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She tried to consider her next words a bit more carefully than her last ones. “What was the nature of your relationship with him?”

Gohvis allowed that question to linger for a while before answering it. “He was like a father to me.”

“...That is difficult to imagine,” she said.

“Then don’t.”

She frowned. “He wasn’t a member of Abolish, was he?”

“No.”

“Were you with Abolish back then?”

“No.”

“Then...?”

“Then, what?” said Gohvis. “Ask a clear question.”

She wanted to, certainly, but she was afraid. She was abruptly on the verge of asking what she most wanted to know, what she had been wondering ever since she’d arrived here and begun learning more about Gohvis. It was perhaps the single most important question that she could possibly ask, but even though she finally found a good opportunity to pose it, she was somehow terrified of what the answer could be. She felt as if everything she knew about the world might be called into question if she heard it, as if such an answer might simply undo her as she currently knew herself.

But...

She still had to ask. She couldn’t stop herself. “Then... why are you with Abolish now?”

“Because Abolish, at least, understands the greater problem facing this planet,” said Gohvis.

“Which is?”

“Humanity itself, of course.”

Emiliana didn’t know what to say to that.

“Abolish has many different ideas about how to deal with the problem of humanity,” said Gohvis. “Some of those ideas, it must be said, are mad. Yes. But such ideas are still attempting to address the problem, instead of merely ignoring it, as the Vanguard does. As everyone does.”

“And what is the problem of humanity, precisely?”

“In a word? Growth.”

She was even more lost than before. That hadn’t been the word she would have expected.

“Humanity requires growth,” said Gohvis. “In all things. Biological, philosophical, technological, psychological. Humanity requires growth. Growth requires struggle. Struggle requires conflict. And conflict? Conflict requires instigation.”