Count to a Trillion

by John C. Wright

  He heard voices up ahead, speaking softly, but that was all. No one was near him, no one was watching. He turned. The door at the far end of the corridor was shut, presumably because the railcar beyond was gone. Montrose did not know by what control or signal another could be summoned. There had been no control, no strip of sensitive material near the door: To him, that door was firmly locked.

  The weapons were not nailed so firmly to the wall. The largest dirk he could find, he tucked through two ring-clips on his back-harness, where the long scholar’s hood (hanging down his back like a miniature triangular cape) would cover it. He left behind one of the purely ceremonial oxygen tubes to make room.

  4. The Undecorated Hall

  Beyond, grim and dark, was a flattened dome held up by metallic ribs, an architecture as ungainly as the underside of an umbrella, as massive as the tomb of a pharaoh. It sharply contrasted with the splendor of the atrium outside.

  This presence chamber of the Hermeticists, if it truly was the throne room and headquarters of the masters of the human race, was impressive in its Spartan simplicity: The chamber here was unadorned, utilitarian, severe. Beneath the flattened dome, a single table circled the room, with cushioned chairs on steel frames facing inward. The table was a hollow zero, surrounding a round central floor paved with high-quality library cloth. Eight large screens hung from articulated swivel-arms overhead. At the moment the screens were tuned to a luminous setting, and bathed the area in an aquamarine light. The walls and overheads were gray slabs.

  There was only one ornament in the chamber: in an alcove to one side stood a life-sized iron statue of a Great Ape. There was a plaque at the statue’s feet, but illegible in the dimness. The statue was lit by a lonely spotlight set in the alcove roof directly above it, so that the brow ridge and jowls of the simian were cast into dark relief. The artist had emphasized the massive and sloped shoulders, the protruding belly, the crooked legs to the point of exaggeration: or perhaps the sculptor had never seen a living specimen. Come to think of it, unless one of the men in this room had made it, the sculptor certainly had not, since the species went extinct only a few years before Menelaus had been born.

  No other decorations or amenities. Not even a carpet. That was it.

  Menelaus did not see spittoons or ashtrays, and the pitchers and tumblers before each chair seemed to hold nothing but water. Apparently these new rulers of the world did not indulge in any drinking or smoking to soften their moods when they met, which Menelaus knew to be a big mistake. The Congress of the United States, back before the Disunion, always met sober, and look at what had come of that.

  The other thing which struck him as odd was the lack of servants. There were no secretaries arranging papers, no computermen organizing data presentations. But the rulers of the world—if that is what they were—apparently set out their own papers and poured their own water pitchers, because several gray-haired men in black silk shipsuits were doing just that when Montrose entered the chamber.

  Menelaus counted in his lightning-quick fashion, at a glance. There were seventy men in the chamber. No Princess. The girl was not there. Menelaus thought he should not feel so foolishly disappointed—he had more important things to fret him. He should have listened to his instincts, and known that any man, even a man as smart and bold as Blackie, who drinks of absolute power, gets drunk as hell. It mutates how he thinks, how he sees things. Blowing a whole city of innocent souls to Purgatory was merely a day’s labor, a matter for quiet pride of workmanship, or was merely the winning score in a game, a matter for cheers and toasts.

  Foolish or not, he was still disappointed.

  He noticed each man here was wearing a heavy armband of red metal, that same metal Montrose was sure had come from the machine shop aboard the Hermetic. From the way three or four of the men had inflammation and swelling on their wrists and forearms, Montrose realized these armbands were bioprosthetics: from the way the skin was pinched, he deduced that there must be more than one large intravenous needle or nerve-jack reaching from the inside of the armband into the inside of the arm.

  The thick red bracelets could be medical appliances. The Hermeticists did not look like a healthy group.

  There were three ancient figures near Montrose who turned and ambled toward him with a nightmarish slowness.

  For one moment, they looked like crooked old men, murderers, mutineers, perpetrators of war crimes, and strangers. Then, suddenly, even though nothing changed, in the next moment, they were crewmen he had trained with, old drinking buddies, old friends.

  Yes, he knew them.

  The first was lean and lean-cheeked Narcís D’Aragó, thin as a rail and straight as a rapier, his hair little more than a hint of gray scruff above his ears. A saber with an insulated hilt, probably an electrified weapon, hung in a scabbard at his side. He still walked with a military posture, but he was a skeleton of his former self.

  Next to him was Melchor de Ulloa, rheumy-eyed, with a wild thatch of white hair jutting from his skull in every direction. His spine was crooked, footsteps uncertain, the fingers of his blue-veined hands twitched and trembled. Melchor de Ulloa, who had been such a figure of romance among the ladies, now displayed his good looks lost beneath a wrinkled mask. He wore a medallion at his neck from some cult Montrose did not recognize: a circle inscribing what might have been a three-legged lambda, or else a chicken’s foot.

  With them was Sarmento i Illa d’Or. The muscular, slablike body Menelaus remembered had all turned to doughy fat, his mouth surrounded by a tiny fringe of beard and moustache, white as snow.

  In Space Camp, and aboard the satellite before boarding the Hermetic, these men, together with Del Azarchel, had formed the younger clique among the mathematicians of the expedition. They had been about Montrose’s age: the child prodigies. The young bloods. To see them now, wrinkled and thin or else stooped with years or sagging with fat, old as grandfathers, was quite a shock.

  The final man of the clique had not come forward because he was parked near the huge table. Father Reyes y Pastor, like Del Azarchel, was wheelchair-bound. He was a splash of red in the dark room of dark-garbed men, for he wore his Cardinal’s robes, a ferraiuolo (a formal priest’s cloak), and biretta (a cap looking like a folded candy box with a puff atop it). Perhaps he took his uniform as a star-voyager and world-ruler to be less significant than his uniform as a Churchman. Or perhaps not, since the thick red amulet of the Hermeticists weighed on his wrist. Father Reyes y Pastor looked like a withered mummy, propped up in a wheelchair too big for him.

  Montrose thought these three ancient figures were coming forward to greet him, but no. Melchor de Ulloa ignored Menelaus Montrose as if the other were a wax dummy, and spoke to Sarmento i Illa d’Or: “Glad this one’s finally here. A basic strategy of approach to the problem of forced evolution we’ve agreed beforehand, but the tactics will depend on what Crewman Fifty-One can tell us of the message details.”

  With this, he reached out, and, as if Menelaus were a small child, took his hand and pulled on it, turning as if he expected Menelaus to follow him docilely.

  Meanwhile Narcís D’Aragó stepped past Montrose and inspected a panel of read-outs bolted to the doorframe. “Scan shows no tattletales. We are secure.”

  Menelaus yanked his hand out of de Ulloa’s grip. “What the pox?”

  Sarmento i Illa d’Or was staring at Montrose, and his large, dark eyes in his baby-round face were cold and piercing. “We are not secure. This is the other one, isn’t it?”

  Melchor de Ulloa now started and turned to look at Montrose as if Montrose had just materialized out of invisibility. “Learned Montrose! Is that really you?”

  Montrose turned to Sarmento i Illa d’Or. “The other one what?”

  Melchor de Ulloa gave an uneasy laugh. “Come, is this any way to greet old friends from old centuries? Good afternoon, Learned Montrose!”

  Montrose spoke without turning his head. “G’daftanoon, gents—” His eyes never left Sarmento. �
��—the other one what?”

  Sarmento i Illa d’Or uttered a noise like a dog’s bark, which may have been a sardonic laugh. “The one who does not bite fingers.”

  Melchor de Ulloa stepped between the two, taking up Montrose’s hand once more, but this time to give it a vigorous shaking. He spoke slightly too loudly. “We have always felt you were something like our good luck charm, Learned Montrose. Agreed, you were in slumber during the days of tedium and terror, but the thought of you, ageless, in the coffin of your own devising—a martyr to science, no? The bravest of all of us, willing to risk everything!”

  “Learned? What’s wrong with doctor? We all have doctorates.”

  “It is an earthly title, fit only to represent earthly knowledge,” said Melchor de Ulloa, still shaking hands vigorously.

  Montrose gripped the other man’s hand tightly, to stop it from moving. He tapped the heavy metal armlet with a fingernail. “What is this? A medical appliance? When did it become part of the uniform?” He felt the substance: not ordinary metal.

  Melchor de Ulloa looked startled. “I would have thought Del Azarchel would have explained it by now! We have one prepared for you, of course, but—you are so young. What need have you to hide your years?”

  Sarmento i Illa d’Or stepped forward, belly first, huge and black as a thundercloud in his silks, and Melchor de Ulloa moved aside for the big man. “Tell him nothing yet. I am not convinced of his fealty.”

  From where he was seated several yards away, the priest, Reyes y Pastor, spoke up, pitching his voice to carry. “Learned Montrose has always been unstable. Why should today be unlike any other day? Besides, the decision rests with our Master of Arms, Learned D’Aragó.”

  That was Narcís D’Aragó, who had been Master of Arms during the expedition as well. The thin, bald old soldier stepped forward, glaring. “With no ability to predict how the memory membrane operates across different intellectual topographies, we cannot say whether he knows more about us than we do. But I see no risk nonetheless. Is anything gained by continuing the masquerade inside? Is Montrose not a member? We have to show him sometime. Can we call the Conclave to order, so I can secure the hatch?”

  The question was evidently directed toward Reyes y Pastor. “Not yet. The Senior member of the Landing Party is not arrived. But will you clear the Learned Montrose? Learned Del Azarchel has vouched for him in a private communication to me. Should we hold a formal vote, Learned i Illa d’Or?

  Sarmento i Illa d’Or scowled so that his jowls bunched with displeasure. “Phaugh! I withdraw my objection!”

  Montrose said, “What’s going on here?”

  Reyes y Pastor raised both hands, touched his red armband, and worked some unseen control. The others in the chamber all copied the gesture, solemnly, all arms moving in unison, like a salute.

  Reyes y Pastor answered him, “We meet in the Conclave to establish the destiny of the human race. We have the tools to shape the evolution of Mankind into higher forms: and since the Hyades will send emissaries to bind our remote descendants, we now have the necessity. And do not doubt we have the power. There are many mysteries our order learned in the deep of outer space we thought not fit to share with the base stock of Man.”

  As he spoke, his voice changed, growing deeper and stronger. By the time he had done speaking, Reyes y Pastor had stood from his wheelchair on legs now perfectly whole. Dark color flushed through his hair. His skin was red, and his veins were visible, pulsing, and when the odd blush passed, his flesh was young, unwrinkled, without liver spots, moles, or marks. Age fell from him like a dropped cloak. His flesh was now plump and pink; a mummy no longer, he rose to his feet, kicking aside, as a discarded prop, his wheelchair.

  A young man, hale and healthy, stood before him, blazing with virility. Only his eyes were uncannily old—old with the cruel wisdom of many years.

  The sloppy flab of Sarmento i Illa d’Or flowed or crawled under his skin, changing and thickening into muscle tissue. The plump, old pear-shaped man was now a young Hercules with a bull-like neck, an immense, wide chest, shoulders that could bear mountains.

  Montrose looked around the chamber. All the men were on their feet. Some of them endured the transformation as stoically as Reyes y Pastor: others where hissing, wincing, and wheezing, and their skins were swollen and flushed as if in some painful ecstasy. One man—it looked like a scarecrow version of Dr. Coronimas, the ship’s Magnetohydrodynamicist and Engineer’s Mate—was rolling on the floor, and those near him looked down with cool and impatient eyes. But even Coronimas climbed to his feet, smiling and youthful.

  In less than a minute all stood there, their hair suddenly dark, arrogance fresh as early springtide shining on their faces, but wintry old age still in their eyes.

  At that moment came footsteps from beyond the portal. Del Azarchel, dark, young, and handsome as a devil strode into the chamber. “All here? Good. Let’s get started.”

  Narcís D’Aragó stepped behind Del Azarchel and touched his bracelet to a control-strip of sensitive material near the door. The immense steel values swung slowly shut on mechanical pistons, and fell to, clanging like an iron coffin lid.

  The hue of the lights from the overhead screens became brighter, more yellowy. “Senior, Learned fellows, the hatch is shut.”

  Montrose looked behind him. He was trapped in here with the mutineers.

  10

  The Fatherhood of Man

  1. The Secret of Youth

  “So you don’t tell anyone you came back with the secret of eternal youth, eh?” said Montrose, feeling anger prickle him, despite his awe.

  And indeed he was awed: whatever programmed cell-bodies were stored into their armbands had acted immediately upon entering their bloodstreams, and started issuing molecular commands to the bodily cells. Even their hair changed immediately, losing its gray throughout the length of each strand, rather than merely at the roots. Montrose could not fathom the speed of it: No biological process known to him would happen so quickly. Each cell must have been separately programmed with a dimorphism, trained to return to its youthful shape and consistency at the first trace of stimulant.

  Melchor de Ulloa smiled ingratiatingly. “It is extended youth, but not eternal. A genetic form of divarication correction—an application of your own work to cellular biochemistry. You should feel proud!”

  Montrose remembered the wrinkled face of old Doctor Kyi. “I’d feel a damn sight prouder if’n we’d’ve shared it.”

  Reyes y Pastor said calmly, “The Learned Conclave thought it not in the bests interests of Mankind to preserve the present generation, and all its accumulated genetic flaws and primitive memes. Extending the aging process slows the evolutionary process, as the older bloodlines must give way before the new bloodlines can arise, improving the breed.”

  The mention of breeding brought something to Montrose’s attention. He saw the similarity of features: olive-skinned, dark-eyed, Mediterranean. There was only one blonde in the room: the Engineer’s Mate Coronimas, whose fair hair was a genetic marker of ancient Norse conquests in Portugal.

  All of Latino descent. In other words, only the Hispanospheric moiety of the joint expedition had returned. The mutiny had fractured loyalties along racial lines.

  Ximen Del Azarchel touched Menelaus Montrose on the elbow and gestured toward the table. “Please sit. Join us.”

  Montrose recognized the O-shaped table for what it was. It was the Table Round, the gathering of King Arthur’s knights, from the stories Del Azarchel so loved. Had he not, years ago, likened the Hermetic expedition unto knight errantry?

  Except that this group seemed more a gathering of Mordreds than of Galahads.

  Montrose pondered a moment, torn between hot anger and cold curiosity. Whatever crimes this group had committed, even if new to him, were years in the past. And they were his friends—he was a member of the crew, after all, a position he had worked so hard to achieve.

  Perhaps he owed them a hearing. No point i
n storming out before he found out what they had to say. In any case, he had nowhere else to go, and the doors were sealed. And, dammit, he wanted to know what they knew!

  He sat.

  The seat was not particularly comfortable. He took a sip from his water glass. It was not particularly cold. Whatever the Hermeticists were up to, they certainly did not coddle themselves.

  The meeting of these seventy-odd scientific overlords of the world seemed to be handled with less formality than Montrose had seen in town meetings of the eight selectmen back in Bridge-to-Nowhere. There seemed to be no minutes being kept, and no one serving as Chairman.

  The first order of business was reviewing Montrose’s cure of the Iron Ghost. The event had been recorded from the sensitive fabric of the walls, from every possible angle.

  2. Mr. Hyde

  At first, the overhead plates showed Menelaus, looking sleepy, laying on the floor next to a white-haired Del Azarchel in the cold room, surrounded by the cylinders and cables snaking across the floor. A small silver cup had rolled from the fingers of the prone figure and lay in the floor in a puddle of alcohol—and presumably whatever had been mingled with the alcohol.

  The image of Del Azarchel wheeled his throne over to a tiny doll-like Menelaus, and leaned down to help him to his feet. In small, tinny voices, he and Menelaus discussed the divarication problem. Menelaus seemed to be sleepy, perhaps drunk, and his head hung down. He was speaking slowly but normally, his expression and body language normal.

  It changed slowly. Menelaus seemed to get more excited. He began pacing and gesturing wildly. His face almost glowed. And then the image of Menelaus was speaking rapidly, face flushed red as if from some terrible exertion. There was something hypnotic, sinister, in the clipped, rapid, uninflected way in which he spoke, as if he meant to speak much more rapidly.