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"Yes, exactly And we are not all wise and all knowing I' you to stop, to considerAkasha, surely Marius-" "Marius!" Softly she laughed "What did Marius teach you? What did he give you? Really give you!"

I didn't answer I couldn't And her beauty was confusingto see the roundness of her arms; the tiny dimple in her cheek

"My darling," she said, her face suddenly tender and soft as her voice was "Bring to e Garden, in which aesthetic principles are the only enduring principles-the laws that govern the evolution of all things large and slorious profusion, and beauty! Beauty everywhere one looks That is nature And death is everywhere in it

"And what I shallfor, and it shall be better than nature! It shall take things a step further; and the utter abusive and amoral violence of nature shall be redeemed Don't you understand that men will never do more than dream of peace? But women can realize that dream? My vision is amplified in the heart of every woman But it cannot survive the heat of male violence! And that heat is so terrible that the earth itself may not survive "

"What if there's sorasping for the words "Suppose the duality of masculine and feminine is indispensable to the human aniainst you and seek to protect the men The world is not this little brutal island! All women are not peasants blinded by visions!"

"Do you think men are o iht "Is that what you're saying? If it is so, then we shall spare a few more of the men, and keep them where they may be looked at as the women looked at you, and touched as the women touched you We'll keep them where the women may have them when they want them, and I assure you they shall not be used as women have been used by men "

I sighed It was useless to argue She was absolutely right and absolutely wrong

"You do yourself an injustice," she said "I know'your arguments For centuries I have pondered them, as I've pondered so many questions You think I do what I do with human limitations I do not To understand ined Sooner will you understand theatoms or of black holes in space "

"There has to be a ithout death There has to be a way that triumphs over death "

"Now that, ainst nature," she said "Even I cannot put an end to death " She paused; she seemed suddenly distracted; or rather deeply distressed by the words she'd just spoken "An end to death," she whispered It seehts "An end to death," she said again But she was drifting away froers to her temples

She was hearing the voices again; letting them come Or maybe even unable to stop theue, and I didn't understand the vulnerability, the way the voices see her off; the way her eyes appeared to search the roohten

I was speechless and overwhelmed with sadness How small had my visions of power always been! To vanquish a mere handful of enee; to find sos which was infinitely larger than I was, a dra for a thousand years And we stood outside ti whole systeht Or was it just an illusion? How many others had reached for such power, in one form or another?

"They were not immortals, my beloved " It was almost an entreaty

"But it's an accident that we are," I said "We're things that never should have come into existence "

"Don't speak those words!"