Our empire stopped expanding
And
We stayed that way for a long time
Long time
Long time
We heard voices
Once
From deep in the Core
But
They were so far away
And
We heard them only briefly
Before they were gone
#
The great, slow tides of the galaxy
Began
To
Tear our empire apart
To stretch it
To smear it
We scarcely noticed
We scarcely noticed
Not a youthful race any longer
We had ceased even to dream
#
And then you people came along
With your crazy chattering
With your crazy chattering
Less distant from the empire
Than the empire is wide
We were very surprised
#
We sprayed warships into existence1
And tried hard to remember
How to fight
We wanted to put on a powerful display
This time
We wanted there to be no question
This time
But when we got here
You did not surrender
In fact you fought us
Better than we thought you could
Not very well
Not very well
But better than we expected
#
We began to wonder
You did not seem stupid
To us
And yet you fought us
When
You knew you could not win
How strange
We began to wonder if
Perhaps
We had made a mistake
#
We would have killed you all
Just to be sure
But now you have surrendered
And we are glad
We depart now, depart now
to contemplate our mistake
1 (This phrase is a peculiar artifact of the J-T translation. Most versions render this as “We assembled a fleet of war.”)
APPENDIX B:
HISTORICAL TIMELINE
Note: If the images in Appendices B and C are not easily readable on your ebook reader, you may download a PDF of them at: http://ReAnimus.com/authors/wilmccarthy/a6appendices.pdf
APPENDIX C:
ASTRONOMICAL CHARTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Engineer/Novelist/Journalist/Entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel (previously SciFi channel), where his popular "Lab Notes" column ran from 1999 through 2009. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick awards, and contributed to projects that won a Webbie, an Eppie, a Game Developers' Choice Award, and a General Excellence National Magazine Award. In addition, his imaginary world of "P2", from the novel LOST IN TRANSMISSION, was rated one of the 10 best science fiction planets of all time by Discover magazine. His short fiction has graced the pages of magazines like Analog, Asimov's, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable BLOOM, Amazon.com "Best of Y2K" THE COLLAPSIUM (a national bestseller) and, most recently, TO CRUSH THE MOON. He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines, including WIRED, Discover, GQ, Popular Mechanics, IEEE Spectrum, and the Journal of Applied Polymer Science. Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics, McCarthy is now the president and Chief Technology Officer of RavenBrick LLC in Denver, CO, a developer of smart window technologies. He lives in Colorado with his family.
Find more books by Wil McCarthy at http://ReAnimus.com/authors/wilmccarthy