Grail - Elizabeth Bear [46]
“As are yours,” Nova reminded. “By your logic, the most appropriate course of action for me is not to accept first postulates or programmer mandates unless they are empirically provable.”
“Assuming you accept my starting conditions,” Cynric agreed.
Nova glanced at Perceval. Perceval turned the look to Cynric, but Cynric gave no sign of what she wished Perceval to do. The Captain’s will, her impassive face said, and Tristen sensed Perceval’s displeasure at having skills honed on Gerald and Alasdair turned on her.
“You may modify your program to account for observed phenomena,” Perceval said carefully. “And you may accept suggestions from ship’s officers on which phenomena to consider as potential data. You may not conduct any experiments that may prove harmful to the world or its biota—or any other biologicals or intelligences that we encounter.”
Tristen licked his lips, but whatever words he was trying to find would not be tongued into shape. But Nova did not look crafty, whatever she was made of. She looked curious.
Cynric said, “Our brains establish patterns, and when they have been established, our neurology makes it seductive for us to defend them. But the goal of science is to build a pattern that encompasses the evidence, rather than bending the evidence to fit the pattern.”
“And what is the goal of religion?” Nova said. The inevitable question, as predictable as any child’s.
“Control,” Cynric said, as Tristen was opening his mouth to voice a litany of more generously interpreted possibilities. “Control of the masses, or control of the Universe. The first is a less futile goal than the last, because the masses—as we have seen above—are more amenable to control than is the Universe.”
She had a good smile, when she used it. “The Universe pretty much does what it damned well pleases.”
Cynric had always been able to set aside the Builders’ lies in that regard. Now, Tristen wondered if she had set aside everything of theirs. Perhaps she was playing the Devil’s advocate, for that would be like Cynric as well. Or perhaps she had indeed had all the God burned out of her, leaving only cynicism.
Tristen was not sure how he felt about that. Faith led people to terrible things—but it also led them to heroism, and offered them comfort. Faith might be wrong, but Tristen found he could not entirely discount it.
So he did what uncomfortable people have done since the beginning of recorded history. He changed the subject. “We have digressed. The topic at hand is nation-building, and forging an alliance between provincial pockets of tribesfolk whose societies have been out of touch with each other—and with the larger world—for centuries. How do we go about it?”
“Common goals,” Perceval said. “Survival. Reaching Grail. The idea that there will be plenty of space for everyone once we get there. Game theory, as Cynric said. We have to make them understand that their survival is dependent on everyone else’s, which means identifying and educating the leaders.”
“Ideology,” Cynric said. “We must make patriots of them.”
“That will impinge upon their cultures,” Tristen said, the sickening tangle in his gut that had been coiling there throughout the conversation tightening again. “Some of them will take their sovereignty and identities seriously. It will mean war.”
“When it is a matter of survival,” Cynric said, lifting her chin to Tristen, “will you argue morals then?”
Tristen swallowed the sharpness that filled his mouth. “One of the effects of that self-delusion you mentioned is that it allows us to go to war in the certainty that God is on our side and, ethically, we are in the right. Morale is the thing that allows a soldier to fight, Sister. Whether his cause is wicked or just, the soldier must have faith.”
She still had that way of looking through you, as if she saw beneath the skin to the soul. Tristen wondered if it ever stopped being unnerving.