Harry felt sure of it. Even these local predators — lithe and supple in abstraction space — would turn conceptually brittle if exposed to the seductive reasonings of Plato or Marx or Ayn Rand … Freud or Aquinas … Goebbels or Hub—
The station braked with a shuddering jar, splitting Harry’s thought and sending him slamming against a storage cabinet. He turned frantically in time to see several of the mites also come flying — propelled by their real-mass components. Two of them collided with holograms and were instantly destroyed.
But two others survived to smack the wall near Harry. As he gathered his balance, he could sense their regard swiveling his way.
Uh-oh.
They had him cornered, with his back against the lockers. As the station resumed its wild movements, the mites approached from two sides across the bucking deck, snapping jaws and waving scorpionlike tails.
Harry tried clearing his mind. Supposedly, if you practiced mental discipline, you could make your intellect impervious to toxic notions.
Unfortunately, beings who were that disciplined made lousy E Space observers. He had been recruited for his credulous imagination — a trait these parasites would use to demolish him.
“Uh … could I maybe interest you guys in entertaining an idea or two?” He spoke quickly, breathlessly. “How about — this sentence is a lie!”
Their reaction, a snapping of pincers, seemed amused.
“Well then … how do you know you exist?”
Total contempt.
Shucks, it worked in some old tellie shows.
Of course, sophisticated memes would dismiss such cliches like flint-tipped arrows bouncing off armor. But what about a concept they might not have met before?
“Uh, has anyone ever told you about something called compassion? Some think it’s the surest route to salv —”
The mites prepared to spring.
The station swerved again as the autopilot threw another gyration.
Suddenly, a radiant glow flooded the window opposite Harry, filling the control room with torrents of starlight.
Harry sighed.
“Well I’ll be a monk—”
Before he could complete the phrase, several things happened at once.
Both parasites leaped.
The big meme predator clinging to the outer hull screeched dismay.
His wildly gyrating station collided with the Avenue, a glancing blow, with the big memoid pressed between, giving it a taste of the Reality Continuum.
Tormented ululations filled Harry’s brain as the predator burst asunder, spilling its complex conceptual framework in explosive agony.
Deprived of its parent, one of the mites shattered just before reaching his throat. But the other held cohesion long enough to strike him from behind.
It was Harry’s turn to scream. He howled as something fluxed into his body. Pain yanked away all rational thought, piercing his buttocks and spine, then coursing along his outer flesh like searing fire. Meanwhile, deep within, qualms and uncertainties began attacking every belief, every assumption he had ever held dear.
Suns and galaxies loomed around Harry as the station leaned into the Avenue, pushing against the membrane separation, threatening to trigger a reentry transition.
Machinery wailed, joining his bellow of despair.
All the memes and holograms had vanished. Air leaked out of the station through a dozen small holes. But he hardly noticed. Teetering between one realm of living ideas and another of harsh, universal rules, Harry fought to hold on to something. His essence. His sense of inner being.
Himself.
Ewasx
THIS IS NOT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE HIDING places.
Then why did we/I choose it, my rings?
Out of all the twisty crannies that make up the great battleship, why did we take shelter in this chamber of glass-sealed walls and bubbling incubation cells?
Because it is “home”? The place where we began?
Our second torus of cognition refutes this with a reminder that most of our component rings had their origins elsewhere — in pungent mulch pits filled with delicious rotting vegetation, at a crude settlement called Far Wet Sanctuary, on lonely Jijo.
It is true. Only three present members of our shared stack started here, aboard the Polkjhy, in this sterile nursery, where infant rings are nurtured to perfection with computer-controlled drips of synthetic nutrients. But they are three of our most important parts, yes?
Our muscular torus-of-movement, with agile legs.
Our donut-of-smells, making us recognizable to the Jophur crew.
And, of course, your Master Ring, most precious of all. The essential (Me) ingredient, needed to transform modestly diffuse traeki into gloriously focused Jophur.
Is that not reason for nostalgia? Enough to call this darkened chamber home? (Though it appears to have suffered damage recently, and been repaired with hasty patching.)
Yes, go ahead. You may stroke the wax of memory. Recall the way things used to be on Jijo, before the change. Recollect how we/I learned to understand alien forms of parenthood, from close association with five other races.
During our prior incarnation, as the beloved traeki sage, Asx, we/I used to hold qheuen grubs and g’Kek larvae in our gentle tentacles, as well as hoon and human babies, rocking them, or spilling sweet aromatic mist- lullabies, crafted to bring happy dreams.
These recollections are preserved, not melted by our violent transformation into Ewasx. And yet, I am confused.
What point are you trying to make, my rings?
That we should be jealous?
That no ring stack — traeki or Jophur — can ever know a parent’s love?
We are piled up from parts. Assembled. Made, like some machine. Perhaps that is why other races hate/envy us so.
What? you say there is no such hatred on Jijo? Ah, but consider the price you colonists paid for likability! To live in brute ignorance. Worse yet, afflicted to remain placid traeki, almost inert with lack of ambition. Won’t you admit, at last, that life was never this vivid when you comprised poor compliant Asx?
You will? You will? you’ll concede that much?
Well, then. Perhaps we are making progress.
WHAT? WHAT’S THAT?
You would have Me, the Master Torus, confess something in return?
You wish me to admit that we have lately also seen some drawbacks — some disadvantages — to the mono-maniacal way Jophur behave.
No, you needn’t stroke recent wax, or replay those horrid events we observed before fleeing the control room. Foul-tempered, aggrieved and violent, the actions of our leaders were hardly inspiring. They don’t exhibit great progress toward enlightenment.
