The red brain

The red brain by Donald Wandrei is a science fiction short story written in the early 20th century. It envisions the far future as cosmic dust smothers the universe, leaving only the star Antares and its inhabitants—sexless, sentient Brains—while one aberrant Red Brain becomes the focus of a final, catastrophic bid to defy extinction.

In the tale, the stars fade until Antares alone remains, sealed beneath a crystal dome where immense Brains communicate by thought and devote themselves to science and survival. After ages of futile efforts to repel the dust—lightning storms in space, colossal magnets, explosive maelstroms, vacuum machines on distant stars, even engineered Super-Brains—the Great Brain convenes a last council in the Hall of the Mist. Silence reigns until the Red Brain declares it has found an infallible solution, exalting itself in a rapturous chant. With the assembly’s minds held open in hope, it unleashes lethal will-impulses that instantaneously dissolve the other Brains into lifeless pools, extinguishing the final hope of the universe as madness triumphs over a dying cosmos. (This is an automatically generated summary.)