“It’s not as if you need to do this,” I said bitterly.

He nodded. “You have the stronger motive here. Which is why I have to destroy you.” He spoke patiently, as if instructing a child. He raised the bone, its bulging end thick, hefting it like a club, and he moved toward me, his movements oily, powerful.

I felt weak before his calm assurance. He was better than me, and always would be; the logic of the situation was that I should just submit.

In desperation, I jumped onto the lift palette—it was like standing on a bobbing raft—and stamped on the button.

I rose immediately, passing beyond the reach of his swinging club. I had been too fast, faster than his reactions. The advantage of youth.

But L’Eesh easily prised another palette out of the wall and followed me up into the darkness.

My palette accelerated, bumping against walls that were as rough as sandpaper. L’Eesh’s green glow followed me, bioluminescent signals flickering.

Thus our ascension, two dead people racing into the sky.

On an interplanetary scale, the tunnel arched, but from my petty human point of view it just rose straight up. All I could see was a splash of bio light on the crude brickwork around me, sliding past, blurred by my speed.

L’Eesh tried to defeat me with words.

“Imagine, Raida,” he said softly. “They must have come here from across the moon, carrying their mud bricks, a global pilgrimage that must have lasted generations. What a vision! They sacrificed everything—abandoned their farms, trashed their biosphere down to the slime on the rocks … And you know what? The two populations must have worked together. In the end, the war became the most important thing in their universe. More important than life, the continuation of the species.”

“Insane,” I whispered.

“Ah, but once we built vast structures, waged terrible wars, all in the names of gods we have long forgotten. And are we so different now? What of our magnificent Galaxy-spanning Expansion? Isn’t that a grandiose folly built around an idea, a mad vision of cosmic destiny? Who do you think we more resemble—the warmongers or the peacemakers?”