May I draw your attention to an explosive potential in your early
experimental series? This exists in an obscure solar system of nine
planets in a minor galaxy on the outer perimeter of my territory where
I call only at extended intervals.
You will best recall the location in connection with the assignment
of a Self-Awareness Charter to Element 6 in the chemical series--more
specifically, the crystalline form of _carbon_, as it is called locally.
I have not troubled you with my earlier surveys, since nothing
critical occurred in the first billion years, but I had better bring
you up to date.
Of all 96 elements to which life has been separately assigned in
various locations, carbon showed the greatest durability at the outset.
The diamond, or crystalline form, in which self-awareness was vested
in this particular solar system, could be predicted to make efficient
use of light energy because of its index of refraction. Also, at lower
temperatures, the diamond presents an extreme rigidity or hardness
which resists abrasion.
Perhaps these factors account for the astonishing egotism which
developed shortly after we activated self-awareness among them. Not
that egotism, itself, is unique in the various elemental life-forms.
You will recall, this inflated self-esteem has long proved to be a
factor consistent with self-awareness in all matter.
In the diamond, egotism flared early in its intellectual growth and
seemed to supply a creative drive unsurpassed in all galaxies under
surveillance.
On the third planet, diamonds quickly learned psychokinetic
manipulations and immediately began experimenting with chemical
combinations of the other elements--all of which are, of course, inert
and lifeless in this galaxy.
On one of my earliest visits to the third planet, which is locally
referred to as Terra, or Earth, I was attracted to the especially
active, intellectual radiations of a particular diamond which I shall
designate as _Prime_, since he was the one who out-stripped all the
others ultimately.
Prime had worked his way out of the blue clay, down to the edge of a
salt-water ocean, and when I inquired into his furious activity he
reported that he was attempting to synthesize a new life-form.
At that time I was amused. Prime had managed to construct a few rather
prosaic molecules, but none of them could accomplish self-growth by
the usual absorption of radiant energy. I asked his purpose in such
experimentation.