The Helianx Proposition/page 32
The base craft was able to reach the Hub far more rapidly than Noe
could have by swimming through the maze of interconnecting corridors
stretching throughout the hold of the Great Ship.
SHe had not greeted its arrival with much pleasure since sHe had planned
for one of hir more extensive stays on the sandy plains of the simulated desert,
and had decided to return to the comfort of the Hub and the companionship of the others
only when sHe could no longer stand the stresses of life on dry land.
Being by nature a somewhat indolent species, even Noe had been originally perplexed by the newfound inner Voice's gentle insistence on spending longer and longer periods on hir own in this thoroughly inhospitable environment. But, as sHe became more accustomed to the rigors of surface life, sHe started to realize that sHe might be being prepared for whatever lay ahead.
The computers had taken far longer than the Helianx anticipated for a thorough analysis of the possibilities facing their species. It was one thing to gain an understanding of the physical properties of matter, and how it was arranged on both the microcosmic and macrocosmic levels, but quite another to try to outwit the very forces that threatened to destroy them. It was always going to be a gamble and the long wait had only served to reinforce their fears that there might be, in fact, no solution whatsoever to this most pressing of problems. This was clearly not a straightforward project and they knew it would challenge their computers to the very limit of their prescient powers.
Had they been a younger and simpler race, or perhaps more fatalistic by nature, the Helianx might have resigned themselves to their extinction, as had some of the other species on the worlds they had visited, having allowed their technology to spin out of control. The Helianx had to remind themselves that they had been in this situation before, and they had managed to avoid extinction by dint of pushing both their computers, and themselves, to new and previously inconceivable heights of imagination. Even the most conservative amongst them had to admit that they never would have been able to contemplate their move into space without the farsighted collaboration of their computers.
As with most telepathic species, the Helianx had always tended to think of themselves as a psychic and spiritual Oneness, as a singularity dominated by the intimacy of the Web. Indeed, It was this deep sense of homogeneity that most likely inflated their shocked reaction to the plan the computers had evolved. Not only did the stratagem demand that they place their confidence in only one of their race, but it appeared that the computers had already chosen the most unlikely candidate.
Noe's recent activities, hir apparent indifference to the most sacred of their taboos, and hir insistence on breaking free of the Web, had not endeared hir to the Elders. What even the wisest of them could never have fully appreciated at that time was that Noe, alone amongst them all, had developed the rare taste for a much more solitary life.
