The Caconym’s avatoid looked down, plucked the tiny insect from the bench and held it trapped between two fingers. It held it up, antennae waving, towards the upside-down avatoid. “You always say that nothing matters. Would it matter if I crushed this, now?”

The Zoologist shrugged. “Cac, it’s just a package of code.”

“It’s alive, in some sense. It has a set of programmed reactions, responses, so on. A tiny fraction of this environment’s richness would be snuffed out if I reduced it to its virtual components.”

“All this, and all you imply by it, is known. Thought about, allowed for, included. Still.”

The Caconym’s avatoid sighed. It put the insect back on the bench, right on the corner it appeared to have been heading for. “No matter. Thank you for agreeing to think about it.”

“Least I can do.”

The Caconym stood, then paused. “I said that I trust you,” it said to the upside-down avatoid hanging a few metres away. “And, right now, I believe that you will do as you say, and think about this, because you have promised to.” It paused. “Am I being foolish? Outside of an enforceable legal framework – something that is manifestly not present here – trust only operates where beings have the concept of honour, and, generally, a reputation – a standing – they want to protect. Do such considerations affect you at all? Do even these things … matter to you?”

The Zoologist looked troubled. Eventually it said, “When you come back from the Sublime, it is as though you leave all but one of your senses behind, as though you have all the rest removed, torn away – and you have become used to having hundreds.” It paused. “Imagine you,” it said, nodding at the Caconym, “being a human – a basic human, even, without augmentation or amendment: slow, limited, fragile, with no more than a couple of handfuls of very restricted senses. Then imagine that you have all your senses but – say – touch taken away, and most of your memories as well, including all those to do with language, save for the sort of simple stuff spoken by toddlers. Then you are exiled, blind and deaf and with no sense of smell or taste or cold or warmth, to a temperate water world inhabited only by gel fish, sponges and sea-feathers, to swim and make your way as best you can, in a world with no sharp edges and almost nothing solid at all.” The Zoologist paused. “That is what it is to return from the Sublime to the Real.”

The Caconym nodded slowly. “So, why did you?”

The Zoologist shrugged. “To experience a kind of extreme asceticism,” it said, “and to provide a greater contrast, when I return.”

“Well,” the Caconym observed, “that’s possibly the most unambiguous information on Subliming you’ve ever imparted. To me, at least. However, you haven’t answered the question I actually asked.”