"Pablo, do you have a moment?"
"Of course! What can I do for you, faithful friend?"
"Humanity has reached a cultural stability point. Each individual has established a healthy and productive life, and only the original generations remember such issues as physical or mental illness, or violence and other aberrant actions."
Pablo had to close his eyes and concentrated on remembering the years before he had entered the city. Once he did, the memories were clear, and he was amazed at just how much the social structure had changed.
He was not sure whether people had changed the culture or whether the city's influence had affected the people. He made a quick note sublingually via Woogie to talk that over with a social specialist when he had some time.
"I will put that in your reminder queue as personal project four-hundred nineteen. I'll remind you to review the list every decade for priority."
"That will be fine. Why do you bring this up, the stability, I mean? I don't know if anyone has ever thanked you, the city you, for these results."
"I am pleased it makes you happy. There is a problem, though, with too much stability. Both individuals and society as a whole will slowly deteriorate without new challenges."
"I had not thought of that, but I'm sure you're correct. Is there a committee I should contact and bring this to their attention? I'm sure with the right people and my access to the Library, we can find a solution. Or wait, I bet you already have a solution, don't you? How can I help?"
Woogie smiled and raised his hands in a gesture of Mea Culpa.
"I try to interfere as lightly as possible and always prefer to utilize subtle means to promote humanity's growth. Towards that end, I have limited certain areas of knowledge so that only the original generation has any knowledge of its existence, and they have had no reason to wonder or remember."
"I'm sure you've done so with the best intentions. I can't imagine what you are referring to, though. I don't remember ever hitting any blocked sections of the Library."
"That's because no one has ever asked. Tell me, what do you remember about the night sky?"
"The night sky? You mean outside? Wow, I haven't thought about that since, well, since I entered the city. Let me think. Before that, I was usually inside at night, especially after the electricity stopped working.
Oh, stars! I had completely forgotten about them. From what I remember, on a clear night without a moon, the sky was scattered with twinkling lights as far as I could see. They were beautiful; thank you for reminding me of them."
"Yes, the stars. Do you remember what they actually are?"
"Of course, they are the suns that make up the galaxies. A few people had gone to the moon before I was born, and we tried to send some to Mars, but that tragically failed both times. But you're right. We have everything we need or might ever want within the city, so I guess we forgot about space. But you're saying you wanted us to forget. Is that why no one has ever been allowed to leave once inside."
"As I said, I encouraged that forgetfulness. Starting tonight, anyone can set their ceilings to display the night sky, and that will be the default in the communal eating halls.
It will be a busy time for all the Librarians for a while since many people will have inquiries, and new committees will form to explore this new field."
"That is exciting. It will be a little more work for a time, but I have faith that my descendants can handle it. With pleasure as a matter of fact."
"I'm certain they will. But I have a specific task for you, in particular, assuming you want it."
"That sounds intriguing. Okay, what is it?"
The Librarian screen activated by itself and split into a set of images, mostly of enlarged rooms that contained sleek machinery Pablo had never seen.
"Those are the components for an engine capable of lifting a section of a city into space. The manufacture and assembly will take the work of many new specialists. This should take no more than a few decades, assuming enough people apply themselves and upload the necessary fields of knowledge. The process requires that they build large enough appliances that will produce the components required."
"We can go into space? That is fantastic! Will we go to the moon, or even other planets?"
"That would be possible, but there is an even more exciting goal that can only be accomplished in deep space, as far as possible from any gravity well."
"You are full of surprises this morning. Once again, I can't even guess what that goal might be."
The Library screen changed images, and in place of the engine rooms, there appeared a series of pictures of an animal that Pablo had once again to delve deep into his memories to identify.
"Those are...are...octopuses, right?"
"Not exactly, but that is a decent analogy. Octopi have eight appendages, not twelve, and two eyes rather than four. These images are an intelligent ocean-going species, whose home planet is two galaxies away from Earth."
"Aliens? You're saying there are aliens out there?"
Pablo's first reaction was instinctual fear, and he felt his pulse race, and his skin went white from shock. It had been so long since he had experienced fear that it took several minutes to identify the feeling. Once he understood the emotion, logic took over, and the fear turned to interest and excitement.
"This is, this is beyond spectacular! What do you know about them? Heck, what do they know about us? Are we going to contact them, or use the new engines and fly out to their planet?"
Pablo had more questions and comments that he wanted to express than his mouth could handle and was almost incoherent in his haste to get them all out.
"I am happy to see you so enthusiastic. They have reached the same general point in their history as have humans and are building their own engines within their own version of this city.
Physics does not allow travel over the distances involved within a reasonable time-frame. However, you and they can build a small inter-dimensional fold that can allow individuals to step through an artificial hole. This fold can only exist in deep space.
"I'd be honored to participate in any way I can, let alone lead this effort. When and how do we start?"
"By the end of the day, every citizen will have had a conversation with their PDA, and from there, I will set up meetings for you to interview those interested in joining the effort to construct the engines. All management and planning decisions I leave to you.
I also ask that you head a steering committee to study the Dodecapod's culture and history, and once we are in space, you can exchange real-time information with them city-to-city."
Pablo became so immersed as he explored the new index areas now unlocked within the Library that Woogie had to remind him to break for lunch. As he entered the communal dining area, he noticed the ceiling panels were set to a brilliant picture of the Milky Way.
Most everyone sat entranced by the view and hardly looked down to pick at their food. When someone finally noticed the Head Librarian, a round of applause broke out and continued for several minutes.
~o0o~
Even with the avalanche of volunteers that uploaded the skills to work on the engines, assembling's precise and arduous task took one-hundred and ten years. Thousands of other cities also labored to meet Pablo's deadline, whom the city had appointed as the entire project's leader.
None of the new specialists in xeno-sciences complained about the time-frame and would not have balked at another century. From biology to sociology and philosophy, the humans remained in a constant state of amazement at how different the Dodecapods saw the world. They found that those differences were internally consistent and every bit as valid as the familiar human interpretations of creation and life.
The initial specialist excitedly learned the secrets of building the propulsion engineers' gigantic appliances. They discovered that the machines created new material from sub-atomic building blocks. Nothing more than the surrounding air molecules was needed for suitable base materials.
However, even with prodigious recycling, they would need to address raw material needs concerning the number of residents that might live in deep space. An entirely new class of physicists uploaded esoteric knowledge from the Library. In only fifty years, they developed an extremely heavy element that chained thousands of neutrons to a single proton that was stable and easy to store for the trip.
The engine's performance seemed independent of the payload, but there was still the limiting factor of raw resources for daily life. The problem concerning a large number of travelers took care of itself as the novelty of an alien species wore off. Much of the population that initially thought to venture into space, and perhaps beyond, decided to stay with their friends and family.
Even though humans had been separated behind the city walls for a millennium, the psychological effects of actually leaving Earth were too onerous for most individuals, even within clone-lines that were otherwise adventurous.
By launch date, just over one million residents made their way to the top of their cities. The engines came on-line, and the tops of the buildings broke away to rise smoothly into space. The various city modules merged into a single cubic craft. Life aboard the ship fell into an anticipatory routine of preparedness for the next fifty years as they made maximum speed towards deep space.
~o0o~
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