And now Observer is staring at her, wide-eyed. “But Network’s not here,” He says. “And you—you’re just a part of Me.”
The memory causes her anger to flare up, but still she keeps it low and distant, away from her mind. “In here,” she says, holding up the universe, “I’m one of a trillion of Your cells. But that was just my cross-section, one of the circles of my sphere, that tiniest slice of me that passed through the universe. You didn’t know that I’m so much bigger than that, because Network extended me in a way You couldn’t see. The rest of me was out here, in a direction You couldn’t understand until You took My mind. I guess that was the genius of Network’s plan.”
Observer stares at her. “But…I thought you hated the Network.”
“I do,” she says, and sighs. “I hate that it represents authority. I hate that I’m incapable of understanding It, or Its decisions. I hate that It’s smarter than me. That’s the worst part, I think. That It’s so smart, I can’t even tell when It’s wrong.”
“Yes!” says Observer. “You see it! Because you’re a Human, because you’re My daughter, you see Network for what It really is. It is authority, It is control—and those things, no matter Who wields them, are wrong.”
Sarya takes a slow breath. “We live in a crowded galaxy, Observer,” she says, holding the universe up and watching it split the nonlight into a shimmering spectrum. “There’s not enough room in this thing for everyone to go it alone. Hell, most of us couldn’t if we wanted. Someone, somewhere, is going to have some kind of power over someone else. It’s going to happen a trillion times a second, in a trillion places, just in our galaxy. It’s going to happen again, on a bigger scale, when this galaxy meets the rest of the universe. You know this, because You’re too smart not to. You know there’s no such thing as abolishing authority. The best You can do is fragment it, or maybe keep it together but put it in other hands than Network’s. And almost certainly, though I really hate to say it…worse hands.” She sighs, flipping the universe over and over, absentmindedly. “I may not understand the Network, Observer,” she says. “But I understand You.”
Observer smiles hesitantly. “That’s because we’re on the same side,” He says. “Right?”
And finally it happens: a tear leaks out from one of her eyes. She doesn’t know how, she doesn’t know where, but she knows that there is now a drop sliding down whatever is currently standing in for her cheek. “I don’t want to do it,” she says, and her voice breaks in the middle of the sentence.
“Do what, Daughter?” asks Observer, in a voice full of warm benevolence.
“You…asked me a question once,” she says, softly. “You asked if I would kill to—”
“Kill to protect your species, yes,” says Observer, now speaking more quickly. “And you said yes, which is quite admirable, and then—”
“That wasn’t the question,” says Sarya.
Observer stops cold. “Pardon?”
Sarya does not raise her eyes from the universe in her hand. “The question You asked was: would I kill to protect my people.”
Observer stares at her. “I’m not sure I see the difference,” he says.
“My people,” she repeats, gazing into its gleaming surface. “There’s nothing special about my species. I’ve never even met another Human. But Shenya the Widow was my people, wasn’t she? So was Eleven. Mer is my people, and Sandy. Roche is my people. Ace is my people, for the goddess’s sake.”
Observer is still staring. “So you would kill for…what, those half dozen intelligences?”
“Observer,” she says, looking up. “Network is my people.”
“I don’t understand,” says Observer.
He does understand, though. She can see it in His eyes, and it’s killing her. She can feel her chest convulse, just once, in a sob that she refuses to release. “I—” she says, and swallows. “I don’t want to kill to protect my people.”
And now His smile becomes gentler, more parental. “Then don’t,” He says.
“But I was not made to find myself, or even protect myself,” she says. “No one was. I was made to find my people…and to protect them, no matter what that means. And now I’ve done the first part, the finding.” She looks up to see Observer’s golden gaze, fragmented and diffracted through the tears in her eyes. “Now, I think…comes the protecting.”
“Daughter,” says Observer, and there is fear in His eyes. He falls over backward and tries to scramble backward through the water. “I’m your parent,” he says. “I raised your species. I raised you.”
“You told me I’m the daughter of three mothers,” says Sarya, “and I know none of them is innocent. But then, none of them is You. You’ve tried, for half a billion years, to tear my galaxy apart. If You escape now, You’ll continue to do just that for another half billion years. No, worse: You’ll do it forever, because You will have learned. There will never be another chance.”
She can feel the universe, warm and glossy in her hand. Inside this jewel is every one of her people, past, present, maybe even future. She has been brought to this point by her biological parents, by Shenya the Widow, by Eleven, Mer, Roche, Ace, Sandy, Left and Right, even Observer Himself. Every action by everyone she has ever met is contained in this stone, and they have all led to this moment. Her thread and Observer’s have tangled here at this one specific nontime and nonplace, in a moment that will never happen again.
And yet she can still choose the next moment.
Observer knows it. He sits in the water, His knees two islands in front of Him, His eyes half fear and half the golden reassurance she remembers from Watertower. “Sarya the Daughter,” He says. “You don’t have to do this.”
Sarya raises that smooth and glinting object above her head, that jewel that splinters the light into an infinite number of colors, that stone that contains her people. She gazes down at Observer’s pitiful form through a haze of burning tears.
“That’s not my name,” she whispers.
And then she crushes Him with all the weight of the universe.
The sun is shining.
It’s not a real sun, obviously. It’s not any more real than the intense blue sky that surrounds it. But it makes heat and light like a sun, and Sarya’s limited senses cannot tell the difference, so hey, it’s the sun. She assumes the grass she’s sitting on is somewhat more real than that sun—though perhaps no more natural, given that it’s growing on the surface of a gigantic cube. The trees surrounding this clearing are probably real, as is the android sitting across from her. But if recent events have taught her anything, it’s that senses require a healthy accompaniment of skepticism.