Nilis said triumphantly, “Do you see? Do you see now?”
“No,” snapped Kimmer.
There was a story in this information, said Nilis. And that story was the secret history of the universe.
Nilis said he had looked deep into the structure of Chandra, and had found life infesting even the singularity at its heart. “These deep ones — the ones I call monads; it is a very antique word — they are older than all of us. Older than the Xeelee, older than the universe itself! It will take a lot of study to figure it all out. But it’s clear that the monads are responsible for life in this universe. Or rather for the tendency of this universe to complexify, to produce life. It is a level of deep design about the universe nobody ever suspected. And in their nests of folded spacetime, huddled inside the event horizons of black holes, they slumber — waiting for our petty ages to pass away — until the time comes for a new universe to be born from the wreckage of the old.”
“And the Xeelee—”
“They live off Chandra, the black hole. Their net structure is the great machine which allows them to achieve their goals: to birth nightfighters, to use the black hole as a computing engine, all of it. But that’s trivial. It’s what’s inside the black hole that counts. The Xeelee are just parasites. Secondary. They don’t matter!”
Kimmer said dangerously, “They matter rather a lot to me.”
Enduring Hope thought he understood. “And if we attack the black hole,” he said doggedly, “we could destroy the monads. Is that what you fear?”
“Yes,” Nilis said gratefully, sweat beading his brow. “Oh, my boy — yes! That is precisely what I fear.”
Kimmer said, “But even if you are right, there are other galaxies. Other nests of monads.”
Nilis insisted, “We can’t make any simple assumptions about this situation, Marshal.” He spoke rapidly about levels of reality, of interconnectivity in higher dimensions. “By striking a blow in this one place we may wreak damage everywhere, and for all time…”
Luru Parz said slowly, “The Commissary fears that if we destroy the monads we will break the thread — don’t you, Nilis? — the shining thread of life, of creativity, that connects this universe to those that preceded it, and to those that will follow. To kill them would be patricide — or deicide, perhaps.” She smiled. “Ah, but I forgot. In this enlightened age you don’t have gods — or fathers, do you? It’s entirely appropriate of humanity that when we do find God, we try to turn Him into a weapon, and then kill Him.”
“Shut up, you old monster,” Kimmer said.
Luru Parz said coldly, “But this is why I’ve been trying to stop you, Nilis. To stop this pointless research.”
His jaw dropped. “You — it was you? You obstructed me, you blocked me from the data, the processing resources I needed? I thought you were my ally, Luru Parz. It was you who said we must study the black hole in the first place!”
“Study it sufficiently to destroy it — that’s all we needed. Not this! Knowledge is a weapon, Nilis. That’s all it is. I always feared that if you rooted around for long enough you’d find some reason not to complete the project. Academic fools like you always do.”
Maybe she was right to block him, Enduring Hope thought. He recalled his conversation with Blue, who had foreseen exactly this outcome: that sooner or later Nilis would find a reason to fall in love with Chandra, and would try to stop the attack.
Nilis said darkly, “Listen to me. My analysis is hasty. And it contains more questions than answers. Regardless of any pan-cosmic responsibility, if we were to destabilize this monad complex, we don’t know what the result would be. The damage could be huge. I can’t begin to estimate it—” He shook his head. “Damage on a galactic scale, perhaps.”
Luru Parz pushed past Nilis to face Kimmer. Her face was alive, intense, but Hope thought it had the intensity of a sharpened blade, not a human expression. “Then let it be so. Marshal — we must do it regardless of the consequences. This is our one chance, don’t you see?”
Kimmer said, “But if we cause such devastation — if the Galaxy center detonates—”
Luru shouted, “What of it? Let the Galaxy be cleansed! Marshal, I have seen the human race populate a Galaxy once; we can do it again. And this time it would be a Galaxy free of Xeelee. We must do this!”
Nilis laughed, a brittle sound. “Marshal, you aren’t listening to her? Why, you fool—”
Kimmer’s reaction was immediate. He swung around and swatted the Commissary aside with one gloved fist. Nilis fell backward, clattering clumsily against a bulkhead, blood seeping from his mouth.
Enduring Hope ran to him and cradled his head. “Commissary, Commissary,” he whispered. “You can’t go around calling a marshal a fool!”
Luru Parz seemed to have recovered her detachment. Breathing hard, she said, “Our debate here is irrelevant anyway.”
Kimmer, confounded by the rapid turning of events, glowered at her. “What do you mean?”
“The decision to go on doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to Pirius Red. Who has heard every word we have said. Haven’t you, Pilot?”
The voice from the center of the Galaxy was sepulchral. “I have, Luru Parz.”
Pirius Red pressed his gloved hands to his temples.
He and Bilson, his surviving crewmate, had made it back to the rump of his squadron. But he was grateful that he was alone in his blister. He was still trying to absorb the shocks of the last few minutes — the death of his engineer and the sudden loss of his own older self. He had no idea how he was supposed to feel about that. And now this, a questioning of the whole basis of the mission by the man who had instigated it all.
He found it difficult even to speak. He knew he was close to burnout.
This Burden Must Pass said, “It’s your decision, Squadron Leader.”
Pirius’s laugh was bitter. “Now you have something to say.”
Torec, her voice strained by grief, snapped at Burden, “Yes. And for you it doesn’t matter, because, right or wrong, everything will be put right at the end of time, won’t it?”
“Perhaps not this,” Burden said softly.
“We should wait,” Bilson said hesitantly. “We need time. If Nilis is right… We need time to check.”
Torec said, “But we won’t get as good a chance to strike again. We know that. The Xeelee will be waiting for us next time.”
“We will find another way,” Bilson said. “People are smart like that.”
“Yes, we are,” said Burden.
Pirius was anguished. If Nilis was even half-right, they could be committing a terrible crime, a crime that might transcend the universe itself. How could he possibly know the right thing to do? Who was he to have such a decision thrust upon him?
And yet the choice seemed clear.
Pirius said, “Enough of us have died today.” Including half of myself, he thought. He tried to rehearse the words. We pull back…
“Pilot.” Bilson’s voice was full of wonder.
Pirius looked down at the accretion disc. A kind of cloud was rising above that puddle of light, a black cloud. When he increased the magnification of his images, he saw they were ships, a horde of them, rising like insects.