He looked careworn. "I'm as good as can be expected, under the circumstances. I hear you led the peers out of the holocaust Very well done."
"We would have done better if you'd been with us."
He nodded, looking tired. "I know. I'm sorry that wasn't possible. But I've been working very hard ... behind the scenes, shall we say."
So far behind the scenes that not even the founders had known what he was up to? Or had Ellis known? She made herself nod encouragingly. "You knew about these ancestors before the potlatch?"
He scowled. "Yes, I knew about them. I'm working with the Oceanans on a plan to counterattack them. Anyway, 'ancestors' is just Raven's name for the invaders. They themselves say they're followers of thirty-three forty. A leader with a number, not a name. Interesting, no? And I'm pretty sure that this 3340, wherever it is, is not on Teven Coronal."
They have found us. Could it be that Aaron's preposterous notion of invaders from another world was true? No one had left Teven Coronal in Livia's lifetime. No one, she had always believed, had ever visited from anywhere else either. And yet, Maren Ellis had initiated a secret project to study such travel, only weeks ago.
Livia covered her amazement with a casual nod, which made Lucius smile. "You're not surprised, are you?" he said. "You understand, then, what's happening."
"Not really," she said. "I know our way of life is being destroyed. But I don't understand by whom, or why."
"I know parts of it," he said. "I know 3340's followers are from off-world. I know they're human. And I also know they aren't all-powerful. Their technology isn't any better than ours, they've just caught us napping. We can beat them, Livia, if we strike right away. That's what I'm here to do: organize the counterattack."
She brooded on that. He seemed eager to talk, and there was all manner of ways she could steer her line of questions. It might be best to keep him off balance.
"Lucius, have you ever heard of something called an aneclipticT she asked.
His eyes narrowed, and he took a sip of his lemonade while staring off into the distance. "Sure," he
said grudgingly. "I know of them. They're the creatures that built this world, Livia and all the worlds you see when you look up at night."
"I was taught that we built Teven Coronal."
"You were taught that, yes." He smiled at her expression. "You were taught a great many truths that are only Westerhaven truths not truths anywhere else. But I thought you knew that. I thought the shadow-play of half-true stories we call our history annoyed you as much as it does me."
"So what are these anecliptics?" she pressed. "Are they this 3340? Or is it something else?"
"They're not important. They built this world and a number of others and then abandoned them. As far as the rest of the solar system is concerned, this place," he gestured grandly, "is part of something known as the Fallow Lands. The anecliptics have forbidden anyone to come here. Some say that the founders made a pact with them hundreds of years ago; but I think the founders snuck in. They wanted to be free of any outside control including the anecliptics. Livia, I don't think the anecliptics even know that you and I exist. And they have nothing to do with 3340. We'll get no help from that quarter."
She sat back, struggling through the possibilities. Had Lady Ellis deliberately dropped the name of the anecliptics in her conversation with Livia the other day? But why, if Lucius was right and they were irrelevant? Wheels within wheels, she thought dazedly.
With difficulty she brought her thoughts back to the matter at hand. "If this 3340 isn't superior to us, how is it that the ancestors have destroyed Raven's people and Westerhaven?"
Lucius nodded somberly. "Because they know something we don't," he said. "Oh, not technologically; they have an edge here and there, and they leverage the vulnerabilities of whatever technology set they're faced with. A manifold is just a specific set of technologies. You can't have speedy ground cars without highways to run them on the one technology demands the other. A complete collection of technologies defines a way of life: a manifold. And what's a technology? It's a value. If you fly, it is because you don't want to walk: to fly is to make a value judgment
"Inscape is a values-driven interface to technology-sets. So, to travel between manifolds is to suspend or abandon your values. You and I, Livia, are good at traveling, because we can both suspend our judgments ... because in the end, neither of us believes in anything. Which is what you've never accepted about yourself."
She bridled. "We're talking about 3340 here, not me."
"But you see, 3340 realized something very similar it realized that each manifold represents a set of ideals. And to break that manifold, all you have to do is push its ruling ideals to the point where they contradict themselves. To the point where they turn into their opposite."
She thought about what Qiingi had told her how the ancestors had played on the prejudices of the elders and warriors, convincing them that it was their destiny to conquer other manifolds. While at the same time, Wester-haven had reached out more and more to neighboring manifolds, proselytizing through people like Lucius ... and Livia.