s safe, but I still don’t like it, Carole,” he said. “Those red-hot asteroids are not only too hot to touch, but they would crush us with their gravity tides if we ever got too close. And we are going to live within 200 meters of six of them for over a week!”

  Carole smiled reassuringly and replied, “You know perfectly well that, if it were not for the toasty embrace of those friendly asteroids, the gravity tides of Dragon’s Egg would crush you instead! Let’s get them down there where they will do you some good.”

  TIME: 08:00:1 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  Bright’s-Second had been keeping a careful watch on the collection of six lights ever since he had been a novice. Having entered the priesthood because he was withdrawn and unpopular, he had submerged himself in the astrologer sticks and had invented new tools to measure more accurately the minute motions of the many lights piercing the darkness. He was the first to notice that the tiny circle that Bright made in the sky had become measurably smaller. He took the news to Bright’s-First, who was delighted.

  “That must mean that the imperfection in Bright, miniscule as it has been, is becoming smaller,” she said. “When will be the time that Bright is perfect? Oh that I might live to see the turn!”

  “I am afraid that when that turn comes, we will both be meat, O High Priest of Bright,” the Chief Astrologer said. “Entire clans will have come and gone before Bright reaches its perfection.”

  The High Priest was disappointed, but she didn’t let it show. “Well, we must maintain our stewardship and keep Bright’s Temple going until that turn comes and the people once again return to their One True God.”

  The Chief Astrologer listened politely, but was bursting to tell the High Priest the other news that he had.

  “My new sticks have also informed me that something else is happening,” he said. “The Six … I mean, the six newer lights are slightly shifting in position and are drawing closer and closer to the point where Bright’s Messenger reaches its farthest distance from Egg. Also, if you watch The Six and Bright’s Messenger as often as I do, you will see that they do not stay at the same brightness from turn to turn, but occasionally flare up slightly, then return to their original level.”

  “What can that mean?” Bright’s-First asked.

  “I don’t know, but in about a great of turns, Bright’s Messenger will reach its maximum distance from Egg, and it seems as if all six of the other lights will be there at the same time. If so, something interesting may happen.”

  TIME: 08:00:43 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

  When the deorbiter came up this time, there was going to be a spectacular show. Commander Swenson was again in the port science blister, watching the action on the console screens.

  “Check position of compensator masses!” Pierre called out.

  Six confirmations flashed instantly on his screen and were echoed by voices floating through the air from six nearby consoles, where each compensator mass was being monitored by a crew member.

  Pierre looked up at Carole as he shrugged and lifted his finger from the abort toggle. “I really don’t know why we insist on monitoring the computer on these close encounters. Things are going so fast I doubt we could do anything about it even if something did go wrong with the computer.”

  “Still,” Carole said, “it lets us get in on the fun.” She watched as a tiny speck in one corner of the screen slowly grew bigger and approached the six glowing spheres in the center of the screen. Then, in a complex wiggle and flash, the deorbiter mass pulled its disappearing act. The six glowing compensator masses were gone, and the screen was empty.

  TIME: 08:00:44 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

&
nbsp; Bright’s-Second had his suspicions verified. For when Bright’s Messenger reached its point of maximum distance from Egg, it did not just pass in front of the Six, but instead grabbed East, Sex, Crust, West, Food, then finally Sky, and flung them down at Egg.

  The dozen turns in which the sky was torn asunder by Bright’s Messenger throwing down the false gods from the sky was a busy time for Bright’s Temple. At first, the cheela were sure that the Six were going to fall and hit Egg, destroying the wicked cheela that had abandoned Bright and had turned to false gods. For a while, even Bright’s-Second was worried about that possibility. But a few dozen turns staring through the astrologer sticks assured him that although the falling stars would come close to Egg, they would only come as close as Bright’s Messenger did. When the High Priest passed Bright’s-Second’s assurance of salvation on to the cheela, the crowds flocked to Bright’s Temple.

  Near the end of the fourth great of turns after their fall, the six star-specks and Bright’s Messenger drew closer, and moved more rapidly through the black heavens. Bright’s-Second spent almost his entire time out at the astrologer sticks, writing down the numbers as fast as he could determine them. After he was certain of the orbits, he could spend some time carefully drawing them out and trying to understand them, but right now his full time was spent collecting the numbers as the seven bright objects moved through the heavens. He determined that Bright’s Messenger had been affected by the interaction—not much, but an easily measurable change had been made in its highly elliptical orbit. He hated to do it, but he put a novice in charge of taking the numbers, and went off to draw up the new orbits of the fallen Six.