Conclusion for Tuvor. *spoilers* long post

[[Syl]]

HASHI
CONCLUSIONS:
EXTRACTS FROM
THE PRIVATE JOURNALS
OF HASHI LEBWOHL,
DIRECTOR, DATA ACQUISITION
UNITED MINING COMPANIES POLICE
[This extract is dated three days after
Hashi Lebwohl's reinstatement as director of Data
Acquisition.
The designation "United Mining Companies Police''
is code residue.
The name of the organization had been changed:
the UMCP was now the Space Defense Police.
However, many months passed before
all levels of SDPHQ's computer systems were
amended to reflect the change.]
... a remarkable occasion in several ways.
Certainly it was remarkable that our esteemed Governing
Council for Earth and Space, as righteous as it is august, saw
fit to restore me to my former duties. I had not expected so
much forbearance. I suspected that the GCES would require a
scapegoat. In the absence of the most obvious candidates—
Warden Dios and the great worm—and in view of Maxim
Igensard's manifest inadequacy to the burden, I considered it
likely that I would be selected. . . .
No doubt the reasons cited were to some extent sincere. It
is common knowledge that Director Donner argued for my
reinstatement. And it is also known that the last message she
received from Warden Dios urged her to do so. However, I am
confident that the primary motivation behind my public "for-
giveness" was and is concern for the functional—as distinct
from the ethical—integrity of the new Space Defense Police.
The Members fear a preemptive strike from the Amnion, an
attempt to cripple our defenses before we can disseminate our
antimutagen and attack them. Therefore my experience and
knowledge have been allowed to outweigh any inaccuracies
which might be laid to my charge.
Put more cynically, the Members fear that Min Donner is
too honest and direct to oppose the Amnion effectively. They
believe they need a man with my reputedly imprecise scruples.
. . . remarkable also was the Council's vote to pardon
Warden Dios. I was gladdened by it, although it does little to
palliate my sense of loss. In my view, it would be right and
just to honor him as both hero and martyr. Few among us
would have enjoyed the fate Holt Fasner prepared for us. I
believed, however, that his self-sacrifice would be met by more
resentment. His actions reminded the Members in the most
overt and humiliating way of their own failure as humanity's
representatives. Therefore they would seek to diminish him so
that they could think better of themselves. . . .
. . . apparently Abrim Len declined to permit it. There is
another remarkable aspect of the session: the clarity and unity
which President Len forged from the collapse of Holt Fasner's
power. I had not guessed that he could conjure so much tough-
ness past the veil of his characteristic conciliation.
Nevertheless, from my own perspective one event was
more remarkable than all the others—remarkable, at least, in
the sense that I am positively unwilling to forgo remarking on
it. That was young Davies Hyland's behavior toward me.
For two days between his arrival on-station and his ap-
pearance before the GCES, his actions were scrupulously cor-
rect. He answered questions as circumstances required—
principally regarding Morn Hyland and Captain Thermopyle
—but of himself he revealed nothing. Nor did he hint at any
personal emotions concerning me while he addressed the
Council. Yet when the session had reached its conclusion,
young Davies approached me. In full view of all the Members
and their retinues, he struck me a blow which broke the left
side of my jaw in three places.
"That's for Angus," he informed me. "He wanted to do
it himself. But he was afraid you would fry his brain.''
Which in fact I could have done—but would not. It is not
my custom to destroy my tools when they have served their
purpose. Captain Scroyle and Free Lunch are an exception
which I regret deeply. . . . Unlike Warden, I err when I at-
tempt to direct the quantum mechanics of events.
Young Davies has caused me no small measure of incon-
venience. Sadly, I could not prefer charges against him, even if
I wished to do so. He is proof against me—immunized, as it
were, by the privileges conferred by the Emblem of Honor.
... I am forced to type this record, rather than dictate it
in my accustomed fashion. My mandible has not yet healed
enough to let me speak without pain. Indeed, I can hardly
swallow liquids without acute discomfort.
Pain, I find, is a wonderful aid to concentration.
. . . "complete probity," forsooth. I confess that I was
surprised—and gratified—by Warden's support when I first
read of it in his last transmission to Director Donner. He spoke
thus of a man who had understood him ill enough to endanger
his deepest desires before they could bear fruit. I am forced to
think that Warden was able to forgive me in the end. Or that he
considered my subsequent service an acceptable form of resti-
tution.
I prefer the latter. It salves the quality of ego or dedica-
tion which functions as my conscience. However, I fear that
the former lies nearer the truth—ambiguous though that con-
cept may be. I have read widely in his personal records, jour-
nals not unlike my own. His last message to me supplied the
codes which have allowed me to unlock his files. And the
picture of him that emerges humbles me in ways I do not like
and cannot answer. . . .
... his records paint him as a man who condemns him-
self so severely that he judges no one else. Literally no one—
not even the great worm in his lair. He does not fault the
Dragon. He faults himself for his failure to comprehend and
counter the Dragon's essential nature from the beginning. He
faults himself for the naivete or misunderstanding which left
him no means except complicity to correct his mistakes. It was
an unrelieved self-judgment which compelled him to make use
of Morn Hyland and Captain Thermopyle as he did—and then
to stew in anguish over the sufferings he exacted from them.
Decision after decision, he exacerbated his own accusations
against himself until they became great enough to topple the
man truly responsible for them. . . .
If shame on such a scale is "truth," then I will gladly
spend my days in the universe of mere fact.
But his last message did more than supply me with his
codes. Although he was about to die by his own hand, he
troubled himself to reassure me.
I trust you, Hashi, he wrote. Don't think otherwise. I trust
you as much as I do Min or Koina—in some ways more. To-
gether, the three of you have everything I have—and every-
thing I lack. I couldn't have beaten Holt without you.
Then he added, Take care of Min for me. Her disdain for
ambiguity is a great strength, and a dangerous weakness. The
truth is usually messier than she thinks it is. Make her listen to
you. Trust your own point of view. And back her up when she
doesn't take your advice.
She did that for me. As you did. And she'll need you as
much as I ever did.
Curious proposition. I would grieve over it—and for the
man who conceived it—if I found it less intriguing. In what
sense can it be avowed that the human species, as well as Min
Donner, might need a man who is not ordinarily disturbed by
questions of "truth"? If the redoubtable Min can be taken to
represent the law officer Warden Dios wished to be, then I may
be regarded as an exemplum of the law officer he actually was.
How can it be that the one does not preclude the other?
On that point, albeit indirectly, I have questioned Director
Donner in person. I wished to know how she proposes to treat
with the Amnion, now that our relations with them are some-
what strained. In her typically hostile fashion—typical, at
least, of her attitude toward me—she replied, "I'm going to
tell them the exact truth. Keep every bargain I make with them
to the letter. And cost them blood if they don't do the same."
Uncharacteristically, she then elaborated upon this rather
outre philosophy. "Take Billingate for example. If you and
Warden—and good old Godsen—had left it up to me, I
wouldn't have launched a covert strike. Since that shipyard
violated their treaties with us, it was their problem. I would
have told them I wanted them to destroy the whole planetoid—
and I meant to do it myself if they didn't. I would have given
them a time limit. And if they refused to comply, I would do
exactly what I warned them I was going to do. Send in an
armada, reduce Thanatos Minor to powder. And dare them to
take offense."
She appeared to sneer at me, but I believe she may have
simply attempted a smile. "They might get the message.
You've said yourself, it violates their genetic identity to 'deal
falsely.' One reason they want to destroy us is that we do."
Frankly, I took offense myself. Every fiber of my being is
outraged by such simple-minded foolhardiness. And yet I am
forced to concede that the Amnion might indeed "get the mes-
sage." A bloodthirsty honesty can hardly serve humanity's
future less well than did the Dragon's policy of monomaniacal
manipulation.
Doubtless I will oppose her at every turn. Occasionally
she will heed me. And when she does not, I will reread War-
den's records, and be humbled.
Perhaps humankind will survive without its gods.
This is the end of
The Gap into Ruin
This Day All Gods Die.

[Guest]

Thankyou Sylvanus, I understand how much time it must have taken for that post so thanks.

[[Syl]]

Heh, not a problem at all. I have text files of all the books, so it's just cut and paste.

[Revan]

Cool! Have you got Gildens Fire as well?

[Cord Hurn]

*Bump* for this thread because the answer to the latest Gap Quiz question is contained therein.