Lords of Uncreation (The Final Architecture Book 3)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Watching Sathiel now, Havaer knew the man had never actually had that level of faith, and was groping in the dark every time he opened his mouth.

What would do for us in the end isn’t so much their science as the fact they’re genius administrators.” “Done to death by superior clam bureaucracy, great.”

Then it sighed—a thing it absolutely had no biological need to do.

Tell me I’m wrong.” “You’re wrong.” “Fine. Now tell me I’m wrong without actually lying to me.”

Kris felt a stab of grief for Idris and Solace, but she pushed it down. Later for that. She’d learned how to live like a spacer and that meant a time and a place for mourning, because there was always a crisis to deal with first.

Go now, and weave this into a grand victory for your kind, if you will. Know only that we are occupied with greater pursuits than you can know, and you are not worth the effort to extinguish.”

Humanity had always imagined itself the centre of the universe. Not all sentient species did, but it had been a human trait since they’d been half ape, inventing all-powerful gods just so they could believe the universe cared about them. Right now, the universe did care about them. Humanity was suddenly the absolute focus of the universe and the universe really, really hated it.

She called the confinement, the weight, the support and strength, the sheer bulk. Her armour, her own chosen sword. “Prêt à combattre!” she yelled at the encroaching things, and watched them recoil.

This, at least, is not just for us. She felt a weird calm. That “worst” had finally gone so far that it was beyond anything she had ever faced before in her chequered life. This was doomsday. She hadn’t brought it about. The addition of the Vulture God to this little tableau barely nudged the scales. She almost laughed.

But the holding was all, and sometimes a finger on the trigger was what you needed to give you even the illusion of control.

“So I get to keep the stuff?” “The… stuff?” Sathiel looked sidelong, trying to catch whatever garbled version of Utir’s pronouncements he was working with. “It’s…” A very human expression of exasperation, the sort of thing Olli just loved to provoke in people of power and status. “It’s not about the stuff. It is about the place you have adopted in the universe. Know that the vile and the outcast shall seek you out, and the tools of villainy be yours.” Olli blinked. “Did I just inherit the whole Broken Harvest? Do I get Tothiats and big ships and things?” Sathiel blinked and swallowed. “I don’t feel you’re treating this with the seriousness it deserves.”