“They’ll trouble you. You want everyone in the Solar System kept close to home where you can control us.”
“Where you can enlighten yourselves and grow into sanity,” said the voice. How soft it was.
Incredulous, Kenmuir exclaimed, “And this turns on a single ship escaping from the Moon? On a single man who could call her back?”
“No. Reality is a whole, I said. But for the history soon to come, and therefore conceivably for history ever after, yes, I ask that you call her back.”
The cyberoosm asked.
You would make the universe into mind and harmony, Kenmuir thought. This very conflict we have been waging, not of strengths but of ideas and possibilities, betokens the etherealization you seek. Who shall hold that it is wrong, your vision? Who shall hold that passion and unsure ness, the animal and the vegetable, the mortal, grief mingled with every joy—that these are right?
Faust is forever at war. I am a man of peace.
“The choice is yours,” he heard. “I may not compel.I cannot. For the cybercosm to impose its will by violence would be to violate itself. Nor could this bring other than chaos uncontrollable; hark back to the chronicles of all tyrannies. Though the human genus be obliterated in the Solar System, survivors would hold on at Alpha Centauri, in millennial re-vengefulness. Though they too be killed, corruption would seize the heart of the victor, and at the end would destroy it likewise. No, the burden is yours.”
Beneath the nirvana imposed on his body, Kenmuir’s pulse stumbled. His mouth had gone dry. “If I … obey you … what about Aleka and her people?”
“They shall have their desire, a country better than Lilisaire can grant.”
And the Earthfolk whose eyes were turned skyward would have their Habitat. None but the demonic spirit in the Lunarians must submit.
No, those humans of every kind must submit who wished for freedom. And they would not know that they had done so or that they were unfree.
It was as if his answer had lain in him since before he was born. “No.”
“You refuse.” It was not a question.
“I do. She shall keep flying.”
“You are forgiven,” said the voice, altogether gently.
Kenmuir knew he would never understand that strange integrity. He was no machine, only a man.
His consciousness toppled into nighfc Have no fears,” Venator had said when Kenmuir woke. “We’ll flit you to Yorkport and let you go. I assume you’ll catch the Luna shuttle. But first we should talk a bit, you and I.”
He left the spacefarer to rest a while, then guided him to a room where they shared a plain and mostly silent meal, then provided them both with warm clothes and led the way outside. For another spell they walked wordless, until they had left the weather station out of sight behind them and were alone with the mountains.
Kenmuir breathed deeply. Thin and cold, a breeze stirred the leaves and needles of widely strewn dwarf trees. It tasted of sky. Sunlight cataracted over a long upward slope and the snowpeaks beyond. They stood knife-edge sharp against utter blue. He took the view into himself. Anxiety, indecision, sorrow were coming astir, as the dispassion laid on him in the chamber ebbed away; he needed this fresh wellspring of calm.
“Go slow,” Venator advised at his side. “Spare your strength. We’ve time aplenty.”
Kenmuir glanced at him. “What do you want of me?” he inquired.
He could not tell whether the smile that crossed the dark face was wry or regretful. “Nothing, in the sense of demands,” Venator replied. “I would like to make a few suggestions, and we had better sketch out some plans.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Kenmuir said awkwardly, “consistent with—“ With what?
Venator nodded. “I expected you would. It’s rational. But good of you, too.”
How should Kenmuir respond, how should he feel?“Please. This is not a victor-and-vanquished situation.”
Venator smiled again, more broadly and perhaps a little mockingly. “No, no.”
Grit scrunched beneath boots. The wind whispered.
Plunge ahead, Kenmuir decided. “All right, then. Aleka will deliver her message.” He hesitated. “Or has she?” What hours or days had passed in the house of the Teramind?