“Then why are you here talking?” shouted the former Lion. “Why aren’t you stopping this horror?”
“It’s like this,” I told them all. “There’s not much I can do. There’s not much anyone can do, things are just too out of hand, actuation paths are blitzed and energy levels are scrambled and frankly, most anything you’d try would have at least a good of chance of feeding the fire as snuffing it out, you see? As it happens, there are a few additional tricks I could try, but at this stage of the game, after everything that’s already gone on, I’m a little reluctant to take unilateral action.” Again, I thought. “So I thought I’d see if anyone in the group had any ideas on the subject first.”
“What sort of tricks are you discussing here?” Shaa asked.
“The magic cell-constituents Roni rediscovered were built with a suicide gene. They may not all still possess it - there’s been a good lot of evolution going on, so there’s no way of telling without pinning one of them down long enough to run it through a sequencer - and her reengineered free organisms that are making up the goo out there have likely had it bred out of them too. But setting loose the trigger might be worth a try. Of course, it would mean a lot of other casualties. Some folks express the magic genes more centrally than others.”
“I,” said Haddo, who I now saw had been lurking off in the shadows behind a pile of books. “And he,” Haddo added, pointing at Wroclaw.
“Quite likely,” I agreed. “Activating the suicide trigger could be tantamount to genocide. There are some other possibilities for things to do - there’s retroviruses out in the population that are inactive now but have their own trigger cofacters. They’d target the conversion cascade that powers the effectors. Might be safer, might take longer, might not work as well; no way to tell in advance. And there’s -”
The Great Karlini had regained his feet again by dint of plastering the sword against his chest with both arms entwined around it. I may have missed my guess, but I had a feeling whatever was left of Ronibet Karlini had not been telling him things to which he particularly wanted to listen. “I don’t want to hear any more about this,” he snapped in my direction. “As far as I’m concerned it’s the end of history. We won and that’s that.”
Shaa gazed after him as he wobbled away. “The Great one, in his way, just as Maximillian, in his way, has always been a creature of habit,” murmured Shaa.
“Now just a damn minute -” started Max.
“Creatures of their times,” Shaa continued, with an arch glare toward his associate, “to a much greater extent than either would acknowledge, or perhaps even realize.” He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Such a new world order as confronts us now will demand adjustments many will not be able to meet.”
“Huh,” I said. “So are you telling me you, an old aristocrat, don’t want to step in and be Emperor?”
“Emperor is not a job I would have coveted at any stage,” Shaa said thoughtfully. “Now, with no central bureaucracy, not much in the way of living leadership, except possibly for the Emperor himself, no functional effectors, and the governing legitimacy rather much tattered, the office seems well on its way to marginalization, if it survives the decade. Is that why you brought it up?”
“No, not really. But describing the situation as a new world order may not be far wrong. Whatever we do or don’t do, things are never going to be the way they were, and there’s no telling what the world will end up with. The only thing that seems certain is death and devastation. If I don’t do a thing, that goo of Roni’s is gonna keep spreading and infecting folks and chewing on them and making more of itself. If we try to fight it by trying to shut down the system that still might happen, and even if it didn’t there’d be plenty of casualties anyway, plus the loss of a magic as a tool the way we now know it.”
“You do paint rather an egalitarian picture,” Shaa remarked, “if indeed the old hegemonic order is gone for good. In some ways magic won’t count for as much, in some ways it will likely count for more.”
“Through democratization?” said Phlinn Arol. “Gods and people and bacteria all placed on the same playing field together?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but also because any given magic user’s gonna be a lot less powerful with the network gone and the damage the Scapula did still rattling around. There’ll be more chance the stuff’ll backfire and blow your hand off. And with all these environmental toxic hazards roaming around, leaving whatever they don’t kill transformed... Well, there’s gonna be a lot fewer folks around to talk about it.”
“It’s a new Dislocation,” said Leen dully.
“Probably not an exaggeration.” I eyed the two gods - or former gods - here at hand. “One thing will never change, though, and that’s power by itself, just plain power. With all the holes left in the power structure it’s going to be a interesting next generation or two.”
“Yes, well,” Shaa said, “setting posterity aside for the moment, there is the matter in which you would like to make us all complicit. We have among us representatives of the most hidebound elements of the status quo as well as the extreme radical avant-garde. Everyone here stands to suffer from the activist intervention you put forth before us, some to the risk of extinction. For all the talk of gods, what we are discussing here is in fact the very definition of a god-level decision. On the one hand we have a world of chaos, on the other chaos redoubled. So how do you propose to achieve consensus? And what is the point? One plague or another, stroke or counterstroke, world without end, yes? For one way or the other the world will not actually, or entirely, end; even if the roof suddenly collapsed and we all died now, the story would still manage to continue. Or from another standpoint, this is as good a stage as any to declare the existing story is over. Yes?”
“Hold it right there!” said Max. “You’re talking like the issue’s already been decided. What happened to the fighting spirit? Who says Roni’s goo can’t be contained? The thing to do is get out there and do something about it, not stand around discussing hypotheticals. And who says Arznaak’s worked some permanent change either? Even if the system’s been damaged I’m sure something can be patched back together. One thing that sure hasn’t changed - you’re a god, and you’re trying to exert your domination over the rest of us the way you gods always have. Change - hah!”
“You’re welcome to your opinion,” I told him. “You’re free to do what you want, though, regardless of what you might think. The last thing I want to do is dominate anyone. The way I see it the world’s different already; things are out of the bottle and the bottle’s been smashed, but that’s only my opinion. If I wanted to enforce my opinion I’d be in the back pulling strings and stuff.”
“I don’t trust you,” muttered Max.
“So go out and see for yourself,” I said. “Or make some proposal here.”
“All right,” said Max. “I will see for myself. Anybody coming with me?”
“I might be able to help you fight,” volunteered Jurtan Mont.
“That’s the spirit, kid,” said Max.
“You would trust my son with this?” said the Lion. “Not without me around. I’ll -”
Shaa caught my eye and crooked a thumb backward over his shoulder. I eased away from the group and followed his own light-footed tread. “It continues, or begins anew,” commented Shaa, as the clamor of the gang behind us continued unabated. “Still, I submit the greatest hazard is having the world become an unbroken plain of gray goo. My suggestion would be to release whatever agents might effectively detour that outcome.”