Pham Nuwen shrugged. "It worked on Canberra."
Then damn Blueshell started talking, something about doing a library search. Pham stared at them for moment, his face expressionless. He turned back to watch the stars, and the moment was lost.
"Pham?" He heard Ravna's voice just behind him. She had stayed on the bridge after the Riders left, departing on whatever meaningless preparations their meeting had ordained. He didn't reply, and after a moment she drifted around and blocked his view of the stars. Almost automatically, he found himself focussing on her face.
"Thank you for talking to us… We need you more than ever."
He could still see lots of stars. They were all around her, slowly moving. Ravna cocked her head, the way she did when she meant friendly puzzlement. "We can help…"
He didn't answer. What had make him speak just now? Then: "You can't help the dead," he said, vaguely surprised at his own speaking. Like eye focussing, the speech must be a reflex.
"You're not dead. You're as alive as I am."
Then words tumbled from him; more than in all the days since Relay. "True. The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you? From the outside, from Old One's view — " He looked away from her, dizzy with a doubled vision.
Ravna drifted closer till her face was just centimeters from his. She floated free, except for one foot tucked into the floor. "Dear Pham, you are wrong. You've been at the Bottom, and at the Top, but never in between… 'The illusion of self-awareness'? That's a commonplace of any practical philosophy in the Beyond. It has some beautiful consequences, and some scary ones. All you know are the scary ones. Think: the illusion must apply just as surely to the Powers."
"No. He could make devices like you and I."
"Being dead is a choice, Pham." She reached out to pass her hand down his shoulder and arm. He had a typical 0-gee change of perspective; "down" seemed to rotate sideways, and he was looking up at her. Suddenly he was aware of his splotchy beard, his tangled hair floating all about. He looked up at Ravna, remembering everything he'd thought about her. Back on Relay she'd seemed bright; maybe not smarter than he, but as smart as most competitors of the Qeng Ho. But there were other memories, how Old One had seen her. As usual, His memories were overwhelming; about this one woman, there was more insight than from all Pham's life experience. As usual, it was mostly unintelligible. Even His emotions were hard to interpret. But… He had thought of Ravna a little like… a favored dog. Old One could see right through her. Ravna Bergsndot was a little manipulative; He had been pleased/amused(?) by that fact. But behind her talk and argument, He'd seen a great deal of… "goodness" might be the human word. Old One had wished her well. In the end, He had even tried to help. Insight flitted past him, too fast to catch. Ravna was talking again:
"What happened to you is terrible enough, Pham, but it's happened to others. I've read of cases. Even the Powers are not immortal. Sometimes they fight among themselves, and someone gets killed. Sometimes, one commits suicide. There's a star system, Gods' Doom it's called in the story: A million years ago, it was in the Transcend. It was visited by a party of the Powers. There was a Zone surge. Suddenly the system was twenty light-years deep in the Beyond. That's about the biggest surge there is firm record of. The Powers at Gods' Doom didn't have a chance. They all died, some to rot and rusted ruin… others to the level of mere human minds."
"W-what became of those?"
She hesitated, took one of his hands between hers. "You can look it up. The point is, it happens. To the victims, it's the end of the world. But from our side, the human side… Well, the human Pham Nuwen was lucky; Greenstalk says the failure of Old One's connections didn't do gross organic damage. Maybe there's subtle damage; sometimes the remnants just destroy themselves, whatever is left."
Pham felt tears leaking from his eyes. And knew that part of the deadness inside had been grief for His own death. "Subtle damage!" He shook his head and the tears drifted into the air. "My head is stuffed with Him, with His memories." Memories? They towered over everything else. Yet he could not understand them. He could not understand the details. He could not even understand the emotions, except as inane simplifications — joy, laughter, wonder, fear and icy-steel determination. Now, he was lost in those memories, wandering like an idiot in a cathedral. Not understanding, cowering before icons.
She pivoted around their clasped hands. After a moment, her knee bumped gently against his. "You're still human, you still have your own — ", her own voice broke as she saw the look in his eyes.
