It had to be a hundred percent efficient; if it couldn’t absorb all that was about to be thrown at it, then it would evaporate like dew. It had to grow exponentially, with the rate of growth area increasing with the area grown already. Otherwise it couldn’t grow fast enough to save me as planned.
I also had plenty of time to wonder if the buttlebot had got bored—
There was a flash. I peered around the flitter’s flank.
It had worked. The flower had blossomed in the fusion light into an umbrella-sized dish, maybe just big enough for the hard rain that was going to fall.
The flower tumbled slowly away from the now-derelict flitter, as did the buttlebot, sadly waving the melted stump of one pseudopod. I kicked it out of the way, and pushed into space. The heat at my back was knife-sharp.
I reached the flower and curled into a ball behind it. The light flooded closer, beading the edge of my improvised shield. I imagined the nova’s lethal energy thudding into the material, condensing into harmless sheets of Xeelee construction material. My suit ought to protect me from the nasty heavy particles which would follow. It was well made, based on Xeelee material, naturally… I began to think I might live through this.
I waited for dawn. The buttlebot tumbled by, head over heels. It squirmed helplessly, highlights dazzling in the nova rise.
At the last moment I reached out and pulled it in with me. It was the stupidest thing I have ever done.
The nova blazed.
The flitter burst into a shower of metal rain. The skin of the planet below wrinkled, like a tomato in steam.
And that buttlebot and I rode our Xeelee flower, like surfers on a wave.
It took about twelve hours. At the end of that time, I found I could relax without dying.
I slept.
I woke briefly, dry-mouthed, muscles like wood. The buttlebot clung to my leg like a child to a doll.
We drifted through space. The flower rotated slowly, half-filling my field of view. Its petaled shadow swept over the wasted planet. It must already have been a mile across, and still growing.
What a spectacle. I slept some more.
The recycling system of my suit was designed for a couple of eight-hour EVA shifts. The Squeem did not return from their haven, light years distant, for four days.
I did a lot of thinking in that time. For instance, about the interesting bodily functions I could perform into the Squeem’s tank. And also about the flower.
It grew almost visibly, drinking in the sunlight. Its growth was exponential; the more it grew, the more capacity it had for further growth — I did some woolly arithmetic. How big could it grow?
Start with, say, a square mile of construction material. I made educated guesses about its surface density. Suppose it gets from the nova and surrounding stars about what the Earth receives from the Sun — something over a thousand watts a square yard. Assume total efficiency of conversion: mass equals energy over cee squared.
That gave it a doubling time of fifteen years. I dreamed of numbers: one, two, four, eight, sixteen… It was already too big to handle. It would be the size of the Earth after a couple of centuries, the size of Sol a little later.
Give it a thousand years and you could wrap up the Galaxy like a birthday present. Doubling series grow fast. And no one knew how to cut Xeelee construction material.
The Universe waltzed around me; I stroked the placid buttlebot. My tongue was like leather; the failing recycling system of my suit left a taste I didn’t want to think about.
I went over my figures. Of course, the growing flower’s power supply would actually be patchy, and before long the edge would be spreading at something close to the speed of light. But it would still reach an immense size. And the Xeelee hadn’t shown much interest in natural laws in the past. We drifted into its already monstrous eclipse; the buttlebot snuggled closer.
This was the sort of reason the Xeelee didn’t leave their toys lying around, I supposed. The flower would be a hazard to shipping, to say the least. The rest of the Galaxy weren’t going to be too pleased with the Squeem…
These thoughts sifted to the bottom of my mind, and after a while began to coalesce.
The secret of the hyperdrive: yes, that would be a fitting ransom. I imagined presenting it to a grateful humanity. Things would be different for us from now on.
And a little something for myself, of course. Well, I’d be a hero. Perhaps a villa, overlooking the cliffs of Miranda. I’d always liked that bust-up little moon. I thought about the interior design.
It was a sweet taste, the heady flavor of power. The Squeem would have to find a way to turn off the Xeelee flower. But there was only one way. And that was in my suit pocket.
Oh, how they’d pay. I smiled through cracked lips.
Well, you know the rest. I even got to keep the buttlebot. We drifted through space, dreaming of Uranian vineyards, waiting for the Squeem to return.
The images faded.
“I liked Jones,” I said.
“Because he didn’t give up. I know you, Jack.”
“And he won, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Jones’s small victory would, indeed, prove to be the turning point in human oppression by the Squeem…”
The yoke of the Squeem was cast off. Humans were free again, able to exploit themselves and their own resources as they saw fit. Not only that, the Squeem occupation had left humans with a legacy of high technology.
The lost human colonies on the nearby stars were contacted and revitalized, and a new, explosive wave of expansion began, powered by hyperdrive. Humans spread like an infection across the Galaxy, vigorous, optimistic once more.
And everywhere, they encountered the footprints of the Xeelee…
More Than Time or Distance
My one-woman flitter dropped into the luminous wreckage of an old supernova. I peered into the folded-out depths of the dead star, hoarding details like coins for Timothy.
The star remnant at the heart of the wreck was a shrunken miser; its solitary planet was a ball of slag pockmarked with shallow craters. Once this must have been the core of a mighty Jovian. I landed and stepped out. Feel how the surface crackles like glass, Tim… I imagined four-year-old eyes round with wonder. Except, of course, my memory of my son was five years and a thousand light years out of date. But I felt Tim’s presence, somehow — when you get close enough to someone you’re never really alone again. And maybe if my prospector’s luck changed here, it wouldn’t be five years before I held him again.
Above me violet sails of gas drifted through a three-dimensional sky. Around me a thousand empty light years telescoped away. And ahead of me stood a building — plain, cuboid, a bit like a large shoe box.
But a shoe box at the center of a nebula — and made of Xeelee construction material.
I stood stock still, the hairs at the back of my neck prickling against the lining of my pressure suit. An original Xeelee relic, the dream of prospectors from a thousand races… and intact, too.
The exploded star washed blank walls with light like milk. I expected a giant to step through that low doorway… I thought of one of Timothy’s jokes. What do you call a giant alien monster with a zap gun?
You know it. Sir.
I stepped through the doorway. The wall material was sword-thin.
The ceiling was translucent; supernova filaments filled the place with violet and green shadows. My eyes were drawn to a flicker of light, incongruously playfuclass="underline" about five yards from the doorway a small pillar supported a hoop of sky blue, which was maybe two feet wide. The hoop was polished and paper-thin, and a sequence of pink sparks raced around its circumference.