Valentine's Resolve by E. E. Knight

Author:E. E. Knight
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: valentine, speculative fiction, Horror, fiction, Science Fiction, human-alien encounters, suspense, adventure, david (fictitious character), horror fiction, general
ISBN: 9780451462190
Publisher: RoC
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Lifeweavers: Discussions of the Lifeweavers easily grow heated, especially since they rarely present themselves to conduct their defense.

The schools of thought - or bull-session opinion - on the Lifeweavers fall into four groups, often blended and shaded into one another at the edges like paints on an artist’s palette.

The mystics see the Lifeweavers as divine intervention on humanity’s side, or evidence that whenever evil arises, karma will marshal good to the side of the righteous so that the universe might be kept in balance. Thus the Lifeweavers should be considered reverently, and their actions as a form of religious truth. When skeptics point out that raining holy destruction down on the Kurian Towers Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style would save a good deal of effort all around, the conversation usually shifts over to pure religion.

The utilitarians aren’t interested in the motivations of the Lifeweavers, only their efficacy in aid of the struggle against Kur. Their opinion of the extraterrestrials rises and falls along with humanity’s fortunes in war. They’d prefer a little less anxiety over how the Lifeweavers are using the naked ape, and a little more thought put into how mankind can make better use of the Lifeweavers. Another set of utilitarians calls for some kind of planetwide exodus (along the lines of the improbable story Valentine heard while passing over Utah) where the Lifeweavers guide mankind to another world that might be made impregnable against the Kurians.

The diplomatists wish to see the Lifeweavers exert themselves less in resisting the Kurians and more in arriving at a solution that would end the fratricide among both species. Visions of some sort of worldwide strike, where mankind nonviolently refuses to aid either side until they solve their

differences or take their war elsewhere, make for an attractive flight of Pegasus-winged pigs. But even among the diplomatists, arguments break out when specifics for a peaceful solution are brought up.

The conspiracists come in almost as many flavors as the mystics. Many maintain that the Kurians and Lifeweavers, being of the same species, are simply playing an elaborate game of good cop/bad cop with humanity, to better control them for their own nefarious ends.

Others see the Lifeweavers as basically good, but using humans as cannon fodder to fight an ancient war that spilled over onto Earth, to mankind’s misfortune.

In Valentine’s opinion, the Lifeweaver lurking in the depths of the rabbit warren offered strong evidence that excluded two of the above schools of thought.

–

Valentine hadn’t slept since he set off on his courier flight. Thirty-six, no, forty hours now, he corrected himself.

Someone knocked on his door. “Yeah?”

Thunderbird’s voice through the steel: “You wanted your interview, you got it”.

Valentine wondered if he should shave. No, the sooner the better. Shaving wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other. He opened the door.

Thunderbird stood there with two of his bigger Bears.

The enmity that had sprung up between himself and Thunder-bird had turned into a wary truce back in the warren. As there was nothing Valentine could do on a

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