Making the Best, continued

[avevale_intelligencer]

Well, I'm here.

Preparation took me a little longer than I envisaged. Some of those links were a little tricky, and I almost didn't get back. But I got everything I might need if I have to use plan B. I linked into Releeshahn at night, and made my way down the path to the village. I tell you, this Age is without parallel for sheer beauty. Whatever happens, I'm glad I got to see it in its prime after all.

Yeesha had pointed out the ruin that used to be where she lived, so I knew where to go. A fire marble was burning inside. I pressed the panel in the middle of the door, and it slid open.

She looked up from her writing, startlement turning swiftly to suspicion. "Who are you?"

I considered "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan" and decided against it. Yeesha may have possessed several fine qualities, but a sense of humour was not among them. "I am a messenger," I said.

"You are not D'ni," she stated. "I know all the surviving D'ni. How did you get here?"

"You sent me."

"I?" Suspicion began to darken into anger. "Is this some stupid joke?"

"Is it remotely funny?" I countered. "No? Then probably not. I was sent here from the future by your older self to warn you."

"Warn me? About what?"

This was going to be the tricky part. "You are telling the D'ni to abandon all art and science, to live simply in harmony with nature. You believe the Maker wishes this. You are mistaken. Your actions will--"

"I am not mistaken!" she flared up. "Knowledge leads to power, and power to pride. The only way to conquer pride is to be powerless. To be Least."

"Does one conquer an enemy by running away?" I'd been working on that one for days.

"When the enemy is undefeatable, yes. If it is the only way to survive."

So much for my big gun. "What if I were to tell you that the D'ni do not survive? Even following your guidance?"

"Then it is the Maker's will that they should not. But I think you are lying." She got up and approached me. "I think you are misled by your own pride. You are a surface dweller, standing here in the clothes of my brother--" (damn, I'd forgotten that) "--trying to seduce me to the ways of power again. But I will not be seduced."

"You're using power over the D'ni to make them follow you!"

"No." She was sure now, and able to be gentle in her certainty. "They follow me because they see my reasons are pure. That I speak for the Maker. If the D'ni resume the ways of pride and power, if they seek to understand the universe, if they use the Art to enslave other Ages, then they will fall again."

"And your answer is to have them just lie down so they can't fall any further, is that it?" I was losing it, and I knew it, but her smug certainty just irritated me.

"Only that which seeks to rise above its appointed state can fall. My grandmother was right in what she did, though she never knew it. She was the instrument of the Maker, restoring the D'ni to their proper position. It is now my task to see that they never overreach themselves again."

"Ti'ana didn't cause the fall of D'ni!" I shouted. "It was--"

"My grandmother was the instrument of the Maker," she repeated, overriding me without effort. "Later she fell into error, and my father with her. But she is dead, and her mistakes are buried with her, and my father has seen the light of truth and no longer tries to teach his errors."

I felt presences behind me. I really shouldn't have shouted. "Now you have a choice," Yeesha said. "Use the book at your side, leave this Age and never return, or my friends will take it from you and you will be imprisoned for trial. Choose now."

"You're going to regret this," I said. "Either way, you're going to regret this."

And I linked out. And ten minutes later my time, I linked back in.

Plan B it is, then.