“I’m not sure that I can,” Anya said, but she walked along with me toward the grassy glade.
“Then tell me as much as my limited mind can understand,” I coaxed her.
“Your mind is not as limited as Aten thinks,” she told me. “He would be shocked to know that you can translate yourself across the continuum, and carry me along with you. And rejuvenate me, too.”
“If we go back to Prime and the era of the war, will you remain as youthful as you are now?”
“No,” she said ruefully. “I will be a dying old hag there, unless I exert almost all my failing strength to appear young for a few moments.”
“How did Aten do this to you?”
We had stepped out of the shade of the trees, into the welcoming sunlight. Walking to the edge of the stream, we sat oh the soft grass, our backs against a big sun-warmed boulder.
“This war between the Commonwealth and the Hegemony,” Anya said, “is really a continuation of the conflict we had over Troy.”
“But why—”
She hushed me with a finger on my lips. And began to explain as much as she could.
The human race had expanded through the solar system and out to the stars, not as a single unified species, but as a pack of squabbling, contending tribes. Humankind had not overcome its tribal animosities merely because we had achieved interstellar flight. The Creators had built that aggressive nature into us, and no amount of technology could remove it. Indeed, the more sophisticated our technology became, the more dangerous our weaponry. We could blast whole planets clean of all life. Now we were ready to shatter stars.
We had found other intelligent species among the stars. Some were far below us in technological and cultural development: cave dwellers or simple herders and pastoralists. By and large these were left alone by the expanding human species; they had nothing to offer us, neither trade nor knowledge nor competition. Scientists studied them, although now and again unscrupulous humans colonized their worlds and despoiled them.
We also found other species that were far beyond us and, like the Old Ones, wished to have nothing to do with humankind or its ilk. But there were several intelligent species among the stars, such as the Tsihn and the Skorpis, who were close to our own level of knowledge and power. With these we could trade. And fight.
Inevitably, the humans who colonized the stars polarized themselves into two competing groups: the Hegemony and the Commonwealth. Inevitably, they sought allies among the aliens of our own level. Inevitably, they went to war.
“Inevitably?” I asked Anya. “Aten told me that this war is actually a struggle to decide how the Creators will deal with the ultimate crisis.”
She bowed her head in acknowledgment. “I hadn’t realized he had revealed that much to you.”
“Have all of humankind’s wars been caused by the Creators?” I asked.
“No, not all of them. The human species is ferocious enough to start its own wars, without our instigation.”
“But what is this ultimate crisis?” I wanted to know. “Why do we have to kill billions of people and destroy whole planets? Why is the Commonwealth preparing to use a weapon that can blow away a star?”
Her eyes blazed. “They’re ready to use it? How do you know…?”
“The Old Ones.”
“Aten has made contact with the Old Ones?” Anya looked frightened.
“No, they refuse to speak with either the Commonwealth or the Hegemony.”
“Then how—”
“They spoke with me. They told me to warn both the Commonwealth and the Hegemony that they will not allow a star-destroying weapon to be used. They said they would eliminate all of us—all of humankind and all our allies—if we tried to destroy a star.”
Anya leaned back against the boulder. “They spoke to you?” She seemed unable to believe it.
I assured her that they did and gave her every detail of my contacts with the Old Ones. She probed into my mind and confirmed that it was all true.
“Then the Hegemony is lost,” she said at last. “And me with it. Aten will win. We were hoping to develop the star-destroyer ourselves. It was our last chance, a desperation weapon that we hoped would be so terrible it would force the Commonwealth to accept a truce.”