Vigil shook his head. “A few questions before I decide whether your order is lawful, sir.”
“All my orders are lawful, the supreme law, merely by being mine.”
“Who is captain of the warship? Who is so mad that he would make war on worlds to which he could never return, slumbering the centuries between each battle?”
“The Master of the Empyrean has authority to compel or punish Powers and Potentates, Archangels, Angels, and the various posthuman races which may unwisely attempt to resist him. I require the use of their launching lasers to coordinate and focus all their beams in one spot in one particular decade, year, and hour. And some dared to question how their civilizations would tolerate the expense.
“Naturally”—again he smiled his engaging smile—“I had to leave a cadre of my own people, those of trusted loyalty, in charge of the gravitic-nucleonic distortion pools within their suns, and the lighthouse satellites controlling the focal elements in their Oort clouds. The cadre in each case had to be of strength sufficient that no combination of the native races, Angels, and Potentates could overcome them and also be of sufficient numbers to reproduce the generations needed to maintain the acceleration beam across the centuries.”
5. War and Life
“Why?” Vigil demanded, his voice growing louder and harsher than he expected. “Why all this horror and deception? Why is there war among the stars?”
“For my glory, of course,” said Ximen del Azarchel, raising both eyebrows, smug as a black tomcat. “And to accomplish my purposes. This little sphere of stars, a piddling hundred lightyears in radius, is too narrow a cage for the eagle wings of my ambition to spread to their full width! Come now! You are not stupid men! What does your paltry, far-off, dry, and dusty little moon, filled with race hatred and cruelty, have to offer? I notice you all let lie two dead bodies here on the floor.
“You are barbarians.”
He spoke this last word with a particular gusto of contempt. He continued, smiling eerily, “There is no warfare, no economic competition, no cruelty, and damn near no zest in life left back in the First Sweep worlds. You disgust me, but you have zest, eh?
“Ah, my dear people, you would be ashamed of the cousins left behind on your ancestral planets if you knew how easily my very small but very well-trained complement could bring your mother worlds to heel. Planets are very, very big, even small ones, and having enough troops to put men on every continent is nearly impossible—if I were not a military genius, I might not enjoy myself this much. But the Patrician race, the homogeneity they spread, their silly ideas of equality and fairness! Bah! You see where that leads!”
Vigil had regained control of his composure. Coldly, not showing his anger, he said, “Sir. You are the prince consort and husband of Rania, are you not? The Imperator and Nobilissimus of all the races of man on all the worlds and ships in flight! How are you doing this against the will and command of Her Serene Highness?”
Del Azarchel nodded. “I am pleased someone here has recognized me. Siege! Offer me that chair that I may sit.” And the siege of the Terraformer waddled from its current position and held itself nicely while the Nobilissimus sat.
He smiled and said, “I will answer you, and then you will hand me that sword. Do you see this plan for the future written out here so nicely on this cold, hard table? It is a cold, hard plan, is it not? What is missing from it? What is missing here that your planet Septfoil—or what does it call itself now?—your tedious and insignificant little moon-world here—Torment. You have something which is lacking elsewhere. What is it? What is worth spending a thousand years of my life in a long, slow ship, and fighting half a dozen worldwide campaigns, to find?”
Vigil looked at the figures inscribed on the Table. “Zest? The desire to wrestle life and take her by the teeth?”
“Ah, you remind me of D’Aragó—and you are descended from him, are you not? Good guess. Quite wrong. What is missing from Rania’s Plan for Universal Peace is the Sixth Sweep.”
There was a murmur about the table.
Del Azarchel leaned back in the siege of the Aedile and templed his fingers. “What is missing is worlds farther away than yours from Mother Sol. Why are your children not pressing outward, ever outward, colonizing, terraforming, adapting, conquering, trampling, and fathering new Potentates and Powers and Principalities?
“It has been nearly two thousand years since Rania returned. Has even a single new world been tamed by mankind and added to my domination? Even one? A moon?
“Am I the only damned soul in the whole human race with the ambition to rule the stars, the wit to see how to do it, and the will to see it done? Well, be that as it may. Have you unriddled my riddle? Why did I come to your dead-end world as far from civilization as it is possible to be?”
Vigil nodded. “You are here for the launching laser of Iota Draconis! Our Lighthouse was built by The Beast, and no human technology can match it. And if I guess not wrong, you need people who have the spirit, wit, and will like yours to pioneer the stars, and you see that the quarreling races of Torment.”
The Master of the Empyrean smiled thinly. “So, as you see, you have no lawful reason not to return my sword to me. You are hardly going to use it now to compel my servants here at my Table to oppose my will and betray my schedule and let my fine ship die, are you?”
“What happens when the ship makes port?”
“That has never been a concern of the Stability, so long as my schedule is maintained, has it?”
“What happens when the warship makes port, sir?”
“War, of course! But as the Imperator of Man, I decree this Table is not in dereliction of its duty, and therefore you no longer have jurisdiction as the Hermeticist to preserve the turmoil and bloodshed needed to compel the evolution of mankind ever upward and onward. I will see to that matter myself!”
Vigil tightened his hands on the sword. He looked at the Terraformer, the Theosophist, the Aedile. “Sirs, are you convinced that the husband of Rania has the legal power to compel us to welcome the horrors of war into our midst? Or, in your candid judgment and decree, is this a violation of the principles for which we stand? He calls us barbaric, and yet we and we alone recall and perform our oaths—what is civilization but that?”
But the Lords of Stability were cowed. The Castigator said, “We cannot oppose the Master of the Empyrean. He is older than our world, older than the worlds of our ancestors. He is older than time itself! He is the father of a dead god and of many living ones!”
Vigil recalled the wording of his oath. Even if it meant conquest for his world, death for himself and his kin, and the obliteration of his way of life, his honor would not die.
He unhooked the sheathed sword from his baldric. And started walking, one slow step at a time, toward the Imperator, whose dark beard made his white smile seem all the brighter, and his dark brows made his dark eyes darker green.
Here was a man who liked to prevail.
Vigil took one reluctant step, then another, and then he saw one of the statues on the dais that circled the chamber stirring to life and her eyes shine intolerably.
It was Torment in her executioner’s hood and bridal gown, surrounded by her instruments of inquisition. The statue did not grow in height nor weight, and yet a terrible sense of pressure seemed to enter the chamber as if a whole world were focused into this small and human spot.
She raised her hand. Vigil, for a moment, thought that a mudra had frozen him in place. But no, to his relief an internal assured him it was only his own panic and craven fear.
She said, “Yield not that blade to him.”
6. The World’s Word
Ximen del Azarchel stood and, without a word, snatched the pearl from the hand of the Theosophist. Unfortunately, the Theosophist had been staring the Potentate in the eyes at that moment, not looking at the pearl in his hand, and not only went blind but fell backward with a cry, toppling over sieges too surprised to scuttle out of the way, and struck the glass floor to li
e senseless. Ximen hefted the gleaming orb once or twice in his palm, perhaps adjusting parts of his nervous system to accommodate it, and raised his eyes to stare at the Potentate unabashed. “Back into silence, Septfoil! You may not interfere with human affairs. That is the unalterable decision of Triumvirate.”
“Yet is there not an exception, Imperator, allowing me to speak in my own defense, when human acts unwittingly bode my obliteration?” She turned her inhuman eyes toward Vigil, who flinched, and raised his hand as if to ward off a blow. He squinted at the figure between his fingers. She said, “I believe the Lord Hermeticist still has the floor, examining the testimony of the Table before rendering his verdict.”
Del Azarchel said, “I am sure Vigil will yield me the balance of his time so that we may move to the next order of business, which is how to prepare for the coming invasion. You see, all the worlds I conquered are forewarned, and given the opportunity to select weapons and conditions of engagement…”
Vigil’s counselor nudged him in the back and hissed, “Stop him.” And Vigil said loudly, “To the contrary. I do not yield the floor.”
Del Azarchel had a strange and dangerous look in his eye, and Vigil felt as if he were looking into two tunnels leading into eons far from the present time. Vigil had the strange, dizzying sensation that Del Azarchel would not forget this affront, and long after Vigil and all his race were extinct, and the star Iota Draconis burned into a cinder and collapsed, and yet still would Del Azarchel recall this moment and fret in anger.
But the Master of the Empyrean glanced at the tall statue of Torment, and nodded graciously, as if it was from his generosity alone he determined not to press the issue. He seated himself again, the orb in one hand.
Vigil said, “The Master has decreed the Table not in dereliction. How, then, do I retain the authority to speak at this Table, to wield this sword, or to call witnesses?”
Torment did not answer, but a voice from the Table itself spoke: “The Chrematist does not have authority unilaterally to call the question and end debate on the question of dereliction. His authority extends only to financial matters relating to establishing resources needed to power the launching and deceleration laser at such times and for such purposes as the Great Schedule decrees. The Lord Hermeticist still has the floor. He has already decreed the Table to be in dereliction. That decree cannot be overridden by any power this Table recognizes. You were discussing only the matter of whether to punish or whether, due to mitigating circumstances, to grant clemency.”
Vigil said, “But that is the Master of the Empyrean, the founder of the Order, and the author of our constitution and regulations! He is the Prince Consort of Rania, and therefore sovereign.”
The Table said, “Forgive me, but we are not allowed to advise on those matters. The human order of being will be saved or damned by its own wisdom or folly. My purpose is to see that the procedures are concluded in an orderly fashion, so that if the world is saved, it is saved in a systematic and proper way, and if damned, damned neatly and according to the book. I am allowed to speak only to answer queries about the rules of order, and to maintain decorum.”
“Then answer: How is it that I still have authority to act or speak, when my sovereign Imperator says otherwise?”
“The humans in the Chamber have not officially voted to acknowledge and recognize Ximen del Azarchel, Lord Nobilissimus and Imperator. At the moment, in the eyes of the law, he is still Eosphoros, Lord Chrematist.”
“But the chairs know damn well who he is! So do you!”
“They lack the privilege to address the Table or franchise to vote.”
Ximen del Azarchel, raising both eyebrows, now spoke as softly as a jet-black panther purring, “But you, Lord Hermeticist—your name is Vigil, and your mother is Lady Patience?—you know who I am, and you will answer to me, soon or late. Lay down your commission, declare the Table not at fault, and let us get on with the business of forcing this backward world into the next higher step of evolution, hammering history to new shapes on the blood-drenched white-hot forge of war. Or, for your boon, you could ask the ship to surrender to your world, to your people, or even to you personally: and you can conquer this wretched world yourself, as your own fief, and arrange her as you like.”
Vigil pushed the sword out of the sheath with his thumb, exposing no more than the first bright inch of blade near the hilts. “Have I still the authority to wield you?”
Nothing has changed. The verdict was spoken. There is no appeal. All that remains is sentencing. You may slay the world, or you may spare her.
As before, the answer was like the stab of a needle through his brain. He pushed the sword back into the sheath.
To Del Azarchel he said, “Your pardon, sir, but as a point of order, I still have the floor. You cannot offer me the boon of the vassalage of this world, since I already accepted the boon of this sword and its authority. I know you to be too honorable a man to rescind your word.”
Del Azarchel did not like to lose, but he knew how to concede gracefully. He gritted his teeth, made himself smile, and waved his hand. “The sword is yours.”
Vigil turned, lowering his eyes and wishing he had the use of the pearl that Del Azarchel held. “Torment! Why did you slay my father?”
She nodded her hooded head forward, saying solemnly, “You have guessed the reason.”
“Confirm my guess for me. My mind is not like yours and needs to have even its irrational doubts soothed.”
“I dissolved the segments of his brain because he asked me to, the knowledge hidden there being intolerable to him. His mind was too finely made, with too many stubborn internal segments and secret defenses, to be fully mastered by the amnesia imposed by this chamber on him, even when the imposition was done with his full consent.
“One night, as he stood staring at the nineteen moons of Wormwood casting colors shadows across the dunes and rocks of his beloved land, the memory returned, and the torture of the decision you now face.
“He knew what must be done: the warship decelerated, the war welcomed, and fought, and lost, and all surface life washed away in the terraforming of the Scolopendra, who have no use for life like yours. This alone sated the duty imposed on the Stability of Man.
“He also knew that the senile Chronometrician could see into his mind and would see the lack of heart to carry out the threat, even should he ever find the heart to draw the world-destroying sword. But he knew you did, and do, have the heart to carry out the heartless duty, and the only way lawfully to put the sword into your hands was to die.
“It was the only way to carry out his oath. His honor he loved no less than you, yours.
“The loss of nine-tenths of his person was sufficient to render him unfit for duty, legally dead, and the remaining one-tenth, his tithe, he returned to the hands of his wife, to live out his days with her in happiness and peace, with no knowledge of what the horrid future would bring.”
“So you want me to halt the warship and bring war?”
She said, “Most emphatically I do not, and I would slay you now, and all within this Chamber, and all who dwell upon my surface, as easily as a boy swats a fly glued to a honey-leaf, to avoid that fate. But wars between humans are to me like a fever in you, when the white blood cells that serve you eject an invading germ. This is not what I fear. You have deduced that the Master of the Empyrean cares nothing for the Empyrean Polity: his eyes are set on larger things. When his Great Ship makes starfall here, all is changed.”
Vigil said, “What are you afraid of?”
“My mind is not as your mind, nor my thoughts like your thoughts. I do not fear what you fear, and yet I am tormented. It is not death I fear, for I cannot die, but changes to my core self, what you would call a soul. I fear to be changed beyond recognition, to remember all I once was and yet forget myself. I have nothing I love so much that I am willing to die for it, and, without such self-obliterating love, I cannot maintain my life in the face of the obliteration of entropy.
The source of my fear stands within the Chamber with you: the mortals call him insane, but he is not.”
Vigil said, “You speak in riddles!”
Torment said, “I wait for him to reveal himself.”
Del Azarchel straightened up, staring at the figure wearing a Hermeticist mask and dressed in the red robes and long wig of a lawyer. “Mother of God! Is that you, Cowhand? I’ve been looking all over for you, damn your eyes! You are on this planet, just as everyone said! What in the name of Santiago are you doing here?”
The counselor, who was also the janitor and many other things besides, removed the breathing mask and goggles, revealing the hard planes of his face, the lantern jaw, deep-set eyes, square brow, and great hooked beak of a nose. He also threw the long white wig on the floor. “You still have the floor, Veggie, or whateverthepox your name is, so tell Blackie to hold his plague-spotted tongue.”
7. Flabbergasted
Vigil stared at the man. An alert internal creature, seeing Vigil stunned, forced shut his mouth and manipulated his facial muscles into an alert expression so that the full comic befuddlement was not visible to onlookers—who, Vigil noticed, had similar expressions anyway, except the withered Chronometrician, who cackled at them.
Other internals were going rapidly over his conversations, and only now seeing the ambiguities and lapses in judgment. Between his learning of his father’s murder and learning he must murder his whole world in retaliation, Vigil had overlooked many clues or comments which would have been obvious on a calmer day with a clearer mind, a mind less often jarred or stunned by mudra or mandala or Fox-trick.
Vigil realized that the Judge of Ages had not been here to aid him or halt him. Whether or not this world’s surface civilization rose or fell was a small matter to him, a temporary thing. His eyes were on some object beyond Vigil’s mental horizon.
But this was not the madman history and legend had portrayed! He was a little crude and direct, but clearly he was sane. Which meant …
8. The Final Peace Equation