'Truth always exists. We may not see it, but it is here.'
'Then perhaps you had better look harder, Tyndel.' Her voice was almost a whisper. 'Much harder.'
'You seem to forget that I didn't ask to be rescued.'
She looked at me as though my words were the babbling of a child protesting going to school. I'd found that expression on my own face in Hybra when Foerga had called it to my attention, ever so gently, as only she could.
'You ran into the middle of Rykasha ... just to die?'
I had to look away.
'Don't you understand?' asked Cerrelle, her voice that of a teacher to a very young student. 'No child asks to be born. No member of any society is given that choice. The only choice you have - the only real choice any of us has - is whether you will be a productive member of society. Society doesn't owe you anything. Neither do you owe society other than your share of the cost of maintaining that society.' She shrugged. 'You either pay your debts or you can go back to Dorcha or Dhurra, or the Toze Confederacy. Or you can become a Follower.'
I chose not to ask what a Follower was. The distaste in her voice made it clear I wouldn't get an objective answer. I didn't want to be indebted to her for anything more, either. 'Some choices.'
'They're the same in any society that survives. Do you have a better answer? One that works?' she asked.
How could I answer that? I didn't even know how their world worked, and I was supposed to come up with a better system?
'You haven't exactly worked at learning our system,' she pointed out. 'It's all inside your skull, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.'
I couldn't think of any ... or didn't want to.
'Come on, we might as well head back.' Her voice reverted to a tone of professional cheerfulness.
I followed her, my thoughts churning.
17
As soon as a thing is named, its essence is limited, if not lost, for nothing is limited to its name.
The next morning, Cerrelle took me on another subterranean glider trip, to Runswi, a place supposedly holding the transport complex. This trip lasted much longer.
'If Lyncol is the local administrative center; why is the transport center so far away?' I finally asked as the dim-lit glider slid swiftly through the darkened tunnel.
'The arrangement's not ideal, but Lyncol is too mountainous. Also Runswi is far enough from Dorcha that most mites ignore the lights and dismiss it all as the work of the inscrutable demons - if they say anything at all.'
Certainly, I'd been one of those mites, half aware that Rykasha existed but not really focusing on the boundary with the unknown. Why didn't people think that much about Rykasha?
'Because through the last millennium, the curious ones either migrated to Rykasha or were eliminated by other mites. All the mite cultures have great and hidden restraints, restraints so powerful that no one even talks about them.'
I got tired of Cerrelle answering my unspoken questions, even as her answers demonstrated yet another facet of the nanite superiority, and I hoped it wouldn't be too long before the nanites degenerated enough so that she couldn't sense every strong thought I had.
'How long will you keep reading my thoughts?' The faintly spicy scent she wore tickled my nose, and I rubbed it.
'It's getting harder. Unless you get another injection of the heavy-duty types we use for adjudication... not much longer than another few months. By then, though, unfortunately, I probably won't need them.'
'My thoughts aren't that bad.'
She laughed ... once. 'Did you notice that you didn't even want to question my statement about your hidden restraints?'
'What statement?' I couldn't resist teasing her. 'That's another humorous way of avoiding the issue.'
'Humor helps.'
'So long as you don't use it to avoid facing things. That's merely humorous dishonesty.'
'Why are we going there?'
'To get you evaluated. To see what your potential might be.'
'You haven't been exactly supportive of my potential,' I pointed out.
'I've been supportive of your potential, but not of your efforts to avoid acknowledging it.'
'Can I say something?' I kept my voice even.
She nodded. 'You're suggesting I've missed something. Maybe I have. Maybe I've judged you too harshly.'
I wanted to swallow. She hadn't fought me, and the words felt honest. For a moment, that unhostile directness reminded me of Foerga.
'I'm not Foerga. I think she was probably a better person than I am.'
I did swallow, but managed to get out the question. 'Why are you so against Dzin and yet keep telling me that it's trained my mind well?'
The redhead frowned, but I could tell the frown wasn't directed at me. Finally, she spoke. 'That's a good question. I'm not sure I can answer it all the way, but let me try. Dzin is a tool, a way of perceiving reality. We don't dismiss the effectiveness of the tool, but we have problems with the way Dorcha uses the tool. The way Dzin is used in Dorcha isn't just to develop awareness of the world but to emphasize an acceptance of what is.'
'Dzin isn't like that at all,' I protested.
'Dzin isn't,' she agreed, 'but the way in which Dzin is used to teach students is a means of conditioning. Look at you, Tyndel. You know that. As soon as you realized what you had become, you ran. You understood that there was no place in Dorcha for you.'
That wasn't quite true. I'd sought Foerga first.
Cerrelle smiled sadly, and I hadn't the faintest idea why. 'You understood, subconsciously, that without you, she might not fit in Dorcha, that she was too much of an artist.'
'Too much of an artist?'
'Artists are dreamers. They seek beauty, perfection, an artistic expression beyond their culture. And Dzin is used to promote acceptance and understanding of what is, not how to transcend what is.'
I really wanted to find the words to cut down her argument, without even knowing why I needed to, but I couldn't. And that bothered me. So did the fact that Cerrelle understood Foerga, in a way, better than I had. What did that mean? That Cerrelle understood me better than I wanted her to?
When the covered glider came to a stop and the canopy slid back, we stepped out onto an embarking/disembarking platform and walked along the tunnel to a single set of steps. At the top of the stairs was a small glass-walled structure perhaps four meters square. A single carved and high-backed pine bench stood in the otherwise vacant and spotless space.
I wondered how they managed to keep everything so clean. I'd never seen anyone scrubbing or wiping.
'Cleaning technology is easy, comparatively,' Cerrelle said as she opened the door.
I had to stretch my legs to catch her. She marched along the stone-paved lane toward a rambling structure perhaps two hundred meters north of the largely subterranean glider station.
Runswi consisted of a series of scattered low structures spread on a low plateau that overlooked a marsh that extended to the eastern horizon. The lane paralleled the western shore. In the midday light, tall stalks of browned grass bent in the light breeze that carried the odor of the sea.
'Ocean?' I gestured vaguely in the direction of the marsh.
'Ten kilos east. That's far enough that our shuttles are above normal radar scan patterns of the ocean shipping lanes.'
Shuttles?
Cerrelle gave me a disgusted glance, and I began to ransack my stored and not-too-well-assimilated knowledge. Shuttles, magshuttles, orbital transporters ... vehicles that carried people and equipment off earth.
'You see?' she said. 'Although you have all this knowledge, you subconsciously shy away from recognizing it or using it. That's because it's outside the framework of your Dzin. You could use Dzin to understand and accept it, you know? We've pointed this out to you. It's not new.'