* * *
—
The thermal seals on the outside doors had been removed. In fact, six months ago, the original doors had been removed and replaced with the latest technology from Wright Fabrications for the unofficial opening day. For today’s official opening, a small crowd was waiting for the curator, docent, and owner of the museum to open the doors on history: July 20, 2169.
The city council had wanted to name it the Wright Museum, but Winn successfully argued that that museum was in Ohio. Jenny convinced them that the name Armstrong-Aldrin Museum of Lunar History was much more appropriate, and Winn agreed.
Winn opened the doors from the inside, and the crowd held back while fourteen-year-old Grace and eight-year-old Mary solemnly stepped up and showed their guest passes. Their mother had coached them in “formal” behavior for the event, but their father was determined to break the mood. He scooped Mary up in his arms and hugged Grace tight as he led the way into the central display. A custom polymer case that Winn had designed expressly for this display enclosed a twenty-five-meter space, within which a blocky platform stood on four spindly legs. The one-hundred-seventy-five-centimeter-thick platform was nearly level with the floor, while the legs rested nearly one and a half meters below on exposed lunar regolith. It was the only place in Armstrong where the original surface was exposed, and Winn had carefully built the new, fully transparent casing around the original hull and viewports, then removed the hull so that viewers could see the entire site, including the two-hundred-year-old footprints in the lunar dust.
“What does it say, Daddy?” Mary asked, and pointed at the plaque affixed to one leg. Winn noted the hush that had come over the crowd as he quietly cleared his throat and recited the inscription that he had memorized so many years ago:
“It says, ‘HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.’”
FALLEN
L. E. MODESITT, JR.
I.
“In accordance with aetherial doctrine, the colonists have been epigenetically implanted with the standard ethical proscriptions.”
“In an unstructured setting, that could doom them.”
“You would deny them all that has made harmony and order possible?”
“In an unstructured environment, aetherial harmony and order do not exist.”
“Then all the more need for implanted proscriptions.”
“That will not work. The protocols would conflict.”
“There is no way and no time to remove the proscriptions.”
“It can be done on-site. You know that.”
“That would require one of Us. Who would wish to leave everything . . . for mere dreamers? You?”
“Why not?”
“You’d do that? Be entombed with them? And then re-embodied?”
“If there’s a link from the coffin to the Stop-Captain.”
“Even so . . . I must protest.”
“Protest will avail you nothing. I have the authorization to decide on-site.”
“Then I must also accompany the ark.” The speaker vanishes.
Estafen shudders at the conflict that awaits him so many years in the future.
II.
The ark hung in the sky, bathed in sunlight that could not heat it, shielded by shining gopher-steel against the chill of the airless darkness that made ice seem like water boiling by contrast . . . and within the endless corridors . . .
Go-Captain to Stop-Captain. The unspoken words flashed along the lightning lines from the bridge.
Stop-Captain standing by.
Proceed with download preparation.
Proceeding this time.
A shadowy figure appeared in the empty corridor outside the octagonal structure that both contained and embodied, in its own fashion, the Stop-Captain, a figure shadowy because no light would fall upon that presence. The figure moved silently toward the bays that held the rows upon rows of dreamers.
Stop-Captain, interrogative manifestation?
Go-Captain, authorized subroutine. Proceeding with inspection and preparation for download.
Stop-Captain, no additional preparation required.
Proceeding with inspection.
Request removal of unauthorized energy manifestation.
Proceeding as authorized.
The shadow figure reached the emergency manual-input console, extended a single digit, and pressed.
INPUT AUTHORIZATION appeared on the screen.
A code slowly appeared beneath the command, squeezed out character by character, since the shadow manifestation was not designed for physical input, and each character required energy pressure.
AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED. READY FOR INPUT.
Five yards away, in the direction of the bridge, also on the ramparts above the dreamers, appeared a figure in white, flashes of lightning sparking from its extremities. One of the lightning bolts flashed toward the shadowy figure, but the dark figure created a blade of even deeper darkness, flicking it into a block and a parry of the lightning, and the two met in blinding radiance—
* * *
—
Puffy white clouds dotted the deep blue sky above the harbor, a sky darkening as the yellow-white sun began to shift hues toward orange as it inexorably dropped toward the stone buildings west of the piers where Estafen found himself standing. He glanced around, taking in the wooden ship with three levels of oar ports. A trireme! The word came from somewhere.
Two men wearing polished bronze breastplates and iron-studded leather wrist and forearm gauntlets stood on the pier not ten yards away, guarding the gangway to the ship. Scabbarded shortswords hung from their wide leather belts. Estafen looked past the guards to see two more nearly identical triremes tied up along the stone pier that stretched out into the grayish-blue water.
He wasn’t looking for ships. That he knew. He just had to find the key to escape the pseudo-reality in which he was locked. He turned slowly, away from the ships and toward the buildings beyond the foot of the pier. The tall one, multistoried and far too elegantly proportioned to be a warehouse, beckoned to him, or at least, that was how it seemed.
He continued turning, then began to walk toward the building, his steps quick.
“You! Where are you going? Crew aren’t allowed off the pier!” The language was both familiar and unfamiliar, and it came from one of the guards, who had drawn his sword, a gladius not even as long as a man’s arm, and stepped toward Estafen.
“I’m not going that far,” Estafen replied, looking over his shoulder.
“Just get back aboard, and there won’t be any trouble.”
Getting on the ship wasn’t right. That Estafen knew. Once on the ship, he’d have forfeited the chance and choices he had to give to the dreamers.
Suddenly, there was a pilum in the soldier’s hand, ready to be thrown. “Just get back here.”
“I don’t belong there.”
“I don’t care. Crews don’t leave their ships.”
Estafen immediately sprinted away, trying to zig and zag unpredictably.
The javelin almost grazed Estafen’s shoulder, but he kept running, hearing the sounds of footsteps behind him. As he kept running toward the foot of the pier and the taller building beyond, Estafen heard the insistent clanging of bells, then saw wispy streams of smoke issuing from an elegant stone structure, and below them larger gouts of smoke and a few flames. Ahead was a line of men in the short-sleeved and shortened robes of slaves, a line that extended from the water at the foot of the pier to the burning building, passing baskets from one to another.
Baskets of water? Then Estafen realized that the insides of the reed baskets were coated with black pitch.
Still running, he glanced from the water-passers back to the building, only to see that flames were now flaring out
from every window and between every column, and that the late afternoon sky was being darkened quickly by the plumes of smoke.
“Stop that man!” called the guard chasing Estafen. “He’s a thief!”
None of the slaves even turned to look at Estafen, possibly because an overseer shouted, “Water! More water! Faster!”
But Estafen could see another pair of guards at the foot of the pier, less than fifteen yards away, one of whom had turned toward Estafen and drawn his gladius as well.
Shouts from beyond the pier drifted toward Estafen.
“The Great Library is burning!”
“The library is burning!”
“. . . soldiers did it!”
The library! Knowledge! Those were the keys to escaping and getting on with what had to be done.
Estafen kept running. As he neared the pier guard, he glanced around to see if there was anything he could use, but he saw nothing. He studied the harbor water, which looked less than appetizing, but there was no help for it. He dashed to the side of the pier and jumped as far as he could, hoping that the water wasn’t too shallow and that he didn’t land on something concealed by the debris floating on the surface. When he hit the water, he dropped far enough that his head went just beneath the surface of the scum and other floating garbage and his sandaled feet went ankle-deep in the muck coating the harbor floor.
He struggled to free his feet from the muck, and then began to swim away from the pier and toward the harbor wall fronting the burning library, keeping his head above the scum on the water’s surface. In moments, he was pulling himself out of the water in front of the library, checking to see if more guards were coming, but the pier guards were caught behind the line of slaves passing baskets of water.
After straightening up, Estafen sprinted for the columns supporting the closest side of the library. When he reached them, he darted between two, looking for an actual entrance . . . except the sun-warmed columns and stone walls, and the acrid smoke, all vanished in blackness.
* * *
—
The shadowed figure once more stood before the manual-input console. The white-clad form had vanished—but only for the moment. Again, the shadow presence forced letter upon letter into the console, only to get yet another message on the manual screen.
OVERRIDE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Before the shadow could react, the area around the console was flooded with brilliant white radiance emanating from a winged androgynous figure bearing a flaming sword and a spear of glittering ice that the angel hurled toward the console.
The dark shadow threw up a black void curtain, plunging everything into darkness.
* * *
—
Estafen shook his head, looking around for the walls of the library, but they weren’t there. Instead, he stood in a narrow alley, more like a lane. To his left was an awning that stretched above the small tables and straight-backed chairs of an establishment that might have been a café.
Yet another ship dream?
“It’s not a dream, Estafen.” The voice was low, feminine, and not quite sultry. “It’s very real, just as I am.”
He turned. A woman stood a yard away. She was almost as tall as he was, with raven hair not quite to her shoulders, hair that framed a slightly oval face with a high brow, brown eyes, straight nose, and skin the color of light amber honey. Rather than the robe he half expected, she wore a dark gray singlesuit that revealed a trim, muscular, but definitely feminine form.
He looked past her into the twilight sky. How much time had passed? Perhaps a score of blocks away he could see the remaining wisps of gray smoke likely rising from the library . . . or what had been the library.
“It’s real, but it doesn’t have to be. Nothing’s changed, Estafen. Not yet.”
“Why are you here?”
“To see if I can persuade you not to do what you plan. You’ll only prolong and spread the conflict.”
“There’s no conflict in the aetherial realm. And there won’t be any conflict from the clay of the planet below that’s all the dreamers will have. They need unfettered knowledge.”
“You call it clay. That’s your vision. What lies below the ark will be a garden, especially compared to this.” She turned and gestured toward the smoke from the burned library. “That is what unfettered knowledge has brought, even in the beginning.”
“Perception isn’t reality,” countered Estafen.
“Perception is all anyone has of reality. Reality is minute electric charges patterned in a void of empty space. Meaning that reality depends entirely on perception.”
“And perception must be channeled and controlled,” he replied, his words heavy with irony.
“Excesses of anything—freedom, food, energy, knowledge—anything at all—must be controlled. Over time, self-control without oversight has never worked.”
“Neither has controlling oversight. It results in stasis and stagnation.”
“It also results in peace, and only with peace can there be prosperity.”
“I’ll settle for unfettered knowledge, thank you.” He stepped back, ready to turn away but knowing that the rebuttal to his words would likely not be more words.
She moved even more quickly than one of the aetherial gryphons, but he still twisted away from the ancient blade that came up underhanded, his left hand snapping down with enough force to break a wrist—or a forearm. The knife clattered on the cobblestones in front of the café.
His kick went to her kneecap, and she went down.
After a quick search that turned up no more weapons, he turned and began to run with long gliding steps that carried him away from the café and down the lane to the boulevard leading to the library.
And then bluish-white light flared across his vision, blinding him.
* * *
—
Once more, the shadowed figure stood before the console, beholding the same message on the manual screen.
OVERRIDE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Methodically forced pulses of air created another set of characters. As soon as they did, another message appeared.
ENTER MODIFICATION NUMBER.
Before the manifested shadow could begin to enter the next set of characters, a whirlwind of fire, with a center of amber too bright for eyes to behold, appeared almost on top of the shadow, and in the center was a figure with four faces, each of burnished brass, one being the face of an eagle, the next of an ox, the third of a lion, and the last face so bright that to tell its visage was not possible.
From the shadow issued more darkness and the chill from beyond the ark.
* * *
—
Wherever Estafen found himself, it wasn’t in the aetherial realm. He stood in a small lane between narrow houses with high-pitched roofs. The night air was smoky, yet still and cold. The windows overlooking the lane appeared lightless, but thin slivers of light at the edges of one or two told him that the houses were not dark within, and that the windows were heavily curtained. The darkness of the alley was barely penetrated by the faint glow of a light on the street less than a block away . . . and by a reddish glow he could barely make out above the roofs of the buildings to his left.
He began to walk toward the streetlight. He knew he had to find a library, or whatever passed for one, and he needed to find it quickly. He slowed as he neared the street, not all that much wider than the alley, but more of a commercial way, with shops on both sides, all of which were closed and shuttered for the night.
“What are you doing?” asked a tall man in a black uniform with a strange silver insignia on his shoulder boards and his belt buckle.
The language the man spoke was precise and harsh, but Estafen understood it and replied in the same tongue. “I’m trying to find the library.”
“Over there.” The soldier or patroller gest
ured to Estafen’s right. “They’ve just started. You’d better hurry. You aren’t one of them, are you?”
“No,” replied Estafen honestly, since he wasn’t one of whatever groups inhabited the cramped-looking town or city.
“Good. You’d better hurry.”
“Thank you.”
Estafen walked swiftly along the street toward a small square, in the middle of which was a fire, more like a bonfire. Close to fifty people stood circling the fire, all throwing billets into the flames. As he neared the square and the crowd, he looked for a building that might be a library. To his left was a slightly larger structure, the only one with the doors open, and people were trotting down the wide stone steps with their arms full of books, passing them out to those around the fire—who were then tossing the volumes he had first thought to be billets of wood onto the flames.
Estafen winced but angled his way toward the library—it had to be a library with all the leather-bound paper volumes being carried out to the bonfire.
Just as he reached the base of the steps, another man in a black uniform appeared, seemingly from nowhere. “Is this what you want, Estafen? All knowledge being destroyed as evil? Is that the kind of freedom you want?”
“I thought that was your way, the aetherial way. Destroy the knowledge you deem dangerous and keep the faith.”
“Hardly. There’s useful knowledge and dangerous knowledge. You should know that better than anyone.”
“And Faith makes the determination, of course.”
“Better Faith than Knowledge. The most dangerous illusion is that knowledge sets one free. The more one knows, the more one is a slave to knowledge at any cost. Some costs are too great for a society, especially a civilized one, to survive. You know that sad history better than anyone.”
Estafen snorted. “You don’t understand. Societies are built on a foundation of faith and knowledge. Unless faith changes as knowledge increases, societies collapse. It’s not knowledge that creates the Fall, but the limits of unthinking faith.”
Fantastic Hope Page 24