Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
Tarlac described his schooling and wilderness experience with no particular emphasis, and then had the screen show Kranath's Vision, as he and Godhome remembered it, translating the Language. He waited, ready to give the Emperor the same emotional support he'd given Ch'kara if it were needed. It wasn't, quite, though Davis was shaken enough to stop recording again when it ended. "Good God, Steve!
He was in Godhome, dishonored and as good as dead. He stepped out, uncompelled now and bitter. He might not believe in the gods, but he had to believe in whatever power had forced him here. Given that, further resistance would be both useless and stupid. He could only hope that No. One who had been toyed with as he had been dared hope for nothing. The unseen power had taken his will, his honor.
What gods? Why was he praying? It wouldn't do him any good, he thought angrily. The gods had vanished millennia ago, leaving only Godhome as evidence they'd been real. It was evidence that drove men mad, must be driving him mad if he was starting to pray. Gods made good stories for younglings; they had no meaning in the real world. Or . . . did they?
I know thee not, nor see thee; thou art as the fells afar Where the Fathers have their dwelling, and the halls of Godhome are: The wind blows wild betwixt us, and the cloud-rack flies along, And high aloft enfoldeth the dwelling of the strong; They are, as of old they have been, but their hearths flame not for me; And the kindness of their feast-halls mine eyes shall never see."
Of those, Kranath was easily the best, as shown by his ability to accept facts that were fantastic to him, and then to reason from them. It was a promising sign, Godhome thought, though it was not a guarantee that Kranath would join it. Godhome would use everything its creators hadn't forbidden to influence him to accept, but the decision had to be made freely.
He was still afraid, still didn't understand what was happening, but he didn't want to disbelieve the benevolence in the powerful voice. He stood as it had bade him. "I have nothing else to call you, Lord. May I see you, or know your name?" "You see me as I am," the voice said. "I am Godhome, and you are inside me. I am the watcher left by those you think of as gods.
That interpretation was perhaps questionable but it wasn't forbidden, because it left Kranath free to refuse. As long as that was true, Godhome felt justified. It needed the best, and Kranath was the best; there was no reason to delay the first step.
His mind was packed with information, then stretched and filled again, until Godhome and the powers it had been given by those who went before were part of him. He knew that he could reach out to touch any intelligence in the galaxy. There was a final legacy from the computer's creators, one they had left to ease the burden he had assumed at their call.
So was north, he discovered when he tried to retrace his steps to the crash site. The only way open to him was south, straight toward Godhome. He was beginning to realize with dismay that he would not be able to avoid it, desperately though he wanted to. He stood still, hesitating.
Kranath considered himself rather ordinary for a Cor'naya, and would have been surprised to learn that Godhome's opinion was far different: his generation was a key one by the reckoning of those who went before, and he was one of several exceptional males who had been born as predicted, then subtly guided by Godhome into developing their full potential without losing the essential values of the Traiti race and culture.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking