فصل 37

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Experiment

Call it the Star Gate.

For three million years it had circled Saturn, waiting for a meeting that might never come. When it was created, a moon was destroyed, and the broken pieces still orbited the planet.

Now the long wait was ending. On another world, intelligence had been born and was escaping from its home. An ancient experiment was almost at an end.

The creatures who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been human. But they were flesh and blood. And as soon as they were able to, they flew to the stars.

In their explorations, they met with life in many forms. And when they found it had some intelligence, they encouraged its growth. When the explorers came to Earth, they made changes to many types of animal. They would not know, for at least a million years, which of their experiments would succeed. But there was no need for them to wait and watch. The servants they had left behind would do that for them.

As time passed, those first explorers of Earth went through many changes themselves. As soon as they could build machines that were better than their bodies, they left their bodies and became machines. In time, they learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself. Then they freed themselves from the machines and turned into creatures of pure energy.

Now they were lords of the Galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could move as they wanted among the stars. But despite their godlike powers, they had not completely forgotten their beginning.

And they still watched the experiments that had been started so long ago.