Neal Stephenson - Anathem

“Conservation of momentum,” he announced, “it’s not just a good idea—it’s the law!” Far away, I heard a thud and a squawk as the man with the hairdo impacted on the end-cap. This was almost drowned out, though, by chuckling and what I took to be appreciative commentary from our soldier-escorts. If I’d been startled, at first, to learn that Yulassetar Crade had been made part of—of all things—a diplomatic legation, I saw the genius of it now.

Once Cord had settled down enough to release me, I drifted over and bumped bodies (more gently) and shared a hug with Yul too. Sammann had emerged from the Orb Twelve shaft by now, and greeted them both in high spirits. Of course, there was much more that I wanted to say to Cord and Yul, but the man with the speelycaptor had crawled back close enough to get us in his sights—though from a more respectful distance—and this made me clam up. “We’ll talk,” I said, and Yul nodded. Cord, for now, seemed content merely to look at me, her face a maze of questions. I couldn’t help wondering what she saw. I was probably drawn and pasty. She, by contrast, had gone to some effort to dress up for the occasion: all the milled titanium jewelry was on display, she had gotten a new haircut and raided a women’s clothing store. But she’d had the good sense not to get too girly, and she still seemed like Cord: barefoot, with a pair of fancy shoes buckled together in the belt of her frock.

Others filtered in: a couple of ridiculously beautiful persons I didn’t recognize. Some old men. The Forals, drifting along arm in arm as if members of their family had been going on zero-gravity perambulations for centuries. Three avout, one of whom I recognized: Fraa Lodoghir.

I flew right at him. Spying me inbound, he excused himself from his two companions and waited for me at a handhold on the tunnel wall. We wasted no time on pleasantries. “You know what became of Fraa Jad?” I asked him.

His face spoke even more eloquently than his voice knew how to do—which was saying a lot. He knew. He knew . Not the false cover story. He knew what I knew—which probably meant he knew a lot more than I knew—and he was apprehensive that I was getting ready to blurt something out. But I shut my mouth at that point, and with a flick of the eyes let him know I meant to be discreet.

“Yes,” said Lodoghir. “What can avout of lesser powers make of it? What does Fraa Jad’s fate mean, what does it entail, for us? What lessons may we derive from it, what changes ought we to make in our own conduct?”

“Yes, Pa Lodoghir,” I said dutifully, “it is for such answers that I have come to you.” I could only pray he would catch the sarcasm, but he made no sign.

“In a way, a man such as Fraa Jad lives his whole life in preparation for such a moment, does he not? All the profound thoughts that pass through his consciousness, all the skills and powers that he develops, are shaped toward a culmination. We only see that culmination, though, in retrospect.”

“Beautiful—but let’s talk of the prospect . What lies ahead—and how does Fraa Jad’s fate reshape it for us? Or do we go on as if it had never occurred?”

“The practical consequence for me is continuing and ever more effective cooperation between the tendencies known to the vulgar as Rhetors and Incanters,” Lodoghir said. “Procians and Halikaarnians have worked together in the recent past, as you know, with results that have been profoundly startling to those few who are aware of them.” He was staring directly into my eyes as he said this. I knew he was talking about the rerouting of worldtracks that, among other things, had placed Fraa Jad at the Daban Urnud at the same time as his death was recorded above Arbre.

“Such as our unveiling of the spy Zh’vaern,” I said, just to throw any surveillors off the scent.

“Yes,” he said, with a tiny, negative shake of the head. “And this serves as a sign that such cooperation must and should continue.”

“What is the object of that cooperation, pray tell?”

“Inter-cosmic peace and unity,” he returned, so piously that I wanted to laugh—but I’d never give him that satisfaction.

“On what terms?”

“Funny you should ask,” he said. “While you were in suspended animation, some of us have been discussing that very topic.” And he nodded a bit impatiently, toward the muzzle of the Orb Four shaft, where everyone else was gathering.

“Do you think that Fraa Jad’s fate affected the outcome of those negotiations?”

“Oh yes,” said Fraa Lodoghir, “it was more influential than I can say.”

I was beginning to feel a little conspicuous and I could see I’d get nothing more out of Lodoghir, so I turned and accompanied him to the head of the Orb Four shaft.

“I see we have some big-time Procians,” Jesry said, nodding at Lodoghir and his two companions.

“Yeah,” I said, and did a double-take. I had just realized that Lodoghir’s companions were both Thousanders.

“They should be in their element,” Jesry continued.

“Politics and diplomacy? No doubt,” I said.

“And they’ll come in handy if we need to change the past.”

“More than they’ve already changed it, you mean?” I returned—which I figured we could get away with, since it would sound like routine Procian-bashing. “But seriously, Fraa Lodoghir has paid close attention to the story of Fraa Jad and has all sorts of profound thoughts about what it means.”

“I will so look forward to hearing them,” Jesry deadpanned. “Does he have any practical suggestions as well?”

“Somehow we didn’t get around to that,” I said.

“Hmm. So does that mean it’s our department?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

The trip down to Orb Four took a while because of the safety regulations.

“I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” said Arsibalt’s voice, somewhere on the other side of my blindfold, as we descended. “But this is already banal!”

“What? Your feet in my face?” For he kept wanting to descend too fast, and was always threatening to step on my hands.

“No. Our interactions with the Geometers.”

I descended a few more rungs in silence, thinking about it. I knew better than to argue. Instead I compiled a mental list of all that I’d seen on the Daban Urnud that had struck me as, to use Arsibalt’s word, banal: the red emergency button on the observatory hatch. The bowel-warming machine. Paperwork at the hospital. The Laterran man washing his dishes. Smudgy handprints on ladder-rungs. “Yeah,” I said, “if it weren’t for the fact that we can’t eat the food, it would be no more exotic than visiting a foreign country on Arbre.”

“Less so!” Arsibalt said. “A foreign country on Arbre might be pre-Praxic in some way, with a strange religion or ethnic customs, but—”

“But this place has been sterilized of all that, it’s a technocracy.”

“Exactly. And the more technocratic it becomes, the more closely it converges on what we are.”

“It’s true,” I said.

“When do we get to the good part?” he demanded.

“What do you have in mind, Arsibalt? Like in a spec-fic speely, where something amazingly cool-to-look-at happens?”

“That would help,” he allowed. We descended a few more rungs in silence. Then he added, in a more moderate tone: “It’s just that—I want to say, ‘All right, already! I get it! The Hylaean Flow brings about convergent development of consciousness-bearing systems across worldtracks!’ But where is the payoff? There’s got to be more to it than this big ship roaming from cosmos to cosmos collecting sample populations and embalming them in steel spheres.”