If this was the basis of the faith of the Friends, then no wonder the Friends were so remote, so intense — so uncaring of their everyday lives, about the pain and death of others. History as it existed was nothing more than a shoddy prototype of the global optimization to come, when the Ultimate Observer discarded all inferior world lines.

And no wonder then, he thought, the Friends were so leached of humanity. Their mystical vision had removed all significance from their own lives — the only lives they could experience, whatever the truth of their philosophy — and it had rendered them deeply flawed, less than human. He opened his eyes and studied Shira. He saw again the patient intensity that resided inside this fragile girl — and he saw now how damaged she was by her philosophy.

She was not fully alive, and perhaps never could be; he pitied her, he realized.

"All right, Shira," he said tenderly. "Thank you for telling me so much."

Parz sighed, almost wistfully; his small, closed face showed a refined distress. "But she hasn’t yet told us all of it. Have you, girl?" With an edge in his voice, he went on, "I mean, if you truly believe such a wondrous vision — that the history we have lived through, the present and future we must endure, are merely prototypes for some vast, perfect version that will one day be imposed on us from the end of time — then what is the Project all about? Why do you need to do anything to change your condition in the here-and-now? Why not simply endure this pain, let it end, and wait for it all to be put right at the end of things?"

She shook her head. "In my time, humans are helplessly subjugated by the Qax. We were able to assemble the resources for our rebellion — but it was only the fortuitous arrival of your ship from the past that gave us the opportunity to do so.

"Such a rebellion could never happen again.

"Michael Poole, we believe the Qax Occupation will result, at last, in the decline of man. The Qax — inadvertently, perhaps — will destroy humanity. And thereby they will terminate all possible timelines in which humanity survives the Occupation era, joins the greater, maturing community of species that is to come, and adds to the wisdom of those mighty races at the end of time. The Qax will stop the transmission of any data about what humans were and might have been into the future. This is a crime on the largest of scales — and would be worth opposing even if we were not of the species affected…

"But we are. And we believe we have to thwart the Qax, to safeguard the future role of humanity."

Poole pulled his lip. "Jasoft, what do you make of this diagnosis?"

Parz spread his hands. "She may be right. The Qax of my era weren’t planning for our destruction before this disastrous sequence of events, ironically initiated by the Friends themselves — we’ve been too useful, economically. But perhaps in the end, we could not have survived an extended subjugation…

"And, looking ahead, we know that Shira’s prediction of the Qax’s enmity must come true, but in ways she could not anticipate. The human Jim Bolder will cause the destruction of the Qax home world, drive them to diaspora. After this, it seems, the elimination of humanity will become a racial goal for the Qax."

Poole nodded; he’d studied Shira’s reactions throughout this discourse, but her face was blank, unreacting, blandly pretty. She’s not listening, he realized. Perhaps she can’t.

"Very well," Parz said. "Then, Shira, tell us how turning Jupiter into a black hole will help you achieve your aims. Is the singularity to be some form of superweapon?"

"No," Shira said calmly. "Such is not our intention. Not directly."

"No," said Michael, staring at the girl. "You’re not weapons manufacturers, or warriors, are you? I think you see yourself as part of the great upward streaming of life, toward this marvelous cosmic future you’ve described. I think you want to preserve something. Information of some kind. And send it beyond the current perilous era into this distant, glorious future, when those wise Observers of the universe will pick up your message and understand its true meaning."

Parz was staring at him, baffled.

Michael said, "Jasoft, I think they are turning Jupiter into a vast — time capsule. They’re constructing a black hole; a black hole that will evaporate in — what? Ten to power forty years from now? Jupiter will be like a vast tomb, timed to open. A naked singularity will be exposed. These cosmic engineers, these tinkerers with the dynamical evolution of the universe, will come to investigate; to extinguish the peril exposed to the universe and its future/past."

"Ah." Jasoft smiled. "And when they do come, they will find a message. A message left for them by the Friends."

Harry laughed. "This conversation gets more and more bizarre. What will this message say? How do you strike up a conversation with godlike cosmic designers ten to power forty years in the future? ‘Hello. We were here, and had a hell of a lot of trouble. What about you?’ "

Michael smiled. "Oh, you might be a bit more imaginative than that. What if you stored the human genome in there, for instance? The future consciousnesses could reconstruct the best of the race from that. And with a bit of tinkering you could store the ‘message’ in the consciousness of the reconstructed humans. Imagine that, Harry; imagine emerging from some fake womb, with your head full of memories of this brief, glorious youth of the universe — and into a cosmos in which the formation, life and death of even the last, shriveled star is a memory, logarithmically distant…"

Shira smiled now. "There is no limit, given the technology," she said. "One could imagine converting an Earth-mass to data, lodging it within the event horizon. One would have available ten to power sixty-four bits — equivalent to the transcription of ten to power thirty-eight human personalities. Michael, one might imagine storing every human who ever lived, beyond the reach of the Qax and other predators."

"But how would you store the data? We know already that a black hole is a vast source of entropy; if an object of whatever complexity implodes into a hole, all bits of data about it are lost to the outside universe save its charge, mass, and spin—"

"Singularities themselves are complex objects," Shira said. "Unimaginably so. Our understanding of them has advanced enormously since your time. It may be possible to store data in the structure of the spacetime flaw itself—"

"But," Parz said, his round, weak face broken by a sly smile, "with respect, my dear, you still haven’t told us precisely what your message to these superbeings of the future would be. Even if you succeeded in transmitting it."

Michael settled back in his couch. "Why, that much is obvious," he said.

Shira watched him, utterly erect and tense. "Is it?"

"You’re trying to get a message to the Ultimate Observer." He heard Parz call out wordlessly, but he pressed on. "You want to influence the way the Observer selects the optimal lifeline of the cosmos; you want to ensure that data about humanity reaches the post-Qax future, and that the Observer selects world lines in favor of humanity." Michael smiled. "I’m right, aren’t I? I have to admire your capacity for thinking big, Shira."

Shira nodded, stiffly. "Our goal is a valid one, from a racial point of view."

He inclined his head in return. "Oh, certainly. None more valid. And once the final Observation takes place, the events we have endured will not have taken place, and the means you have employed are justified… because if the end is met, the means won’t even have occurred."

"It’s utterly outrageous," Parz said, green eyes sparkling. "But wonderful! I love it."

Shira, sitting silently in the uneven thrust of the damaged Spline, waited, her eyes still locked disconcertingly on Michael’s.