They joined Pirius’s friends. Nilis told them high-level gossip he had heard about the impact of the operation on Earth. “Do you know, on Earth, for the first time in millennia the Library of Futures is blank. The future is unknown.” For a moment he sounded almost gleeful. “I hear that a lot of people are very scared. We really have shaken everything up, haven’t we, Pilot? All the way back to the corridors of Earth itself! Who can say what is to come? Oh, we face a great dislocation, of course. I suspect our greatest challenge will be to keep mankind from tearing itself apart, now that it has no one else on whom to vent its anger and frustration. We don’t need warriors anymore, but we do need peacekeepers, I fear!
“But isn’t it refreshing?” he said, and he bounced absurdly on his toes. “Think of it! Can we not now place Hama Druz in the grave which he so richly deserves? Druz in his neurotic terror longed to keep mankind static, unchanging. But that denies the basic creativity of the universe in which we are embedded — a creativity, indeed, which flows from the creatures inside that spectacular artifact you attacked, Pirius. Now we need no longer deny our essential nature: now we can swim with the flow of the universe rather than against it — and perhaps, at last, uncover our true destiny as children of the cosmos.”
All that sounded a bit vague to Pirius.
Enduring Hope said, “But, Commissary, when we get up tomorrow morning — what shall we do?”
Nilis laughed, avuncular, and spread his hands to the sky. “Why, there is a whole universe out there waiting for you — now that you don’t have to die before you grow up.” He pointed to the senior officers, to Kimmer and Seath and Marta. “They are too old to change. No doubt they hoped to die before the war ended — well, bad luck! For young people like you, the future is suddenly opened up. Perhaps some of you will come with me back to Chandra, to study that remarkable nest of transcosmic life. And perhaps some of you will go sailing beyond the bounds of the Galaxy itself. Why not? We’ve always been so busy battling to survive in this Galaxy, for twenty thousand years we haven’t so much as sent a probe out there.”
Cohl said seriously, “But the Xeelee are still out there — they are everywhere but here.”
“The Xeelee will keep for another day,” Nilis said gently. “And in the meantime you have families to build.”
Pirius was shocked. “Families?”
“Well, why not? The old machinery has always been there, even if we don’t use it anymore. And now all the rules have changed. It will do you good to have a real family, you know, to put down roots. You really don’t know how it feels.” He winked. “And I always did want to be a grandfather — honorary, at least!”
Pirius stared at Torec. Her face was flushed, but he could see generations of conditioning warring with even more ancient impulses. He hadn’t yet got over the loss of Pirius Blue, but a part of him had been glad, guiltily, that his temporal twin had gone, that his life had simplified a little. Now it looked as if it was going to get a lot more complicated again. He felt a sudden warm rush of joy.
From out of the crowd, Luru Parz approached. She was wearing a simple white robe. To Pirius, Luru Parz was a nightmare from his difficult time in Sol system. He felt unaccountably afraid. He wondered what possible justification she could have used to crash this event — but if she wasn’t shy even of a Plenipotentiary, she was powerful indeed.
“Congratulations, Pilot. Quite a feat of arms.”
Nilis said warningly, “Luru Parz, this is hardly the time for more of your antique strangeness. Let these young people enjoy their moment.”
“Their moment?” Luru Parz smiled coldly. “Their moment, yes, the moment of vivid brightness that makes a mayfly life worthwhile.” She glared up at the sky. “And we have won the Galaxy! When I was born — when mankind was restricted to a single planet, and was under the heel of an alien conqueror — nobody would have believed this day would come. For now we are briefly the biggest fish in this puddle of stars. But what is one galaxy? Out there, on scales beyond our very perception, is an ocean of wonders and dangers we can’t even imagine.”
Nilis snapped, “What do you want, Luru Parz?”
She turned on Pirius. “I want to make sure you understand what you have done, Pilot. For better or worse, you have broken open the strange madness that gripped humans for so long. Now the iron law of the Druz Doctrines will weaken, and mankind, scattered over a billion worlds, will begin to explore the limits of the possible. You have brought on us a new age, Pirius, an age of bifurcation.
Perhaps you think that’s a good thing — I know this fool Nilis does.
“But at least we were united in our madness. You see, we will never again be strong enough, never united, never determined enough, to strike as you could have struck.” She pointed her finger at Pirius. “You could have destroyed it — destroyed that monstrous thing at the center of the Galaxy — but you turned back.”
Pirius frowned. “Do you believe the Xeelee will return?”
“Of course they will. It’s only a matter of time. And we will not be able to push them out again. They will be back — just as the photino birds have returned, and another ancient conflict resumes. And you turned back.”
Torec asked, “Where will you go now, Luru Parz?”
“To Earth, of course.”
“Why?”
“To prepare its defenses.” With that she walked away, small, closed in, unimaginably ancient.
Hope gasped, and pointed up. “The flyby!”
Pirius looked up. Far above the surface of the asteroid, the surviving ships of Exultant Squadron sailed across the sky, their graceful human engineering silhouetted against the glare of the Galaxy’s heart.
Do not remember heroes. Do not speak their names.
Remember my words, but do not speak my name.
I have a vision of a Galaxy overrun by mankind from Core to rim. Of four hundred billion stars each enslaved to the rhythms of Earth’s day, Earth’s year. I have a vision of a trillion planets pulsing to the beat of a human heart.
And I have a vision of a child. Who will grow up knowing neither family nor comfort. Who will not be distracted by the illusion of a long life. Who will know nothing but honor and duty. Who will die joyously for the sake of mankind.
That is a hero. And I will never know her name.
Always remember: a brief life burns brightly.