Free The Architect of Aeons by John C. Wright

(She bowed to Del Azarchel.) “… and a core of self-awareness filling the world’s interior…” (She bowed to Montrose.) “… it pleased the Hyades to uproot our many peoples and cities and societies and fling them to the stars, that we might serve this purpose forever hereafter. Had the two of you not proved to the aliens that we humans have the ability to create new forms of sophotransmogrified life, it is more than likely we would have been ignored, and the expedition returned in failure to its home star in Taurus, never to meddle with us again.”
    Montrose and Del Azarchel stared at each other.
    â€œYou provoked the aliens by mining the Diamond Star,” said Montrose to Del Azarchel, “But they would have just gone away, if I had not created Pellucid at the core of the world? That don’t sit right.”
    Del Azarchel smiled a cruel smile. “You created Pellucid out of fear of Exarchel, which I created out of fear of you. Perhaps I should be grateful that you opposed me! Evolution proceeds through war. It stirs the survivors to greatness.”
    â€œGreatness? The Hyades just stole more than half the globe. We caused it, and you smile. How do you live with your stinking self, Blackie?”
    â€œI fix my eyes on the future. Regret is for the weak.”
    Montrose turned to Zoraida. “Why spread our life around? Why not their own?”
    â€œThe glyphs on the skyhooks did not say. Perhaps the Hyades also spread their own colonies, at a higher cost of resources, from their own people,” said Zoraida. “All that the message glyphs written in the hulls of the slave ships revealed was that the life of man is cheap. Hyades did not spend any resources building us. We are a windfall.” She tapped the temple of her skull. “To find the human race is like finding a billion cheap computer chips made of meat lying in the wild wood, unattended.”
    Del Azarchel said, “But then we spread our culture, not theirs. Humans, not Hyades, occupy more stars.”
    Zoraida said, “No doubt the corn seed says the same thing about the farmer and his children. In this case, we are seed which grew too many thorns, and scratched their grasping hands. I interpret the Cold Equations to say that they will not return for a second sweep. Can we not trust the Monument in this? We repelled them. Mankind will be left to our own devices forever after: free, ignored, unhindered.”
    Del Azarchel said, “But Amphith ö e said the opposite. She said the aliens departed at their will, not that they were repelled.”
    Zoraida said, “Those of the First Comprehension operate from limited information, and supply the defect from their own imaginings. Of course, one theory is that Hyades did not linger because our race is too belligerent to survive the long aeons needed to be servants useful to them. They will not come again because, by the time they return, the world will be overrun by rats and roaches, and all our cities empty—I do not speak what I myself hold true. This is the theory of the Epicureans who rebel against the local Judge of Years, and seek to change the cliometric plan to allow us to exhaust our wealth rapidly in dissipation.”
    Montrose wondered blankly if this was the identity of the mastodon cavalry he and Del Azarchel earlier glimpsed. Montrose said crossly, “But you are pretty sure we humans drove the Hyades off?”
    She nodded. “Does that anger you?”
    â€œThere should be poxing celebrations and fireworks! Who wins a war and doesn’t tell their own common folk? You’re keeping the little people in the dark.”
    Zoraida said serenely, “We of the Second Comprehension do not tell the underlings needless information. If we were victorious, it would make them proud. If the losses victory cost has doomed us to extinction, it would make them despair. Their nervous systems cannot stand the strain: it causes