“I am wondering when Mer and Sandy will return,” says Roche. He sits a meter away, back straight, his detailing almost blinding in the fake sunlight. He turns to gaze into the trees. “Not that I doubt your story in the least, but I am simply beginning to wish for a bit of variety in my conversation partners.”
“I heard Mer roar a few minutes ago,” says Sarya, ignoring the jab. After the day she’s had, she can put up with worse. “That either means he’s smelled it, or he’s killed it. So…any minute?”
“Most likely covered in blood again. Or Observers. Or both.”
“If you can’t stand the blood, stay home from the hunt,” quotes Sarya. She seems to have an inexhaustible supply of proverbs now—just one of the many benefits to injecting your mother straight into your mind. She glances up, quickly, to catch a set of golden eyes disappearing into the trees a few dozen yards away. “Do you think they seem…happier?” she says.
“I wouldn’t know,” says Roche, his own lenses tracking something behind her.
“I can’t really tell,” says Sarya, watching the eyes. “They’re all terrified of me now.”
“If there is a grain of truth in the nonsense which you have attempted to describe to me,” says Roche, “then I cannot say I blame them.”
“Probably confusing,” she says. “One second you’re being oppressed by this gigantic intelligence who controls your every action, and the next you’re—” She stops herself, barely, before saying the word.
“The next you’re free,” says Roche.
“Free,” she repeats to her blade of grass.
“Don’t look now,” says Roche, still gazing over her shoulder. “But I believe I see a pair of them watching you now. No hair, and extra hair.”
It takes every particle of Sarya’s self-control to avoid turning around. “Goddess, those poor guys,” she murmurs. “Right probably thinks I hate him.”
“Which you do,” says Roche. “Unless you left your magnanimous forgiveness out of your thrilling tale.”
She sighs. “I didn’t even hate Observer, Roche. Big Observer. I mean, I probably did for a while, but right before I—” She stops and rubs her blade of grass, feeling its rough texture between thumb and finger. “I think I pitied Him, more than anything.”
“Please do not say something along the lines of in the end we’re all just blades of grass. I will not hesitate to exit this life early.”
Sarya laughs, just a little. “Thanks for letting me borrow your hand again, by the way,” she says, using it to snap another blade of grass out of the ground. “It’s good to have two.”
“It’s your hand now,” says Roche. “As long as you stay out of the poetry.”
“Aw, for keeps?”
“Why not. I’m sure I’ll find plenty of spare parts before too long.”
“Yeah,” she says quietly, glancing up at the blue sky. “Probably will.”
Roche is quiet for a long moment, but Sarya has known him long enough to know those continual servo noises. Finally, he speaks. “All right,” he says. “As I am sure you were waiting for me to say: I give up. How did Network know?”
“Because It’s smart,” says Sarya
“Smart is one thing, but this—”
“I think there’s no way to grasp how smart It is,” she says. “I mean, It’s not just the galaxy. The entire Network we know—every single Network mind, all connected together—is just one slice of It.”
“But how did It know what you were going to do? If It was wrong—”
“If It was wrong…then what?” she says. “It’s got a billion more solar systems where mine came from, and It’s probably in the middle of a billion other schemes to keep those from breaking away or descending into…into chaos. We think this is so goddess-awful and so important because we’re small and we’re in the middle of it, but to Network this is just business as usual.”
“So we’re small and unimportant,” says Roche. “And yet, according to you, a single person defeated Network’s greatest enemy.”
This time she laughs for real. “Greatest enemy?” she says. “Observer was Network’s greatest enemy in the same way this blade of grass—no, a single bacterium on this blade of grass—is mine. I mean, to us fellow bacteria His power was awesome…and yet, with a half billion years to prepare, He didn’t even scratch Network’s paint. In one of the billion battles that Network fought today, Observer was huge, and Observer was nothing. Which means you and I are nothing. And yet, you’re right. I was the tool Network chose for the job.”
Roche tilts his head with a whirr of servos. “Network…told you this?”
“Of course not,” she says. “It only told me what was safe for Observer to find in my mind. Which I now…kind of, sort of, maybe understand.”
“What I think you’re saying,” says Roche, “is that no matter how many lives I live, no matter what I do, none of it matters. Because in the end—”
“This isn’t a story, Roche,” she says, plucking another blade of grass to shred. “There is no end. In this universe, you never reach some happy conclusion where everything is frozen in an eternal better state. And you don’t get to say, well, it’ll happen with or without me. I mean, something will happen without you. But Network is right, obviously: the system is based on motivation. The galaxy has to want to work. Or…it won’t.”
“So you like Network now.”
“No. It’s an insufferable asshole. But I’m on Its side, I think. Because Observer was absolutely right about one thing, at least.”
“About what?”
“Order isn’t natural—at least, not in this universe. Chaos is the natural state of things. That’s where everything came from, and it’s where it all seems to be going. But for some reason we fight that. We hold on to this impossible dream that we can beat it in the end, even though we know there is no end. I’d love to believe that there’s some master plan, but I think it’s just us and Network and maybe our hundred billion neighbor galaxies, all motivated toward—” She stops, struck.
Roche watches her for a moment. “My curiosity is increasing by the millisecond,” he says.
She stares into the trees for a moment. “Why is Network motivated toward order?” she says softly.