Chinook lingers near a large T machine that seems to be a cosmic junction. The crew hope to be spotted by someone else passing through:
"'Somebody happening past who's not too advanced to pay attention, the way we're not too advanced to notice a fellow man in the woods. Or else somebody who's so very far along that his eye is on the sparrow.'" (XLI, p. 354)
We had the sparrow reference recently here which will be why Broderson mentions it again.
Next Chinook travels to a time between seventy and a hundred billion years after the crew's births when:
"'No stars are left alive except the dimmest [the meek shall inherit], and they are now dying, while the galaxy itself is disintegrating.'" (XLIII, p. 360)
This is not the kind of "meek" that the Gospel verse anticipated but Anderson's author's mind seems to have automatically spotted any possible textual opportunity for a Biblical reference.
Joelle thinks that, if they travel further into the future, then they will learn whether the universe oscillates - as in Anderson's Tau Zero - or expands indefinitely - as was thought at least until recently.
4 comments:
It's not a time to make confident predictions about the ultimate fate of the universe... 8-). I prefer a cyclical approach, myself -- used it in the Emberverse series, tho' it's background.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I tentatively think a cyclical universe makes the most sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, let the scientists get going and find out before I shuffle off this mortal coil...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha, amen! I hope we both live to see the first colonies founded on Mars as well.
Ad astra! Sean
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