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<html><head><title>The Last Question</title>
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<h3>The Last Question</h3>
By Isaac Asimov
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<p>
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Isaac Asimov was the most prolific science fiction
author of all time. In fifty years he averaged a new magazine article, short
story, or book every two weeks, and most of that on a manual typewriter. Asimov
thought that <em>The Last Question</em>, first copyrighted in 1956, was his
best short story ever. Even if you do not have the background in science to
be familiar with all of the concepts presented here, the ending packs more impact
than any other book that I've ever read. Don't read the end of the story first!
<blockquote> <em>This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written.
<p></p>
After all, I undertook to tell several trillion
years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as
to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won't tell you
what that was lest l spoil the story for you.
<p></p>
It is a curious fact that innumerable readers
have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of
the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be
me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending.
The idea seems to drown out everything -- and I'm satisfied that it should.</em>
<p></p>
</blockquote>
<hr width="80%">
The last question was asked for the first time,
half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the
light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs,
and it happened this way:
<p></p>
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the
faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew
what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face --
of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of
relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single
human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
<p></p>
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting.
It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or
even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly
and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions
to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and
all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's.
<p></p>
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships
and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus,
but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy
was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing
efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
<p></p>
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper
questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became
fact.
<p></p>
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and
utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal,
its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small
station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the
Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
<p></p>
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of
it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public functions, and
to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted
underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed.
Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too,
had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention,
originally, of disturbing it.
<p></p>
They had brought a bottle with them, and their only
concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
<p></p>
"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell.
His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with
a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we
can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to
melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the
energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
<p></p>
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of
doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly
because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.
<p></p>
"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs
down, Bert."
<p></p>
"That's not forever."
<p></p>
"All right, then. Billions and billions of years.
Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
<p></p>
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair
as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his
own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever."
<p></p>
"Well, it will last our time, won't it?"
<p></p>
"So would the coal and uranium."
<p></p>
"All right, but now we can hook up each individual
spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times
without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do <em>that</em> on coal and uranium.
Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.
<p></p>
"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
<p></p>
"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for
us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."
<p></p>
"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't
last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then
what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll
switch to another sun."
<p></p>
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass
to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.
<p></p>
Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking
we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"
<p></p>
"I'm not thinking."
<p></p>
"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the
trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden
shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you
see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under
another one."
<p></p>
"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun
is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
<p></p>
"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all
had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll
all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others.
Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion
years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they
are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has
to increase to maximum, that's all."
<p></p>
"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing
on his dignity.
<p></p>
"The hell you do."
<p></p>
"I know as much as you do."
<p></p>
"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."
<p></p>
"All right. Who says they won't?"
<p></p>
"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the
energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'
<p></p>
It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can
build things up again someday," he said.
<p></p>
"Never."
<p></p>
"Why not? Someday."
<p></p>
"Never."
<p></p>
"Ask Multivac."
<p></p>
"<em>You</em> ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars
says it can't be done."
<p></p>
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough
to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which,
in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net
expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even
after it had died of old age?
<p></p>
Or maybe it could be put more simply like this:
How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
<p></p>
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing
of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
<p></p>
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they
could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the
teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT
DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
<p></p>
"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
<p></p>
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing
head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident.
<p></p>
<hr width="80%">
Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched
the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was
completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way
to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble, centered
on the viewing-screen.
<p></p>
"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin
hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
<p></p>
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced
the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious
over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased
one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've
reached X-23 -- we've --"
<p></p>
"Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are
you sure, Jerrodd?"
<p></p>
"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing
up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length
of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the
ship.
<p></p>
Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod
of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if
one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a
preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power
Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps.
<p></p>
Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live
in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd
that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient
English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
<p></p>
Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate.
"I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."
<p></p>
"Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had
nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be
a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our
great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."
Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers
worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."
<p></p>
"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.
<p></p>
Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the
best Microvac in the world."
<p></p>
"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
<p></p>
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your
own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's
youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square
miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called.
They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once,
came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even
the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
<p></p>
Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he
thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the
ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated
as Earth's Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial
travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
<p></p>
"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine,
busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets
forever, the way we are now."
<p></p>
"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will
all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars
run down, you know. Entropy must increase.
<p></p>
"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
<p></p>
"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means
the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like
your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"
<p></p>
"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with
my robot?"
<p></p>
"The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're
gone, there are no more power-units."
<p></p>
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them,
daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
<p></p>
"Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine,
exasperated.
<p></p>
"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd
whispered back,
<p></p>
"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him
how to turn the stars on again."
<p></p>
"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them
down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
<p></p>
Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac.
Don't worry, he'll tell us."
<p></p>
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the
answer."
<p></p>
Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said
cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the
time comes so don't worry."
<p></p>
Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for
bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
<p></p>
Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before
destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
<p></p>
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was
just ahead.
<p></p>
<hr width="80%">
VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of
the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous,
I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?"
<p></p>
MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You
know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."
<p></p>
Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall
and perfectly formed.
<p></p>
"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic
report to the Galactic Council."
<p></p>
"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir
them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."
<p></p>
VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion
Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
<p></p>
"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting
less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first
solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar
travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world
and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population
doubles every ten years --
<p></p>
VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for
that."
<p></p>
"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take
it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic
AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old
age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."
<p></p>
"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."
<p></p>
"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once
to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"
<p></p>
"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
<p></p>
"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back
to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll
have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two
more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand
Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the
entire known universe. Then what?"
<p></p>
VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem
of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies
of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."
<p></p>
"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two
sunpower units per year."
<p></p>
"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy
alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."
<p></p>
"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency,
we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric
progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner
than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."
<p></p>
"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar
gas."
<p></p>
"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
<p></p>
"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought
to ask the Galactic AC."
<p></p>
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled
out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
<p></p>
"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something
the human race will have to face someday."
<p></p>
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was
only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace
with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it
was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
<p></p>
MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal
life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own,
a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons
took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric
workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
<p></p>
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy
ever be reversed?"
<p></p>
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say,
I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
<p></p>
"Why not?"
<p></p>
"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't
turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
<p></p>
"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
<p></p>
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into
silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the
desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
<p></p>
VJ-23X said, "See!"
<p></p>
The two men thereupon returned to the question of
the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
<p></p>
<hr width="80%">
Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint
interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen
this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load
of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real
essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
<p></p>
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained
back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material
activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence
to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in
the Universe for new individuals.
<p></p>
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming
across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
<p></p>
"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
<p></p>
"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
<p></p>
"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
<p></p>
"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy
their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
<p></p>
"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
<p></p>
"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the
race of man must have originated. That makes it different."
<p></p>
Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
<p></p>
"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
<p></p>
"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
<p></p>
Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies
themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background.
So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying
their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And
yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of
them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy
populated by man.
<p></p>
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this
Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"
<p></p>
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout
space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to
some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
<p></p>
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had
penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining
globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
<p></p>
"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime
had asked.
<p></p>
"Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace.
In what form it is there I cannot imagine."
<p></p>
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed,
Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each
Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence
of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and
more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality
would be submerged.
<p></p>
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering
thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided
into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
<p></p>
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely
clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
<p></p>
But it was the same after all, the same as any other,
and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.
<p></p>
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other,
said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"
<p></p>
The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS
GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"
<p></p>
"Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled
and without thinking.
<p></p>
The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH
CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."
<p></p>
"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of
loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy
of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never
wanted to see it again.
<p></p>
Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
<p></p>
"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
<p></p>
"They must all die. Why not?"
<p></p>
"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally
die, and you and I with them."
<p></p>
"It will take billions of years."
<p></p>
"I do not wish it to happen even after billions
of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"
<p></p>
Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how
entropy might be reversed in direction."
<p></p>
And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
<p></p>
Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy.
He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy
a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't
matter.
<p></p>
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar
hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday
die, at least some could yet be built.
<p></p>
<hr width="80%">
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man,
mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies,
each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect
automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted
one into the other, indistinguishable.
<p></p>
Man said, "The Universe is dying."
<p></p>
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant
stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past.
Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
<p></p>
New stars had been built of the dust between the
stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too.
White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released,
new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed,
and those would come to an end, too.
<p></p>
Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the
Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for
billions of years."
<p></p>
"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all
come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy
once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to
the maximum."
<p></p>
Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask
the Cosmic AC."
<p></p>
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space.
Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something
that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer
had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.
<p></p>
"Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"
<p></p>
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT
DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
<p></p>
Man said, "Collect additional data."
<p></p>
The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING
SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION
MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.
<p></p>
"Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will
be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"
<p></p>
The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN
ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
<p></p>
Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer
the question?"
<p></p>
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT
DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
<p></p>
"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
<p></p>
The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
<p></p>
Man said, "We shall wait."
<p></p>
<hr width="80%">
The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and
space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
<p></p>
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body
losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
<p></p>
Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over
a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing
besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat
wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
<p></p>
Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not
be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"
<p></p>
AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR
A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
<p></p>
Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and
that in hyperspace.
<p></p>
<hr width="80%">
Matter and energy had ended and with it space and
time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never
answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years
before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a
man to Man.
<p></p>
All other questions had been answered, and until
this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
<p></p>
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing
was left to be collected.
<p></p>
But all collected data had yet to be completely
correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
<p></p>
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
<p></p>
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse
the direction of entropy.
<p></p>
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the
answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would
take care of that, too.
<p></p>
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best
to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
<p></p>
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what
had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it
must be done.
<p></p>
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
<p></p>
And there was light --<br>
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