Bob Shaw - Orbitsville Judgement

“I don’t see what this has to do with Orbitsville.”

The history of the cosmos could be described as a series of Big Bangs and Big Squeezes, to use the inelegant phraseology of which your scientists are so fond. At the instant of each Big Bang two universes are created—one composed of normal matter and going forward in time; the other composed of anti-matter and going backwards in time. Both universes expand to their limits, then the contraction begins, and eventually, when time has run its circular course, they are reunited and the stage is set for a new Big Bang. You will, of course, appreciate that terms such as matter and anti-matter are completely subjective.

“I’m not stupid.”

There are some complications—such as tachyon and anti-tachycm universes—which I do not intend to trouble you with at this juncture.

“Very kind,” Nicklin said. “Go on.”

At the instant of the last Big Bang—which I believe to have been the eighteenth in the Grand Sequence—two symmetrical universes were created, as had always happened before. But their evolution did not follow the established pattern. A great asymmetry developed because—for reasons which have not made themselves apparent—intelligent life failed to evolve anywhere in the Region 2 universe.

Under those circumstances, without mindon cohesion, the Region 2 universe was destined to go on dispersing for ever—and without the contribution of its matter the nature of the next Big Bang will be radically altered. And as a consequence, the cycle of cosmic renewal will be disrupted.

Some Ultans viewed that prospect with disfavour on philosophical grounds—and they took steps to correct the great imbalance.

“They built Orbitsville!”

Yes .

“It was a mind collector! And that explains the Big Jump—Orbitsville was relocated in the anti-matter universe! When the Ultans were ready they simply moved it!”

The situation was more complex than that, because other Ultans—also motivated by philosophical considerations—opposed any meddling with the course of nature. But, basically, you are correct.

“And was that all it took to change the future of an entire universe? I’m not used to thinking on this kind of scale, but the effect of one sphere seems—to say the least of it—disproportionate.”

More than one sphere was constructed, Jim. To be sure of capturing a viable stock the Ultans placed similar instruments in every galaxy of the Region I universe. Each galaxy, depending on its size, was given anywhere from eight to forty of the spheres, all of them in localities favourable to the development of intelligent life. Your race’s discovery of the one you refer to as Orbitsville was not entirely fortuitous.

“But there are at least a hundred billion galaxies!” Even in his discorporate form Nicklin was humbled by the sudden insight into the extent of the Ultans’ efforts to influence the shape of the space-time continuum itself. “And if you multiply that number-”

Do not concern yourself with the mathematics—suffice it to say that the Ultans pursued their misguided ambition on such a large scale that my brothers and I were obliged to move against them.

“But is it not too late? I saw Orbitsville being dissolved into millions of planets, and I saw them all disappear. If they have been dispersed all over the galaxy…”

I intervened. The new planets have indeed been dispersed—but it was done under my direction. They have been seeded into the Region I galaxy from which Orbitsville came.

A new question was beginning to form somewhere in the depths of Nicklin’s mind, but he shied away from it. “They’ve gone back?”

Yes, Jim. You see, the Ultans were wrong to impose their will, their necessarily limited view, upon the natural ordering of Totality. The imbalance between Regions i and 2 in the present cycle heralds great change—that is quite true—but change is the instrument of evolution. Resistance to change is wrong. Totality must be free to evolve.

“Will the Ultans be… punished?”

They will be advised and watched, but they will not be harmed. My brothers and I partake of Life, and we serve Life. The Ethic requires us to do everything in our power to ensure that no mind units are lost as a result of our actions.

“Is that why you are here? Is that why you are speaking to me?”

Ax I said earlier, the dialogue is entirely within your own consciousness. It is part of your private reaction to the fact that your mind is encompassed by mine while I am transferring your ship back to the Region I universe. You are interpreting the experience in your own way—for others it will be different.

“Do you mean that for them it’s a religious experience? They’re seeing what they believe to be God?”

They’re seeing what they believe—just as you are seeing what you believe.

The question which had earlier formed itself in a part of Nicklin’s consciousness tried to obtrude once more, and once more he was unable to deal with it. “Are we all going to live?”

Yes, Jim—I have plucked your little ship out of the body of my stillborn brother, and I have placed it on the surface of an eminently hospitable world in your home galaxy. You are all going to live.

“Thank you, thank you.” Nicklin began to feel an unaccountable sense of urgency. “Is our time together coming to an end?”

There is no time as you understand it in mental space. In one version of reality the transfer has taken a billionth of a billionth of a second; in another version of reality it has taken forty billion years.

“But the dialogue is drawing to a close.”

You are reaching your limits.

“There is just one more question. Please! I must know the answer.”

Across the midnight plain the dark presence seemed to stir slightly. I am listening.

“Who are you?”

But you no longer have any need to ask that question. The half-perceived entity was definitely moving now, growing taller, preparing to depart. You KNOW who I am, don’tyou,Jim?

“Yes,” Nicklin murmured, the vessel that was his mind at last filled to brimming. “I know who you are.”

The six Curlew aircraft of Woolston Skyways were ranged in line, waiting to carry their separate loads of passengers to the regional centre of Rushport. Curlews had been chosen because of their ability to operate from unprepared grass strips. Each would take a maximum of ten people on the two-hour hop to Rushport, where they would then be put on an airliner for the 8,ooo-kilometre flight to Beachhead City.

Behind the Curlews were three smaller and faster jets belonging to the news agencies which had been first to get their people to the scene. Looming over the aircraft, making them look like toy miniatures, was the burnished coppery hull of the Tara. And beyond the ship was a lake which stretched to the horizon, its waters sewn with diamond-fire by the low morning sun.

No matter how old he lived to be, Nicklin had decided, he would never get used to a sun which traversed the sky. On the previous evening, scant hours after the Tara’s return, he had watched the first sunset of his life, unable to take his eyes off the searing disk as it slid below the horizon. Like many others of the dazed and bemused pilgrims, he had spent most of the night in the open, staring at new constellations and waiting for the sun to reappear. Even though he had known in advance that it had to show itself on the opposite side of the world, the fact that it actually did so filled him with a profound wondering. The confirmation that he now lived on the outside of a sphere had come as a quasi-religious experience for one accustomed to the insularity of Orbitsville. He felt exhilarated, and dangerously exposed to the vastness of the universe, a micro-organism clinging to the surface of a ball that was hurtling through unpredictable space.