Surface Detail

Filhyn smiled. “Is it not always better to tell the truth though, Representative?”

Errun looked at her, shook his head. “The truth? No matter what? For good or ill? Are you mad? I do hope you’re having a joke with me here, young lady….Don’t pretend you are so naive, Filhyn. The truth is not always useful, not always good. It’s like putting your faith in water. Yes, we need the rain, but too much can sweep you away in a flood and drown you. Like all great natural, elemental forces, the truth needs to be channelled, managed, controlled and intelligently, morally allocated.” He glared at her. “You are having a joke with me, aren’t you?”

I might as well be, she thought. She wondered if she would finally be a real politician when she agreed with what Errun was saying.

And what was glory but something that reduced the more there were of you to share it?

That was the thing about traitors: they were people who’d already changed their minds at least once.

To a gun, all problems resolved into what could be shot at.

Hell was always for other people.

There now; cynical, paranoid and pessimistic. I think that completes the set, doesn’t it?

“Chay, you must be quiet now, and prepare to meet your maker.”

“I had no maker. My maker was the universe, or my parents.”

I beg to differ, as those who are right have always begged to differ from those who are wrong but refuse to admit it.

Some problems were generational; you just had to wait for the relevant elders to die off and be replaced with more progressive types. With luck.

Most species capable of forming an opinion on the subject had a pretty high opinion of themselves, and most individuals in such species tended to think it was a matter of some considerable importance whether they personally survived or not. Faced with the inevitable struggles and iniquities attendant upon a primitive life, it could be argued that it was an either very gloomy, unimaginative, breathtakingly stoic or just plain dim species that didn’t come up with the idea that what could feel like an appallingly short, brutal and terrifying life was somehow not all there was to existence, and that a better one awaited them, personally and collectively – allowing for certain eligibility requirements – after death.

The majority of species, too, could scrape together some sort of metaphysical framework, a form of earlier speculation – semi-deranged or otherwise – regarding the way things worked at a fundamental level which could later be held up as a philosophy, life-rule system or genuine religion, especially if one used the excuse that it was really only a metaphor, no matter how literally true it had declared itself to be originally.

Naturally, also, both sides were convinced they had right on their side, not that either was remotely naive enough to think that that had any possible bearing on the outcome whatsoever.

“There are no guarantees in war,” Green said.

“Oh, there are,” blue said quietly, looking away into the darkness. “It’s just that they guarantee death, destruction, suffering, heartache and remorse.”