“Perhaps,” said Hollus. “But what would they want to preserve so carefully while at the same time trying to frighten anyone away from digging it up?”
“Themselves,” I said.
“You propose something like a bomb shelter? Seismic soundings suggest there is not enough volume in the vault on Mu Cassiopeae A Prime to house more than a small number of individuals.”
“No, no,” I said. “I think they’re all down there. Millions, billions; whatever their entire population was. I think they scanned their brains and uploaded themselves into a computer world — and the actual hardware generating that world, the machines they didn’t want anyone messing with, are stored beneath those horrendous landscapes.”
“Scanned . . . ,” said Hollus’s left mouth, and “scanned . . . ,” ruminated his right. “But we only found three worlds with artificial landscapes designed to frighten off the curious,” he said. “The other worlds we visited — Eta Cassiopeae A III, Sigma Draconis II, and Groombridge 1618 III — had simply been vacated.”
“On those worlds, the computer hardware may have been shot into space. Or else those races may have decided that the best way to avoid detection was simply to do nothing at all. Even a warning marker attracts the curious; maybe they decided to hide their computing hardware with no indication of where it is.”
“But why would entire races do that?” asked Hollus. “Why give up physical existence?”
That was a no-brainer for me. “How old are you?” I asked.
“In subjective Earth years? Forty-seven.”
That surprised me. For some reason, I’d expected Hollus to be older than I was. “And how long will you live?”
“Perhaps another eighty years, assuming an accident does not befall me.”
“So a typical Forhilnor lifespan is a hundred and thirty years?”
“For females, yes. Males live about ten years longer.”
“So, um — my God — so you’re female?”
“Yes.”
I was stunned. “I hadn’t been aware of that. Your voice — it’s rather deep.”
“That is just the way Forhilnor voices are — male or female.”
“I think I’ll go on calling you ‘he,’ if that’s okay.”
“I am no longer offended by it,” said Hollus. “You may continue to do so.”
“Anyway,” I said, “you’ll live a total of about a hundred and thirty years. Me, I’m fifty-four right now; if it weren’t for the adenocarcinoma, I’d live another twenty-odd years, if not thirty or forty.”
Hollus’s eyestalks moved.
“But that’s it. And, again, even if I didn’t have cancer, a lot of that time would be in declining health.” I paused. “Do Forhilnors age gracefully?”
“A poet on my world once said, ‘It is all eclipsing moons’ — a metaphor that means much the same as your expression ‘it is all downhill’ — from the moment you are born. Forhilnor bodies and minds deteriorate over time, too.”
“Well, if you could assume a virtual existence — if you could live inside a computer — starting in the prime of youth, you could go on forever, without any deterioration.”
“Immortality has always been a dream of my people,” Hollus admitted.
“Mine, too. In fact, many preachers use a promise of life everlasting, albeit in some other realm, as their main inducement for good behavior. But although we’ve extended our life spans a great deal through improved health care, we are nowhere near immortal.”
“Nor are we,” said Hollus. “Nor are the Wreeds. But both they and we harbor hopes of making eternal life possible.”
“We thought we’d made a breakthrough a few years ago when we discovered how to put the end caps back on DNA.” Chromosomes have little protective bits at their ends, like the plastic-wrapped tips of shoelaces; every time a chromosome divides, the tips — called telomeres — are shortened. After enough divisions, the tips are completely gone, and the chromosome can’t divide anymore.
“We discovered that, too,” said Hollus, “almost a hundred years ago. But although replacing telomeres can make individual cells divide forever in the laboratory, it does not work in an integrated organism. When an organism reaches a critical mass of cells, division either halts after a set number of repeats, just as if the telomeres had been diminished, or reproduction becomes uncontrolled, and tumors form.” His eyestalks dipped. “As you know, I lost my own mother to cancer of the vostirrarl, an organ that serves much the same function for us as does the marrow in your bones.”
“Leukemia,” I said softly. “We call cancer of the marrow leukemia.”
Hollus was quiet for a time.
Yes, I could surely understand the appeal.
To be uploaded.
To be divorced from the physical.
To live without tumors, without pain.
If the opportunity were presented to me, would I do it?
In a minute.
“It’s certainly a great incentive to give up physical existence,” I said. “Living forever in the good health of youth.” I looked at Hollus, who was standing on just five legs; he seemed to be giving the sixth a rest. “In which case, perhaps your people have nothing to fear. Presumably, soon enough your race will develop the same ability — it seems every race does. And then, if your people want, they will . . . will transcend into a new form of existence.”
Hollus said nothing for several seconds. “I am not sure that I would look forward to that,” he said.
“It must be very tempting, if race after race has chosen that route.”
“I suppose,” said Hollus. “My people have been making considerable progress in brain-scanning technology — it is somewhat more difficult for us than it will be for your people, since our brains are in the centers of our bodies and since the integration of the two halves will doubtless pose some problems. Still, I imagine we will be able to upload a combined Forhilnor consciousness within a few decades.” He paused. “But this does explain the phenomenon I observed in those science-fiction videos you showed me: why alien races that encounter each other in the flesh are always at about the same technological level. There is, it seems, a narrow window between when interstellar flight is developed and when a race ceases to have corporeal existence. It also explains why the search for extraterrestrial intelligence via radio telescopes usually fails; again, there is only a short time between the development of radio and the abandonment of its use.”
“But, as far as you’ve been able to determine, none of the races you’re aware of, except our three, have existed simultaneously.” I paused. “Our races — the three of us — may be the first chance the galaxy has ever had for a . . . a planetary federation.”
“Interesting thought,” said Hollus. “Do you suppose that is why God intervened on our worlds? To bring us to technological sophistication simultaneously so that we could form some sort of alliance?”
“Possibly,” I said. “Although I’m not sure what that would accomplish. I mean, it might be good for our races, but what does it do for the creator?”
Hollus lowered his sixth foot. “That is a very good question,” he said at last.
Later that night, after we’d put Ricky to bed, and I’d read to him for a bit, Susan and I were sitting on the couch in the living room. I had my arm draped around her shoulders, and she had her head resting on my chest.
“Have you ever thought about the future?” I asked her. I lifted my arm a little bit. “I don’t mean the near future.” I’m sure she’d been giving that much thought. “I mean the far future — thousands, or even millions, of years from now.”