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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010 (51)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 15:29:44 1999), 转信

                            51
                  The Great Game

Now the long wait was ending. On yet another world,
intelligence had been born and was escaping from its planet-
ary cradle. An ancient experiment was about to reach its.
climax.
  Those who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had
not   been   men   -   or   even  remotely  human.  But  they  were
flesh  and  blood,  and  when  they  looked  out  across  the deeps
of  space,  they  had  felt  awe,  and  wonder,  and loneliness. As
soon   as  they  possessed  the  power,  they  set  forth  for  the
stars.  In  their  explorations,  they  encountered  life  in  many
forms   and  watched  the  workings  of  evolution  on  a  thousand
worlds.   They  saw how often the first faint sparks of intel-
ligence flickered and died in the cosmic night.
  And   because,   in  all  the Galaxy, they had found nothing
more    precious   than  Mind,  they  encouraged  its  dawning
everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they
sowed, and sometimes they reaped.
  And sometimes, dispassionately,  they had to weed.
  The   great   dinosaurs  had  long  since  perished when the
survey ship entered the Solar System after a voyage that had
already   lasted   a  thousand years. It swept past the frozen
outer   planets,   paused  briefly  above the deserts of dying
Mars, and presently looked down on Earth.
  Spread   out   beneath  them,  the  explorers  saw  a  world
swarming with life. For years they studied, collected, cata-
logued.   When   they had learned all they could, they began to
modify.   They   tinkered  with  the  destinies of many species
on   land   and  in  the  ocean But which of their experiments
would   succeed,   they  could not know for at least a million
years.
  They   were   patient,  but  they  were not yet immortal. So
much  remained  to  do in this universe of a hundred billion
suns,  and  other  worlds were calling. So they set out once
more  into  the  abyss,  knowing  that they would never come
this way again.
  Nor  was  there  any  need.  The  servants  they  had left
behind would do the rest.
  On  Earth  the  glaciers  came  and went, while above them
the  changeless  Moon  still  carried its secret. With a yet
slower  rhythm than the polar ice, the tides of civilization
ebbed and flowed across the Galaxy. Strange and beautiful
and terrible empires rose and fell, and passed on their know-
ledge to their successors. Earth was not forgotten, but
another visit would serve little purpose. It was one of a
million silent worlds, few of which would ever speak.
  And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving
toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long
since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their
machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move.
First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they trans-
ferred into shining new homes of metal and plastic.
  In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer
built spaceships. They were spaceships.
  But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In
their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store
knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve
their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They
could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the
tyranny of matter.
  Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed
themselves; and on a thousand worlds the empty shells they
had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of
death, then crumbled into rust.
  They were lords of the Galaxy, and beyond the reach of
time. They could rove at will among the stars and sink like a
subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite
their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their
origin in the warm slime of a vanished sea.
  And they still watched over the experiments their ances-
tors had started, so long ago.

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:-) Helix@163.NET                                                    85958F57
:-( Helix@KALI.COM.CN                                                208CE12C
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