Lodestar

Shimizu, Hassan. Private papers under elliptic-curve cryptographic lock.

Discourse on the political realities of the City is suppressed. My last seven papers have been rejected by every major journal on Earth, surely the work of private censors.

Should I try to continue my work on CDM or enter the field of more direct paracausal studies, I'm sure to remain unpublished. Hari-5's unproven speculation that only OWL Sector is allowed to study Darkness among mortal researchers seems increasingly likely to be correct.

Within my lifetime, I have seen cultural shifts among Lightbearers in the Last City. In my youth, the element of Void was seen as closest to the Dark. In my adulthood, Darkness—Stasis, Strand, speculative elements as yet undiscovered—has shifted from taboo to standard toolset. The final stigma among the Tower's Guardians is against rogue Lightbearers who attack Ghosts, the source of their paracausal abilities, directly.

However, the shift in perception of Darkness among Lightbearers has not been equaled by a shift in their perception of mortal researchers.

Arc is a power humanity has harnessed for centuries. Among the Guardians, it stands with Solar Light as an element seen historically as almost entirely positive—salutary, in fact. (See Karn, "Sociobiology of the Immortal," chapters five and six.)

Arc is kindly, and friendly, and unimpeachable. So must I be until more change comes and the censors move on to other fears.

There can be no complaint about my turning to work on matters that Guardians see as nothing but good for them.

Certainly not if I give them the results of that research.