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They are afraid. Those who fear are doubly dangerous, and those who serve them
nurture their fears, for they have a broader investment in their philosophical
symbiosis.
 Wait a minute. Those methane breathers can read each other s thoughts clear
across the Web?
Yes.
 And your people can tap into that? And you never told us? Maybe Seeker had,
she reflected, back when he d had his first interview with WarAvocat. The
implication had been there.
We are old as a species and as individuals. Our young are rare and precious,
as is our solitude. Once we had our hour on the galactic stage, our time of
exploration and adventure, but ages ago we turned away and returned home to
contemplate what we had learned. We knew the Web well. It continued to be a
source of news. We let the players on the galactic stage be. Most have been
perceptive enough not to trouble the aged. Till your kind sprang up here and
there, inexplicably, like fungi, and as often as not faded as quickly.
You excited a small, renewed outward interest because you were so absurd.
You came from nowhere, headed nowhere. You do not have one unique quality but
the qualities you do have exist in paradoxical juxtaposition. You are capable
of rejecting the evidence of science and reason in order to believe the
impossible, yet you are so curious about hows and whys that you keep picking
at a scab concealing a secret even knowing that it will devour you. You are
lawless, predatory, capable of eating your own young in the search for profit,
yet you created something unprecedentedly lawful in the Guardship fleet. That
is flawed, skewed, even internally aberrant, but it is evolving toward what it
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should be. At the moment the messengers of shadow believe the Guardships are
invincible. But soon they will be shown the truth.
I must find your WarAvocat and make him see. Amber Soul and I must make
available the wisdom of our kind while the Guardships remain capable of
becoming what they should be.
Jo did not know if something was getting lost or if she was just stupid. That
had been Seeker s longest and most revelatory communication ever and, she
suspected, his most carefully rehearsed, but she did not think she had gotten
the true sense of what he wanted to convey. She sensed his disappointment. She
said,  If it s that critical why waste time looking forVII Gemina ? Go to
Starbase.
The warning must be presented to someone with the capacity, even the
inclination, to listen. Will I find such a person at Starbase?
 Probably not.
Then we must find the man who will listen. There is not much time. You must
tell the other one.
What she had expected. Telling them to get their butts in gear.  I will.
When AnyKaat came back, Jo figured it would be just to gather whatever she
wanted to take with her. She went to the lounge to make up her mind if she
would put herself through a farewell scene or just let it slide.
She had a drink. It did not help. She concocted another with twice the
firepower, but then just sat there nursing it.
 There you are. I thought you d disappeared.
The moment had come. But AnyKaat did not look like she was going anywhere.
Looked ragged as hell, in fact.  Hi. Glumly.  Got a message for you from
Seeker.
 He wants to get moving. Don t take much genius to guess that. She sat down.
 You got it. How d it go?
 It didn t. Jo, I can t talk to my own mother. She doesn t have the slightest
idea what I m telling her. The things she tells me all seem shallow and
trivial after Merod Schene. And my son doesn t know who the hell I am and
doesn t trust me enough to want to find out. My old friends are scared of me.
Degas s people aren t the least bit shy about telling me it s all my fault he
isn t here. Era s people aren t talking at all. The department is in a tizzy
because the back pay they owe us, with the interest setup we had, will screw
the budget for a couple of years. They wrote us off and stopped figuring us
in. Not to mention what my accrued seniority might mean if I get plugged back
into the system.
Jo mixed her one of her favorites.  Chew on this.
AnyKaat took a gulp.  I would ve been better off if we hadn t gotten off V.
Rothica 4. Hell. Everybody would have been better off. They wouldn t all hate
me for turning up alive and making them feel guilty about how they feel.
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Jo grunted. She could not think of anything to say to that.
 It hurts, Jo. Even when you understand what s going on. All that time
hanging onto a thread, and here wasn t here anymore when I got here.
 I know. I ve been through it. And it s all I have looking at me when I
catchVII Gemina .
AnyKaat fiddled with things not there.  So how do you cope with it?
 I don t know. After a while we just avoid attachments and commitments. We
put everything into being a good soldier.
AnyKaat closed her eyes, expression momentarily surprised. Jo suspected she
had realized that a certain Guardship soldier had formed an attachment despite
herself. She hoped AnyKaat would not want to talk about it. That was when
things got strange and scary and misinterpreted and turned into things they
were not.
 I told Otten we were pulling out on the tenth. That s about as long as
Seeker will be patient. He s real worried. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]