Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

Virgo cluster. And now the Nar are about to do it on a smaller scale within their own galaxy. It’s probably a stage that all intelligent species go through when it begins to dawn on them that the means is at their disposal.”
    “And your hydrogen-gulping probe is that means?” Bram said.
    “Yah,” Jao said. “They’re going to attempt to seed the galaxy with replicas of themselves—using other intelligent races the way Original Man used them.”
    “Broadcast their genetic code?”
    “ And a cultural package,” Trist said. “A race isn’t only its genes. It’s the sum of its memories, too.”
    Jao was bursting to continue. “The probe’ll zip through the galactic center, broadcasting all the way. The power available to it will be enormous—more than this whole planet could generate. The signals ought to have a range of hundreds of light-years along the flight path. Then it’ll zip out the other side, using the core as a gravitational slingshot. It’ll be going too fast to be captured. By the end of its mission, it’ll be crowding the speed of light practically to the limit, and time dilation will have lengthened its radio waves to undetectability. But by that time it will have encountered one percent of the stars in the galaxy. Upwards of two billion stars!”
    “And if the Nar species survives,” Trist said solemnly, “and if their slow expansion someday takes them to the opposite ends of the galaxy, they won’t find an indifferent or inimical universe, but their own children waiting to greet them.”
    Mim had been frowning. “I don’t understand,” she said. “It’s a … a staggering idea. But why would they decide to stake it on another race or races that might not even exist ? Why wouldn’t they send automated biological packages instead?”
    “A biological package wouldn’t survive the radiation aboard the probe,” Jao said promptly. “That baby’s going to be hot! ”
    “Besides, Mim,” Trist added, “the Nar want to cast their seed on fertile ground. If their children are called to life in the far reaches of the galaxy, it will be because a supporting culture is there, ready to nurture them. A culture that’s already made a decision to nurture them, as the Nar did with us. And they’ll grow up as a part of that culture, a bridge between the races. Homegrown ambassadors for that ultimate day when two alien civilizations meet.”
    “Even if it weren’t for the radiation,” Jao said, “there’s the time factor. Time dilation would help to keep biological samples fresh, sure, but even so we’re talking about them having to survive maybe up to half a century of subjective time.”
    “Yes,” Trist said. “And that’s with our hadronic photon drive, which wasn’t even a glimmer in Smeth’s eye when the Nar conceived their project. Without the drive, the ramjet might reach the other side of the galaxy almost as fast—add a couple of thousand years to the hundred thousand years or more it’s going to take—but with a gamma factor of only about five for the time dilation effect, it would mean an extra ten thousand years aboard the probe.”
    “Why do you need to crowd the speed of light so closely?” Bram asked. “What difference does it make how fast you slow down time aboard your robot probe when the net effect on actual travel time is so small?”
    “Operating systems,” Jao said. “Human beings are the best engineers in the universe, but it’s better to have operating systems that age only fifty years instead of ten thousand.”
    “Translate that as human vainglory,” Trist said. “We want the Nar to know how good we are.”
    Jao gave a wink. “Get them to subsidize our particle research, he means.”
    Mim had been following the discussion with widening eyes. Now she said brightly: “This time-stretching thing, the …”
    “Gamma factor.”
    “Gamma factor. How high can it go?”
    “With our imaginary drive? Theoretically there’s no limit.”
    She turned to Bram with an alarming smile. “You see? Your dream isn’t as impractical as you think it is.”
    “What dream, Mim?” Jao said.
    “Mim,” Bram warned.
    There was no stopping her. “About going back to the place Original Man came from.” She gave Smeth a reproving glance. “Now, won’t you admit you were wrong?”
    Smeth drew himself up to something approaching good posture. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he huffed. “What I said still goes. All that’s changed is the necessity