Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

dragonflies will have expanded to their limit by then, trapped between two arms.”
    The holo display showed the event graphically. A sphere of twinkling dots was growing outward from Sol, toward the orange barriers that fenced it in on either side. The arm swept inexorably onward, slicing the ball of lights thinner and thinner until nothing was left.
    “Scrubbed clean,” Jao said. “The universe is safe from dragonflies.”
    The assembly went wild. Jao could not have made himself heard even if he had wanted to go on. People were weeping, laughing, embracing—showing every form of emotion. Jao stood watching for long minutes, hands on hips, then left the platform. Jun Davd took his place and waited.
    People crowded around Jao as he walked down the aisle, clapping him on the back, grabbing his arm, jabbering at him. He nodded pleasantly at everyone, mouthed words against the din.
    He stopped at Bram’s row and crowded in to loom over everybody. “This arm that’s coming,” he said. “It’s grown since the last time around. It’s going to make the Cretaceous extinction look like—what does Marg call them?—a tea party.”
    “No chance of the dragonflies surviving as a species?” Bram asked.
    Jao shook his head. “Not a chance in a googol. If it doesn’t get the dragonflies, it’ll get what they eat. Evolution will have to start at the bottom again. There’ll be breathing space of twenty-six million years. Time enough for another species to find its destiny.”
    Ame was there, leaning over the back of Mim’s chair. She gave Mim a great-great-great-granddaughterly peck. “Maybe that species will be the Cuddlies,” she said. “They’re well established on the diskworlds, and they’ll have a better chance than most of surviving in their shielded burrows. They can wait out the radiation for a few millennia. They’re bright little creatures, well on their way to intelligence, and their weight lies below the twenty-pound danger zone.”
    “Oh, Ame,” Mim said. “I hope you’re right.”
    On the stage, Jun Davd had succeeded in getting a measure of attention. “It appears that spiral galaxies are not very healthy places to live,” he said. “They tend to have hypermasses ticking away at their centers. Binary black holes splashing into one another and causing core explosions. Leftover black holes from the quasar epoch powering galactic dynamos. Perhaps it might he better to find a smaller, more congenial neighborhood.”
    He must have come to the meeting prepared for this, because Jao’s holo of the Milky Way suddenly started to recede into the distance. As it dwindled, the field enlarged to show the fuzzy patches of globular clusters and some small, irregular satellite galaxies. The holo zeroed in on a pair of them.
    “The Clouds of Magellan are not too far from home, I think,” Jun Davd said. “The Large Magellanic Cloud is only one hundred fifty light-years away. The Milky Way would fill the sky …”
     
    Loki and Methuselah came scampering over when Bram and Mim entered their quarters. It was past suppertime, and the two Cuddlies had firm ideas about when it was time to be fed.
    Loki tried to lead Bram toward the cupboard, but Methuselah pawed at Mim’s legs until she bent over and picked him up. Holding him in her arms, she frowned and said to Bram, “He’s been acting a little funny the last few days. Do you think he’s all right?”
    “What do you mean, funny?”
    “His appetite’s been off. And I think his nose feels too warm.”
    Bram inspected the little beast. Methuselah’s big brown eyes seemed as button-bright as usual. Were they a bit too bright? Bram ruffled the soft fur—brown, salted with gray. Methuselah’s face seemed somehow different.
    “Mim,” Bram said. “Do you think his muzzle’s getting darker?”
    “Let me see.” She pursed her lips. “Yes, there’s less gray in it. It was almost pure white before. Some of the brown’s coming back. What could make it do that?”
    “I don’t know. Original Man had animal doctors …”
    “Well, we don’t.” She gave the little creature a hug. “We’re taking him to Doc Pol.”
     
    “Fourth Cuddly I’ve seen this Tenday,” Doc Pol said. “Marg and Orris were in with that spoiled pet of theirs just before you got here. Pesky critter nips a little too hard! Marg was carrying on. Thought her precious Mittens was at death’s door.”
    “What was wrong with it?” Mim asked in alarm.
    He looked up in