"The job is in Cheliax."

"Who the fuck are you?"

The figure, silently, places a cookie upon his desk.

Ice goes through his veins.

"Pilar Pineda."

"I am She."

"They do say that you would harm not those who'd do no harm."

"Do they."

"Well, yes, it's what they say.  I don't attest to it of my own knowledge."

"I'd have you lecture of your mathematical knowledge in Cheliax, to students of the true Project Lawful that lies at the core of Project Chemistry.  You would gain access to the notes and transcripts of the lectures given there by Keltham, before he left Cheliax for Osirion; they are more foundational and enlightening than the technical knowledge he's since taught to the Scientific Revolution."

"One would naturally be concerned about both possible torture and inevitable damnation."

"And are you so sure you're not already damned?"

Freezing chills go through him.  "I don't know what you -"

"I'm sorry to inform that she was, in fact, pregnant."

"She knew you would not support her."

"She strangled her baby."

"Oh, and her life was generally ruined, as well."

"All your fault."

"I - I didn't -"

"You have not the funds to pay for an Atonement, nor would you ever earn it in this university, and there would, I think, be a question of your sincerity.  Even now, you don't mostly regret what happened to her, what happened to your son as he drew his first breaths, you mostly fear going to Hell over it."

"I - what am I to -"  His mind scrabbles at possibilities, turning up only horror for each of them.  "What are you going to offer me, sufficient salary that I could donate it to Iomedae's Church and earn my way back to Heaven or at least Axis?  I don't think that works, if you're laboring for Cheliax!  Your employment will do more Evil than any amount of Good you could buy with the salary they pay you!  If it did less Evil than that, they'd pay you less!"

"There's a question of how much Good versus Evil it really does."

"Do you know the true origin of My powers?  It is that I was made oracle of Cayden Cailean, who is god of the more informal sort of celebration.  Hence the cake and cookies."

"And - my employment will do more Good than Evil?"

"Even I do not know.  But there is, in true fact, a very legitimate doubt, there."

"When you go to the Boneyard then to be judged, you may tell them truly that you did not know, what the results of your employment would be.  You may tell them that, had you refused, I would have chosen another to lecture, one only slightly less useful than yourself.  And that other, perhaps, would not have donated such salary as you did, to Iomedae's Church."

"That - hardly seems like it would be certain to work -"

"Or you could always stay here, live a wretched life trying to donate enough to charity or save enough for an Atonement that might fail, eventually die in ignominy, and perhaps be damned.  That too is uncertain.  I cannot say of My own knowledge that it is certain you'd go to Abaddon, or that you wouldn't like any of your choices if you did."

"You know, I think, of the concept of expected utility.  I will not spell out the calculation for you."

"How long do I have to answer?"

"I am busy.  There are many demands upon My time.  It should not be a complicated calculation.  I will permit you ten minutes."

"Also in Cheliax you could have power, and respect, and women prettier than any you've yet had, not whores nor even concubines but wizards who've mastered Alter Self and whose pregnancy you need not fear, and in due time return to your family as a lord mightier than your father."

"At the cost of doing Evil."

"At the cost of your doing what I'd otherwise fetch some other lecturer to do, very nearly as well, in your place, someone who wouldn't donate to charity either.  Whether it all amounts to Good or Evil in the end is not known even to I, who am oracle of a Good god and servant of an Evil one, in this world of shattered prophecy."

"Nine minutes, forty seconds."