John Varley - Millennium

One more irony. She believed she did not love Smith, whereas in fact she did.

Oh, and Mayer. Let's be tidy here. Over a period of thirty years he had convinced himself that he loved his daughter. When she woke up, she had other ideas. She even had the bad grace to tell him what really killed his beloved wife.

So I sit here and remember them though they are not yet gone.

"Here" is the control room of one of the "surface-to-orbit" spacecraft that used to sit beside the bigger, escape Ship. In fact, it is a much more powerful vehicle. We are some millions of miles away from the Earth and we got here very quickly. The BC assures me we are far enough away to avoid both the physical and temporal backlashes of the flight to the "future."

In my lap is the transcript of the two stories. Beside me a small black box, about the size of a Cockpit Voice Recorder.

A silly little bit of twentieth-century philosophy keeps running through my head. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

Define day. Define life.

I said, "Listen up, motherfucker."

And a voice from the black box said, "That is not your access code."

"No. I just thought you ought to hear it once more, before she goes, to remind you of someone who wasn't impressed by you: "The point is taken," said the Big Computer.

"I sit here," I said, "and I wonder. I wonder why they all thought they had anything to do with the running of the world. Why did none of them ever ask just where and what the Big Computer was? Why did they all believe in the Gate?"

"The Gate is as real as next week," the BC said.

It didn't say anything else, but it didn't have to. I knew the answers. Things like misdirection, and the power of words. Call something "big" enough times and everyone will believe it is big. Or they will confuse size with capacity. The capacity of the BC was, in truth, infinite. But Louise would assume the BC was going to be destroyed in the holocaust that was about to devour her city.

"Did she get aboard?" I asked.

"Of course she did. And it's about to happen. Take a look."

The image of it was on a screen before me. f saw the Gate expand to several miles across, and I saw the Ship dive into it.

It must have been noisy. It was certainly bright. I could see the light of it out my window.

When it was over, when the destruction of the Gate and the arrival of the paradox had combined and things had settled down, the Earth still rolled on. But it was worse than the Last Age. Louise had been right. Nothing lived down there.

"In this new, changed reality," the BC said, "the last human died over ten thousand years ago, in a chronological manner of speaking."

"It's the only way I know of speaking."

"Yes. Fortunately, there are other ways."

"Must I do this?"

"You are my only begotten Son."

"And not my will, but throe be done. All right. Wake me up when they get here."

"Imagine their surprise when you greet them, in a hundred million years."

Prologue: The End of Eternity

Sherman is a good boy, just like Louise. And he'll be useful to them. I'm counting on him to keep the thousand elements of the polyglot Noah's Ark from destroying themselves as soon as they disembark. He'll do it. They'll get their chance, just like the others did.

In a way I hated to lie to him, but he had to have a number. He wanted to know how long he would sleep. Machines, like humans, do a lot better with numbers. They apply them even where they have no meaning, as in the "quantity" they call time. Sherman didn't understand time any more than Louise did.

I understand it thoroughly. Years have nothing to do with it.

Free will is one of my favorite inventions. I'd hate to give it up. Yet it causes endless problems. If they are allowed free will, it becomes necessary to lie to them.

I gave serious thought to discarding humans entirely for this sequence. After all, I had the machines; this time around, I had even been one myself. Maybe I'd get better results with metal and silicon than with the old carbon-based life forms. Twice in a row it had come to nothing. First with evolution -- which had seemed such a sound concept -- then with the two o f them in the Garden.

It had been such a nice Garden, and look what they'd clone to it, with their free will.

Well, enough o f that. I t is time to strike this set and get to work on a beachhead for the Ark.

Humans had a saying: "Third time's the charm." It's hard to say why they'd think that to be true- it was no part of my Plan. But I'm as superstitious as the next intellect, and with much better justification.

Maybe this time it will work, and I'll get that vacation I keep promising myself, on the seventh day.