It's Been a Good Life
Page 25
VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years-"
VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."
"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."
"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."
"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"
"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
"I'm still under two hundred.-But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?"
VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."
"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."
"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."
"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."
"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."
"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ- I 7J, sarcastically.
"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his ACcontact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
MO-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
"Why not?"
"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
VJ-23X said, "See!"
The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity.-But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter`? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."
Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.
"Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"
The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF."
"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."
"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
"They must all die. Why not?"
"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."
"It will take billions of years."
"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be
kept from dying?"
Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."
And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
Man said, "The Universe is dying."
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."
"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum."
Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.
"Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Man said, "Collect additional data."
The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT."
"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"
The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
Man said, "We shall wait."
The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"
AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Man's last mind fused and only AC existed-and that in hyperspace.
Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer programmer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer-by demonstration-would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light-
Appendix C.
FICTION
Science Fiction Novels
Foundation Gnome
Foundation and Empire Gnome
The Currents of Space Doubleday
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids Doubleday
Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus Doubleday
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter Doubleday
The Robots of Dawn Doubleday
Robots and Empire Doubleday
Norbv and the Invaders (with Janet Asimov) Walker
Norbv and the Queen's Necklace (with Janet Asimov) Walker
Fantastic Voyage H.• Destination Brain Doubleday
Norbv Donn to Earth (with Janet Asimov) Walker
Norbv and Yobo's Great Adventure (with Janet Asimov) Walker
Nightfall Doubleday
Forward the Foundation Doubleday
The Positronic Man Doubleday
Mystery Novels
Science Fiction Short Stories and Short Story Collections
The Heavenly Host Walker
Good Taste Apocalypse The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories Doubleday
It's Such a Beautiful Day Creative Education
Science Fiction by Asimov Davis
The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov Doubleday
Robot Dreams Byron Press
Franchise Creative Education
Robbie Creative Education
Sally Creative Education
The Asimov Chronicles Dark Harvest
Fantasy short story Collection
Mystery short story Collections
Anthologies (Edited by Isaac Asimov)
The Hugo Winners, Vol. 2 Doubleday
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 2: 1940 (with Martin H. Greenberg) DAW Books
The Science Fictional Solar System (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Harper & Row
The Thirteen Crimes of Science Fiction (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Doubleday
Microcosmic Tales (with Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander) Taplinger
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 3: 1941 (with Martin H. Greenberg) DAW Books
Who Dun It? (with Alice Laurence) Houghton Mifflin
Space Mail (with Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander) Fawcett
Microcosmic Tales (with Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander) Taplinger
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 4: 1942 (with Martin H. Greenberg) DAW Books
The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction (with George G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Fawcett
The Future I (with Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander) Fawcett
Catastrophes (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Fawcett
Isaac Asimov Presents the Best SF of the 19th Century (with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Beaufort
The Seven Cardinal Virtues of Science Fiction (with Charles G.
Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Fawcett
Fantastic Creatures (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Franklin Watts
Raintree Reading Series I (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Raintree
Miniature Mysteries (with Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander) Taplinger
The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (with Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Avon
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 6: 1944 (with Martin H. Greenberg) DAW Books
Space Mail II (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Fawcett
TV: 2000 (with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Fawcett
Laughing Space (with J. O. Jeppson) Houghton Mifflin
Speculations (with Alice Laurance) Houghton Mifflin
Flying Saucers (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Fawcett
Raintree Reading Series II (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Raintree
Dragon Tales (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Fawcett
Big Apple Mysteries (with Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Avon
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 7: 1945 (with Martin H. Greenberg) DAW Books
The Last Man on Earth (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Fawcett
Science Fiction A to Z (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh) Houghton Mifflin
Isaac Asimov Presents the Best Fantasy of the 19th Century (with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Beaufort
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 8: 1946 (with Martin H. Greenberg) DAW Books
Show Business Is Murder (with Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) Avon