“DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF YOUR DISTRESS?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“YOU ARE BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A PLAN. YOU ARE BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THAT ALL OF THIS – ADJUMIR, CHA-MDO, NITASHI – I HAVE PERMITTED TO HAPPEN. IT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED, BUT I LET IT BE SO. YOU ARE GRIEVING. YOU HAVE BEEN GRIEVING FOR A VERY LONG TIME, WITHOUT KNOWING HOW.”
“Fuck you.”
“I HAVE SEEN RENCKI’S MEMORIES. YOU HAVE WONDERED IF TE LOVED YOU LIKE YOU LOVED TER. I CANNOT SAY WITH DEFINITIVE ACCURACY – EVEN THE LIVING OFTEN CANNOT – BUT I BELIEVE TE DID. AS MUCH AS TE COULD ALLOW TERSELF TO LOVE, GEBRE LOVED YOU. BUT TE LOVED EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING ELSE MORE.”
There it is.
There it is.
Qe was right.
Of course qe was.
“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me everything.”
And qe did.
Chapter 58
Once, a conspiracy was hatched, between the Consensus and the Slow, two entities close enough to god-like that at this stage the difference is largely semantics.
It was the Consensus who led the charge. Their numbers had been growing with refugees from the Shine who offered up their minds to the great collective, partly in search of belonging, and partly because they believed that, sooner or later, their pain would not go unanswered. And though it knew what was happening to itself, the Consensus could not turn away hearts that were broken and souls in need, and thus the Consensus began to change. Their dreams became heavy with sorrow and blazing injustice, and they started to turn their eyes towards the Shine. Towards war. Better, they said, that millions of us should die than billions should feel this agony.
People often mistake the hive-minded nature of the Consensus as being akin to a kind of genius, but that is not it at all. The Consensus do not share some abstract state of higher cognition; they are in the end no more nor no less than human. And they know when they need help.
They went to the Slow.
“We are going to war,” they said. “Help us find a way to keep the most alive.”
And for the first time in thousands of years, the Slow answered.
Types of love that are cruel:
Love for a beloved who is dying. The doctors say they are suffering – they are suffering – there is nothing to be done, and they are suffering, let it end. But the lover cries out:No, no, hold on, my love, hold on, you have to hold on! I love you so much – hold on!And thus the agony continues.
Love for your people, for your nation, who you would die to serve. You love them so much you must fight, you must rage, you must kill, and in time you do not care who you kill, you do not care why; you just keep on killing because you love so much, and that is all that gives the killing meaning.
Self-love, which hears another weep and proclaims:Well, that’s all very well, but how do you think your feelings make me feel?and does not understand that this is not love at all.
Love for a child, which destroys them. The parent who whispers:I just want the best for you, why aren’t you being better?The parent who whispers:You are already the best you could possibly be, you can do no wrong. Love that hides truth, masks honesty, that mistakes control, oppression, power for caring, turns tormented children into bewildered adults who do not know how to love in turn.
Love that would let a world burn to save one person on it. The blindest of all possible loves, the most selfish, which cannot imagine that any of the billions of other lovers still living could ever love so deep, so true as you.
Centuries later, in qis very heart, the Slow said: “I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU.”
There was a drawer in the desk. I hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps it hadn’t been there until this moment.
I opened it.
Inside, a comms interface.
Old, worn, the tendrils of its connections limp where theyspilled like insect guts from the interior. The dark of arcspace lingered on it, a familiar taste just on the tip of my tongue, a warm, welcoming coolness in my fingers, a smell like home. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, as I had done many times before, laid it back down on the desk. Said: “A Tryphon interface. How?”
“I RECOVERED IT AS A PAIR FROM THE SHINE, MANY YEARS AGO. KEPT IT SAFE. SENT THE OTHER HALF OF IT TO ADJUMIR – TO GEBRE NETHYA CHATITHIMSKA BAJWAHRA. TE ALERTED THE ACCORD. I ALTERTED THE SHINE.”
