The Vindication of Man

by John C. Wright

  The other two watchmen grabbed the valet roughly by either arm and flourished their wands. From the wand tip issued a mudra indicating peace, and the valet’s arms and legs jerked in odd response, as the ability to make violent motions was removed from his nervous system.

  The valet, his arms pinned, said quickly, “Say the words, Weapons fired, officer down. Then say the words, Emergency condition declared.”

  The officer jumped to his feet. “I am not down!”

  But it was too late. Vigil had spoken the words, and the lanterns had changed color to orange.

  The seneschal said in panic, “Stop that man from talking! He is a lawyer!” And a watchman waved his wand in the face of the valet, but the valet was wearing the air mask Vigil had discarded, which was the mask of a Lord of the Stability, whose words could not be overridden.

  The watchman was shocked when the valet spoke again, “Establish rank!”

  Vigil knew this part of the regulations. He kicked his boot heels together, and without unsheathing the sword, he made it emit a signal of white noise on the weapon frequency.

  The seneschal and the watch officer turned in outraged astonishment. But they both knew the meaning of the posture Vigil assumed, and the radio-pulse of the sword: I am ranking officer and take command.

  The seneschal composed his face and returned a salute of submission. At your orders, sir. And, after a long pause, the watch officer did also.

  The valet said, “Relieve the watch officer of command. Take his wand and tap me on both shoulders with it.”

  Vigil understood this as well. The ranking officer had authority to appoint the watch during emergencies in the name of the master of the ship. In order for the real Officer of the Watch to overrule him, the doors to the Chamber would have to be opened. Vigil waved at the two watchmen holding the valet back, and, when they did not respond, he indicated them to stumble backward with a mudra of authority.

  Vigil struck the valet on the shoulder. “Do you solemnly swear and remember to discharge the duties and—”

  “Pox, yes,” snapped the valet. He plucked the peace wand out of Vigil’s surprised hand, extended it, and struck the seneschal near the ankle of his tall and unsteady shoes with the wand butt, triggering some mudra whose shape Vigil did not recognize. The seneschal fell down on the marble floor.

  Vigil played the scene back in his memory, but he was unable to get a fix on the position of the wand, so he could not tell whether the seneschal fell because of the mudra discharge or because of the blow to his foot. Another possibility was that the mudra had been set to release the valet from the imposition on his nervous system and allow him to complete a violent motion of striking the seneschal in the foot.

  The valet, now the chief watch officer, said, “I place you under arrest for being drunk and disorderly while on post! For thinking impure thoughts on steamboat landings, and for mopery with intent to creep!”

  The seneschal on the floor looked up, swatting at the eager hat which kept trying to jump back on top of his head. “I am not drunk! Nor do I mope! I call upon the doors to witness! I fell due to the criminal assault and battery of that lunatic!”

  A voice from the door spoke in an ancient language, which Vigil understood. “Falling to the deck while on duty is an unusual behavior and forms sufficient cause to suspect intoxication.”

  Vigil understood. The position and motion of the wand had not been recorded into the environment memory. The doors had not seen the cause of the fall. Whether this weapon-blindness was a legal courtesy extended to bailiffs, or was a product of the mudra the wand had issued, or was a Fox-trick the valet had accomplished, Vigil did not know.

  The ancient voice continued, “Both parties are under arrest, pending investigation, as no disorder during emergency condition, radiation leak, or hull breach is permitted.”

  His ex-valet, who was now his Chief Officer of the Watch, must have understood the ancient language as well, for he said to Vigil, “Commute my sentence to time served and order the record expunged, so that I can serve in public office. Appoint me bailiff. Say these words to dropsy drunkboat there: You are relieved of rank and duty and confined to quarters pending further investigation.”

  Vigil did all these things, speaking clearly and loudly so that both animate and inanimate creatures could hear him. This time, he unclipped his scabbard, and stuck the sword, scabbard and all, through the tall man’s belt.

  The seneschal climbed to his feet, trembling with outrage. “You would not dare! I will countersue! My cousins are men of ancient and established lineage! Besides—the appointment as watch officer was unlawful, as the forms of the words were not completed! And his so-called term would have ended when he was placed under arrest, since he serves at the pleasure of the ranking officer during good behavior! Ha!”

  The two armed watchmen, seeing all this, jumped forward roughly to grab the wild valet. One of them ordered the peace wand to leave his hand. The wand emitted a mudra that twisted the man’s arm so that his hissed with pain, forcing the hand open, and so the wand sprang away and stood upright on the floor a yard away.

  But the ex–Watch Officer, now the bailiff, spoke in a low, dangerous monotone to the two watchmen holding him. “Let the hell go of me. Take his keys and his gloves as evidence to be held against the further investigations of the crime here, and hand them to me. I am the bailiff. Obey your lawful orders, jerks, or the Lord Hermeticist will call down his vengeance.”

  The two watchmen looked at each other and looked toward the third man, who had been their commanding officer a moment ago. He was unarmed and yet was strangely unwilling to pick up the wand that stood next to him. He stood with his helmet open, and they both saw the uncertainty in his eyes, and they saw the red lights of recording lamps twinkling in the doorframe.

  Coming to a decision, the two released the tall man who was now bailiff and seized the short man who was no longer seneschal.

  The two turned the ex-seneschal’s keys, which were stored in the stone of a finger ring, and his gloves which contained his biometric information, over to the new bailiff.

  The bailiff drew on one glove, put on the ring, and made the correct hand gesture toward the door to indicate that it must open.

  The doors hesitated, puzzled.

  The seneschal said, “Your scheming is vain! Only I can open the valves of that door once the Table is in session! You are too late! The Lord Hermeticist is barred from the Chamber, barred for being tardy! The regulations you are trying to dance around have snared you and tripped you into a pit!”

  The bailiff said, “Your mouth is a pit. Shut it. When you are not in the antechamber, any law officer, including a bailiff, can perform needed functions in an emergency.”

  “But I am in the antechamber!”

  The bailiff must have been smiling under his mask, because there was a snide note in his voice. “I know that, and you know that, but in the eyes of the law, you left the antechamber the moment you were confined to quarters, because that is where you legally are supposed to be. Unless you want to be absent without leave during general quarters? The penalty for that is death, followed by resurrection and more death. What do you say?”

  And he drew the sword, and put the point at the man’s throat, and the blade issued a mudra which prevented anyone from interfering or preventing whatever might happen next.

  Apparently bailiffs during general quarters had more extensive authority than Vigil would have supposed, because the mudra forced Vigil back one step and two, and the two armed watchmen likewise.

  Vigil was not sure if the faction opposing him was embarked on a quest for some cause they thought worthy of any sacrifice, or just attempting a political fraud to maintain their own seats of power and situation. This was the test. Because some men are born willing to die for their causes or their comrades, but no one is willing to die for a fraud.

  “I am in my quarters and not in this room,” the chubby little seneschal said sadly.

  S
o, either the seneschal was not such a man, or the attempt was a fraud rather than a sincere crusade. Vigil wished he knew more and hoped he would learn what he needed to know in time.

  “Declare the emergency over,” said the bailiff, “and relieve me of duty, hire me as your counsel and advisor, so I can walk into the room with you at your elbow and talk with you on a private channel. I figure you might need more help. And while you are at it, appoint those three fellows as your honor guard.”

  So saying, he went again to the vestry and donned the red robe, long wig, and black cap of a professional solicitor but did not remove the insectlike air mask and goggles.

  “I cannot enter armed, but you can and must.” And he returned the sword and scabbard to Vigil with a bow.

  There was a roar of trumpets as the great doors swung open.

  2. The Table

  The Chamber was magnificent, overadorned, overwhelming. The design came from a time far older than the sparse and severe simplicity of the Patricians.

  The chandelier at the apex was shaped like a spiral galaxy and burned with atomic points of light, a symbol of the Stability’s eternity. The dome was paneled in dark brass and held up by statues of the gods.

  Largest of all, and occupying the northeast quarter of the dome, was an onyx statue of Triumvirate, with his three heads, wearing many crowns. The first had the pointed chin, the long, slanted eyes, and long-lobed ears of a Hierophant; the second was an oddly angular and grinning face of what a male Fox Maiden would look like, were there any males of that race; and the third was a hirsute Hibernal with braided locks and beard that covered all but his eyes. In each of his eighty-one hands he held a knotwork of a different aspect or figure of cliometry notation, and all his lower hands held the lotus of enlightenment or the barbed arrow of Darwin, always pointing upward.

  Facing him were the three Principalities of Man. Directly opposite Triumvirate loomed a statue hewn of deceptive blue apatite of Zauberring, in the conical cap, celestial mantle and charming wand of a warlock. To the southeast loomed a red coral statue of Toliman in his Phrygian cap with his bindlestaff, depicted as a silenus, a satyr with horse legs kicked up as if frozen in frantic dance. To the northwest, hewn of ivory and amber overlaid with black pearl and red coral, loomed solemn Consecrate, garbed in the white habit and red scapular and of a Sister of the Annunciation, with a black veil drawn close about her head and four crescent moons above.

  An inner and lower ring upheld smaller statues of the six Powers: Twelve in his dark helm and in his hands shut with locks the grimoire of fate; Cerulean in his mortarboard and scholar’s hood; Immaculate in her blue veil and mantle of stars; Peacock like an empress garbed in her polychromatic robes; Vonrothbarth in his owl cloak and goggles; and old Neptune holding his conch of triumph aloft, breaking chains and fetters with his trident.

  Lower still were smaller statuettes of the twenty-four Potentates, four to each side: Mars in red helm with lance and shield; Aesculapius leaning on his caduceus; Rossycross in the mail and surcoat of a crusader; Nocturne in black, crowned in stars; and December in white, money bag and abacus in hand; Odette and Odile, dark twin and bright, each in her feathered robes; Walpurgis in his goblin mask and gaberlunzie hat; and Cyan in blue, tonsured like a Mandarin, holding a grain sheaf. Eurotas and Perioecium were armed as Mars, their father world; Feast of Stephen was in a bishop’s miter, garbed in a cope of ermine-trimmed red. Eden was arrayed as a queen mother, dressed all in green, crowned in skulls and flowers. And ten others.

  Torment was a slender maiden in a bridal gown of green and gold, adorned with a coronet of septfoil blossoms, but wore the hood of Jack Ketch. In her hands was a headman’s axe, and from her girdle hung pilliwinks and pear; a wheel was to one side of her, and to the other, a hoop of Skeffington’s gyves.

  For the first time, in all his life, seeing her figure arrayed with all her sister worlds and brothers, Vigil wondered at her horrifying aspect and who had christened her.

  In the center of this triple hexagon of godlike beings, the massive black metallic six-sided table squatted on its six thick legs. It was orichalchum, an alloy the same as that from which the strandworld of Zauberring was made, by legend, indestructible.

  The floor was made of blocks of glass on top of which the furniture and figures in the chamber seemed to float.

  Guest lamps by the silvery doors, which opened for the Lord Landing Party Senior and no man else, were blazing white, and the globes fanned their wings, the trees swayed, and the serpents of Hermetic heraldry hissed.

  Vigil stepped forward, feeling every ounce of the weight of his father’s office.

  3. The Anthem of the Strangers

  All in the chamber save one man came to their feet. Figures at the table rose in greeting. Calm music swelled up from the silence in stately strains. It was the anthem of the Stranger.

  A STRANGER came to the door at eve,

  And he spoke the bridegroom fair.

  He bore a green-white stick in his hand,

  And, for all burden, care.

  The Lords were standing near the Table, each in the livery of his post. Behind each Lord, Companions and Attendants stood rigidly, their cloaks all bright displays of color, their leggings gorgeous with signs and patterns of the families and clans from the Pilgrims.

  Their chairs, called sieges, each held the shield or lozenge of their heraldry, and a small, white iron gavel hung nearby, an ornament whose meaning all but the most accomplished antiquarians had long ago forgotten.

  At the corners of the table, between each of the Lords, stood or sat a Commensal, a nonvoting member, except that the siege between the Chronometrician and the Chrematist was empty. The shield on the back of the chair showed the emblem of a horned circle of olive leaves surmounting a cross.

  Vigil saw that this was the siege of the Hermeticist, the Senior Officer of the Landing Party. His chair.

  He asked with the eyes more than the lips

  For a shelter for the night,

  And he turned and looked at the road afar

  Without a window light.

  The First Speaker was garbed in golden robes of the Aedile, and he carried the ivory wand of his election. He was Eligius Eventide of the Eventide clan, a name which rang through history back through Feast of Stephen to Saint Mary’s World to Eden, back to the Twenty-Fourth Millennium, the time of the Bred Men, and his face and hands were coated with the pebbly scales of the Loricate race, but modern vanity had each tiny scale gilded with aurum, the living gold.

  The anthem continued:

  The bridegroom came forth into the porch

  With, “Let us look at the sky,

  And question what of the night to be,

  Stranger, you and I.”

  Opposite the Aedile stood the aged Lighthousekeeper with cloak of midnight blue and silver white, leaning on the candle douter which was his symbol of office. By the tradition of the ancient laws of Eden, the Lighthousekeeper and his two Companions, the Powerhouse Officer and the Uranographer, stood empty-handed, carrying no weapons.

  The Lighthousekeeper’s speakership was the only one that passed by primogeniture and was older than the Pilgrim race on Torment. The man was an Itinerant. But he was no lumpy and ungainly Flocculent from Rime. Instead, his were the sleek features, the black brow-antennae and eerie black sclera of his necromancer ancestors of Schattenreich. The Lighthousekeeper had been adopted into a Pilgrim clan and was named Venerio Phosphoros.

  This was the one who had turned the deceleration beam aside. No doubt the order had come from some higher officer, but an unlawful order should have been disobeyed. Here was the immediate culprit, no matter who the ultimate culprit might be.

  Vigil stared at the man, and the Lighthousekeeper would not meet his eyes. It was as if the Lighthousekeeper could feel the pressure of Vigil’s thoughts, but an internal creature checked and confirmed that Vigil was not broadcasting.

  Who, then, had given him the order? It had to be someone in the c
hamber. But when Vigil lifted his eyes they fell upon the Potentates, Principalities, and Powers, who also stood in the chamber.

  The woodbine leaves littered the yard,

  The woodbine berries were blue,

  Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;

  “Stranger, I wish I knew.”

  To the right of the Aedile, at the corner, was the one man who had not risen to his feet for the anthem of the Stranger. Here was the Terraformer, who sat upon a massive throne of polished bronze. His cloak was green like forest pines, and set with gold disks. His hands and feet, when glimpsed beneath his robes, were covered with the skin-cell-bonded black armor of a phylarch of planet Eurotas. Upon his diadem he bore the iron Theta of Ecology.

  Born as Franz Rubezahl, his adoption name was Francisco Leafsmith. He was an Ostracized, the only one of his despised race ever to hold the post, but he had survived the nineteen trials and three examinations, and the Pilgrims dared not deny him the post he had earned. He had the harsh, square face of a Nicor who had reverted to air breathing, and a black coiffure of facial hair called beard circling his lips and chin, though the skin between his nose and upper lip was bare. This mouth-hair gave him a savage, prehistoric look; and even when in repose, his features seemed to wear a sneer. He had inherited neither height nor oversized cranium from his giant ancestors. If anything, he was shorter and stockier than his public memory-images were allowed to retain.

  In one armored hand he held a silver scepter Vigil knew to be an antenna to the command channel of the biosphere, a symbol of the terror and power which the Terraformer once had held. He had plucked this from the hand of the previous Terraformer and slew him with it in single combat, one ecosystem against the other, in a duel that had scalded the dry crater valleys and arid dunes of Southeastern Hemisphere.