Three possibilities present themselves to me:
- Pick up where Tara’s narrative left off. This has two distinct advantages: temporal continuity, and the image of her asleep in my arms.
- I could skip to the confrontation with the Cantor. From a strictly narrative sense, this is perhaps preferable. It cuts to the vital action, trimming away the deadwood.
- I could turn the narrative inward, focusing on my state of mind rather than my external circumstances.
The problem with you, says Cillian, is that you’re more interested in the process of writing than the story itself.
I’m a metacritic, I say. What would you expect from a god? It behooves me to consider all of the possibilities before acting. I point my glance at Davy. It is a glance of frosty disapproval such as would loosen the bowels of my lesser priesthood.
Chill, says Davy. Have a beer.
He won’t drink beer, says Cillian. I’ll take it.
Strictly speaking, says Tommy, if you pick up where Tara left off, you could put in a sex scene.
I pour myself a scotch, toss in a shot of Root Riot, and wait for Patrick to say that I should start with the Cantor and preserve Tara’s privacy.
You should start with the Cantor, says Patrick. What happens with Tara is…
Yes. I know myself rather well. Then how is it that there are traitors among us?
That’s a good question, says Dermot. And the answer is that I now believe it impossible. Davy and I thought that we could trick I and I. But in the end, I don’t think we could’ve acted against His will. He must’ve endorsed our actions from the beginning.
He would never allow us to leave Tara by herself, unprotected, for two years, I reply. I down the rest of my drink in one gulp because it’s just possible, maybe just…
Did you ever consider, says Ari, that the Mover wanted to scrap Atlas and start over with Goliath? That the Atlas emanations are flawed?
Did you ever consider, says Cillian, that I could take a fucking chainsaw to your branch? And stop with ‘the Mover’ all the time. It sounds fucking stupid.
Mickey is getting impatient: Could we possibly keep a coherent narrative going for a whole paragraph? Just read over what Tara wrote. It’s straightforward and elegant. Why can’t we write like that?
Because she has one person in her head and we’ve got thirty-one, says Tarlach. Writing by committee is always more difficult.
It isn’t supposed to be a committee, though, says Evan. This is Ailann’s chapter.
Yes, and three glasses of scotch have added enormously to my eloquence. The Cantor, then. For the sake of our beleaguered readership.
“You’ve gone too far,” the Cantor said. “This is unnatural and wrong. Your hubris led you to this, Ashtara. And look at what you’ve reaped. You are divided against yourself. You abandoned your Chosen for over two years. And now you’re a laughingstock because your wife has cuckolded you with another tree. Not a single Cu’enashti will ever respect you again.”
I had arranged an informal meeting with the Cantor and Lady Claris to introduce Miranda and explain the situation. I hadn’t expected it to go well. Still, the accusations angered me, nonetheless for having to admit they bore some truth.
They angered Miranda, too. I shot a warning glance at her. If I hadn’t, I’m certain she would’ve attacked the Cantor, and that would’ve endangered the K’ntasari’s chance of being accepted into the Convocation.
“You don’t honestly plan to reveal this to the public?” Claris asked the Cantor. “Have you considered what the reaction will be if this gets out? The Archon is our best security with the humans. Undermine his position, and you undermine your own.”
“Whatever you feel about me,” I said, “there’s still the matter of the K’ntasari. What’s done cannot be undone. They aren’t responsible for Davy’s actions.”
“I find it hard to believe that they are true Nau’gsh.”
“They’re different from you,” said Claris. “I’m different from you. But they spend part of their lives as trees.”
“Then you agree with us?” I asked Claris.
“I don’t know yet. Do you even know if they want to belong to the Convocation? If they want Skarsian citizenship? Maybe they just want to be left alone on Eden. They should just spend some time here so that we can all figure it out. That’s it. That’s what we should do.” Claris rose, crossing the courtyard to a fountain. She leaned forward to check her hair. “Are we done now? I’m getting bored.”
“Miranda, why don’t you let Claris give your people a tour of the capital? I’m sure Claris knows all the best spots…”
“Oh yeah. We could hit up the Starlite Lounge, Alexander’s Brandy, Clubb Vixxxen…”
“…but remember, they’ve never seen a city before. I was thinking you could show them the Council Hall and the Gardens, maybe go to a nice restaurant.”
“How about the ConsumerPlex? Ailann, you are such a stuffed shirt.”
“Frivolous girl,” said the Cantor, when they had left. “Typical Cu’enmerengi.” She turned to me. “But you should know better. How many times did I warn Daniel not to abuse his power? I won’t forgive you for this, Ashtara.”
“I won’t forgive myself,” I said.
*****
I couldn’t ignore that the Cantor had a point. According to Cu’enashti law, Tara was married to the Atlas Tree. Any emanation produced by one of its branches was considered her husband. But Goliath was an entirely different tree. Even if I and I was its animating force, it had no legal connection to Tara. I think even Tara sensed this reasoning – it’s probably why she never made advances towards Aran on the trip back from Eden.
She never made advances towards me, Aran says, because I had done absolutely nothing to prove myself worthy of her.
You have to trust her, says Ross. She even forgave me.
You did nothing wrong! says Ari. Sometimes I think that our emanations lucked out by never receiving the Cantor’s indoctrination into so-called Nau’gsh culture.
That’s an interesting point, says Tarlach. We’ve never seen what a Cu’endhari would become left to our own devices. The Cantor’s teachings evolved as a response to human civilization.
Left to our own devices, we’d go nuts, says Suibhne. Ari’s crazy, like me. Don’t forget that.
Ari is a paranoid megalomaniac, says Tarlach. Fortunately, he didn’t inherit Suibhne’s ability to kill. What he got instead is Whirljack’s drive and charisma, meaning that he has the potential to become a very dangerously successful dictator.
He is a dangerously successful dictator, says Cillian. He really kicked ass on Dalgherdia.
You’re getting ahead of the story again, says Mickey.
It’s interesting that you feel responsible for keeping things in order, Valentin says to Mickey. I didn’t inherit that tendency from you at all. I’m content to observe.
That’s cause I made you with half of Evan, says Davy. I wanted you to have Mickey’s tactical strength, but the heart of a poet. Marius got stuck with Mickey’s anal streak.
Everyone stares at him. Dead silence.
Finally, I have to ask: Who, exactly, is Marius?
Never mind, says Davy. I’m having another beer. Anyone want one?
Is Marius one of the dormant branches? I pursue. And if so, how could you know his name? We’re only given a name when we emanate.
Dermot shakes his head. We learn our names when we see our reflections. That doesn’t mean we didn’t always have one, from the moment the branch grew.
I didn’t learn my name when I saw my reflection, says Blackjack.
You’re unique, says Dermot. You were emanated when Jack’s branch was split by that terrorist bombing. You never had a name of your own. You were just a double for Jack.
Wait, says Manasseh. Wouldn’t that mean he’s not unique at all?
I never heard the answer. I was distracted by the realization that unlike a normal Cu’enashti, which grows branches as needed in response to stress, Goliath was born with twenty-five sub-trunks to parallel Atlas. There could be another nineteen emanations, fully-formed, trapped within that tree. Is it possible that they had some kind of consciousness?
I can’t think about that. I have to continue with the story. I pour another scotch.
For all that being “God” sounds impressive, a large part of my job is public relations. Not only am I responsible for the lives of – according to the most recent census – some 26 billion people, human and Nau’gsh, within the Domha’vei, but I also need to continually convince them that I am worthy of that responsibility. Sometimes I wonder myself – but it isn’t like there is another choice. A Nau’gsh is needed to serve as a conduit of energy from the rip into the power grid, and bitter experience had shown that no other tree is large enough. The addition of Goliath, effectively doubling my strength, makes that even more unlikely. Rivers had experimented with a number of the Arya run in parallel, but it was never quite sufficient as a solution. Now, a jury-rigged combination of disparate entities could never match the ability of I and I to coordinate the strength of Atlas and Goliath.
Despite these indisputable truths, we are consistently besieged with potential coups, terrorists and assassins. Before my disappearance, things were starting to stabilize. Nothing like a lack of war and a robust economy to build confidence in a government. But my absence, combined with the power shortages, had been starting to erode that confidence.
What I really wanted was just to look at my wife. To hold her hand. To have a few more drinks and bury my face in her hair. Unfortunately, experience has taught me that I have a low probability at any given time of getting what I want. What I was going to do at that moment was hold a press conference.
We went out onto the grand verandah that overlooked the gardens at Court Emmere. I was gritting my teeth: the journalists had brought their swarms of microcameras, too small and quiet for humans to perceive, but to a Cu’enashti, about as subtle as a swarm of whornets. I had to constantly resist the urge to swipe the things away from my face.
The Archonists among them saluted and cried “Amat’i Archa, Amat’I Ailann, Ama Ama Skarsia,” meaning, “The life of the Archon is the life of Ailann, is the eternal life of Skarsia.” The others did their best to look unimpressed. Apostates.
Lord Danak signaled for the crowd to quiet. “My people,” I began. “Rumors have been rife concerning my whereabouts for the past several years. There have been good reasons for my absence – very good reasons – and reasons as well why it was necessary for my wife, your Matriarch, may she reign for eternity, to dissemble. I’m certain that the recent strain on the resources of the power grid has also been more than apparent. A perceptive mind might connect the two phenomena.”
There was a slight rumble of interest through the crowd. Time for the special effects. I gestured dramatically while formulating a large, concave lens in midair. It hovered there while I projected an image of Eden. There was a gasp from the onlookers. Really, they grew up in a technological culture; they shouldn’t be so easily impressed by parlor tricks. A sharp mind could devise a dozen ways to engineer that flourish through strictly human skill.
I used alchemy, of course. And the people were suitably awestruck because the human heart hungers for miracles. It’s a need I exploit, but I don’t feel good about it. A skeptic would say that they’re getting what’s coming to them for their weakness. Would one say the same then of a woman who gives her heart to a blackguard? By that logic, all lovers are fools.
“As you may know, this asteroid, Eden, was created by me in response to the singularity crisis some five years ago. What you do not know is that in the center of it is a rip into the nul-universe, similar to the one at the core of Dolparessa.”
Audible murmuring now. “Any fool could reason that such an occurrence is ripe for exploitation. And so, in anticipation of the energy shortage that has begun to annoy us, I have spent the past few years investigating ways to do so. I can now announce that the solution is in effect. You may have noticed markedly better service within the past several weeks. Unbeknownst to you, Dalgherdia and Volparnu are now connected to the Eden node. The current solution should be able to serve our anticipated energy needs for the next two centuries.”
“For the time being, Eden is off-limits to civilians. We expect in the future to be able to make public more information. For now, know that your god is eternally vigilant over your well-being.”
Next, a quick exit, or they’ll be begging me for a blessing. Fortunately, since only the press were invited, there are no sick children present. I have a soft spot for sick children. Lord Danak has gone apoplectic on numerous occasions when my schedule was ruined by the performance of inconvenient miracles.
“I don’t even want to think about how many lies you just told,” said Tara.
“The power shortage is solved,” I said. “That much is true. And it was a partial motivation for I and I to go to Eden. The public may well learn the truth about the K’ntasari later, but for now, it’s best to keep that quiet. And the rest is personal.”
Actually, says Cuinn, your statement was also scientifically inaccurate. The problem with the grid wasn’t lack of power. We had more than enough power. The problem is that the crystals are the weak link in the system. The ones under highest system demand are breaking down, and we used most of the spares to repair the ones that blew out when you created the second rip.
And the process of making the crystals? asked Cillian. I take it that you and Owen are still working on it?
It isn’t easy, Cuinn said. They’re not from this universe. In order to understand them, we’d need more information from the nul-universe. Which is tough considering that all our sensory organs, both human and Nau’gsh, are designed to perceive conditions in this universe.
Excuses, excuses, says Cillian.
I think I’d better continue before Mickey blows a crystal of his own, I say.
Tara hadn’t finished her rant. “Personal? Remember how personal our wedding was? We had to sneak out of Court Emmere hidden in the back of Ashpremma’s hovercar to avoid the papis.”
“A totally different situation,” I replied.
“Oh? How do you think the press will react to a new tree and three new emanations? They’ll be debating the legitimacy of our marriage on Orbital Hotnews.”
“There’s no debate, apparently,” I said, keeping my voice level. “The Cantor says your fling with Manasseh is adultery.”
“The Cantor can go sit on the most pointy of her own twigs. Goliath is Ashtara. Maybe the law says I’m married to a tree, but I love the being that animates it. And it only makes sense. I’ll have Ross fight it in court, if need be.”
“There’s a difference,” I said, “between the tree and the mothman. That’s why every Cu’enashti uses the pronoun I and I. Two I’s – the tree and the mothman.”
“Manasseh and Aran referred to Ashtara as ‘The Mover.’ I think that’s probably more accurate.”
“Atlas and Goliath are not the same.”
“So you agree with the Cantor?”
“I can’t access Manasseh’s memories. It isn’t amnesia. They’re in a different tree – it’s as if they were in a different brain, in your terms.”
“That doesn’t invalidate my argument.”
“You don’t understand. It doesn’t matter if you make love to Tommy or Patrick or even Lugh and Owen at the same time. I’ll feel it. They’re me – or rather, we’re all a part of Atlas. Manasseh isn’t. I can’t feel what Manasseh felt.”
“Oh,” she said, pausing. An almost-smile flickered across her face. “You’re jealous.”
“It isn’t the first time,” I say casually. “I have a jealous nature. Rivers, for example.”
“But that’s foolish jealousy. Clive was never a threat. From the moment I dumped Clive for Patrick, I’ve been entirely faithful to Ashtara.”
“Are you saying Manasseh is a threat?” I asked, a bit more sharply than I’d intended.
“I don’t know. Are you Ashtara or Atlas?”
I walked out of the room. I could still feel her, of course, could smell and hear her, could see that particular radiance of the second sun burning the backs of my eyes. I would never let her out of the range of my senses again. But I could not recall ever having been so furious with her. And I found myself in total agreement with Aran – the only solution was the complete destruction of Goliath.