The Architect of Aeons (7 page)

Del Azarchel said, “Did they speak?”

She said, “Never. Certain signs, taken from the Monument mathematics, were engraved on the outside of the immense dark vessels of the Armada, which walked the Earth as topless towers whose heads were in orbit. The message inscribed in the strange glyphs of these towers was simple and terrible:
The universe is filled with death. Planets are dead, suns are dead, all is dead.
And above this, it said
All life serves life
.”

“What in perfidious perdition does that mean?” asked Montrose.

“That you must ask one wiser than I. The towers reached down from the zenith and swept up cities and countryside, and by silent signs written in fire above the atmosphere, they beckoned the populations to enter the tower mouths. Lands that did not answer the summons, they burned with miniature suns. Then they pierced the Earth to the depth of many miles to siphon up countless cubic miles of the thinking core material, and left volcanoes behind them.”

Montrose said, “And men still attacked the skyhooks?”

“Not men. What could we do? The proud race of the Swans attacked, reckless, glorious, and burning as they died. The Swans struck with many weapons, with earthquake and lava and lightning and meteor strikes, antimatter and atomics. A time came when the topless towers lifted from the Earth and were seen no more. Cautiously the buried cities crawled through the magma to the thin places in the tectonic plates, and bored careful tunnels to the surface. First spies, then Chimerae, and finally the people emerged, and found a world restored to us, grass and trees and seas and beasts and birds, where we had expected lifeless lava or ice floes. No more attacks came. The dark giant, which hung for so long as a second moon in the sky, was gone. The heavens were at peace.”

Montrose said, “Are you saying they restored Earth's biosphere as a symbol of surrender?”

Del Azarchel said, “Or to set the world in order, now that she is theirs.”

“These things are not known to my rank of comprehension,” said Amphith
ö
e in a voice both grave and sweet. “I beg your permission to enquire on your behalf.”

When Del Azarchel nodded grandly, Amphith
ö
e turned and walked away on short, swaying steps to the ship's captain, the Melusine. To him she bowed, and, with head down, she spoke in a chiming, singsong language, which had some mathematical correspondences to Monument notation.

3. The Second Comprehension

When the Nymph conferred with the captain, Montrose snapped his fingers at Del Azarchel. “This is an IQ test. We had to talk to someone below the Secret classification before we get to talk to someone of the Top Secret classification. She is telling him we know stuff above her pay grade.”

Del Azarchel said, “They have established information strata to control the lower orders.”

Montrose snorted. “I shouldn't complain, but I will. I freed mankind from the invisible chains of your planned-out future so man could make what he wanted of himself. What he wanted was a hierarchy, with the top dogs lying like dogs to the underdogs. Sometimes, I gotta say, being a homo sap disgusts me.”

“It is your handiwork more directly than that, Cowhand. This is a resonance effect. As above, so below. Ah! But I forget you did not study cliometry as narrowly as I did, since you were only trying to destroy civilization, not mold it.”

Montrose snorted, but did not bother contradicting the lunatic accusation. Instead, he said, “What do you mean by a resonance effect?”

“You shall see in a moment,” said Del Azarchel, raising his hand. He gestured toward where Amphith
ö
e had backed away from the captain and stepped back to them, leading the tall Witch-woman in black robes.

Her eyelids had been cut away and replaced with lifelike appliances of gold foil, perhaps library cloth or magnification tissue, adorned with Coptic Eye designs so that her lids seemed open when they were closed. She wore wide gold hoops in both ears and both nostrils, dotted with what Montrose supposed were sensor points: molecular analysis gear on the nose rings, and directional sound-amplifying gear on the ear rings. The ear rings brushed her shoulders. The nose rings were so large that they hung past her jawline. Montrose wondered how she ate and drank.

Amphith
ö
e said, “This is our Intercessor, Zoraida.” And then she bowed and stepped backward out of earshot and knelt on the deck, head down. A tiny little angry line appeared between the eyebrows of Montrose at this.

Zoraida glided forward. She touched her left hand to her right elbow, raising her right hand toward them, fingers up, palm outward. “I am the Intercessor for the No
ö
sphere, and am allowed access to the Second Comprehension.”

The old Witch-woman spoke with an oddly ceremonial cadence to her voice, like one who recites lines in a play. Her hand gesture had a stiff formality to it.

Montrose, copying her gesture, raised his hand, palm out, saying solemnly. “
How!
Me Meany Montrose. Heap big chief, you savvy?”

Zoraida stared at him, blinking her gold eyelids, at a loss for words.

Del Azarchel's thumb twitched on the hilt sword at his side, pushing it half an inch out of the scabbard, loosening it for a quick draw, as he was no doubt imagining plunging the steel into and through the chest cavity of Montrose. But by a prodigy of iron self-control he twisted his face into a remarkably close impersonation of an engaging smile, and addressed the old lady.

“I am Ximen del Azarchel, father of your history, Master of the World once in Days Agone, to Master in Days to Come Again. We are delighted at the hospitality of your era, but slow, alas, to adapt to the circumstances you present to us. What, pray tell, is an Intercessor, and how does your office concern the matter at hand?”

She smiled at Del Azarchel and inclined her head. “I am this era's equivalent of a Hermeticist, but”—and now she pointed both hands toward Montrose in another gravely ceremonial gesture, right hand touching the amulet on her left wrist—“out of deference to your more democratic contemporary, the hermetic knowledge is spread among the civic populations and possessing classes. With every individual having access to a calculation machine able to predict the future to twenty decimal places, the political systems assign (as lore says once you did) periods of history to each faction for its use, and the Imperator Mundi in Ximenopolis establishes military metes and bounds and rules of engagement. The Imperial office is to keep wars below the threshold that otherwise would invite retaliation from the No
ö
sphere. Meanwhile”—and now she turned her hands toward herself—“my office is to bring you to the attention of our Swan, who otherwise occupies an intellectual level that would not be concerned with mortal things. Our Swan is of the Third Comprehension, and can answer questions above my competence.”

Del Azarchel said, “Did I rightly hear you that you acknowledge the office of Imperator Mundi, the Emperor of the World?”

Menelaus smiled when Zoraida said to Del Azarchel, “It may be indelicate for you to press a claim at this time, sir.” Mentally, he complimented her insight.

Del Azarchel said smoothly, “My interest extends in other directions, at the moment. Amphith
ö
e indicated that the Hyades won the war, but then simply departed? No governor nor taskmaster remained behind? That action seems irrational.”

“Half the world was taken,” answered Zoraida. “But the other half prevailed, such was the will of the Fates, and drove the ravaging horrors into the cold void once more. More than human influence was felt: earth and wave and welkin combined to repel the outer gods, and the lifeless elements themselves came alive with the spirit of war. The Virtue of Hyades did not tarry to work vengeance. They are governed by equations, not passions: our noble Swanlords made the cost too dear.”

“Then it was victory!” said Montrose, looking elated.

“A terrible victory, with appalling losses,” said Zoraida, looking grave. “A loss too great to mourn. But the alien presence was exorcised by the combined spirits of all terrestrial things, men and Swans and Ghosts, seas and rivers and woods and mists, fires and thunders.”

Del Azarchel said sardonically, “Yet some alien presence lingers, does it not? Amphith
ö
e spoke of a murk, and called it the blood of the black world. What is it?”

For an answer, Zoraida drew a chain from around her neck, and at the end of it was a many-angled node of semitransparent smoky black crystal that looked like a piece of onyx or amber, and inside, perfectly preserved and motionless, was a bumblebee.

Menelaus looked at the translucent lump, and said with quiet sarcasm to Del Azarchel, “Go ahead, Blackie. If you're right, that must be the Imperial Military Governor of the colony. Remember to salute when asking it for orders.”

Zoraida said, “The substance is in a solid phase now, as it was when it entered the atmosphere, but it can form clouds of vapor, and storm systems, and descend in liquid form as rain, or take upon itself a high-energy plasma form in retaliation for attempts to destroy it. At one time, fogbanks of the material hung across many river valleys, and settled soft and silent as pitch-black snow, paralyzing and entombing plants, animals, microbes. We know from creatures that were released that the murk is a biosuspension agent. We know from an increase in its ambient electrostatic activity, that the black substance absorbs photons at many bands of the spectrum, gathering information.”

Montrose now realized the lump was more than it seemed. He stared in fascination. “Nanotechnology?”

“No. Something finer. We call it picotechnology. Not engineering on the molecular level only, but also on the atomic. Cyclotron collision tests can only establish very crude models of the subatomic structure of the murk, but the current theory is that the protons, neutrons, electrons, and exotic particles involved are not organized according to standard electron shells levels. The Virtue of the World Armada was very thrifty to regather it, leaving only small traces. The No
ö
sphere speculates that the murk is actually a technology from a level above that of Kardashev II capacity. Not something manufactured by the Principality at Ain acting on its own. It is from a level of mental topography as far above Ain as Ain is above Tellus. Something the Domination of the Hyades Cluster manufactured, the entire mind occupying the whole cluster, whose stars are no more than cells in his brain.

“Only a few solid bits were left behind,” Zoraida continued. “There is a perfectly preserved hunting cat in a large crystal in the agora of Antananarivo, our capital city. We did not even erect a pagoda over it. When the murk is solid, it neither weathers nor mars, and nor the hands of tourists wear it, nor the knives of would-be graffiti-scribes scratch it, nor any energy weapon known to human or posthuman science.”

Zoraida handed the dark amber to Menelaus, who inspected it in wonder, and handed it to Del Azarchel.

Menelaus said, “You said a few solid bits of that black murk was left behind. That's all?”

Zoraida smiled. “I did not mean to imply that: I meant nonsolid bits were left in larger amounts. Your language is difficult for me, since my nervous system operates by different semiotics at the base level than yours. No, there are small pools and ponds of the substance in its liquid form, which to approach is death for Earthly organisms. And there are clouds. The weather control system of the No
ö
sphere operates primarily by sending electron beams into the atmospheric murk clouds, so that their agitation will produce wind or heat along the desired vector.”

She pointed upward. “I do not know how good your senses are, My Lord, Your Honor, but the gray black cloud like a thunderhead, flat on the bottom, which follows this vessel—can you see it? Such a cloud follows the vessels of all Swans. It provides the wind and hence the motive power. Consider it a trophy of triumph. It is free energy, because the cloud will chase the provocation beam the Swans employ to annoy it. The sails allow us to tack against his winds, and so, at times, we can take the vessel in the direction opposite of the desire of the Swan.”

The old woman smiled apologetically and shrugged. “We believe he takes the matter with philosophical resignation, since he can range with his mind farther and more completely than any physical body. But I am careful, as befits my Intercession, to restrict human interference in posthuman things to gentle annoyances, in faith that those great spirits who control the winds and destinies will, if it pleases them, reciprocate, and be gentle with us. One must be careful from tiniest clues to extrapolate their moods.”

Del Azarchel listened with only two or three of his centers of attention. With the other part of his mind, he said, “Are these murk clouds where the alien intellectual machinery is hid?”

Zoraida looked at a loss. “Is this cognitive matter? If so, it should be gathered into some far place, for it cannot be destroyed.”

Del Azarchel was disturbed. “Madame, I mean no disrespect, but you have been conquered by a force so superior to us, that you are unaware of the conquest.”

Montrose said, “He's just sad because he hates to see freedom enjoying itself. Pay him no mind. It ain't much of a conquest if the conquerors never give orders, never say nothing, is it?”

Zoraida's look was slowly stiffening into a look of fear. “But they did.”

“Did what?” asked Montrose.

“Give orders.” Zoraida shook her head sadly, and raised her arm. Clasped around her wrist was a heavy bracelet of red metal, a twin to the band on the wrist of Del Azarchel. “I can read the Monument by adjusting my brain chemistry to the levels which you two discovered in prehistory. I was one of those few, in my youth of long ago, posted to the surface of the world during the invasion. I saw with my own eyes what was written on the hull of the skyhooks. I saw more than one lower its endless length through the thunderstorms to crack the earth in lava spouts, and pull all the works of man into its mouth, and millions of men and tens of millions. I read the hieroglyphs written on the hulls.
Life is enslaved to life
.”