Gamma by Oskar Källner, translated by Gordon James Jones (Clarkesworld #188, May 2022)1 opens with two interstellar beings, spawn of earlier civilizations who now live in the “quantum foam” of the universe, meeting at a black hole. There, Gamma, and another of the “Collective”, Kthelk’tha, absorb energy by flying through its Hawking radiation. We subsequently learn more about them and the universe’s recent history:
When the stars had begun to fade, none of the contemporary civilizations were bothered. There would be thousands of millions of years before dark energy ultimately tore the galaxies apart, before the hydrogen ran out and the residual heat dissipated. And of course, they were right. Not the slightest trace of their civilizations remained when the end came. The races that were unfortunate enough to be born in the twilight era tried desperately to find ways to slow down the cosmic expansion, to invert the dark energy and make the universe contract. They were doomed to fail.
Others tried to accumulate enough matter to build new suns. Some such projects met with success. Controlled wormholes stripped nearby galaxies and interstellar space, and enough elementary building blocks were amassed to construct yellow, fusion-driven suns. Dyson spheres as big as solar systems were built around each new star, to harness all its energy. Thereby, they created the conditions necessary to prolong life for a few billion years more. Yet eventually even those stars burned out, the Dyson spheres fell apart, and the last remaining stardust was consumed by supermassive black holes. The universe entered the era of darkness. p. 97
Some time after this encounter they fall out and separate, and then Gamma learns of a war started by a Collective faction called the Light Connexion. Gamma subsequently finds Kthelk’tha and sees she has been infected by a virus. Gamma destroys the virus and revives Kthelk’tha, and they decide to head into deep space as there will only be ongoing war at the black hole.
Out in the depths of the dying universe they begin to run low on energy and become dormant, but later wake when they find a Dyson sphere with an anti-matter generator that still has fuel. They explore the sphere and we learn about the builders.
The story ends (spoiler) with Gamma and Kthelk’tha having children (even though their progeny will only have limited life-spans). Then they discover that the builders of the Dyson sphere had developed an Omega device that can change the structure of the universe, alterations that would make it contract and cause suns to be formed. However, to do this, one of them will have to spread themselves throughout the universe and activate the device. Gamma realises that whoever does this will die but, despite Kthelk’tha’s protestations, she sacrifices herself anyway:
Then she plunged into a subdimensional barrier, and her fingers touched the outer boundary of the universe. With the last of her strength, she activated the inversion protocol and several of the universe’s constants were rewritten. The universe slowed down. She could feel it. It would soon begin to contract. New stars. New life. New possibilities.
Her body dissolved and spread as virtual particles throughout the universe. Through them vibrated a final thought:
It is finished.
A suitably cosmic ending. This tale probably resembles other cosmic tales that have appeared in the field over the decades, but it is well enough done, and a change from some of the usual subject matter you find nowadays.
*** (Good). 7,200 words. Story link.
1. This was originally published in Swedish in Efter slutet, Catahya, 2017.