“If you make a practice of summoning forth new kinds of creatures that can act of their own volition, you will suffer more, as bad and worse,” Spring predicted, now looking Egdod directly in the eye.

“It is nonetheless worth doing,” Egdod said, “though I lack the power of doing it myself.”

“To nurture that power has been my work here,” Spring said. “But I do not possess the art of devising clever shapes into which life can be breathed.”

“Together we shall do it, then,” Egdod proposed.

“You may make a place for me in your Palace and I shall dwell there from time to time,” Spring said, “when it suits me to adopt a form such as yours. But if you look about and do not see me there, it is because I am here.” As she said the last words, her voice became a rush of wet noise and her form dissolved into a hill of water that collapsed and surged down out of the Grove. Then it was gone from the place, but Spring, he knew, remained here.

Part 6

Part 6

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

This is not an ordinary business meeting,” Elmo Shepherd announced through the impassive face of his Metatron. “Do not be deceived by its mundane aspect: the conference table, the pitcher of water, you men and women in business attire. We are doing eschatology here. Practicing it the way some people do yoga.”

Corvallis actually didn’t think it seemed so mundane. Yes, it was a fairly conventional conference room in the offices of ONE. But the table was dominated by a live-updated display of the Landform.

A year and a half had passed since the LVU—the Landform Visualization Utility—had first been unveiled at ACTANSS 3. During that time, it had changed its general shape very little. But the algorithms had improved. More data now flowed into them. The Landform could now be mapped with higher precision and greater certainty. Its finer contours had undergone changes. There was no getting around the fact that these changes were exactly the sorts of improvements they’d have expected Pluto to make. He had gone there—he had killed himself—to fix the place up. And he was doing it.

Still Corvallis had doubted the evidence of his own eyes until Sophia had drawn his attention to the tower in the middle of the park. People had stopped using scare quotes. It was no longer a “tower” in a “park” but a tower in the park, as anyone could plainly see. She had shown Corvallis a photo she had taken several years ago of the park in the middle of the Iowa town where Richard had grown up. A similar tower was right in the middle of it.