Chapter 1.
   Entropy  
   From “Stellar Graffiti”, Copyright 2001 Richard Allan Olson
                                                                                

                                      


   On a little blue world called Archia, by its native intelligent inhabitants, a young mammal named Luna had adventured deep into the jungle interior of her tropical home, far from the coastal village where she lived.  Now, many days later, she was making the return journey, and she muttered to herself, fretting over how far she had left to go. 

   The high forest canopy stretched out before her, a green corridor of foliage.  Luna’s arboreal ancestry allowed her to make much better time traveling by way of the treetops than through the dense jungle floor far below.  Fleet and fearless, the agile monkey girl, her movement fluid and dynamic, made her way from branch to branch, vine to vine, swinging , leaping, and flying.  She was a creature of sheer primal grace and beauty, and of magnificent performance. 

   The girl paused on a branch.  She spotted a small, blue bowl of open sky in the roof of green above.  With a few bounces on the branch she was able to vault up to a higher branch.  As that limb bent under her weight, she swung herself around it so that, as it sprang back up, the girl’s momentum swiftly flung her even higher.  As the ascent slowed, she quickly looked around for her next opportunity.  Luna started to fall.  She grabbed a vine, continued to plummet, then the vine drew taut enough to start her into a swing.  She began to ascend, narrowly avoiding collisions with several large tree branches.  At just the right moment, she released her hold on the vine and continued her swift ascent.  Her momentum slowed, she hung motionless for one brief moment, chose one of several convenient branches, and nimbly hopped onto it.  Now the leafy blue bowl open to the sky was just above her, and that was an easy climb. 

   Perched upon the rim of this bowl in the tree tops, Luna sat at the very top of the world, for all she knew.  She could look out over the landscape of her jungle home in all directions.  She turned to survey the southern horizon.  Though it was still very far away, she was just able to make out the tiny white coastline, and even from this distance the tropical breeze carried the faint but distinctive scent of salt and sea.  Just to the west, the tiny coastline became fragmented with many islands of varying sizes, most of them very small, and it was there that the village of Luna’s people could be found. 

   Luna tilted her head back and smiled at the sun directly overhead, basking for a moment in the bright warmth of Archia’s parent star.  The girl exulted.  She spread wide her arms to the light and sang out, “Good DAY, Mother!”  The sun shined back down upon its child.  

   “If I can reach the gorge by sundown,” the girl said, “I might just be able to get back on schedule.  That ordeal with the Thunder Lizard cost me far too much time.”  From where she sat, the gorge was a long, winding ribbon of shadow in the billowy green landscape below.  “It doesn’t LOOK very far, but there’s still that bothersome swamp to cross along the way.  Now, if the swamp can be negotiated as easily coming BACK as it was going OUT, then I’ll be in luck.”  Before moving on, Luna took a few moments to rummage through the contents of a satchel she wore tied about her waist.  She murmured and fretted as she rummaged.  She came upon some particular item and laughed, shaking her head, then resumed her murmuring. 

   The Archians were a relatively young species, still in the early stages of the long climb to civilization.  Only in recent history had they begun to fashion tools out of metal.  Primarily farmers and fishermen, the Archians lived very simple lives and did quite well with minimal effort, for the sea offered an abundance of fish and crustaceans, and the land nearly everywhere was a tropical garden paradise, rich with fruits and vegetables of unimaginable variety. 

   It was only within the past few generations that the Archians had correctly deduced their world was round, not flat, as popular notion had held for so very long.  Exploration had revealed that to the north and to the south there was nothing to be found but wide open ocean, which only grew increasingly cold and icy and offered no other land apart from an occasional barren rocky islet.  Many an expedition had returned with fantastic tales of gigantic fish and monstrous sea creatures lurking in these distant, frigid waters.  So, it appeared that Archia was a predominately oceanic world, and that its only significant land mass seemed to be a single, super-continent; a chain of tropical islands circling the globe in the form of a narrow equatorial belt.  In geologic terms, Archia was indeed an oddity.  How a world such as this came to form could not easily be explained.  The Archians, however, gave very little concern to geology, or to any of the disciplines of science.  All they knew was that, if one were to get in a boat and travel east (or west) for a very long time, one would eventually return to one’s starting point.  Therefore, the world must be round. 


   Later that afternoon the corridor of tree tops abruptly ended, and Luna dropped to the shadowy forest floor.  A few minutes later the jungle began to thin, and soon the girl burst out upon a wide sunlit meadow dotted with palm shrubs. 

   “The swamp is just ahead, now,” she thought, and began to skip through the waist-high grass.  At the far side of the meadow the grass suddenly became very tall, well above Luna’s diminutive stature, and it was with great effort that she forged through a seemingly solid wall of reeds.  But before long, the thicket parted, and she found herself standing at the edge of a steaming, sprawling swamp.  There she squatted to rest, and to begin calculating her strategy for getting to the other side. 

   The great swamp extended to both sides as far as the eye could see.  Going around it proved too time consuming.  Crossing it was much quicker, but also fraught with considerable peril.  The still air was humid and heavy and filled with the humming and buzzing sounds of thousands of insects and other denizens of the ecosystem.  Somewhere high in the trees a bird squawked, its call echoing across the water.  From still deeper in the swamp another bird squawked a reply. 

   A little ways out from the shore there was a weed-chocked mound with a few gnarled trees growing out of it.  The swamp was spotted with many little mounds such as this, wherever a tree or group of trees was rooted.  Luna studied the surface of the murky water.  Nothing moved.  She found a fairly large stone and heaved it out as far as she could.  It broke the surface of the muck with a great splash.  The girl waited for the water to calm.  Still, nothing moved.  “Probably safe.” she thought.  Then, with a running start, she launched herself into a swan dive, sliced the water’s opaque, algae green surface, came back up and began paddling towards the islet.  Climbing out onto the shore, she shook off the swamp muck, then made her way around to the other side of the isle. 

   Luna spent the better part of the afternoon traversing the swamp in this fashion.  Occasionally, an islet hosted a tree tall enough to allow the girl to leap or swing to another tree on the next island over, thus avoiding the murky swamp water altogether. 

   At last, the far side of the swamp was in sight.  Only one more islet stood between Luna and the shore.  After the customary safety precaution, she dove in and began paddling.  She’d almost reached the islet when suddenly, just off to her left, there came an explosive, furious churning of the muck, and a large, thick tail rose up from the mud, thrashing violently.  Luna cursed and began paddling as fast as she could.  The tail crashed heavily back under, and then, moments later, a head calmly surfaced.  A pair of sinister eyes protruded from a flat, scaled snout.  On each side of the snout a row of jagged carnivore’s teeth jutted from grimacing jaws.  With one powerful sweep of its tail the swamp creature closed in on its prey with alarming speed. 

   But the agile monkey girl was able to reach the island before the predator could catch her.  She scrambled out of the water and ran to a tree, and there she turned to look back.  The reptile had begun to haul its great bulk onto the shore.  Luna was half way up the tree by the time the lizard arrived at the base of the trunk.

   Late in the afternoon, Luna awoke from a nap she’d taken in the tree, wedged between two thick branches.  She leaned over and peered down at the ground.  The swamp lizard was still there, wide awake, basking in the setting sun.  Luna sat up and angrily whirled a clenched fist at the beast, stifling a curse she was about to shout.  Then she sighed with dejection.  “I can’t let you detain me anymore, you- you- “she said.  “I happen to have a very important date tomorrow morning!” 

   She swung around the tree trunk and hopped out along a slender branch.  There she sat to review her problematic situation. 
Leaping out from the branch into the water and making a mad swim for it was out of the question.  The shore was just too far.  The lizard would almost certainly be upon her before she could reach it.  Earlier she’d spotted a hanging vine which might allow her to swing all the way to the shore, but the vine was quite a distance from the tree.  She wasn’t sure if she could jump out that far.  She wasn’t sure if the vine could hold her weight. 

   The sun had begun to sink below the line of trees farthest to the west when the girl finally decided she’d take the calculated risk with the vine.  With a deep breath and a running start, she leapt from the end of the slender branch and flew through the air.  The vine drew closer but her descent was quickening.  In a panic she reached up as far as she could and was just able to snag the very end of the vine with one hand.  The swing across the water was wide, and she skimmed the surface at the bottom of the arc.  Suddenly the vine snapped, and Luna dropped into the swamp.  Back on the islet, the lizard lifted its head.  The girl paddled furiously.  The predator started with an eruption and slid into the water in pursuit.  Luna was just within reach of the shore, and the lizard was just within reach of her.  Powerful jaws opened as the girl dragged herself out of the mire, but they slammed shut upon empty air.   

   Luna was safe, now.  On dry land, she knew she could easily outrun the swamp creature.  She gleefully dashed away from the water’s edge, stopping at a safe distance to turn and revel in her narrow escape.  “Sorry!  Better luck next time, Mister Allidile!”  She laughed, and then disappeared into the jungle. 

   As she’d hoped, Luna arrived at the north rim of the gorge just as the sun was sinking below the western horizon.  She climbed to the top of a tree which grew out over the edge of the cliff.  From there she peered down into the deep ravine.  Its bottom was somewhere well below the shadowed veil cast in the gathering twilight.  Looking to the west, Luna watched as the sun disappeared.  “Good night, Mother.” she sighed, then turned to face the east, settling back against a reclining cushion of soft leaves. 

   Soon the sky became just dark enough to reveal night’s first stars, the brightest ones appearing first, the rest growing brighter as night set in.  But absolute darkness didn’t fall over the land, for another kind of “day” was dawning upon the eastern horizon.  Another celestial body had begun to rise.  It was an object several times the size of the sun, but not nearly as bright.  Its only illumination was the light reflected off it by the sun itself.  However, this second stellar body was so large, that all that light  being cast upon the night side of Archia was, during the peak hours, bright enough to see one’s way around quite well.  An eerie, rust-hued twilight crept across the land as this celestial object grew larger in the sky.  Soon it loomed bigger and brighter, and the object began to show faint patterns and designs on its distant surface.  As it advanced further into the sky, those designs resolved, revealing still finer detail.  As the object slowly filled the sky, a veritable metropolis of sprawling proportions came clearly into view.  Visible to the naked eye were vast archways and colossal domes, uncountable rows of impossibly gigantic pillars and columns, ornate towering spires, and sheer canyons sunk deep into unfathomable architecture. 

   Luna lifted her head to the sky and chimed, “Good EVENING, Father!”  The strange twilight filtered down, now, into the shadowed gorge.  Addressing the object which then filled much of the sky, the girl said, “I thank you, Father, for another day of living, and for the bounty you give us.”  She hesitated, then added, “I wasn’t exactly thrilled with one of your Allidiles yesterday.”  Then, by the phantom half-light of the new evening, Luna began her descent into the gorge. 

   The truth, unsuspected by Luna’s ancestors for millennia, was that Archia was not technically a true planet at all, rather a moon.  It was the derelict monument, itself, the size of a very large planet, which orbited the sun, and was in turn orbited by the tiny oceanic moon.  The Archians’ primitive model of cosmology maintained, of course, that their world was the static center around which all other celestial objects moved.  This was a mistake made quite commonly by young civilizations beginning to acquire an interest in astronomy. 

   The origin and purpose of the derelict was still a mystery, but its very presence in the sky had had a very profound influence upon the culture of the Archians.  Since the architecture clearly observable was so distinctly different than the natural organic and geologic structures of the world around them, there was never any question as to whether or not the Archians were alone in the cosmos.  The first of their ancient ancestors able to think and reason looked up at the derelict and knew it was an artifact designed by some other, higher power.  Moreover, the monumental structure lent itself to a very simple and elegant theology; it was the home, the actual dwelling place, of the “Divine Creator” himself, the all powerful and all knowing One.  This was the basis for the Archians’ virtually unanimous religion.  It was also a most convenient shortcut through much ideology and philosophy.  The cosmos, their world, in fact all phenomena, was simply the manifestation of the will of the Creator. 

   And so, true scientific inquiry was low on the list of Archian priorities.  Rather, their culture was steeped in mythology and superstition, and there was a strong reverence of ritual and tradition.  There was, of course, still a degree of debate over a few of the bigger questions.  “Exactly how DID the Creator make the world?  By what process?  How long did it take?  And, which was manufactured FIRST- the world, or the sun?”  However, no satisfactory conclusions ever came of such debate anyway, and so most Archians were content in happily taking their reality at face value. 

   As far as Luna was concerned, crossing the gorge was the most difficult part of her expedition through the interior. 

   “The ‘going down’ part isn’t so bad,” she said, as she made her way down the north face of the deep ravine, “It’s really just a controlled slide and grab, slide and grab.  It’s the ‘going up’ part that’s really a tough game.”  The bottom of the gorge was quite narrow, with a shallow, rocky stream.  Luna took a minute to drink and wash, and then began the long climb up the southern cliff face. 

   Scaling nearly vertical slabs of stone required steeled nerves and meticulous attention, and Luna was obligated to negotiate such obstacles quite often, on the way up.  It was tedious and exhausting work.  When she finally, wearily hoisted herself over the southern rim of the gorge, all she could do was collapse upon a soft carpet of moss. 

   “I must remember,” the girl muttered, “to address the Council when I get back… and move that a bridge should be built here.”  And with that, she fell fast asleep. 

   As Luna slumbered, the derelict monument moved across the evening sky.  Eventually it began to set below the dark western edge of the world.  While, to the east, the sun began to replace the strange half-light of night with the rose and orange of dawn. 

   Luna dreamt that she was very far away, out in space, looking back at the sun, and seeing it as a tiny dot of light against a sea of dot-scattered blackness.  Her dream carried her even farther out, where she beheld a vast whirlpool of bright dust, made up of trillions of tiny phosphorescent specks.  Suddenly, the whirlpool itself was a very small wisp of light, floating in space with trillions of other tiny wisps.  Luna could have no way of comprehending what she saw.  It was only a dream, after all.  Yet, she decided to take a closer look at one of the whirlpools, just out of curiosity.  In this dream state, she was somehow able to move through space at will.  She passed close to a spectacular nebula and thrilled at the sight of its brilliant blue and violet waves of light, swirling and iridescent.  The girl was so mesmerized by its beauty, all thought of investigating the whirlpool was forgotten.  Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something drifting not very far away.  It was a sphere.  Suddenly a chilling feeling came over Luna; she was not alone here.  

   The sphere was actually a ship.  The bottom half housed the vehicle’s massive complex of machinery, while the top half was a clear crystal dome.  A horizontal bridge and observation deck hovering in mid-air neatly divided the sphere in two, and this part of the ship was adorned with numerous control panels, and strange consoles with shifting bars and discs.  Luna was just outside the sphere.  She beheld the bridge, and she saw the two occupants of this bubble in space.  The pair of alien life forms floated just above the floor of the deck, each suspended in a reclined position.  They were sublime beings, immaculate in physical structure, with skin of translucent gold, and large, wise, knowing eyes of silver, eyes which had looked upon many billions of years of evolution.  They were nearly angelic beings; very old, and very advanced.  

   The golden beings were engaged in conversation.  They didn’t speak aloud, of course.  They’d left guttural communication behind many billions of years prior.  They “spoke” by telepathy.  A thought was simply a shared experience to beings such as these.  Luna was able to share in the experience, for some odd reason.  Although she could understand most of the words, many of them she’d never heard before… 

   “You heard the warp transmission as did I, my beloved,” thought Taa. 

   “And the situation only becomes more incomprehensible.” replied Faa. 

   The pair of golden beings telepathically replayed the same transmission they’d received only moments ago.  The image of a being similar to these appeared, and a voice issued forth, “People of the Mivadre Cluster, the line of probability has been crossed.  The event we feared has now come to pass.  The Lumvre galaxy has been completely devoured by its own core gravity well.  The resulting mass of the well is above the critical value.  The events which will now follow are certain.  The fate of the Mivadre Cluster is sealed.  There is nothing more.” 

   The transmission trailed off into static.  The golden beings sat in silence.

   Then Taa thought, “The mass of the Lumvre well is now so great, and ever growing, that within only a few spans, it will be able to merge with the nearby  Pamadre well, its own mass already equaling several clusters.  Once that happens, the entire region of space on the Old Federation side will be completely sealed off from this pocket of space, however large this one happens to be.  Super-gravitational oblivion is advancing upon the universe.  As it does, the universe becomes a shrinking ocean of isolated bubbles of space.  The cosmos is collapsing upon itself.  Soon, this entropy will crush everything that exists… out of existence.” 

   Taa became silent.  Then Faa said, “We’ve known for ages this time would come.  It is the natural and inevitable end of all.  And yet, how odd it now suddenly seems.  How incomprehensible.  How utterly…”  Faa’s thoughts became silent and she began to weep.  She wept without moving, without making a sound.  It was her soul that wept. 

   Taa thought, “Beloved, now, you haven’t wept in eons.  Literally.” 

   “I know.  But we are immortal.  We need never perish.  Other beings have looked upon us as gods.  How, then, does an immortal goddess contemplate mortality?”   

   “There is always the eternal hope of the spirit,” Taa replied.  “And it is the very cosmos itself which must now find that hope.“  Taa moved towards his mate and took her into his physical embrace. 

   “My love,” he thought, “consider it thusly.  You and I will endure until the end of time.  And if we then truly perish, let it be proclaimed; nothing less than the destruction of the entire universe could separate us.  An envious cosmos, indeed, if so willing to self expire, only to accomplish this.” 

   Faa laughed.  “That is why I have adored you for ages, my Taa.  No power will succeed in erasing that precious time.” 

   “We must make these final spans the most precious of all,” thought Taa.  “But if we are to see them, we must leave this galaxy at once.  We must leave this entire cluster, and try calculating how large this region of space is.  We’ll find a place where we can endure to the very end, if possible.” 

   While Taa set to work at the controls, Faa turned to gaze at the blue and violet nebula outside the crystal sphere.  She was lost in deep contemplation for a few moments, then she thought, “How beautiful it was… like a dream, somehow…”  As Taa finished plotting a course, the ship of the golden ones engaged its warp drive, and simply vanished right in front of Luna’s eyes.  At that exact moment, the girl awoke with a start. 

   She sat up and rubbed her eyes.  “Wow!  That was one strange dream!  What were they…?”  Luna placed an open hand on her forehead, trying to remember, but the recollection of the dream only grew more dim as the awareness of being awake returned. 

   It was another bright green day.  Luna rose to her feet and stood upon the carpet of moss near the edge of the gorge.  Noticing the sun’s position in the sky, she said, “Rats.  I’ve overslept.  I’ve got to make tracks.”  She dashed off into the jungle. 

   After a while, Luna stood at the top of a broad hillside overlooking the land and the sea.  Her gaze followed the gentle slope of the hill down to the coast.  There lay the familiar collection of islands she called home.  Her village was finally in sight.  She fairly flew down the hillside in her exuberance.  The slope began to level off as the girl neared a small pond in a lightly wooded area.  She stopped there to satiate a powerful thirst.  After she’d had her fill, she exhaled deeply and leaned back for a moment’s rest.  She was just about to move on, when she noticed that a small furry creature with an amusing bill and very large eyes had been sitting next to her at the water’s edge the whole time.  The little animal blinked up at her, seeming to be completely unafraid of the girl.  Luna leapt to her feet with great excitement. 

   “An Aquatoo!  I don’t believe it!”  She bent over, lifted the creature with both hands, and proudly examined it at arm’s length.  “You’re a very, very rare animal!  I’ll bet you didn’t even know that.  And besides, you’re a very long way from home!  How is it you happen to be so far to the west, and so close to the sea?  Well? The Aquatoo is a freshwater species from the interior of the far, far east.  And even there, you are extremely difficult to find.”  The animal blinked.  It had a short, thickset body covered with fine brown fur, four little limbs with webbed, paddle shaped feet, and from its neckless head protruded a broad, flat, leathery bill.  

   Luna placed the creature on her shoulder, and it soon found a position in which to securely cling.  “C’mon,” she laughed, sprinting through the long grass, home only minutes away, now, at last. 

   “Just wait ‘till Milo sees all this stuff.” she thought with glee.  “A bonanza.  A bonanza topped off with a very pleasant surprise, indeed.”  She lifted her newfound companion.  “That would be YOU, my little friend.  Today is a very lucky day for both of us.  A very lucky day, indeed!”