The Synthesis spoke of rational podia seeking the light, Quath heard. But she could not quell her own thoughts. Did this look like the labors of logic? How could the Synthesis be so sure of its assumptions?

She abruptly yanked away. The Factotum must have been watching closely. You leave?

Angrily, Quath spat, <Yes, yes. So?>

It is not done. No benefit accrues from— and the Factotum launched into a hoary, cobwebbed oration.

<Surely, Factotum, surely,> she interrupted. <I am disturbed by the heretical lies, that is all. Forget what I said.>

Quath realized that the Factotum would take the words literally and erase the conversation. Perhaps that was just as well. The poor creature could not deal with these questions.

Perhaps, Quath told herself grimly, no podia could.

Then why was she so burdened?

FOUR

Beq’qdahl clacked by, moving rapidly and well.

<Confluence will begin soon,> she called.

<What?> Quath, distracted by a robot resetting the sleeve of her injured leg, glanced up.

<The confluence for Nimfur’thon, slit-eye.>

Beq’qdahl canted her forelegs back with easy grace, her thorax colors and fuzzed eyes rippling with wry humor. Eyelet hairs dilated outward in waves to signify strandsharer fellowship. She added, <You have not forgotten already, I hope?>

Quath burned with embarrassment. Whenever she thought of Nimfur’thon the persistent nightmare flooded all other memories. <Of course not. Some mourn in private.>

<A point. I will see you then.>

Quath decided to cover her confusion with a sly dig: <I have not noticed much public mourning, however.>

Beq’qdahl caught the hint in the words. <Meaning we all should do what you do not?> She pursed her anal cavity to show her remark carried sting.

<At least I haven’t been striving to transfer into orbital weaving.>

<So you haven’t. A good idea not to. You are inexperienced.>

<Your eyes grow drool-dimmed,> Quath said sharply. <You mistake this crippled leg shell. I carry four pods, as you.>

<And have done so longer. I’m sure you will soon add.>

<The thought does leap to the lobes.>

<Very well.> Beq’qdahl settled into knee-cock, raak, raak. <You think I overclimb?>

<You came here a quad. I spanned less area than you, it is true, but I did have four legs. I still do. We all aspire to do orbital weaving, of course, but your arrogant attitude—>

<You are a grub indeed. My ambition is to replace the Tukar’ramin herself.>

Quath smoothed her eyelet hairs and oozed red pap through them to show lacings of anger barely held in check. <Incredible!>

<Not so. I am not a ground-hugger like you.>

Quath flared. Her fear of heights and of flying was a barb in her flesh. <You fever-dream. Next you will say you intend to become an Illuminate.>

Beq’qdahl was surprised. <Dung-speaker! Be careful. The Illuminates transcend us utterly. Someone may overhear.>

<They came from such as us,> Quath said.

<But are far augmented beyond our realm.>

<No one is beyond question.>

<True, but it is smart to pretend otherwise.>

Quath spat back, <I want the truth, whatever it is. I will pretend nothing.>

A pause. <Does something vex you? You speak brave words but your cilia, your thorax spectrum—they say otherwise.>

Disquiet darted through Quath. Could Beq’qdahl read what she truly felt? Did Beq’qdahl know her doubts? Exposure could ruin Quath’s future.

Quath started to compose a crushing remark and then thought better of it. <My thoughts are my own.>

<Very well. I hope your precious selfhood remains composed, even after I am promoted above you.> Beq’qdahl clattered her ossicles in jeering symphony, excreting bile juice from their seams, flooding the tunnel with an acrid smoke.

<If we be rivals, let there be no pretending otherwise!> She exited, clanking a rear waste port.

Quath brushed away a ratlike service robot which was polishing its handiwork, Quath’s new pod. Beq’qdabl was a competitor, of that one could be sure. For a passing moment Quath had wanted to unburden herself to Beq’qdahl. That would have been an error. No one could help. But still…if she could find even a gesture, a word…

Stamping heavily out of the tunnel to try the fixed pod, ringing and clacking, she noticed a reference output in the ceramic wall. Something nagged at her, something from the simmering anxiety within. She punched for General Information, gave indices, and scanned the flowing text:

THE SYNTHESIS: (1) REALIZATION THAT A CONTINUITY EXISTS BETWEEN INERT MATTER, THROUGH THE GRAND DESIGN OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE, AND INTELLIGENT LIFE TODAY. NOW ACCEPTED BY ALL, THIS COSMIC PERSPECTIVE MAY BE SEEN AS A CULMINATION OF ALL THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS, THOUGH OF COURSE IT IS ERECTED ON A FIRM FOUNDATION OF SCIENTIFIC…

Continuity. That meant things went on. Stated so baldly, in austere and objective lines, the phrases had a certain power.

A tiny crevice, but Quath took shelter there.

FIVE

The podia assembled for the confluence in a cavern deep in the Hive burrows. They had carved it when first arriving here, even while they ripped and scoured whole mech legions. This cavern recalled their ancient origins. Watery images of the mingling, chattering podia reflected from the steepled, glossy walls. Scrabbling pupa had polished the rude stone while they mewled and played.

Danni’vver appeared at the entrance of the confluence portal. She issued the ritual call, syllables booming down from the arched ceiling.

For this occasion none wore the gray, rough work sheaths of laborers. Instead, there were ample ballooned legments. Some sported rosy crescents of flapping headdress. Fuzzed cilia rippled. Rainbow washes of sweet-scented pus set off artfully inflamed eyelets. Teased tracheae plumes and carapaces of steel-blue sheen exalted their wearers. Some played with pearly castanets of animal bone jangling from each legjoint. Old myriapodia showed fresh encrustations of mica or baked pumice.

Those recently promoted found opportunities to display the gleaming leg they had earned, polished and bright amid the tangle of their tarnished pods. Others flaunted ringing, coppery antennae. Or huge ebony tusks. New quartz lenseyes oozed spectra like jewels in oil. Those recently augmented with artificial digestive tracts sported swollen bladders which throbbed with recently pulped food.

The tardy podia swarmed up the laddered strands and into the confluence hole. As they creaked into knee-cock, Nimfur’thon’s image formed above them. The traditional invocation began. A resounding voice thanked the laborers for quitting their tasks, to come and honor a fallen strandsharer. Quath paid close attention though some nearby buzzed with gossip. Then—incredibly!—the Tukar’ramin appeared on high far above Nimfur’thon.

Everyone gaped. Never had the Tukar’ramin deigned to come before them all. <What! Why?> someone blurted.

Seeming not to notice the shock she had caused, the Tukar’ramin filled the huge chamber with her resonant voice. She intoned the Verities. Quath listened intently as the ancient story unfolded, trying to pry fresh meaning from it.

The litany was, of course, quite true and grand. It told how perturbations clumped balls of spinning gas, which in time flattened into galaxies. The collapsing cores of young galaxies then flared hot: quasars. Those death throes were burning beacons across an abyss so vast that distance dimmed them to pinpricks of radiance. Yet the podia had deduced that at their center lurked immense black holes of a billion stellar masses or more, holding in a vast grip the surrounding roiling dust.