Lungfish

14

She sat very still in the darkness of the control room, her breathing light in the faint pseudogravity of the throbbing rockets. Her own gentle pulse rocked her body to a regular rhythm, seeming to roll her slightly, perceptibly, with every beat of her heart.

The ship surrounded her and yet, in a sense, it did not. She felt awash, as if the stars were flickering dots of plankton in a great sea… the sea that was the birthplace of all life.

What happened here? she wondered. What really went by so many, many years ago?

What is going on out there, in the galaxy, right now?

The central part of the rock mural had eluded understanding. Ursula suspected that there were pieces of the puzzle which none of the archaeologists and psychologists, biological or cybernetic, would ever be able to decipher.

We are like lungfish, trying to climb out of the sea long after the land has already been claimed by others, she realized. We’ve arrived late in the game.

The time when the rules were simple had passed long ago. Out there, the probes had changed. They had evolved.

In changing, would they remain true to the fundamental programming they had begun with? The missions originally given them? As we biologicals still obey instincts imprinted in the jungle and the sea?

Soon, very soon, humans would begin sending out probes of their own. And if the radio noise of the last few centuries had not brought the attention of the galaxy down upon Sol, that would surely do it.

We’ll learn a lot from studying the wrecks we find here, but we had better remember that these were the losers! And a lot may have changed since the little skirmish ended here, millions of years ago.

An image came to her, of Gavin’s descendants—and hers—heading out bravely into a dangerous galaxy whose very rules were a mystery. It was inevitable, whatever was deciphered from the ruins here in the asteroid belt. Mankind would not stay crouched next to the fire, whatever shadows lurked in the darkness beyond. The explorers would go forth, machines who had been programmed to be human, or humans who had turned themselves into starprobes.

It was a pattern she had not seen in the sad depictions on the rock wall. Was that because it was doomed from the start?

Should we try something else, instead?

Try what? What options had a fish who chose to leave the sea a billion years too late?

Ursula blinked, and as her eyes opened again the stars diffracted through a thin film of tears. The million pinpoint lights broke up into rays, spreading in all directions.

There were too many directions. Too many paths. More than she had ever imagined. More than her mind could hold.

The rays from the sea of stars lengthened, crossing the sky quicker than light. Innumerable, they streaked across the dark lens of the galaxy and beyond, faster than the blink of an eye.

More directions than a human ought to know…

At last, Ursula closed her eyes, cutting off the image.

But in her mind the rays kept moving, replicating and multiplying at the velocity of thought. Quickly, they seemed to fill the entire universe… and spread on from there.