Death's End

Cheng Xin and AA wandered over the barely inhabited continents of the Earth. They swept over endless forests, rode on trotting horses across grasslands, lingered over empty beaches. Most cities had become covered by forests and vines, leaving only small patches of civilization for the remaining residents. The total human population on the Earth was about what it was near the end of the Neolithic Age.

The longer they stayed on the Earth, the more all of civilization’s history seemed a dream.

They returned to Australia. Only Canberra remained inhabited, and a tiny town government there called itself the Australian Federal Government. The Parliament House where Sophon had proclaimed the plan for the extermination of the human race was still there, but thick layers of vegetation sealed its doors, and vines climbed up the eighty-meter-tall flagpole. They found Fraisse’s record in the government archives. He had lived until he was 150, but finally, time had defeated him. He had died more than ten years ago.

They went to Mosken Island. The lighthouse built by Jason was still there, but it was no longer lit. The region was completely uninhabited. They heard again the rumbling of the Moskstraumen, but all they could see was the empty sea in the light of the setting Sun.

Their future was equally empty.

AA said, “Why don’t we go to the world after the strike, the world after the Sun is gone? Only then will we find a life of serenity.”

Cheng Xin also wanted to go to that time, but not for a life of serenity. She had stopped a catastrophic war and she was becoming the target of the worship of millions. She could no longer live in this era. She wanted to see Earth civilization survive the dark forest strike and prosper after—it was the only hope that could comfort her heart. She imagined life in that post-strike nebula. There, she would find true tranquility, maybe even happiness. That would be the last harbor of her life’s voyage.

She was only thirty-three.

Cheng Xin and AA rode Halo back to the Jovian city cluster and once again entered hibernation in Asia I. The contracted-for time was two hundred years, but they included a provision in the contract stating they should be awakened if a dark forest strike occurred before then.

And then they slept. Dreamless.

PART V

Bunker Era, Year 67 Orion Arm of the Milky Way

Examining the data was Singer’s job; judging the sincerity of the coordinates was Singer’s joy.

Singer understood that what he did wasn’t important—it just filled in the pieces. But it had to be done, and the task was enjoyable.

Speaking of enjoyment, when this seed had departed from the home world, that world was still a place full of joy. But later, as the home world began to war against the fringe world, joy diminished. By now, more than ten thousand grains of time had passed. There wasn’t much joy to speak of on the home world or in this seed. The happiness of the past was recorded in classical songs, and singing those songs was another of the few joys left.

Singer sang one of these classical songs as he reviewed the data.

I see my love;
I fly next to her;
I present her with my gift,
A small piece of solidified time.
Lovely markings are carved into time
As soft to the touch as the mud in shallow sea.

Singer did not complain much. Survival required so much thought and mental energy.

Entropy increased in the universe, and order decreased. The process was like the boundless wings of the giant balance bird pressing down upon all of existence. But low-entropy entities were different. The low-entropy entities decreased their entropy and increased their order, like columns of phosphorescence rising over the inky-dark sea. This was meaning, the highest meaning, higher than enjoyment. To maintain this meaning, low-entropy entities had to continue to exist.

As for any meaning higher than that, it was pointless to think about. Thinking about the subject led nowhere and was dangerous. It was even more pointless to think about the apex of the tower of meaning—maybe there wasn’t an apex at all.