Page 20 (1/2)

"Consequences?" Cole asked

"Everything in the universe is indeed traveling in a straight line Whicha du on the North Pole of your planet"

Cole looked up at the snow flurries, at the large spire behind hiination hardly needed to exert itself "Done," he said

"Now picture theout fro in every direction possible around your planet Where is it going?"

"Back to where it started, just like when I go walking in a straight line"

"Except you were traveling alone," Byrne pointed out Cole could aler like Professor Phister used to "Don’t forget," Byrne said, "that there’s a lot of stuff in this exahly the same speed--"

"The South Pole!" As soon as Cole uttered the answer, a lot more fell into place; he could al theory of their day, hundreds of years old andtheory Even with the probley, it was still the best they had, as ht about all thatout across the surface of a sphere, all heading away froh the dips and rises, thinning out as it ether All of it--all of everything-- crunch at the South Pole He considered the expanding universe and pictured for the very first ti to!

"That’s why the expansion is speeding up," Cole y, the odd fact that expansion was accelerating when gravity should be slowing it down Now he knehy He turned to Byrne "We’re halfway there, aren’t we? Thecloser together! Gravity is working the other way, speeding it along"

Byrne nodded "Precisely hoe like to put it We are ‘past the universal equator’ Well past, in fact"

Cole forgot where he was, all the trouble he’d seen, all the iddy with the possibilities, scra to assemble them into a coherent whole

"That also explains hyperinflation," he said "It explains why things are going so quick in the beginning All that matter just finished its doard swoop, so it would be absolutely flying as it ca a probleetting closer?" he asked "Where’s all the other stuff?"

"All that stuff is over the horizon, to extend the ht fails to bend, right? Is it because of the speed everything’s traveling?" Cole held up his finger, seeing it clearly "It’s because of the direction it’s traveling through this fourth dimension"

Byrne smiled broadly at Cole "You are the one, aren’t you? I can see it, now I never could in Mollie"

Hearing her na the descent into philosophy and cosy He reh his chest He pictured Molly strapped to the gurney in Byrne’s ship, and the vision angered hi the physics lesson It helped hiht," he said "The Big Bang didn’t happen in a place, it happened everywhere It created space Hell, the Big Bang happened just as alaxy!"

Byrne laughed at this, bending at the waist and uncrossing his legs It was a jolly laugh, very Human-like When he settled down, he turned to Cole: "Son, we aren’t talking about hypotheticals, here I’ theory This is e knoe’ve known for a very long time We’ve observed it"

"That’s i that destroys everything?"

"Oh, but it doesn’t Very nearly but not quite Not everything arrives at the saets deflected Besides, the South Pole of the universe, if you like to consider it that, is a very big place As hot as it gets--and it gets hot enough to et inforh Just as a particle can escape a black hole now and then, we can "

Cole’s jaw dropped "You’ve done this? This isn’t the first time we’ve been here?"

"Literally? You and I?" Byrne looked at the world zipping around the -our-actions nonsense No, no, in fact, each universe is vastly different That’s our job That’s why I say this is our universe"

Cole shook his head "I don’t understand"

"What is life but infor friend? We are just--well you are just cheraht to do so Sentient things cannot grasp the accidental nature of their existence, and they are correct to feel this way Tell me, do you knohy Humans and the Bern look so similar?"

Cole looked at his hands and considered the question "Convergent evolution?" he guessed "The siht Hadn’t Dani given him clues in the hallway of that Drenard prison?

"Nonsense The odds are prohibitive Look at the diversity of life on any one planet An honest account of them is more bizarre than the differences between you and a filthy Bel Tra No, my little Chosen One, the reason the Bern look alike all across the universe, the way they are able to rule all of creation with an iron and beneficent e up in advance"

Cole continued to stare at his palms; he peered at the lines in them "You made us?"

"Alet the--to use a Terran expression--the ball rolling Andthe route we set up in advance It’s all about rules, you see If the laws of nature are within certain paraet a universe conducive to life And when you can rig ienetic information, seeds that can only be blown apart by the forces present at the end of the universe, seeds that ablate just right during the creation process, then you achieve what all life seeks"