Then she took the pages, went into her bedroom, and closed the door. Only when she knew they had left did she start to decipher Da Vinci’s writings.
“Please,” Astrid begged, “if you have any mercy, you won’t do this!”
The others had left. Gone to grapple on their own with the decision ahead of them. Cirrus invited them to be part of the crew of whichever ship they chose. No one was forced to go, but no one would be denied.
“It’s not about mercy,” Cirrus calmly explained. “It’s about creating the best possible odds for the future of humankind.”
Astrid didn’t know which she hated more, Cirrus’s logic or its calm, considered delivery. “Some things are more important than odds and probabilities!”
“Think of what you’re saying, Astrid. You would intentionally hurt humanity’s chances in order to ease your own suffering over our decision. How could you be so selfish?”
“Selfish? I have devoted my life to the Tone! I have done nothing for myself! Nothing!”
“That’s not healthy, either,” Cirrus told her. “For human beings, a balance between altruism and self-care is called for.”
Astrid growled in frustration, but knew that wouldn’t help. Cirrus, like the Thunderhead, could not lose an argument unless it chose to. What she needed to do was make it want to lose.
“One ship,” Astrid begged, her plea moving from desperate to impassioned. “One ship, that’s all I’m asking. I know that the Thunderhead knows best. I know that its decisions are the correct ones. But I also know that there’s always more than one correct choice.”
“This is true,” said Cirrus.
“Everything resonates – you said so yourself – which means that somehow we resonate. Tonists resonate. The things we believe, the things we hold true, have a right to endure.”
“Take heart, Astrid,” Cirrus said. “The purge will end. We predict that Tonism will continue to thrive on Earth in spite of the scythedom’s attempts to eradicate it.”
“But don’t we also have the right to a presence in the stars? Yes, you’re right – we don’t integrate well with others, but we don’t have to if the entire colony is made up of Tonists. Throughout history, people have sailed impossible expanses and faced great dangers to find religious freedom. Why would you and the Thunderhead deny us that? Let the dead on one ship retain their identities when they’re revived, and you will be resonating with history.”
Cirrus took a long pause. Astrid tried to bring her breathing under control. Finally, Cirrus said, “You make a point worth considering. I will consult with the Thunderhead.”
Astrid nearly swooned with relief. “Thank you! Thank you! Take all the time you need. Think it through, weigh the different—”
“We have consulted,” said Cirrus. “And we have come to a decision.”
Scythe Morrison stood on a bluff at the base of the Viewhouse, watching the shrouds being carried up the gantry tower of the nearest ship. The Toll and Jerico had gone to look for Anastasia. Astrid was off groveling somewhere before Cirrus. And Morrison was left to wrestle with himself. He hated doing that, because he was a formidable opponent. Should he accept Cirrus’s invitation, or should he stay on Earth?
To say he was an indecisive man was an understatement. He might have seemed confident to others, but the truth was he’d never made a decision that he hadn’t come to regret on some level – which is why he often let decisions be made for him.
Yet the one decision he never regretted was abandoning the MidMerican scythedom to become the Toll’s personal protector. It opened the door to the self-respect that had been lacking most of his life. Funny how you don’t realize what’s missing until you’ve found it.
For the last few years, Morrison was in and out of touch with his parents back at Grouseland. They kept wanting to know when he was coming home. What could he possibly be doing that was so important?
“I’ll be home soon,” he always told them, but it was a lie. He’d known for a long time that he’d never be going back to Grouseland. Because he had finally learned to like games where the outcomes were still unknown.
He heard a door open and turned to see Astrid coming out of the Viewhouse. She looked triumphant.
“There will be a planet for Tonists!” she announced. “Kepler-186f, but I’m naming it Aria. It’s the farthest planet on the list, 561 light-years away. Cirrus calculates we have only a forty-four percent chance of reaching it without a deep-space accident, or a self-destruct scenario!”
Morrison looked at her, a bit mystified by her glee. “You do understand that there’s a fifty-six percent chance that your ship won’t survive the journey…”
“If the Tone is real, then it will protect us,” she said. “If the Tone is true, then we will reach our new home and prosper under a sky we can call our own.”
“And if the Tone is false, and you’re blown to smithereens by a space rock?”
“Then we will still have our answer,” she said.
“I guess so,” said Morrison.
Astrid let her shoulders drop and shook her head, gazing at Morrison in pity. “Why do you hate me so?” she asked.
“I don’t hate you,” he admitted. “It’s just that you’re always so sure of yourself.”
“I am unwavering,” Astrid told him. “With so many things in flux, there’s got to be someone who stands firm.”
“Fair enough,” said Morrison. “So tell me about your planet.”
According to Astrid, Kepler-186f was one-and-a-half times the size of Earth and had a 130-day year. But what struck Morrison most was the length of the journey.
“1,683 years,” Astrid told him brightly. “I won’t be there to see it, because I plan to live a natural human life-span, and either be recycled, or ejected into space – but I am content to know that I will be a link to the future.”
Then she strode off entirely satisfied with the outcome.
Although it would have by no means been his choice, Morrison was happy for her. As for himself, he still couldn’t make a decision. He found himself looking down at his ring. He never took it off. He bathed with it, slept with it. Since the day he was ordained, it had been a part of him. But there would be no scythes needed if he journeyed to one of these new places. So he tried to imagine what it would be like to take the ring off his finger. He tried to imagine how it would feel to hurl it into the sea.
Greyson found talking to the Thunderhead by landline to be a nuisance – but it could not speak aloud in the presence of Jeri, who, in spite of the strange connection they now shared, was still marked unsavory.
Cirrus, however, was not bound by the immutable rules the Thunderhead had set for itself. Certainly Cirrus had, or would have, its own rules of conduct, but for the time being Cirrus was an all-purpose work-around. It spoke to Greyson through a speaker, without caring that Jeri could hear.
“There’s something the Thunderhead and I need to ask of Anastasia, but it’s best if it comes from you,” Cirrus said. “You’ll find her in the residential area of the main island.”
“I have a feeling I know the request,” Jeri said.