Sarya floats in the darkness, disturbed. It’s the dirty, filthy underside of what Network Itself just told her, and it is particularly uncomfortable to someone who has just absorbed several thousand minds in the last few moments. Minds that would fight to the death to preserve their Network, driven by their instincts…
“Of course, there’s also option two,” says another Observer, now drifting forward on the other side of its illuminated fellow. “The species can stay home. It can stop exploration immediately, pull its ships back within its solar system, and pledge to stop all technological progress. It would be literally jailed, under a sentinel with the power to destroy all life in a solar system. This option is given to show an illusion of choice. It’s meant to show that Network is reasonable. But who would choose that? No one, that’s who, because option one is far too attractive. After all, you wanted it, didn’t you?” The Observer smiles. “I saw you in that Watertower control room, the only non-Networked juvenile in your class. Little Sarya the Daughter would have done anything for a Network implant.”
Sarya feels her hand drift upward to touch the Network unit on her forehead, heat rising to her face. She spent her whole childhood watching the Network from the outside, through the twitchy, error-prone holos of her prosthetic. The whole galaxy had something she didn’t, and she wanted it—goddess, she remembers how badly she wanted it…
The illuminated Observer clears its throat, floating between its two fellows. “Network gives each species two options,” it says, the light contorting its face. “But there’s also a third. The option that Network doesn’t want anyone to know is a possibility. The option that no species has taken in ten million years…except for one.” And now it smiles, a strangely eerie expression when lit from below. “The third option is this: a species can look Network straight in Its many eyes and say…fuck off.”
All around her, Observer erupts in titters. “Oh, my dear Humanity,” one says with a sigh. “She really takes after Me.”
“That’s your heritage,” says Observer when His bodies have quieted. He watches her with His own many eyes. “Your people were brave enough—and wise enough—to see through Network’s lies. And look what happened: you were eradicated like vermin! Like an infestation! You were sought out, systematically destroyed—until finally, in all the universe, there are only two places where you can find a Human today. One is in the colony where you were born, that little seed that I saved from destruction all those centuries ago. And the other? The other is right here. The last Human in the Network is right in front of Me, innocently believing that her species has escaped a death sentence.”
Sarya watches the speaker drift, its tunic billowing in the air turbulence created by a spinning Librarian. “That—” She swallows, uncomfortable thoughts bubbling in her mind. “That doesn’t make sense. If we’re an infestation, if Network still wants us all dead, then why—”
“Then why are you, personally, still alive?” asks the Observer, golden eyes gleaming. “Oh, my naïve little Human, my darling trustful little cell. It’s because you have a job to do. A dream to fulfill, am I right? A lost species to find! And you will find them, because that is who you are. But then, in the very flush of your victory, at the moment you’ve fantasized about for your entire life—”
“Boom!” shout a hundred thousand voices in an explosion like a thunderclap. Through her peripheral vision—which now extends over kilometers—Sarya sees millions of terrified eyes turn toward the great sphere in the darkness.
The illuminated Observer smiles as the rumble dies away. “Network might let you live, once you have no chance of reproducing. I’m sure it doesn’t much care. But your species? No. Just a few handfuls of atoms who have no idea they were ever stuck together.”
Remember that He is a murderer and a liar, says a memory in her mind, that He would love nothing more than to see the galaxy perish in fire and chaos. “And you know this…how?” she says.
“I know Network’s nature,” says Observer. “I also know quite a bit about your life. As you no doubt have found by now, We higher minds have a certain talent for putting two billion and two billion together. The most damning evidence, in My humble opinion is this: you’ve been quite the lucky little Human, haven’t you?”
“Lucky,” she says, staring. “Are you being serious right now?”
“I didn’t say it was good luck,” says the second Observer with an identical smile. “But you have to admit: you’ve led an unusual life. You’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of unlikely events. It’s almost as if someone—or Someone—noticed you the moment you entered Network space. It’s almost as if that person went to great lengths to ensure that you reached maturity in one piece…so It could bring you to Itself. This Someone gave you helpers. It gave you tools. To a mind the size of Mine, all this can only mean one thing. You have a dark purpose, Sarya the Daughter, and it is one you cannot escape.”
Remember that He is a murderer and a liar, that He is a murder and a liar, that He is a—
The third Observer laughs a bitter laugh. “Even when you were actually, literally, honestly killed,” it says, “you didn’t stay dead, did you? Sarya the Daughter, you cannot even die without Network’s permission. What makes you think you can live?”
Sarya’s eyes flick from one Observer face to the next as she fights the sudden doubt that has sprung up within her. All meet her eyes with the same sorrowful gaze. And then Observer sighs, as if all the weight of the galaxy is upon Him, and phrases begin to sprout from all over His massive mind.
“A maintenance drone never thinks to ask: why do I want to clean?”
“A transport never wonders: why do I love to carry things?”
“Does a pressure suit question its enthusiasm for keeping passengers safe?”
“What about every sanitation station you’ve ever used? Do they wonder why they love their job?”
“Has that little intelligence in your unit ever asked you: why do I love telling a good story?”
And again thunder rolls through the Visitors’ Gallery, as Observer’s bitter laugh emerges from a hundred thousand mouths. Millions of intelligences tremble at the sound. The few that are still drifting in the neighborhood of the sphere redouble their efforts to swim through air, frantically trying to put distance between themselves and this massive mind.
“Just like you, Sarya the Daughter,” says the illuminated Observer. “You have never once asked: Why would I do anything to find my people?” It smiles sadly. “You manipulate lower minds all the time, little one. Why has it never occurred to you, in a galaxy where you are a lower mind, that the same must be happening to you?”