Plankton-like organisms should cause a certain kind of thermal radiation from oceanic surfaces and the Doppler effect should make it possible to analyze such frequencies from a distance.
The ship booms and leaps and does so soon again. We no longer need to be told that these momentary disturbances are passages through galaxies. After the second passage, a ventilator draft blows cold. Pathetic Fallacy continues far removed from natural phenomena.
The ship has traveled for more than a hundred billion years. Previous calculations were inaccurate estimates. Galaxies dim. Stars fade. No new stars are born. The ship passes through more galaxies and through denser intergalactic gas than expected. Galaxies are approaching each other. Space is contracting, compressing the gas. The universe will collapse. If the ship stops, then it will be in a dead universe. They have chased the White Whale to the end of time.
Reymont sees a passing galaxy ten thousand parsecs away, chaotic and blood-colored, till it recedes. Then the ship traverses another. Lindgren has suggested good night and suicide. Reymont says, "'No!'" (p. 172)
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree with Reymont's "NO" to suicide and I hope I would DO that "no" in any similar situation.
Sean
Interesting. Didn't Mayor Amalfi choose suicide in TTOT?
-kh
In TTOT, they were all due to die anyway. They had taken a lethal dose of radiation and their universe was gone so they opted to die in a way that created new universes.
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