"That is the clean way," Noah said. "The philosopher's way. You would like it. It is almost bloodless."
"And the second?"
Noah's endlessly blue eyes cooled.
"The second is not bloodless at all."
"A Provenance Lifeform is true. That is what it is, all the way down, a truth that generates itself and owes nothing. But a truth is only a truth as long as it is whole. So the second way is not to argue with the truth. It is to divide it. You do not try to overpower a sovereign existence and you do not try to trick it into doubt. You get inside the one indivisible thing it is, and you split it into two things that are each almost it, and then you make those two halves true against each other."
His voice stayed level.
