Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (26 page)

It was a simple demonstration. They were properly impressed.

You wiped your hand and returned to them, but they shuffled away from you, their lips pale.

“Yet I am no stronger than you,” you told them. “The difference is only this: that I come from a freshly created world, new minted by the inexorable processes of continuous creation. And you — come from an old world. Think of your Galaxy. How old is it? You do not know exactly, but you know it is incredibly old. The truth is, it is wearing out, as everything wears out in time. Nothing is meant to last. Ask yourself what everything is made of. A tissue of energies which outcrops and becomes matter. That tissue of energy, since the beginning of time, has been running down, wearing thin. All matter, which is composed of it, has worn thin with it. The great magical batteries of your Galaxy are slowing, so all protons and neutrons lose their polarity. Their charges have run low, they cannot combine as they once used to. Steel has not the strength that paper once possessed, wood is water.”

Prim interrupted.

“You’re trying to deceive us!” he told you in a trembling voice. “It’s only
you
who can pierce marble with a finger, or withstand poison, swords, or bombardment.
We
would die! Do you take us for fools?”

“No,” you replied. “You would die, as you say. You are composed of the same exhausted nuclei as everything else; that is exactly why you could not detect this process long ago. I can withstand almost anything you have to offer only because the very stuff of which I am made is new. I am the one fresh factor in an exhausted galaxy.”

You paused and went over to the Highest. He had become very pale. “This ravening monster we loosed between us out in space — I suppose that merely hastens the exhaustion process?” he asked.

“Yes. The fabric is torn; the gap widens to embrace your island universe.”

The Highest closed his eyes. When he raised his lids again, his regard fixed on you with the alertness of a bird.

“Our poisons cannot affect you,” he said. “Yet you manage to live among us. How can our food nourish you?”

“I brought my private supply of calories with me when I left my own world. I was not unprepared. I had even to bring oxygen concentrates.”

You then told the Highest of the effects your unexhausted air had had on Shouter, the spool-seller, how he had been riddled as if by unseen radiations. And you told him how useful Shouter’s microspool library had been.

“An opportunist,” the Highest said. “My congratulations to you.”

He pulled at his lip and looked, for a moment, almost amused.

“Have you a moment to spare, if the question has meaning any longer? Perhaps the others will excuse us.”

Something in his manner had changed. He motioned to you with a sharp gesture and made for a door. What did you do? You took a last look over your shoulder at the desolate group whose function in life had abruptly vanished, gave One Eye a mocking salute and followed.

The Highest walked down a corridor at a pace which belied his earlier languor. He flung open another door and you both emerged onto a balcony overlooking the proud city of Nion. A cool evening wind blew; clouds masked the setting sun. The great panorama of avenue and river lay strangely deserted, from distant spires to the pavements of a nearby concourse. Nothing stirred except a fabric far below in a mansion window.

“How long would this exhaustion process have taken had we not accelerated it?” the Highest asked almost casually, leaning on the rail and looking down.

“It must have worsened for centuries,” you told him. “It might have gone on for centuries more...”

You felt a softness for him, and for all men, all the myriads of them, whether they cheated or played fair, loved or hated. All their follies and limitations were forgiven; they were primitives, coming from the dark, fading back into the dark, with a glimpsing of awareness to give poignance.

The Highest took a deep breath of evening.

“It’s ending! Now comes the time to adventure into death.”

He took another lungful of the darkening wind.

“And you have a ringside seat, my friend. It will indeed be a sight to see. But you must get back before our craft disintegrate. They won’t be capable of carrying you much longer.”

You said, gently, “Everyone must be told what is happening. That seems imperative.”

“I will not forget.”

He turned and faced you.

“What impulse brought you here? Nostalgia? Curiosity? Pity? What feelings do you have for — us shadows?”

And what unexpected weakness was it that choked the words in your throat? Why did you turn your face away so that he could not see your eyes?

“I wanted man to be aware of what is happening to him,” you said at last. “That much was owed him. I —
we
owed it. You are — our fathers. We are your heirs...”

He touched you gently, asking in a firm voice, “What should be told to the people of the Galaxy?”

You looked out over a city now pricked with lights, and up to the evening sky. You found no comfort there or in yourself.

“Tell them again what a galaxy is,” you said. “Don’t soften it. They are brave. Explain to them once more that there are galaxies like grains of sand, each galaxy a cosmic laboratory for the blind experiments of nature. Explain to them how little individual lives mean compared to the unknown goals of the race. Tell them — tell them that this laboratory is closing. A newer one, with more modern equipment, is opening just down the street.”

“They shall be told,” the Highest said, his face a shadow as night fell upon the old city and the stars.

We who have already superseded you record these scenes now in your honour, as you once honoured man.
REQUIESCAS IN PACE.