Adiamante by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

nothing that it was not told, and its calculations stayed within its metal head.
    Its calculations stayed within its metal head.
    Then came Gates, and he asked, “How can I make this cyb help humans?” Because no one answered him, he answered himself, and his answer was, “I will build something that will help the cyb think.” So he did, and he built an invisible softweb that gave the first cybs commands on how to turn calculations into thoughts. At first, it took all sorts of different softwebs, and the way the metal cybs thought was very, very slow. Their thoughts were very, very simple and very, very strong, and those thoughts stayed within their webs and metal heads.
    Their thoughts stayed within their webs and metal heads.
    Then came the Interleavers, and they took the unliving cybs and made them smaller and smaller, and they extended the webs of Gates so that humans could think their complicated thoughts as quickly as the mechanical cybs could think their simple thoughts. Among the first was halfJack, and he died, and yet he did not, and his circuits wound through OldCity unto the generations.
    Soon there was no telling where the thoughts of the human ended and the thoughts of the machine began, and the new human-cybs sent their thoughts along the wires and circuits and around all of Old Earth, and they
began to insist that everyone send thoughts and ideas along the fibrelines.
    They insisted that everyone use the fibrelines.
    But some did not want to open their minds to all who prowled the circuits, and some could not, and still others said that the new-cybs were no longer even human. Others, such as the sons and daughters of Krikwats, used the metal cybs that spun thoughts on the webs of Gates to prod and peer within themselves, and they unwound their souls and the very cells of their bodies. Then they rewound them back into helices, but they rewound themselves tighter and straighter than they had been, and some of the thoughts and cells were left outside their bodies.
    â€œNow what shall we do with what remains outside us?” asked the one called Neverte.
    â€œLet us weave them into an invisible net to link us together,” answered her sister Sebine, “for together we can sense what is happening before it occurs and hear what is said before the words are spoken.”
    They did, and, for the first time, their thoughts ran outside their heads, without wires and circuits and fibrelines.
    Their thoughts ran outside their heads.
    They were the first demis, and that was the beginning of the new world, and those who knew what had happened were few, and those who did not were many, and they were those who would soon be called draffs. And the thoughts of the old draffs, as is yet proper, still remained inside their heads.
    The thoughts of the draffs still remained inside their heads.
    Soon, where once there had been only one kind of human, there were now three, and fearful halfbreeds as well. There were the cybs, who wielded the fibrelines like whips, and the demis who walked free of the fibrelines but shared their thoughts beyond the reach of the cybs. And
there were the draffs, who kept their thoughts to themselves.
    There were hundreds of scores of demis, and millions of cybs, and millions upon millions of draffs in those days. And the demis planned and ordered, and the cybs organized and directed, and the draffs worked. Thus, the demis became as well-off as all the kings of the ancient days, and though the cybs were like lords, they were not happy.
    â€œYou have risen on the work of the cybs and shared nothing,” said the cyb leader Greencross to the great demi Wayneclint. “You must divide your riches with the cybs.”
    â€œWe have struggled strong and hard to obtain what we have,” answered Wayneclint, the great coordinator of the demis. “We have toiled long and late into all the nights of the years, and we have improved the lot of all those in the world. We have