For the Sake of the Octopus Cousins

I was a young Caretaker, fresh out of the Academy, watching and waiting as Ilo set the bubbles spinning. Out of the chaos a universe would spring into being, beautiful, unique, needing only a Caretaker to make it complete. For numberless eons I waited, dark matter fizzing, for a universe to be allocated to me, and for my existence to have meaning. When my universe arrived, I loved it straight away. As the dance of particles slowed and became purposeful, I took in its dimensions; space, time, plenty of gravity, a good lightspeed. There weren’t many dimensions over all, it’s flat, my universe, there’s a flatness, but so much energy and flair. And all mine.

I got straight to work, massaging gravity, balancing it against quantum, guiding new galaxies along the filaments. A young, expanding universe is demanding. And soon my universe had life, which always adds complications. I didn’t come across it often, but sometimes a planet that was just the right distance from its sun, with water, would host a slurry of chemicals that would suddenly start replicating. There was no way of knowing what would happen next.

I was housekeeping in a far-away corner, shepherding two galaxies towards each other when I noticed a tiny watery planet orbiting a middle-sized star. It was studded with volcanoes on land and water, erupting as the planet’s crust formed. The submerged volcanoes were sending up vents of hot water, and I noticed an unusually dense cluster of molecules, some even contained in packets, extracting energy from the vents.

The next time I was in the area, I looked more closely and saw that the planet had acquired a large moon and an atmosphere that were keeping the climate stable and cosy. On its surface, the most extraordinary thing – life was flourishing! The oceans were full of it. Floating, or wriggling in the mud were little life forms, each one self-absorbed and busy. As though they might not have enough time to get through growing and replicating before they died.

It was so unusual I started checking in on the planet quite often. Every few hundred thousand revolutions around its sun I’d find myself popping over to the Milky Way. Just to see what had changed, not to interfere. Not then.

“That’s a lucky little planet.” Ilo had suddenly manifested. You know how that happens, your particles flash in and out of existence and suddenly the boss is in the neighbourhood. And you’ve been sprung. I pretended not to understand—what was I thinking?

“Yes, those volcanoes are giving it just the right…”

“No, it’s lucky to be getting so much of your attention. In this out-of-the-way place.”

How long had I been under observation? An eon, an epoch, a moment, a whisper? I’d been in a dream, manifesting here and there as I pleased. But when Ilo’s in town, manifest is what you have to be altogether. Their attention snaps you to.

Still I blundered on, “Life started by itself and then took off. I need to keep an eye on it, who knows what might happen, it might start self-seeding somewhere else.”

“Nothing will happen. When the conditions are favourable life can accelerate, but it won’t last long. Leave it alone, Goreng. Next time you come back this way it’ll be over.” Ilo paused, looking over the planet. One of their spiral arms rippled towards it, sending a blast of cold that blanketed it with ice. In the short, awkward silence that followed we watched the icy ball spin around its sun a few hundred times.

“I’m going to send you some help. J’ai, they’ve been a Cleaner for millennia, they need a change. It’ll be a shock to the particles, this young universe and all that life. Take it slowly and don’t infect them with your ridiculous enthusiasms.”

Ilo was gone.

When J’ai arrived I was absorbed repairing the fabric after a supernova burst, but I felt the energy change, my photons suddenly spinning in the opposite direction. We circled each other warily, politely distant. We were so different. A Cleaner works with dying universes, as disorder gradually takes over. It’s a melancholy process, sweeping up the remains, laying the corpse to rest. No waves to ride on, no dancing particles, just the cold and darkness. J’ai’s aura was like a black hole of anti-matter.

After they got used to the dimensions, I started to introduce life to J’ai gradually, showing them the self-replicating bacteria on one planet, buried deep in rock, safe from the poisonous gases. “Where there was one, now there’s two,” J’ai murmured. I showed them a planet where life was long gone, leaving only marks and fissures behind.

Finally, I came to the blue planet. By this time life was teeming there, on land and sea, tumbling, riotous. Little creatures coming out from inside other creatures. I even showed them my favourite life form, water dwellers with eight limbs. I showed them how they play, build habitations near each other, co-operate. All the signs of intelligence, in spite of only living a microsecond.

“Look, eight limbs, each one conscious, like our eight spirals. It’s like they’re a tiny version of us.”

“I hate it. I find the whole exercise excessive, it’s not pleasing to me, it’s disgusting.”

“Stay away from it then. There’s a whole universe to look after.”

We went our separate ways. But disgusting has its attractions and J’ai couldn’t let it alone. Once they rippled up to me suddenly and asked, “Where is it? That sun and the blue planet with the life.” I told them and they said, triumphantly, “See? Where’s Kepler 90 and its seven interesting planets? You don’t know offhand, you have to think about it. But the blue planet, you always know where it is. Because you go there all the time. I’ve seen you massaging the atmosphere, adding gases, keeping it just right for life to flourish.”

“You don’t like life much, do you?” I shot back.

J’ai bristled, dark matter shivering with indignation.

“I’ve seen life before, just not like this, it’s gross. All that growing and dying and rotting. So much waste, so many offspring so one or two might survive.”

“The best one or two survive.”

“Only until the conditions change – look.”

Before I could stop it, J’ai had thrown a meteor into the planet and wiped out most of the life forms.

Humming with malevolence, J’ai withdrew. I thought of reporting them, but I was just as guilty of interfering as they were. Sadly, reluctantly, I manifested far away. I could only hope that J’ai didn’t accidentally-on-purpose damage the little planet further.

I threw myself into managing the star nurseries, guiding the dance of the particles, faster and hotter, colliding, spinning away and back, drawn by gravity closer and closer. Heavy particles crashing together, then out of the heat and chaos, the moment when it bursts into light and becomes a star. And how that new sun sparkles and draws around it the balls of rock and gas, cushioned in dark matter. And over all of it the linear, elastic mantle of time. The frisson of beginnings and endings.

I was content there. Then J’ai manifested to tell me Ilo was coming for another inspection visit. J’ai’s energy was sparking oddly as they asked me to come for a quick look at the little blue planet. It would have circled its star many millions of times since I’d left it. I was intrigued as I followed J’ai to that quiet corner, but I wasn’t prepared for how much, yet again, had changed.

Strangest of all was how one of the two-legged terrestrial species had flourished. It had built nests on almost every land mass, clearing away trees and driving away other animals as though it all belonged to them alone. It was a swarm. I’d seen it before, on a planet in Andromeda galaxy where life forms had multiplied by splitting in two, crawling all over the surface, smothering the other life forms. Then they died out very quickly. They had a good time while it lasted, but a swarm usually means the beginning of the end.

I drifted through the water. My favourite water creatures were still there, not so numerous, more mindful of preserving what they had. I swirled some currents their way, to bring in more food. I marvelled again at their eight limbs, each of which could think and had a sly sense of humour. I moved across the land like a soft breeze. Such variety of hopping, scuttling, wriggling creatures, swinging through trees, floating on air currents. I watched the swarm rushing to and fro, making structures, and knocking them down. They had such blind confidence in themselves, it was endearing in a way. Sometimes one of them would stop and look up at the sky frowning, as though grasping to understand their place in the universe, in my universe. Look after what you’ve got, I wanted to say, but of course there was no way to reach them.

“Those terrestrials, the humans, so strange,” J’ai said. “They gather in herds, they’re always talking to each other, but they can’t mind-merge. They can’t see across dimensions, or even change colour. See that tiny hole in their head, fuel goes in, and sounds come out, and look,” J’ai suddenly scooped one up out of a group and twisted off its head, “it doesn’t grow back. They can’t exist without it.”

“Look at the others though, running around in circles,” I said. “They’ve noticed, they care about each other. Do they play?”

“Yes, they never stop playing, or fighting, or chasing after the wind. And do you know what they just did? Blew up their own nest! I saw a puff coming up, I thought it was a volcano. No, they’d worked out how to split the atom, all by themselves and what did they do with it … used it to kill each other. Perverse!”

It was as though J’ai, and not me had discovered the planet. They sounded happier than I’d ever known, they love a conundrum.

“Can we stop them destroying themselves? Should we even try?” J’ai said.

“It’s a swarm, I’ve seen it before. Let the octopus inherit the planet.”

Suddenly we sensed a rumbling and started to move away from the solar system, but Ilo had seen us, and wasn’t happy.

Ilo turned on us, spirals whirling, creating quantum chaos in the vacuum. Storms swept the planet. J’ai and I melded, fusing our edges to avoid being vaporised.

“J’ai, you were supposed to keep Goreng away from here, and now I find you both mooning over Earth. That’s it, I’m getting rid of it.” Ilo moved towards the planet, making its moon wobble on its axis, as huge tidal waves reared up and crashed over the land.

“Ilo,” J’ai made himself even flatter than usual, “we’re sorry. But whatever happens to us, the planet should not be destroyed before its time.”

“Why not?”

“Come with me into the sea and I’ll show you.” Shocked at J’ai’s boldness, I kept my particles as still as I could, as they floated away through the water. J’ai showed off the diversity of life forms, from giant mammals to tiny molluscs. Ilo was intrigued, I could tell that the scale of it had them off balance.

They came to the octopus colony. They watched the octopuses playing, hiding, guarding their eggs, dying. Suddenly one of them, walking along the sea bed on seven of its clever arms, reached up the eighth and with its brain waves tickled the end of Ilo’s spiral arm. Ilo laughed with surprise. The laughter waves rolled through the universe, causing ripples in space and time. Some rocks on another planet in the galaxy absorbed the energy and started moving slowly about. The laughter was sucked into a black hole, popping out in another universe, startling the Caretakers there.

“Yes, it’s a fine collection of marine life I grant you,” Ilo said. “But what about these land creatures, the swarming ones? What’s the point of them?”

J’ai and I were silent. How could we explain humans and their peculiar, pugnacious charm? Finally I said, “They’re clever in some ways, we haven’t seen another life form as versatile. They’ve learnt to split the atom. They’re creative, they like to mix sound waves to form rational ratios. They care for their offspring. But they’re also destructive. So much energy spent fighting amongst themselves or destroying other life forms. Unless they learn to slow down they’ll have run their course soon enough. See, the waters are already rising.”

“So what shall we do with this troublesome planet with its excessive variety of life forms?” Ilo asked rhetorically, not wanting an answer.

J’ai gave one anyway, “For the sake of our octopus cousins. Give it a chance?”

Ilo considered, as storms raged over the swarm and all the other land animals huddling in their shelters.

“The planet Earth will survive,” Ilo decided, “but you two can’t be trusted with it.” Particles jumped orbits as Ilo directed their energy towards us. “I’ll be appointing other Caretakers. As for you, there’s plenty of dying universes need cleaning up, you’ll be Cleaners while you think over your mistakes. You can stay together, you seem to have become attached. Another thing that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Ilo vaporated into the void, and we reluctantly followed, while on Earth the waters continued to rise.

So this is where we find ourselves, Cleaners to dying universes. We’re left alone in the darkness, clearing up as energy ebbs away, black holes collapse and chaos takes over. If we find any remnant spark of life, we keep it and nurture it. We’re building up a collection, and as soon as we get to a suitable universe, we’re going to plant life there.

Sometimes we are called to the Academy to tell our story to the trainee Caretakers, as a cautionary tale of what not to do. I speak about the little planet with its water, its moon, its riot of life, the swarm. Life is a mysterious and wonderful gift I say, treasure it.

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