The Lord of the Sands of Time Read Online Free PDF

centuries to reestablish the biosphere out of our DNA archives. Even then, we could only have recovered five percent of species. We managed to lose in a generation what it took our planet four billion years to create.
    “We know a few things about these ETs. They are self-replicating fighting units. In terms of technical sophistication, they’re somewhat ahead of us. Their goal is the extermination of our species. For all we know, they may even be a product of human intelligence. But our senior analysts agree they’re probably from outside our system, because they’ve mounted attacks on colonies orbiting stars in this neighborhood. We’re not sure why, but they also attacked an automated observation station near Teegarden’s Star. That kind of offensive reach is beyond the capabilities of any human settlement in the Local Group.
    “Because we received warning in time, we were able to nip these attacks in the bud. Still, we don’t know anything about their origins—where they’re based, habitat and culture, the motivation for these attacks. Nothing.”
    The general was middle-aged. Her detached delivery belied the fact that, as Orville and the others already knew, she had lost her husband and five members of her family in this war. Her loss fueled the single-mindedness that propelled her to her present rank.
    “First infiltration was on Venus, using covert spore insertion. After replicating and building up their strength, they initiated hostilities by constructing a disk that blocked all light from the Sun. The disk was half a million kilometers in diameter and completely deprived Earth of sunlight for three years. Impact on the biosphere and food production was staggering. But the disk was also a tactical diversion aimed at channeling our defensive efforts. We put most of our resources into reinforcing our off-world units, and when we finally deployed against the disk, the enemy landed in force on Earth. Within a week, they’d spawned four hundred thousand anthills. This completely disrupted our bases and command-and-control networks, which in turn prevented us from repelling attacks from their remaining forces in space.
    “By the war’s fifth year, it was all over for Earth. In year six Mars fell. Year eight, we lost the asteroid belt. By year ten they had advanced as far as Jupiter. That was the year our species decided to withdraw to a new defensive perimeter far from Sol, with Neptune as the hub. We called for assistance from the exoplanet colonies and hunkered down for a war of attrition.
    “At this point, we were down to seven percent of our pre-war population. But the enemy apparently depends on solar energy—specifically, they appear to distribute solar power by means of laser-modulated transmission—and they failed to mount major attacks against the outer planets, where the Sun’s energy is greatly attenuated. This gave our species hope for recovery. It was no mean feat to produce antimatter without solar energy, but forty years of work have brought us this far. And now, humanity is on the offensive. The history of our offensive, and our victories, will surely be written someday. But not by me.” The general paused a moment before continuing. Her detached tone was replaced by something approaching emotion.
    “The future of this struggle is in your hands. It is no longer for humanity to fight these battles, nor to tell how they were won. All we can do is support you. So I close with this: go forth to victory. Dismissed.”
    For Orville, the general’s final words were more than a military directive. They resonated with humanity’s experience and resolve. Now the Messengers would be the bearers of that resolve, if necessary transmitting it to others.
    In point of fact, the Messengers did not need to hear the general’s speech. Messenger AIs were equipped with the fruit of nearly all of mankind’s intellectual achievements, backed by the Sandrocottos AI, Supreme Commander of the Sol System