“Of the medical problems unique to your species, we know only what is in your data bank. However, our knowledge is based on experience with more than two hundred other space-going intelligences. The pattern in every one is the same: discovery of S-space; exploitation of S-space, as a means of subjective life extension and interstellar space travel; and then, after a shorter or longer period, the realization that S-space existence, sufficiently continued, brings with it physical decline and finally death. As a means of seeking immortality, S-space is a blind alley.”

“Immortality!” It was not clear how many people said the word, but it lingered as a murmur around the chamber.

“Let us say, potential immortality. No one knows the maximum attainable life-span of an intelligence, but this we do know: maximal life extension is impossible for an embodied form that uses S-space, T-state, or any of their variations. Ultimately, time consumes flesh. Maximal life extension requires conversion to immaterial form.”

“Pure spirit,” Emil Garville said softly.

“Use that word if you wish. Stabilized fields is a name we would prefer. In any case, your own species faces a choice: material existence, which offers immortality only in the form of offspring; or a move to immaterial form, where we believe that the duration of existence of individual consciousness may be unlimited.

“Now.” The body of Judith Niles sat up straighter in its chair. “We have given you as much information as we think it wise for you to have. Experience shows that each species must learn for itself, and make its own mistakes.” Sy held up a hand. “The question. The unanswered question. If you do not wish humans harm, why are you destroying us by removing from the galaxy the type of stars that our kind needs?”

“You will not like this answer, but it is the truth. You were until recently insignificant. The existence of your kind did not impinge on us until your attempted approach to Urstar.”

“So if we had not come here, you would have changed Sol and the other stars that we need into red dwarfs?”

“No. There was never a danger of that. Before stellarforming begins there is always a survey. No star is changed whose planets form a home for intelligent — even potentially intelligent — life.” Judith Niles’ face, perceptibly non-human, still managed an apologetic smile. “You sit, at your present level of development, somewhere between the two. It is our intention to leave you alone, to become… . whatever you will become.”

“But why do you change stellar types at all?” Gus Eldridge said. “You keep telling us how little we know and understand. Well, maybe that’s true. But what makes you think that you know everything? You may be ruining the galaxy.” “If that is the case, we will have committed a sin for which we can never atone. We certainly do not know everything. But we are well-intentioned. We are changing stellar types for good reason — a reason that you are already in a position to understand and appreciate. What are the longest-lived forms of stars?”

The others looked to Eva Packland. She was the Argo’s astronomical expert. That meant she was also one of the best that humanity, on Gulf City or anywhere else, had to offer. Judith Niles had made her selection of expedition specialists with great care.

“Well.” Eva hesitated. She was lightning-bright, but shy unless the subject was her own field. Then there was no stopping her. “Well, according to our theories of astrophysics, the stars with the longest active lifetimes are the dwarf stars, ones barely above the minimal mass threshold to sustain a hydrogen-helium fusion reaction. On the other hand, we have nothing in our theories that says stellarforming is possible, even in theory.”

“Stellarforming calls for the use of a branch of physics which you have yet to discover; however, your notions on the processes of stellar fusion and associated lifetimes will not be changed by that new knowledge. A blue-white supergiant star must inevitably squander its energy resources, running through fusion fuel supplies in just a few million years. A star like your own native Sol is somewhat better, able to shine for more than ten billion years, before expanding to red giant status and then sinking to cold dimness; but a small red dwarf will shine for better than a hundred billion years; and that — to beings with an adequately long perspective of the future — is a minimal requirement. We are not destroying your region of the galaxy; we are engaged in preserving it, for the needs of long-lived beings like ourselves, and perhaps someday for your needs. That will depend on the choices that you make as a species. “And now, there has been more than our intended interaction between your kind, unless and until you proceed to the next level of development. We wish you good fortune, and we leave you.”

“One more question!” Sy held up his hand again. “The Kermel Objects — “ “No more questions. However, we volunteer the information that we do not control the Kermel Objects. They are in many ways as mysterious to us as they are to you. We propose to do you one other small favor, the nature of which you will shortly discover. But now, goodbye. You can expect no more contact with our kind until some of you learn how to achieve a non-material state.”

Judith Niles turned her head slowly from side to side, her eyes again lingering for a fraction of a second on each person. She stared at Charlene last of all, and it seemed to Charlene that the gaze was longer and harder than at anyone else. Then JN was gone. A woman sat there still, but Charlene knew that what faced her at the end of the table was nothing more than an empty husk. Already, in just a few seconds, the eyes had dimmed and the face frozen into a dead mask. Charlene reached out and gripped Emil’s hand. He said, very softly, “I know. She’s gone, Charlene. But I’m a believer. Somewhere, in some form, she still lives.”

His quiet comment was drowned out by an excited cry from Gus Eldridge. “Take a look at that red shift. We’re moving again — and we’re not just moving, we’re flying.”

Sy was checking their motion relative to the microwave background radiation. “Better than ninety-nine percent of light-speed,” he said cheerfully. “And my guess is that we’re heading right for Gulf City.”

“Ninety-nine percent of light-speed?” Dan Korwin was anything but cheerful. “Then we’re all dead. There’s no way that the Argo’s engines can slow us down enough for a Gulf City rendezvous.”

Sy shook his head. “My bet is we don’t need to worry about that. If they could speed us up without our knowing it, they can slow us down the same way. I wonder just how fast we’re moving. There has to be significant time dilation. Eva, can you get a handle on that, see what sort of a time compression factor we can look forward to? We’re not just going home — we’re going home in style.” Sy, rarely for him, was showing a little excitement. Everyone else, with the possible exception of Korwin, was delighted to be racing home at such high speed. But Charlene alone, it seemed, had heard and understood the main message from the aliens: S-space was not an end point for existence; nor was T-state. Either you returned to N-space, and lived at the same rapid rate as all of humanity through its multimillion years of development; or you abandoned bodily existence completely, to become an abstract entity with no material attributes. In that form you sought to enjoy the hundred-billion or more years that such a transformation might make possible.

For others, it might be easy. Charlene knew that for her the choice would be difficult. Did she want an existence from which all the usual pleasures of life were excluded? She thought not. But could she then face death itself, that dark part of the future that she had always avoided thinking about?

She knew only one thing for sure: both alternatives terrified her.