As Idomenes climbs the wide flights of ivory stairs toward them, the sight of the two lovers burning and stinging in his eyes, an angry gesture twists his fingers. An old, old program is opened in the memory of his assemblers, a military program, written by the Sons of Typhon.
Assemblers make black clouds around him as he strides in wrath up the slope, and draw carbon, hydrogen, and oxides out of the air with such force that he walks as if in a gale.
When he passes the fruit arbours, an articulated exo-skeleton embraces his form, with motors of shell and bone at all joints.
When he passes the outer memory shrines, heavy plates of black diamond armour have collected onto the moving frame. The plate could not have stopped bullets, perhaps, but angels fought with beams of laser flame.
As he passes around the corner of the archive-house, long firing tubes and launchers have collected on his back, and his magazines are filled with explosives.
The wiring grown inside his armour is made of biological cable, like nerves, because his assemblers have no copper or gold to work with. He is going through final firing sequence system checks as he rounds the second corner and steps into the square where the fountain is.
As he walks across the square toward the angel, his heavy motorized footsteps booming on the flagstones, a final touch of anger and pride makes him grow ornaments of nacre and pearl and silvery horn along the hull of his black armour, and a tall gay plume sprouts high from his helm.
He must look splendid, for Lilimariah gazes at him with burning awe in her lovely eyes.
Idomenes sees she is surrounded by the dark angel's sentry-shield. The nimbus shimmers like gold in the air along her bare skin.
Azaziel speaks: "Have you not heard that only free men have the right to go armed? The cruelty of the angels will destroy you if you raise weapons against your betters, little serf!"
"The Invigilators are not so unjust," Idomenes' voice, amplified, rings out from his armour, which is humming with power around him. "I am come to recover the girl you bewitch and abduct. My cause is right; I will not be condemned for it."
But he does not focus any aiming lasers toward the black shining figure, and his weapons still hover on stand-by.
"Not so unjust?" the dark angel mocks. "Compared, I wonder, to what? Or do you call them fair because you dream you will be spared?"
"Our race has a shameful history. The Ship determined that that history must end. Has She not fulfilled every appearance of justice? There was no need to grant our appeal. Her mind is not mortal, not organic, works at a million times our speed, commits no errors, no oversights! How could She be wrong? Yet still She returned to Canopus in Argo for review; the world there is governed by a mind even more deep and wise than Hers. The World-Minds of every world gathered in synod. The World-Minds called upon the Star-Minds, each of whom guides many worlds; the Star-Minds called upon energies we cannot imagine to link mind to mind across the stars and waken the Will."
Idomenes now speaks in a voice of rolling power: "The thoughts of the Will are as infinitely wiser, deeper, more sure, more pure, as the thoughts of the Ship are above mortal organic thoughts. Perhaps you can doubt the wisdom of Ships, and Worlds, and Stars; but surely no one can doubt the wisdom of the Will! Dare you, dare even you, who once served the Will, doubt this? What can you set in your soul to guide yourself, once you have rejected the guiding star of wisdom infinite?"
"I set up my pride," says the dark angel, and his wings are spreading as he speaks. "I will do no more shameful things, no matter at whose behest; but shall henceforth do only that in which I can take most pride."
"You are intoxicated, perhaps insane! Allow my assemblers to cleanse your system; see the light of truth; and restore my true love to me."
"The Will being so wise, why are the innocent condemned? Those whose only crime is that they live on a world with evil-doers? Guilt by dwelling nigh? And what of him whose only crime is that his disordered passions burn within his blood, his genes ahowl with the wrath and meanness of all his apish fathers? To be inclined to sin while lingering sinless: We call this innocence."
Idomenes is not sure how to answer. Then he says grimly: "Those who are worthy shall be spared."
"Worthy? Whose rule is so true to measure it? Whose weights are so sound that they may weigh the souls of men? The Ship cares little for the lives of little men: why else sleeps your father's city here deserted still?"
Idomenes, perhaps, feels a moment of coldness. He cannot answer these questions. Instead, he points his finger at the angel; aiming lasers follow his finger and lock on. The heavy weapons on his back rear up on their jointed arms, hissing like snakes, and point their deadly snouts where his finger points. "You have bewitched my love! Poisoned her with neurochemicals and hypno-narcotics! Release her!"
Azaziel smiles down at the beautiful woman at his feet. "Tell him, my pet, my plaything, you willingly love me."
Lilimariah says, "'Tis true. His child, I carry; no other's. He is strong where you are weak. My father has given him assemblers programmed to sculpt an asteroid into a working starship. We will fly to the heavens without being anyone's domesticated slaves!"
And she laughs. Idomenes' soul is flayed by that laughter. In his armour, he is shivering and sweating with rage.
"She but speaks under your influence! Release her or I fire!"
The angel regards the human weapons with amused contempt. He says: "What you describe is not an Invigilator technology. I have done nothing to her. But I see by your gem that you are sincere. Here. I withdraw my shield from her. Perform your tests. Then see, then know, then confess to me how stupidly you have been wrong. This will shatter your pride, and then you may crawl off somewhere to die. Do you still think the Ship is so wise? By this act, by raising a weapon in anger, you have violated your parole; the Invigilator law will drown you with the others!"
The golden glitter withdraws from Lilimariah's naked skin. She shivers in the air, and the fine, almost invisible, hairs of her skin stand up, for it is growing now toward dusk, and long shadows fall across the courtyard and fountain.
Idomenes makes a gesture. A slim black diamond floats gently forward, touches her skin, pricks her.
"Ow!" She complains. She moves to curl up to Azaziel, but his golden aura repels her.
"I am applying a counter-agent to restore your normal neuro-chemical balance," Idomenes says. "Just a moment..."
At that instant, a large black diamond flies in from somewhere and shoots into Lilimariah's arm, leaving a small wound. She screams in pain and terror, and a host of her own assemblers pour upwards out of ornaments in her hair into a defensive formation.
Azaziel shouts in astounded anger, such a shout as angels cry, and throws his aura, like a cloak, around Lilimariah's shoulders. He spreads his wings to take flight.
Idomenes cries out in panic and rage and hate to see his lover about to be carried away forever, and he lunges forward, fingers curled.
He will tell himself later that his gun-barrage went off by mere mischance, that his hand was perhaps jarred by the sudden motion into the trigger-gesture. So he will tell himself.
With a roar like a hundred thunders, flares light up on his shoulder-racks, rockets streak out, trailing streams of boiling smoke; his major cannons, left and right, vomit explosive flame, jarring mind and sense and hearing; minor cannons rattle with jack-hammer concussions, a numbing blur of noise.
Azaziel's aura flares to the greatest of its great power, and cloaks the angel in an eye-searing flame. His compensating field is insufficient; the shockwave of the attack throws him backwards through the wall of the archives. The beautiful building is blackened and smashed with fire, as Idomenes' micro-rockets and beam-guided missiles jump in through the holes.
Idomenes is beginning to realize the enormity of his error when Azaziel, shaped now like a pillar of fire, emerges from the archive, reducing roof and walls to tumbling ash as the swirling column unfolds to its full height.
Like a tornado, Azaziel glides forward, and an arm of lightning dips toward Idomenes. Lesser assemblers and floating globes, like a black snowstorm, try to swirl into the path of the beam; Idomenes has harness-jets and prosthetic leg-motors assist his panicked leap to the side.
The beam of lightning tears off huge chunks of Idomenes' armour, and tosses him headlong in mid-leap, but the blow is glancing, and the diamond panels refract the beam just enough to send lances of scattered fire in to the observatory.
The beautiful building is impaled with roaring flame.
Idomenes tries to cry out words of apology, perhaps, or peace, but the roar of fire and explosion is all around him. He jumps and fires, jumps and fires, smashing through more walls and roofs as he does so.
Through the smoke and terror, he can see the twin slender beams of Azaziel's eyesight slicing through walls and smoke-clouds, hunting him. Azaziel's fiery column sweeps through the area, devastating all. The fountains explode in a tangled convulsion of steam.
Azaziel's shields falter, perhaps grounded or cooled by the water. Idomenes forgets all thoughts of peace when he sees the dark angel rising into the air, haloed in fire, stealing Lilimariah away. He glimpses her teary face: her mouth and eyes are wide. He leaps, kicked aloft by coughing jets, and attempts to grapple the angel.
A vast force of fire explodes in his faceplate as his arms close around the burning pillar of Azaziel. His diamond armour is blasted awry, molten lumps flying backward, but his arms manage to grab something. Whatever is in his grasp slides under his whining gauntlet-motors, and crackles with electrical tension, formless, like forcing two opposite magnets together.
Azaziel's calm, dispassionate face is staring into the faceplate of Idomenes, a sight of eerie terror. Inches before him, Idomenes sees the energy fields swirling in front of the dark angel's eyes, growing bright, gathering power... The dark angel squints...
Before Azaziel's gaze can smite him, an unexpected force thrusts the two combatants apart and flings them both to the ground.
Here is Uriel, Prince of Angels and foremost of their kind, blazing, and he stands in midair now between them.
From his upraised palms comes a pulse. The combatants are held apart.
Here also is stern Ducaleon. The old man wears a green thinking-robe; he is surrounded by glittering assemblers more numerous and better-made than his son's. In his brow he also carries a ruby. A look of stern sorrow is graven on his features.
Ducaleon points with his glove, and a command signal overrides Idomenes' assemblers. The black diamonds attempting to repair Idomenes' armour now reverse their actions. The armour sways and falls to pieces around Idomenes, disintegrating in huge sliding lumps and glittering dusty slithers.
Azaziel, meanwhile, smothers his aura. Gold light, not flame, surrounds him.
Idomenes is in pain from a dozen burns, lacerations, sprains, pains even worse; he fears bones are broken. He cannot rise to his feet, and the assemblers which normally would have been swarming to heal him are fallen to the blackened ground, motionless.
Azaziel, on the other hand, has not a strand of his black hair misplaced. He flexes his wings around him, and crosses his arms on his chest. He says nothing. Lilimariah, behind him, is unharmed, although her face is full of emotion.
Idomenes listens to his ears ringing in the sudden silence.
All around them are the cratered remains of once-great buildings; the works of his father's architecture, smouldering, blasted, ruined, destroyed.
Ducaleon says, "Abase yourself before the high Exemplar Uriel and beg forgiveness, and you may, perhaps, be spared." (The word exemplar is an old term for the Invigilators, from the days when they were meant to serve as examples to mankind, rather than as punishers.) "The asteroids of ice begin already to fall. You have led a blameless life. But if you err, even on the last day, even at the last hour, you will not be saved."
Idomenes, unable to rise, cranes his head and looks toward Uriel. The arch-angel's aura is so bright that it crackles with sparks and little arcs of fire. "I apologize for harm I've done; I meant no disrespect." But the words come grudgingly forth. Idomenes does not believe in his heart that he has done anything wrong.
Azaziel says with disdain, "Roll over! Fetch! Play Dead!"
The light from Uriel's eyes touches Idomenes' ruby; he sees his thoughts. Uriel says nothing.
Lilimariah, half-hidden behind Azaziel's back, her hand on the dark angel's shoulders, says in a sad, haunted voice, "Do not be slain for my sake. I'm sorry, Idomenes. I am under no influence, now, nor any thoughts of mine bewitched. And yet I say: I must go with Azaziel."
"Is it him you love?" Idomenes knows pain beyond his wounds. His voice is a hoarse rasp.
She hesitates. Then: "Yes. As much as my heart can do." Her voice is faint. Then she says, "Now make peace with your father, and kiss his hands, and go your way with the angels of death, who condemn and slay mankind." The hatred in her voice is clear.
Ducaleon says to Uriel, "Tell me my son can be saved. I have no one else."
Uriel speaks. His voice is quiet and gold. "His trust in us is gone. When humans do not trust, they fear. When they fear, they kill."
Idomenes lifts himself partway on his hands, rearing up. Blood breaks through his burns. He winces. He shouts out, "How can I believe in the justice of the Will, if the reasons of the angels are not just?"
Ducaleon says: "Their justice is beyond our understanding. But is there any race so deserving of death as mankind? Can you think of an act of evil, no matter how heinous, which we have not done? Not done in secret, but while crowds cheered?"
Idomenes shouts again, "Is the innocent child who grows in Lilimariah's womb so guilty that he is deserving of death?"
Uriel speaks again. "He is condemned because no one can guarantee that, when he grows, neither he nor any of his progeny will never work murder or theft or deception on the innocent hosts who live among the Will. Quite the opposite! When humans gather, crime is certain."
Idomenes is angry. "My life has been in service to this? Is this what you call justice? None can survive this rule! None can live so!"
Uriel says in a voice of haunting beauty: "There are races that do not enslave, do not slay, do not war. There are races which do not lie or falsify. You think them weak? But they are among the strongest and finest denizens of the Will. They waste no treasure, nor time, nor grief, nor lives, nor blood, to maintain the ungainly apparatus of suspicion and bloodshed you call government, the princes and policemen and hangmen without which you humans dare not risk to live with each other. Weak? So would savages, whose every cottage was a fortress and every door a barricade, think your race. And yet, among the stars there are crystalline civilizations so complex, so swift, and so trusting that a single lie could ruin them. Do you think the Will is weak, then? Observe the strength granted those who serve it!"
And, at his word, an earthquake shakes the mountain.
Idomenes looks to the railing. He feels a swaying, weightless pitching. Beyond the rail, he sees the ground departing slowly away. There comes a moment of mist. Then they are high, no longer in twilight, but back in the day. Beyond the railing is cloud.
Ducaleon says: "We are risen! My son is still with us! Does this mean he can be saved?" He points with his gloves, and many assemblers swarm over Idomenes, tending to his wounds.
Uriel is silent, staring grimly at Idomenes.
Ducaleon says, "Son! You know it is wise to agree with the Exemplar. Think of what you will gain if you quell the rebellion in your heart!"
Idomenes says, "Father, I mean not to grieve you. But a man cannot make himself believe a lie just because it profits him. Men do not hold to the truth because it is useful, or comely, or safe. Men hold to the truth because it is true. And I was not told the truth!"
Azaziel mutters, "Proudly said! Would that my docile brother angels had such hearts of fire as this lowly mortal."
Uriel says, "Truth we spoke not to you, foreknowing you would say s
uch words, too arrogant to be unsaid. Our justice grounded on stern practicality."
Lilimariah, her voice thick with hatred, her eyes smoking, now spoke: "Death angel! What you call justice is nothing but fear! Fear of mankind! And because you came, from fear, to doom us, we have no fate but to make ourselves as fearsome as we can do! Fools! Fools! All fools! We had no care for your World-Minds and your Will and all your grave deliberations! Do you think murder is not murder because it is done by judges or governments or gods? No, we prayed for those appeals, and every delay - sixty long years of delay! - we Typhonides employed to make ourselves as ready for war as we could do! What care we if you drown the world? Already my father and his people have altered themselves, painful mutations and ugly, and sink down to dwell in the deepest chasms of the ocean bed, where sunlight never can reach. There they will breed a race of monstrosities, a race of magicians, in sunless domes and fortresses far beneath the waves! From there they will wage eternal war, fuelled by restless hate unending. You think to drown the world in water? They shall drown the world in blood! You cannot blockade our ascent forever! One day the stars shall be ours! Then the stars themselves shall drip blood!"
Uriel turns to Idomenes, and says gravely, "Do you see what it is we must act to prevent? This woman is unworthy of your regard."
Idomenes answers bravely, "And yet she should not die."
"Acknowledge our wisdom! The one we chose to live is the only one worthy. Only Ducaleon. We spare his wife for his sake."
Now Uriel turns to Azaziel. "But as for you, you have violated our laws. Capitulate to our judgment, meekly surrender, or I bring terrible arms to bear!"
Azaziel laughs a laugh of scorn. "What do I care for your frowning brow and threatening word? I know your arms, and I know I am safe. But even if I were not, I would not cower to you. I will do only what pride bids me do; so I have sworn, and will do no shameful thing, or anything prompted only by fear.
"Capitulate? How?" the proud angel continued, "Your own law says you will kill to protect anyone who might one day perhaps - perhaps! - threaten the civilization you so adore. Should I not have as much love as that for this my child, whom, if I capitulate, you kill?
Engineering Infinity Page 21