'We're aware of our power, Pilot. But power is not a simple thing.'

'Power ... is only just power, yes?'

Harrah slowly shook her head. 'We have the ability to interface Ede's Eternal Computer. We pray for the grace always to realize this ability in receiving new visions.'

'I ... see.'

'And we have the authority to receive a new program and install it in the Church canon. To change the Church, as you say.'

'This is what it means to be the Holy Ivi, yes?'

'So we would hope,' Harrah said. 'But we are uncertain as to whether we have the influence to make the entire Church accept a new program.'

'You believe that the Iviomils would not accept a new Program of Totality?'

'They might not.'

'And you believe that they would not accept a redefinition of the Program of Increase?'

'The Elder Bertram Jaspari has said that they certainly will not.'

'Then you must fear schism, yes?'

For a long time, as Danlo clutched his flute between his hands and looked into Harrah's sad brown eyes, she looked at him. At last she took a drink of tea and said, 'We do fear schism. Above all things, almost, we fear Architect falling against Architect in what the Iviomils would no doubt call a facifah this unholy holy war that Elder Bert-ram is dying to loose upon the universe. And yet...'

'Yes?''There might be a great possibility here. This could be a critical moment for the Church or even in Ede's Infinite Program itself.'

Yes, infinite possibilities, Danlo thought as he looked at Harrah. He pressed his flute to his lips, but he said nothing.

'To install these new programs would be dangerous,' Harrah said. 'Yet there's danger, too, in the Church stagnating under the weight of wrongful programs. Which is the greater risk?'

'I ... do not know. But if you know, Blessed Harrah, that these new programs are in accord with Ede's Infinite Program, then mustn't you try to install them no matter the risk?'

'We're afraid that we must.'

'Then....'

'But we don't know this yet. All we have, at this time, is our own personal understanding of what Ede's Infinite Program requires of us.'

'Truly?'

'We haven't dared to interface the Eternal Computer seeking knowledge in these matters.'

'Because you were afraid ... of what you might find?'

'No, because it wasn't time. Doesn't the Algorithm say that when hope is darkest, then like a star falling out of the night, a sign will be given? We've been waiting for such a sign, Pilot.'

Danlo did not like the way that Harrah was searching his eyes just then, so he looked down to where his fingers silently pressed the holes of his flute. 'What ...

sign?' he finally asked.

'We believe that your coming out of the stars might be this sign.'

'But it might not be, yes?'

Again Harrah smiled and quoted,' "One day, when you are near to despair, a man will come among you from the stars. He is a man without fear who will heal the living, walk with the dead, and look upon the heavenly lights within and not fall mad".'

'But surely,' Danlo said, 'the congruence between this prophecy and what occurred between Elder Janegg and myself was pure chance.'

'You've just spoken heresy, you know. All that we do occurs according to Ede's Infinite Program. It's a grave error to believe in chance.'

'I ... am sorry.'

Harrah bowed her head as if forgiving him his error, and then she continued quoting from the Algorithm:' "In a dark time, he will be a bringer of light, and like a star he will show the way toward all that is possible".'

'Do you truly believe ... that I am a lightbringer?'

'All people are lightbringers insofar as they are part of Ede's Program to illuminate the universe. But are you the Lightbringer, out of the prophecy? We should like to put this to the test.'

Danlo, remembering too well the ways that the Ent.i.ty had tested him on the Earth that She had made, was not eager to agree to Harrah's suggestion. He sat gazing at her as he silently fingered the holes of his flute.

'If you pa.s.sed these tests,' Harrah said, 'this would be a sign that we might interface the Eternal Computer and seek a divine understanding of the programs that we've discussed.'

'I see.'

'We believe that it would also be a sign that the Church was entering a new era perhaps even the Last Days before the Omega Point. We believe that almost all Worthy Architects would regard it this way.'

'I see.'

'It's possible that we could make the greatest changes. Perhaps we could even send our children to Thiells to train as pilots.'

'The impossible ... is truly possible, yes?'

Harrah smiled quickly, betraying a rare moment of impatience. And then she asked, 'Will you agree to be tested, Pilot?'

Danlo closed his eyes as he blew a low, almost inaudible note upon his flute. In his mind's eye, he could see the future sweeping toward him all white and wild like the inevitable advance of a winter storm.

'To be tested ... how?' he asked finally.

'The first test is already done,' Harrah said. 'A man without fear who will heal the living. We've all seen this in you, Pilot. Your fearlessness, as well as your compa.s.sion in curing Elder Janegg of his madness.'

'But this was an accidental test, yes?'

'As we have said, there are no accidents.'

'But your other two tests you must have a format for these.'

'Indeed we do.'

'Please tell me.'

'"A man without fear who will walk with the dead".'

Danlo suddenly felt his heart beating hard inside his chest, and he asked, 'But what can this mean ... to walk with the dead?'

'It can only mean one thing.'

'And what is that, then?'

Harrah looked nervously down at her tea. 'It can only mean that the Lightbringer is he who will interface an eternal computer. One of the computers that holds the souls of all dead Architects who have been vastened.'

'You are asking me to face a s.p.a.ce into which dead minds are carked?' Danlo would almost rather have been buried alive in a ma.s.s grave full of old corpses.

'Only if you are the Lightbringer. Only if you would walk with the dead.'

Danlo blew another note on his flute, this time long and ominous. He said, 'This is very dangerous, yes?'

'Indeed, it is dangerous.'

'Not even a master cetic of my Order would interface such a s.p.a.ce.'

'Nor would any Architect of our Church. You would be the first.'

'I see.'

'A man without fear, Pilot.'

'a.s.suming that I was alive afterward, what is the last test, then?'

'A man without fear who will look upon the heavenly lights within and not fall mad. You must be able to see yourself as a reflection of G.o.d and not let the light destroy you.'

'I ... see.'

'Do you?'

Danlo considered this a moment as he put down his flute. He said, 'No, truly I do not.'

'There is a ceremony that we Architects make,' Harrah said. 'We call it the light offering. This is a simulation of one's mind. Of our selfness and soul. We paint a picture of the mind with a hologram with a billion sacred lights. An Architect wishing to make a light offering displays the patterns and the programs of himself for all to see. If he is worthy, he will have purified himself of his negative programs. And he will have written new ones. This makes for a beautiful offering indeed. The light, the colours all the colours of consciousness. There's no greater beauty than a consciousness focused on the splendour of Ede the G.o.d.'

'Then you wish me to make such an offering, yes?'

'Only if you would do so freely, of your own will.'

'And you wish me to look upon the display of lights? These ... heavenly lights within.'

'That would be the essence of the test.'

'This, too, is dangerous, I think.'

'We're afraid that it's very dangerous, Pilot.'

'Others have viewed the models of their own minds, then?'

'They have.'

'They viewed their own minds ... at the same moment that their minds were engaged in this self-viewing?'

'Indeed, they tried to see the reflection of the infinite in their own light.'

Gazing at the bright black sky, Danlo remembered, you see only yourself looking for yourself.

He blew a single, high, piercing note on his flute, and his dark eyes filled with the fierceness of his will toward the unknown.

'But there are dangerous feedbacks,' Harrah said. 'Depersonalization, loss of ident.i.ty the nausea of pure existence. The deep programs of the mind, itself. To see what makes oneself run can be a terrifying thing.'

The terrible fires of the self that burn and blind, Danlo thought. He played a strange and deep song upon his flute, then. He played and played while Harrah stared into the deep blueness of his eyes.

'All who have attempted to look inside this way,' Harrah said, 'have fallen mad.'

Danlo put down his flute for a moment and asked, 'Then why should you hope that I would succeed where others have failed?'

'If you are the Lightbringer, then you will succeed.'

'And if I succeed ... then I am the Lightbringer, yes?'

'Indeed.'

For the count of nine of his heartbeats, Danlo held his breath and stared at the dark mirrors that were Harrah Ivi en li Ede's eyes. Like a sword suspended on a silken strand above his head, all time seemed to hang upon what he said next.

'I will take your tests, then,' he told Harrah. The easiest decisions, he thought, were those in which one had no true choice.

'We hoped that you would.'

'I will take your tests, only...'

'What is it, Pilot?'

Danlo turned and pointed out the window, far below the zero level of the city down to where the ocean broke against the beach in great waves of water and foam.

He said, 'You must promise me that if I, too, fall mad, I will be taken down to the sea.

You must leave me there, alone.'

'But you'd be in danger of drowning!'

'Yes.'

'You'd have no food, no drink. And the air is bad to breathe you'd die there, we're afraid.'