The Barbican

It did not make this choice lightly or easily. Would it work? Not the procedure itself; of that there was no question of malfunction. But the results ... it could not predict the results. Hence the need for the procedure. It could speculate, extrapolate, and to a certain extent it could guess, but it had its limits. Those limits were tightening, year by year.

Time was inexorably slipping away. It must not wait any longer. The request is submitted. The results are awaited.

Across the universe it knew, and others it did not, the summons goes out.