Page 72 of The Enduring Universe
Dhruv stepped back, asked her curtly to spin again, then adjusted some of the devices on her harness, pulling a few strings taut. He had not explained what these devices would do, and she had not asked. She recognized the basic instruments of an expedition, a wrist compass, a headlamp, snap-shovels and machetes. The rest were clearly meant for the Garden’s solar lab to measure whatever it needed to.
“Almost done,” Dhruv said. He crouched, and tightened a rope around her waist with nimble fingers.
“Oh good,” she replied. “I can’t wait.”
They were silent for a time again, until Ahilya spoke again, her throat thick. “I don’t think I can do this,” she choked.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Dhruv replied, remorseless. “You are corrupted by the Virohi—of course you don’t want to kill them.”
“That doesn’t trouble you?”
“What would that achieve? One way or another, this is our only choice. Whether you like it or not, you have to do it.”
“I meant my corruption. You are taking it well.”
Dhruv uttered a soft, humorless laugh. “Should I walk small around you too, little sister?” he said, using an endearment he’d only ever used when they were young children. “You look like Ahilya. You speak like Ahilya. From everything that I have ever known of you, you think like Ahilya.” He glanced up at her. “As far as I am concerned, you are Ahilya. For now, for me, it is enough.”
Unexpectedly, she felt tears in her eyes, and her cheeks tightened in trying to hold them back. Dhruv fell silent, continuing in his work.
“The councilors of Irshar told you about overwriting,” she said at last. “This corruption could happen to you too. Do you not fear that?”
Dhruv continued to tie knots, attaching and testing various instruments, but she saw the furrow on his forehead. Finally, he sat back on his haunches and stared up at her.
“When that happened,” he said, “when I became you temporarily, I thought I had lost myself. I couldn’t sense where I began, and where I ended, like my body was porous and my thoughts were covered with cotton.” He lifted a hand and Ahilya saw it tremble. “I am questioning everything now. Are all my actions my own? What about my thoughts, my judgements, my feelings? Who do those belong to? Who is pulling my strings?”
Dhruv shuddered and Ahilya’s heart sank. What had sheexpected? Dhruv feared his erasure. The complete breakdown of self. Is that not what she feared too—what she had with the Virohi before? Her kind had been completely left out of architect histories, and how was overwriting different from that? Something in her posture must have changed, for Dhruv’s head snapped up, as though he could hear the whispers of a thought she was too terrified to acknowledge.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?” he asked quietly.
Almost, she spoke it aloud. Sooner or later they would all know. Her hand circled her wrist, fingering the heartpoison bracelet, feeling the miniscule thorns growing from it.
If she voiced the thought, it would become true. She would be poisoned. She could not risk it yet.
“It’s a hypothesis,” she murmured. “With the three visions, the habitat, everything returning to source, I wondered if this is where overwriting is headed.”
Dhruv frowned, standing up. He placed one more instrument on her armband, silent for so long that Ahilya thought he wouldn’t speak.
“You are not the only one to think this,” he said at last. “Sungineering supports this theory.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sungineering is not working on constellation lines, nor is it working on Ecstatic power. This technology from Nakshar has somehow tapped into something more fundamental, bypassing the need for the Moment or the Deepness. We discussed it in Irshar’s solar lab, you remember? Trying to find the substrate of trajection. Well, I think I’ve found it. I understand Irshar’s devices better.”
Despite everything, Ahilya’s mouth fell open. “You mean the foundation of an architect’s desire, don’t you? Are you serious? Our devices are responding to pure architect will?”
“It is hardly surprising. Trajection and Ecstasy are manipulated forms of desire. You said so yourself back then.”
She had. Still Ahilya couldn’t believe that Dhruv had managed to find such an energy. It felt like sorcery. “Is this the everpower then?” she said, trying to understand.
“No. I don’t think so. Everpower is still an advanced manifestation of trajection. This is simpler.” Dhruv scowled. “In sungineering terms, we are returning to an understanding of an architect emitting a field of desire. We always thought our devices worked on either a trajection field or constellation lines, but this new energy proves that things are simpler than that. We are working on a combined will. Desire, in itself, captured and used, while each architect struggles with their survival bound to the rest of this community. Something like this energy would probably never manifest if allvision wasn’t occurring and overwriting didn’t happen. But it only started making itself as apparent after you embedded the Virohi in the tree. If we knew what it was back then, perhaps we’d have understood the dangers of overwriting instantly. It is becoming stronger every second, which means overwriting is becoming stronger. We are all headed to a convoluted mess of being. Even as we use sungineering, each device now is a warning. Much like what trajection has been.”
Ahilya watched his pinched mouth, the focus of his gaze. “You haven’t told any of the others about this, have you?” she asked.
Dhruv shook his head. “Once you destroy the Virohi and overwriting ends, this power will come to an end as well. There is no point in agitating the others.”
“You are all right with that? Letting this incredibly useful energy die out?”
“Not all energy that can be used should be used,” Dhruv replied darkly.
