Chương 43: Chapter 21 — Picking up the Pieces

[Your Crusade has awarded you essence!] Muar was getting used to seeing the notification in the corner of his vision, as all actions against Cato and his dark purpose flowed upward through those who undertook the [Crusade]. It had significantly accelerated his progress through Bismuth, even if he had a very, very long way to go to reach Azoth.

In a way it made up for the time he was spending outside of the Core worlds, traveling through the worlds that made up the innermost circle in order to ensure they had a personal connection to the [Crusade]. Muar didn't know which god or gods had finally taken notice of Cato's abilities, but the spread of the quest to all the worlds of the System was finally a response that matched the danger.

"If you can't do it, your priests need to petition your [World Deity] at the Temple," he told the Platinum World Administrator patiently. On the frontier, such people were cowed by Muar's title and Bismuth Rank, but so close to the core, and with the backing of a real Clan, the man was clearly used to dealing with august personages.

"That moon can very easily be a threat." He waved at the large silvery-blue crescent riding low on the horizon.

"But how?" The Platinum just didn't seem to comprehend the facts no matter how Muar stated them.

"It's just in the sky. You can't actually get there." Muar knew that being a World Administrator for an inner world required someone to be at least marginally intelligent, so the blank, abject stupidity was just for show. Something to waste Muar's time and prevent the Platinum from having to actually do anything not ordered by his masters within the Clan. Such petty and venal games were unworthy of the divine System, made obvious by how those engaging in them were so obviously less.

Yet it was a game that still had to be played, to do what was necessary to stop Cato. If he had more of a backing – although the backing of the System should be enough – then he would be far more effective. But he did not, and for now, should he fail to convince those in charge to act of their own accord, he would instead commune with the gods directly at the temple. None of them spoke to him as such, but certain System messages and the actions around planets demonstrated that he was being heard.

On five different worlds, small moons – barely more than mountain-sized – had been brought down by Azoths. On two others, much larger ones had been brought into the System, transformed into high-rank Zones. For many inner worlds, such moons were already within the System's grasp, which was a pleasant surprise and prevented him from needing to do more than examine them for any possible influence.

Thus far he hadn't found any evidence of Cato's subversive contamination, which either showed that Cato was far more subtle than Maur thought, or that he'd outdistanced Cato's vanguard. While he wasn't certain, and could never be certain, Muar very well thought it was the latter. He hadn't heard anything further about Raine or Leese, save for messages from the Tornok Clan.

The confluence portal had alarms that were set to trigger when any Sydean – or even Sydean-alike – entities crossed it, something writ into the deepest nature of the Nexus that held it. Twice they had been triggered, and twice the people had gotten away, vanishing into the core worlds.

That had been days ago, and it was a worry, but if Raine and Leese were now trapped in the inner and core worlds, hunting them down might be far, far easier than if they were at large, somewhere in the entire length and breadth of the System. Unfortunately, the core worlds and especially the war worlds were absolutely massive, so perhaps tracking them down was a distant dream.

But there were few places that allowed movement between those worlds, and he'd already had subordinate [Crusaders] volunteer to monitor them after hearing from the Tornok Clan. Muar himself planned to go as well — but only after he had performed his most important task and ensured the inner worlds were proofed against Cato's invasion.

"If you do not wish to help, then you need not," Muar said, interrupting the maliciously pointless blather of the Platinum in question.

"I will go to the Temple myself." He turned away from the functionary – flexing his Skills ever so slightly to make sure the creature would never benefit from the [Crusade] – and crossed the city in just a few steps, his divine movement Skill easily covering the distance and bringing him to the steps of the Temple. Actually entering the Temple was done on foot, without Skills, as a show of piety.

There were a number of people meditating around the central pylon, from mere Coppers to an Azoth, and Muar joined them in sacred fellowship. His higher rank and higher tier Skills gave him far more insight than he used to have, his senses allowing him to feel the flow of essence between the planet and the gods in addition to the direct influence within the Temple.

His [Crusade Skill: Commune] let him construct questions and offer specific information directly to the gods, and by this time he was quite used to creating warnings about Cato's specific abilities and approaches. By inference from his personal experience, the gods themselves didn't seem to communicate between each other too much, no more than the administrators of various worlds did, so he had to repeat himself quite often. Muar hardly minded.

It was his honor to bring such important news to those who needed to hear it, be they gods or be they mortals. Even if the [Crusade] had spread throughout the entire System, it was still his quest, and he was the only one who had been beyond the System, seen Cato's works, and returned. Unusually, he did get a response, in the form of a small addendum to his [Crusade] quest. [Meet the Ahruskians.] Muar thought he was beyond surprise, but this was not a development he'd expected.

Yes, it was not difficult to draw the conclusion that there were some individuals from Cato's home that were part of the System, but he would have thought they were justly suspect, and in disfavor with the gods. Though perhaps he was meeting them to ensure they were not loyal to Cato or what Cato represented. The horrible nihility of a world reduced to the merely material that Cato wanted to bring to them.

Without ceremony, he withdrew from the Temple and followed the urging of the quest, crossing through several portals to reach the appropriate world. The quest led him to yet another Temple, a large and well-appointed one, of the maximum size and tier for the world, and taking up a goodly section of the capital city on that particular planet. He went past the meditation room, striding into the back to where the unmistakable essence signature of three Azoths radiated from one of the meeting rooms.

The moment he entered, he could tell the trio had benefitted from the sort of unearned strength that Cato had offered him so long ago. There was a peculiar way they held themselves, even the quadrupedal one, something unnaturally precise and yet languid, as if they were inexpertly pretending to be people. Two of them bore a resemblance to Cato's fleshy form – or frame, as it had been called – but the third, the quadruped, clearly didn't. In fact, Muar hadn't ever before seen anyone at any rank lacking hands.

Yet his quick, reflexive appraise showed they were all normal Azoth-rank individuals.

"Huh, you're the questgiver, eh?" Morvan spoke, and Muar instantly disliked him.

"I am the bearer of the [Crusade] and one of the few who has interacted with Cato," Muar replied stiffly.

"The gods have guided me here, presumably to acquire more insight. You are from the same world as Cato?"

"Hell, we're related," Kiersten said, though she didn't sound joyful at the prospect.

"Well, us two are. Justin isn't. Unless he's not telling us something."

"You keep your family drama away from me," Justin rumbled.

"I'm just here to kill monsters and get rich." Strangely, that particular Ahruskian had a distinct aura about him, marking him as a fellow divine user — but with an entirely different attitude. Muar wasn't certain what god would accept such a person, but it wasn't his role to question the machinations that occurred at such rarefied heights.

"Well, sure, we all are, but some people just can't leave well enough alone," Morvan waved a hand dismissively.

"From what I understand, the gods wish for me to consult with you," Muar said, somehow feeling like the only adult in the room even if the other three were a full rank higher than him.

"And you, with me. The threat Cato offers is a real one, and should be taken seriously."

"It's not Cato," Morvan disagreed.

"It's just all his toys. Believe me, there are some things over in Sol that are actually scary, but Cato's just a big wet mop." Muar blinked. First, at the idea that they so casually dismissed what Cato was and what he could do, and second, at the implicit threat that Cato, among his kind, was a lesser being. It was impossible to tell how accurate that assessment was, because it was obvious that just by knowing Cato, they didn't have the proper respect for him.

Their preconceptions blinded them, an imagined familiarity breeding unwarranted contempt.

"He has corrupted dozens of worlds," Muar pointed out.

"And stolen several outright. That is quite enough of a threat for me."

"Oh sure, but did you make it hard for him?" Morvan said, lacing his fingers behind his head.

"I don't mean fighting his stuff. That isn't anything Cato would much care about. You all just don't know what he's got going, and what it means that he's got the orbitals. Fighting him straight means a slog against logistics and industrial capacity, and frankly that game is shit. So we play a different game. We already told the gods about this – you all don't fight him, and whenever he shows up, sterilize the world and let his dumb ass know that he's the reason.

He's too weak to keep that it up after that," Morvan finished, with an assurance that was horrifying at first, but became more appealing the more Muar considered it. Muar wanted to reject such a terrible strategy, but it did make a strange amount of sense. Pushing Cato off a world he had already infected might well be impossible if it had to be fought inch by inch. But Muar did already know that Cato wanted to, at least in his own twisted way, help those who inhabited the worlds.

As terrible as it was, it might come down to a choice about killing millions to save the rest. Yet they were millions who would likely never rise above their base selves, never become more and, ultimately, never fully open themselves to the divine path the System laid out. Like he had once been. A terrible crucible, but one that would anoint the remainder with the strength, the virtue, that could only be earned from following the System's guidance.

"If the gods know of this, then they are surely acting on it," Muar declared.

"Yet we cannot expect a single strategy to win against him. Individuals cannot decide the fates of planets that way, but individuals can act against Cato. They must. To fight his influence, his agents, to oppose him at the root rather than after he has compromised entire worlds. What can you tell me that will allow all of us to cut him out?"

"That's harder," Morvan said, frowning.

"Well, I did say he was a soft touch, so I bet if you find —" The Ahruskian was interrupted by the [Crusade] notifications appeared again. [The world of Sunac has been considered lost to Cato, and purified. Your Crusade has granted you essence.] [The world of Enksa has been considered lost to Cato, and purified. Your Crusade has granted you essence.] Muar watched as they scrolled past, the weight of grim certainty settling onto his shoulders.

Cato had already forced the gods to act, no doubt revealing the full nature of his intractable infestation on the planets in question. Yet he doubted that would be sufficient to end Cato, despite the assurances of the Ahruskians before him. They were familiar with Cato, yes, but they also were not to be trusted given how casual they were about something so important as the System's very existence. They didn't seem to realize Cato's motivations — especially since they were part of his motivations.

Muar had not been paying too close attention, and in a way he regretted it, but Cato had spoken of family that had found the System to be home. Certainly, that was the pair in front of him.

"It seems we will find out whether your strategy is sufficient," Muar said after a moment.

"As your plan is being put into practice even now. But I very much doubt that one single stratagem alone will be enough to destroy him. Destroying some worlds he had his eye on is merely a setback."

"Nah, he's going to blame himself for everything. Unless he's been altered to have more of a spine, that kind of thing is going to eat him up inside and he'll just wimp out," Kierstan said, pushing her chair back to balance on two legs and lacing her fingers behind her head.

"Why are we even talking about him? We already gave our feedback, so I'd rather not waste any more time thinking about our old lives."

"I do understand," Muar said, keeping his temper in check. Despite their power, he was not at all impressed with Cato's countrymen. He knew that they weren't as stupid as they seemed, or else they never would have made it to Azoth, but he really wished they would take Cato seriously.

"But I need to know as much as I can, if I am to move the [Crusade] forward and completely purge him from our worlds."

"Fine," Kiersten sighed and let her chair fall back to four legs before she looked over at Morvan.

"I guess we know some things about the real him. Though who knows how messed up his copies have become."

"Then let us resume our discussion," Muar said, eyeing the three Ahruskians.

"With your help we can purge him from the System once and for all."

Elder World Deity Keppel Eln meditated quietly in the outer vestibule of the True Core. There were dozens of others in the same space, from other clans, but nobody would have been stupid enough to start a fight. In the System's heart, no combat Skills were welcome. Not simply by custom and agreement, but by the System's own declaration. Only a small subset of those with divine affinity were actually allowed so close to the True Core, in the region where they could commune directly with the heart of the System.

It was an enormous, globe-spanning cradle that merged the detached System Spaces of the gods with the most essence rich, most desirable world in all existence. Only the oldest and most powerful divines, those spoken of in whisper and rumor, had ever set foot upon the World Of The True Core. Keppel had, himself, never met any of those vaunted personages in all his years of service, and even now had no desire to draw their attention.

Everything in the Core was arranged around that incredible construct; the massive war-worlds, the worlds of the powerful clans that had been taken into the Core, the myriad suns that illuminated them all. The closer a deity was allowed, the closer their world was brought, the more essence they had available and the more access they had to the innermost workings of the System. The Vestibule was the limit for everyone Keppel knew personally, but that was enough to do what he wished.

At last the System's processes responded to his patient petitions and an Interface-like window opened in his mind. His authority to change things was limited, restricted by his worlds – those of Clan Eln – and also by his own personal piety. The System sampled his essence, fed it back into him, and so let him peek in on the results of their newest move against the Lundt clan, one which the most recent [Crusade] had provided cover to accomplish.

The ability to purify a planet was not something to be taken lightly, and hadn't been deployed very often. It was a little bit worrying that a mere mortal could consider such a grand perpsective – he had viewed the memory-crystal of that shamefully frank conversation himself – even if it was only logical to believe the gods could do it. In fact, with sufficient effort an Alum could reach that level of destruction, though outside of the war-worlds, they wouldn't be allowed to.

Yet an Alum wouldn't have been able to reap the not-inconsiderable benefits reported by the System's touch. Keeping the planet would have been better in the long run for the owners, of course, but the essence recovered from the purification, a bulk amount now waiting to be added to his coffers, was staggering. Enough to push forward development on other worlds, and so improve the Eln Clan's overall essence generation — once he'd taken his share, of course.

A disproportionate number of the worlds had belonged to the Lundt Clan, but they had not been foresighted enough to move first and therefore would only be reaping a tithe of the reward. Picking carefully through the staggeringly complex connection, Keppel considered the information the System presented him about his various worlds. None of the others had been reported to have any Cato presence on them, though if the assertions of the Ahrusk mortals could be believed that didn't guarantee anything.

Not that Keppel entirely believed them. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. If it weren't for the System's direct blessing by way of the Crusade and the global defense quest, he wouldn't have credited it at all, but if they were to act, best to act aggressively, completely, and to ensure the maximum benefit for Clan Eln. Such as extracting some concessions from tangential clans for Eln's sacrifices in dealing with the threat.

Less than a score of worlds had been targeted in total, very little compared to the total Clan extent and over half of them Lundt Clan's anyway. Unfortunate for Lundt, but since the so-called crisis occurred outside the usual maneuvering, nothing Keppel had done had drawn the censure of the other Elder Clans. If anything, he had gotten a certain amount of praise for his quick and effective solution to a potential problem.

He finished allocating extra essence from the sudden windfall, only here and there as most of his Clan were doing just fine, and then pulled the rest into his personal accounts, where it joined the rest swirling through both his Estate and his body, a power ready to be unleashed when necessary. Not that there had been major clan war for millennia, but without that power, someone might well consider him vulnerable.

Finished with his inspection and needing no other action from the True Core, Keppel rose and made his way out of the Vestibule. Even with movement Skills it took a few seconds to cross the white stone of the massive space and exit through the myriad portals that lined the circular outer wall, leading to the various Core Worlds. He emerged onto Core World Eln, hanging as it did above War World Osk, and took a deep breath of the familiar atmosphere.

Servants hovered at attention, mortals elevated to exist in the rarefied air of the Core Worlds, where deities could walk free outside of a System Space. Unasked, several servants matched his pace, one holding drinks, another a tray of small tidbits, and a third controlling a crystal to play soothing music. Keppel strode along the flower-lined walk, barely noticing, his eyes more focused on the sky-dominating War World where the Ahruskians, somewhere, were pushing their way through Azoth.

They would be a problem, eventually, and would be more difficult to solve than any threat the [Crusade] could pose. A simple enemy from without was easy enough to understand, and trading a few worlds to be rid of him was little issue in the long run. The Ahruskians, on the other hand, promised discord from within. There were too many of them, advancing too quickly, and it was disrupting the normal inter-Clan proxy competitions.

He would have liked to just be rid of them, given that they weren't part of any real Clan and they posed a threat to those who were actually important, but the divine mandates of the System prohibited any action that direct. Not to mention, they had more than a few World Deities backing them — solely for the disruption, of course. Not every god was properly civilized.

"The others gave you no trouble, Father?" The question came as he reached the end of the path, where the white stone split out into a vast series of picturesque walkways that flowed through his extensive, almost continent-sized private gardens.

"Certainly not," Keppel Eln told his favored daughter, who had been one of the most strident supporters of the purification plan. Remove a threat and acquire wealth at the same time, what was bad about it? Of course, those members of their own clan who had been displaced would need some compensation, but those out on the frontier were hardly valuable members or close relations. A little hardship might toughen them up.

"In fact…" he continued, bestowing a smile upon his daughter, along with some of the largesse of essence.

"In fact, some suitable framing of the facts has increased the cachet of Clan Eln – and to a lesser extent, Clan Lundt – among the other Great Clans." He waved a hand dismissively, as they both knew that even if it wasn't a perfect victory, they had come out quite ahead of Lundt in the incident.

"Oh, excellent, father," his daughter said, mirroring his smile and beaming broadly as she very obviously considered all the implications while counting her new gains. She was already a terror among the younger generation – if one could call several hundred thousand years young – and this would give her even more leverage for Clan Eln's interests. Keppel gave no more thought to the frontier skirmish of a [Crusade]. The System would endure as it always had and always would, uplifting the chosen of the divine.

In the end, nothing else mattered.

Initik eyed the thing moving into the orbit of the smallest moon with some disdain. Cato had been entirely transparent about what was coming, and where it was coming from, but Initik still found it to be completely alien. Something he couldn't grasp with essence, or with his own long experience. And yet, there was an odd sort of hope there. Cato might well be lying, and Initik gave it even odds, but the forthright earnestness Cato had about his particular problems was difficult to dismiss.

It was demonstrably true that Cato could, in some way, render people immortal, but that wasn't the same as being able to fix all the problems he remembered from millennia ago. There was time enough to see one way or another if Cato could follow through on his promises, but only so long as it could be kept secret. While Initik was confident in his own abilities and his control of Uriva itself, the so-called purification of entire planets put an entirely different face on things.

He didn't know how that happened; it wasn't something he knew how to do, and he wasn't certain he wanted to look for it. That was far too dangerous a tool to even admit his Interface had, no matter how buried it was. He couldn't imagine how much essence was involved. Far more than he had ever had available, especially now.

After spending so much to push Cato off the moons, his ability to deflect the tides of the [Crusade] was drastically reduced — something made even worse because that expenditure was now entirely worthless. The best he could do was reduce its prevalence, using his own Interface overrides to block it from subsuming other quests. But the [Crusade] still existed, and his people were still at risk — especially given the updates his Interface had given him.

[The world of Sunac has been considered lost to Cato, and purified.] [The world of Enksa has been considered lost to Cato, and purified.] … [The world of Kelek has been considered lost to Cato, and purified.] Initik sneered at the feed as he glanced at it once again. Purified was an astoundingly cold way to describe the absolute destruction of an entire world and the people therein. Of course, the big clans didn't view it like he did.

For them, random frontier worlds were only valuable for what the clans could take, so of course they didn't care. He was certain there was more politics there, as well. Different worlds, different clans, different World Deities in charge. Clearly there had been some internal shuffling of priorities, some payments for the inconvenience, but nothing that approached admitting that they'd killed millions of people. After all, the dead were merely mortals, and mortals died by the millions anyway.

But that wasn't something Initik would allow. He accepted that some amount of his people died, as there was nothing to be gained in padding the natural trials of the world. There would always be those who were too careless, too stupid, too egotistical or aggressive, that would drag down others if they were not blunted or burned by reality. But that was not the wholesale destruction of entire planets for no other reason than to deny them to the enemy.

It was the kind of thinking Initik had seen before from the core worlds. Something expedient, politically useful, and probably ultimately ineffectual. Cato certainly hadn't revealed all his secrets, but it didn't seem that sterilizing planets did anything to hinder or help Cato's ability to coordinate forces. If the System portals were indeed necessary, as the restrictions on them implied, then simply shutting them down entirely would be sufficient. Just as had been done with Sydea.

He dropped his scry, as the image of Cato's so-called station moved incredibly slowly, and there was nothing to see beyond a slow drift of some arcane hulk against stars. Stretching his gripping hands, he considered his options for potential allies against the mad egos of those who lived in the core worlds. He wasn't ready to reveal he was thinking of working with Cato to anyone, even if there were gods he trusted, but the actions of the core systems demanded some response.

The only ones he knew of, who might have something substantive to contribute, were Neyar and, upon reflection, Mii-Es. The former had been a steady friend if not actual ally for centuries, but Mii-Es had been surprisingly friendly ever since the Cato situation had started — and most importantly, clearly had no love of the major clans. He didn't know why she was out managing Ikent rather than her own world – or her clan's world, if she had a clan – but she would certainly not inform them of any of his discontent.

Making a decision, he touched his Interface, sending two messages. Unsurprisingly, the replies didn't take long. Everyone was a little bit on edge these days, considering the chaos the war had brought, so rather than communications languishing for days or weeks, his fellow deities often responded within hours. Also unsurprisingly, Neyar preferred to stay in his own domain, but that was all to the good. Initik didn't want any other deities near Uriva considering the ticklish situation with Cato.

He stepped out into the between-space of the System, fetching up at Ikent after only a few steps and waiting for Mii-Es to answer the chime at her domain. She emerged in full regalia, her feathered form covered in silks, jewels, and ornamental armor, and while he didn't say anything his surprise must have been obvious. The avian deity clicked her beak and waggled her claws in an almost coquettish wave.

"I don't know how you got to be friends with Neyar, darling, but he's a legend! I'm not going to be at anything but my best." She stretched her wings and then waved toward the connected lines of the between-space.

"Shall we go?" Initik clicked his claws in resignation and headed off toward the inner worlds. Even at a glance he could tell that a number of the World Deity spaces he passed had been reinforced, additional protections added — as if they would make some difference against either Cato or the actions of the core worlds. Yet it was a reflection of the change in attitude that had come in just the past few days.

It was no longer business as usual, and even if few of the gods were directly affected, all those across the hundreds of thousands of worlds in the System felt the winds of change. They arrived at Neyar's domain, and were allowed inside to the valley of orange grasses. It hadn't changed at all, not that Initik had expected it to, but Neyar himself looked more stern than usual.

His world was on the far side of the core from where Cato had so far been seen, but nobody with any intelligence thought that would matter for long.

"Welcome," Neyar rumbled, conjuring a small pavilion with tables and seats; a divan suited for Initik's frame and a lounging chair meant for Mii-Es.

"Oh, it's so good to finally meet you!" Mii-Es gushed, bustling right up to Neyar.

"Though, perhaps the circumstances could be better."

"Indeed," said Neyar, giving Mii-Es a dismissive glance before gesturing for them to sit.

"It is not a crisis I've seen before."

"That doesn't bode well," Initik said, lowering himself into the flat, cushioned divan.

"You've never seen the core worlds simply destroy entire planets?"

"Not like this," Neyar said.

"It has happened on rare occasion, but usually those worlds were barely inhabited to begin with. I can only remember two times, and both instances were just a single world apiece, though I couldn't tell you what exactly prompted it. Probably core world politics."

"We're a bit past politics, I think," Mii-Es drawled, drumming her claws on the arm of her chair.

"The Elder Clans unilaterally deciding to just destroy entire worlds is more of a threat than Cato. Initik has demonstrated that such measures are far from necessary, so Cato can be dealt with by individual deities like ourselves. But those with their hands on the deepest levers of power are too big to contest."

"That is exactly why I wished for this meeting between clanless gods," Initik said, not feeling the slightest qualm about deceiving his fellow gods with regards to Cato. They certainly wouldn't trust him with their innermost secrets.

"None who are not beholden to the Elder Clans of the core worlds, are safe. Not just from Cato, but also from those who might see the current crisis as a way to reach beyond what would usually be allowed."

"Oh, are you thinking about some kind of coup?" Mii-Es said, straightening up from her languid drape over her chair.

"Nothing so dramatic," Initik said, clicking at her reproachfully.

"Simply some form of agreement, of communication between those of us who are not part of that inner circle. Who have much to lose if they arbitrarily decide that our planets should need to be destroyed."

"It's clear we need some form of leverage," Neyar agreed.

"Cato is like some dungeon or event; an outside problem that, together, we can fight. The Elder Clans holding a dagger to our backs is an entirely different matter, and needs an entirely different approach. We have all been betrayed in our long lives, by party members or friends, and it is with that wariness we need to contemplate the problems ahead. It will be impossible to deal with a true threat so long as we fear the Core."

"We will have to be careful, though, and subtle," Mii-Es pointed out with a click of her beak.

"In their current mood, simply voicing dissent might be seen as siding with the enemy."

"I do not believe there is a severe rush," Initik said, carefully avoiding anything that would imply he had inside information.

"After such a large battle and setback, it seems unlikely Cato will have either the forces or the wherewithal to try anything for a while. We merely need to be vigilant in our own territories, and see what we can do to protect ourselves from the threats within." What he did not say was that if Cato proved true to his word, such gods might well be willing to take what the outsider was offering.

Initik would not count the System out yet, but if Neyar had never seen the chaos that Cato's actions had brought, chaos that was only just starting, then he found it unlikely many gods would survive the coming events. At least, not as System gods.

"I don't—" Cato-Urivan paced one of the rotating stations in a physical frame, sure that every version of himself was doing something similar.

"I can't do anything about that!" He flung his arm out, gesturing anywhere and everywhere, but it was obvious what he meant. There was a deep, devouring pit in his gut from all the people who had been outright murdered simply because Cato existed. He had no idea what was happening with the instances of Cato, Raine, and Leese who had been on those planets. In real space, they ranged from tens to hundreds of light years from other System worlds and, with the portals closed, real space was all that mattered.

Moving on the slow way was just barely possible, but they were also the ones who had been left alone with the terrible specter of murdered worlds and he didn't know if they'd have the emotional or psychological wherewithal to try. Ultimately it wasn't something he could know, not for decades or centuries at the earliest, and he wasn't one of the Catos stranded in a sterilized star system. He was the one who had to face the terrible threat that any move he made would result in genocide and extinction.

That he was responsible for it, no matter that he wasn't to blame for the tragedy, and that the theoretical choice of condemning millions to save billions was no longer so theoretical. Or so favorable. Considering his terrible options, it occurred to him that perhaps he was the only one who had come from Sol to defeat the system was because he was the only one dumb enough to take the job.

Anyone who thought about it would know – he had known – that millions of deaths was a best-case scenario for bringing down the System, and those wouldn't be abstract numbers. It wasn't a game. They would be something he was responsible for, and nobody sane would want that responsibility.

"Cato," Leese said, and he stopped pacing, turning to face her augmented-reality representation. The out-system pair had their own, private station for their physical frames, one that he didn't intrude upon.

"We don't need to do anything right now. There's more than enough time to think up a counter-strategy, and Initik—""Yeah," Cato interrupted, his mind still spinning uselessly.

"This nonsense will get him on our side for sure. But I don't like the cost."

"None of us do," Raine said, though the pair didn't seem quite as upset as he was. Though they were, of course, far more inured to violence, even extreme violence, due to their lives within the System. For them, destroying entire worlds was merely a scaled up version of the way towns could get overrun from the occasional dungeon break, monster wave, or special scenario like the Platinum rank-up quest.

"But if they're willing to do something so drastic, they must truly fear you."

"I'd actually rather they didn't, not like that," Cato sighed.

"If they didn't know I was there, it'd be better, or if they thought of me as a minor nuisance. If they are afraid, I'd prefer they be too afraid to try anything."

"You need a way to hold them accountable," Leese said, as if it were that simple. He didn't have any way to get at the System-gods directly, as even if Initik somehow let him into that System space, Cato had no illusions that bioweapons alone would be effective. Even if he was willing to be extremely nasty and tailor genetic plagues, judging by his studies on Yaniss, retroviral engineering would be useless.

"I need a lot of things," Cato said, stopping in his pacing and tapping his open palm against his fist, staring off into the middle distance as he thought. It was hard to push his mind past the devastation he'd just seen, which was somehow worse even than what had happened to Earth. Despite all the devastation back at Sol, that had been collateral of a mechanical process. With those condemned worlds, it was clear malice aforethought, and aimed directly at him.

The hollowness in his gut kindled with a new sort of anger, both at himself and at those who had decided to weaponize innocent bystanders against him. He didn't know what kind of malevolent mind would settle on that as a solution, but his contemplations put forth two prospects. His cousins, who knew him and could suggest such a thing – even though he did not wish to think so ill of them – or the Sydean Lineage, who also knew him and might have been turned by the System.

Regardless of who it was, he swore that he would hold them to account. There was an ancient aphorism that terrorists were never to be negotiated with, because rewarding an act only encouraged more of it.

"Right now, we can't do anything," Cato said, resuming his pacing.

"They hold the whip hand; they've got a weapon we can't do much about. So we'll have to go silent, no matter what provocations they send our way. The only way we can undercut their strategy is if we're everywhere, if we can cut off everything as a fait accompli."

"That's a long time to wait," Raine pointed out. Their expansion through the System was something closer to linear growth than exponential, so it would be such a long time. Years, decades. But neither Cato nor the sisters were accountable to biological time, and they could wait those years and decades.

"Enough time for Dyen to find out about the Sydean Lineage," Cato said, turning to look at them.

"But we can't rely on whatever comes of that. We also need to penetrate into the inner worlds — maybe they're willing to sacrifice the outer, frontier worlds, but I bet they'll be a lot more careful about where all the political power lies. For both of those we're going to need more powerful, faster-leveling frames. Ways to break the power scaling without going past Platinum. More surveillance, more communication.

Maybe even more allies; I don't know if we'll be able to find anyone who can be trusted, but maybe you can get some subordinates." They had already done a lot of wargaming planning - computronium could power an awful lot of simulations - but none of it had included the System-gods declaring exterminatus on planets where Cato's presence was obvious. There were all kinds of strategies and approaches that needed to be reworked, and others that needed to be junked, but Cato was in no way giving up.

Raine and Leese pulled up the planning tools, one starting to spin out simulations and strategies as he spoke, the other diving into bioengineering tools, and he took a moment to really look at them. The pair were proof that he could ease people out of the System, given time and space to work with. He needed them, not only as allies and helpers, but as a check and a sounding board. In a way, they were the only ones he was accountable to. Not just as individuals, but as the ideals they represented.

And despite his own doubts, they hadn't wavered.

"Systema delenda est," he said, choosing to focus on the work ahead. It would be a long, long road, but he couldn't waver from it.

"It's never been more clear. The System needs to be destroyed."