“But most humans are immune,” the Didact said. Then he seemed to understand, and lowered his great head between his shoulders like a bull about to charge. “Can the Flood choose to infect, or not to infect?”
The wide, flat head canted to one side, as if savoring some demonic irony.
“No immunity. Judgment. Timing.”
“Then why turn Mendicant Bias against its creators, and encourage the Master Builder to torture humans? Why allow this cruelty? Are you the fount of all misery? ” the Didact cried out.
The Captive’s strange, ticking voice continued. “Misery is sweetness,” it said, as if confiding a secret. “Forerunners will fail as you have failed before. Humans will rise. Whether they will also fail has not been decided.”
“How can you control any of this? You’re stuck here—the last of your kind!”
“The last of this kind.”
The head leaned forward, crimping the torso and front limbs until one leg actually separated and fell away, shooting out a cloud of fine dust. The Captive was decaying from within. What sort of cage was this? The misty blue light seemed to vibrate and a high, singing sound reverberated through the hemisphere, shaping razor-sharp nodes of dissonance. But the Captive still managed to speak.
“We are the Flood. There is no difference. Until all space and time are rolled up and life is crushed in the folds . . . no end to war, grief, or pain. In a hundred and one thousand centuries . . . unity again, and wisdom. Until then—sweetness.”
The Didact stepped forward with a sharp grunt. He lifted his hand and a panel appeared in the air, shaping controls. The Captive’s head squared on its torso, as if bracing for what it knew was about to come.
“It is your task to kill this servant,” it said, “that another may be freed.”