“My people would have seen how a number of countries had passed the point of change
where logic could prevail, so they would let them battle it out until they came to understand what
they were doing.”
“You’re a harsh woman.”
“Not at all,” she replied seriously. “You can’t make anyone believe anything they don’t want
to believe until they’re ready to see it,” she explained, “and my people knew that doing anything
else could only delay the combatants moment of understanding and reconciliation. My teachers
employed the same principle of using their student’s own standard of behaviour as the most
effective way to teach them anything important.”
“You’re really saying they would do nothing if they were neighbours, trading partners or even
the Red Cross?” I said incredulously.
“I’m saying they would do nothing as a proactive choice. Every circumstance you described
would not have camouflaged the nature of those events.”
“Which is what?”
“We just talked about it—murder. Mass murder, actually.”
I took a lengthy sip to help me swallow the idea that she had summarily dismissed the
circumstances I had toiled to list so well. Cautiously, lest I somehow be hallucinating her surreal
reply or heading into another chasm of logic, I said, “This would include no press coverage?”
“To what purpose?”
“You know as well as I do that accurate information allows people to make better choices.”
“It certainly does, but I think you don’t appreciate how the nature of information guides
people in making their choices, and the media are instrumental in ways they might not realise.”
“Pardon me?”
“The blanket assumption that accurate information allows people to make better choices
masks the underlying nature of your actions and those of the media in general.”
“Which you think is what?”
“Something you will discover as we go along.”
“I’d settle for what’s on the energetic plate right now.”
“Fair enough,” she said, grinning broadly. “You risked yourself for years to be able to speak
intelligently for five minutes about ten years of war that killed thousands of people. I spoke for five
seconds on the same subject, and nobody died. Our conversation is a metaphor for spending energy
efficiently.”
“Sure—if you believe in the things you said,” I said chuckling.
“I thought you understood; my people didn’t believe anything—they knew.”
“They knew about an intelligent universe?” I scoffed.
“Yes, but we’re not there yet.”
No shit. “Uh huh.”
It seems to me that you have an agenda beyond making a living?” I said, more casually than
I was feeling.
“I do,” she replied agreeably, then counting on one finger, she said, “Over time, my
characters peel back the layers of our common assumptions to reveal aspects of the human
condition that are crippling our development now. When they subdue these behaviours with the
