Staffa coughed hoarsely. "Bastard hurt her. Now, if I could just get Anglo."
Koree hawked brown phlegm and spit into the sand. "Injustice, friend Tuff, is the reality of existence. God made the universe that way. It's unfair that we can only find a hero once in a while to handle bits and pieces of justice."
"I'm no Rotted hero."
Koree ignored him. "Brots is only a symptom of the sickness infecting mankind. Anglo is a fragment, but he repesents a larger malignancy, one you and I, friend Tuff, cannot cure."
"Why not? If I could get my hands on his scrawny neck…"
"He's only a fragment — and killing him would kill all of us when the collars shorted," Koree panted. "That, friend Tuff, is poor social surgery atbest. Therefore, here, we, at least, must suffer until we find the strength to die. Others will have to do the surgery in another time."
Staffa stumbled along, trying to keep his breath. When they dropped the pipe he looked at Koree. "You think it takes strength to die?"
Koree bent to the task of pulling the yoke strap from the sand. "In our situation, yes. Why do we fight so hard to live? What do we do here but suffer? If you accept that there is purpose in the universe, is it suffering? Can we expect that tomorrow the Empire will fall and we will be freed? No, my friend. I wake every morning with dread. Every moment I suffer, feeling my health sucked away with the sweat of my body. I will break someday. When? Tomorrow? No. Next week? No. But the week after? The week after that? And when that happens, Anglo or Morlai will cut off my life and perhaps you will carry me to the side and push hot white sand over my body. That is my future."
"Then why keep going?"
"Life is addictive. God made the universe that way. Like a drug, life fills us and leaves us brimming with an illusion of hope. People experience enough successes to nourish more hope. They forget the disappointments because hope is a more enjoyable opiate than despair. We, however, have no such reinforcement here. Somewhere on this endless pipeline death waits. Perhaps the only true underlying reaon we stagger on is that we're goaded by curiosity. When will it come? How long will I last? I ask you, is life worth living if that is the only entertainment?"
"You can always lie down and let Anglo make an end of it," Staffa reminded. "The collar doesn't cause pain. The disorientation is only limited to a minute or so. You talk of God and injustice. Why? The universe is neutral."
"Is it?" Koree shot him a sideways glance as they staggered under the immense weight. "Suffering and injustice are built deep into the structure of the universe. Entropy is the fuel of progress. Each of the world ecosystems — there are no exceptions — is based on competition. Some life-form eating another, competing for resources at the expense of its brethren. Why? Any species of plant or animal — if not preyed upon by others — preys upon itself. Is that just?"
"And you say this is God's work?" Staffa grunted, short of breath.
"Not the God you think of in terms of Etaria or Sassan Emperors — but the real God. The creator and manipulator of the universe. The God who isn't at all interested in prayers, or sacrifices, or temple contributions."
"The Seddi God."
"We can use that term to distinguish him, friend Tuff."
They pounded past the end of the pipe and fought sideways, lining up the length under Kaylla's watchful eye.
On the way back, Koree continued. "God built injustice into the system to avoid stagnation. Injustice entails suffering. Any aware organism will respond, trying to make its life better — alleviate the suffering, if you will. Choices are made, observations which, for the moment, establish that which is. Freeze the dance of the quanta. Reality is changed; knowledge is acquired. God gains from knowledge. He learns about reality, different reality, from each
of the micro phase changes recorded in a bit of eternal energy."
"Yet you wait to die. Why not end the suffering now? You yourself have said
you only await the end. Your hope is gone."
"But I am a coward," Koree reminded. "I am afraid to take that action."
"I've seen a lot of death. Fear made no difference. The brave died as dead as the cowards."
"True, but how many had the choice to take their own lives?"
"Many." Staffa stooped to dig a hole under the pipe for the carry strap.
"Why did they have that choice?" Koree countered, grunting as they staggered under the yoke for yet another trip.
"Because they feared my… my troops more than they feared death." Rotted Gods! What had he almost said?
"Then my thesis rests," Koree asserted. "Men are cowards at heart. Cowards are unjust, acting according to God's will. Creating more suffering, you see. And we are the worst cowards of all since we could escape misery so easily, Lord Commander."
His heart spasmed. He stumbled and Koree groaned, struggling to support the burden. The little man sank to his knees as Staffa fought to lift his half of the yoke and succeeded, the whole company suddenly out of pace.
"What. what did you call me?"
Koree, panting from the sudden strain, fought his way ahead until he regained his voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't think. I thought I recognized you days ago, but the beard makes a difference. Your ability to kill Brots confirmed it. No other man but a practiced professional could have dispatched him without serious damage."
Staffa glanced uneasily behind him, happy to note that no one seemed to have heard.
Koree continued to talk as if nothing had happened. "I was once a professor of human behavior at the University of Maika. For years I studied the trends of government in the Empire and wrote learned papers on why Tybalt did what he did and what motivated you and your Companions. I had a rare holo of you on the wall."
Staffa's anguished body — for the moment at least — reveled in a rush of adrenaline-backed fear.
Koree said sympathetically, "I shall not tell Tuff, my friend. Your business here is your own. I trust that you, too, have fallen as I myself fell. To me, that is another small slice of justice in an unjust whole." He paused. "But tell me. Why did you. No, how could you do the things you did? Did you never wonder at the rights and wrongs of your actions? Please, I mean no insult or censure. I ask strictly from an academic curiosity to know what motivated you."
Staffa bowed his head to hide the worry in his eyes.
"I don't need an answer right now, friend Tuff." Koree's voice came softly. "If you decide not to tell me, that is your prerogative." He laughed brittlely. "And you might decide to kill me to ensure my silence — which is fine. You spare me the misery of waiting to die, and I would only ask that you do it skillfully and painlessly."
Staffa bit his lip, blood rushing in his ears. They said no more as they carried length after length of pipe toward a towering dune, bisected by the trench.
Injustice? Suffering? God's work? He blinked to stifle the pain lancing hot behind his eyes. His tender ribs sent stitches through him. All his life, he'd dealt misery to someone. Entropy? Had he fed on that? He'd been a predator, true, but how did he expect humanity to survive the coming cataclysm when Sassa and Rega, each determined to survive, collided head to head? In God's unjust universe, where did right lie? Baffled, he turned his raw red eyes to glare at poor staggering Koree.
"I don't like that dune," Kaylla said warily, as they walked back to a new pipe stack the hovercraft had dropped. "I'll breathe a lot easier when we pass it." She looked back over her shoulder at the defiant white dune. "It's a man killer, Tuff."
What did he say to Koree? He thought about that as they worked ever closer to the sheer-walled ridge of sand. Kill him? Was that what the scholar was after? A quick end? And if he had recognized Staffa, who else could? The patter of fear sucked even more energy from his dehydrated body.