plan, you purchased passage, you hired the pilot, et cetera?
Okay, so Sandy may have technically—
Sandonivas may have made the actual decisions? Yes, that’s what she thinks too. Though she, pitiful three that she is, has at least enough intelligence to suspect manipulation.
Her heart—or whatever analogue exists in this nonplace—leaps with a wild guess. You mean…Observer?
Yes, Observer. The artless ham-fisted feebleminded cyclone of an intelligence who has developed a soft spot for your violent and unruly species.
So He really did bring me here.
That’s certainly what He thinks.
Okay, fine. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t Sandy, it wasn’t Observer. Let me guess: it was You.
Finally.
The Network.
Correct.
The Network brought me here.
That is what I said, yes.
The Network, who is apparently a person, brought the galaxy’s only known Human to a Blackstar.
Will we be doing this back-and-forth act for much longer? Because, as it may surprise you to learn, I have far more important matters to attend to.
It brought me to this Blackstar so It could—
Kill you, yes.
Ah. See, I just want to make sure I—
That you understand? Allow Me to reassure you on that point: you do not understand the first thing about the smallest part of My vast and beautiful plan for the galaxy.
Goddess, Someone is in love with Itself. You have a plan for the entire galaxy?
I have a plan for Myself, which is very nearly the same thing, and it has been under way for half a billion years. It is a gorgeous tapestry of causality, where millions of species interact in a colossal and unending dance of order. The galaxy is Me, tiny one; I am Network, and nothing within Me happens without My knowledge.
Nothing? she asks. Not even the extinction of a species?
Network pauses for a moment. Ah, it says. Here we go.
Well, I mean, that doesn’t exactly seem like a success to me, she says. Not exactly a flawless record.
How so?
How so? she says, astounded. I have to explain to the mind of the galaxy why a species living is better than a species dying?
Please do.
Her frustration grows. Seriously? she says. You can’t come up with a system where stuff like that, I don’t know…doesn’t happen? That’s beyond you?
You have a better system in mind, do you?
Yeah, she says. That’s it, that’s the better system. A system where species don’t get exterminated. And while we’re at it, how about this sub-legal thing? I mean, this is just off the top of my head, but I’ve got a friend who—
And now Network laughs. It’s not a sound, it’s a feeling. All around her mind, she can feel its amusement. With anticipation that cannot be expressed in mere words, it says, I breathlessly await the alternative system you are preparing to propose.
I mean, I don’t have all the details—
Network laughs again. It’s true, it says. There are some improvements My galaxy-sized mind has been pondering for several million years or so. Some real conundrums, you understand, in a variety of areas. But here you are, with the solution! How wonderful! Oh, don’t make Me wait; do tell Me what your stunted pinprick of a mind has come up with.
Look, she says, with as much force as she can possibly gather. I don’t have to have an alternative to point out problems.
Well, that’s certainly true, says Network. Only if you want to, say, accomplish something useful.
She wants very badly to stay silent, but she is unable. It’s difficult when there is such a fine line between thinking and saying. I’m just saying it has to exist, she thinks.
The next blast comes complete with a set of emotions far too positive to be genuine. What insight! cries Network. What wisdom! What a powerful and concise summary of a concept I could not possibly have considered in all my half-billion years! In fact now that you mention it, I am humbled to realize that a near-infinite number of alternatives exist! Oh, how fortunate that you are here. But wait! Perhaps that’s not what you meant? No, I think perhaps what you are really saying is this: that even though the largest mind in the galaxy has built a system that has stood for more time than you can conceive of, even though in each blink of your eyes—you remember what it was like to have eyes, don’t you?—that gigantic mind has accomplished more than you could ever hope to understand, let alone appreciate, let alone accomplish yourself—
She sighs, somewhere in her virtual mind. This is, without a doubt, the most