The Architect of Aeons

by John C. Wright

  Del Azarchel made a dismissive motion with his hand, and said in a dignified voice, “Your teachers are to be commended for the care they took. Do not interpret any question of ours as implying that we contradict them. We are curious about the events that transpired on Earth while we sojourned in the outer Solar System, for we intercepted no signals, and saw no signs. What ended the war?”

  She said mildly, “Since the Celestial Princess left, there is always war.”

  Del Azarchel blushed. It was one of the few times Montrose had ever seen Del Azarchel turn red in the face, and Montrose was surprised. Then he realized: Del Azarchel was ashamed that his Hermeticists could not produce a world peace without Rania’s genius. The main justification for Del Azarchel’s dream of universal empire was that it would produce peace, law, order, and plenty. Without that, what did Del Azarchel’s dream offer him?

  Montrose said archly to him, “You asked for more of the same, eh?”

  Del Azarchel said stiffly to her, “I mean the End of Days. The Hyades invasion. That war.”

  She smiled gently and said, “It was a matter for Swans and Ghosts. Those of my level were not involved. The war was between Tellus, a Potentate of intelligence eight hundred thousand, and Asmodel, a Hyades Virtue of intelligence five hundred million. Where there is battle in heaven, what can we mortals who eat bread and perish know of it?”

  Montrose saw the dumbfounded look on Del Azarchel’s face, and coughed to cover a laugh. Montrose said to Amphithöe, “Ma’am, lemme explain. Blackie and me have a wager. I say that man won the war and kicked the aliens’ skinny pale hindquarters to perdition, and he says they established them a colony, complete with military governor. Who is right?”

  The smile of Amphithöe vanished.

  Seeing her expression, Del Azarchel said, “The commands of the local overlords must reach their subjects somehow.”

  She looked bewildered. “Is there a local overlord on this globe? I have not been told.”

  Menelaus scowled. “Don’t yank my pissing pole! You cannot tell if there are aliens on the planet or not? Look roundabouts for nine-foot-tall nine-legged spiders wearing gas masks! That will give you some clue. There was a war. You must have captured some enemy soldiers. You saw what the foe looked like!”

  “No one saw any biological formations,” said Amphithöe. “There were no landings, no ground troops. No one knows what the Hyades’ physical manifestations are. We observed their battle-planet, a world made of silver cloud and black liquid, a gas giant. We observed engines they lowered to the surface of the Earth, called skyhooks. We see the pattern they left on the moon like the burning thumbprint of a war god. The only other manifestation of their power was the murk.”

  Del Azarchel said, “And what is this murk?”

  She looked fearfully at the sky. “Blood drops of the black world. It is not for me to speak of. I would unwittingly mislead, and this is a matter for shame. You must ask those who know.”

  Del Azarchel said, “Whatever they left behind must be where the minds now governing our system reside.…”

  The girl looked bewildered. “Reside? The Noösphere is everywhere, in the sea and mountain, in empty cities, in living gold, in gems, in books, in the minds of the Swans. Those of my rank are not allowed to address the Swans, lest we provoke a curse, or touch their minds, lest we lose our souls.”

  Montrose said to Del Azarchel, “She can’t answer our questions. I am assuming the captain does not want to talk to us directly because we might ask something he would be ashamed to admit he does not know, but more ashamed to lie about. The psychology of what we see here, do you notice any alien influences? So far, this is very human. If there were Hyades powers running the joint, at least some sign or hint of an utterly unearthly bio-psychological ‘frame’ or symbol-perception set would crop up, don’t you think? Where are the loan-words? Where is the alien science?”

  Del Azarchel said, “A high level of isolation between ruler and client might prevent human imitation of their conquerors. Or the alien psychology could be too alien to be impersonated. As for the science, has it occurred to you that we are in a sailing ship precisely because the aliens are suppressing native technology? Also, if your theory were right, Amphithöe—did I pronounce that correctly, sweet child?—she would be boasting of the victory. There is something else, too.…”

  And Del Azarchel, with a charming smile and impish eyebrow raised, extended his hand toward Amphithöe. The Nymph shyly offered her hand in return, and he took it and bowed over it, as if about to kiss it. But all he did was hold it near his face.

  Without letting go her hand, he straightened, and nodded to Montrose. “Lean down and sniff. The biochemical composition is different from others aboard.”

  Montrose did not sniff at the girl (which he thought might be bad manners), but he glanced at the officers, sailors, and so on, counting how many wore Hermetic style wristbands. “I don’t need to sniff. I recognized my own handiwork, thank you. Hibernation antihistamines? She is from an earlier period in history. They brought her out of biosuspension to act as a translator. Psychology translator, I’m thinking, not so much word translator, because these fellows must have changed themselves in recent years, and must think they might not understand us. I been in her same shoes not much more than a year ago, bio time, back when I was a Chimera named Anubis.”

  So he grinned at the winsome young lady, and ducked his head, and said, “Sorry to be jawing about you like as you ain’t standing right here, but we’re a mite puzzled. We talked to someone who invited us to land, but he weren’t rightly much forthcoming. Is there something we can help with? Is there something wrong with your world? How come your ship ain’t hooked up to no paddlewheel for days when the wind is becalmed? We detected a fusion plant aboard.”

  She smiled a sweet smile. “The matter is complex, and filled with nuances of meaning.”

  Montrose said, “Speak real slow and use small words, and Blackie will catch up after a spell, won’tcha, Blackie?”

  Del Azarchel grimaced, but managed to force his mouth into the shape of a smile. “We are curious about matters all men on Earth surely know, and which admit of no nuances. What befell the living gas giant?”

  Amphithöe said, “It departed, taking most of the world population with it, and a significant segment of the core. Some say the planet is mad because of the loss.”

  Del Azarchel shot Montrose a significant look. “Perhaps the overlord is nothing but a pattern of thoughts imprinted into the Telluric Noösphere. The nonhuman psychology would be interpreted as madness.”

  “Or battle damage lobotomized it,” Montrose said. He turned to Amphithöe. “Departed? Or were the aliens driven off?”

  She merely shrugged meekly.

  Del Azarchel said, “Did they achieve their goals? If not, then they were driven off. If so, then they departed.”

  “Ah!” she said, her face brightening. “Now I understand your question. They departed.”

  Del Azarchel smirked at Montrose. “Aliens won the war. I win the bet.”

  Montrose said to the girl, “Hold on! How do you know what the aliens wanted, or got what they wanted? Did they make demands, make contact, learn our language?”

  Amphithöe smiled again. “We learned theirs, starting with you.”

  “Me?” Montrose looked surprised.

  “You translated the Monument, did you not? That is their language. Once a universal and philosophical language is discovered to translate all forms of thought to all others, what need is there for any other language?”

  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 Al
l 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 Amphithöe in a voice both grave and sweet. “I beg your permission to enquire on your behalf.”

  When Del Azarchel nodded grandly, Amphithöe 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 Amphithöe 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.

  Amphithöe 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 Noösphere, 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 Noösphere. 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. Amphithöe 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? Amphithöe 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 Noösphere 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.”