The implication of that was clear. The Bell, or whatever intelligence was directing it, had noticed that the north and south magnetic poles of the planet were not where they should be and had seen the eruption of the thin sliver of core material shoot up past mantle and crust, atmosphere and stratosphere—and it was correcting its orbital elements to move the mouth of the skyhook toward the open and defenseless, roofless tomb.
“No, my friend,” said Menelaus to Mickey with a sigh. “I mean ‘we.’ Those of us in this chamber, on this continent, or on this planet. I mean the human race, and I don’t just mean unmodified elder men. I mean all the human races, living or ghost. Us. All of us.
“I thought the skyhook was something the Blue Men had created. Then I thought it was Melusine technology. Now, I do not know. Maybe Einstein was wrong. Maybe the Hyades got here faster than the laws of physics allow, or can accelerate mass without energy, or can derive more energy from a gram of mass than total conversion allows. Because that object, which is bigger than anything man-made has any right to be, is sure acting like a Hyades instrumentality.”
He opened his eyes.
There stood Illiance to one side of the line of armed men, in a coat of blank, pure, and gemless blue, and a look of unselfconscious pride almost like a glow.
To the other stood Fatin Simon Fay, pretty as a schoolgirl in her white cotton dress and peach sash, hair snared in a net that hung down her neck, and in her face was such darkness that Menelaus could not put a name to it. It was a passion beyond mere anger or shame or thirst for revenge.
“Why, Miss Fay,” he said in Virginian. “Pardon my manners for not getting up. What can I do for you?”
“You can burn,” she said.
10
The Trial of the Judge of Ages
1. Fair and Square
“We do not have a stake,” said the female with a young woman’s body but an old woman’s weariness and helplessness and hate in her eyes. “But one of the automata is being drenched with its own lubrication oil by the crones, and it has petrol as well, so it can just clasp you to its body while afire like Talos of myth.”
Menelaus said, “It’s enterprising to improvise, I guess. But before we get on with the barbecue, let me explain the current situation, since a lot has happened in the last four minutes.”
Fatin opened her mouth to object, her eyes white and hot with hate; but Illiance (looking strangely like a miniature Pilgrim from a children’s history primer in his blank and unadorned coat) stepped forward, his eyes bent on Montrose, and made a cutting gesture with the edge of his hand. Such was the dignity and authority of the gesture, that Fatin—perhaps more sensitive to strange conjunctions or hidden meaning than a non-Witch could be—drew back and held her piece.
Or perhaps (Montrose thought cynically) Fatin understood enough to guess that Illiance could now render paralytic or comatose everyone in the room except for Mickey, Guy, Scipio, and Trey—and he had already captured or needled three of the four.
Whatever the reason, Menelaus seized the opportunity to seize the floor: “First, Alalloel the Melusine has been taken over by a download demon named Legion, who works for Blackie—Ximen del Azarchel, the Arch-Hermeticist, and Master of the World—who arranged to have an avalanche block the doors leading back to the surface, and collapse the depthtrain tube leading down to the deep. So we are all trapped here.
“Second, the Bell is coming. Oh, Baby Jesus puking milk on Mary’s virgin shoulder, you don’t know what that is, do you? Gigantic alien tower that eats cities, so tall that most of it is out of the atmo. Just outside us, about twenty miles off. The thing is about nine miles wide, so the leading edge will reach here a little while before the trailing edge catches up. I thought it was a local-made thing, until the Melusine made it clear that Blackie did not want to find my Tombs and kill me. He wanted to find my Tombs to find a way to Pellucid, and find a way to make a space launch, to spread Exarchel in the form of a Von Neumann technology to other planets. Or that’s my guess. And I should have seen the clues when I saw the Iron Hermeticist D’Aragó come waltzing in to fight me to keep his spaceport on Fear Island—not its real name—open, and when I realized the place they made planetfall was Mount Misery—is so its real name—because you don’t spend expensive fuel to belly flop into the Caribbean from the great black yonder if you can climb down and back up a convenient skyhook for free.
“Third, Exarchel—your friend, the Machine—just shot a wee sliver of the core of the planet into space, programmed with a copy of his mind, almost as if that were some emergency measure used to save a copy of himself if the world he is leaving is doomed. So the evil god you serve, the one that promised you long life, not to mention castles in the air and moonbeams in a jar? He’s gone. Or, since he cannot move, he mailed his backup copy of his brain to Mars or something to carry on the family name. We can call that one Exo-exarchel. Just to keep our version numbers straight.
“Fourth, there is a current civilization out there, like I said—hurrah for me, I am a genius—and they seem to be a civilization of evil freaks who mean to break into all my Tombs, drill jacks into all our heads, and turn us all into zombies and mind slaves absorbed into the local hierarchy of five-man neuroinfospheres.
“So that is the situation we find ourselves in—trapped, doomed, abandoned, and the Hyades skyhook is about to float over us and yank us up into a Clarke orbit for transshipment to Alpha Centauri, but if the skyhook don’t get us, a Melusine called a Paramount is coming to brain-rape us, and absorb us into its soul vampire-style, but more neuroelectronically. And Blackie just ran away. Got it?
“So, Fatin; Illiance. What little thing can I do for y’all?”
But Illiance stepped forward, coming between the muskets and pikes and the man at which they pointed, and he stepped with such boldness, it was as if he could not imagine any creature could harm him.
“I wish to address you,” said Illiance. “Fatin, who intends you harm, would preclude my comments, who wishes harm from you. Logically, I must go first.”
Fatin did not look peeved at the interruption, but amazed. She held her peace, and inclined her head, opening her hands as if to invite the little blue man to continue.
The common habit of Simplifiers, to speak in the passive voice, and to phrase things as if one were merely observing a coincidence, rather than causing an effect, was not here being used. Menelaus wondered what that portended.
“So, Illiance!” said Menelaus. “Am I to assume that Sir Guiden took off his big and heavy gauntlets to get all the gems off your coat, and to take your pistol, but that I failed to warn him you also carry a venom needle that can prick bare hands, because sometimes I forget baseline humans do not notice what seems obvious to me? And may I also assume Scipio the Cryonarch and Trey Azurine the Sylph were herded at point of that same pistol, and are squeezed together naked in embarrassing intimacy in a narrow coffin that two ugly crones and a half-broken automaton are perched atop?”
Illiance looked surprised. “The situation is one they would find shameworthy? One of my people would not be sexually stimulated by sharing a coffin with a Sylph, particularly if she were unclothed as a security precaution, her clothing being hunger silk, and not as a display of mate-willingness; and to us there can be no stimulation if she were a non-virgin, since we cannot switch from one partner to another. Being innately chaste, those of my order do not always appreciate what more primitive men categorize as associated with mating behaviors, signs, or displays.”
“Well, being stuffed naked into a coffin bed with a wiggly teenager young enough to be your daughter, but who maybe has something not right in her head, yeah, that violates normal Churchgoing notions of decent respectability, I’d say. But maybe I am old-fashioned, because everyone in the future seems to be a nudist. I won’t complain. I am just glad you did not shoot them.
“So! What can I do for you before the angry and superstitious Witch burns the falsely accused Christian? You have the floor, Preceptor
Illiance.”
At this, the Blue Man drew himself up almost pridefully, and tilted up his chin, and said, “You mistake me. Am I dressed like a Preceptor?”
Had Montrose not been teetering on the edge of fainting, and not distracted with many layers of disasters and deception, he would have seen it sooner. As it was, it caught him by surprise, and he laughed aloud.
Of course Illiance was strutting and smiling, head high and shoulders back. It was not that he had an unbreakable hold over everyone in the chamber. It was that his long-ingrained habit of mind made him look splendid to himself. For Illiance wore the uniform of the highest rank and highest dignity of the Simple Men: a vacant coat. There was nothing simpler than the simplicity of blank blue.
“Then how should I address you?”
“I wear the display of an Expositor of the Perfected dignity. While it is true that I happen to wear it, not that Sir Guiden meant me to wear it, nonetheless, it was by his hand that I find myself so garbed—and therefore I must with utmost effort behave with simplicity so perfect and limpid, that should my peers again adorn me, it will not be due to my failure to attempt.”
Menelaus chuckled and spread his hands, amused despite himself. “Well then, Expositor Illiance. How do perfected folk act?”
Nothing would have shocked him more: Illiance got down on both knees.
Illiance said, “I speak for all the Blue Men. We admit our guilt and appeal to your mercy.”
Menelaus tried to think of something witty or outrageous or crass to say that would break the uncomfortable tension of silence that filled the chamber at those words. But the tension merely hardened and thickened like ice on a pond beneath a tree in late fall, when the gaiety of leaves gives way to the barrenness of barren twigs.
Illiance spoke with stark honesty. Menelaus saw his naked soul, and wished he could turn his eyes away.
2. Guilty Plea
“Judge of Ages, this world of tomorrow into which we woke terrified us, because we thought the future would be filled with children of ours, and better than us. Instead it is filled with nothing but ice and emptiness.
“We are indoctrinated from the crèche to believe that, in dire emergency, the end of preserving the race excuses any means used for that end, however unconscionable.
“In this, we are deceived: This is the philosophy of the Machine, who betrays the world and all our futures into servitude in survival’s name. And any deed can be called an aid to survival. Every day is a dire emergency to a mind of fear.
“I now see that this philosophy of survival was meant as a leash to lead us as a dog is led. Mentor Ull tugged on our chain, and when he told us we needed to dig to survive, we dug; and to steal, we stole; and to abduct, imprison, build a prison camp, become first jailors and then torturers and mind-rapists—we, whose order meant us to live lives of contemplation, self-sufficiency, and retirement from the evils of the world—we became the evils of the world.
“We betrayed everything in the name of survival, and in the end, the Order of Simplified Vulnerary Aetiology did not survive.
“We are Locusts.
“Worse, we are Locusts who lack the tendrils that allow us the mental unity and community of purpose Locusts enjoy: we have all the evils of Locusts and none of their good!
“We repent our crimes and accept with philosophical resignation whatever penalty you inflict, or even with pride, if only our example can deter any others in like danger of yielding to such tempting self-deceptions.
“We are an altruistic species, so designed by our genetics, and eagerly accept to be sacrificed for the good of others, even to the point of accepting the painful death needed to act as a warning to others not to condone nor repeat our crimes.”
3. Sentencing
Menelaus, perhaps for the first time in his long and loudmouthed life, felt tongue-tied. Anything he said would seem trite and trivial compared to that confession; especially one uttered by a dwarf whose upbringing and way of life did not even have an idea, much less a practice, of confession.
Menelaus had truly thought these so-called Simple Men were simply the most arrogant little bastards he had ever met. And yet there was Illiance, dressed in what (among his people) was a cross between his Sunday-go-to-meeting duds and the uniform of a four-star general. And he was kneeling, meek as you please, not just willing to be punished, but asking.
Menelaus said softly, “You understand, Illiance—Expositor Illiance, I mean—that there is no such person as the Judge of Ages. That is just a name people made up after I was buried. This is not my chair, nor is this my chamber. This place was also made up by people wanting to glorify themselves by glorying-up me. You searched here. Remember the closet where you found the coffeepot, the one with the dartboard on the wall and the ashtray in the bathtub? That is where I stow myself between slumbers. I am not the Judge of Ages.”
The Blue Man’s hands smoothed down the severely barren fabric of his gemless coat, as if removing a wrinkle.
Then, raising his head, Illiance looked Menelaus in the eye. “At times, we must fulfill the roles in which fate garbs us.”
Menelaus was silent a long moment, pondering. “Very well. You are guilty of trespass, breach of faith, assault, theft and robbery, conversion of property, kidnapping, false imprisonment, desecration of graves, torture, maiming, intentional infliction of emotional distress, Savantry, mind-rape.
“Also, you are guilty of breech of the peace, melee, assaults both with deadly weapons and with incendiary or explosive deadly weapons, invasion by instrument, assault by means of molecular engine, widespread destruction of property.
“And furthermore, due to your conspiratorial association with Ull, who committed murder in the course of a conspiracy to commit other felonies with your encouragement and consent, you are also guilty of three counts of homicide.
“The court also notes the aggravating circumstances of the homicides: First, that the murders were committed by most foully and brutally tearing the victims via setting deadly and vicious dogs on them; second, that these dogs, being rational creatures but unable to achieve the full moral capacity of human reason, and thus not being responsible for their conduct in a legal measure, were nonetheless involved in an egregious crime, rightfully regarded as the worst a servant creature to the race of Man can perform, which is the destruction of human life; and in so doing you permanently and irrevocably stained the conscience of the dogs who did the murder, who are now legally deodands, and subject to destruction for the safety of the public; third, that the victims were denied a Christian burial or a marker to settle the uncertainty of any who might later in sorrow seek for them.
“However, the court takes notice of the fact that, no matter the outcome, if either the Hyades or the Melusine ravish me of the Tombs and despoil all those under my possession, the deterrent effect of any punishment will be moot. You have volunteered for pain to deter others and thus perhaps to save them from your fate; but circumstances provide that there shall be no others to deter.
“The court also notes the fact that the crime is unrepeatable, and therefore there is no strong public reason to remove you, by death, incarceration, transportation, or hibernation, from the current society.
“The court notes that some penalties allegedly aim at rehabilitating the wrongdoer: however, it is well and anciently known that no civilized law recognizes this as a legitimate exercise of the sovereign power, since the sovereign is neither tutor nor sage nor father confessor.
“The point of law in civilized nations is retribution, that the evils men do might thereby recoil upon them, as simple justice and thus the security and liberty of the people demand. Howbeit, in this case, Oenoe the Nymph, and the court in our own person, are obliged to plead with the court for leniency: which plea we will grant with pleasure, and seek therefore no retaliation against you, howsoever richly deserved.
“This leaves only the question of restitution. You were told, and you disregarded, that the means to escape the wrath of
the Judge of Ages was to restore and return every artifact you have stolen, repair every coffin you have cannibalized, return all the people you have carried off, and make good every injury.
“The court finds that your indigent personal circumstances, you being yourself a Thaw in a strange era and a member of a contemplative order that practices poverty, makes the performance of restitution impossible; therefore the court sentences you to death by progressive suspension failure…”
Illiance, who had perhaps the power to destroy everyone in the chamber, merely closed his eyes and inclined his head in submission, uttering no word of defense.
“… but the court further orders the sentence suspended upon your parole and oath that you will do everything in your power to aid and assist the defense of these Tombs and the people therein; namely, that you apply to the Sovereign Military Hospitalier Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes of Malta and of Colorado to serve them as neophyte and squire or in whatever capacity the utmost and unstinting exercise of ability and faith might allow; and that, should you betray them, or be found by the Grand Master or your superior officers to be without the courage and discipline, devotion or firmness of will required of this service, that they shall appear before this court each in his own person, not by writing, and vow solemnly that your service yields neither honor nor use to the Hospitalier Order; whereupon the court shall carry the execution into effect in all due haste and solemnity, that you shall be taken to a coffin set aside for this purpose, and cellular motions suspended below the revival threshold, so as to pass without pain or awareness from sleep to slumber to death.
“By the most ancient prohibition of law, this court lacks the power to command, order, or compel that you enter baptism, repent, and embrace the Christian faith as needed for entry into this sovereign knightly order, albeit one outside the faith may serve as lay manservant; however, a due concern for public safety can and does require that you be commanded to foreswear and repent of all the worship of demons, particularly that you shall reject and foreswear the Machine, and foreswear his Master, and all his works and all his ways; that you shall resist the glamour of evil and hate it; and you shall heed no promise by the Machine, neither of increased life nor augmented intelligence nor any other reward of this world.