by perpetrator
“A little life! It is such a small thing at first ... a small price ....
“It is what the Captain of the Cerberus did with the crewmen who had died during the expedition. He used the Infinithedron to restore them, to allow us to return home. I saw that we would return home as undead, and spread the poison to the whole race ... I had to stop him ... and so I said necessity excused it ... me, a mutineer, a murderer, and I thought myself a hero ... ”
Aeneas said, “When did you take Pluto’s place?”
“After Mercury killed him. Lord Mercury ... but, no! That title is no longer his! Procopius was trying to wake the vampire of Pluto when Darius discovered him. He did not know that I was hiding aboard the Cerberus. I erased his short term memory again, and sent him home. Lady Cora knew, and could not stand it. She committed suicide, but kept the secret. Poor dear!”
“Why did you slap me around when you were disguised as Pluto?”
“To test your mettle. To make sure you were not a puppet of Venus.”
Aeneas said, “Yet Mercury killed the real Pluto? You did not try and execute him?”
“My own son...? How? In a public trial? I had to keep the vampires a secret for a little longer. And I love my sons. My bold and wicked sons, my beautiful and vain daughters! And because of that weakness, now Procopius is dead! My son is dead! This hideous automaton replacing him is programmed to think himself still alive, still free, and still able to crave the power to be a Lord of Creation!”
The ring on the hand of the old man began to dim. Time within the yard-wide globe slowly began to speed up again. Lord Tellus reached down with a hand that was already dissolving and disintegrating into a red cloud, seemingly little more than a skeleton’s hand, and yanked the ring from the hand of Lord Mercury.
“You are no longer a Lord of Creation!” cried out the voice of Lord Tellus. His face had dissolved too far by then. The voice was coming from his ring. “I declare you now to be no more than a Lord of the Undead!”
As time began flowing again, the cloud-shaped shadow of Lord Tellus fell, and vanished into nothing before he struck the ground. The two signet rings, that of Lord Tellus and that of Lord Mercury, fell, bounced and rolled away down the curving slope of the mound-shaped dais.
The frozen form of the small boy jumped. It seemed absurd that Procopius Tell, who had been invincible a moment before, now was merely a man with the body and strength of a little boy, who started to run on his chubby legs after the bouncing and glittering ring falling down the slope.
Aeneas elongated one of his metallic tentacles, wrapped Procopius in it, and gave him electrical shocks until the boy stopped struggling.
Procopius hissed, “You think you have won? This is nothing. Rhazakhang and his hordes hold the Master Armature. The World Armada is surrounded and pinned in place by a second Black Fleet many times your mass; and there is a third fleet you have not detected a lightyear away and closing fast. A kinetic force shell encloses this whole star system, trapping all within. I alone can save your life. If I die, all mankind is eaten by vampires within the hour. No warps can be formed. There is no escape! If I live, and only if I live, and rule, the promise of the vampires is to spare nine tenths of the race! You think you have me? I have you! I demand your surrender this instant!”
Aeneas gave him a few more shocks, until the little man fell silent. But Aeneas frowned, worried.
How could there be any escape? He saw no way out.
53. Death of the Undead
Holding the boy high overhead and out of reach, Aeneas stepped down from the throne back to the floor, reached out with another tentacle. Without bothering to open the lock or work the latch, he ripped open the heavy lid of the first coffin and flung it aside.
Inside was Lady Luna in a white wedding dress with a bridal veil. She was wrapped in what looked like a straitjacket that reached down her legs to her ankles. It was made of a white, shining fabric like silk. A wad of the same substance had been forced into her mouth and wrapped the lower half of her face. Her lovely eyes were blazing with mingled fear and indignation.
Aeneas scraped up some of the silk substance under a fingernail, touched it to his tongue, and had his internal biochemical cells analyze the molecular pattern. A moment later he synthesized a counteracting agent, which issued like a fine mist from the sweat glands and pores of his skin. He passed his hands over the straight jacket and leg bindings, and the silk dissolved into powder. Lady Luna sat up and smacked Aeneas sharply across the cheek with her palm.
“I rescued you,” he said in a mild voice, “You are supposed to kiss me.”
She was spitting white dust from her mouth and brushing herself off with furious strokes of her hands. “That was for taking too long! You sat there and talked and talked while I was stuffed in a box! I could have smothered! You let him dance on me!”
Aeneas said, “Sorry. But the jurors are not allowed to speak during a trial. You heard everything he confessed? I just wish Lord Uranus had been awake...”
Now Lord Uranus stood, and stepped out of the other coffin, brushing white powder off his green jacket, and kicking away the broken links falling from his ankles. From somewhere he had retreated and donned a spare mask, so his face was hidden, and the ports he used to direct his spy-rays were covered. “I was awake the whole time, sire. Procopius removed from my hand only the fake signet ring I keep on my finger for show. I was still connected to all my instruments and weapons the whole time.”
Aeneas said, “He used a neural suppressor. You were in a coma.”
“Meaning no disrespect, sire, you are not the only one with access to pantropy, or able to grow backup organs. I long ago thought useful to be able to function while apparently comatose, in case one of my brothers was ever foolish enough to capture me alive. So your wish is granted, sire. I heard all.”
Procopius said, “It is still checkmate, Spyridon! We are in the center of the power of the vampires. We are in the palm of an iron hand! I arranged all these events to bring us here, to this! Release me!”
Lord Uranus was staring at one of the corpses, still tangled in chains, bound to a shattered pillar at the bottom of the slope of the curved dais. Whatever expression he wore was not carried over to his mask. That corpse was the one that looked like him.
Aeneas said, “Lady Luna, Lord Uranus, you are my jurors. There is no time for a public trial, nor would it be safe. This will have to do. You have heard the defendant confess multiple times to murders, acts of espionage, and treason. You must decide based only on the law, neither listening to the voice of pity nor to the clamor of anger. Do you wish to withdraw, and debate case in private?”
Lord Uranus said, “No, for the matter is moot. Look!”
Of the two intolerably bright suns filling the skies of Second Mercury, one now had shrunk to half its size, and was cracked open. It looked like an empty orange rind. Whatever artifice the vampires had been using to keep it in its hollow shape had failed. The plasma was curling, curdling, streaming into the shapes of several spheres, much in the way a drench of water in zero gee will form a group of large and small bubbles, drawn in by surface tension.
Inside the shrinking and hollow hemispheres of the cracked sun was the Tellurian Dyson. No other worlds were in view.
Lady Luna said, “The jury finds the defendant guilty. We ask for the death penalty!” Her eyes were bright with wrath, her cheeks pink and flushed, and tears were trailing down her face.
Lord Uranus said to Aeneas, “Sire, forgive me, but the sentence is already passed. Didn’t you hear what father told you? Procopius is dead.”
Aeneas stared at Uranus, puzzled.
Uranus adjusted his mask into a somber expression. “Surely you noticed that Thoon, the first vampire you encountered, was too near to Sol. Even though he was only partly vampirized, nonetheless, Day or night, light or shadow, the celestial aura should have destroyed him. We just learned he was one of the creatures working for Procopius. That means there is a nullspace te
chnique which allows a vampire to evade the deadly effect of Sol’s light. But if, as we are standing now, a vampire stands in an area of flattened space were all Schroedinger wave effects are cancelled...”
Procopius laughed wildly. “You’ve all gone insane! Father’s madness has passed down through his children to his grandchildren! I have walked in the sunlight my whole life, and I live closer to the sun than all of you! Or at least, I did before this snotnosed whelp here destroyed our solar system...”
Aeneas looked up. The hollow sun was breaking open and scattering. The peeling segments and clouds were blindingly bright. The gaps and holes seemed dark by contrast, but the eyes of Aeneas could detect the bright ember, still burning, of the remaining cubic miles taken from the heart of Sol. It was almost consumed, fading and failing even as he watched.
But this last remnant of light from long-dead Sol passed through the brighter clouds of plasma from LBV 1806-20, and the aurora was like dim spears of light amid a forest of fiery beams.
One beam of yellow light fell through the windows above and lit on Procopius Tell, who was still held in the metal tentacles of Aeneas.
The little man stared down in disbelief, holding his hands before his wild eyes as the flesh began to darken and peel away from his fingerbones.
“But it cannot be!” He cried. “I am alive! I am a man! I have free will!”
Aeneas held up his ring. “If you actually have free will, Uncle, think a thought into one of my mother’s thought receivers, and swear to turn over a new leaf. Swear to repent your crimes, eschew all future misdeeds, and tell us all you know, and, even now, even despite all, I will grant a pardon, and you will be spared. If you have free will, you can change your mind. Can you imagine changing your mind? Just think it.”
The horror in the eyes of the creature who had once been Lord Mercury was terrible to behold. The realization of what he was in his gaze. “But I should be able to ... to think ... to save my life, I should be able change my thoughts ... why can’t I? Why can’t I? What happened to me? Where is my will? ... Where am I?”
Lady Luna covered her face and turned away. Lord Uranus peered more closely, stroking his chin. The look of horror was frozen on the face of the dead man until the flesh fell of the skull. Aeneas lowered the bones to the floor, and carefully withdrew his tentacles.
Lady Luna muttered in a low, angry voice, “I am glad he is dead. I am not crying for him. Why did you let it get this far? I should slap you again.”
Aeneas said wryly, “That would be lèse magesté. I would not have let you do it the first time had I known Uncle Spyridon was awake.”
She said, “You must have suspected him before this. You must have known!”
Aeneas turned his face away. “A tyrant acts on suspicion. I knew. I needed proof.”
She said, “Six of us died while you tarried, dallied, and delayed, waiting for proof! And now we are trapped, surrounded by fleets upon fleets of vampires! Perhaps you have been expecting Lord Tellus to save you yet again. Well now he is dead, too, killed by Lord Mercury whom you were unwilling to kill, or even incarcerate, for fear of being seen a tyrant! Had you been a tyrant, and killed six innocent family members by mistake, or by malice, we would still be better off than now! Less of us would be dead!” She rolled her enormous eyes and uttered a yelp of frustration. “You are as bad as Tellus! I told him!”
Aeneas looked at her sharply. “You are not surprised. You knew Lord Pluto was Grandfather in disguise. You knew!”
She nodded. “I found his dreams one night when he forgot to guard them. He took me into his confidence, and arranged, somehow, by some trick, to have me elevated to being one of the Twelve. That is why I went with him, when he dragged me off to follow you around, during all that time when you were pretending to be a zombie, and then later to Alpha Centauri. And now he is dead, thanks to you. We will soon be dead, because you waited and delayed!” She pointed at herself. “And look at this! While you tarried and lollygagged, that little creep undressed me! Look at me! I am all ready to be married!”
Aeneas smiled his first smile in months. His face was soft and his eyes were twinkling and warm. “I am flattered, of course. I was not expecting to receive a proposal so casually, and usually it is the bridegroom that asks. But I accept!”
Her mouth worked, but no articulate noise came out. Then: “Where is my ring? I should incinerate you!”
“Women are not supposed to set their husbands afire until the wedding night!” Aeneas turned and looked at Lord Uranus. “Do you think it was wrong of me to wait for proof of guilt?”
Lord Uranus said, “Perhaps. Since I urged you to kill me and to kill Lord Mars on the basis of such suspicions, had you acted on it, such haste in this one case would have proved counterproductive. During the assault on the command city of the Master Armature, Lady Luna and I used the same technique on LBV 1806-20 as we used on the three captured miniature Dysons. You yourself gave me the final clue, sire.”
Aeneas said, “What technique? What clue?”
Uranus said, “With your eyesight, can you see the units of the Black Fleet surrounding us? Or any of the hosts and hosts of vampires occupying the command cities of the Master Armature?”
A look of astonishment came across the features of Aeneas. “They — they are all dead! How?”
That was when the impossible happened. Through the glass skylight and the many windows of the wide dome, Aeneas saw the night sky turn red and rush away in all directions, as if he were inside a rubber balloon that sudden expanded. The sky turned black for a moment, and then a sphere of blue-white fire appeared all around them, in every direction.
Because the vampires had so recently englobed the whole World Armada in a hollow sun, for a moment it seemed as if this same thing had happened again. But, no: the whole LBV 1806-20 had been moved into a warpchannel.
“Where are we headed?” said Aeneas.
Lord Uranus said, “The Greater Magellanic Cloud, sire, as you planned.”
Aeneas said, “I’d like to hear the explanation. How is it that we are not all defeated, dead, and lost?”
The blue hypergiant was shrinking visibly. All of its immense, incalculable force was being used to form a warpchannel beyond even the astonishing range of the Master Armature.
Lord Uranus made his mask smile, which, despite his best efforts, always looked a rather unappealing. But there was sincere joy in his voice. “You gave me the clue. The reason why Lord Tellus forced all his children to fill all the worlds of the solar system with life, is that there is a feedback, a two-way psychic channel, that forms between a star and the organisms who derive their life from its energy. Our filling the worlds of Sol with life strengthened the neuropsionic radiation from Sol, and made it more deadly to the space vampires. Now, normally this naturally takes years to influence the star and change its neuropsionic contour. But with Lady Luna’s help, she and I were able to establish a resonance effect on the dreaming level of the mental spectrum, and create the effect artificially. While you were in transit to Second Mercury, during the battles between our militias and the infinite vampire hordes, the sunlight here changed.”
Aeneas said, “You mean all the vampires died?”
The hypergiant had shrunk to less than half its visible diameter: the armatures surrounding it changed their pitch, and now it shrank to a pinpoint and winked out. With the blinding giant sun gone, and the hollow second sun dissolved into scattered patches, smaller objects filling the warped space were now visible to Aeneas: hundreds of battle worlds, fully equipped, and black suns by the scores, and war Dysons large and small by the dozens. Of movement, lights, weapon discharges, or other signs of life there was none at all.
Uranus said, “I take it from the amount of energy just forced into the warpchannel we are in, yes, all the vampires in the system are dead. Whoever is in control of the Master Armature is obviously one of us.”
“One of us?”
“Unless I miss my guess, it is Lord Mars,
who also no doubt programmed his ring as you did yours, sire, to send him immediately through a space contortion to a place of his choosing when Lord Mercury finally made his move. He chose to join the militia in battle. He apparently took a copy of Lord Deimos with him, or someone who knows how to work the warpcore. We are now headed toward the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and out of the reach of the space vampires forever.”
Aeneas said, “Not forever.”
Aeneas stepped forward to the skeleton and dust pile that had been Lord Mercury, fished the signet ring of Lady Luna out of the pocket of the collapsed, pearl-covered jacket, turned, knelt, and offered it to her.
She blushed and extended her hand. He placed it on the third finger of her left hand.
She said, “We are first cousins.”
He said, “It is legal on Venus, and the older jurisdictions of Earth. I looked it up. But I fear I am soon to return to private station, so I can only accept you as a wife, not as an empress.”
She said, “I need time to think before I give you my answer. For one thing, you are reckless, and I am still mad at you.”
Aeneas said, “I will give you time to think. Tell the Lords of Creation that by the time we reach the Greater Magellanic Cloud, all those in the militia will have the warpcore secret.”
She blinked. “Tell them? Are you going somewhere?”
Without moving from his knee, Aeneas reached back and picked up the dropped coat of Lord Mercury. “I am going everywhere, and using this very convenient system of backdoors and hidden contortion paths to do it.”
Lord Uranus said, “Don’t be rash! What are you planning?”
Aeneas gestured, and the dropped rings of Lord Mercury and Lord Pluto floated through the air and dropped into his palm. His ring glittered as he used his imperial override commands.
Aeneas stood, “Lord Tellus seems to have restored these rings to the null settings, but left the memories intact. The location where he hid the Infinithedron is recorded here. How he recovered from it from planet Pluto, I do not know. I have to carry out the rest of his plans.”