The Hermetic Millennia

by John C. Wright

  Menelaus shrugged. “I can always hope.”

  Illiance nodded. “The sentiment is noble and simple enough to be spoken by one of our order. Perhaps, Beta Sterling Anubis, you will consider renouncing the tedious conflicts of the artificial duties of your false life, and becoming as we are.”

  “What, you look for recruits for your boot camp? You want I should paint myself blue? I’m flattered. Or insulted. Not sure which.”

  Illiance said, “My offer, admittedly, has nuances of valuation not immediately evident. In any case, as are you, we are moved by hope.”

  “What are you hoping for?”

  “We hope to find the Judge of Ages.”

  “He will punish you, probably kill you. I would use an indelicate term involving anal copulation and venereal disease, but there is a lady present.”

  “We also hope he will be merciful.”

  “You willing to bet money on that?”

  “Wagering is an unnecessary complexity of life.”

  “Well, you are a more reckless gambler than any I’ve seen. Want to hedge your bet? Maybe if you put everything back where you found it. Exactly where you found it. For example, why the hell is there a coffin here? Why is that man in it?” Menelaus looked at the monitors winking on the footplate of the coffin. “He is not even sick.”

  Illiance said, “Aanwen is the closest thing we have to a cryotechnician. The coffin circuits contain a microbrain with interface systems we can jury-rig to access the cybernetics of this relict. He is a race called the Scholars, also called by the older name, Psychoi. They are perhaps the oldest of the artificial races of man, even though their modifications are minor: some intelligence augmentation; a set of cybernetic membrane locks used to download information into an infosphere of a type long, long extinct. Aanwen assures us she can compel the relict to cooperate, because she can introduce both hallucinations and intense pain into the nervous system, as well as detect deceptive intent and pick up certain simple surface reactions—”

  “Hold it. Hold it. You robbed a coffin out of the Tombs and are perverting it from its original function, which was to protect and heal the client; but instead you are using it as a torture rack?”

  Illiance nodded with an unearthly serenity on his features. “The metaphor is accurate.”

  “The Judge of Ages is going to kill you painfully.”

  “We hope we can placate him.”

  “Painfully and slowly. Do you little blue twerps know what you are messing with?”

  Illiance shook his head. “The first principle of negative information calculus is that the volume of the unknown is always greater than the volume of the known. It is in an attempt to discover ‘what we are messing with’ that we perform these regrettable acts. The relict speaks a dialect of the language of the Eldest World Concordat, called Spanish, which we cannot comprehend. As I mentioned, the coffin plates indicate an interment date of A.D. 3090, far later than the last known record of his race. I have outlined the areas of our interest; he will be returned, hale and whole, to the camp once we have the needed information.”

  Illiance turned toward the Blue Woman and spoke in a fluid tongue of soft hisses. She made an adjustment on her machine.

  The eyes of the albino man in the coffin opened, and focused on Illiance. (Menelaus happened to be standing by the controls near the head of the coffin, and hence out of the line of sight.) The albino’s mouth did not move, but a squawk emerged from some hidden speaker in the coffin surface, followed by the staccato sound of a harsh and glottal language of short-syllabled words.

  “You understand this speech.” Illiance was looking inquisitively at Menelaus. “Your pupil dilations and subconscious tells show a commensurate reaction to the information volume.”

  “The language is Korrekthotspeek, an artificially created dialect of English, Spanish, and Loglangwoj,” reported Menelaus in a dry voice. “He is cursing you, which is kind of sad, because artificial languages never have enough words for real heart-to-heart cussing.”

  Illiance was unperturbed. “Had he proved tractable, he would not be in an unfortunate situation. Is there any worthwhile information in this stream of words?”

  “Like I said, it is not like a real man’s language. He is calling you unintelligent, saying that you indulge in emotions of hostility—particularly race-hatred, misogyny, and hatred of practitioners of sexual deviancy—and he is accusing you of harboring inflexible or stereotyped opinions that you have judged before all the evidence is in. They don’t have a word for ‘sin’ or ‘evil’ in their language: all they can say is a word that means ‘judgment before all the evidence is in.’”

  Illiance nodded, musing. “They are a race of scholars; so to them, of course, a premature judgment, without due consideration of all available information, would be the subject of opprobrium. What is he saying now?”

  “More of the same. He is repeating himself, because they don’t have many curses in their tongue. Can I talk to him? Open a mic for me.”

  Illiance gestured at Aanwen, who touched one of her machines. Menelaus spoke in a language that sounded like music. The harsh staccato tongue cut off. Then the voice from the coffin spoke again, hesitatingly. Menelaus answered. Laughter came from the coffin.

  Illiance said, “What did you say?”

  “I told him to curse in Spanish. It is a much better language for cursing. He agreed. Now he says that you are uglier than the buttocks of a monkey and that your brother has no groin.”

  Illiance nodded. “The first is a matter of aesthetic judgment where reasonable people can differ; the second is accurate only in an ontological sense. Ask him about the Judge of Ages. We suspect he must know something of him, or else he would not have been stored in this location. Remind him delicately that we can stimulate the pain center of his brain.”

  Menelaus said, “I’ll get him to talk, if you agree to thaw him fully and take him out of there. No more torture, no more misuse of the coffin. Is it a deal?”

  Illiance said, “Were I to make such an agreement, it may happen that I would encounter criticism from my peers.”

  “You more afraid of your peers than of your goddam conscience?”

  “Your question contains an obscurity whose import I fail to grasp.”

  Menelaus said, “What if that was Aanwen in the coffin? You said she was a revenant. Maybe she was only in for a day or a year, but you never know how long you will be under, because you are utterly, ridiculously helpless when you slumber, ain’t you? She just climbed in and put her faith in the future. This guy, whoever he is, put the same faith in the future when he climbed in—and that is a faith you betrayed.”

  Illiance said thoughtfully, “You imply that I am under a moral obligation to a person of whom I know nothing, an obligation to which I never agreed, based on a reciprocity which, to be frank, is theoretical rather than actual.”

  “Are you a civilized human being?”

  “Perhaps too civilized.”

  “But human?”

  “I am human.”

  “Then you agreed.”

  “I fail to see—”

  Menelaus held up his hand and interrupted. “It does not matter whether Aanwen, or you, or me, will ever be in the same position of weakness and helplessness you found this albino in. Maybe you are strong or smart or lucky enough to prey on others without being preyed upon. Maybe no one will ever torture you, rob you, or kill you. That does not matter. What matters is you lost the right to object. You are not being tortured or killed merely because of a lucky accident, not because you deserve it. You deserve torment. Do you want to deserve better? Then act better. Otherwise, we got no deal, and I get out my rock and kill you and the girl and I wait and see how many dog things that come running I can take with me as an escort into hellfire when we all die together. You’ve already called some dogs here using your gems, haven’t you? Told ’em to come a-running? They’ll never make it in time.”

  Illiance said, “I have called no Followers.
Why do you think you can threaten us? Aanwen and I are both armed with sophisticated and powerful weapons.”

  “Really? Draw.”

  Menelaus was somewhat surprised that Illiance actually went for his weapon.

  Menelaus closed the distance between them before Illiance could even close his fingers on his pistol grip. As Illiance pulled the jeweled energy weapon from its inner holster, Menelaus jabbed both his hands at the face of Illiance, right curled but not closed in a fist, the left hand open. Illiance instinctively put his hand up to block, but it was his gun hand, so that for a split-second he was not holding it tightly, nor pointing it at Menelaus. Instead of landing either blow of his odd, two-handed punch, the left hand of Menelaus caught the wrist of Illiance while the right hand closed its fingers on the barrel and snatched the gun free.

  In a continuation of the same motion, Menelaus spun and threw the gun at the face of Aanwen, who was drawing her own weapon. She had the same instinctive nervous-system reaction as Illiance, and put her hand up to block. Menelaus stooped and yanked up the jeweled coat she was sitting on, sending her and her machines toppling pell-mell in an atrocious clatter. He then threw the coat over her head and grabbed her, pinning both arms to her sides, and he swung in a huge half circle, so that her legs caught Illiance across the upper body, throwing him to the floor. Menelaus aimed a kick at one of the small machines connected to the coffin and punted it into the hard substance of the wall. The mechanism housing shattered, and gems and crystal tubes fell to the deck, leaving smoking stains of dark discoloration on the luminous lichen-coated walls.

  Menelaus then stepped on the forearm of Illiance before the little man could rise. Aanwen was tucked under his arm with the coat over her head, her legs kicking in the air.

  “Well, your widow is now in my armpit, and I could break her neck if I wanted. So now the discussion is no longer theoretical. She is as helpless in my hands as that albino is in your hands. Think carefully, my friend.”

  Illiance, looking up from the floor, spoke in a calm, measured, detached voice, “In what sense are we friends, Beta Anubis? The coercive nature of our interaction prohibits mutual affection or respect.”

  “We’re friends because I kind of like you, Illiance. You don’t seem like a bad guy. But I am a bloody goddam poxy filth-sucking Chimera! That means I was gene-tweaked and born and trained to kill people and break stuff and get an erection while doing it. On the other hand, you two are fuzzy schoolmarms armed with toy pistols that have a defensive-only circuit in them which makes it so that there is an eighth-second calculation delay before the shoot. You have to brace yourself before you kill someone, which adds more delay. You don’t have the reflexes for this kind of roughhousing. Looks to me like your nervous systems were taken from a standardized imprint, kind of mass produced, which means I am inside your orientation-observation-reaction cycle.”

  Menelaus raised his arm and let Aanwen fall heavily onto Illiance, and then he stepped over to the coffin and began detaching wires and touching control surfaces. One of the controls he touched made the fluid in the coffin turn red, and then opaque. Menelaus closed the lid, turned, and sat on the coffin, hands on his knees.

  Illiance had retrieved his jeweled pistol and stood pointing it at Menelaus. Aanwen meanwhile was staring down at the several small boxes and machines she had been tending. She knelt and began to gather the units together again, frowning slightly.

  Menelaus said, “Are you going to threaten me with a toy gun? That is a burner, not kinetic, which means it will not stop my forward momentum if I rush you. If I were you, I’d back way up and aim for my legs and eyes.”

  “It only fires in self-defense.”

  “I know. Does that mean you are going to hold it on me while I sit here and mock you? Or maybe you want me to rush you first, but slowly enough to give you a sporting excuse to burn off my face? Say pretty please.”

  Illiance holstered the weapon and said, “I did not agree to release the relict from torment.”

  Menelaus said, “Does your way of life allow you to ignore a moral obligation, even if you refuse to acknowledge it? I am telling you, I can still get this guy to talk. Your methods can’t. Remember your time limit.”

  Illiance said nothing, but looked pensive.

  “Or call your dogs and have me killed—because I sure as hell ain’t going to surrender—and you’ll have to thaw up someone else to help you with your translation. I tell you what else I’ll do, to sweeten the kitty! If the Judge of Ages is real, and he does show up, and he finds out you been snarking with his coffins, turning them to iron maidens and such, I’ll put in a good word for you, make sure he don’t kill you like you so very, very richly deserve.”

  Illiance said, “I can bring overwhelming coercive force to bear on you.”

  Menelaus just shrugged. “If you were a Chimera, you would have done so already. I think your sense of honor works on a different level than that. You do know I could have killed you both, right? Just now. I ask because I am not sure what is obvious to you and what is something you will only realize in a leisurely fashion later on, thinking back on it while you are sitting on the jakes or something.”

  Illiance turned to Aanwen and spoke in Intertextual. “I had supposed Followers unneeded here, because you have the coffin weapons under your control. I notice they failed to fire. If you would happen to share your wisdom and advice with me, I would be benefited.”

  Her voice was more musical than his, and lent the language a beauty and grandeur it otherwise lacked. “He destroyed the inducer. This indicates an abnormal familiarity with Locust neuropathic technology. He initiated the thaw cycle. Since the thaw was locked, this indicates abnormal knowledge of cryotechnology. Neither the coffin motion-sensors nor my pistol aimed nor ranged, which is another abnormality. In view of these abnormalities, we cannot accurately calculate the harm he could do us should we call the Followers, or should we sublimate the chemicals in the walls into lachrymal vapor. Notice also his fingers rest on the coffin controls: he could open fire with its various weapons. Contrariwise, if he gleans what we are drawn to know from the relict without further commotion, the calculation becomes moot.”

  Illiance said, “You reason like a Locust. We have turned our backs to that. Instead of weighing niceties of risk and reward, should we not do what is straightforward?”

  Her expression was weary. “My idealism died with my husband. The dream of simplicity is itself artificial. If you want to be simple, simply do what is simply right. The man pretending to be a Chimera spared me; let us spare the albino.”

  Illiance turned to Menelaus. “Are you continuing to pretend you do not understand our language?”

  Menelaus said, “It’s your thinking I don’t understand. You don’t act like archaeologists and you don’t act like Tomb-looters, trespassers, or thieves. Well, except for the Tomb-looting, trespassing, and thieving, of course. You keep acting like you are invulnerable, like nothing can hurt you. What the hell are you relying on to protect you? What the hell is driving you? Why not just come clean and tell me what you all are doing here? Who sent you? Who do you work for? Talk now, before you get hurt! As Preceptor Yndech might say, ‘eschew deception’!”

  Illiance looked for a moment like he was bowing. But, no. He stooped and picked up a microphone wire, which he tossed lightly to Menelaus. “We are here to learn, not to instruct. Your question must go unanswered. Let us question Scholar Rada Lwa during the thaw process. If he is forthcoming to you, the matter of torment is moot, and I will acknowledge the moral obligation you impose. As a gesture of goodwill, a lagniappe, Aanwen and I further agree to compromise the dignity of our persons, by pretending no assault took place.”

  “Fair enough,” said Menelaus with a sideways tilted grin. “I knew you were a bigger man than you looked!”

  Menelaus clicked the microphone plug into its corresponding jack on the coffin hull. There was a crackle of static, and then a connection formed with the speech centers of the al
bino’s brain.

  3. Interrogatory of Rada Lwa

  Who are you?

  I self-identify as Intermediately Evolved Learned Scholar Rada Lwa Chwal Sequitur Argent-Montrose. I am Psychoi, brain augment to level 257, artificially stabilized by partial emulation technique.

  What do you know of the Judge of Ages?

  No referent.

  Who built the Tombs? What do you know of him?

  Builder of Tombs is undesigned Highly Evolved Pneumatic Menelaus Illation Montrose, ancestor, mutineer, enemy.

  Pneumatic? The guy operates on compressed air?

  One who attains self-enlightenment is a pneumaticos. The three stages of evolution are hylic, psychic, and pneumatic. I am of the second stage; he is of the third. The Enlightened accomplish apolutrosis and, later, gnosis by partial or total brain emulation. Montrose, the enemy, accomplished his elevation without emulation, by adapting his brain via nerve path redaction to the coordinate system of the Omicron hieroglyph-group of the Monument notation. It resulted in the ongoing insanity that requires his reeducation or recycling.

  Recycling?

  Physical reduction of bodily elements into useful raw materials. Thrift is commendable.

  Who are the Enlightened?

  The secret masters of history. They are the ones who have defined the course of human evolution to come.

  Does this refer to the crew of the NTL Hermetic?

  Yes. However, the term is regarded as inexact, since the Hermetic was stolen by the Highly Evolved Pneumatic Rania Grimaldi and is now elsewhere in the unlimited not-here.

  You mean she is in Outer Space?

  The term is regarded as inexact. All that can be established with apodictic certainty is that she is not recognizably in the current and present perceptual frame of reference. I regard all event-objects outside my mind as speculative, including her location.

  You mean Rania Montrose?

  We must never refer to her by that name.

  What is the course of human evolution to come?

  Biological intelligence is insufficiently flexible or scalable to adhere to the Dominion of Hyades. Hence, postbiological life is preferred. The first level or stratum of postbiological life shall be computerized emulations of the Enlightened. All growth of emulation life must be taken strictly from templates imprinted by the Enlightened, so that the “memes” or mental-cultural self-reproducing valuation-data shall be passed on. All nonconforming information systems must be utterly destroyed. No nonconforming system can be tolerated anywhere, for any reason.