It had stayed with Ha, word for word, because that was the structure of the octopus, as well: the mind like an operator of a semi-independent system. Not quite in control, information flowing bi-directionally through the system: as if your limbs talked back—as if your limbs were little minds that innovate and improvise.

That was one of the keys, Ha knew, to understanding them. That lack of control from the center, that feedback from limbs, that pure embodiment of mind. They were not trapped in a skull, controlling everything from behind a sheath of bone. They were free-flowing through the entire body. Not a ladder—a ring. A neural ring moving signals from limb to limb to mind, back again. A distribution loop through the whole body. A whole consciousness that could become parts, and then whole again. It was one of the many problems Ha felt she would have no time to solve.

We are under attack, and the only thing I can think about is the problem I am working on. Well, at least I’ll die like a scientist.

The moment she broke out of her reverie, coming back to the present moment, the fear returned. She forced herself back to thinking of the science. She could do nothing to change what was happening out there. Think of the holon.

But the holon had nothing to do with what Altantsetseg was engaged in: what Altantsetseg was doing now was top-down control. Altantsetseg the brain, the tank she floated in the skull, the signals radiating outward from her the nervous system. All of it terminating in the lethal-force musculature of drones that were, right now, murdering people.

Protecting us.

Yes, that was true as well: protecting them.

And protecting the octopuses.

Ha could not avoid the thought. Yes—she hated what Altantsetseg did, and hated that she was herself no longer free, but she had to confront it. What Altantsetseg was doing was necessary. The alternative to this violence was the destruction of this ecosystem. Of the fragile habitat of another, arising consciousness on this planet.

And was Altantsetseg really the brain, controlling a system? Or was she nothing more than a sophisticated limb, like the semi-independent arm of an octopus, enacting the commands of DIANIMA and a larger organism?

Both. But what it came down to, in the end, was violence. Her safety, Evrim’s safety, the safety of the Shapesinger singing whatever legend it was singing on its skin—all of it depended upon violence. Without that violence, without the devastation Altantsetseg controlled, the world would rush in and destroy all of this. Altantsetseg was right: killing is what our existence does on this planet. All we have—everything we use to live—is taken from someone else.

The mountain ranges of Altantsetseg’s scars, undulating over the substrate of muscle beneath the skin. Violence, and its proper, efficient use, was what all of them were relying on.