… 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 toughness 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 appearance before the GCES, his actions were scrupulously correct. 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 attempt to direct the quantum mechanics of events.
Young Davies has caused me no small measure of inconvenience. 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 restitution.
I prefer the latter. It salves the quality of ego or dedication which functions as my conscience. However, I fear that the former lies nearer the truth—ambiguous though that concept may be. I have read widely in his personal records, journals 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 himself 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 naïveté 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. Together, the three of you have everything I have—and everything 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 somewhat 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 outré 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 message.” 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 Warden’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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen R. Donaldson made his writing debut in 1977 with the first Thomas Covenant books; the series quickly became an international bestseller and earned him worldwide critical acclaim. Stephen R. Donaldson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently lives in New Mexico.
THE GAP INTO RUIN
THIS DAY ALL GODS DIE
A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition/May 1996
Bantam mass market edition/February 1997
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1996 by Stephen R. Donaldson.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95–21037
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For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-57405-3
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
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