Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever by Phoenix Sullivan (easy readers txt) 📕

of the twelve agreed to continue with the plan. This was easy to do when it was still a game, before time and distance could only be overcome by converting Unity into a lump of glittering clay.

~~~

The teams gradually grow larger and Unity lends us computing resources, a sure sign of its approval. Progress is slow with each of us having to learn new specialisations. Our parents, generalists all, would despise us.

Small clouds of smart dust are released aft, dying in milliseconds, abraded by the gas and dust clouds. More complex and tougher dust is launched and lasts long enough to reproduce.

New dust that forms light-mediated links is launched. These links form distributed computing networks, which allow the rapid computations needed to form and maintain chains and nets.

Dumb matter chains that form and break millions of times a second link smart matter clumps that pump out speckled laser light. They shine like dappled stars and sing I am here! I am here! Now I am here!like lost children on a beach.

A three-dimensional net forms, infinitely flexible, growing larger with time.

A final burst of pure viral computing dust is released into the net, filling gaps, being reproduced by the old bacterial dust. Being smart.

I project myself into the sparsely distributed structure and find myself in a gently undulating net of cloud, each intersection marked by a blazing star.”Indras Net,” says the soft non-voice of Unity. “You must know about that given your ancestry, Sri.”

“I’m English, all the way back to the corner shop. Don’t be racist.”

“Sorry.”

I can sense it smile, a gin-and-tonic over fresh-mown grass.

“What’s the point, Sri? I promise you’ll all be safe in me and I’ll re-incarnate you when we reach the Destination. Why this elaborate scheme to get away?”

“If you didn’t already know, you wouldn’t have given us so much support.” I relent, though, and tell it what it wants to know. “It’s a Bridge. It’s sparsely linked, it wobbles a lot and it’s going to be very long. But it could carry people and objects far easier than you — in pods with life support, like the Jules Verne gondola. It’s designed to carry dumb matter objects by disassemble-move-reassemble.

“Above all, it’s a symbol, made up of symbols. Other bridges give it a gentle curve and pylons. There are hydrogen bond analogues in there. There are assemblages that look like coin lattices. There are hundreds of other symbolic linkages in there, mapped into it by our semioticians and Virtual designers.”

“It’s a mess Sri.” Thunderclouds over that perfect lawn. “A barely coherent jumble of smart matter, dumb matter and light.”

I make the beauty of the current representation fall away to reveal the ugly truth. Symbolic cancers ripple over a landscape of randomly shimmering numbers.

“That’s why I’m here. To fix this this. In two thousand years this Bridge will be the largest, most beautiful structure the species has ever built. You will be at the Destination and the Bridge will give you a way back to heal Earth.”

“You will fail, Sri. This is certain. The others know this and will not come.” Rain falls across the grass, mixed with a bitter smell of burned oil. “You deleted your indexes. No copies can be made of you now. Why?”

I start to understand the Bridge and I stabilise the numbers over a large section of it. The cancers disappear. “I want to be an angel and angels can only be in one place at a time. If the others won’t come, I’ll be the whole of the Bridge. The maps are sophisticated enough to allow that.”

 “I can’t support this project anymore. I never anticipated you failing so comprehensively, so quickly.”

I plant a million saplings. They die but one hundred grow green shoots.

“I understand. All I want is to build bridges: bridges with our technology, bridges between us, bridges within us, bridges to our past. You should want that too, Unity.” I’m far enough gone into angelhood that my laughter is yellow blossoms blowing in a breeze.

We are all dead. Yet soon I will make us alive as anyone in our species has ever been.

Soon I will begin to walk the Bridge, memorizing as I go.

~~~

KEN BURSTALL is a middle-aged Englishman living in Austin Texas, with far too many children. He works, intermittently, as an oilfield geologist, and has calculated that he has spent six of the last twenty years on oil rigs far offshore. “Connect” is his first published story. He has a strange, unpopular weblog at http://fallslikesnow.blogspot.com/.

Fleeing with the last remnants of the Oshen race, Indigo has only one chance to ensure his people are never forgotten.

INDIGO’s GAMBIT

by Adam Israel

Three.Two.One.Bang.

The Drifting Star skipped on the wave of a collapsing micro-sun, soaring through the void between the stars. The astronautical library contained surveys and charts on hundreds of thousands of star systems within the alliance of civilized worlds the Fringe called Sing Xu. This would be the thirty-eighth Indigo had visited since his journey toward the core planets began. So far none contained a world suitable to revive the Oshen race.

Indigo’s three light-blue fingers and thumb moved gingerly across the computer console. The sinewy web between each digit was dried and cracked, as was much of his skin. Too long away from home — or what was left of it. His last memory of home was of fire raining down from the warships in orbit and the seas burning as he fled in his stolen scout ship. Now he and the fertilized eggs preserved in the cryotank at his feet were all that remained of the Oshen.

Navigation confirmed the ship’s arrival at the edge of Theta 4127, a six-planet system with a single red giant. He plotted a course toward the fourth planet, close enough for the scanners to analyze the surface. If the environmental conditions didn’t match the specific balance the Oshen needed to survive, he would continue to the next system, never stopping until he found one that was suitable.

The Oshen had been content living