“I guess so.”

“The restoration of a lost wife is a fantasy of redemption. I daresay it was your fantasy. But has it made you happier?”

I thought that over. “Even if you give me Morag back, you can’t wash it all away. The memories of her death. All that suffering, all that pain. It’s as if it still exists, out there somewhere, beyond reach… Does that make sense?”

“And what do you fear most?”

“That I will come to hate her,” I said honestly. “I don’t think I could bear that.”

She straightened up, purposeful. “We don’t know how she got here. We don’t know the meaning behind your visitations, this strange reincarnation. We don’t know who is meddling with your life in this way, or why. But we must take control of the situation, so that, with or without Morag, you can move on. I think it’s time we bring it to a head.”

“Bring it to a head? How?”

I would never in a thousand years have guessed the word she used next.

“Exorcism.”

They sat in their translucent-walled tent, beneath the towering cathedral.

“I still have doubts about the Redemption, Leropa.”

“I know. The Transcendence knows. You have become something of a focus, Alia, for internal debate.”

“If you’re going to say that I’m not fit to question the wisdom of an infinite entity — a being that is to me as I am to an individual cell of my body—”

“I wouldn’t dream of saying any such thing,” Leropa murmured. “Your humanity is the point of the exercise, Alia. The Transcendence loves you as you are. And the Transcendence’s love for you means that it knows you — it shares your doubts.You are far more important than you know.”

“You already said the Transcendence loves me,” Alia said dully. “Several times.” It seemed to mean nothing. Perhaps the Transcendence was too large to know what love truly was. Perhaps the finitude of humanity was part of what made love work; perhaps the need to devote such a large fraction of your own limited life to others made love precious in the first place. Or perhaps, she thought guiltily, perhaps it was simply immature, emotionally. Powerful it might be, but it was very young.

And if the Transcendence didn’t understand love, could it ever understand the logic of Redemption?

“Even the Restoration isn’t enough,” whispered Alia. “How can it be? Just to be made alive again — it simply isn’t enough. Leropa, can’t you see that? Michael Poole loved Morag. His Morag, who died. And his love for his Morag, in the end, encompassed her death. His loss deepened his love, enriched it. That is the nature of life in a universe of mortals. If you crudely reverse her death, simply bring her back, then you are taking her out of her context of history. How did Michael Poole put it?…”

“The dead get deader,”Drea said bleakly.

“And you can never put that right.” Alia took a deep breath; this was the heart of it, though she scarcely knew how to express it. “The Restoration is futile, as futile as all the watching was, the Witnessing, even the Hypostatic Union. Because even if you allow Morag Poole to survive the suffering of her childbirth, that particle of suffering still exists, out there in a wider universe of possibility.”

Leropa stared at Alia for long heartbeats. For the first time Alia detected hostility in her gaze. “You reject the Restoration,” Leropa said. “But I wonder how you would feel if those you have lost were Restored to you.”

A shadow moved on the wall of the hut — a human form, dimly seen, perhaps a woman with an infant in her arms. She walked uncertainly, as if lost. Drea’s eyes widened, and she clutched at Alia.

Alia snapped, “Leropa. Don’t do this.”

Leropa smiled thinly. “Think about your own mother, your baby brother. They died in pain, pain beyond your imagination. At least your brother, an infant, didn’t know what was happening. But your mother knew. In those last heartbeats an awareness of her approaching death, the loss of the rest of her life — the loss of you — deepened her anguish, exponentiated it far beyond the physical. But it needn’t be that way.”

Alia glared at Leropa. “You call it love, to inflict this horror upon us?”

Leropa actually seemed puzzled by her choice of words. “Inflict?”

Drea buried her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Make her stop, Alia. I can’t bear it.”

That shadowy woman seemed to spot the hut. She walked slowly toward it, clutching her child. She seemed confused and exhausted, as if she had been through a great trial. But through the misty translucence of the hut’s walls her features were gradually becoming clearer.

Leropa said, “Don’t you even want to say good-bye to her? Don’t you even want to say sorry?”

“Leropa, I’m begging you.”

The woman hesitated again. She paused for a moment, looking around. She seemed to be murmuring comforting words to the child in her arms. Then she turned away and walked off, her figure diminishing and blurring, until she was gone, as if she had never existed at all.

Drea glared at Leropa through tear-streaked eyes. “You know what the trouble is? You Transcendents, with all your obsession with the past, don’t listen to people. I’ve had enough of being used. Leropa, if you Transcendents want to use the people of the past as a dumping ground for your guilt, then you ought to ask them first. You should have asked Michael Poole if he wanted his wife back!”

Leropa sighed. “What if we asked you? Alia, would you choose never to have even the possibility of seeing your mother again? You might refuse now — but how can you be sure how you will feel in ten years, or fifty, or a thousand? You will be an undying, Alia; you would have a long time to regret such a choice.

“And even if you did make the choice for yourself, would you make it on behalf of others? Your father, for example? The rest of humanity, you have never even met? You are arrogant, Alia — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing — but I don’t think even you are arrogant enough for that. So what do we do? Ask them all?” She laughed, a strange, dry sound. “Shall we take a vote?”

“Appoint a representative,” Alia said impulsively.

Leropa glared at her.

Alia quailed, but stuck to her ground. “I think my sister’s right. The Redemption is for the benefit of the Transcendence, not us. And in its quest for Redemption the Transcendence has lost sight of simple human morality.” Am I really lecturing a near-god?… “Appoint a representative to speak on behalf of the rest.”

Leropa said loftily, “Impossible. A mere human could not bargain with the Transcendence. She, he couldn’t possibly comprehend the meaning of the choice, let alone make a valid decision.”

Drea snapped, “You aren’t better than me, Leropa, you wizened old—”

“She’s right,” Alia said quickly. “Drea, this isn’t about rivalry, about one bunch of humans lording it over the rest. We’re dealing with the Transcendence. It genuinely is a higher life-form, a higher consciousness. You could no more debate with it than a flower, or a blade of grass, could argue with you.”

Drea said, “You could.”

Alia smiled, feeling tired. “Actually I’d be in a worse position than you. I am part of the Transcendence itself — it’s true, Drea, already, even though my Election isn’t complete. I am like one neuron among the billions in your head.”

Leropa said, “A mortal creature cannot negotiate with its god. Only a Transcendence can negotiate with a Transcendence.” But she looked into Alia’s eyes.

Alia saw the answer there. “Then,” she said, “we must make the representative equivalent to the Transcendence. Just for one day.”

“Just for one day,” Leropa said slowly. “Well. Quite an ambition. But perhaps it will help resolve this crisis. But who will speak for all mankind?” She smiled coldly. “Michael Poole, perhaps?”