be enough. That another Eight Year War could never happen again. Hardly a plurality, and yet these individuals were enough to prove detrimental.”
His voice was bitter, as if those events from so many centuries ago had happened just yesterday. Julian Huxley had said he could no longer clearly remember events from the distant past. That they felt as if they had happened to a different person entirely. Clearly Ivan Solovyov was a different sort of man.
“The year of night ended, and before long the new war began,” he said wearily. “I studied philosophy, religion, biology, anything that might give me some insight into what had happened. Why it had happened. The conclusion I reached then still holds true today. Simply, that when given the freedom to choose, many will invariably choose poorly.”
I’d heard that same sentiment from other narcissists. “You’re saying you know what’s best for people more than they do.”
“Precisely. Yet even knowing this, some sought their own destruction rather than accept that simple truth. They acted, not out of reason, but out of emotion.”
“Some people hate to be told what to do.”
“Yes, unfortunately,” replied Solovyov. “It wasn’t until nearly the end of my first life that I devised a solution to that problem. I simply needed to change my perspective. I had to recognize that contrarians will always rise to oppose the currents of history, but that opposition can be controlled. The effects of resistance ameliorated.”
It was a strategy Federation Intelligence occasionally used. Placing loyal assets in leadership roles within insurgent groups had allowed the Sol Federation to dismantle the Medina rebellion from the inside without firing a shot. Gradually shifting a group’s values over time was enough to make people think the idea was theirs from the start, even if it was the antithesis of what they originally stood for. Solovyov was implying the Eleven had done this on an interplanetary scale for nearly a thousand years.
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
He was silent for a moment, but his mouth opened and closed like he was trying to say something. Katerina knelt to check the devices at his temples. The old man inhaled sharply and blinked. His eyes darted around the room before fixing on me once again.
“What’s wrong with him,” I asked Katerina.
“He’s dying,” she answered plainly. “I’m sure the experience is very unpleasant. A proper Warwick node would have been ideal, but this is an old process and there are ways to improvise.”
“You’re saying that this is—”
“Yes. Very few people ever witness a Continuity event, Tycho. You should be honored.”
If this pool was part of a Warwick node, then there was another somewhere with a person in it. Someone I could save. I started toward the door at the far end of the room. Katerina put up a hand to stop me.
“It’s too late to stop it, Tycho. If you try to go in there, we’d just have to fight again. I’d kill you, and you would have only delayed me from giving Solovyov the help he needs.”
The old man had been relaxed as he floated in the water, but there had been a passive tension as he held his head level. Now he was dead weight, his face turned and half-submerged. He’d stopped breathing, his body still except for the slight motion on the water’s surface.
“Solovyov is dead,” I said.
“He is. And he isn’t. Stay right there and you’ll see.”
Katerina took the folded linen and robe and walked back to the far door. She slowly pushed it open, calling out as she did so.
“I have your towel.”
A girl stepped out and took the cloth. She was Cavadora, no older than the boy in the portrait in the foyer. She didn’t take the robe, seemingly unconcerned with her nakedness. She turned to me as she dried her long black hair.
Her eyes had a weary, burdened look that belied her youthful features. “To answer your question,” she said, “I tell you these things because I want your help, Mr. Barrett.”
The evidence was there in front of me, and I’d seen it with my own eyes. Marcenn had warned us, in his own way. Huxley too, until Katerina shot him dead. Rationally, objectively, I knew the truth. Though my eyes saw a slender girl and my ears heard a light and airy voice, my mind understood that the person before me had eight centuries of memories behind those intense, dark eyes.
“Ivan Solovyov,” I said. Not a question, but a statement.
The girl shook her head. “New