The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [113]
‘We can be proud,’ continued Callitrax, ‘of the part our ancestors played in this story. Even when they had reached their cultural plateau, they lost none of their initiative. We deal now with conjecture rather than proven fact, but it seems certain that the experiments which were at once the Empire’s downfall and its crowning glory were inspired and directed by Man.
‘The philosophy underlying these experiments appears to have been this. Contact with other species had shown Man how profoundly a race’s world-picture depended upon its physical body and the sense organs with which it was equipped. It was argued that a true picture of the Universe could be obtained, if at all, only by a mind which was free from such physical limitations—a pure mentality, in fact. This was a conception common among many of Earth’s ancient religious faiths, and it seems strange that an idea which had no rational origin should finally become one of the greatest goals of science.
‘No disembodied intelligence had ever been encountered in the natural universe; the Empire set out to create one. We have forgotten, with so much else, the skills and knowledge which made this possible. The scientists of the Empire had mastered all the forces of Nature, all the secrets of time and space. As our minds are the by-product of an immensely intricate arrangement of brain cells, linked together by the network of the nervous system, so they strove to create a brain whose components were not material, but patterns embossed upon space itself. Such a brain, if one can call it that, would use electrical or yet higher forces for its operation, and would be completely free from the tyranny of matter. It could function with far greater speed than any organic intelligence; it could endure as long as there was an erg of free energy left in the Universe, and no limit could be seen for its powers. Once created, it would develop potentialities which even its makers could not foresee.
‘Largely as a result of the experience gained in his own regeneration, Man suggested that the creation of such beings should be attempted. It was the greatest challenge ever thrown out to intelligence in the Universe, and after centuries of debate it was accepted. All the races of the Galaxy joined together in its fulfilment.
‘More than a million years were to separate the dream from the reality. Civilisations were to rise and fall, again and yet again the age-long toil of worlds was to be lost, but the goal was never forgotten. One day we may know the full story of this, the greatest sustained effort in all history. To day we only know that its ending was a disaster that almost wrecked the Galaxy.
‘Into this period Vanamonde’s mind refuses to go. There is a narrow region of time which is blocked to him but only, we believe, by his own fears. At its beginning we can see the Empire at the summit of its glory, taut with the expectation of coming success. At its end, only a few thousand years later, the Empire is shattered and the stars themselves are dimmed as though drained of their power. Over the Galaxy hangs a pall of fear, a fear with which is linked the name: “The Mad Mind”.
‘What must have happened in that short period is not hard to guess. The pure mentality had been created, but it was either insane or, as seems more likely from other sources, was implacably hostile to matter. For centuries it ravaged the Universe until brought under control by forces of which we cannot guess. Whatever weapon the Empire used in its extremity squandered the resources of the stars; from the memories of that conflict spring some, though not all, of the legends of the Invaders. But of this I shall presently say more.
‘The Mad Mind could not be destroyed, for it was immortal. It was driven to the edge of the Galaxy and there imprisoned in a way we do not understand. Its prison was a strange artificial star known as the Black Sun, and there it remains to this day. When the Black Sun dies, it will be free again. How far in the future that day lies there is no way of telling.