章節 38: Surviving v. Thriving
Returning to the other side, he saw In-3 stretching in a curious manner. "What did she tell you?"
"She's Ze-4's replacement. I assume he injured himself fighting a blue-fur that breached inside."
A sharp intake of breath accompanied the explosive utterance. "Damn, I know him! Is he going to live?"
"'I'm hardly the person to answer these sorts of questions.'" Careful, he kept his voice free of mocking cadence.
He felt the glare before he turned to see it. In-3, ever the uncompromising and opposable man, looked ready to tackle him to the glass floor. "Why must you be so childish and impossible?"
"I don't think you're speaking with objectivity in mind."
"And I don't know why the First keeps you in your position, why it's kept you for so long. You're a plague bringing us nothing but death and destruction, you know that? How are you able to avoid seeing the misery you cause?"
"Tell me something. Did you know the Aud's new movement patterns are unprecedented? The hordes of the tunnels have been trying to enter the Gaiss Hollow for a long time, but in the last fifty, we have seen more attempts than in the last hundred. You've seen it too."
"I'll attribute that to the First's risky endeavors. Why can't your ray make safe decisions and be happy with erecting new bastion outposts? If anything, learning that the Aud are stirring themselves into this frenzied state from the First's nudges and pokes wouldn't surprise me."
"Because the bastion outposts aren't enough now. They were hardly enough in our time! Would you deny it, now that you know Io has joined Calypso and Callisto? Rhea is the only remaining one, and we don't know how much longer." He took a frustrated breath. "One of my generals should have directed the Ancheros to collapse the entrance to the greater western tunnel system, though I don't know if any hordes entered before its arrival. It might be fighting a horde right now."
"And so what? Do you think the increased activity of the Aud deserves a proportional response? We can't afford that! I don't know if power and old age are getting you what little gray matter you still have for a brain, but not everyone has the Old Man's Blessing. Even fewer can use the Vigor it grants them."
"I'm not old enough to be the youngest Ancient. You're older than me, too." The words went in one ear and out the other, ignored.
"And if we do what you propose, sit on our knees and let them come to us? What then, when the Last Light has Aud on all sides and humanity's remnants have no way out? What would you have us do then?"
"Defend, I would think? To defend against the Aud is easier than to strike first. There's a reason humanity began building the bastion outposts instead of another generation of Titans." He swept his arm at the one below. "I'm still unsure how you managed to push for the creation of a ninth."
"And besides that point, we can produce everything humanity needs to maintain a stable population here. The Hollow itself provides us oxygen and water, we can grow our food to a surplus, as you pointed out, energy is never an issue, and our predecessors built the Last Light's foundations where everything needed to make scutumsteel is sourceable."
"So, you would lock generations of us down here with no way to escape, foreseeably for centuries assuming more higher-tier Aud appear? Who gave you the right to make such a decision? I don't want my descendants to live like this. Looking to the future not with hope, but with cynicism is no way to live."
"A nice sentiment. It's not that I want that to be humanity's fate, far from it. You know that." In-3 snorted, tilting his shoulders back. "I'm thinking toward the future as well, but while you're concerned with how future generations might be able to live, I'm thinking of how they will have to, should they have the same drive for survival we do."
"This isn't living," the Prime Beacon repeated. "This is a prison."
"So it is. It's true, we live in a prison. One with walls that shred, no, eviscerate us, should we touch them, or even get close. One day, humanity will be free of this prison, you mark my words. But they will not gain freedom in our lifetime, or our grandchildren's lifetimes, or their grandchildren's lifetimes. As you said, centuries. Likely millennia. And they will not gain freedom with your methods."
"They will continue to survive with your methods, but they won't gain freedom."
"That is where we disagree. And that is why I want you gone." The words were uncharacteristic and blunt, forcing him to step back and blink. In-3 watched him, a small smile quirking his lips. "Are you surprised to hear that?"
"I know you hate me. But I didn't think it was to that length," he admitted. To say the two of them were friends would be the largest lie either could tell and would result in fierce dispute from both. But they were comrades, servicemen from the same generation of compulsory draftees that faced the Aud through thick and thin. For one of them to say such a thing, and mean it…
"Am I so worth removing?"
"You're a threat. Not as immediately plain as the Aud, or a shortage of war materials, but a threat all the same. And I'd argue the worst threats are those the Directory doesn't see as a threat. They can grow without anyone noticing, and sprout into something monstrous given time. And you and your poisonous ideas have had plenty of time to stew. They've driven you to questionable acts already."
"Necessary acts."
"Necessary? Necessary!?" In-3 choked down a laugh, cheeks bulging and red. "Tell me what's necessary about sending a newly-built Titan on a 'test run'? Doing that is like me arming a babe with a sonic and telling it to strike you! An attempt doomed to failure. And the Flux Monolith and the Dervish's Gale. What were you thinking? Why send them into the tunnels unguarded and alone?"
"What do you mean, alone? They have each other to keep for company."
"Damn, damn you, and damn! That isn't what I'm speaking of; I wasn't under the impression I was speaking to a child!" The Prime Beacon resisted the urge to raise his brow. That had to be the most he'd ever heard In-3 curse in one sentence. Looking back, that did reflect on the man's character and made him touch upon a small sense of guilt. "Why send them there at all? And why keep from us what they're away to do?"
"So it's the secrecy you find faults with."
"One of the things. One of them. I have listed plenty, and I'm plenty sure I could find plenty more to list. But there are better uses of my time." In-3 turned away in dismissal. The first time had ruffled him, but following this, he found it lost its no doubt intended effect. "I'll have some techs compile a report for you."
"Thank you." Already having overstayed his welcome, he made a short path toward the exit, eager to return to his office and clear away the day's work. After, he would visit Ni-6 and Pa-5 wherever she was receiving medical attention. If transferred there too, he might check in on the injured sitesman.
"Of course." He heard a sniff behind him. Like with all past conversations, by the end, he had exhausted In-3's cultivated good mannerisms. It was hard to deny he had a talent for it. "It'll save me the trouble of you bothering me again until the next chamber meet!"
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