ETERNITY 309

the human religions, many synthesized into the myth of the Good Man, who exemplified the imperfect but glorious expression of that universal urge to Just Progress, Star, Fate and Pneuma: the universe, history and Page 555

human spirit; Thistledown, transient and even humble name for such an endeavor.

Farren Siliom contemplated all these things from his apartment. He would not have time to get used to this new body; in a way, he regretted the waste of resources, but preferred to end his life in a physical form.

If Thistledown were to die, he would die with it, rather than explain to its citizens what he had done, and why.

Despite an odd melancholymsomething akin to what he had seen in Korzenowski's face--he did not feel much like a traitor. No doubt, in the scales of cosmic justice, he was a hero; but he didn't feel that sense'of justification, either. He had become nothing more than a small transducer in the circuit of history, a fate experienced most acutely by politicians who believe or hope they are in control.

He knew his place in the Thistledown's history, though he was far from sure it would be an honored place. With no authorization, only the power of being in a certain of[ice at a certain time, he had ordered or at least supported the asteroid starship's destruction. He had done so for reasons that were inescapable and correct, yet that were still not clear to him. I have been persuaded by God~ Historians are seldom kind to lead-e~& His family was on Earth by now, in a camp in Southeast Asia. His two children, both conceived and born in the natural manner in accord with his Naderite beliefs, but of course, with a few Hexamon embellishments, since he was not orthodox--those children would grow up more influenced by Earth than the orbiting precincts, he could prophesy; the pre-eincts would more than likely close themselves off as a society, rendering aid and assistance, but turning inward. As such, within a century or two Page 556

they could cease to be viable, their societies beginning the long process of decay, like amhe borrowed now from Terrestrial experiences, such as Garry Lanier might have had lamb's tail bound with cord, cut off from the parent body. Who could have foreseen such a possibility during the enthusiasm of the Sundering?

Earth would grow on its own, having been given a mighty boost; who could say where it would go, after the Recovery and such strong Hex-amon influence?

He had placed remotes and partials in several places around Thistledown, all connected to his seusoria, to allow him to fully experience the

310 GREG BEAR

moment whenmand ifmit came. He still reserved a small and probably foolish skepticism. Thistledown had always been. In his life, at least . . .

He felt a wave of sentiment for the old times in the Way, and it shamed him. But those times had been so much easier to comprehend, even if no less complicated. He had never thought he would be homesick for the awesome reaches of Korzenowski's creation.

Since the Sundering, it seemed that the Hexamon had never truly known where it was. It had never found home.

SEVENTY-TWO

The Beginning of the Way

Page 557

Olmy reached out to touch the blunt, mad-mirror terminus of the flaw and felt it draw his fingers along where he applied pressure, and push them back when he applied pressure from the opposite angle. Frictionless, enormously powerful, the flaw had once supplied all the Hexamon's energy through these transforms of space and time. Korzenowski watched from the blister.

"You can enter the flawships?'

"I can enter at least one of them," Olmy said. "My imprint is still on this one." He pointed to the first ship in the row, closest to the flaw, mounted behind the blister that covered the bore hole. The wreckage of the flawship damaged by the Jart intrusion had been removed, replaced by the second ship in line, and a third added. "It took us down the Way and through the closing end, during the Sundering . . . with Patricia Vasquez and Garry Lanier. We dropped off representatives from Timbl and other worlds . . we dropped off Patricia to open her gate in the geometry stacks." They tracted along the bore hole to float beside the flawship.

"I didn't remember this was the ship," Korzenowski said. "They look so much alike."

Olmy pressed his hand into a circle scribed in the side of the flawship and a hatchway irised open noiselessly. The smell of the interior was clean and metallic, redolent with the blunt odors of unbreathed air and