Ull said, “Insignificance! We revere no ceremonies.” And he whistled, and sent five dog things forward, three standing between Menelaus and the sarcophagus and two crouching atop it, muskets at port arms or dirks clenched between sharp, white teeth.
Menelaus backed away. “Then your words cannot be trusted.”
Ull did not stir, but merely gestured with a jerk of his chin toward Illiance. “The Preceptor has predominance in this area. It is better that he should speak.”
“Ah! In that case, with your permission, Mentor Ull, I will recover the book from the sarcophagus to present it to Preceptor Illiance…”
“Approach not the sarcophagus, neither to recover books nor other objects, neither for this nor for any purpose!” snapped Ull.
Illiance explained apologetically to Menelaus, “Any oath would be redundant: it is innate to the Way of Simplicity that the words of those of my order conform to our thoughts, and that our thoughts conform to reality.”
Menelaus turned and said in English to the Judge of Ages, “Your Honor, the defendant refuses to swear. He also wishes benefit of counsel. The little blue man sitting at your feet like a dog will do the talking. If that is acceptable to the court?”
The throned man showed no reaction on his face. He said merely: “Do the defendants understand the gravity of the charge they face?”
“I don’t think so, Your Honor.”
“Have the years forgotten my statutes and commandments? I am not to be wakened before the appointed time, no, nor none of those under my charge. Explain to the defendants that the penalty is mortal if no circumstances demanding leniency arise, and that both they, and all the civilization they represent, its records and accomplishments, stand in the dock! Repeat to them precisely my words!”
Illiance listened gravely while Menelaus translated.
Illiance said, “Reassure the Judge of Ages that our attention to his ceremonial is sincere, and we find this ritual quite interesting. Nonetheless, can he confirm his identity? There are some incongruities between his appearance and the description we were given.”
“He says he is the Judge of Ages. His exact words were these: My bride, is she yet here? My aeon, is it yet come?”
And because those words stuck in the throat of Menelaus, they came out hoarse and harsh, and with an echo of majestic anger, as if some dark, great power of the ancient world had spoken.
There was a visible stir of uneasiness among the Blue Men. Calm and reticent as they were, the recital of the phrase was like an unseen breath of silent winter moving among them, words that brought chill.
“Hear him!” Menelaus roared into the silence. “He demands to know why you dared rouse him from his long slumber. He demands to know why you seek and woke him.”
His voice echoed from the far wall.… why you seek and woke him …
Illiance seemed to need a moment to gather his nonchalance. “This we did for the simplest and most honorable reason imaginable: we wish him to judge our age and vindicate it.”
Menelaus stared at Illiance for so long that even the Blue Man, abnormally patient as he might be, grew restless under the hot gaze. Illiance said, “Am I unclear? The Judge of Ages must judge us. We wish to be preserved by him and not destroyed by him.”
Menelaus spoke in a soft, dangerous voice through clenched teeth. “You mean you want him to use the Tombs, and what is stored in them, for your benefit? If so, you have done exactly the opposite of what you need to do to win his favor. You have trespassed on his sanctuary, used his healing equipment to torture the weak, and killed the clients he vowed to protect. In order to deter generations yet unborn, to make them fear even to think about committing similar crimes, he must visit upon you a vengeance so huge that the echo and rumor of its terror must last fifty thousand years!”
Illiance nodded. “We find that regarding other men as means to an end, such as when the innocent are punished to deter the guilty, results in linguistic and conceptual complexities so convoluted as to become paradoxical. Hence considerations of the sort of which you speak are nonoperative with us.”
“You cannot get someone’s help by doing the things that make him your enemy! Are you totally insane?”
“Not insane. We think differently than relicts like yourself, but more directly.”
Menelaus said scornfully, “Direct is right! You directly mean to kill him.”
Illiance said, “A character from remote prehistory? Unlikely. What would be the motive? We are simple men, an order of ascetics. Abstract or symbolic motivations form no part of the principle to which our mental environment coheres.” Illiance gestured toward the chamber around him. “Behold, we have Followers and to spare, not to mention energy pistols and remote weapons; and yet here sits the Judge of Ages, unharmed, unmussed. If murder were our object, why would we have gone to such eccentric efforts to detect and thaw him? We could have consumed his sarcophagus with explosives, tampered with the feed, hoisted it aloft to dash it down the cliffs outside, or (more simply) stepped aside to observe the coming of the Bell.” Illiance shook his head dismissively, a gesture identical to that of a Dawn-Age man. It made him look more human than his normal expression. “Kill him? You have misconstrued our purposes.”
Mentor Ull spoke up, his voice high-pitched and querulous, “And you delay rather than aid the conversation, Beta Sterling Anubis, in which you have no part and which does not concern you! Please repeat the words given you to the Judge of Ages, promptly and accurately. It is not the endorsement of a middle-rank Chimera of limited mental accomplishment we seek, but the judgment of a being superior to human beings.”
Then Ull added, “… If this indeed be he!”
3. Priority
Mentor Ull stepped toward the throne, and spoke, “Relict Beta Anubis, ask the throned man to confirm that he is undeniably Menelaus Illation Montrose, and the Judge of Ages. The question of his identity is best settled definitively before further events proceed.”
At that same moment, the Judge of Ages stood up, and pointed the sword toward Ull. His voice rang, and his deep-set eyes had a cold stare. “Enough! Interruptions will be punished as contempt of court! Captain Sterling, do these blue dwarf men understand the firepower I have buried under my mountain?” This comment was in English.
Menelaus said, “Your Honor, this is not the facility under Cheyenne Mountain.”
“So, then … tell me where the hell I am.”
Menelaus was standing close enough that he could see the hollow look of shock in the man’s eyes, but the tone of voice was so even and calm that it carried no hint of the disorienting bewilderment which was behind the question.
“Fancy Gap in Carroll County, Virginia, inside a cave formation called Devil’s Den.”
“Fine. Tell the blue dwarf men I have a, uh, a den full of deadly weapons.”
Ull was staring at the sword, and did not wait for a translation. “What is he saying? Does this gesture indicate threat? Or is it a symbol of dominance? Please inform him of the circumstances of his environs. The coercive power at my call is sufficient to render such symbols incongruous.” He drew his pistol. The dog things brought their muskets to their shoulders with a metallic clatter of noise. The gun muzzles were pointed at the Judge of Ages. The dog muzzles were wrinkled in snarls.
Menelaus lunged up the dais, stepped before the throne, and spread his arms, so that his metal cloak hung like a drape, blocking Ull’s line of fire. “Mentor Ull, the sword is symbol of the dominion of justice, which must be orderly. Invigilator Illiance, you’d better say something to calm everyone down.”
Illiance said, “You know my task has been elevated to that of Preceptor.”
“I know, but you’ll get a demotion for sure if your dumb doggies here shoot the Judge full of explosive pellets.”
Illiance turned to Ull, and said, “Mentor, the time has finally come to present our case to the Judge of Ages. This is the reason for all this great effort, these distasteful and immoral acts, the coerci
on of people and conversion of property?” For the first time, a look of doubt, almost of fear, flickered across the face of Illiance, and one eyelid twitched and narrowed. “It is the reason justifying our otherwise unconscionable acts, is it not?”
Ull scowled and holstered his pistol. “Of a certainty. I merely prefer his identity be confirmed.”
The Judge of Ages said, “Captain Sterling, tell me what they said.”
Menelaus said, “An argument over pecking order, near as I can make out. The creepy-looking old bald dwarf was in charge a moment ago, but the nice young bald dwarf with puppy-eyes who looks like he’s high on tranquilizers is in charge now. He says he is not hunting for Montrose to kill him. We might as well believe him.”
“And what about the creepy-looking old bald dwarf?”
“Him? You and I will be lucky if we both make it out of here alive,” said Menelaus, not turning his head. “He thinks you are not Menelaus Montrose.”
The Judge of Ages stood, put his left hand on the shoulder of Menelaus, and gave it a squeeze. “Then let us act, for now, as allies and comrades, and let us do nothing to shame the name of Montrose, which must endure. All the future, no matter how remote, is just one slumber away.”
Menelaus turned and looked into the other man’s eyes, but he was not sure what expression to read there. He stepped aside.
4. Who Is Montrose?
The red-robed and white-wigged man, seated once more, again raised his blunted sword. “Sterling, tell them the Judge of Ages speaks: Let none here question my name nor my right to pass judgment. Hear me! I will tell you who is Menelaus Montrose.”
He spoke in a voice as if he were reciting a poem or play recalled from his youth: “Montrose is a man, a mortal man who has set himself the task of outwaiting eternity. His greatness is in the greatness of the obstacle he undertakes. That is who he is!
“What is his time? It shall be A.D. 70000 before the earliest possible date of the return of the Swan Princess Rania. She will spend the lion’s share of that eternity at near-lightspeed, such that no words of love or hope pass between her and the cold universe encircling, since one beat of her precious heart is as a year to us; or thousands of our years, to her, the space of a sigh.”
The man seated on the throne then did sigh, and silence filled the chamber around him.
“Men of the current and temporal world! Each hour, no, each moment of delay parting me from that sweet reunion and vindication is as torment! Who trifles with the Tombs of the Cryonarchy of Man? I myself am the First Cryonarch: all the slumbering dead below the Earth are mine. Do you think whatever few and soon-forgotten years the current kings or empires savor their suzerainty matter to me? Whatever greatness you pretend to possess is already dust to me. When you approach the Judge of Ages, remind yourselves that you, to him, are already things of the long-dead past. His heart lives at the date of her return, sixty thousand years from now; the rest of him, without his heart, endures here.
“Do not trifle with the Judge of Ages, for he is not a man of this time, nor of any time. He is a creature of eternity. Ask of him what you will, but ask at your peril, for he will answer from an eternal coign of vantage.
“Let those with petitions to set before me approach.”
Menelaus translated the words, and for some reason, his voice held a majesty and passion not present in the calm tones of the Judge of Ages.
There was no motion in the chamber, and no voice spoke.
5. Prayer
The Blue Men exchanged twitters in Intertextual. The discussion was technical. Montrose listened with curiosity. Illiance summed up their conclusions: “These words fit the established psychological pattern our negative information calculus has deduced as a normal axis for the person sought. If this is not he, then he composed those words, and this man here is merely reciting them, but this is dismissed as an unlikely eventuality.”
Illiance turned back toward the throne, and spoke again in Iatric. “Most of the surface of the Earth is glaciated, Your Honor. Where the glaciers have receded, only the most primitive biology has reestablished itself: lichen and moss, mushrooms and ferns, but no trees; insects and worms, but no mammals. In the areas surrounding old ruins, or the openings of Tombs, very small oases of older forms of life survive: tundra and taiga, grasses and pine, owls and foxes, and a plethora of simpler creatures.”
Montrose translated. The Judge of Ages asked, “Are you survivors of a war? Or, perhaps, a plague?”
“Consider us the survivors of a plague of Locusts,” said Illiance with a small, sad smile. “The genetic mechanism that ensures strict monogamy among us is counterproductive in situations where rapid repopulation is called for. We seek a biological corrective for this which your faculties could provide. Further, our inquisition has already established that reindeer, walruses, caribou, and other biotic forms which could prevail under current conditions are preserved somewhere in the Tomb system, here and at other sites.”
The Judge of Ages lifted his hand, looking stern. “Do you know the reason why the Giants from the time of the Great Consensus besieged my mountain?”
Illiance said, “Ah … not in every particular. The details are lost to history.”
“They held I was in violation of current laws against preserving biocontaminants. Many of the sick and ill my Tombs preserved were infected with vectors of diseases that Giants had both wiped out, and had lost the technological ability to detect and resist. Before you ask me to repeople your dying world, or restore some dead animal species to stock, I must be certain to introduce no malignancy to your ecology, except perhaps such things as the current generations of flora and fauna can combat. Each vector of the growth and predation and decay rate-changes between all participants in the food chain clusters must be extrapolated, especially of microscopic biota. The calculus involved is immense and immensely multivariable. Put me in contact with whatever self-aware computer system holds sovereign sway over the globe.”
Illiance said, “I express surprise and chagrin. Your Honor, there is none such.”
“Then put me in contact with the Xypotech sovereigns of other spheres. There are surely worlds and moons in space colonized by human intellectual machinery?”
“Your Honor, not to my knowing.”
Menelaus was confident that the Blue Men did not have the upbringing, and might not have had the right-hemisphere neural structures, necessary to interpret facial expressions correctly. They seemed to have as much trouble reading the nonverbal cues of unmodified men as anyone not a zookeeper might have reading the facial and social signals of a monkey. But Preceptor Illiance was slightly sharper, perhaps because of whatever brain modification he had done on himself at the plea of Oenoe the Nymph. Menelaus asked himself whether Illiance saw the Judge of Ages turn pale with shock, or saw his pupils dilate with fear, and whether he would interpret those signs correctly.
The man was breathing slowly through his nose, making a credible job of keeping his face as masked and closed as the face of a poker player. Preceptor Illiance seemed blithely unaware.
For the first time, the Judge of Ages seemed ill at ease. Menelaus was standing closely enough to see the man’s eye movement: his glance darted to the various musket-bearing dogs, pistol-bearing dwarfs, and armed automata positioned about the chamber; glanced at the only exit; looked at the coffin fire-control board and ammo register. But the reaction was still somewhat subtle, and he regained control of himself in a shorter period than might have been expected.
The Judge of Ages said, “What is the date?”
Menelaus answered without translating the comment. “It is A.D. 10515, sir. October thirty-first—Happy Halloween.”
The Judge of Ages said, “The World Armada of the Domination of the Hyades is expected to arrive in this solar system by A.D. 10917—which is in roughly four hundred years. Does the current generation have some method for increasing the rate at which a self-reproducing machine, such as a Von Neumann system, can break down the total m
ass of a planet and convert it to cognitive matter, into submolecular rod-logic diamonds, and so on? The estimates with which I am familiar were based—or so I thought—on theoretical maximums. We cannot possibly star-lift, mine, and convert a sufficient mass-energy of Sol to form a Dyson Sphere of self-aware logic diamond around the solar system within this time frame, not if the gas giants have not yet been converted to cognitive matter. Ask the Blue Men: was there some other plan developed by the current dominant subspecies of mankind to oppose the Hyades?”
Menelaus had to explain many unknown terms to Illiance. The Iatric language did not have words for megascale engineering, star-mining, inanimate thinking-substances, shells that englobed entire star systems, submolecular engineering, or any word for the idea of self-replicating machines. The combination of ideas—using nanotechnology to convert the gas giants into thinking machines, which would in turn skim hydrogen-helium plasma out of the sun and use the compressed and frozen metallic hydrogen to make a spherical thinking machine larger in diameter than the asteroid belt, and controlling all the electromagnetic forces generated by Sol and the Inner System—this required considerable explanation.
Before the full explanation was done, Preceptor Illiance held up a slender blue hand to interrupt. “Beta Sterling Anubis, please inform His Honor that there has been a misapprehension. We are Inquilines, not members of the Noösphere, which all evidence suggests has been annulled, perhaps destroyed. The Order of Simplified Vulnerary Aetiology hails from A.D. 8500 and later. I am one of the last members of my order, and I entered hibernation in the early Eighty-ninth Century. Of events of the intervening two millennia we have no knowledge and little indirect evidence.
“To our knowledge, there are no plans and never have been any to resist the Hyades by force of arms, not in any era of mankind except the very earliest. An examination of the Monument describes tactics and strategies beyond human power to resist. As has indeed proven to be the case.