His simple question cut to the very core of my being. At times it seemed as if everything I did could be reduced down to the lowest common denominator of reacting to the guilt I felt. It didn't matter that I'd inherited the guilt from unknowing benefactors. They were as real as my own. They were mine now and equated to who I was and what I thought I--what I thought we were. "Are we evil?" I asked looking at him.

"Which we? We humans, we palingenesists, or you and I specifically?"

"We Palingenesists. Are we evil for replacing and perhaps cutting short the lives of those before us?"

A look of surprise came over his face. "I've never thought of it that way. Why do you ask?"

"Samas, I've wrestled with that same kind of responsibility and guilt for a few years. I've known for some time now that I could never absolve myself of those sins, and recently, with meeting you and Poppy, it has occurred to me that there may not even be a need of absolution."

"That's right," he said emphatically. “That's the way it works. Personally, I think you're ahead of Poppy in that respect."

"What do you mean ahead of?"

He leaned back as if exasperated that I didn't get it. "As palingenesists, we are burdened by the knowledge that we, and only we, are responsible for our actions. We know there is no divinity on whose shoulders we can lay the blame for any errs in our lives. Normal humans embrace the divine precisely because they can burden other shoulders with their sins, thereby absolving them. We know differently. But it's important for you to realize that we live in their world, not the other way around. So when you speak of absolution, you will eventually find that your desire for the quarter it can provide, and your knowledge of the truth, are incompatible. The only vehicle within which you can find solace is responsibility.”

"Unrighted wrongs can haunt you like a spectre. I believe they haunt Poppy to this day, which in some way explains her actions. You may be haunted as well, only you know for sure. Ultimately, there is only one way to exorcise such a fiend; you must accept him." He leaned forward in his chair and stared at a painted face on the wall. "You must look him square in the eyes without turning away, taking in every unsightly nuance of his repellant face and say: 'Yea I know thee brother, and love thee as I love myself, for we are one and the same.' That fiend will have an unspoken, yet unassailable mastery over you until it is assimilated. It is only when you embrace that dark brother, that you can know true freedom."

I absorbed the import of his words in a long silence.