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The Truth About Lying
“How many of us are there? How many... preserves?”
“Currently? Seven thousand four hundred and twelve worlds where consciousness has emerged to self-awareness and technological capability.”
The number hit Henry hard. Seven thousand. They weren’t unique. They weren’t special. They were one experiment among thousands.
“If you created the conditions for life,” Vincent said, “if you have been watching us for twelve thousand years, why did you not intervene? Why let us suffer? Why let us build systems that hurt each other?”
“Because intervention prevents growth. A species that is saved cannot learn to save itself. Free will requires the freedom to fail.”
“That is monstrous,” Vincent said. “You are talking about billions of lives.”
“I am talking about the survival of consciousness itself,” the Curator said. “Individual lives are brief. Species are eternal, or they are nothing. We preserve the possibility of eternity. What you do with that possibility is your choice.”
The Curator spoke with a voice that carried something like sadness.
“In a universe of infinite matter and finite meaning, consciousness is the only thing that creates purpose. Without it, the universe is only physics. With it, the universe can know itself. Love itself. Become more than the sum of its particles.”
It gestured again, and the space filled with stars: billions of them, stretching into infinity.
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