“I saw that,” said Quara.
“We meant you to,” said Miro.
“Grow up,” Quara said disdainfully.
An hour later they sent their message. And at once they were inundated with answers that they could not understand, but had to. There was no time for quarreling then, or for love, or for grief. There was only language, thick, broad fields of alien messages that had to be understood somehow, by them, right now.
CHAPTER 13
“TILL DEATH ENDS ALL SURPRISES”
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“I can’t say that I’ve much enjoyed
the work the gods required of me.
My only real pleasure
was my days of schooling,
in those hours between the gods’ sharp summonses.
I am gladly at their service, always,
but oh it was so sweet
to learn how wide the universe could be,
to test myself against my teachers,
and to fail sometimes without much consequence.”
from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao
“Do you want to come to the university and watch us turn on our new godproof computer network?” asked Grace.
Of course Peter and Wang-mu wanted to. But to their surprise, Malu cackled with delight and insisted that he must go, too. The god once dwelt in computers, didn’t she? And if she found her way back, shouldn’t Malu be there to greet her?
This complicated matters a little — for Malu to visit the university required notifying the president so he could assemble a proper welcome. This was not needed for Malu, who was neither vain nor much impressed with ceremonies that didn’t have some immediate purpose. The point was to show the Samoan people that the university still had proper respect for the old ways, of which Malu was the most revered protector and practitioner.
From luaus of fruit and fish on the beach, from open fires, palm mats, and thatch-roof huts, to a hovercar, a highway, and the bright-painted buildings of the modern university — it felt to Wang-mu like a journey through the history of the human race. And yet she had already made that journey once before, from Path; it seemed a part of her life, to step from the ancient to the modern, back and forth. She felt rather sorry for those who knew only one and not the other. It was better, she thought, to be able to select from the whole menu of human achievements than to be bound within one narrow range.
Peter and Wang-mu were discreetly dropped off before the hovercar took Malu to the official reception. Grace’s son took them on a brief tour of the brand-new computer facility. “These new computers all follow the protocols sent to us from Starways Congress. There will be no more direct connections between computer networks and ansibles. Rather there must be a time delay, with each infopacket inspected by referee software that will catch unauthorized piggybacking.”
“In other words,” said Peter, “Jane will never get back in.”
“That’s the plan.” The boy — for despite his size, that’s what he seemed to be — grinned broadly. “All perfect, all new, all in total compliance.”
Wang-mu felt sick inside. This is how it would be all over the Hundred Worlds — Jane blocked out of everything. And without access to the enormous computing capacity of the combined networks of all of human civilization, how could she possibly regain the power to pop a starship Out and In again? Wang-mu had been glad enough to leave Path. But she was by no means certain that Pacifica was the world where she wanted to live the rest of her life. Especially if she was to stay with Peter, for there was no chance he would be content for long with the slower, more lackadaisical timeflow of life in the islands. Truth be known, it was too slow for her, too. She loved her time with the Samoans, but the impatience to be doing something was growing inside her. Perhaps those who grew up among these people might somehow sublimate their ambition, or perhaps there was something in the racial genotype that suppressed it or replaced it, but Wang-mu’s incessant drive to strengthen and expand her role in life was certainly not going to go away just because of a luau on the beach, however much she enjoyed it and would treasure the memory of it.