What he already had to digest was considerable. There was little room left in his implants to process the material more rapidly; between the Jart, his partial, the various barriers and safeguards, and the cleared and uploaded information, the implants were filled almost to capacity. His study consequently was slow, limited to a natural human rhythm. There were some advantages to this; implant processing of information was rapid but sometimes lacked the cross connections of more natural thinking.

Olmy closed his eyes and was bathed in Jart philosophy. Translating the concepts into human language or even thought was difficult at times; other times, the ideas seemed directly analogous. He mused on the possibility that the Jart was releasing this part of itself in order to persuade its captor; propaganda certainly was not out of the question.

He instructed his partial to match the cultural and philosophical exchange with an equal emphasis on persuasion.

Jarts were voracious conquerors, much more so than humans. While humans desired commerce, Jarts seemed to relish domination and complete subjugation. They were unwilling to share hegemony with non-Jart species, making exceptions only when they had no choice. The Talsit, for example, had traded with Jarts before humans had retaken the first few billion kilometers of the Way. The Jarts must have known that conquering the elusive Talsit was virtually impossible. Talsit were after all representatives of a much older race, even more mysterious—and certainly far more advanced—than Jarts.

The question was, why such voracity? What lay behind the push to control everything?

Command has duty established by >ancient command< Gather and preserve that >descendant command< may complete the last duty. Then there is repose for expediters and all others, and in repose we will become ourselves again, relieved of duty, relaxing the >image of strained materials< that is our thought and being. Why is this not what humans do?

Olmy tried to riddle this apparently key passage. It had such a formal air that he surmised it might contain quotes from some ethical or semi-religious work of literature or indoctrination.

The notion of descendant command was particularly intriguing, with its overtones of Jart evolution, transformation and transcendence. Oddly, in this idea there was also the only hint that Jarts and other beings could equitably cooperate and share responsibility. There was an implication of vast enterprise behind descendant command, of work that surpassed the capabilities of any individual group of beings.

Gather and preserve. That string/image was particularly striking. Olmy searched the background behind it, opening up layer after layer of complex instruction. The Jarts were collectors, and more than that; they transformed what they collected, hoping to prevent self-destruction of the collected objects, beings, cultures, and planets. Nature was, for them, a process of decay and loss; best to take control of all things, stop the decay and loss, and ultimately present this neatly beribboned package to…descendant command.