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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: A continuum-bending, millennia-leaping tale in the tradition of Olaf Stapledon.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: The Fandom Directory, 1981
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2002

35 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [40 KB], eReader (PDB) [20 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [6 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [6 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [59 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [76 KB], hiebook (KML) [44 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [32 KB], iSilo (PDB) [5 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [7 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [34 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [12 KB]
Words: 1685
Reading time: 4-6 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Some beings delved into the microcosm, split atoms they could not control, and fell back in fires of their own destruction. Others chained that atom fire and fashioned vessels in which to cross the vacuum of space. And diverse creatures met with one another and came into conflict: multifarious humanoid forms, many-legged insect species, lizard-like creatures with lidless eyes, intelligent fish-beings who had learned to negotiate non-water surfaces before they could negotiate the vacuum of space, beings who photosynthesized to obtain their nourishment, and more, too numerous to name or number. Through interstellar space, through intergalactic space, such beings met and came into conflict. And war became the way of the universe.

Empires rose and fell. Civilizations bloomed and withered. Entire species, evolved through the millennia, were obliterated overnight or in slow generational wars of attrition. Planets which had cooled from fire to serve as the first bastions of life were rekindled by life itself. And through it all, fostered by the need to chain fiercer fires and fashion more potent engines of destruction, the search for knowledge never ceased. Life learned more of itself, of the vacuum, the matter, and the bonds which held it all together. Life gained a further mastery of the universe until it moved with ease through distances it could not comprehend, until it could herd the rare motes of hydrogen from seemingly empty space and set suns of its own flaming to warm the metal landscapes of artificial worlds. And as greater fires were chained, the wars raged on.

Millennia passed into multi-millennia which vanished in countless eons. Histories were made and written and forgotten in myth, to be made and written again. Some races died out merely from age, as if their spirit could no longer renew itself. The invisible enemies of evolution and interbreeding claimed others. The universe began to grow older; the fittest survived. And as the various species tested their strengths against one another and some were destroyed while others flourished, a stalemate began to make itself felt. Life had extended it dominion to the boundaries of the expanding cosmos, and beyond, as far as the fastest ships could travel and the most powerful instruments register, there was only the blackness of empty space. There were no longer any worlds to be conquered. There were no wars, which by any sane definition, could be won. The stalemate held, and the mantle of peace settled over the universe.