by Tim Wirkus
Third: I’ve tried hard to recreate for you the experience of reading the text in Portuguese, but it hasn’t been easy. For reasons that should make sense if you’ve read the preceding narrative, The Infinite Future doesn’t always read like it was written by a native speaker. The syntax, usage, and presence of false cognates give the original Portuguese text the feel of a so-so translation from English, which made my job tricky, as I often felt like I was back-translating, even though strictly speaking I was not. How, then, to preserve that effect for you—the feel of a very Englishy Portuguese? I ultimately decided to embrace, and slightly enhance, the scholarly formality of the nun-narrator’s prose style.
With all of that out of the way, then, you know as much as I do about the biography of Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie and the provenance of his strange, hubristic novel. Now I’ll step aside and let the text speak for itself.
Unfix’d yet fix’d,
Ever shall be, ever have been and are,
Sweeping the present to the infinite future,
Eidólons, eidólons, eidólons.
—WALT WHITMAN, from “Eidólons”
ONE
I was emptying rattraps in our convent’s dusty undercroft when I heard the news of our impending destruction. Or rather, the rumors of our impending destruction, as the whispers of a Delegarchic death sentence had not yet been confirmed by Sister Kim, our chief communicant. One must always, I have learned, be skeptical of such unsubstantiated talk in a small, isolated community such as the one I occupy.
There was the time, for instance, when Sister Bilta mistakenly inferred from a bit of intercepted radio chatter that one of our sister convents on the other side of the galaxy had been beset by a scourge of Andromedan Bone Flu. Somehow, by the end of the day, half the convent was laboring under the mistaken impression that forces hostile to our order were systematically attacking our outposts throughout the galaxy with invidious biological weapons. The reality of the situation was that the almonatrix at our sister convent had contracted a mild case of food poisoning from an undercooked drumel egg, and Andromedan Bone Flu had never even entered the picture.
And so, when I heard that rogue Delegarchic forces intended to annihilate every last member of our order, I was understandably skeptical.
“But there was a teleprint,” said Sister Aqueo, an excitable young novice who was on rattrap duty with me that morning. She’d just informed me of the terrible news, and I had responded with an incredulity that had dismayed her.
(By the way, we have no rats here in the convent, only moon-gophers that stowed away once in a poorly inspected shipment of barley we received from the farm planet of Bacchus II, and then multiplied like the tenacious vermin they are.)
“If there was a teleprint,” said Sister Beatriz, also on rattrap duty, and my oldest friend here at the Astral Cenobium of Outer Hyperion, “then I’m sure Sister Kim will read it to us at vespers, whatever it might say.”
We didn’t have to wait until vespers, though, to receive confirmation of the rumor. When we ascended to the Greater Courtyard with our burlap sacks of rodent corpses, a flustered Sister Genoveva—normally so unflappable—breathlessly informed us that Sister Kim had convened an emergency meeting in the Chapter House, and our presence was required immediately.
We found the Council Room—the inner sanctum of the Chapter House—bustling with dozens of our sisters. Our arrival, in fact, brought the head count to forty-eight—in other words, every last person who lived in the convent. The room buzzed with anxious chatter, but when Sister Kim, standing on the Speaker’s Platform at the room’s exact center, saw we’d arrived, she lifted her hands above her head, and the entire Council of Forty-Eight fell instantly silent.
“Just a few hours ago,” began Sister Kim gravely, “our convent teleprinter received a disturbing communication from the central governing offices of the Third Galactic Delegarchy. Under the pretense of protecting our safety, the communiqué requests that we vacate our convent, dissolve our order, and divest ourselves of all religious authority, effective immediately. The teleprint cites the threat of fundamentalist violence, such as the gruesome children’s riot on Menelaus VII a few months ago and the recent and bloody uprising of a Pyuritic sect on Andromache II as a justification for the Delegarchs’ so-called request. Using the politest of bureaucratic doublespeak, it further informs us that the Delegarchs have deployed military forces to ‘aid us in complying with these requests.’”
Angry murmurs coursed across the room, but when Sister Kim again raised her hands, the murmurs ceased.
She continued: “Given the brazen and illegal government takeover last week by seven rogue Delegarchs, a takeover that left nineteen of their fellow lawmakers literally eviscerated on the floor of the OctoSenate and sent the remaining dozen into terrified hiding, as well as the unprecedented carnage that has lately beset our sister convents, we have no doubt that these troops are under orders to slay every last one of us.”
More furious murmurs broke out, and this time Sister Kim did not try to quell them. With her news delivered, she ceded the Speaker’s Platform, as per protocol, to whichever sister next chose to address the Council.
In some ways, Sister Kim’s report should not have come as a shock. Our order represents a bothersome impediment to the rogue Delegarchs’ final assumption of executive galactic powers, and for that reason we—both as a group and as individuals—cannot be allowed to survive. This teleprint was merely a formality, a counterfeit proof of due diligence that these Delegarchs can later adduce to justify their atrocities to the acolytes of their new regime.
And so, with the truth of the morning’s rumors thus established, we debated, following the anciently established parliamentary procedures of our order, how we might react to this veritable death sentence. I can reveal little of the discussion, given the vow of secrecy under which we operated in that room, but I can say that the Council unanimously decided that we should all continue in the work of our order—researching, experimenting, theorizing—until the approaching troops force us to stop.
What we do not know is when that might be. Our convent—a self-contained space station shaped like a spider gourd—is situated in an obscure corner of the galaxy, thirty days’ journey from the nearest military outpost. If the rogue Delegarchs deployed the troops at the same time they sent the teleprint, then we have some time yet to live, maybe as much as a month. But if the Delegarchs deployed the troops preemptively, as may well be the case, armed forces could be knocking down our door at any moment.
The mood as we exited the Chapter House was an odd one, equal parts gloom and urgency. Sister Beatriz and I—Sister Aqueo was too distraught at the moment and had requested a few minutes alone in her quarters to collect herself—returned to the Great Courtyard to retrieve our hastily abandoned sacks of dead moon-gophers. As I hefted a pair of burlap bags over my shoulder, I considered the vast and frightening emotional terrain that had opened up within me. So overwhelming were my feelings that I couldn’t even begin to express them to Sister Beatriz. And so the two of us walked in silence to the hall of waste disposal.
“Well Sister Úrsula,” said Sister Beatriz after we’d emptied the bags into the astrochute. “I suppose we’ve no time to lose.”
“No,” I said. Wishing each other a good morning, we parted ways to work on our respective projects.
TWO
As a student of history I understand the fleeting nature of any given way of life. What may seem to its occupants to be a state of unalterable stability will soon—in months, years, decades, or centuries—give way to chaos. Barbarian hordes will invade. Disease-ridden ships will arrive. Nuclear weapons will be deployed. When the way of life in question is my own, however, my perspective becomes markedly less academic.
It’s been four days since the teleprint arrived, and you may well wonder what I’ve done with that precious time, representing, as it does, such a large
portion of the truncated life I have left to live. I’m sorry to report that too many of those hours have been frittered away as I try to distract myself from such unpleasant questions as: What if the troops arrive while I’m in the toilet? Or: Who will water my lykantos plant when I’m gone? Or: Does one feel the pain of a blast-gun shot before that shot causes one’s death?
(The answers, by the way: I die embarrassed. Nobody. And, according to Sister Yan, our resident trauma biologist, probably so.)
To keep these fears at bay, I’ve tried quantum meditation, jigsaw puzzles, pemlon stacking, gardening, nibo stretches, and painting. I’ve even tried doing research on my current project, but that only adds new worries to the already considerable existing ones. It appears that no matter what remedy I employ, my brain will continue to pester me with its grim and impertinent questions.
You may also be wondering, incidentally, why my comrades and I aren’t preparing to defend our convent—or, better yet, to flee. Our rationale is complicated—partly ideological and partly pragmatic. The troops dispatched by the Delegarchs will not only vastly outnumber and outgun us but will also consist entirely of young people. Such has been the practice in warfare for millennia, the carcasses of a civilization’s youth serving as gruesome prophylactics for the aged ruling classes in their perpetual battle against any and all threats to their own desperately held power. Our order believes that to fight against such youthful troops is to validate the logic of empire, and so—not in passivity but in protest—we lay down our weapons (so to speak; we don’t actually have any weapons).
Though our decision not to physically resist the approaching troops is partly ideological, our decision not to flee is solely pragmatic. Our convent is located far from sympathetic ports—a deliberate choice made during peacetime and rendered inconvenient in dire moments such as this one. Long-distance transport vessels, while dramatically more available now than, say, in Irena Sertôrian’s time, remain a rare commodity. Here at the convent we have a single long-range galaxy cruiser, capable of transporting no more than half a dozen people at once.
And while I can reveal very few specifics, I will say that the vessel is currently being put to very good use. Directly following the Council meeting four days ago, six of our number, whose particular disciplines equip them well for certain subversive activities, boarded the galaxy cruiser and, wishing us a teary farewell, embarked on a high-risk, top-secret assignment. As I write these words, our brave comrades should just be arriving at the first of three destinations where they will gather matériel for their upcoming operations.
Here at the convent, we’ve maintained no contact with the ship so that no record exists of their location, and I should tell you nothing more about this ongoing mission, except that when our order does take up arms, it will use them to strike directly at the heart of oppression.
My larger point is that the brave and needful actions of our six comrades stand in sharp contrast to my own frightened waffling. With the little time that remains, I could certainly produce something of value—something that might, in some small way, benefit humankind. As much as I’d like to move forward on such a project, though, I remain overwhelmed not only by the prospect of a violent and early death but also by the specter of certain personal matters that I’ve left unresolved for far too long.
THREE
Over breakfast in the refectory this morning, I laid out my dilemma to Sister Beatriz: How should I spend the remaining weeks (or days, or minutes) of my mortality? She was doubly occupied already, with one hand scooping oatmeal into her mouth and the other scribbling calculations for her current project, a vortemathical experiment she’s spent months designing. She paused, though, and looked up at me, regarding my nervous face with those sharp dark eyes of hers. Licking a trace of oatmeal from the corner of her lips, she leaned back in her chair, resting her face in the palm of her ink-smudged hand.
“You should do what you do best, Sister Úrsula,” she said, pointing her spoon as if the answer had been sitting in front of me all along.
“And what would that be?” I said.
She’d taken another bite of oatmeal, and she shook her head at me while she swallowed.
“You’re a brilliant historian,” she said impatiently, “so what you need to do is write some history. Another one of your insightful monographs that so concisely illuminate the life and teachings of Irena Sertôrian. That’s what you should do.”
She punctuated this last sentence with an emphatic wave of her spoon, inadvertently flicking me with tiny gobs of oatmeal.
“Fine,” I said, wiping the oatmeal bits from my blouse with the side of my thumb. “Let’s pretend I even have something concise and insightful to say about Sertôrian at this point in my career. Even if I did—at a time like this, what would be the point? What good is yet another arcane bit of scholarship in the already bloated canon of Sertôrial studies?”
Reopening her notebook and picking up her pen, Sister Beatriz said that that was a question I would have to answer for myself. She started to write, lowering her head until a dark curtain of hair obscured her face, effectively bringing our conversation to a close.
The truth is, I’ve been in a rut, writing-wise, since long before the arrival of that fateful teleprint. I’ve been in a rut, in fact, ever since the explosive galactic success of my previous monograph, Sertôrian the Woman. With that text, I attempted to single-handedly counteract centuries of scholarship, which has treated Sertôrian not as a flesh-and-blood person but as a kind of metaphysical Holy Grail (to summon up a truly ancient myth), a vessel whose sole function is to convey grand spiritual truths to her yearning and thirsty disciples, a mere receptacle whose own pains, desires, struggles, and flaws merit not even the slightest consideration. Such approaches deny Sertôrian her basic humanity, and so to remedy this, my Sertôrian the Woman focused entirely on Sertôrian’s historically verifiable biography, on the mundane details of her life. As you might imagine, my exclusion of any and all mystical elements from my treatment of Sertôrian caused no small controversy among scholars and worshippers alike, and in the ensuing fervor, I dug in my heels in defense of my approach, arguing so vehemently in favor of Sertôrian the Woman that I find myself unsure how to proceed with my next piece of scholarship.
You see, I’ve come to believe that I did, in fact, slightly overstate my case in Sertôrian the Woman. Ideally, I’ve concluded, any biography of Irena Sertôrian should no more exclude her mysticism than her often troubling humanity. However, so aggressive was the ire and vitriol of my detractors that to walk back the arguments I made in my previous book has felt too fraught, too much like surrender, to even consider. And so, for over a year now, I’ve been stuck.
As I consider this morning’s conversation with Sister Beatriz, though, I realize that nothing more remains to me but scholarship. After all, the academic and religious backlash I might receive pales in comparison to the death sentence that looms over me and my comrades here at the convent. With the time I have left, then, I’ll attempt to make the very argument that’s so frightened me for the past year—an argument that examines Sertôrian’s humanity not apart from but in conjunction with her sibylline identity. And to do so I turn to an unpopular little tale from the life of Sertôrian—the Rhadamanthus IX episode.
FOUR
Truly valuable knowledge comes at a price. In most cases, discomfort may suffice. For instance, sacrificing hours of sleep to memorize the irregular verb forms of an ancient language. Or slogging through a noxious bog to observe the previously unstudied courtship rituals of a rare species of toad. In other instances, however, learning exacts an even higher toll in exchange for its precious fruits. Such is the case with our current study of the Rhadamanthus IX episode. For centuries, followers of Sertôrian chose to discount the tale as bogus rather than engage its spiny heart. I can’t say I fault them.
Readers of this tale are confronted with a painfully human Sertôrian�
��less wise, less holy, less radically egalitarian than the sibylline figure now venerated by billions. In the Sertôrian of the Rhadamanthus IX episode, it can be achingly difficult to discern even the seeds of the post-Syndicate Sertôrian, who on four separate occasions was received into the unfathomable presence of the Infinite Eremites.
At the outset, then, let me make myself clear: I do not embark on this study for sensationalism’s sake. By scrutinizing the Rhadamanthus IX episode, I have no desire to tarnish the legacy of Irena Sertôrian—only to burnish our understanding of her life and thinking. Though I’ve chosen to devote an entire monograph to the tale, I’ve done so less in admiration and more in the spirit of whatever impulse leads us to pick at scabs. Although that gives slightly the wrong impression of my motives. I certainly feel a curiosity, an inability to leave the Rhadamanthus IX episode alone, but unlike scab-picking, I hope my attentions will engender a better understanding of both Sertôrian the woman and Sertôrian the mystic.
(The more apt metaphor, I realize now, is that of the oyster who transforms irritating grit into a luminescent pearl.)
What I mean to say is, if you find the events examined in the following chapters disturbing, know that I do too and that this study examines them not in the spirit of sensationalism but of learning. With death fast approaching (faster for me, I imagine, than for you) one can’t help but take stock of one’s life and ask what that life has amounted to, what has given it significance. As a disciple of Sertôrian, I certainly seek meaning in her great spiritual triumphs—her many sermons and, of course, her Four Shrouded Visions—but at this time, I’m drawn even more to her disappointments and failures. Though I don’t know what we might find by examining the catastrophe that is the Rhadamanthus IX episode, I suspect the difficulty of the path predicts the luminosity of the knowledge that awaits us.