by perpetrator
It was Evripades Telthexorthopolis, Lord Tellus. His grandfather.
The countenance could not be mistaken: it was on stamps and coins and monuments and medallions more than any other face had ever been.
In the shape of his face, the philosopher’s brow, the bulldog jaw, he looked mostly like Lord Jupiter; but his sardonic half-smile was Lord Neptune’s. The sneer of Lord Mercury was at his nostrils, the cold gaze of Lord Uranus in his eyes, which were as large as those of Lady Venus. His skin was olive as hers.
He had the habit of squinting his left eye while opening his right. Between that, and his crooked nose, and his crooked smile which turned half his mouth upward while the other half slanted down, his whole face seemed tilted out of true.
He touched his ring to Aeneas’ ring. A one-way path opened: Aeneas could receive but not send messages. The voice channel brought sound into his auditory nerve. The voice of the old Emperor was different than the recordings remembered: softer, weaker, careworn. He sounded tired.
“Only for a moment may I maintain this condition in this temporal frame of reference. So far you have done well, my heir, but the next fall of the dice wins or loses all.
“Take more caution. Trust fewer. Trust less. You are Emperor. You are alone.
“Into your memory I now imprint the approach vectors and warp coordinates of the Luminous Blue Variable 1806-20.
“This star is on the far side of the galaxy from Sol, within the Radio Nebula G10.0-0.03, which is within the interstellar molecular cloud MC13A. The star is forty million times as bright as Sol, and two hundred times the mass and diameter: It is the largest star in the Milky Way.
“The sole working set of exogalactic range Tipler armatures built by the Forerunners encircle this star. These are the Master Armature.
“I send you from dark danger to darker. Luminous Blue Variable 1806-20 is a stronghold of the vampires, and strongly held, but you must overcome them, and destroy the Master Armature as you use it to depart. They lack the resources and resourcefulness ever to build another.
“Master Armature alone can reach Large Magellanic Cloud in Dorado, a satellite galaxy orbiting one hundred sixty three thousand lightyears beyond the rim of the Milky Way. All stars here are too small to serve as your anchor point over such vast distance, but one.
“That one is Radcliffe 136a1. It is three thousand times the mass of Sol, thirty-five times the radius, eight million times the luminosity. It is greater than any star in our galaxy.
“Whether an armature can circle and tame so great a mass, you must prove. Where after that mankind must venture, I cannot advise nor foretell.
“We are the last. All other spheres where life, organic life, once throve, now dead are, vanished quite, and nor monument nor memory is left of them. The future is as fragile as a hollow glass. It is in your hands. Save the people.”
He reached out and made an adjustment to the crown on the head of Aeneas. “You are not wearing this tightly enough. Do you want it to fall?”
He turned again, and stared at Lord Saturn. “Save those you can,” Grandfather sighed. “There are some who cannot be saved. My son, Geras, is dead.” Geras was Lord Saturn’s name.
Time resumed. Color, motion, light and noise returned. Lord Tellus was gone; no footprint bent the grass where he had, in the frozen moment, been standing. The darkness around Aeneas was gone, but Lord Tellus had left the deadly, life-destroying spacewarp in place around Lord Saturn.
There was a crack of noise like a thunderclap as volume of air the size of a man, finding itself vacuum, collapsed.
Lord Saturn made a noise half between a choke and a shriek, as were trying somehow to inhale and to scream both at once. His eyes were goggling as if with surprise, and blood came from his tear ducts. He fell heavily to the grass, his limbs already lose and limp. His right arm was broken in four places, and scalded as if with fire. The sickle, which Lord Tellus had left hanging in midair, fell to the grass beside him.
“What happened?” shouted Lord Mercury. He was on his feet, standing near the throne of Lady Venus. Aeneas blinked, trying to bring his many senses and sources of vision under control. Had not Lord Mercury been seated in his own throne when time froze?
Blood gushed from the back of Lord Saturn’s body. It matched the blood on the sword tip of Lord Mars, who was also on his feet. Lord Mars had somehow, either just before or just after halt of time, risen, drawn, and stabbed Lord Saturn.
Lord Neptune raised his trident, preparing a graviton-beam weapon aiming in the direction of Lord Saturn (which also, perhaps not by accident, was in the direction of Aeneas); Lord Jupiter, faster, raised his bolt and flung it at Lord Neptune.
Neither weapon landed. Aeneas raised his hand and lowered the speed of light below the speed of sound. The landscape turned red. Gravity waves and electromagnetic both were now outside the local lightcone, hence invisible, unable to affect anything within. “Halt! Lower your arms or forfeit your lives!”
37. Uneasy Lies the Head
“All of you! Throw down your weapons!” shouted Aeneas. Then, in a milder voice, he said, “Even you, Lord Mars, though I thank you for trying to protect me.”
Aeneas lowered his hand. Light returned to normal.
No one moved to obey him. They seemed just as frozen as if the time-stop of Lord Saturn were still in effect.
Then Lord Mars sheathed his sword. “My weapons cannot be put away, except for toys. I severed his upper spine. Nerve signals from his brain will not reach his ringfinger. The wound is not fatal. He can be revived...”
Aeneas had already probed the body of Lord Saturn. There was no life energy in any of the cells of his body, save for a residue in hair cells and fingernails. Death had been instantaneous and complete.
Aeneas said, “He cannot be revived.”
Lord Mars sat. A sigh went through the rest. They looked eye to eye, and suddenly, for no reason clear to any of them, all relaxed.
Lord Jupiter picked up his dropped goblet. He gave a loud and sustained roar of laughter, “Ho! So now the long-overdue killings will start, to rid the family of whoever Aeneas fears. Well, let’s get it over with! I ask only that you kill your mother first, because I will get more happiness from seeing her die than she will get from seeing me.” He turned to Lady Venus. “You agree, I hope? We have always liked each other. It is a small favor to ask.”
Lady Venus folded her mirror into nullspace, sat back in her cushions, crossed her legs, and began tucking away any stray hair that had escaped her coiffeur. She pouted prettily. “You are sick, Brother. My son will kill no one this day.”
“No one further, you mean.” Lord Neptune thrust his trident tines-first into the ground once more, let go of the haft, and sat down heavily in his chair. He also laughed, albeit his was short and bitter, not long and loud. “I did not think you had it in you, lad. And to start with Lord Saturn! I thought he was firmly on your side!”
Lord Uranus extinguished his lamp and set it carefully aside. His voice betrayed no emotion whatever. “Logical, though. By killing Lord Saturn, who supported him so loyally, none of us, less loyal, will feel secure.”
Lord Mercury contorted his winged wand, woven with serpents, back into storage, and raised his empty hands overhead. He spoke over his shoulder to Uranus. “I like it! Aeneas plays the weakling for five years running, and now this! And he picked Lord Saturn, who was no threat. Aeneas is stone cold.”
Neptune wiped sweat from his brow with his wrist. “Colder than I am, I’ll say that. Maybe he will make a good Emperor after all. I did not think he was willing to kill family!”
Lady Luna said, “A good emperor and a bad man!” She alone of all those there reacted with emotion. She was staring at the dead body of her uncle, and her teeth were chattering and her limbs were shaking. Whether this was fear or rage, no one could say, not even she. She did not lower her bow, as ordered, but since the shaft had fallen off the string, perhaps it did not matter. The mind-destroying arrow lay in
the grass, twinkling with undischarged thought-energy.
Aeneas, meanwhile, was seated. His head was bowed, as he silently contemplated the corpse at the foot of his throne.
He had pulled the crown off his head. Stream rose from the wound in his skull, as his internal biomechanisms hurried to repair the damage to his primary brain, and replace the shattered skull armor.
Blood flowed down his brow, and formed red streaks like tears down his cheeks. Without raising his head, he looked up, and his eyes were very white indeed within the dark splotches of the bloodstains on his face. His features, at that moment, looked more like the face of a beast than a man. His eyes were red and swollen.
From the look in his eye, it was clear to all present that he more than willing enough to kill his family members. “You don’t think I did this?”
Lord Uranus said, “I detect traces of Cherenkov radiation in the corpse. He died from someone lowering the speed of light inside his body. You alone have the means to kill in this fashion. Who else?”
Aeneas said, “Lord Tellus was here.”
There was silence. All there stared at him. No one laughed. Most were expressionless. Lady Luna smiled with trembling lips, wearing that strange look of one who hopes what she had just heard was a joke, or a slip of the tongue. Lady Venus rolled her eyes, wearing the look of a mother who wishes her child would not embarrass her. “Didn’t I tell you the story of the Boy who Cried Wolf when you were young, child?” she murmured. “Aesop’s moral was clear: only tell lies people will believe!”
Aeneas said, “Lord Pluto! Were Grandfather here, invisible, would you see him?”
He looked over. Lord Pluto was a tall silhouette in dark armor, featureless helm covering his face, black mantle covering his form. For a moment, he did not answer and Aeneas wondered if the armor was empty. But then a voice spoke: “I can remove the scene from the information layer of the universe, but not see what others remove.”
Gray-eyed Lady Pallas spoke up sharply, “Sire! Why kill Lord Saturn? Without him, there is no defense against enemy timewarps, and the teams living in chambers and on moons where decades pass for every hour of our time are trapped!”
Aeneas did not raise his head, but his eyes, looking up through his eyebrows, moved slowly from face to face. “None of you saw him attack me?”
Their blank gazes were all the answer he needed.
Lord Saturn must have frozen them before he sped up himself. Aeneas must have been slowed down less than the others, a trickle of time allowed to him, perhaps to allow his skull to part when struck. Aeneas alone had been able to see the blurred and rapid beginning of Lord Saturn’s assault.
Aeneas in contempt took the crown and threw it down to the grass. It fell next to the dropped and bloody sickle of Lord Saturn. “Let the body be taken away and examined by medical forensics, and then buried at state expense in a funeral of highest magnificence.”
Silence held while servants were summoned.
Beast-headed Pook, arrogant Ifrit, and long-tressed Nichnytsia from the giant planets arrived, lovely Siren and horned Demon from the small, each dressed in a differing livery. The bewilderment and shock on their faces was plain to see, but they asked no questions.
Scarlet-skinned Martians formed an honor guard, while Earthmen from Patagonia, Atlantis, Scotland, and Antarctica dressed in their typically Earthman loincloths or kilts or leathers of mastodon and smilodon reverently arranged the body and bound it in linen.
The Martians hoisted the body on a litter of spears and cloaks, and departed at a dead slow march. The Scotts played the bagpipe, and the Patagonians pounded the timpani. The Sirens wailed. The Demons of Mercury blew shofars made from the horns of forefathers fallen on the field of honor. The silent Nichnytsia ignited candleflames in the soft palms of their slender hands and held them aloft.
Brother Beast departed with them, murmuring prayers.
After the last of the servants was gone, Aeneas said, “Any of you who believe me capable of this deed, I release you from your oath of fealty to me.”
Lady Luna eyes red with angry tears, looked up in surprise. “Wait a moment! Are you sincerely claiming not to have done this?”
Aeneas said heavily, “My weapon, but not my will. Lord Saturn and I had each other in a deadly stalemate. Then Lord Tellus walked up, Grandfather Tellus, even though time was frozen and he could not have been walking. He removed Lord Saturn’s weapon, but not mine. Time resumed, and I was given no chance to call my weapon back.”
Lady Luna dropped her recurve bow, and stepped over to stand next to the throne of Aeneas. She said, “I believe you.”
Lord Pluto rose and walked with slow and grave steps over to stand next to her. “Aeneas did not kill Lord Saturn. Neither did we kill Lord Tellus. He abdicated, and let us think we had driven him off. This boy sees why: we are too unruly to rule.”
Lady Venus said, “I don’t care who killed whom. I support my son.” She also rose and stood behind him.
Lord Mercury stepped over as well, grinning a wicked grin. “Things were boring before he took over!”
Lady Ceres rose and curtseyed. “Let lead who will. I say neither yes nor no.” She used a contortion pearl, and vanished.
Gray-eyed Lady Pallas covered her shield and sheathed her bolt. She said, “Have we changed from an imperium to a democracy? Are we voting for who shall lead?”
Aeneas said, “I do not wish to lead such people as you, Aunt Aspasia. You are a gang of criminals. All you understand is force and fear.”
She said, “I understand more than that: You got us to cooperate. That miracle even Lord Tellus never performed.” She crossed the grass and stood near his throne.
Lords Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, finding themselves alone on the far side of the circle, the only ones opposed to Aeneas, looked at each other in surprise.
Jupiter smiled. “How did we come to be on the same side in anything?”
Lord Neptune said, “I am not on your side, Brother! Didn’t I just say I liked the kid. I mean, I like His Imperial Majesty.” He took up his trident, came, knelt down before Aeneas, and laid the trident down at his feet. “Send me to prison or have me rubbed out or brain-raped, whatever you like. You are in charge. But I can be useful to you! Lord Jupiter always wanted the throne after Tellus was gone: jealousy has driven him mad! I suggest to your Imperial Majesty...”
Aeneas said grimly, “I will inflict on you whatever next comes out of your mouth.”
“...that he be raised to a position of commander in chief for the next attack... and granted special honors and dignities, worthy of his...”
Lord Jupiter stood. “You do not trust me, sire! I see that. But inflict the doom Lord Neptune says! I will lead the next attack. I will prove myself to you.”
Aeneas said, “But you believe I am a murderer and a tyrant.”
Lord Jupiter threw back his head, “You believe all of us are tyrants! You have said so often enough!” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, grinning broadly. “People usually accuse others of flaws they see in themselves, don’t they?”
Lord Uranus, who was now the only one still seated, said in meditatively. “I believe you, sire. Therefore I do not rescind my oath of fealty.”
Aeneas stared at him in disbelief. “You? But you are the one who said I did it.”
The mask took on a more serious expression than its default shape, and less haughty. “I said you have the means. You lack the motive. Lord Mars would have killed Lord Saturn without hesitation, and my brothers would not have cared one iota. So you have no reason to lie. Sire, we know Lord Tellus backs you: he is the one who gave you the superluminary science in the first place. He could be hidden as one of the servants, or as one of you. Or me, behind this mask. Or standing behind yonder tree.”
Lord Mars said, “Wipe your face, sire. Take up your crown. Duty calls. You may not like it. You may hate it. But duty is duty. Your folks are filth. We get that. You don’t like us. We get that, too. We don’t like u
s, either. But we are what you have to work with.”
Lord Mars raised his voice and looked around. “I move that the fate of mankind, be what the Emperor decrees. Because this is not just about the superluminary science any more. His leadership has saved us. We acted as one. I don’t want to see the old squabbles come back.”
Lady Venus said, “Seconded!”
Lord Mars said, “I call the question, and move we vote by acclamation.”
Lord Uranus said, “No. Not by acclamation. The ballot must be secret.”
Aeneas said heavily, “Let it be unanimous! A single nay vote, and I give the crown to Lord Mars.”
They used an encrypted and anonymous channel on their rings to collect the ballots. But, instead of the vote total, Sig, the servomind in Aeneas’ ring said, Sir, there is an anonymous message sent you over the encrypted channel: ‘Saturn was not the traitor. You must retain the crown until he is found.’
Aeneas did not move for the longest time. Finally he bent, and picked up the crown, and straightened, and placed it on his head. He did not see the emeralds and gold that adorned it. He only felt the weight, the unrelenting and terrible weight.
“Our destiny,” he said in a voice from which all emotion had been scraped free, “Lies in the Luminous Blue Variable 1806-20 in Sagittarius on the far side of the galaxy from here, where the last Master Armature resides. The attack there shall be led by Lord Jupiter, as he has volunteered. In the meanwhile, I place him in charge of the militia. However, we have many battles before that, leading to that final climactic war ...”
38. War Plans
Aeneas met with Lord Mars in the newly rebuilt Imperial mansion. Lord Mars was a little surprised to see that, once he was past the gold-drenched anteroom, the vast marble plaza of the receiving hall, and the looming statues of the Nave of Memories, Aeneas’ personal quarters consisted of inauspicious quarters, what one might expect of a burgher of simple tastes.