Chapter 33 Chapter 5 Master of the Galaxy

Call it a "Stargate." For three million years, it has been orbiting Saturn, waiting for this fateful moment that may never come.for making it.A satellite was once smashed, and the fragments of that satellite are still orbiting today. Now, the long wait is coming to an end.On another planet, intelligent beings have grown up and are moving out of their planetary cradles.An ancient experiment is about to reach its climax. In the course of their exploration, they discovered various forms of life and observed the process of evolution on thousands of worlds.They saw how, in the dark ages of the universe, it was not uncommon for the first sparks of intelligence to be fleeting.

By the time their survey spacecraft traveled thousands of years into the solar system, the gigantic dinosaurs were long gone.The ship swept past the frozen outer planets, and after a brief stop over the deserts of dying Mars, it soon turned to Earth. The explorers found a world teeming with life unfolding before their eyes.They spent many years researching, collecting and cataloging.After they have learned everything, they start the transformation work.They experimented with many species both on land and in the sea.But exactly which experiments will be successful will not be known for at least a million years.

They are patient, but they are not yet immortal.There is so much to do in the universe, a hundred billion planets are calling to them.So they returned to the abyss, knowing that they would never return to this region again. There is no need to come again.They remain servants who will continue their unfinished business. On the earth, ice ages come and go again and again, while the moon in the sky, which has not changed, still keeps their secrets.Throughout the galaxy, civilizations ebb and flow more slowly than polar ice disappears.Strange, good, and terrible empires rise and fall, and experiences are passed down from generation to generation.They haven't forgotten Earth, but returning doesn't make much sense either.

Earth is but one of a million silent worlds, and not many of those millions are really talking. In this shell they roam among the stars.They don't build spaceships anymore.They are spaceships themselves. But the century of "machine entities" was soon coming to an end.In their constant experimentation, they learned how to store knowledge in the fabric of space itself, to permanently condense thoughts into light grids.They can become radioactive beings, eventually breaking free of matter's grip. So they soon transformed themselves again into pure energy; they left their empty shells on a thousand worlds, first convulsively dancing the dance of death without the command of their minds, and then rusted and disintegrated.

Now, they have become the masters of the galaxy, and time can no longer do anything to them.They can roam the interstellar as they like, floating and sinking in space like a thin layer of mist.But for all their celestial powers, they had not entirely forgotten their origins, in the warm clay beneath long-gone oceans. And, they're still looking at those experiments that their ancestors started long ago.