Life was simple. All things are born, and all things die.
[ But it’s an excellent question, really. Rau’s very life was a testament to the human capacity for wild and unchecked desire, of selfishness, of the quest for immortality; at the same time, pain and untimely death were seared into every cell before he ever drew breath. He has lived in a world where human desire kindled into envy and hate then spiraled outward into an inferno of destruction. Oh, certainly, he appreciates that individuals are capable of goodness, even greatness. Though it’s irritating to admit, certain of those individuals have been able to protect humanity from itself, for a year or two at a time. But human desire is infinite, inexorable. It only takes one spark, one envious or hateful man, to fire a nuclear warhead or a wave motion gun, and in the great mass of humanity there are so very many envious and hateful men. Rau has absolute conviction that humanity will reach the end of that scorched and bloody path sooner or later.
But.
Here they are, having reached the end and continued onward. Individuals, cut off from the nightmarish mass of humanity. And although the mass is predictable, the individual is not.
Which is to say that Rau doesn’t have a proper answer to the question he’s really being asked. And because he doesn’t have a proper answer and is not pleased by his own lack of a proper answer, he’s going to toss out a tantalizing diversion instead. ]
And I have seen only one impossible dream come true.
[ Nothing about his imperturbable pose or tone gives the feint away — it flows perfectly smoothly, follows logically. But it is not a proper answer. And that, in its own oblique way, is as much of an answer as Gil is going to get for the moment. ]
no subject
[ But it’s an excellent question, really. Rau’s very life was a testament to the human capacity for wild and unchecked desire, of selfishness, of the quest for immortality; at the same time, pain and untimely death were seared into every cell before he ever drew breath. He has lived in a world where human desire kindled into envy and hate then spiraled outward into an inferno of destruction. Oh, certainly, he appreciates that individuals are capable of goodness, even greatness. Though it’s irritating to admit, certain of those individuals have been able to protect humanity from itself, for a year or two at a time. But human desire is infinite, inexorable. It only takes one spark, one envious or hateful man, to fire a nuclear warhead or a wave motion gun, and in the great mass of humanity there are so very many envious and hateful men. Rau has absolute conviction that humanity will reach the end of that scorched and bloody path sooner or later.
But.
Here they are, having reached the end and continued onward. Individuals, cut off from the nightmarish mass of humanity. And although the mass is predictable, the individual is not.
Which is to say that Rau doesn’t have a proper answer to the question he’s really being asked. And because he doesn’t have a proper answer and is not pleased by his own lack of a proper answer, he’s going to toss out a tantalizing diversion instead. ]
And I have seen only one impossible dream come true.
[ Nothing about his imperturbable pose or tone gives the feint away — it flows perfectly smoothly, follows logically. But it is not a proper answer. And that, in its own oblique way, is as much of an answer as Gil is going to get for the moment. ]