But there would be a pay-back, in the acquisition of Klystar technology, particularly the thought beams.
Which could, of course, be used for either good or ill, but mostly for ill. Perhaps the technique would be banned, buried, deemed too dangerous to human freedom.
“Are we going to Harkio now?” Histrina asked.
Laedo shook his heed. “Not straight away. I don’t trust this heap of cobbled-together junk to get us there. We’re going back to my cargo ship. I’m going to see if I can make a transductor.”
Good and bad. That was the difference.
Laedo took his eyes off the human nest that was the Erspian worldlet. He thought of the great swirling Milky Way galaxy, fermenting with life.
“Ants,” he muttered. “He called us ants.”
Ants. But there was a difference, after all. Klystar had drawn on human religious ideas in designing the two thought projectors. But he himself had no preference between the two, either for Ormazd or for Ahriman. No choice between good and evil—for him, neither existed. He was pure intellect, pure curiosity, an ethical nullity, oblivious of the impact his actions had on others.
Which in human terms, was one way of defining a psychopath.
An entire cosmic generation of sentient beings had arisen blind to the drama of Ormazd and Ahriman.
Man could choose between them. Of course, it remained true what Klystar had said. Human consciousness was feeble and deluded, ludicrously prone to being swayed by persuasion, when compared with the shining, unassailable consciousness of Klystar.
But unlike Klystar’s, mankind’s evolution was not yet over.
Still mulling over the conundrum, Laedo steered the projector station back towards Erspia-5.
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Wildside Press
Copyright ©2002 by Barrington Bayley, Cover design copyright 2002 by Juha Lindroos
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