The Course of Empire(159)

* * *



He fell asleep in mid-sentence. Caitlin didn't get to sleep herself for two hours. The spartan cot put their bodies in very close proximity, and, even clothed—even with a splinted arm—she quickly found herself becoming very frustrated.



It was a nice feeling, in a way. Or, at least, it would be—if Ed was still alive in a few days, to deal with it.





PART VI:

Inferno




"You will not intervene?"



The Preceptor's response was an elegant tripartite stance, assured-negation coupled with understanding-of-risk. "No, Tura. The Pluthrak is already surpassing my hopes. Let us see by how far."



"If he fails . . ." Tura's own stance was aghast-anticipation. "Hundreds of millions of humans may die, before we could arrive."



"Yes. All beings die. What matters is that they die well, making themselves of use."





Chapter 36




No other intelligent species would ever really understand the Ekhat. That was something the Ekhat knew themselves; and, in the knowing, found further proof of their own destiny. Further indication, rather—the Ekhat, recognizing none of the limits of formal logic, did not recognize the concept of "proof." The universe was in constant flux and opposition. A thing which could only be understood as the unfolding dance of the Ekhat with their surroundings, whose only sureness was the music of reality and the eschatology of the dance itself: the completion of the Ekha, when the very notions of "Ekhat" and "Universe" could no longer be distinguished.



Human scholars, had any such been able to penetrate the murk surrounding all things Ekhat, might have said they were psychopathic dialecticians run amok. Jao scholars would have understood them better, perhaps. The greatest of them might even have come to see the reflection of their creators' mentality in the very bones of Jao cultural patterns. Even human ones, as fragmented and discordant as those were. There was a sense in which the Jao, as they emerged into sentience under Ekhat control, had translated the peculiar Ekhat mentality into social concepts and behavior. Shaping them—twisting them, the Ekhat would have thought—into a form suitable for the creation of an intelligent polity. "To be of use," stripped of its messianic endpoint and the sheer horror of its methods.



But all those terms were human or Jao, and the Ekhat would have recognized none of them. There was much about the Ekhat that was still mysterious even to themselves, much less any alien species they encountered. Even such basic things as where and how they evolved. That they had evolved, no Ekhat doubted. "Evolution" was one of the few concepts that the Ekhat shared—overlapped, it might be better to say—with Jao and humans. But on which of many possible home planets, and in what original form, no Ekhat remembered any longer and True Harmony only claimed to approximate.



None of it mattered, really, not even to True Harmony. However and wherever they had come into existence, all Ekhat agreed on their destiny. The division was simply over the means to that end. The universe would eventually be Ekhat. Not "controlled" by Ekhat—they were not imperialists in the sense that humans or even Jao would understand the term—but would literally be Ekhat. The subject and object of reality no longer distinguishable in a new synthesis.



The Ekhat understood that the eschatology was unfortunate from the viewpoint of augment species. But they cared not at all, any more than Beethoven cared that the paper upon which he penned his music was the remains of a tree's carcass, or that the fuel that lit his endeavors was made possible by the death of animals. What did that count, against the Ninth Symphony or the Hammerklavier?



Nothing. All was subordinate to the music with which the Ekhat were creating a true universe. Rather, the music which was the true universe.

* * *



Rendered very approximately, those were the stray thoughts of the Point as it entered the choreochamber. Seeing the Counterpoint entering from the opposite gate, it set the idle thoughts aside. The view on the huge screen dominating the far wall of the chamber made clear that emergence was near. Time to begin the dance. Concentration and care was needed, lest the sacredness of the moment and the greater moments to follow be marred and rendered ugly.



Point begins, always, so the Point spoke the first words. They would have startled a human, had any been present; and misled them into assuming a concordance of mind.



Let there be light!



As if on cue, the screen brightened. The solar photosphere was emerging through the frame point. A sunspot swam into view, and the Counterpoint's voice rang through the chamber.



Light against darkness! Darkness from the light!