Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 749
If henceforth he could at will command a rose to become
a lilly, where was the meaning of the rose?
Reluctantly, he said, "I see no alternative. At least we
know what Mediation will do. We don’t know what Thalience
wants."
"Yes, we do."
For a moment the Desert Voice regretted speaking. They
were all staring at her. Then she hardened her resolve, and
stepped out from behind Axel.
"Ever since Axel came to me and told me what was
happening here, I’ve been thinking about thalience. It’s a
mystery, even to us in the Archipelago. But I think it’s no
mystery here on Ventus. And I’m beginning to see it’s no
mystery to me, either."
She held up her hand and turned it in the rosy light.
"What is it that is speaking to you now? That is the question
and answer of thalience. What is this object--this body,
woman-shaped, made of wire and silicon? Even I was fooled
into thinking that this," she gestured at herself, "is just a thing,
a piece of matter with no heart. I thought that my words, my
emotions and thoughts were all imitations of another’s’. Not
real. Once, when I was a starship, that was true. I thought
what humans had made me think. I felt what they had made
me to feel.
"So it was with the Winds. They were made to see the
world as humans see it. They originally thought in human
categories and could want nothing that they not been
engineered to want.
"The humans who designed the Winds arrogantly wanted
to make their imagined metaphysical world real. They wanted
to create real essences behind the appearances of the world,