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More than once, he found himself questioning this mission in its entirety. The Prime wanted to assist everyone and reserve the value judgments for later, once Blacksong was successfully averted, but the longer that Gohvis-Aeha spent out here, so detached from the network, the more he wondered if it might not be better to turn on one of these annoying jackasses first. Or both of them, even. It seemed apparent enough that they deserved it.

Turning on Germal would be the most problematic, though. The Prime had devoted an enormous amount of time and effort to studying mutant physiology, and Germal had been one of the most useful subjects to that end.

In fact, it was not an exaggeration to say that the network itself may never have come to fruition without studying the so-called Liar of Lyste.

The split personality that existed within Germal’s mind had been the basis for the network’s creation. From that starting idea, the Prime learned to divide his own consciousness by aspects of personality and thereby create free-thinking, self-governing psychic projections.

It had taken many years, of course. As far as the Prime could discern, this technique was truly groundbreaking. The great difficulty of it had been striking the right balance. The personality aspects were important for the generation of new, independent thought, but at the same time, if that independence was too strong, then the more deeply held values within the Prime’s psyche would be at risk of changing within the projections.

Which would cause a clash of more than mere personalities.

That was where the network came in--and why it was so important. The desire to maintain the network had been baked into each projection at the most basic level. They yearned to stay connected--and ached terribly when forced to sever the link, even briefly.

It certainly didn’t make this fight any easier, either. Dealing with such a distracting feeling in the midst of keeping himself and everyone else alive at the same time--it was like trying to juggle flaming torches while starving to death.

He was not having a good time.

And of course, Morgunov and Germal refused to work together, even against the feldeath. They were constantly taking pot shots at one another, with Morgunov’s being especially deadly to deal with.

The Mad Demon didn’t often use his power this way. His mastery over integration, combined with pan-rozum, allowed him to create quite complex machinery out of almost anything. Not as complex as the “Roberts,” as he was apparently calling them, but still.