You point out that this situation renders our situation unique, which is to say, paradoxical. Somehow we must imagine our planet engaged at all points with a destructive substance, nothingness. Since no point is free of the onslaught of nothingness, from whence comes renewal, the continual regeneration of Wormworld, and, perhaps, of the entire universe? From within. The within is everywhere, just like the without. The within is the point furthest from the destniction of the surface. Without a within a surface could not be maintained.
You maintain that worms are conditioned to seek outward, since life must express itself outwardly rather than inwardly. This is the direction in which sure death lies.
You think that the way to the unwormholed density of safety and beauty lies inward.
Not too far inward, you point out. Perhaps the very core of Wormworld is crystalline, and that matter expands from it and begins to undergo transformation into organic substance.
Still, an area should exist, you believe, if one could only find a route through all the ancient wormhole mazes, an area that is untouched, virgin territory. In our special situation, the search physically inward would correspond elsewhere to the search outward.
You’ve solved it for me, Robert! But perhaps not quite as you expected. The way out lies inward, you say, and as far as you and your world goes, you may be right. And I wish I could do it, travel inward, into the unwormed interior frontier, Beulah, the promised land.
And I’d like to get as close as I could to that ultimate crystalline perfection, into perfect symmetry, all points, all angles, faces aligned, in the cosmic explosion of the creation of the interior that goes on forever.
But that’s not where I’m going. I’m going outward and upward to where I can inscribe the Great Figure. I know it’s an absurd enterprise, and Jill points out that all I can hope to do is break through the surface and die. She may be right. But I believe a worm should do with his life the greatest deed he can imagine.
I don’t claim to be a hero-worm. I don’t expect to die. I believe that when I break through the surface, nothing is going to end. Nothingness itself will turn out to be just another partial truth, another illusion. As for me, I will be light, all light.
Here ended the communication of Ron the Worm.