“Try,” I said. “Make it chase us. We’ll learn more that way … and maybe it’s not looking for us. We are, after all, very small.”

String 6

STRING 6

[TT: A LATER DIALOG, DATE UNKNOWN. NOT CONTIGUOUS WITH PREVIOUS STRING, BUT SEEMS TO BELONG IN THIS SEQUENCE.]

MASTER JURIDICAL: Juridicals acknowledge a decommissioned Catalog opened a link from a Flood-infested region. But all portals there had been closed, all citizens and vessels placed under extreme interdiction. Why did you not take advantage of the open channel and announce your presence? There might have been a rescue attempt.

DIDACT: Doubtful. I was curious. I believed we might be of more use where we were.

MASTER JURIDICAL: Truly?

DIDACT: And I’ve never trusted Juridicals. I trust nobody, except perhaps my wife. And even she might have had plans she did not divulge. It was also possible she had learned something crucial after sealing me into my Cryptum. Had she?

MASTER JURIDICAL: This is your testimony.

DIDACT: You’ll stick with your protocols even should it mean the ecumene dies, and all history and your precious law with it?

MASTER JURIDICAL: Juridicals have considered the state of law in a Flood-occupied civilization. We understand that Graveminds are vast combinatorial repositories of memories and information. Living libraries, as it were. How much that is essential to civilization is lost under those conditions, really?

DIDACT (DISGUSTED): Now you understand why I don’t trust you. You supported that defeatist attitude for thousands of years.… Did the Lifeshaper ever agree?

MASTER JURIDICAL: Not to be divulged one way or the other.

DIDACT: Then my testimony is at an end.

MASTER JURIDICAL: Unfortunate. Can you at least reveal to me the fate of Catalog in the Burn?

DIDACT (AMUSED): Only if you tell me whether my wife had anything to do with sending us there. I was about to leave the game board, and her moves had to become her own. Did she make her own deal—another deal—with the Master Builder?

MASTER JURIDICAL: Searching … Searching … Precedent tells me that crucial testimony can be encouraged by an exchange of information irrelevant to the case of the testifier.

DIDACT: Even if it goes to motive?

MASTER JURIDICAL: Are you arguing for or against having your request granted? I am not empowered to make subtle legal distinctions.

DIDACT: Out in the Burn, that’s exactly what Catalog did—make subtle distinctions. And it saved my life, very likely.

MASTER JURIDICAL: Perhaps.

DIDACT: Pique your curiosity?

MASTER JURIDICAL: I have no personal curiosity. (Brief lapse in record)

MASTER JURIDICAL: I have found precedent. To cut through the casuistry, I am allowed to give you that small bit of information.

DIDACT: Do so, and I’ll resume.

MASTER JURIDICAL: It was not her plan.

DIDACT: It was the Master Builder’s plan, then.

MASTER JURIDICAL: No confirmation possible. But that is a logical conclusion. How and why did Catalog take action outside of its instructions?