I dismiss them and stride off, solitary again, into a canyon where a river clangs, or onto some gaunt mountain peak. No revelation is given me. I climb and creep toward the truth.
Which is that SUM must be destroyed, not in revenge, not in hate, not in fear, simply because the human spirit cannot exist in the same reality as It.
But what, then, is our proper reality? And how shall we attain it?
I return with my songs to the lowlands. Word about me has gone widely. They are a large crowd who follow me down the highroad until it has changed into a street.
“The Dark Queen will soon come to these parts,” they tell me. “Abide till She does. Let Her answer those questions you put to us, which make us sleep so badly.”
“Let me retire to prepare myself,” I say. I go up a long flight of steps. The people watch from below, dumb with awe, till I vanish. Such few as were in the building depart. I walk down vaulted halls, through hushed high-ceilinged rooms full of tables, among shelves made massive by books. Sunlight slants dusty through the windows.
The half memory has plagued me of late: once before, I know not when, this year of mine also took place. Perhaps in this library I can find the tale that— casually, I suppose, in my abnormal childhood—I read. For nian is older than SUM: wiser, I swear; his myths hold more truth than Its mathematics. I spend three days and most of three nights in my search. There is scant sound but the rustling of heaves between my hands. Folk place offerings of food amid drink at the door. They tell themselves they do so out of pity, or curiosity, or to avoid the nuisance of having me die in an unconventional fashion. But I know better.
At the end of the three days I am little further along. I have too much material; I keep going off on sidetracks of beauty and fascination. (Which SUM means to eliminate.) My Education was like everyone else’s, science, rationality, good sane adjustment. (SUM writes our curricula, amid the teaching machines have direct connections to It.) Well, I can make some of my lopsided training work for me. My reading has given me sufficient clues to prepare a search program. I sit down before an information retrieval console and run my fingers across its keys. They make a clattery music.
Electromi beams are swift hounds. Within secomids the screen lights up with words, and I read who I am.
It is fortunate that I am a fast reader. Before I can press the Clear button, the unreeling words are wiped out. For an instant the screen quivers with formlessness, themi appears
I HAD NOT CORRELATED THESE DATA WITH THE FACTS CONCERNING YOU. TI 115
INTRODUCES A NEW AND INDETERMINATE QIJANTITY INTO THE COMPUTATIONS.
The nirvamia which has come upon me (yes, I found that word among the old books, and how portentous it is) is miot passiveness, it is a tide more full and strong than that which bore mne down to the Dark Queen those ages apast in
wihdcountry. I say, as coolly as may be, “An interesting coincidence. If it is a coincidence.” Surely sonic receptors are emplaced hereabouts.
EITHER THAT, OR A CERTAIN NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF THE
LOGIC OF EVENTS.
The vision dawning within me is so blinding bright that I cannot refrain from
answering, “Or a destiny, SUM?”
MEANINGLESS. MEANINGLESS. MEANINGLESS.
“Now why did You repeat Yourself in that way? Once would have sufficed. Thrice, though, makes an incantation. Are You by any chance hoping Your words will make me stop existing?”
I DO NOT IIOPE. YOU ARE AN EXPERIMENT. IF I COMPUTE A SIGNIFICANT
PROBABILITY OF YOUR CAUSING SERIOUS DISTURBANCE, I WILL HAVE YOU
TERMINATED.
I smile. “SUM,” I say, “I am going to terminate You.” I lean over and switch off the screen. I walk out into the evening.
Not everything is clear to me yet, that I must say and do. But enough is that I can start preaching at once to those who have been waiting for me. As I talk, others come down the street, and hear, and stay to listen. Soon they number in the hundreds.