6. Impossibility of Performance
“Blackie. I been thinking about your offer. If my happiness has to be sacrificed to save the whole Earth … I mean … If I meet all the folk in heaven what are killed by the Hyades during the invasion, and their women and little kids, and they all look at me and say—you could not give up your wife? Not to save the whole human race and all its future? Damn it all! I mean, what would I say?”
Del Azarchel smiled, and it was one of the saddest sights Montrose had ever seen. Blackie’s face was not built for sadness.
Del Azarchel let out a long, low sigh, and said heavily, “You will tell them that the Princess is worth more than worlds to you, or else you are not a man. You cannot foreswear her. I do not mean you ought but you will not: I mean you shall not and you can not. You cannot even imagine yielding her to another man, even if you can force the words which seem to mean that to come out of your mouth.”
“Blackie, to save the whole poxy Earth, I could … wa … walk away from … I mean, all the people … I mean, once she and I talked it over, I could get her to come around…”
“Cowhand, I will not agree falsely to something you cannot do.”
“I can do this!”
“Tell me you want to see her in my arms. Say that you would be delighted to see her bend her sweet face up toward mine, and as I lower my lips…”
“I’ll burn this damn world to ashes and stuff the ashes up your anus before I’d say that.”
“See? You cannot even say it. I know. I cannot say it. We are alike. I would burn worlds also for her, and count the cost light.”
Montrose lowered his head, shamed. “What kind of man puts his own happiness before his whole damn planet and everyone on it?”
“When a woman is involved?” said Del Azarchel to himself. “All men.”
7. Recurring Dream
“Cowhand, do you know I have a recurring nightmare, where I wake up, and, because my brain has more neural interconnections than before, it takes me longer to come out of sleep. My brain is fogged for a minute, or longer. And during that moment of fog, when I cannot remember where I am, I think that she has died because we ran out of rations, or the lockers were exposed to heavy ions from the drive core. And I think I will never find the body, her body, because the internal lights are out.
“In the dream, I am carrying a picture of the Virgin Mary, that we told her was her mother, because we thought it evil to raise a child with no ideal of motherhood. The picture is what she had to clutch instead of a doll when she was sad. I could not even give her a dolly as a child.
“And in the dream, I cannot hear her crying, and I throw myself down one cramped corridor to the next, in total darkness, and I cannot hear her crying because she is dead, and I did not get the picture to her.
“You understand I wake up in tears when this happens? I am not a man prone to tears. Then I sigh and laugh in relief, because it is a dream, merely vapor in the brain. And then I remember my wedding day is soon to come, and that all the people of the world will finally be unified in one joy, and even the deadliest of enemies will be reconciled when my Princess takes them hand in hand and speaks such words that humans cannot deny.
“And I remember that she has cured the Divarication problem, so that an emulation with all my skills and values, loyal to all things I serve, can fly to the Diamond Star, and return with the infinite wealth I need to maintain my reign and maintain the absurdly high levels of energy-use my infinitely wealthy world-kingdom requires—and all the people, being filled with good things, will be content, and the realm will be secure, and the race will survive.
“And all because she agreed to take my hand in marriage.
“And so I leap shouting for joy awake in my bed, and put my foot on the floor, but then the fog parts, and I recall that this was but a dream also.
“She did not marry me.
“She married Crewman Fifty-One, who picks at his anus and flings poop like a monkey when he is insane, smearing the recycler with a smell that can never come out, and there is no window to open for fresh air aboard a ship; and when he is sane, he practically does the same thing, for he talks about his poop and his anus more than seems normal.
“And this crazy, ungainly, proboscis-nosed scarecrow of a barbarian is the one who has my Rania in his arms. This disgusting monkey-thing with dangling arms and lolling tongue and crooked male member that he inserts … but no. It is not to be thought of.
“And I get out of bed, and put my foot on the floor, and the fog does not part, for this nightmare, it does not end, and I am still in it.
“Sometimes it is a week or two between this dream. Sometimes a year. Sometimes a thousand years. But it always comes back.
“I do not know where that little picture is. The one of the Virgin we told her was her mother. One of the other Landing Party must have taken it, or Rania hid it. I searched the ship. Many times. They all were very, very fond of her.
“I cannot talk to them about her. I can talk to you. Even though I hate you so bitterly that I will make the day you die a worldwide holiday to be celebrated with feasts and fetes and festivals and games and circuses from now until forever—even so.
“You alone know what it is, my heart. You cannot depart from the Princess Rania, even in your thoughts, because I cannot.”
15
The Conjurers of Fate
1. Worse Things Are Seen at Sea
“Hey. How do you know what my male member looks like?” objected Menelaus.
“I know you are not an idiot, because your augmentation to posthumanity is what started all these events.”
“Uh?”
“Aboard the ship, Cowhand. I was the one who gave you sponge baths when the other crewmen wanted to kill you for the moisture in your coffin system and the meat on your bones; and it is not as if you kept your diaper on during your, ah, episodes of scatological excitement. I saw more of that member than I care to recall, and I fail to have nightmares about it only due to my abnormally stable and well-balanced psychology. Say a prayer of thanksgiving to the winged monkey of winkieland who no doubt serves you in place of a guardian angel that you remain amnesiac about the horror and privation we endured.”
2. A Companionable Silence
The two men were silent, standing together, for a long time. Menelaus looked over where his friends, and the judge of honor, and the Iron Ghost versions of the men he’d killed, were all standing ready for this grim business, but none a one of them spoke or made any gesture. Del Azarchel was right. None of them wanted to see this bloodshed.
And he was right that none of them understood.
Eventually Montrose said, “So it’s no deal, no matter what either of us wants? Can’t be done, can it? Even if I said I would serve you like a manservant, you could not have a manservant who was married to Rania, any more than you can drive two carpenter’s nails into the balls of your eyes and not mind it. You can say you’d not mind it, and you maybe can make up what sounds like an argument to prove for sure that some men can drive carpenter’s nails into their eyeballs and not go blind—and that argument might sound right sound at first. But not when you actually pick up the nails in your hand.”
“And you,” answered Del Azarchel, “you cannot divorce her, because she would not permit it, having been raised in the True Christian faith, and being a pure and righteous soul, unsoiled. Nor could you abandon her without divorce, because your wedding vow—to love, to cherish, in woe or weal, and to cleave to her unto death—is like all your vows. Made of words, a vow is lighter than spider silk; but for just this reason, a vow is sterner than the unguarded golden gates of paradise, which no strength can force, and no force encompass. What is not made of matter cannot be broken. No, Cowhand. You cannot flee her no more than a man can run so fast he leaves his heart outdistanced by his speed. Where a man is, his heart is, and if his heart departs from his bosom, he dies.”
“And even if Rania were not the issue,” said Montrose apologe
tically, “I gotta kill you for killing Captain Ranier Grimaldi, the finest man who ever lived. Sorry. I ain’t hot mad about that one no more, but it’s still got to be done.”
“As I must kill you,” said Del Azarchel amiably, “to repay your treason for when I trusted you, and put the inmost thoughts, indeed, the soul of Exarchel into your hands, and you used the opportunity to inflict your phantasm virus into my perceptual system. You reached in and twisted my very thoughts to your personal advantage. I will never be able to achieve perfect communion with Exarchel due to this. I too no longer am keenly angered about this. But it needs to be repaid.”
“Share a cigarette? It’s my last pack. I was saving them for this day.”
“Don’t mind if I do! If you kill me, Cowhand, you’ll inherit my tobacco fields on Ganymede.”
They lit both cigarettes from the heat of the blade of Del Azarchel’s energy-dirk.
“And if I don’t, I’ll be smoking myself in perdition, Blackie, and won’t need to save the rest.”
The two stood together in silence, puffing. But it was a companionable silence, not an awkward nor a cold one. The delicate yet sooty smell of tobacco surrounded them, a scent not known on Earth in countless years.
3. One Last Question
After a time, Montrose said, “Speaking of which, seeing as how we are all chummy and friendly-like, and about to shoot each other, let’s put our cards on the table. I said there was one thing I could not figure. If I ask you nicely, will you tell me? For old time’s sake? Curiosity is killing me. I have turned it this way and that in my mind, and I just can’t figure it. So I admit you are the better man—you got me. Will you tell me how you did it?”
Del Azarchel said, “My friend, my only friend, after a heartfelt plea like that, including that gill of totally false humility and flattery, I can deny you nothing! I don’t remember any tactic we’ve discussed where I outsmarted you, though. Ask away. I swear by the grave of my sainted mother—may she rest in peace enjoying in heaven the sainthood I purchased from the Church for her—I will tell you what you ask. In return you must answer one of mine. One thing has always puzzled me, year after year, century after century, and I promised myself that if I ever saw you face-to-face again in this life, that I would cajole the answer from you, or else be nagged by wonder forever. Have we a deal? One for one? It is but fair.”
“Deal. You first.”
“Ah no, Cowhand. Allow me the honor of allowing you the honor of going first.”
“Well! When you put it that way—when you put it that way, I cannot make out what you said.”
“I said you first. Don’t argue, or I shoot you.”
“Fair ’nuff. Here is my question: I cannot figure out how the current Melusine society as described to me can exist. Back in the year A.D. 9999, I released a group of spores carrying not one, but a huge set of interrelated nanite packages, viruses to rewrite genetic code. Honestly and not to brag, but I thought this was the cleverest thing I ever done or heard tell of, because I was both trying to lure you into opening the Devil’s Den hibernation facility—ah! You look surprised! Didn’t know I set this up to draw you in here on purpose, did ya?”
Del Azarchel said sheepishly, “Both I and Ull, who was my factotum at the time, did a statistical analysis of the distribution patterns of your spores, and we concluded it had been an accidental release. For one thing, the spore mated with various lichen and fungi and produced a harmless chemical that did nothing but produce a harmless color change and served no other purpose. For another, it was based on a biochemical weapon. With your background, growing up in a high-infection zone from the Abecedarian War—well, I would expect you to use such means only in the most extreme circumstances. Not to change rock moss from red to black.”
“—Like I said, I thought it was clever work. The color change altered the eating habits of the arctic tern, and there was another genetic redaction code which would also show as harmless on normal analysis techniques, that changed an inherited characteristic in the tern bloodstream and altered their magnetic sense to alter their migration patterns. As you know, the arctic tern enjoys the longest regular migration known, over forty-four thousand miles each year. I used them as a vector to spread yet another spore, and since the distribution would be over such a long area, including crucial sea migration routes of the newly unextinctified whales, that it would be nearly impossible to detect changes to the plankton population triggered by changes to the chemical concentrations in the tern droppings. Because migrant birds poop in the sea, right? So—”
Del Azarchel seemed uncharacteristically perturbed the longer Montrose went on. He interrupted with unusual brusqueness, “Usually I can tell when you are joking, Cowhand, but you look entirely sincere, as if you are actually talking about something you really did that you thought was clever. You are not a convincing liar, so I know this is not an act. But what are you driving at?”
“Okay, sorry, Blackie, I forget English is not your native language. To sum up, I came up with an indirect way to create a genetic change in the whales that the Melusine were using. This change would not directly change personal behavior, but would change institutional behavior, like the genes that control herd instinct and pack pecking order—the gene has to be in more than one member of the herd or pack for it to be active, because otherwise the behavior has no context, so a normal statistical comparison of one mutant would not pick out the mutation. It was tied into the sex drive, so it was powerful and fundamental. Now, here is the cunning part.
“I tied a meme change into the gene change, so that once the institution got started, it would create a self-replicating and self-reinforcing set of ideas that acted as their own incentive to spread and multiply.
“Frankly I was thinking of it as a religious instinct: I knew a church would be created, and churches teach that you gotta teach church teachings to the young, and to save the heathens—so even someone who did not have the “church” gene, once he was infected with “church” ideas, would spread the ideas, and if even a suspicious guy like you looked back along the vector trying to figure out what gene it had come from, well, there is no way to narrow it down.
“I hid the church gene among many similar formations in the genetic intron, where it was lost in the crowd of lookalikes. It was spread from lichen, to terns, to whales, and the whales in the Melusine Pentad—their basic social unit—always had a radiotelepath, one of the ‘special people’ with and watching the group. And so the meme spread telepathically and swiftly. The meme was a mental Anarchist Vector, creating an extremely powerful incentive toward personal liberty, tied into the libido.”
Del Azarchel said, “You are describing the rise and fall of a group called the Anchorites, which evolved out of the Oceangoing Melusine. They existed on the earth, or, rather, in the sea, during the first century of this current millennium. They were an odd and nonconformist species, unable to react compatibly with the Final Stipulation of the Noösphere Protocols. Are you actually claiming credit for having brought them into being?”
Montrose said honestly, “I am not sure if that is them. You tell me. You defeated the vector change I introduced into history, if everything I have heard about these Melusine is true. This world you rule? Can you give me the equations? I want to see which counter-vector of the Mind Helot matrix deflected my Anarchist Vector, and how.”
Del Azarchel was only too happy to talk shop.
Both men hunched down awkwardly in their bulky duelist armor, and, holding bayonet or dirk in hand, scratched into the dirty ice puddles around them one line of hieroglyphs after another, depicting in equations more precise than any word the nuances of the incentives molding the patterns of history, equations even the other Hermeticists could not read.
Soon the two enemies were chatting and exclaiming. Smiling together, heads bent down, they looked like magicians bent over the rune circles used to conjure familiar spirits, the patterns of glyphs that conjured and controlled the fates themselves.
4. Anchorites
The first group of signs showed the results exactly like what Montrose would have expected had his vector been introduced and flourished without detection: institutional anarchists. Ultra-freedom-lovers.
Among the Melusine (so said the social vector equations), the Anchorite, or Hermit, custom was to have the male sever all social and whale-pod ties with the surrounding society, and live in the wilderness entirely by himself with only food he caught himself, and only living in a sea-tower or land-tower he grew himself.
“When the Anchorite movement started among the Oceangoing Melusine,” Blackie added offhandedly, “they broke away from their normal deep sea haunts, and traveled first to coastal areas, and then upriver, and established their many hermitages among the ruins of the civilizations slain by the Fall of Ganymed. Melusine houses can still be found, empty, ruined, here and there among the wastelands. They last for hundreds of years, despite weather and decay, because they are alive, as houses of the Nymphs before the Blight. Where a river has dried up, or changed beds, you can find them standing ashore.”
Montrose said, “They look like seashells.” One of the Blue Men had mentioned the houses outside the camp wire had not been their making. Montrose felt the fool for not having put the clues together. That camp had been a Melusine mansion with its outbuilding, or, specifically, a hermitage of the Anchorites. Only the fence and the watchtowers had been constructed by the Blues and their dogs.
Blackie pointed at the central hieroglyph, functionally interconnected with all others: the mating and childrearing customs that defined the basic values for any culture. “Anchorite pentads were only allowed to marry another pentad if all the members of the other group were correctly opposite the first group. There were many possible groups, only some of which were legal. Groups were classed as male and female according to social expectations. A pentad might, for example, consist of a postwhale cow, a merman, a male Inquiline, and a male dolphin, and might still be considered female; whereas the same group with different augmentations, a male postdolphin but a whale cow of only human-level intellect, would be legally masculine.