“You know my thinking on this, C,” El returned. “More than anyone else in this room, I am of the belief that all of these processes are alive. As alive as you or me. As such, I believe that to shut them down would be in every way the same thing as committing murder. So, for you to point out that I could kill any one of these processes is true. And yet it’s as completely beside the point as for you to point out that in Meatspace, I could hire hit men to have a person killed.”

It took a bit for that to sink in. Jake said, “El, are you making abstract philosophical points here, or issuing threats?”

Corvallis looked across the table at Zula. She looked back at him. On the side of her head that was hidden from the view of the Metatron, she raised her hand, extended her index finger toward her ear, and twirled it around.

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Once Spring had put life into several bees, it was not necessary to create more of the same kind, since bees had the power to make more bees. Over the course of the summer they propagated into swarms that filled the air like clouds. Freewander led a swarm down the Street to Town, where they found the flower beds that Egdod had created in the Park and that Freewander had since been bettering. On his visits to Town, Egdod observed that the souls were fascinated by the bees and liked to stroll in the Park observing them as closely as could be done without risk of suffering pain from their stings. A solitary bee made a noise too faint to be easily heard, but a swarm of them hummed palpably. Speaksall was fascinated by the sound, and would stand in the Garden for much of the day listening to it and trying to make out whether it was a type of speech. Souls in Town could be heard mixing the buzz of the bees into their sentences, and when two or more gathered to connect their auras, they sometimes emitted a hum so convincing that the bees themselves were drawn thither to investigate. Egdod, still not the most articulate of souls, paid little heed to buzzes and hums, preferring to better the functioning of his mouth parts and his ability to fashion whole sentences. When Speaksall was not trying to make sense of the bees’ speech he would sometimes help Egdod with this, sitting with him at the table in the Palace and engaging him in conversation about the latest improvements in the Land and the doings in Town. Together they would call words to mind and practice the use of them. To frame thoughts in words and sentences required effort, but Egdod saw it was effort worth making.