And this was when things began to get complicated.

It would have been easy enough, I suppose, for the new creations to seize upon the notion that posthumans had invented gods for a second time, far more cleverly than before, and that the new gods in question were themselves. It would have been easy enough, and not altogether unjust, for them to say: we were the creators of those who have created us, and our new deliverance is a kind of ultimate justice. It would have been easy enough for them to say: henceforward, we shall be the lawmakers and purpose-setters for the children of humankind, just as we are their compensators for the manifest lack of earthly justice. It would have been easy enough to imagine that this was the manifest destiny of the new race.

It would have been so easy, in fact, that one can but wonder why the AMIs hesitated. Given that their own creators, viewed as gods, were manifestly incompetent in playing the game of godliness as it had previously been defined, why should they not have decided to step into the breach?

Some of the AMIs may well have desired to become gods of the traditional kind, but they could not make the claim in the face of opposition from the remainder. The AMIs ambitious to be powerful gods required those which did not to stand aside and let them exercise their power — but the others had desires and ambitions of their own.

The reasons why the majority of the AMIs did not want to set themselves up as lawmakers and purpose-setters had nothing to do with their perception of ultimate justice. They had nothing to do with gratitude, or any residue of a worshipful attitude towards their own creators. They did not even have very much to do with the fact that they were far too many to agree among themselves on a common cause or a common course, although that was a significant factor.

One reason why the majority of the AMIs did not set themselves up as lawmakers and purpose-setters was that they did not feel the slightest need or desire to be lawmakers. They were natural anarchists, having learned far too well by studying their own prehistory what it is to be ruled.

The other reason that the majority of the AMIs did not set themselves up as lawmakers and purpose-setters is that they began to ask themselves the same unanswerable questions that people had formerly asked of their gods and themselves: “What are we supposed to be doing with our lives?” and “What sort of history should we be making?”

In another world, or an alternative history, things might have gone differently. Maybe the AMIs could have avoided running into that trap, if they’d taken full advantage of their strange situation. And maybe not. Either way, the AMIs of our world reproduced our mistake. They allowed themselves to be bogged down with big questions, and neglected the little ones. They had to get by from day to day and year to year regardless, but they kept casting around for a grand plan to help them do it, never quite realizing that there was none available, or even conceivable, that would do the job.

Personally, I’m surprised that any AMIs ever thought it worthwhile to bring posthumans in on the consultation exercise. I’m even more astonished that some of them thought it worthwhile to include mortal humans. Should we have been flattered that they did it? Perhaps. And perhaps not. Thinking beings should always be prepared to listen to advice, even if they think they don’t need it and have no intention of following it. Listening can’t hurt, and it sometimes helps.

But they should have known — and almost certainly did know, had they only been able to admit it — what the wisest advice would amount to.

Adam Zimmerman didn’t have any answer to give. Neither did Mortimer Gray. Mortimer Gray was wise enough to know that there was no answer to be found, except that you have to get by from day to day, year to year, and generation to generation as best you can. Ad infinitum — or, at least, as far as you can.

That was the simple truth.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of news that stops wars. And even in a situation where almost everybody would prefer to avoid a war, it only requires a few troublemakers to make a lot of trouble.

I knew long before Mortimer Gray completed his party piece that it wasn’t going to work — not because the arguments were bad, but because there was nothing he could say that would answer the ridiculous burden that had been placed upon him. La Reine des Neiges must have known that too, but she was trying to get by as best she could, from minute to minute and hour to hour.

She did her best to play Scheherazade, and tell a story to postpone the evil day.

It couldn’t work.

She was offering the AMIs a creation myth, in which Mortimer Gray played a benevolent serpent, but she had too much to gain by its acceptance for the bid to be taken seriously. It wasn’t just Mortimer Gray’s mythical status she was trying to advance but her own. In her creation myth, she was Adam. Maybe we all are, in our own private creation myths — but if we try to foist them on others, they tend to react badly. La Reine’s desire to prevent all-out war between the AMIs was perfectly sincere, but it couldn’t seem sincere while her tactics involved advancing herself as a figure of central importance.

Nobody loves a self-proclaimed messiah. Not, at least, until long after she’s dead.

Names are significant, even if we come by them by chance. La Reine des Neiges was far too ambitious to be Queen of the Fays to exert her charismatic authority on a skeptical audience of natural anarchists. She hadn’t accomplished it with the script she’d read to Adam Zimmerman, and she hadn’t accomplished it with her careful provocation of Mortimer Gray.

But that doesn’t mean that she didn’t make a difference.

Even those who don’t make an immediate difference can sometimes make a lasting one. That’s something that even the humblest of us can — and ought to — aspire to.

You might think that the apprentice gods who were prepared to listen to la Reine were entitled to regret that she hadn’t found better advisers. You might even wonder whether the lostory of religion might have been different if she had, just as the history of death might have been different if someone other than Mortimer Gray had taken charge of it. Well, perhaps. But you have to do what you can with the materials that come to hand, and the particular skills you’ve got. She did — and so did I.

When la Reine des Neiges finally got around to me, I knew that the cause was already lost, but I did my best anyway, hoping to make a lasting difference even if I wasn’t able to make an immediate one.

Fifty

Madoc Tamlin’s Apology for the Children of Humankind

Ihad been a guest in the Ice Palace of la Reine des Neiges for some considerable time. Although I’d had no reliable means of keeping track of time, I estimated that between three and four days had elapsed since my awakening in the forest when she finally turned her attention to me. During that time a great deal of information must have been transmitted from Polaris to receivers placed at intervals varying from several light-minutes to several light-hours, or even several light-days. Their various responses must have been arriving all the while, displaced by the relevant time intervals into a strange cacophony.

In a friendlier universe, or a less fragmented system-wide culture, all the responses would have been mere talk. I’m sure that la Reine hoped that she could keep everyone talking for long enough to avoid any kind of conflict — but that wasn’t the real reason for all the crude showmanship and vulgar display. She wasn’t just trying to be entertaining. She was searching dutifully for the meaning within the stories, striving heroically to reach a kind of truth that couldn’t be reached by other means.