into the floor. “Dear Pham, you are wrong. You’ve been at the Bottom, and at the Top, but never in between… ‘The illusion of self-awareness’? That’s a commonplace of any practical philosophy in the Beyond. It has some beautiful consequences, and some scary ones. All you know are the scary ones. Think: the illusion must apply just as surely to the Powers.”
“No. He could make devices like you and I.”
“Being dead is a choice, Pham.” She reached out to pass her hand down his shoulder and arm. He had a typical 0-gee change of perspective; “down” seemed to rotate sideways, and he was looking up at her. Suddenly he was aware of his splotchy beard, his tangled hair floating all about. He looked up at Ravna, remembering everything he’d thought about her. Back on Relay she’d seemed bright; maybe not smarter than he, but as smart as most competitors of the Qeng Ho. But there were other memories, how Old One had seen her. As usual, His memories were overwhelming; about this one woman, there was more insight than from all Pham’s life experience. As usual, it was mostly unintelligible. Even His emotions were hard to interpret. But… He had thought of Ravna a little like… a favored dog. Old One could see right through her. Ravna Bergsndot was a little manipulative; He had been pleased/amused(?) by that fact. But behind her talk and argument, He’d seen a great deal of… “goodness” might be the human word. Old One had wished her well. In the end, He had even tried to help. Insight flitted past him, too fast to catch. Ravna was talking again:
“What happened to you is terrible enough, Pham, but it’s happened to others. I’ve read of cases. Even the Powers are not immortal. Sometimes they fight among themselves, and someone gets killed. Sometimes, one commits suicide. There’s a star system, Gods’ Doom it’s called in the story: A million years ago, it was in the Transcend. It was visited by a party of the Powers. There was a Zone surge. Suddenly the system was twenty light-years deep in the Beyond. That’s about the biggest surge there is firm record of. The Powers at Gods’ Doom didn’t have a chance. They all died, some to rot and rusted ruin… others to the level of mere human minds.”
“W-what became of those?”
She hesitated, took one of his hands between hers. “You can look it up. The point is, it happens. To the victims, it’s the end of the world. But from our side, the human side… Well, the human Pham Nuwen was lucky; Greenstalk says the failure of Old One’s connections didn’t do gross organic damage. Maybe there’s subtle damage; sometimes the remnants just destroy themselves, whatever is left.”
Pham felt tears leaking from his eyes. And knew that part of the deadness inside had been grief for His own death. “Subtle damage!” He shook his head and the tears drifted into the air. “My head is stuffed with Him, with His memories.” Memories? They towered over everything else. Yet he could not understand them. He could not understand the details. He could not even understand the emotions, except as inane simplifications—joy, laughter, wonder, fear and icy-steel determination. Now, he was lost in those memories, wandering like an idiot in a cathedral. Not understanding, cowering before icons.
She pivoted around their clasped hands. After a moment, her knee bumped gently against his. “You’re still human, you still have your own—', her own voice broke as she saw the look in his eyes.
“My own memories?” Scattered amid the unintelligible he would stumble on them: himself at five years, sitting on the straw in the great hall, alert for the appearance of any adult; royals were not supposed to play in the filth. Ten years later, making love to Cindi for the first time. A year after that, seeing his first flying machine, the orbital ferry that landed on his father’s parade field. The decades aspace. “Yes, the Qeng Ho. Pham Nuwen, the great Trader of the Slowness. All the memories are still there. And for all I know, it’s all the Old One’s lie, an afternoon’s fraud to fool the Relayers.”
Ravna bit her lip, but didn’t say anything. She was too honest to lie, even now.
He reached with his free hand to brush her hair away from her face. “I know you said that too, Rav. Don’t feel bad: I would have caught on by now anyway.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. Then she was looking him straight in the eye. “But know this. One human to another: You are a human now. And there could have been a Qeng Ho, and you could have been exactly what you remember. And whatever the past, you could be great in the future.”
Ghostly echoes, more than memory and less than reason: For an instant he saw her with wiser eyes. She loves you, foolish one. Almost laughter, kindly laughter.
He slid his arms around her, drawing her tight against him. She was so real. He felt her slip her leg between his. To laugh. Like heart massage, unthinking reflex bringing a mind back to life. So foolish, so trivial, but, “I—I want to come back.” The words came out strangled in sobs. “There’s so much inside me now, so much I can’t understand. I’m lost inside my own head.”
She didn’t say anything, probably couldn’t even understand his speech. For a moment, all he knew was the feel of her in his arms, hugging back. Oh please, I do want to come back.
Making it on the bridge of a starship was something Ravna had never done before. But then she’d never had her own starship before, either. They don’t call this a bottom lugger for nothing. In the excitement, Pham lost his tiedown. They floated free, occasionally bumping into walls and discarded clothing, or drifting through tears. After many minutes, they ended up with their heads just a few centimeters off the floor, the rest of them angled off toward the ceiling. She was vaguely aware that her pants were flying like a banner from where they had caught on her ankle. The affair wasn’t quite the stuff of romance fiction. For one thing, floating free you just couldn’t get any leverage. For another… Pham leaned back from her, relaxing his grip on her back. She brushed aside his red hair and looked into bloodshot eyes. “You know,” he said shakily, “I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.”
She smiled back. “You’ve led a charmed life then.” She arched her back against his hands, then drew him gently close. They floated in silence for several minutes, their bodies relaxing into each other’s curves, sensing nothing but each other.
Then: “Thank you, Ravna.”
“… my pleasure.” Her voice came dreamy serious, and she hugged him tighter. Strange, all the things he had been to her, some frightening, some endearing, some enraging. And some she couldn’t have admitted—even to herself—till now. For the first time since the fall of Relay, she felt real hope. A silly physical reaction maybe… but maybe not. Here in her arms was a guy who might be the equal of any story book adventurer, and more: someone who had been part of a Power.
“Pham… what do you think really happened back on Relay? Why was Old One murdered?”
Pham’s chuckle seemed unforced, but his arms stiffened around her. “You’re asking me? I was dying at the time, remember… No, that’s wrong. Old One, He was dying at the time.” He was silent for a minute. The bridge turned slowly around them, silent views on the stars beyond. “My godself was in pain, I know that. He was desperate, panicked… But He was also trying to do something to me before He died.” His voice went soft, wondering. “Yes. It was like I was some cheap piece of luggage, and He was stuffing me with every piece of crap that he could move. You know, ten kilos in a nine kilo sack. He knew it was hurting me—I was part of Him, after all—but that didn’t matter.” He twisted back from her, his face getting a little wild again. “I’m not a sadist; I don’t believe He was either. I—”
Ravna shook her head. “I… I think he was downloading.”
Pham was silent an instant, trying to fit the idea into his situation. “That doesn’t makes sense. There’s not room in me to be superhuman.” Fear chased hope in tight circles.
“No, no, wait. You’re right. Even if the dying Power figures reincarnation is possible, there’s not enough space in a normal brain to store much. But Old One was trying for something else… Remember how I begged Him to help with our trip to the Bottom?”
“Yes. I—He—was sympathetic, the way you might be with animals that are confronting some new predator. He never considered that the Perversion might be a threat to him, not until—”
“Right. Not until he was under attack. That was a complete surprise to the Powers; suddenly the Perversion was more than a curious problem for underminds. Then Old One really did try to help. He jammed plans and automation down into you. He jammed so much, you nearly died, so much you can’t make sense of it. I’ve read about things like that in Applied Theology—” as much legend as fact. “Godshatter, it’s called.”
“Godshatter?” He seemed to play with the word, wondering. “What a strange name. I remember His panic. But if He was doing what you say, why didn’t He just tell me? And if I’m filled with good advice, how come all I see inside is…” his gaze became a little like days past, “darkness… dark statues with sharp edges, crowding.”
Again a long silence. But now she could almost feel Pham thinking. His arms twitched tight and an
