Charles Sheffield - Tomorrow and Tomorrow

“And then I couldn’t find you for umpteen billion more. But here I am. So what is there to be sorry about?”

“We are sorry that you encountered the warning concerning your approach to the Skrilant Galaxy.”

“I assume that I needed it.” Drake was not convinced by Tom Lambert’s explanation. “I presume I would have been blown apart otherwise.”

“That is most probable. But our warning included a representation of yourself.”

“So I met myself. Big deal. I survived.”

“But it was not yourself.” Tom glanced sideways, away from Drake. “You, as you are now, did not encounter the full present form of Drake Merlin. I should add that I form a minor subset of that whole. Very soon you will meet.”

“I think you’d better tell me what’s going on. This isn’t the sort of homecoming I was hoping for. What do you mean, I haven’t met my present self?”

“Drake Merlin, in all the universe except on your ship, you are no longer a single entity. The mentality of Drake Merlin, except for you, is a composite.”

“I don’t believe it.” Drake sensed coming disaster. “It’s the one thing I knew I could never afford to do. If I merged to a composite with anyone else, I knew I might lose sight of my goal.”

“But we did merge, in a different way. We regret that now. Sit quietly, Drake Merlin, for one moment more. We are opening an S-wave high-data-rate linkage with you- and your ship. Prepare for an update of many billions of years, since the time that you vanished from our horizon. Be prepared for strong coupling, then all your questions will be answered. The link is opening… now.”

Drake submerged beneath a torrent of data, a million parallel sources streaming in…

The struggle with the Shiva was ending. He saw new composites, part human, part Shiva, controlling the interaction between the two forms of life. Humans and the giant sessile plants might never understand each other, but with the right intermediaries they could coexist.

With success came a new problem. Through the endless years of battle, Drake had remained aloof. He dared not allow himself to become part of any composite, organic or inorganic, within the interconnected webs of consciousness. Nor would he share his personal data banks with anyone or anything. His logic was simple and invincible: He alone was willing to make the awful decisions of death and destruction needed to defeat the Shiva. He dared not risk any dilution of that will. But there was also the secret agenda: if he ceased to be a single individual, the drive to restore Ana might be lost.

For what seemed like forever, versions of his individual self had been downloaded and sent out on the warships, to meet their fiery or frigid end on planets at the edge of the Galaxy and beyond. With the Shiva ascendant that had been a oneway process. But in some of the spiral arms, humans at last began to hold their own. As they carried out their programs of counterattack and advance into the space between the galaxies, and then on through to other galaxies, human ships began to survive.

And now …

He was coming back, Drake Merlin in his billions; each of him was different, each had his own unique experiences, each was undeniably Drake.

He had held himself apart from all others. But how could he remain aloof and refuse access to himself?

He could not. Drake formed a composite, an unusual one: Every component would be Drake Merlin.

At first it was total chaos. His element selves numbered beyond the billions; he had long ago lost count of the number of times he had been downloaded, and the total constantly increased. Parts of him were close by, parts were separated from the rest by millions of light-years; some had been partly destroyed in combat and, become maimed or incomplete versions of a whole Drake Merlin. All, without exception, were now different. Time and events produced changes in form, perspective, even in self-image. Drake struggled to understand, to assimilate, to integrate, and to maintain or create a single personality among that teeming horde of selves.

He was no longer essential to the struggle with the Shiva. A truce, incomprehensible to any entity but one of the human/ Shiva symbiote framers, was signed. The need for oversight by Drake slowly diminished. As the threat of the Shiva receded and the need for his continuous involvement decreased, the Drake composite became increasingly consumed by introspection and by his own process of reconstruction. He took no interest in external events unless

they were relevant to a substantial fraction of his own components.

Those components were linked to other composites and to other data banks. They stretched out across the galactic clusters and the great rifts, on toward the edges of the accessible universe. Drake Merlin had become guardian and caretaker of the cosmos.

With the growth of his composite came something else: slowly and imperceptibly, his driving willpower weakened. Old desires, needs that had propelled him forward from the farthest reaches of the past, dwindled and faded. Old longings no longer mattered…

Until one day, unexpectedly, on the monitored boundary of the dead but malevolent Skrilant galaxy, a new but very old Drake Merlin appeared that formed no part of any other.

Within the vast extended composite of Drake Merlin, the news of the encounter stirred a curious uneasiness. The stranger was asking questions. The attempt to answer them called for the use of memories so far removed in time and space that they carried no physical impressions. The composite had to sift deep within its own data banks before it found answers.

The result was shocking. Drake Merlin had somehow, somewhere, lost the way. He had forgotten his own most solemn vows. Now he had to change — and wonder if there was time enough, before the end of the universe itself.

Drake emerged, to find Tom Lambert silently waiting. The data flood had ended as suddenly as it had begun. Drake realized something else. He was no longer on board his own ship, and he had become inexplicably different.

Tom Lambert nodded. “Your perception is correct. You were uploaded while the data transfer was proceeding, and superluminally transmitted here.”

“And embodied?” Drake worried about the long-lost feeling of a tangible self.

“That is no longer necessary. In fact, if you are to understand what we are doing, many parallel inputs continue to be necessary. In such circumstances, material embodiment is no longer possible.”

“Something has gone wrong, hasn’t it?”

“It has. We became distracted. What we are doing to correct it — if we can — is this.”

If the previous data flow had been a torrent, the new one was a tidal wave. It washed over Drake and carried him along without a choice.

First came a different sense of self. Drake Merlin had multiplied, a million, a billion, countless trillions of times. He was on every planet, in orbit around every star, present in every galaxy (even the lost Skrilant Galaxy Had its corps of Merlin mentalities). The distinction between organic and inorganic forms no longer meant anything. Changes from one to the other took place constantly. Drake felt his other self extending steadily across the whole universe. Even if he and the ship had done nothing but sit and wait after they passed through the caesura, eventually the extended composite would have discovered and recovered his lost individual self.

That individual self was in danger of drowning. He expressed his fear and heard the rest offering reassurance.

You can join us safely. You can never be lost. We are you.