Part 19 (1/2)

'Do you believe this?'

'Yes truly.'

'Then you don't believe Old Fei Yang will argue for your execution?'

Danlo shook his head. 'Oh, he may argue for it, but it will not be his choice to make.''Then what will determine which kind of feast we attend tonight?'

'I will,' Danlo said. 'There will be something I must do or not do.'

'And what is that?'

'I am not sure yet. I cannot ... quite see it. We will have to wait.'

Ede's face was now all alarm and calculation. Finally, in a low voice he said, 'If there's a fifty percent chance of your being executed, then surely you should try to escape.'

'Do you have a plan, then?'

'Of course,' Ede whispered. 'I'm good with plans. You could pretend that you've eaten bad fish, and ask to void yourself outside. When Ten Su Minye and his brothers open the door, you could overpower them.'

'Overpower ... three strong men?'

'You're a pilot of the Order,' Ede reminded him. 'Haven't you trained in the fighting arts?'

Danlo slowly nodded his head. 'The killing arts, they are called on Neverness.'

'Surely you can't think it's wrong to kill others who are about to kill you?'

Danlo bowed his head as he touched the scar above his eye. He breathed deeply, saying nothing.

'It would actually be quite easy,' Ede said. 'You could use one of the logs from the fire to break open Ten Su Minye's brains. And then you could run down to the beach, to your s.h.i.+p.'

With his eyes closed, Danlo tried not to envision what Ede had suggested. He tried not to see their little house at the edge of the forest, nor the broad, sandy beach which he might attain after only half a mile's sprint through the giant coastal trees. Most of all, he tried not to look upon his mind's creation of a nightmare, the vivid colours: the blackened log still glowing from the fire, the scattered white ashes, the redness of blood upon Ten Su Minye's forehead, upon the bearskins and walls, upon Danlo's trembling hands. Never killing, never harming another, not even in one's thoughts Danlo had made this vow long ago, and so he desperately tried not to see what any other man might have seen so easily.

'No,' Danlo said at last. 'I ... cannot escape this way.'

'But why not?'

In a slow, halting voice, in whispers and sighs and occasional silences, Danlo told Ede of his vow of ahimsa.

'But the Sani may kill you aren't you afraid?'

Danlo nodded his head, then smiled. 'Yes, I am afraid.'

'And so,' Ede asked, 'is it your plan just to wait here for the Sani's feast while you sit breathing like a Buddha? Toward what end?'

'Toward ... truly living,' Danlo said. 'Toward being more alive.'

'But what good is that if you're to be killed?'

'Being truly alive ... is good simply because it is good,' Danlo said, smiling. 'And more practically, it prepares the heart, the spirit the whole bodymind. So that when the moment comes, I will know what to do.'

Ede was quiet while he processed this. And then he asked, 'And to which moment do you refer?'

'The ... moment,' Danlo said. 'There is always a moment.'

'And now you sit speaking as mysteriously as a Buddha, too. I'm afraid I don't understand.'

Danlo sighed as he looked down at the flickering lights of Ede's face. Then he said, 'I am only speaking of the Now-moment. It is when the door opens. When ... nowness becomes thenness and the future is always and now. When one chooses, yes or no, which future will be. When there is nothing in the universe except one's will, to act or not act, to see, to know, to move to move the universe. There is always this moment, yes?'

But Danlo's explanation did little to ease Ede's perplexity. 'I'm not sure,' Ede said.

'For me, time is as continuous as the atomic clock built into this devotionary, and I must act according as my program runs.'

'I ... am sorry.'

'It is fundamental to my program, of course, that it continue to run. If you're executed, what will happen to me?'

'I ... do not know.'

'Well, I might be marooned on this Earth forever.'

'Perhaps another pilot of my Order might rescue you someday.'

'That's unlikely,' Ede said. 'Your finding me in the temple was the rarest of chances.'

'Still, there is a chance. And ... you are immortal, yes?'

'Immortal, in a way, but not indestructible.'

Danlo smiled sadly to himself. 'There is nothing in the universe ... that cannot be destroyed.'

'I suppose,' Ede said, 'that I might eventually convince these savages that I am their G.o.d, after all. They might build me an altar, set me upon it and wors.h.i.+p me.'

Danlo thought about this while he stared at the thick wooden beams of the door. He breathed evenly, deeply, and then he said, 'Is this what you truly desire?'

For a moment, the Ede program hesitated, and then Ede said, 'Of course not.'

'I have wondered if we should tell the Sani about you,' Danlo said. 'About you ... as G.o.d.'

'Why not? Don't you believe in telling the truth?'

'Yes, but ... the truth that is not heard is not the truth.'

'The Sani's G.o.d is dead,' Ede said bitterly. 'That is the truth.'

Danlo shook his head. 'No, their G.o.d is still alive. For them, marvellously and beautifully alive.'

'I should tell them how the Silicon G.o.d murdered me.'

'If you told them this, they wouldn't believe you. And if they did believe you, it would leave a hole in their soul.'