Why
does the sun shine? - Particle
Man – Robot
Parade – Birdhouse
in Your Soul – Ana Ng
The
last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a
time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a
result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and
Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any
human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face
-- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague
notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown
past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the
whole.
Multivac was
self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could
adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and
Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well
as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and
translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like
them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.
For decades, Multivac
had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach
the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not
support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth
exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only
so much of both.
But slowly Multivac
learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14,
2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun
was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth
turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch
that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the
Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of
sunpower.
Seven days had not
sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape
from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of
looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the
mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with
contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys
appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a
bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company
of each other and the bottle.
"It's amazing when
you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it,
and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice
slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free.
Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of
impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we
could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
Lupov cocked his head
sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he
wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and
glassware. "Not forever," he said.
"Oh, hell, just
about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."
"That's not
forever."
"All right, then.
Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
Lupov put his fingers
through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still
left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't
forever."
"Will, it will
last our time, won't it?"
"So would the coal
and uranium."
"All right, but
now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can
go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You
can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."
"I don't have to
ask Multivac. I know that."
"Then stop running
down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did
all right."
"Who says it
didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying.
We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a
slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another
sun."
There was silence for a
while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes
slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov's eyes
snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is
done, aren't you?"
"I'm not
thinking."
"Sure you are.
You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the
story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got
under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet
through, he would just get under another one."
"I get it,"
said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be
gone, too."
"Darn right they
will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic
explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run
down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred
million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will
last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion
years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's
all."
"I know all about
entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.
"The hell you
do."
"I know as much as
you do."
"Then you know
everything's got to run down someday."
"All right. Who
says they won't?"
"You did, you poor
sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said
'forever.'"
"It was Adell's
turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he
said.
"Never."
"Why not? Someday."
"Never."
"Ask
Multivac."
"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five
dollars says it can't be done."
"Adell was just
drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary
symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded
to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to
restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be
put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be
massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and
silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking
relays ended.
Then, just as the
frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a
sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac.
Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
"No bet,"
whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the
two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the
incident.
Jerrodd,
Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate
change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse.
At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single
bright marble-disk, centered.
"That's
X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his
back and the knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes,
both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their
lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness.
They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother,
screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've ----"
"Quiet,
children," said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"
"What is there to
be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal
just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the
wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
Jerrodd scarcely knew a
thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that
one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task
of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from
the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the
hyperspacial jumps.
Jerrodd and his family
had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.
Someone had once told Jerrodd
that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for
"analog computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of
forgetting even that.
Jerrodine's eyes were
moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about
leaving Earth."
"Why for Pete's
sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything
on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million
people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be
looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."
Then, after a
reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out
interstellar travel the way the race is growing."
"I know, I
know," said Jerrodine miserably.
Jerrodette I said
promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."
"I think so,
too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
It was a nice feeling to have a
Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no
other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines
taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet.
Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a
thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors
had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put
into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
Jerrodd felt uplifted,
as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times
more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed
the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that
had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the
stars possible.
"So many stars, so
many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I
suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are
now."
"Not
forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but
not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know.
Entropy must increase."
"What's entropy,
daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
"Entropy, little
sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe.
Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot,
remember?"
"Can't you just
put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"
"The stars are the power-units, dear. Once
they're gone, there are no more power-units."
Jerrodette I at once
set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
"Now look what
you've done, " whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
"How was I to know
it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back.
"Ask the
Microvac," wailed
"Go ahead," said
Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to
cry, also.)
Jarrodd shrugged.
"Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."
He asked the Microvac,
adding quickly, "Print the answer."
Jerrodd cupped the strip
of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will
take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."
Jerrodine said,
"and now children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
Jerrodd read the words
on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL
ANSWER.
He shrugged and looked
at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
VJ-23X
of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale
map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so
concerned about the matter?"
MQ-17J of Nicron shook
his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years
at the present rate of expansion."
Both seemed in their
early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
"Still," said
VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic
Council."
"I wouldn't
consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them
up."
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 problems 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 another filled 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 can only stave off the end. Our energy
requirements are going up in 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-17J, 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 AC-contact 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.
MQ-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 it's 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 shrunk 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 originals 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 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 lead 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
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 NOW 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?"
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 build, 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 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 to any terms that Man
could comprehend.
"Cosmic AC,"
said Man, "How many 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?"
"THERE IS AS YET
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
"Will you keep
working on it?" asked
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 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----