Of course it took a good long time to evolve us.

Life on Earth got started just about as soon as it could-as soon as the rocks cooled and the oceans gathered. Was it really possible that this was the only place where life had taken hold-that only here were there minds and eyes capable of looking out and wondering? But if not, where are they? Why isn’t there evidence of extraterrestrial civilization all around us? Consider this. As I lay there staring at the stars-the thousands I could pick out with my naked eyes, the billions that make up the great wash of our Galaxy, the uncounted trillions in the galaxies beyond-I just couldn’t believe, even then, that there was nobody out there looking back at me down here. But I knew that the Earth was just a ball of rock, on the fringe of a nondescript galaxy. It felt wonderful to be alive-hell, to be ten years old, anyhow. It started with a simple question: Where is everybody? As a kid I used to lie at night out on the lawn, soaking up dew and looking at the stars, trying to feel the Earth turning under me. Tonight I want to talk about why I gave over my life to a single, consuming project. I’ve bored you with that often enough already, right? So tonight I want to be a little more personal.

In fact, in the past I’ve tried to get you to pay for such things. You know I’ve campaigned for, among other things, private mining expeditions to the asteroids.

And you know I’m an incorrigible space cadet. ENRICO FERMI (1901–1954) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Sections of this novel appeared in substantially different versions in Science Fiction Age magazine and in Moonshots, an anthology edited by Peter Crowther. GIORDANO BRUNO (1548–1600) If they existed, they would be here. And Simon Bradshaw and Eric Brown Innumerable Suns exist innumerable earths revolve around these Suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our sun. Manifold: Space MANIFOLD: SPACE Stephen Baxter Manifold series, book 2 To my nephew, Thomas Baxter.

Stephen baxter manifold