Starplex Robert J Sawyer

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playing with stars, swirling them into pretty patterns."
Thor had turned around to face Jag. "But--but the biggest galaxies in
the universe are ellipticals, not spirals."
Jag lifted his upper shoulders. "True. But maybe shaping them is too
much work, or too time-consuming. Even with faster-than-light
communications--with 'radio-two'-it would still take tens of thousands
of years for signals to pass from one side of a truly giant elliptical
to the other. Maybe that's too much for a group effort. But for
mid-sized galaxies like ours and Andromeda--well, every artist has a
preferred scale, no? A favorite canvas size, or an affinity for either
short stories or novels. Mid-sized galaxies are the medium . . .
and . . . and we are the message."
Thor was nodding. "Jesus, he's right." He looked at Keith. "Remember
what Cat's Eye said when you asked it why it tried to kill us? 'Make
you. Not make you." My father used to say that, too, when he was
angry: 'I brought you into this world, boy, and I can take you out of
it." They know--the darmats know that their activity is what has made
our kind of life possible."
Jag was losing his balance again. He finally gave up, and dropped back
to his four hind legs, making him look like a chubby centaur. ''Talk
about an ego blow," he said.
"This one is the biggest of them all. Early on, each of the
Commonwealth races had thought its homeworld was the center of the
universe. But, of course, they weren't. Then we reasoned that dark
matter must exist--and, in a way, that was even more humbling. It
meant. that not only were we not the center of the universe, we're not
even made out of what most of the universe is made from! We are like
the scum on a pond's surface daring to think that we are more important
than all the vast bulk of water that makes up the pond.
"And now this!" His fur was dancing. "Remember what Cat's Eye said
when you asked it how long ago dark-matter life had first arisen?
'Since the beginning of all the stars combined,' he said. 'Since the
beginning of the universe."" Keith nodded.
"He said they had to exist that far back--had to!" Jag's fur was
rippling. "I thought it was just a philosophical position, but he's
right, of course--life had to exist from the beginning of this universe,
or as near to the beginning as physically possible."
Keith stared at Jag. "I don't understand."
"What arrogant fools we are!" said Jag. "Don't you see?
To this day, despite all the humbling lessons the universe has already
taught us, we still try to retain a central role in creation. We devise
theories of cosmology that say the universe was destined to give rise to
us, that it had to evolve life like us. Humans call it the anthropic
principle, my people called it the aj-Waldahudigralt principle, but it's
all the same thing: the desperate, deep-rooted need to believe that we
are significant, that we're important.
"We talk in quantum physics about Schredinger's cat or Teg's
kestoor--the idea that everything is just potentialities, just
wavefronts, unresolved, until one of us all-important qualified
observers lumbers by, has a peek, and, by the process of looking, causes
the wavefront to collapse. We actually allowed ourselves to believe
that that is how the universe worked--even though we know full well that
the universe is many billions of years old, and not one of our races is
more than a million.
"Yes," barked Jag, "quantum physics demands qualified observers. Yes,
intelligence is necessary to determine which possibility becomes
reality. But in our arrogance we thought that the universe could work
for fifteen billion years without us, and yet that it somehow was geared
to give rise to us.
Such hubris! The intelligent observers are not us--tiny beings,
isolated on a handful of worlds in all the vastness of space. The
intelligent observers are the dark-matter creatures.
They have been spinning galaxies into spirals for billions upon billions
of years. It is their intellect, their observations, their sentience
that drives the universe, that gives quantum potentialities concrete
reality. We are nothing-nothing!--but a recent, localized phenomenon--a
spot of mold on a universe that doesn't need us, or care that we exist.
Cat's Eye was absolutely right when he said we were insignificant.
This is their universe--the darmats' universe. They made it, and they
made us, too!"
Chapter XXV
Keith sat in his office on deck fourteen, looking over the latest news
from Tau Ceti. Reports were sketchy, but on Rehbollo, forces loyal to
Queen Trath had put down the insurrection against her, and twenty-seven
conspirators had been summarily executed in the traditional method of
being drowned in boiling mud.
Keith set down the datapad. The report strained credulity--it was the
first he'd heard of any political unrest on Rehbollo.
Still, maybe it was true--although more likely it was just a government
desperately trying to distance itself from a disastrous initiative.
A chime sounded, and PHANTOM's voice said, "Jag Kandaro em-Pelsh is
here."
Keith exhaled. "Let him in."
Jag entered and found a polychair. His left eyes were on Keith, but the
right pair were scanning the room in the instinctive fight-or-flight
pattern. "I suppose at this juncture," he said, "I must fill out some
of those forms you humans are so fond of."
"What forms?" said Keith.
"Forms for resigning my position aboard Starplex, of course. I can no
longer serve here."
Keith rose to his feet, and permitted himself a stretch.
It had to begin somewhere--maturity, the stage after the midlife crisis,
peace. It had to begin somewhere.
"Children play with toy soldiers," said Keith, looking now at Jag. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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