A/N: OK. So it's bad. Yada yada yada. I wrote it in an odd state of mind... And no, I am not crazy. I think.
Disclaimer: Everything that belongs to Orson Scott Card belongs to Orson Scott Card. Everything that doesn't belong to him belongs to somebody else. The Mayan pyramids belong to the Mayans, or whatever. The Periodic Table of Elements belongs to the scientists. Especially what's-his-name who created it. The Russian guy. And if you destroy my Periodic Table, I'm gonna get you! Anyway, Shya, her father, Dia, Raeché, the tutor, etc., etc., etc. belong to me. My bird belongs to herself, beautiful, beautiful Anise-girl with the soft smooth feathers. My computer, unfortunately, belongs to American Express which means you have to type in a ton of weird passwords every time you use it. Tom and Eliza Diawna Notebook belong to ME!!!!
* * *
Shya was restless.
She sat bowed over her terminal, watching the holo whirl faster and faster, becoming only and blurred band of colors. She had called up the Periodic Table for some reason, that neat, compact, delightful arrangement. Now obsolete, of course; after the first hundred man-made elements, it was deemed easier to keep a list of characteristics than to search through the mess of symbols. A bad judgment, of course. The list was longer than the Table would ever be large. But the decision had been made shortly after the death of Peter the Hegemon, during the time of rebuilding and discarding of the past. A shame, in her opinion. The Table had provided her many hours of comfort, and they'd stripped it all away...
The display went blank. Confused, Shya sat up, staring at the empty space where her Table had been. Blankness- and then it rippled. Bursts of static shot across the air above the terminal, and a grainy face took shape, flickering silently. She didn't recognize it, not until the holo zoomed out and she saw the man, eyes wide more with surprise than with agony, standing amid the mass of black-clad men and women. All were sitting but for him. And then, with a gurgle, he collapsed.
She stared at the image for an endless second, watched the men crawling like ants away from the corpse. And then everything rushed in, rushed like a merciless ocean of thought with only one word come clear.
Father.
* * *
The news spread. Spread, in spite of the threat of treason charges to any who read it. Spread. The Hundred Worlds were on the verge of collapse, their unifying bond ripped from them. And this was why: The dead had been a congressman. The living had been his fellows. And the killer had been the same.
Or, if not a congressman, employed by one. But no police had been called for, no mention of this incident made by any member of the Starways Congress. This had happened once before, during what was still secretly called The Second Xenocide, but always Demosthenes had been there to save the world. The Worlds. But Demosthenes was long dead; dead, or, as some believed, disbanded. Millions scanned the net, searching in vain for Demosthenes revived, searching for some semblance of order. Things were falling apart, however, faster than anybody would have predicted, and conflicting information abounded, adding to the panic. The Starways Congress had been impenetrable, perfect, unseen. Cruel, perhaps, but most had viewed it as a remote machine, changing things mindlessly from some far-off planet separated by hundreds of light-years and the high charges of ansible use. But now even the ansible connections were unstable: messages took longer, cost more to send than ever before. In panic, people had been fleeing anywhere they could go, thinking that maybe this would save them from whatever was happening. It couldn't, of course. People would leave on starships, watching the chaos beneath them, and as minutes passed for them, days passed for the planet-bound. But when they alighted from their starships, who knew what problems there would be to flee from now?
Far away, on the planet called Dai, Shya thought, so this is how an empire is destroyed.
* * *
She had barely known her father. He was an intelligent man, though perhaps not wise. Her mother had died of undiscovered skin cancer when Shya was a small child, and the congressman had sent the stranger who was his daughter off to a renowned school on the university planet Dai. She spent her childhood studying in the metal-walled classrooms, assigned a retired professor as a tutor. She had scorned him, of course, and spent her hours studying more important things than addition, which she mastered at the age of three, and spelling, which she could do perfectly well without teaching. She had learned far more than the average child when she graduated to University status, but had fulfilled only what was required of her. No more, no less. Her knowledge was a secret weapon, one she kept just out of sight up her sleeve. She was quiet, passing her days in isolation.
And so she did not grieve when she saw her father die.
She was startled, yes. Startled and angry. But Shya silenced her mind and let her thoughts take form.
Power. Shya could, of course, topple the government and rule herself. She had the mind and the ability, but power was nothing more than a game for those who could see no farther than the obvious. Power over humans was well and good, but none could ever have power over truth or the stars. Only complete power tempted her, and she could not have that.
Revenge. For her father's death? Why?
Destruction.
This time, a small smile played over her lips. Not to build an empire, but to destroy one...
The Hundred Worlds were in chaos, but, left alone, they would recover and become whole. Left alone. Shya logged on to her terminal and began a search...
* * *
Raeché sat at her desk, manipulating the holo image of the creation of a 5000 SC pyramid. Furrowing her brow, she instructed the computer to alter the number of brown-skinned Mayans gathered around the half-completed structure. No, not quite... Maybe a few more around the cornerstones?
She was startled by the two-dimensional image that flashed in front of her, signaling that there was somebody who wished to come in. Sighing, she got up and unsealed the door. "Shya!" she smiled, embracing her old friend. Shya barely responded, skipping right to the point:
"Tell me about empires."
She told. There was something vaguely unsettling about her friend, a crackle of concentration emanating from her. But then, Shya had always been odd...
She was worried, but she told. It wouldn't have done any good if she hadn't, anyway. Shya was, at the very least, determined.
* * *
Nobody had quite come close to understanding the ansible, but they had come close. Not that it was easy to find the rest, but Shya could do it. The ansible was one of the few things holding the Hundred Worlds together, and if she destroyed them...
She didn't know why she was fixed on this, why it was so important to her. Destruction. Of everything. It wasn't that she was hateful, or vengeful. She could have been mad, for all she knew, but she didn't think so. But she was bored of the universe, and the universe was bored of her, and this stagnation was more than she could bear.
So she would end it.
She didn't care if she died herself. She wasn't doing this for fame, not for fortune, not for greed. Just because it was...
Perfect.
The ansible search lead nowhere, of course. She should have known that it would. But what she found was better, so much better, so exquisite she could almost taste it. And somehow, she knew how to use it, how to make the universe crumble...
She sat. Turned her thoughts inward, completely inward, until nothing else was left but her tiny human pattern. Something changed, and she saw herself and the strings of pure energy that linked her to everything else, to every atom and molecule... The philotic bonds. And the she smiled, and took in a breath, and filled her mind with power.
Be not, she said to the bonds.
And everything was gone.
* * *