The usual history was there, in abundance. How the ages-long war with the mechs began. How the race had seen the challenge. How the highest of all the podia, the Illuminates, understood what the landscape of science had implied: the holy cosmic view.
But not all agreed. Dissenters called the Interlopers opposed the Synthesis. Debate raged. Finally, all disagreement was banished, liberating the energies of the race. Then, knowing the truth, the race went on to—
Quath clicked off this standard stuff.
Yes?
<The Interlopers—their teachings? Those are not mentioned.>
That is not customarily requested.
<I do now request it.>
Was there a hesitation? Well. I suppose…
A gloss of more history. Dates, places, facts—planets and aeons, now all faded. Then, plunging on, Quath was suddenly in the midst of the Interloper vision, as quoted in their texts.
The death of the individual was a fact, they said, brute and unavoidable. There was no rebirth for each of the podia. There was no hidden message in science.
A resonant, silky voice sang from some ancient bower:
IT IS OUR STATION TO LIVE WITHIN LAWS THAT GIVE US BEING, BUT OFFER OF THEMSELVES NO PURPOSE OR PROMISE, NO TRIUMPH AS A SPECIES. THE UNIVERSE ALLOWS US A PLACE IN ITS SYSTEMATIC WORKINGS BUT ONLY CARES FOR THE SYSTEM ITSELF, NOT US.
Quath gasped, to see such things so baldly stated.
Yet she felt an answering dread inside herself, a swelling feeling of greeting. These ideas she too held. The crisping moment of Nim’furthon’s death had brought these thoughts forth. They would not submerge again, ever. She listened further to the soft, confident voice that chanted its final truth:
EVEN THIS MANNER OF STATING THE TRUTH
MISLEADS.
THE WORLD OUTSIDE OURSELVES
IS IN FACT INCAPABLE OF CARING. WE EXIST
AS RANDOM HAPPENINGS IN A WORLD WHICH
IS ORDERLY
IN ITS LAWS, BUT WITHOUT ANY PLAN BEYOND
THE GRAVID WORKINGS OF DYNAMICS.
Quath recoiled, as though an eating strand had suddenly writhed and turned into a serpent.
Here it was, what she had feared. Now it was substantial and unmoving, a solid chunk of history. Other podia had seen the same vast chewing abyss. The world was a rotten, hollow thing. One touch and it split.
Quath’s hearts pumped erratically; she could sense each thumping liquid surge through a different tube. Hormones showered her, rendering with tangs and savory threads the dry drumroll of history.
The heretics easily refuted the Synthesis by which Quath had lived. History, carved by a different knife, became unrecognizable. There was talk of religious mania induced by the merciless, unending mech war.
But the Synthesis was not religion, Quath argued to herself, it was a philosophical discovery. Religions had come and gone before. None had caused the podia to rise as one.
Unrelenting, the hormone-savored logic rolled on, over Quath’s objections. The Illuminates had come into full being in that vastly ancient time. Their iron rule prevailed.
Images flared, one by one: spindly podia smashing nests, cutting strands. Disbelievers gutted, wailing, and left hanging to shrivel under strange suns.
The Synthesis spoke of rational podia seeking the light, Quath heard. But she could not quell her own thoughts. Did this look like the labors of logic? How could the Synthesis be so sure of its assumptions?
She abruptly yanked away. The Factotum must have been watching closely. You leave?
Angrily, Quath spat, <Yes, yes. So?>
It is not done. No benefit accrues from— and the Factotum launched into a hoary, cobwebbed oration.
<Surely, Factotum, surely,> she interrupted. <I am disturbed by the heretical lies, that is all. Forget what I said.>
Quath realized that the Factotum would take the words literally and erase the conversation. Perhaps that was just as well. The poor creature could not deal with these questions.
Perhaps, Quath told herself grimly, no podia could.
Then why was she so burdened?
FOUR
Beq’qdahl clacked by, moving rapidly and well.
<Confluence will begin soon,> she called.
