”Now, after ages, humans are here, and we’re not doing too badly. We’ve got an organ as important as the legs on an amphibian — a highly developed brain. Suddenly, Gaia is becoming self-aware, and looking outward. She’s developing eyes that can look far into space and begin to understand the environment she has to conquer. She’s reaching puberty. Soon she’s going to reproduce.

”I know you’re way ahead of me now. You’re saying, ‘That means human beings are the Earth’s gonads.’ And I am saying that, but the analogy is weak at best. In time, Gaia would probably have sacrificed everything on Earth — all her ecosystems — to promote human beings. Because we’re more than gonads. We are the makers of spores and seeds, we are the ones who understand what Gaia is, and we will soon know how to make other worlds come alive. We will carry Gala’s biological information out into space, on spaceships.

”You know, this idea puts a lot of problems in perspective. Gaia has nurtured us, but she has also goaded us, and sometimes tormented us. She’s used all of her resources to make sure we don’t feel too comfortable. Diseases that used to help regulate ecosystems have suddenly become stimulants. We’re working hard to control all the diseases that harm us, and in doing so, we’re understanding life itself, and coming to understand Gaia. So Gaia uses diseases to stimulate and instruct. Is it any real coincidence, you think, that in the twentieth century, we’ve been hit by so many retrovirus and immune system epidemics? We can’t solve these epidemics without understanding life to the nth degree. Gaia is regulating us, regulating herself, making herself ready for puberty.

”Because that’s what would have happened. Gaia would have sent us out, and we would have carried her within our spaceships. Maybe we would have made Earth unlivable, and that would be one more reason to leave the seed pod, because it’s all dead and shriveled. But that would only be natural. Maybe we would have preserved Earth and gone outward. It’s like the dilemma for parents who either make life a hell for their kids to get them out, or the kids have enough gumption to get out on their own, to break loose. Not that I know these problems firsthand, as a parent…but I remember being a kid.

”Of course, Gaia isn’t the only planetism. There are probably billions of others, some of them part of seeding networks — planetisms with parents. Some are independent. And when they get out into the galaxy, they find they are in competition. Suddenly they’re part of an even larger, much more complex system — a galactic ecology. Planetisms and their extensions — intelligences, technological civilizations-then develop strategies to compete, and to eliminate competition.

”Some planetisms take the obvious route. They exploit and try to spread rapidly. They’re like parasites, or young diseases that haven’t learned how to live harmlessly within a host. Other planetisms react by seeking and destroying the extensions of these parasites. Eventually, I suppose, if the galaxy itself is to come alive — become a ‘galactism’ — it’s going to have to knit together the extensions of all its planetisms, put them in order. So the parasites either fit in and contribute or they are eliminated. But in the meantime, it’s a jungle out there.

”You talked to me a long while back about Frank Drinkwater. Drinkwater, and others like him, have maintained for years that there is no other intelligent life in our galaxy. He claims that the lack of radio signals from distant stars provides the proof. He also thought the lack of von Neumann machines confirmed that we are alone. He was too impatient. Now, obviously, he’s wrong.

”We’ve been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that’s why. Planetisms that don’t know enough to keep quiet, get eaten.

”I’m just about done now. Too tired to elaborate. Maybe you’ve already thought this through. Maybe you can find it useful, anyway.

”You’ve been my own goad and barb sometimes, Art. Thank you for that. You are my very dear friend, and I love you.

”Take care of Ithaca, as much as she needs it.

”My love to Francine and Marty, too.

”I hope and pray you all make it, though for the life of me, I can’t figure out how.”

Harry had known, almost by instinct. He was still alive, hanging on in Los Angeles, too weak to do much besides sleep. Arthur suddenly felt a panic at the thought of a world without him. What would he do? Now, more than ever, Harry was necessary…

“Art,” Francine said. He tried to relax and brought his gaze down from the ceiling, to her face. “Are you thinking about Harry?”

He nodded. “But that’s not all.” Without considering the consequences, moving ahead on an instinct he hoped was as good as Harry’s, he had made up his mind. “There’s something big going on,” he said. “I’ve been afraid to tell you.”

“Can you tell me?” she asked, squinting as if reluctant to hear. Enough change, enough shock in the news without it coming into her house any more than it already had.

“It’s not a government secret,” he said, smiling. He told her about the encounter in the airport, the information in his head, the formation of the network. It spilled from him in a confessional torrent, and he interrupted only to let Gauge in when the pup howled miserably in the garage.

Francine watched her husband’s shining eyes and his beatific face and bit her lip.

When he was finished, he shivered and shrugged all at once. “I sound completely nuts, don’t I?”

She nodded, a tear falling down her cheek.

“All right. I’ll show you something very strange.”

He went to the locked upper-hall cupboard and drew down a cardboard box. In the bedroom, he drew off the lid. Within the box, to his surprise, lay not one but two identical spiders, motionless, their green linear eyes glowing. Francine backed away from the open box.

“I didn’t know there was another,” he said.

“What are they?”

“Our saviors, I think,” Arthur answered.

Will she be saved? he asked the humming expectancy in his head. She reached out to touch the spiders, and he was about to stop her, warn her, when he realized it didn’t matter. If they had wanted her to be “possessed,” the new spider — wherever it came from — would have already taken her. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch one. It did not react. She stroked the chromium body thoughtfully. The spiders moved their legs in unison, and she withdrew her hand hastily. The motion stopped.

“It’s like they’re alive,” she said.

“I think they’re just very complicated machines.”

“They take samples, store information…and they…” She swallowed hard and wrapped her arms around herself. She began to shiver, her teeth clacking. “Ooo-o-h, Arrthur …”

He reached out to hug her tightly, laying his cheek on the top of her head, nuzzling her.

“I’m still here,” he said.

“Everything is so unreal.”

“I know.”

“What…what do we do now?”

“We wait,” he said. “I do what I must do.”

Her expression as she craned her head back to face him was a mix of fascination and repulsion. “I don’t even know that you are who you say you are.”

He nodded. “I can’t prove that.”

“Yes, you can,” she said. “Please, maybe you can. Maybe I know already.” She folded herself more compactly into his arms and hid her face against his chest. “I don’t want to think…I’ve lost you already. Oh, God.” She pulled away again, mouth open. “Don’t tell Marty. You haven’t told Marty?”

“No.”

“He couldn’t take it. He has nightmares already about fire and earthquakes.”

“I won’t tell him.”

“Not until later,” she said firmly. “When we know for sure. What’s going to happen, I mean.”