" "That's almost true." "That's almost true. No, what happened is that he had a companion, and AI named Fawn, and she could travel in time. Not only that, but she knew how to build ringworlds and genetically engineer sentient lifeforms. Actually, she knew much more than that, as you can see. We sprang up from virtually nothing because of Fawn." "What happened to her?" "You see, that's the important question. Fawn knew everything, but she lacked something important. Will. Ken was her will. He took a look at what she could do, and decided that he wanted to do this. He could have taken over the Earth, I suppose, or any other of a dozen things, but he chose this path. Ken has often mentioned that 'raising children is the grandest form of adventure.' That's why he does it, and that's why he never gets tired of being what he is. There's too much to feel attached to. "Once Pendor was built and all, Fawn and Ken built Halloran Eldar and The Library. There were eight duplicates of the library built back before Paul was born. There are ten now. One resides with Halloran, six are scattered about the Ring. The others are in safe places. They're mostly duplicates of Fawn's knowledge base, her expert system. And then Ken did something very important. "He returned Fawn to himself. Fawn could time travel, and he went back and handed Fawn to himself. That's how he got Fawn in the first place, by a visit from Ken Shardik. He closed the loop, or spiral, or whatever." "Aaden," Nickolai asked, "Why are you telling me this?" "Because it's not supposed to be a secret. It's not a big deal anymore. Ken doesn't know how to time travel anymore, and he's personally not interested in learning how. Neither am I. Time moves the way it's supposed to, as far as I'm concerned." "Why a ringworld? Why not a Dyson sphere?" "I'll let you in on a secret. |