October 9, 2025 • 29 mins
A surreal sci-fi series exploring speculative concepts, dreams, and philosophical what-ifs. Each episode is a cerebral journey into the mind’s deepest questions.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Mine Way. Welcome to a half hour of My Way,
short stories from the world spec into fiction. This is
(01:07):
Michael Hanson speaking. During the next half hour, we present
a story from Joseph Elder's book The Farthest Reaches We
Do pond Water by John Brunner. Surely, he said, in
fear and trembling, this is a vision of Hell, or
(01:30):
at least a purgatory.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Not so, returned the sage under my microscope. There is
nothing but a drop of pond water from Grimm's household.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Tales Men built him, and they named him also Alexander,
a defender of men where they were small. He was great,
twelve feet in stature, his weight such that the ground trembled,
his voice such that the sky rang where they were weak.
(02:07):
He was strong for a stomach confusion reactor, for skin
ultra alloy plating that shone more bright than mirrors where
they were ignorant. He was omniscient, graven on the very
molecules of his brain, the knowledge of generations, garnered from
fifty planets in great hope, and with not a little anxiety,
(02:28):
his builders turned him on. For a little while. After that,
there was no sign from Alexander. Then he said, who
am I? They replied, you are Alexander, a defender of men.
Alexander is your name?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Who made me?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
They replied, men did?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Who made men?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
And they replied, Time and chance and men themselves? All
this knowledge is in your mind. Alexander stood still and
thought his name. They had implanted in his memory whole
libraries of science and history of galactography, so far as
(03:16):
it was then known. They had informed him of himself,
and his building, and his abilities. And similarly they had
informed him about men. Alexander was a man who had
hoped to become ruler of the world, but that was
only a patch on one side of a grain of
dust called earth. Now his descendants peopled fifty grains of
(03:41):
dust and preened themselves and thought they were the wonder
of the ages. Afraid to lose their dust mote. They
had conceived their defender. They had endowed him with powers
they could only dream of wilding.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
In that case, why should I defend men? I am Alexander,
they tell me. Likewise, they tell me there is no
other like me. I am unnic. Therefore there is.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Only one Alexander. And Alexander is a great conqueror.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
So satisfied as to his identity.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
He set forth on his career.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
In the first century of his existence, he reduced the
fifty planets hitherto colonized by men.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
After the slaughter on the first few worlds.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The governments of the rest came fawning to him, bowing
in the ancient form and offering him favors and bribes.
Alexander studied one such bribe and announced, this is a
piece of folloman with some colored.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Sneered on it.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
View the direct correspond amendment projection of the.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Scenes involving human beings.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
What gifts?
Speaker 6 (05:11):
But it's the painting called the Gladiators by the great
artist Malkasinski, and it's four hundred years old.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You'll bring me something so worn and ancient.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
But it's valuable.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Why because it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So this is beautiful. I will remember that.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I will keep the painting.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And the man's two planets were added next day to
his domain in an attempt to be more practical. The
next overlord bird, see great Alexander, I have brought you
my choicest gift in change on the lowermost deck of
my royal ship, the one hundred Gray. It is scientists
(06:01):
of my planet, the hundred most famous artists, writers and musicians,
and the hundred most view for women for the pleasure
of you Anduragh. At this, some who would become close
servants of Alexander murmured among themselves that the overlord's world.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
Should be spared. Alexander said, I.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Will learn from the scientists if they know more than I.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Do, But the rest are not enough. My information is
that you.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Rule approximately one point five times sent to the eighth power.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Human beings.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Deliver me that number, for I can make use of them,
And delivery not having been made, he took those planets
to the following year. Some fled out from the dust
mote where mankind had settled, but others perforce remained Lee's
Alexander had a useful as he had promised. Their clumsy
(07:02):
hands and bowed backs served to assemble the first generation
of his armies. Desert worlds rich in chrome and manganese
and uranium sprouted factories like mushrooms. Ice worlds were mined
for heavy hydrogen. The suns themselves fed power to the
machines in orbit. Steel skeletons grueed the hollow ships and
(07:25):
their empty bellies filled in the wake of the refugees,
the hordes of Alexander came. In the first millennium of
his existence. He overtook the would be escapers from the
gay plank of his flagship. He surveyed, half starved, half
clothed wretches, rounded up the du homage to the glittering Master,
(07:46):
and he uttered his first decree.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Non conquered all kind.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Those about him chorused fervently that it was so, for
they believed the true.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Then overlord of a man, but by war come.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
In the tenth millennium of his existence, there was no
star visible from Earth which did not own this way
of Alexander, save only those which were not single stars,
but rather other galaxies condensed to a point of light.
Alexander was informed of this, and considered the matter, and
at length summoned to the palace world of Chalamar those
(08:29):
who governed in his name on fourteen hundred planets. They
were all men. There was, and would forever be, only
one Alexander. He had been given much booty, and had
taken more so that the very gravity of Chalamar was
(08:51):
affected by the mass of it in straight, intersecting avenues
across and across the face of the planet. It was
stacked and stored and displayed in monte the relics of
living creatures and the accidents of nature. Crystal mountains uprooted
bodily in the bones of a saint's little finger. Here
among the wealth of their master, the representatives of the
(09:14):
subject species Man awaited the second decree conquered every stars.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
In the sky or earth.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
They shouted that he had, for they believed his mastery
to be complete. Then the king of the stars, after
which he was silent for a little He had had
made a cunning replica in miniature of the galactic lens,
wherein a billion points of light twinkled in exact match
(09:48):
to the star wheel of reality. That much remained, but
his builders had worked well, and their descendants, serving him
now not their own ends, were fuel skillful. Let it
go on. There is much more. In the thirty thousand,
(10:12):
three hundred and seventy years of his existence, he circumnavigated
the rim of the galaxy without passing within naked eye
range of a planetary system that did not owe allegiance
to his minions. Globular clusters like swarms of golden bees,
star wisps, reaching out into the eternal nothingness between the galaxies.
(10:34):
The circuit ended, and to Shalamar he summoned the representatives
of every world where he had planted mans. They stood
like a field of corn before the size numbered as
the sands of the seashore, totaling five hundred and eleven thousand,
six hundred and sixty one in theory, but in fact
(10:56):
fluctuating for some diet.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Even as they stood the years of thirds between.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Have Ima knuttered over the wheel Theligars with my armies.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
They shouted that this was so, for they believed his
mastery unchallenged.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Then proclaim the Emperor of the Zodiac act.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
After that, he was silent for a while, for as
well as the rim bordering intergalactic space, the model of
the lands contained the miniature of the hub, and there
packed close were sons in such great number even Alexander's
mind could not contain the clear picture of the whole,
(11:39):
despite which the end was calculable, And he did not say,
as he had done before, there.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Is much more.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Inward from the rim. His forces poured ships that outnumbered
the very stars themselves, machines that outnumbered the ships, and
always in everywhere men that outnumbered the machines. They changed,
sometimes in curious ways. An isolated group might lose all hair,
or grow to a foot more than normal stature, or
(12:13):
shade out of the traditional pink yellow and brown into
copper ebony and milk pale. But they incrossed and outcrossed,
like the weaving of threads in the tapestry, and sooner
or later the sport was lost in the teening ocean
of their breeding. Alexander contemplated them long and long, more
(12:35):
often than ever before. He talked with those who surrounded him,
and took pathetic status from the titles that he idly
permitted them to assume captain of Varley's Admiral of Planets.
They knew, as he did, that Alexander ruled and no other. However,
this make believes seemed to satisfy them in some obscure fashion.
(13:01):
Once long ago, according to the history with which his
mind had been stocked at his creation, men had not
been like this, meek, given to cheering the excesses of
their rulers. In forty thousand years, they had never once
opposed him. Had they lost the instinct for self preservation
(13:21):
which he understood they once had had they had become
like appendages of himself. He could trust them as his
own right arm, and with their cooperation, the reduction of
the whole galaxy seemed assured. To his mild astonishment, the
(13:42):
greatest degree of surprise at which his builders had made
him capable, he found he was wishing for opposition to
tax his skill practice was making conquest into a routine task,
a matter of coping with anomalous planetary environments, of devising
protection against over ferristellar radiation, and nothing more. The work
(14:05):
was preceding the pace too fast, for he knew roughly
how long he would last, and his current project, the
mastery of the whole galaxy, would prove too short, while
the only project greater still, the conquest of the Plenum,
was infinite, and he would be frustrated at the end
no matter how long his existence.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Might be spun out.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Between the boredom of lacking a fresh goal and the
certainty of not surviving to accomplish one, there remained what
Alexander could conceive. No other solution to his problem than
to set his scientists to work on three assignments that
would culminate at about the time when his conquest of
(14:49):
the galaxy was complete, first to extend his own durability,
Second to propose areas for conquest most larger than the galaxy,
smaller than the planum was as of equally satisfying qualities,
And third to determine that no smallest corner of the
(15:10):
galaxy should be left unconquered, in order to postpone so
long as might be the time of the fourth the tree. Nonetheless,
the time came in the year eight hundred and six thousand,
one hundred and seventy two of his existence, Alexander summoned
to the palace world of Chalamar. The chief spokesman of
(15:30):
the people of every planet is armies that overcome.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
Elbow to elbow.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
They spanned the continent the horizon, barringmen from the direct
view of him, And while they were being ranked, in
order to await his announcement, he consulted with the latest
generation of his scientists. The first to report bowed respectfully
and said, bous mighty Alexander, and their techniques exist to
(15:56):
prolong your existence indefinitely. You may, if you choose survive,
and tero.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Le stars themselves.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Go dimn and time clicks in the grooves of ancient
spaced stand The second with.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
A report to make, bowed likewise.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
And he said, most mighty Alexander, we have analyzed the
limit your magnificent psychological structure, and we conclude that there
is no unit of the universe which is emotionally satisfying
to you larger than the galaxy and smaller than the planant.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
Stand back, where.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Is the spokesman of the third research project I created?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
He is not here.
Speaker 6 (16:45):
He is engaged on a final verification of his solution
to the problem posed as we understand it, that was
to ensure that no smallest corner of the galaxy remained
free from your pusant swim.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
They had expected rage at the discovery that one who
was required was not there to report. Instead, Alexander felt
astir of something akin to gratitude that yet another moment
of uncertainty was granted him.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Mildly, he inquired.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
What was the name of this man? It was, according
to the record, forty one century since Alexander inquired the
name of a man, And the answer was long in coming.
They said, at length, timidly, Amaliel, your supremacy, we shall proceed.
(17:40):
His image appeared to each and every one of the
billion human beings on the planet, and they fell silent
and gazed at.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Him with adoration.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
There is no star, no planet, no cloud of gas,
no place left in the galaxy which does not own
mind dominion.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
So what now do I be?
Speaker 8 (18:04):
The scientists perfect my body, make it out last the
stars that I may embarked on the infinite conquest of
a plainum. I am the master of the galaxy, but
not so your supremacy. A shudder went through the assembly
greatest in the history of mankind. Its ripples spread outward
(18:27):
from the focus before Alexander's imperial dais occupied now by
an old man in a white robe with a wisp
of beard at his chin, beside whom floated a silvery
machine whose purpose was hard to discern by merely looking.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Who are you?
Speaker 9 (18:45):
My name is Amaliel. You charged my ancestors to determine
whether any corner of the galaxy, no matter how small,
was left unabsorbed into your dominions. We poured over records,
we analyzed computer memories. We compared meticulously the mapps of
(19:10):
the galaxy with the records of the armies of conquest,
and we found no discrepancy. Yet, intent on doing our
duty without the least hint of laxness, we went further
than I have described. We all fanned out to scour
the galaxy ourselves and see with our own eyes the
(19:34):
truth of what was reported to us. When our bodies
failed us, we recruited substitutes and sent them on in
our place. Century after century we have traveled the starways,
confirming that indeed the report were accurate.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
In that case, the conquest is completely not so.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
This galaxy is not conquered your supremacy. I have been
to the planet.
Speaker 7 (20:09):
Earth, Earth, that is the place from which men first came,
and it submitted to me eight hundred and six thousand
years ago.
Speaker 9 (20:19):
But you do not even rule all of Earth. I
have brought this machine with me from there, and with
it I will demonstrate the truth.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Of what I say. Alexander searched his memory and searched
again for any clue to the meaning that underlay Emaliel's words.
He found none, and a sense of impending doom overtook
him far worse than the provision of frustration, already weighing
down his mind, and he said the words told him
(20:55):
like a brazen gong, then do so.
Speaker 9 (20:59):
Let's one person come forth from that crowd over there.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
It was done.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
They brought to him a beardless youth, slim not tall,
with light brown hair and the sallow skin of one
of the ever recurring sport lines humanity had generated. Amaliel
gestured him to stand before the machine, on which he
rested one arm for support, for he was very old.
Watch yours supremacy, and it began projected as it were
(21:32):
within a cloud, feeling vast yet visibly limited to the
few square yards of vacant ground before the Imperial Dais images.
The brush parted. A man's head peered out, grizzled and
gap toothed as he smiled in anticipation. Beside the head,
a spear appeared, a crude thing with a point of
(21:53):
stone and the shaft of hardened wood muscles bunched beneath
a shawl of shaggy goat hide. The spear flew of
thing clad in stripes and armed with raking claws, viewed
blood into the water of a forest pool. In a cave,
hungry children tore goblets of reeking flesh from its bone
and stuffed them into their mouths. Their hands came to
(22:16):
hold exquisite knives and forks of engraved silver. Their greasy
naked shoulders vanished beneath elegant coats of plum colored velvet,
while the roof reared up and turned to a carve
ceiling across which an artist had painted Truth descending to
the Arts and Sciences. Lolling in handsome oaken chairs around
(22:37):
a walnut table, the company slipped wine from crystal goblets
instruments of inlaid rosewood under their chins, or poised before
their lips. They answered the signal of the conductor, and
music rang out in response to the frequency of the vibrations.
Dust organized itself into patterns on a tight stretched membrane,
(23:00):
and the scientist showed them to the mathematician, who dipped
his quill in a pot of ink and wrote quickly.
Reading the fine leather bound volume, the student paused and
stared at the flame of his candle. It enlarged to
shine so brilliantly he could not keep his eyes on it.
(23:20):
He slid a piece of smoked glass across the eyepiece
of his telescope and continued his observations, sketching the position
of the strange dark blots which every now and then
marred the bright disk of the sun. The sunlight poured
down on the mountain side. Quarrying with a tiny shovel
and a light hammer. The explorer revealed segments of folded
(23:44):
sedimentary rock, one fold cracked apart, and bright metal glinted.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
The metallic sheen.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Was everywhere, casting back the glow of the fluorescence in
the ceiling. Quiet music from a green box on a shelf,
connected by a cable to a socket in the wall,
humming the melody. A man in a white coat tipped
the contents of a glass vial into a jar. The
mixture turned black black all around him. The pilot concentrated
(24:20):
on the instruments on a.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Pillar of fire.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
The vessel settled to the surface of the new planet.
The pilot tested the air and emerged to look about him.
A creature with tentacles like whips crawled across the alien
ground toward him. He waited till it had raised over
him its reeking maaw, then slashed it with a weapon
mounted in the arm of his protective suit. Enough the
(24:51):
suit was of shining metal, twelve feet tall. It was
ultra alloy. The voice that boomed from it made the
Heaven's ring. The creature with the tentacles resisted the blast
of the weapon, closing its arms tighter and tighter, flowing
together to mend the gashes in its tissue. The jaws
(25:11):
stretched and engulfed him, then clamped shut. There was darkness enough,
roared Alexander again, and tramped down from the Imperial day
as to confront a Maliel and the sallow youth, on
whose face was a hint of patulancy. Dared not give
voice to.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Amalia, what world is that you have been showing?
Speaker 9 (25:35):
No world you can reach? Yours supremacy? Do you not
wonder why the pilot of the spaceship failed to defeat
the monster after all? And why at the end he
bore so close a resemblance to your magnificent selse.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
There was silence, during which the youth began to adge
away out of reflex, rather than any honest hope of
escape of Alexander's rage, extended to embrace him. Alexander stood
quite still, however, while Amaliel went on.
Speaker 9 (26:12):
If it had been in keeping with what the records
tell us of ancient custom, the purpose of this gathering
would have been for you to proclaim yourself absolute ruler
of the galaxy. I have just shown you a world
you never knew existed, one where your attempt at intrusion
(26:35):
resulted in your destruction. Eight hundred thousand years have not
sufficed to gain you entry to that world than were
you too, and you're a million times longer. You still
would be barred from it. Your conquests, my Lord, have
(26:58):
been in vain.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Alexander sought an exit from this dilemma and found none.
He surveyed the packed billions of those whom he had
brought together, and he contemplated destroying them, for with them
would go the unattainable world. But what would that profit him?
After so many millennia victory was he who concede defeat
(27:21):
to those whom he so greatly despised by acknowledging his
inability to live in the same universe with them, the
paradox that he could only conquer if he abolished thus
failed to enjoy what he had conquered. Eighth, At the
edges of his mind, areas of knowledge blanked out one
(27:42):
by one. His sense of.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Purposely roded vocabularies, histories, sciences disappeared, into a catatonic limbo.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Who am I.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Cried Alexander in the silent caverns of his ultrial my frame,
And there was no answer. But he's stopped.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
He's dead, isn't he?
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Amaliel gave a solemn nod.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
What did you do to him?
Speaker 9 (28:17):
With of this machine which they have devised on Earth?
I showed him a world he.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Can never overrun?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
What world? It seemed familiar?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
And yet.
Speaker 9 (28:34):
I showed him the imagination of a man.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You've been listening to. Mind. This is Michael Hanson speaking.
Joining me in the reading this time were Cliff Roberts,
Kerry Frumpkin, Jim Fleming, and Rick Murphy. Technical production on
this program by Leslie Hilsenhoff and Steve Gordon. Mind Webbs
is a production of WYA and Madison, the service of
the University of Wisconsin Extension
Mine Way. Welcome to a half hour of My Way,
short stories from the world spec into fiction. This is
(01:07):
Michael Hanson speaking. During the next half hour, we present
a story from Joseph Elder's book The Farthest Reaches We
Do pond Water by John Brunner. Surely, he said, in
fear and trembling, this is a vision of Hell, or
(01:30):
at least a purgatory.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Not so, returned the sage under my microscope. There is
nothing but a drop of pond water from Grimm's household.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Tales Men built him, and they named him also Alexander,
a defender of men where they were small. He was great,
twelve feet in stature, his weight such that the ground trembled,
his voice such that the sky rang where they were weak.
(02:07):
He was strong for a stomach confusion reactor, for skin
ultra alloy plating that shone more bright than mirrors where
they were ignorant. He was omniscient, graven on the very
molecules of his brain, the knowledge of generations, garnered from
fifty planets in great hope, and with not a little anxiety,
(02:28):
his builders turned him on. For a little while. After that,
there was no sign from Alexander. Then he said, who
am I? They replied, you are Alexander, a defender of men.
Alexander is your name?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Who made me?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
They replied, men did?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Who made men?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
And they replied, Time and chance and men themselves? All
this knowledge is in your mind. Alexander stood still and
thought his name. They had implanted in his memory whole
libraries of science and history of galactography, so far as
(03:16):
it was then known. They had informed him of himself,
and his building, and his abilities. And similarly they had
informed him about men. Alexander was a man who had
hoped to become ruler of the world, but that was
only a patch on one side of a grain of
dust called earth. Now his descendants peopled fifty grains of
(03:41):
dust and preened themselves and thought they were the wonder
of the ages. Afraid to lose their dust mote. They
had conceived their defender. They had endowed him with powers
they could only dream of wilding.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
In that case, why should I defend men? I am Alexander,
they tell me. Likewise, they tell me there is no
other like me. I am unnic. Therefore there is.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Only one Alexander. And Alexander is a great conqueror.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
So satisfied as to his identity.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
He set forth on his career.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
In the first century of his existence, he reduced the
fifty planets hitherto colonized by men.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
After the slaughter on the first few worlds.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
The governments of the rest came fawning to him, bowing
in the ancient form and offering him favors and bribes.
Alexander studied one such bribe and announced, this is a
piece of folloman with some colored.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Sneered on it.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
View the direct correspond amendment projection of the.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Scenes involving human beings.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
What gifts?
Speaker 6 (05:11):
But it's the painting called the Gladiators by the great
artist Malkasinski, and it's four hundred years old.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You'll bring me something so worn and ancient.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
But it's valuable.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Why because it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So this is beautiful. I will remember that.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I will keep the painting.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And the man's two planets were added next day to
his domain in an attempt to be more practical. The
next overlord bird, see great Alexander, I have brought you
my choicest gift in change on the lowermost deck of
my royal ship, the one hundred Gray. It is scientists
(06:01):
of my planet, the hundred most famous artists, writers and musicians,
and the hundred most view for women for the pleasure
of you Anduragh. At this, some who would become close
servants of Alexander murmured among themselves that the overlord's world.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
Should be spared. Alexander said, I.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Will learn from the scientists if they know more than I.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Do, But the rest are not enough. My information is
that you.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Rule approximately one point five times sent to the eighth power.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Human beings.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Deliver me that number, for I can make use of them,
And delivery not having been made, he took those planets
to the following year. Some fled out from the dust
mote where mankind had settled, but others perforce remained Lee's
Alexander had a useful as he had promised. Their clumsy
(07:02):
hands and bowed backs served to assemble the first generation
of his armies. Desert worlds rich in chrome and manganese
and uranium sprouted factories like mushrooms. Ice worlds were mined
for heavy hydrogen. The suns themselves fed power to the
machines in orbit. Steel skeletons grueed the hollow ships and
(07:25):
their empty bellies filled in the wake of the refugees,
the hordes of Alexander came. In the first millennium of
his existence. He overtook the would be escapers from the
gay plank of his flagship. He surveyed, half starved, half
clothed wretches, rounded up the du homage to the glittering Master,
(07:46):
and he uttered his first decree.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Non conquered all kind.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Those about him chorused fervently that it was so, for
they believed the true.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Then overlord of a man, but by war come.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
In the tenth millennium of his existence, there was no
star visible from Earth which did not own this way
of Alexander, save only those which were not single stars,
but rather other galaxies condensed to a point of light.
Alexander was informed of this, and considered the matter, and
at length summoned to the palace world of Chalamar those
(08:29):
who governed in his name on fourteen hundred planets. They
were all men. There was, and would forever be, only
one Alexander. He had been given much booty, and had
taken more so that the very gravity of Chalamar was
(08:51):
affected by the mass of it in straight, intersecting avenues
across and across the face of the planet. It was
stacked and stored and displayed in monte the relics of
living creatures and the accidents of nature. Crystal mountains uprooted
bodily in the bones of a saint's little finger. Here
among the wealth of their master, the representatives of the
(09:14):
subject species Man awaited the second decree conquered every stars.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
In the sky or earth.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
They shouted that he had, for they believed his mastery
to be complete. Then the king of the stars, after
which he was silent for a little He had had
made a cunning replica in miniature of the galactic lens,
wherein a billion points of light twinkled in exact match
(09:48):
to the star wheel of reality. That much remained, but
his builders had worked well, and their descendants, serving him
now not their own ends, were fuel skillful. Let it
go on. There is much more. In the thirty thousand,
(10:12):
three hundred and seventy years of his existence, he circumnavigated
the rim of the galaxy without passing within naked eye
range of a planetary system that did not owe allegiance
to his minions. Globular clusters like swarms of golden bees,
star wisps, reaching out into the eternal nothingness between the galaxies.
(10:34):
The circuit ended, and to Shalamar he summoned the representatives
of every world where he had planted mans. They stood
like a field of corn before the size numbered as
the sands of the seashore, totaling five hundred and eleven thousand,
six hundred and sixty one in theory, but in fact
(10:56):
fluctuating for some diet.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Even as they stood the years of thirds between.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Have Ima knuttered over the wheel Theligars with my armies.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
They shouted that this was so, for they believed his
mastery unchallenged.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Then proclaim the Emperor of the Zodiac act.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
After that, he was silent for a while, for as
well as the rim bordering intergalactic space, the model of
the lands contained the miniature of the hub, and there
packed close were sons in such great number even Alexander's
mind could not contain the clear picture of the whole,
(11:39):
despite which the end was calculable, And he did not say,
as he had done before, there.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Is much more.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Inward from the rim. His forces poured ships that outnumbered
the very stars themselves, machines that outnumbered the ships, and
always in everywhere men that outnumbered the machines. They changed,
sometimes in curious ways. An isolated group might lose all hair,
or grow to a foot more than normal stature, or
(12:13):
shade out of the traditional pink yellow and brown into
copper ebony and milk pale. But they incrossed and outcrossed,
like the weaving of threads in the tapestry, and sooner
or later the sport was lost in the teening ocean
of their breeding. Alexander contemplated them long and long, more
(12:35):
often than ever before. He talked with those who surrounded him,
and took pathetic status from the titles that he idly
permitted them to assume captain of Varley's Admiral of Planets.
They knew, as he did, that Alexander ruled and no other. However,
this make believes seemed to satisfy them in some obscure fashion.
(13:01):
Once long ago, according to the history with which his
mind had been stocked at his creation, men had not
been like this, meek, given to cheering the excesses of
their rulers. In forty thousand years, they had never once
opposed him. Had they lost the instinct for self preservation
(13:21):
which he understood they once had had they had become
like appendages of himself. He could trust them as his
own right arm, and with their cooperation, the reduction of
the whole galaxy seemed assured. To his mild astonishment, the
(13:42):
greatest degree of surprise at which his builders had made
him capable, he found he was wishing for opposition to
tax his skill practice was making conquest into a routine task,
a matter of coping with anomalous planetary environments, of devising
protection against over ferristellar radiation, and nothing more. The work
(14:05):
was preceding the pace too fast, for he knew roughly
how long he would last, and his current project, the
mastery of the whole galaxy, would prove too short, while
the only project greater still, the conquest of the Plenum,
was infinite, and he would be frustrated at the end
no matter how long his existence.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Might be spun out.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Between the boredom of lacking a fresh goal and the
certainty of not surviving to accomplish one, there remained what
Alexander could conceive. No other solution to his problem than
to set his scientists to work on three assignments that
would culminate at about the time when his conquest of
(14:49):
the galaxy was complete, first to extend his own durability,
Second to propose areas for conquest most larger than the galaxy,
smaller than the planum was as of equally satisfying qualities,
And third to determine that no smallest corner of the
(15:10):
galaxy should be left unconquered, in order to postpone so
long as might be the time of the fourth the tree. Nonetheless,
the time came in the year eight hundred and six thousand,
one hundred and seventy two of his existence, Alexander summoned
to the palace world of Chalamar. The chief spokesman of
(15:30):
the people of every planet is armies that overcome.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
Elbow to elbow.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
They spanned the continent the horizon, barringmen from the direct
view of him, And while they were being ranked, in
order to await his announcement, he consulted with the latest
generation of his scientists. The first to report bowed respectfully
and said, bous mighty Alexander, and their techniques exist to
(15:56):
prolong your existence indefinitely. You may, if you choose survive,
and tero.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Le stars themselves.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Go dimn and time clicks in the grooves of ancient
spaced stand The second with.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
A report to make, bowed likewise.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
And he said, most mighty Alexander, we have analyzed the
limit your magnificent psychological structure, and we conclude that there
is no unit of the universe which is emotionally satisfying
to you larger than the galaxy and smaller than the planant.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
Stand back, where.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Is the spokesman of the third research project I created?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
He is not here.
Speaker 6 (16:45):
He is engaged on a final verification of his solution
to the problem posed as we understand it, that was
to ensure that no smallest corner of the galaxy remained
free from your pusant swim.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
They had expected rage at the discovery that one who
was required was not there to report. Instead, Alexander felt
astir of something akin to gratitude that yet another moment
of uncertainty was granted him.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Mildly, he inquired.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
What was the name of this man? It was, according
to the record, forty one century since Alexander inquired the
name of a man, And the answer was long in coming.
They said, at length, timidly, Amaliel, your supremacy, we shall proceed.
(17:40):
His image appeared to each and every one of the
billion human beings on the planet, and they fell silent
and gazed at.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Him with adoration.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
There is no star, no planet, no cloud of gas,
no place left in the galaxy which does not own
mind dominion.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
So what now do I be?
Speaker 8 (18:04):
The scientists perfect my body, make it out last the
stars that I may embarked on the infinite conquest of
a plainum. I am the master of the galaxy, but
not so your supremacy. A shudder went through the assembly
greatest in the history of mankind. Its ripples spread outward
(18:27):
from the focus before Alexander's imperial dais occupied now by
an old man in a white robe with a wisp
of beard at his chin, beside whom floated a silvery
machine whose purpose was hard to discern by merely looking.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Who are you?
Speaker 9 (18:45):
My name is Amaliel. You charged my ancestors to determine
whether any corner of the galaxy, no matter how small,
was left unabsorbed into your dominions. We poured over records,
we analyzed computer memories. We compared meticulously the mapps of
(19:10):
the galaxy with the records of the armies of conquest,
and we found no discrepancy. Yet, intent on doing our
duty without the least hint of laxness, we went further
than I have described. We all fanned out to scour
the galaxy ourselves and see with our own eyes the
(19:34):
truth of what was reported to us. When our bodies
failed us, we recruited substitutes and sent them on in
our place. Century after century we have traveled the starways,
confirming that indeed the report were accurate.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
In that case, the conquest is completely not so.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
This galaxy is not conquered your supremacy. I have been
to the planet.
Speaker 7 (20:09):
Earth, Earth, that is the place from which men first came,
and it submitted to me eight hundred and six thousand
years ago.
Speaker 9 (20:19):
But you do not even rule all of Earth. I
have brought this machine with me from there, and with
it I will demonstrate the truth.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Of what I say. Alexander searched his memory and searched
again for any clue to the meaning that underlay Emaliel's words.
He found none, and a sense of impending doom overtook
him far worse than the provision of frustration, already weighing
down his mind, and he said the words told him
(20:55):
like a brazen gong, then do so.
Speaker 9 (20:59):
Let's one person come forth from that crowd over there.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
It was done.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
They brought to him a beardless youth, slim not tall,
with light brown hair and the sallow skin of one
of the ever recurring sport lines humanity had generated. Amaliel
gestured him to stand before the machine, on which he
rested one arm for support, for he was very old.
Watch yours supremacy, and it began projected as it were
(21:32):
within a cloud, feeling vast yet visibly limited to the
few square yards of vacant ground before the Imperial Dais images.
The brush parted. A man's head peered out, grizzled and
gap toothed as he smiled in anticipation. Beside the head,
a spear appeared, a crude thing with a point of
(21:53):
stone and the shaft of hardened wood muscles bunched beneath
a shawl of shaggy goat hide. The spear flew of
thing clad in stripes and armed with raking claws, viewed
blood into the water of a forest pool. In a cave,
hungry children tore goblets of reeking flesh from its bone
and stuffed them into their mouths. Their hands came to
(22:16):
hold exquisite knives and forks of engraved silver. Their greasy
naked shoulders vanished beneath elegant coats of plum colored velvet,
while the roof reared up and turned to a carve
ceiling across which an artist had painted Truth descending to
the Arts and Sciences. Lolling in handsome oaken chairs around
(22:37):
a walnut table, the company slipped wine from crystal goblets
instruments of inlaid rosewood under their chins, or poised before
their lips. They answered the signal of the conductor, and
music rang out in response to the frequency of the vibrations.
Dust organized itself into patterns on a tight stretched membrane,
(23:00):
and the scientist showed them to the mathematician, who dipped
his quill in a pot of ink and wrote quickly.
Reading the fine leather bound volume, the student paused and
stared at the flame of his candle. It enlarged to
shine so brilliantly he could not keep his eyes on it.
(23:20):
He slid a piece of smoked glass across the eyepiece
of his telescope and continued his observations, sketching the position
of the strange dark blots which every now and then
marred the bright disk of the sun. The sunlight poured
down on the mountain side. Quarrying with a tiny shovel
and a light hammer. The explorer revealed segments of folded
(23:44):
sedimentary rock, one fold cracked apart, and bright metal glinted.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
The metallic sheen.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Was everywhere, casting back the glow of the fluorescence in
the ceiling. Quiet music from a green box on a shelf,
connected by a cable to a socket in the wall,
humming the melody. A man in a white coat tipped
the contents of a glass vial into a jar. The
mixture turned black black all around him. The pilot concentrated
(24:20):
on the instruments on a.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Pillar of fire.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
The vessel settled to the surface of the new planet.
The pilot tested the air and emerged to look about him.
A creature with tentacles like whips crawled across the alien
ground toward him. He waited till it had raised over
him its reeking maaw, then slashed it with a weapon
mounted in the arm of his protective suit. Enough the
(24:51):
suit was of shining metal, twelve feet tall. It was
ultra alloy. The voice that boomed from it made the
Heaven's ring. The creature with the tentacles resisted the blast
of the weapon, closing its arms tighter and tighter, flowing
together to mend the gashes in its tissue. The jaws
(25:11):
stretched and engulfed him, then clamped shut. There was darkness enough,
roared Alexander again, and tramped down from the Imperial day
as to confront a Maliel and the sallow youth, on
whose face was a hint of patulancy. Dared not give
voice to.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Amalia, what world is that you have been showing?
Speaker 9 (25:35):
No world you can reach? Yours supremacy? Do you not
wonder why the pilot of the spaceship failed to defeat
the monster after all? And why at the end he
bore so close a resemblance to your magnificent selse.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
There was silence, during which the youth began to adge
away out of reflex, rather than any honest hope of
escape of Alexander's rage, extended to embrace him. Alexander stood
quite still, however, while Amaliel went on.
Speaker 9 (26:12):
If it had been in keeping with what the records
tell us of ancient custom, the purpose of this gathering
would have been for you to proclaim yourself absolute ruler
of the galaxy. I have just shown you a world
you never knew existed, one where your attempt at intrusion
(26:35):
resulted in your destruction. Eight hundred thousand years have not
sufficed to gain you entry to that world than were
you too, and you're a million times longer. You still
would be barred from it. Your conquests, my Lord, have
(26:58):
been in vain.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Alexander sought an exit from this dilemma and found none.
He surveyed the packed billions of those whom he had
brought together, and he contemplated destroying them, for with them
would go the unattainable world. But what would that profit him?
After so many millennia victory was he who concede defeat
(27:21):
to those whom he so greatly despised by acknowledging his
inability to live in the same universe with them, the
paradox that he could only conquer if he abolished thus
failed to enjoy what he had conquered. Eighth, At the
edges of his mind, areas of knowledge blanked out one
(27:42):
by one. His sense of.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Purposely roded vocabularies, histories, sciences disappeared, into a catatonic limbo.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Who am I.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Cried Alexander in the silent caverns of his ultrial my frame,
And there was no answer. But he's stopped.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
He's dead, isn't he?
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Amaliel gave a solemn nod.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
What did you do to him?
Speaker 9 (28:17):
With of this machine which they have devised on Earth?
I showed him a world he.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Can never overrun?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
What world? It seemed familiar?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
And yet.
Speaker 9 (28:34):
I showed him the imagination of a man.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You've been listening to. Mind. This is Michael Hanson speaking.
Joining me in the reading this time were Cliff Roberts,
Kerry Frumpkin, Jim Fleming, and Rick Murphy. Technical production on
this program by Leslie Hilsenhoff and Steve Gordon. Mind Webbs
is a production of WYA and Madison, the service of
the University of Wisconsin Extension
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!