Matriarch’s Journal: 3rd Beachday of the Month of Foundation, 3617, pt. 1
I’ve never seen Lorcan like this before. I think he’s on the verge of falling apart. I have to handle this carefully, though; if I show too much concern for him, then he’ll either explode in a fit of anger, or retreat behind a wall of sarcasm. It’s like a tender shoot pushing open a fruit-pit – it would be so easy to crush it, or to let it die from lack of light and water.
If Beat’s encounter with the Denolin Turym did this to Lorcan, what did it do to Beat himself? New emanations are always fragile. Although they look and act like adult humans, they haven’t had time to gain the confidence that comes with self-knowledge, they don’t have the experience needed to handle an emerging crisis, their alchemical abilities are undeveloped, and often their memories are fragmented. So of course, you send a whole treeful of new emanations to face monsters which once nearly destroyed all sentient life.
I understand why you needed Yggdrasil: get too far from a nau’gsh, and you can’t emanate. So why not emanate Cillian or Ailann as soon as the tree was established? All right, maybe Cillian would’ve rushed in with guns blazing. But Ailann has more innate compassion than most emanations – hell, more than anyone else I know. There must be some reason for those emanations, and to involve Lorcan. You always have reasons. It would be nice if you shared them.
You should’ve told the SongLuminants to shove it down their vents. If that had happened, everyone would’ve been happy – the Denolin Turym weren’t hurting anything here. Everyone would’ve been happy except the SongLuminants – who are very dangerous when unhappy.
They used the potential threat to me against you, of course. They didn’t even have to say it. You’re smart enough to realize that the unspoken hold the SongLuminants have over the human species is as much a concern as anything the Great Dread could muster.
If you had bothered to explain that to me, I would’ve understood. I understood about Draco, and I don’t like that either. The truth is that you still don’t trust me enough.
I don’t know what to do, Ash. If you were human, I probably would’ve left you a long time ago. Loving without trusting is like burying landmines in your own bedroom. But you aren’t human, and we’re making up the rules as we go. Whatever we feel for each other is so strong, strong enough to make the mad attempt to bridge the infinite space between us.
*****
Neliit teleported us back to her ship. She and Lorcan made eye contact, which became a staring contest. Her upper pair of eyes darted around independent from the movement of the lower pair, disconcerting, to say the least. “Very efficient,” she said, “the way that you are able to project the sensorium of your tree into your human senses – and by doing so, extend them. Your eyes are able to see double.”
“Your body is basically humanoid,” Lorcan replied, “but with some interesting variations. Efficient enough that I expect you’ve manipulated your genome.”
“I had this body created for the occasion,” she said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out how to get all the sight we needed into one pair of eyes. Otherwise, this form is intended to portray the image of wizened kindliness. It’s our custom to try to select the form we feel would be most effective in communicating to a new species, much as your Lucius did with the SongLuminants. Ah, if only we could directly manipulate matter as you do, how simple the task would be! As it is, I had to have my consciousness transferred into this body.”
“Like the palimpsest process used by CenGov?” I asked.
“Absolutely not! That process preserves only memory. There is no continuity of existence. When the memories are written onto another human brain, they eventually become assimilated, as they have been in your friend Clive Rivers. Putting them into a synthetic intelligence is merely a way of maintaining data. It isn’t immortality at all.”
“So basically you’re saying that CenGov’s idea of the destiny of humanity is to replace people with soulless automatons?” I said.
“Such harsh language,” said Neliit. “I’d hardly call the Quicknodes automatons. Synthetic intelligence can be quite subtle and valuable – a different order of life. But what was created wouldn’t be at all human, and certainly wouldn’t preserve the original individuals.”
“That’s great news,” said Lorcan. “That means that General Panic is actually dead.” He looked happier than I’d seen him since my arrival.
“Interesting,” I said, “since all her CPS droids have a sense of continuing her life.”
“Your species is at a very difficult point,” said Neliit. “The jump to immortality is usually problematic for biologically-based lifeforms. We had a terrible time of it. Of course, the SongLuminants have no idea – they have never experienced death. And species like the Quicknodes and the StoneStolids don’t experience natural death, although it is possible to destroy them.”
“I was thinking about what you said the other day,” I said. “I was wondering if immortality is such a good idea. There’s a quality we literally call ‘humanity’ which comes as a result of experiencing pain. Take death away from us, and perhaps we’re in danger of losing our most vital sympathies.”
“You must be fucking kidding,” said Lorcan. “The Cu’enashti don’t really have to die, but we experience pain by the boatload. The minute you start to love something, you experience pain.”
“That’s pretty bleak. I really don’t mean to cause you pain, Ash. Not ever.”
“But you do. And I hurt you. First, we miscommunicate. That’s really the big issue for you, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing at Neliit. “It’s such a big issue that when you got burned, you ran away, so don’t you even think about fucking lecturing me with your wizened but kindly shriveled body. But even if communication were perfect, then there are expectations. Sooner or later, the one you love will let you down – or you’ll screw up yourself. And lastly, there’s the Denolin Turym. The more you love something, the more you want to control it, consume it. And then you have to love enough to let go, let it fly away like a kite, except that your heart is still attached and gets ripped out of your body and dragged along the ground, where all sorts of gravel and twigs and dog crap get ground into it.”
“That was profound,” I said, “although perhaps a bit more descriptive than needed.”
“Well, my point is that love is painful enough for three universes without adding death to make it even worse. I think the sooner we can get rid of death, the better.”
Neliit laughed. “The SongLuminant report was correct – the Lorcan emanation is most amusing. I should disabuse you of the idea that the matter is one of your choosing. Once immortality becomes technologically feasible, a species will claim it, or destroy itself trying. No sentient species in our knowledge has turned away, deciding to remain mortal. And in truth, there’s little advantage to it. I do understand your concern, though. When we first encountered the Denolin Turym, my people had nearly forgotten those lessons. We didn’t know how to cope with death, nor did we remember how to fight back. We had to recover a rather atavistic mode of being.”
What she was saying made sense. Yet I remembered Lord Emson. Physical immortality might conflict with belief in an afterlife. On the other hand, a Mithraist would have no issue with a physical apotheosis, and a Buddhist would probably see physical immortality as inevitably leading to a sense of world-weariness which would evolve into a devotion to the pursuit of enlightenment. “Are there ever theological considerations?” I asked.
For some reason, Neliit thought this was hilarious. “You do have a way to go,” she said. “I think we’d better turn our attention back to the current situation.”
“Maybe we should just explain what you did to the SongLuminants, and go back to how it was – keeping this galaxy as a kind of nature preserve,” I suggested.
“It won’t be so simple,” said Neliit. “For one, the SongLuminants are intractable. They won’t be satisfied as long as they know one Denolin exists. For another, your tree is here. Would you abandon it? If you evacuated the station, the tree would be eternally alone, and if you didn’t evacuate the station, sooner or later the Denolin would find it, and want to absorb the Hreck.”
“Fuck all that,” scowled Lorcan. “The Denolin Turym are better off dead.”
I rested my hand gently against his arm. There was something about his tone of voice that warned me, a lot of pain just under the surface.
“You don’t fucking get it,” he said, turning to Neliit. “In your oh-so-infinite compassion, you missed the point entirely. That creature was happy to die. It was happy to die because it was so fucking lonely. It was willing to sacrifice its own existence for a few seconds of tasting something new. This whole galaxy is one big zoo, and like in a zoo, the animals can survive, but they can’t really live true to their natures. They’re all suffering here, and if we leave, they don’t even have a hope of happiness.”
Neliit lowered both sets of eyes. Tears formed at the corners. “It’s impossible,” she said. “We should’ve stayed in our own galaxy.”
“You see?” Lorcan said, meeting my eyes. “This is the kind of crap I’m talking about. Fucking cowards. Where would the Cu’enashti be if we thought like that? We’d never even take the grand jeté.”
For a second, Lorcan’s furious eyes meet mine. There’s pain in the Cu’enashti blue, and hope in opalescent flashes, and most of all, determination. And I realize that if you make a leap, you can’t stop in the middle of it. Then I know you must trust me enough to catch you when you reach the other side.
I clasp Lorcan’s hand. He looks surprised, but he doesn’t stop me.
“So what are you suggesting we do?” Neliit asks.
“Kill them all,” said Lorcan, “just like the SongLuminants planned. But we let them die happy. And because I’m the one who can resurrect himself, and who can’t be assimilated in my true form, I’m the one who gets to do it.”
“How many Denolin Turym are there?” I ask Neliit.
“They haven’t exactly thrived here, probably for the reasons Lorcan mentioned. In the eight billion rotations since we brought the survivors to this galaxy, their numbers have only increased to around 300,000.”
“That’s not happening,” I said. “Lorcan, I hope you know that’s not happening.”
“Let them eat Hreck,” Lorcan muttered.
“I return proposal number one to the table. We tell the SongLuminants to leave this galaxy alone. We’ll figure something out with Yggdrasil. Transplant it somewhere.”
“I’m telling you, leaving them alone is the worst thing you could do for them. If I can’t kill them personally, we’ll have to figure out a mass extinction method,” said Lorcan. “Except there is no mass extinction method. I don’t think the SongLuminants knew the extent of the problem, but they must’ve guessed. There are far too many Hreck on the station just for necessary maintenance – and I’m betting there could be a steady supply of more.”
“This problem has just stopped being theoretical,” I said. A projection portal had opened at the front of the deck, and it showed the figure of a Denolin Turym approaching the space where the SongLuminant base was hiding. “Are they coming for us?”
“Both the base and my ship are adequately screened,” said Neliit. “However, since one of them went missing, they’ve probably figured that something is unusual about the spot where it disappeared.”
“In other words, if it died, something killed it, and now they’ll keep coming to try their luck. Well, at this rate, we won’t even have to go looking for them. One down, 299,999 to go. Better get to work.” Lorcan took a few steps forward and into a flying leap. His arms raised, he transformed into the mothman, who flew straight through the walls of the ship and out towards the approaching behemoth.
“He’s quite unique among lifeforms,” said Neliit, “and very powerful. Do you ever fear him?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But other women fear that they’ll be cheated on, or lose their looks when they get old…he was right, you know. Love always means risk of some sort.” As you prepare to engage the horror facing us, I watch you on the viewscreen, wondering. Faceless, sexless, composed of energy from another universe, you’re far more alien to me than Neliit. How can I even hope to understand you, Ash?
And yet, I love you, with all of my being. “It’s a work in progress,” I tell Neliit.