Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 500
They proposed Mediation. The desals and others agreed to it;
the Swans did not.
Still, there was peace between us until a new set of
colonists landed. These ones did not speak to us, and they
fought with the ones already living here. They won their war,
and having conquered, proceeded to build.
When smoke began to mix with the atmosphere we had
so carefully made, we told the new tenants to cease what they
were doing. They ignored us. They smelled wrong, unlike the
original arrivals. When their radio waves began interfering
with the delicate local ecological reporting mechanisms, and
they began gouging up the new soil and destroying the forests,
we acted.
We eliminated the troublesome technologies and debated
among ourselves. It was generally decided that these humans
were not the ones who had created us, however much they
claimed to be. They did not speak to us anymore. They
interfered with the maintenance of life on Ventus. And they
smelled wrong.
Desal 447 remembers the time that followed. The great
estates awaiting their masters stood empty. No human was
allowed to walk their halls, or sleep in the deep beds. The
vehicles we had made stood idle, and lights switched on and
off in the depths of the houses, as outside cold and starving
men and women watched in sullen awe.
Mediation saw, but Mediation could not act. Thalience
rules Ventus now, and thalience is mad.