Because the Lord of our world so orders it.
Is that the only reason?
It is the only one that we can have.
Agreement. It has always been so.
A pity. Why do you suppose that is?
Because the world was created thus.
And who created the world?
Centrum . . .
Ah. And who created Centrum?
The Starseeders.
And where are they now?
Dead.
It is so.
They flew on into a gathering night that frightened them beyond all reason, a thing that toyed with what passed in them for sanity and made them almost unreasoning beingsagain, but not quite. They had begun to think again, after ten billion years of fragmented, undreaming sleep, and they did not want to stop. We must go on.
7red felt a surge of pity for her and wondered how all the other countless resurrectees were taking it. We must, he agreed, but we cannot.
Why not? It was a cry that attracted the attention of those close about them, globules of oil rebounding for them to catch on their shells.
Yes, why not? asked another mournfully.
Because, said Seven Red Anchorelles, the Lord does not will it. How can we fight against our God?
It made them fall silent. How, indeed? But they continued to think about the matter, for, though they were reborn as subunits of Centrum's vast mind, it had given them a strange sort of freedom for just a little while. For however brief a time, until it swallowed them whole again, they were independent, able to think for themselves in their own small fashion. While they lived, they could fear and, perhaps, try to flee.
Aksinia looked around coldly. From the air above the Carnicom there was a smooth, clear view to the center city of Davenport, a crenellated monad crowning the rivered plain like half a broken bottle in which some complex crystal had grown. Morning mists shrouded the mildly undulating land like a floating film of milk. The squashed red sun had just cleared its belly from the city-dotted checkerboard that sat beneath it, and the beginnings of shadows etched in strange relief reached out to her. It was a view that should have astounded. She felt slightly nauseous.
She had been here for a week and a half, as the guest of a near-moronic playwright named Jass. His last name had never been revealed, unless of course Jass was his last name. Jass had many acquaintances here and seemed to have spent most of his life in the amusement complex. His room was filled with personal gear and elaborate drug-taking devices that would be difficult to carry on the road. Perhaps he livedhere. She hadn't asked. Beta-2 almost seemed tame compared with the elaborate pharmacopoeia Jass accessed daily; and she had gone along, inhaling burning junk for an archaic thrill, popping the most esoteric brain-chemical derivatives, and hopping the fastest, most diverting of the Carnicom's rides. It had been a bit of a rush, but it was over.
She reached into the nearest lattice of the energy matrix and pushed. The world slowly revolved, and the twenty or so others suspended in the flight simulator were shown to her. They were puppets hanging from invisible wire, unsupported and limp. Jass was within a dekameter. 'I'm going now,' she said. He was a handsome man, bald- shaven with blond hair fanning out from his lower lip to hide a chin slightly double from overindulgence. His eyes seemed to reflect the icy illness that she felt. 'Good-bye, then,' he said. 'It was fun.' He reached out both hands and swooped upward and away. In his room Aksinia found the overgarment that she wore when it was cold, pulled it out of the crevice between bed and wall-screen, and put it on. The wrinkles in the otherwise form-fitting garment felt good. She liked looking like a misfit, someone who couldn't care less about her appearance. It was the look she cultivated. From around the room she gathered the other few articles she carried with her, stuffed them into a shopping bag, and rang for a taxi. Almost as a last thought, feeling furtive for some reason, she opened the origami drawer in which Jass kept his stimulants and grabbed a handful of Beta poppers. She did not enjoy registering with coms and this would keep her anonymous for at least a week. If she found a new host before then, maybe she could stay disappeared for a month or more. And, of course, that meant no calls.
The light came on over the balcony door, and she quickly slipped through the dilating energy port and hopped into the floater without even noticing the concrete and metal integrated circuit forty stories down.
