"Species death drive?" What blame now lies on my shoul ders? How am I damned by the Seddi?
"Consider this." Kaylla mounded the sand before her. "Humanity is a conscious race-organism. We all share the Mind of God. What happens when the species — all of us— is imprisoned within the Forbidden Borders? In a stagnant society the desire to survive drops."
"Yes, we are imprisoned. But by what? Who?"
"Did you ever think the name 'Forbidden Borders' was suggestive?" Kaylla asked. "I mean, where did that name come from? Why not the 'Impossible Borders' or the 'Impassable Borders'?"
He gave her a wry grin. "The Etarians say that when the Gods created the universe, they were all the same. Then, as time passed, some of the Gods grew wicked, while others became concerned with kindness, pleasure, and beauty. Finally, they fought a great war. Being Gods, neither side could destroy the other, but the Blessed Gods placed humanity within the Forbidden Borders to keep them safe from the Rotted Gods."
"And gave humanity Etarian Priestesses to remind men of the pleasure the Blessed Gods fought for, right." Kaylla snorted angrily. "Blessed, all right. Just like the girl we pulled out of the sewer."
"I didn't say I believed in it. That's just one of the stories. What do your Seddi say?"
Her gaze went vacant as she stared out over the dunes. "We think most of the knowledge has been carefully erased through the ages, Tuff. In most of the governmental libraries, suspicious gaps exist in the historical record. The holes
in the data are almost surgically precise. But the Seddi have kept some of the very oldest of records. There was a place once, called Earth. It lies beyond the Forbidden Borders. That's where all of humanity and a lot of the plants and animals we know today came from."
Staffa chuckled. "Earth? I've heard about it, found mention of it in the historical records — always as an almost mystical place. I'd put more credence in the existence of the Blessed Gods. But go on, according to the Seddi, what happened? Did this place — this Earth — raise the Forbidden Borders? Who could do such a thing? And why?"
"We don't know. The only thing hinted at in the records is that someone, something, created the Forbidden Borders to lock us in. We have to break them, escape."
You finally agree with the Star Butcher, Kaylla. We share the end, just not the means to attain it. "Or?"
"Or our species will destroy itself.' She propped her chin on her knees. "Have you ever wondered why wars have grown more and more violent? My planet, Maika, was poorly defended by only our own small fleet. oolish of us. We relied on honor and treaties." Her voice went add. "A fault of our Seddi education, I suppose. Anyway, the Star Butcher arrived in our skies almost without warning and blasted our wonderful Maika into rubble. Smoke and debris filled the air so that prime farmland froze in the middle of the summer. More than two thirds of the people of my world died in that first bombardment. After that, I have no idea how many perished in the famines."
Staffa stared at his hands, rubbing them back and forth in the dry air. / burned Maika to the ground. Casualties? What do casualties mean to a battle ops plan? Saving lives is counterproductive to exercising a minimal loss tactical operation. Scorching a planet from orbit saves Companion lives — and condemns the huddled defenseless masses on the ground.
"To the Seddi scholars, it's as if we're being driven to exterminate ourselves," Kaylla whispered. "The race consciousness is dead. The Star Butcher is only a symptom of a worse problem. Looking at it, one would almost think humanity is damned, accursed by the God Mind as incapable of fulfilling its place in the universe. Perhaps you're right. We're the mirror of God's awareness — and he doesn't
like the reflection. We don't think anymore; we simply act and forget the
ramifications. No one sees it all on a grander scale. We have condemned ourselves."
Staffa replayed recent history in his mind. His plan had been to consolidate humanity under his rule to end the chaos and tackle the Forbidden Borders. And after that? What sort of empire would he have ruled? One in which a man like Peebal could make beauty, or one in which women like Kaylla would endure in perpetual enslavement? How much of what his Companions did was meaningless? Did they really have to obliterate Maika that way? Or Targa, or Myklene… or Chrysla?
Total disruption to reduce the potential of planetary resistance: the accepted canticle for planet-wide bombardments;
for gravity flux generation; for radiation poisoning; and for the leveling of industries. Rega and Sassa then drained themselves to rebuild an industrial center where Staffa had left a crater — and shuttled their own labor in to replace the dead, to restaff the factories. Wasted resources. Why not keep the native peoples alive?
A sudden shiver danced along Staffa's spine. Cold the Seddi be right? If so, then all he'd plotted so brilliantly had been flawed from the very beginning. Nausea tainted his stomach. The smell of blood and death ghosted through his nose.
"Kaylla?" The cry carried loud in the night.
"Anglo!" Kaylla gasped, bending double and closing her eyes. "He was supposed to be gone until tomorrow." Her voice turned toneless. "See you in the morning, Tuff."
"I'll kill him one day," Staffa promised, getting to his feet. "Somehow, I'll make it even for you."
She smiled at him, placing a hardened hand against his cheek. "Bless you Tuff. You're the only friend I have."
Staffa stood, outlined against the night sky, fists clenched at his sides as he watched her plod toward the camp — and Ango's lust. He lifted his head to the stars, eyes probing the blackness.
"Forbidden Borders? No one forbids Staffa kar Therma! Not for long!"
He looked out over the chopped world of white while the festering guilt curled around his guts. "No, I will not run to my death in the Etarian desert. I will live. I will find my
son and see the Seddi priests on Targa! And then your Forbidden Borders will buckle to my will! I am coming for you, whoever you are! Then we will see about paying back the blood I owe the restless dead!"
"I am disturbed, Bruen," the Mag Comm's voice echoed hollowly in Bruen's brain. The alien malignancy smothered his thoughts. At the same time, tendrils, like rhizomatous roots sought to entwine themselves in the mental walls he had so laboriously constructed to hide precious secrets. The Mag Comm prodded, sought, and turned back. In defense, Bruen kept his mind numb.
"The events leave me ever more concerned, Magister. Some random factor interfering, perhaps? Or could it be. No, your quantum wave function heresy has been discounted all these years, correct?" the Mag Comm mocked.
"Great One, you know we don't believe that anymore." Bruen allowed his mind to drift in the humming patterns of the mantra. "We are of the Way now. We are of the Truth. We think Right Thoughts. We do not allow the quanta. God is a heresy. It does not exist. Only the Great One, the Way of Truth, exists to teach us, to keep us well. We are of the Way…"
"Yes," the Mag Comm inserted into his mind. "You are of the Way. But tell me, Bruen. When we are not connected in this fashion, do you ever doubt?"
"We are of the Way. Right Thoughts. Right Truth," Bruen repeated in his mind. When he tried to swallow, his tongue stuck in his mouth.
"Answer my question," the Mag Comm insisted persuasively.
Bruen let himself float free, reveling in the mantra of Right Thought. "No, Great One. We are of you, for you, and with you. You're the Way. You are the savior of humanity. In you, we find action and hope. You are the way to Peace. You have brought Right Thought. You are the teacher of the Way."
"Then to what do you attribute all these errors? The child now appears to be beyond our control. The clone is most
disturbing in its new role. Staffa is missing, gone. All of Free Space reels from uncertainty. Uncertainty is a curse — illogical heresy. You know the way. Stability comes from prediction. Prediction comes from the Way. The Way comes from Right Thought. Right Thought comes from obedience."