Light came down, not green but white. It was bright and beautiful, the bleak cave ugly. Freedom!
As he stared upward, he saw a silhouette. It was an animal of some sort passing between him and the light—an odd birdlike creature with a very long, cutting bill, hooked slightly at the tip. It had terrible talons on the wings, as they spread momentarily, and solid, pincer-like feet.
The chimera.
Was this the freedom Chthon had promised?
He could turn back, rejoin the zombies, give up his dream. Give up the minionette. Worship Chthon.
Or he could advance upon the chimera, a creature he could not hope to overcome, and die the death it offered. Eyeless and gutless, he would live for a few moments in freedom, on the surface of Chthon-planet: lovely Idyllia.
“I forgot LOE!” Aton exclaimed. “I left my book in the caverns, where the sieges of Myxo began.” Yes, he would have to go back for it…
Some other time. Behind the chimera he saw the minionette, beckoning. He went to her.
The great wings fluttered silently. The creature disappeared, and with it the other image, and the way was clear. Chthon had let him go.
Epilog:
“How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
Yes—we let him go.
We allow Aton to revisit life.
He was dead when he came to us,
His culture says.
But he was unfinished.
And we require him—complete.
We give him to our half-sane minion, Bedside,
And wait for his return.
Aton, Aton—did you search for evil?
Did you desert your father in his hour of need, to pursue a fond illusion?
Did you forsake honest love for incestuous passion?
Did you betray your fellows into decimation?
Did you finally bargain with hell itself, which you symbolized as Chthon?
You have been condemned:
Not by your father
Not by your first or second love
Not by your fellows
Not by Chthon.
Where is the evil for which you search?
How can you tell it from yourself?
How can you condemn yourself
For being what you are?
We had thought to salvage the good of your culture’s philosophy
And destroy the evil of its being;
But we find them near of kin.
We had thought to recruit an envoy of extermination
To cleanse our galaxy of life.
But that envoy brings us LOE
And mocks our intellect with ethical conception.
(All we had seen before was your unsane element.)
How can we know life’s destiny from ours?
Are we not near of kin in our quest for completion?
How can we condemn you
For sharing our ideal
In your inverted terms?
And thus we must accept you with your woman;
We must banish the chill from the shell,
And learn that in our mercy
Is our own nova.
For as we study the chill we discover a thing of wonder:
Not natural
Not inimical
Not accidental
But an agitation planted within our galaxy,
Whose side-effects on life are unintentionaclass="underline"
A signal.
A message to every intellect with strength to comprehend:
We are not alone in the universe.
The god-intellects are waiting for our reply.