my fears with Nefertity. She looked away from me, and I let my gaze drift back to the heavens, anxiously scanning the stars for signs of other stations—the Commonwealth space settlement or the great shining links of Faharn Jhad, the Emirate’s colony. They were gone. I spotted a single glittering mote in the eastern sky that might have been part of Faharn Jhad, but that was all. HORUS was fallen, or falling.
After a long time Nefertity spoke. “If the geneslaves have rebelled, then this nemosyne you seek, the one called Metatron: surely it has fallen into their hands?”
I nodded grimly. “Or it might be that they are not aware of it—they may never have heard of it, for all I know. Or they may already possess it. If they have, it is even more important that I find it.”
Nefertity’s gaze turned to the unwinking lights of the valley settlement. “But how would you ever locate Metatron up there? And finding it, how could you seize it for yourself?”
I continued to stare at the sky. Finally I said, “The nemosyne network was designed so that each unit could, theoretically, communicate at any time with any other unit on Earth or within HORUS.”
She nodded, the pale golden gleam of her neural fibers casting a grave light upon her exquisite features. “But if there are none of us left—”
“There is at least one,” I said. I raised my hands before my face, flexing first the metal tendons of one and then my other, human, fingers. “You. Even if only one other nemosyne exists, it should be possible for you to contact it.”
“But I am only a folklore unit—”
“It doesn’t matter.” My voice was sharp. “There is a rudimentary communications network out there still—or was, as of seven months ago.”
I gazed at the horizon, now pale gray, the desert stars prickling and fading into dawn. “And there may be other network centers that survived the Shinings—the City of Trees had one, I found it in the ruins beneath the cathedral there. Quirinus had one as well. We have only to go there, and have you linked with it, and we could track down Metatron.”
The nemosyne’s eyes blazed with disdain. “Even with your humanity peeled away, you are a madman! I would never consent to this, Margalis. And even if I did—what then? If you were somehow to locate Metatron, even to possess it—what would you do? Ignite the remaining arsenals within its range and bring the Final Ascension to the world? No, I will never help you.”
A sudden desperation overcame me then. It was not the thought of the arsenals that drove me, but imagining a world with nothing to hold it together, not even barbarism. Because primitive as it may have been by the standards of earlier centuries, the Ascendant Autocracy had managed to cobble together some semblance of order, uniting those remaining pockets of civilization under the reign of the NASNA Aviators. By comparison, the Commonwealth and Emirate had only the most rudimentary technologies; and even these were failing.
And there was another reason. Something I could scarcely admit to myself, though I knew it was true. And that was this:
I had been trained—bred, practically—to serve. The betrayal I had originally intended with the aid of Metatron: was it not but another face of servitude, another sign of the chains that bound me to my masters, that I could think of no use for the nemosyne but to make war upon those who had used me as an instrument of war? Without the Ascendants I had neither foe nor master. I needed no reasons to live—I could not, cannot, think of myself as alive in any real sense. But I needed some compass to guide me. The Ascendants had been my lodestar. Without them or the world they had made, I was nothing but an empty shell, a corpse damned by my masters to wander the earth forever.
But with Metatron I might be able to find and unite those few surviving outposts, those scattered cities and celestial stations that had not yet been given to the
After a long time Nefertity spoke. “If the geneslaves have rebelled, then this nemosyne you seek, the one called Metatron: surely it has fallen into their hands?”
I nodded grimly. “Or it might be that they are not aware of it—they may never have heard of it, for all I know. Or they may already possess it. If they have, it is even more important that I find it.”
Nefertity’s gaze turned to the unwinking lights of the valley settlement. “But how would you ever locate Metatron up there? And finding it, how could you seize it for yourself?”
I continued to stare at the sky. Finally I said, “The nemosyne network was designed so that each unit could, theoretically, communicate at any time with any other unit on Earth or within HORUS.”
She nodded, the pale golden gleam of her neural fibers casting a grave light upon her exquisite features. “But if there are none of us left—”
“There is at least one,” I said. I raised my hands before my face, flexing first the metal tendons of one and then my other, human, fingers. “You. Even if only one other nemosyne exists, it should be possible for you to contact it.”
“But I am only a folklore unit—”
“It doesn’t matter.” My voice was sharp. “There is a rudimentary communications network out there still—or was, as of seven months ago.”
I gazed at the horizon, now pale gray, the desert stars prickling and fading into dawn. “And there may be other network centers that survived the Shinings—the City of Trees had one, I found it in the ruins beneath the cathedral there. Quirinus had one as well. We have only to go there, and have you linked with it, and we could track down Metatron.”
The nemosyne’s eyes blazed with disdain. “Even with your humanity peeled away, you are a madman! I would never consent to this, Margalis. And even if I did—what then? If you were somehow to locate Metatron, even to possess it—what would you do? Ignite the remaining arsenals within its range and bring the Final Ascension to the world? No, I will never help you.”
A sudden desperation overcame me then. It was not the thought of the arsenals that drove me, but imagining a world with nothing to hold it together, not even barbarism. Because primitive as it may have been by the standards of earlier centuries, the Ascendant Autocracy had managed to cobble together some semblance of order, uniting those remaining pockets of civilization under the reign of the NASNA Aviators. By comparison, the Commonwealth and Emirate had only the most rudimentary technologies; and even these were failing.
And there was another reason. Something I could scarcely admit to myself, though I knew it was true. And that was this:
I had been trained—bred, practically—to serve. The betrayal I had originally intended with the aid of Metatron: was it not but another face of servitude, another sign of the chains that bound me to my masters, that I could think of no use for the nemosyne but to make war upon those who had used me as an instrument of war? Without the Ascendants I had neither foe nor master. I needed no reasons to live—I could not, cannot, think of myself as alive in any real sense. But I needed some compass to guide me. The Ascendants had been my lodestar. Without them or the world they had made, I was nothing but an empty shell, a corpse damned by my masters to wander the earth forever.
But with Metatron I might be able to find and unite those few surviving outposts, those scattered cities and celestial stations that had not yet been given to the
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