Was this ill-fated expedition the end of a proud, old race--or the beginning of a new one? There are strange gaps in our records of the past. We find traces of man-like things--but, suddenly, man appears, far too much developed to be the "next step" in a well-linked chain of evolutionary evidence. Perhaps something like the events of this story furnishes the answer to the riddle.
Millions of years in the distant future, a posthuman scientist is attempting to build a time machine and tests it by sending two boxes with a hastily gathered batch of educational toys into the past. When the boxes fails to return, he believes the entire experiment to be a failure, he discontinues his efforts. One box arrives in the middle of the 20th century and the second in the latter part of the 19th century. Both have had their time-travel circuitry irreparably damaged by the journey.
The real trouble with communications satellites is the enormous difficulty of repairing even the simplest little trouble. You need such a loooong screwdriver.
Earth has transformed overnight: The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece and Rome have returned to Earth with all their awesome powers intact. War on any scale was outlawed, along with boom-and-bust economic cycles, and prudery but no change was more startling than the face of New York, where the Empire State Building has become the Tower of Zeus...
In the distant future, the interstellar starship Calypso and its human crew encounter a gigantic megastructure inhabited by ancient robots known as the Custodians. As the humans, led by Lieutenant Brenda Ivanova, attempt to restore ancient data to uncover the robots’ origins, they face ethical dilemmas about the nature of self-awareness and the evolution of these machines. Amidst philosophical debates and crucial decisions, leading the humans to rethink how to aid these robots in their evolution