Father Captain de Soya can only stare without blinking.
“And now,” rumbles Cardinal Lourdusamy, “the threat to the future of humankind has been revealed in much greater detail.” The Cardinal rises to his feet, but when de Soya and Monsignor Oddi hurry to stand, the huge man waves them back to their chairs. De Soya sits and watches the giant mass of red and white move through the pools of light in the dark room, the flesh of the Cardinal’s cheeks gleaming, his small eyes lost in shadows from the overhead spots.
“This is, indeed, the AI TechnoCore’s great attempt at our destruction, Federico. The same mechanical evil which destroyed Old Earth, which preyed upon humanity’s minds and souls through their parasitic farcasters, and which prompted the Ouster attack that presaged the Fall … the same Evil is at work here. The cybrid offspring, this … Aenea … is their instrument. That is why the farcasters have worked for her when they admit no one else. That is why the Shrike demon slayed thousands of our people and soon may slay millions—perhaps billions. Unless stopped, this … succubus … will succeed in returning us to the Rule of the Machine.”
De Soya watches the great red form of the Cardinal move from light to dark. None of this is new.
Lourdusamy stops his pacing. “But His Holiness now knows that this cybrid spawn is not only the agent of the Core, Federico … she is the instrument of the Machine God.”
De Soya understands. When the Inquisition had queried him about the Cantos, his insides had turned to jelly at the thought of punishment for having read the banned poem. But even this book on the Index admitted that the elements of the AI Core had been working for centuries to produce an Ultimate Intelligence—a cybernetic deity that would spread its power back through time to dominate the universe. Indeed, both the Cantos and official Church history acknowledged the battle across time between this false god and Our Lord. The Keats cybrid—cybrids, actually, since there had been a replacement after one sect of the Core destroyed the first one in the megasphere—had been falsely represented as a candidate for the messiah of the “human UI”—that blasphemous Teilhardian concept of an evolved human god—in the prohibited Cantos. That poem had talked about empathy being the key to human spiritual evolution. The Church had corrected that, pointing out that obeying God’s Will was the source of revelation and salvation.
“Through revelation,” Lourdusamy says, “His Holiness knows where the cybrid spawn and her dupes are at this very moment.”
De Soya sits forward. “Where, Your Excellency?”
“On the abandoned ice world of Sol Draconi Septem,” rumbles the Cardinal. “His Holiness is quite clear on that. And he is quite clear on the consequences if she is not stopped.” Lourdusamy walks around the long desk and stands next to the priest-captain. De Soya looks up to see gleaming red, brilliant white, the tiny eyes boring into him. “She runs now to find allies,” comes the Cardinal’s sincere growl. “Allies to help in the destruction of the Pax and the desecration of the Church. To this moment she has been like a deadly virus in an empty region—a potential danger, but containable. Soon, if she escapes us now, she shall grow to maturity and full power … the full power of the Evil One.”
Above the Cardinal’s gleaming shoulder, de Soya can see the writhing figures of the ceiling fresco.
“Every one of the old farcaster portals will open simultaneously,” rumbles the red form. “The Shrike demon … in a million iterations … will step through to slaughter Christians. The Ousters will be empowered by TechnoCore weapons and terrible AI technologies. Already they have used subcellular machinery to make themselves something more and less than human. Already they have traded their immortal souls for the machinery to adapt to space, to eat sunlight, to exist like … like plants in darkness. Their war-making abilities will be augmented a thousandfold by the Core’s secret engines. That hideous strength will not be denied, even by the Church. Billions will die the true death, their cruciforms torn from them, their souls ripped out of their bodies like beating hearts from living chests. Tens of billions will die. The Ousters will burn their way across the Pax, laying waste like the Vandals and Visigoths, destroying Pacem, the Vatican, and everything we know. They will kill peace. They will deny life and desecrate our principle of the dignity of the individual.”
De Soya sits and waits.
“This does not have to happen,” says Secretariat Cardinal Lourdusamy. “His Holiness prays every day that it will not happen. But these are perilous times, Federico … for the Church, for the Pax, for the future of the race of man. He has seen what may be and has dedicated all our lives and sacred honors as Princes of the Church to preventing the birth of such a terrible reality.”
De Soya looks up as the Cardinal leans closer.
“I must reveal something to you at this moment, Federico, which billions of the Faithful will not learn for months.… Today, this hour, at the Interstellar Synod of Bishops … His Holiness is announcing a Crusade.”
“A Crusade?” repeats de Soya. Even the unflappable Monsignor Oddi makes a low noise in his throat.
“A Crusade against the Ouster menace,” rumbles Cardinal Lourdusamy. “For centuries we have defended ourselves—the Great Wall is a defensive strategem, putting Christian bodies and ships and lives in the way of the Ouster aggression—but as of this day, by the grace of God, the Church and Pax will go on the offensive.”
“How?” says de Soya. He knows that the battles already rage in the no-man’s-land of gray space between the Pax and Ouster regions, filling thousands of parsecs with fleet lunge and parry, thrust and retreat. But with the time-debt—the maximum voyage from Pacem to the farthest reaches of the Great Wall is two years of shiptime, more than twenty years of time-debt—there can be little or no coordination of either offense or defense.
Lourdusamy smiles grimly and answers. “Even as we speak, every world in the Pax and Protectorate is being asked … commanded … to devote planetary resources to build one great ship … one ship for each world.”
“We have thousands of ships …,” begins the priest-captain and stops.
“Yes,” purrs the Cardinal. “These ships will use the new archangel technology. But they will not be like your Raphael—a lightly armed courier—but the deadliest battle cruisers this spiral arm has ever seen. Capable of translating anywhere in the galaxy in less time than it takes a dropship to rise to orbit. Each ship named after its homeworld, each staffed by devoted Pax officers such as yourself—men and women willing to suffer death and receive resurrection—and each capable of destroying entire Swarms.”
De Soya nods. “Is this the Holy Father’s answer to his revelation of the child’s threat, Your Excellency?”
Lourdusamy moves back around the desk and settles into his high-backed throne as if exhausted. “In part, Federico. In part. These new craft will begin to be built within the next standard decade. The technology is difficult … very difficult. Meanwhile, the cybrid succubus continues to circulate disease like a spreading virus. That part depends upon you—you and your enhanced crew of virus seekers.”
“Enhanced?” repeats de Soya. “May Sergeant Gregorius and Corporal Kee still travel with me?”
“Yes,” rumbles the Cardinal. “They have already been assigned.”
“Where does the enhancement come in?” asks de Soya, dreading the possibility that a Cardinal from the Holy Office will be assigned to his mission.
Cardinal Lourdusamy opens his fat fingers as if lifting the lid of a treasure box. “Just one addition to your crew, Federico.”
“An officer of the Church?” asks the priest-captain, wondering if the papal diskey is to be passed to a different Commander.
Lourdusamy shakes his head. His great jowls flow with the movement. “A simple warrior, Father Captain de Soya. A new breed of warrior, bred for the renewed Army of Christ.”
De Soya does not understand. It sounds as if the Church is answering Ouster nanotechnology with biomodifications of its own. That would defy all of the Church doctrine
de Soya has been taught.
Once again, the Cardinal seems to read the priest-captain’s thoughts. “Nothing like that, Federico. Some … augmentations … and much unique training from a new branch of the Pax military, but still totally human … and Christian.”
“One trooper?” says de Soya, mystified.
“One warrior,” says Lourdusamy. “Not within the Pax Fleet chain of command. The first member of the elite Legions which shall spearhead the Crusade that His Holiness will announce today.”
De Soya rubs his chin. “And will he be under my direct command, as Gregorius and Kee have been?”
“Of course, of course,” rumbles Lourdusamy, sitting back and folding his hands on his ample stomach. “There will be just one change, as was deemed necessary by His Holiness in council with the Holy Office. She will have her own papal diskey, for separate authority on military decisions and those actions deemed necessary for the preservation of the Church.”
“She,” repeats de Soya, trying hard to understand this. If both he and this mystery “warrior” have equal papal authority, how can they make decisions at all? Every aspect of their quest for the child so far has had military facets and implications. Every decision he has made has been dedicated to the preservation of the Church. It would be better if he were simply dismissed and replaced rather than this false sharing of power.
Before he can articulate this, Cardinal Lourdusamy leans forward and speaks as softly as the bass rumble will allow. “Federico, His Holiness still sees you involved in this … and primarily responsible. But Our Lord has revealed a terrible necessity which the Holy Father seeks to take from your hands, knowing you as the ultimate man of conscience you are.”
“Terrible necessity?” says de Soya, knowing with an immediate and total sinking feeling exactly what it is.
Lourdusamy’s features are all bright light and deep shadow as he leans across the desk. “The cybrid-spawned succubus must be terminated. Destroyed. The virus eradicated from the Body of Christ as the first step toward the corrective surgery which is to come.”
De Soya counts to eight before speaking. “I find the child,” he says. “This … warrior … kills her.”
“Yes,” says Lourdusamy. There is no discussion of whether Father Captain de Soya will accept this modified mission. Born-again Christians, priests, Jesuits in particular, and Pax Fleet officers do not quibble when the Holy Father and the Holy Mother Church assign them duties.
“When do I meet this warrior, Your Excellency?” asks de Soya.
“The Raphael will translate to Sol Draconi System this very afternoon,” pipes up Monsignor Oddi from his place behind and to the left of de Soya. “Your new crew member is already aboard.”
“May I ask her name and rank?” says de Soya, turning to look at the tall Monsignor.
Secretary Cardinal Simon Augustino Lourdusamy answers. “She has no formal rank as of yet, Father Captain de Soya. Eventually she will be an officer in the newly formed Legions of the Crusade. As of now, you and your troopers may refer to her by her name.”
De Soya waits.
“Which is Nemes,” rumbles the Cardinal. “Rhadamanth Nemes.” His small eyes flick to Lucas Oddi. The Monsignor stands. De Soya hurries to his feet. The audience is obviously at an end.
Lourdusamy’s pudgy hand rises in a three-fingered benediction. De Soya bows his head.
“May Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, keep you and preserve you and give you success on this most important of voyages. In the name of Jesus we ask this.”
“Amen,” murmurs Monsignor Lucas Oddi.
“Amen,” says de Soya.
44
It was not just a single building frozen in the ice. An entire city was buried here in Sol Draconi Septem’s resublimated atmosphere, a small bit of the old Hegemony’s hubris frozen in place like an ancient insect locked in amber.
Father Glaucus was a gentle, humorous, generous man. We soon learned that he had been exiled to Sol Draconi Septem as a punishment for belonging to one of the last Teilhardian orders in the Church. While his order had rejected the basic tenets of Teilhard after Julius VI had published a bull proclaiming the antipope’s philosophy as blasphemy, the order was dissolved and its members either excommunicated or sent to the ass-ends of the Pax’s dominion. Father Glaucus did not refer to his fifty-seven standard years in this icy tomb as exile—he called it his mission.
While admitting that none of the Chitchatuk had shown the slightest interest in converting, Father Glaucus confessed that he had little interest in converting them. He admired their courage, respected their honesty, and was fascinated with their hard-earned culture. Before he had become blind—snowblindness, he called it, not simple cataracts … a combination of cold, vacuum, and hard radiation found on the surface—Father Glaucus had traveled with numerous Chitchatuk bands. “There were more then,” said the old priest as we sat in his brightly lit study. “Attrition has taken its toll. Where there were tens of thousands of the Chitchatuk in this region fifty years ago, only a few hundred survive today.”
In the first day or two, while Aenea, A. Bettik, and the blind priest spoke, I spent much of my time exploring the frozen city.
Father Glaucus illuminated four floors of one tall building with the fuel-pellet lanterns. “To keep away the wraiths,” he said. “They hate the light.” I found a stairway and descended into the darkness with a handlamp and my rifle ready. Twenty-some stories lower and a warren of ice tunnels led to the other buildings in the city. Decades earlier, Father Glaucus had marked the entrances to these buried structures with a light pen —WAREHOUSE, COURTHOUSE, COMMUNICATIONS CENTER, HEGEMONY DOME, HOTEL, and so forth. I explored some of these, seeing signs of the priest’s more recent visits here. On my third exploration I found the deep vaults where the high-energy fuel pellets were stored. These were the source of both heat and light for the old priest, and they were also his principal bargaining chip to bring the Chitchatuk in to visit.
“The wraiths give them everything except combustible material,” he had said. “The pellets give them light and a wee bit of heat. We enjoy the barter—they give me wraith-meat and hides, I give them light and heat and garrulous conversation. I think they first began talking to me because my band consisted of the most elegant prime number … one! In the early days I used to hide the location of the cache. Now I know that the Chitchatuk would never steal from me. Even if their lives depended on it. Even if the lives of their children depended on it.”
There was little else to see in the buried city. The darkness was absolute down there, and my handlamp did little to dispel the gloom. If I had harbored hopes of finding some easy way to get us downriver to the second arch—a giant blowtorch perhaps, or a fusion borer—those hopes were soon dashed. The city was, with the exception of Father Glaucus’s four floors of furniture, books, light, food, warmth, and conversation, as cold and dead as the ninth circle of hell.
ON OUR THIRD OR FOURTH DAY THERE, JUST PRIOR to our mealtime, I joined them in the old priest’s study as they chatted. I had already gone over the books on the shelf: volumes of philosophy and theology, mysteries, astronomy texts, ethnology studies, newanthro tomes, adventure novels, carpentry guides, medical texts, zoology books …
“The greatest sadness of my blindness thirty years ago,” Father Glaucus had said, that first day he proudly showed us his library, “was that I could no longer read my dear books. I am Prospero denied. You can’t imagine the time it took me to drag these three thousand volumes up from the library fifty stories down!”
In the afternoons, while I explored and A. Bettik went off to read by himself, Aenea would read aloud to the old priest. Once when I entered the room without knocking, I saw tears on the ancient missionary’s cheeks.
This day when I joined them, Father Glaucus was explaining Teilhard—the original Jesuit, not the antipope whom Julius VI had supplanted.
“He was a stretcher bearer in World War One,” Father Glaucus was saying. “He could hav
e been a chaplain and stayed out of the line of fire, but he chose to be a stretcher bearer. They awarded him medals for his courage, including one called the Legion of Honor.”
A. Bettik cleared his throat politely. “Excuse me, Father,” he said softly. “Am I correct in assuming that the First World War was a pre-Hegira conflict limited to Old Earth?”
The bearded priest smiled. “Precisely, precisely, my dear friend. Early twentieth century. Terrible conflict. Terrible. And Teilhard was in the thick of it. His hatred of war lasted the rest of his life.”
Father Glaucus had long ago built his own rocking chair, and now he rocked back and forth in front of the fuel-pellet fire set in a crudely fashioned fireplace. The golden embers threw long shadows and more warmth than we had enjoyed since coming through the farcaster portal. “Teilhard was a geologist and paleontologist. It was in China—a nation-state on Old Earth, my friends—in the 1930’s that he devised his theories that evolution was an uncompleted process, yet one with a design. He saw the universe as God’s design to bring together the Christ of Evolution, the Personal, and the Universal into a single conscious entity. Teilhard de Chardin saw every step of evolution as a hopeful sign—even mass extinctions as a cause for joy—with cosmogenesis, his word, occurring when humanity became central to the universe, noogenesis as the continued evolution of man’s mind, and hominization and ultrahominization as the stages of Homo sapiens evolving to true humanity.”
“Excuse me, Father,” I heard myself saying, only slightly aware of the incongruity of this abstract discussion amid the frozen city, beneath the frozen atmosphere, surrounded by wraith-killers and cold, “but wasn’t Teilhard’s heresy that humankind could evolve into God?”
The blind priest shook his head, his expression still pleasant. “During his lifetime, my son, Teilhard was never sanctioned for heresy. In 1962 the Holy Office—it was quite a different Holy Office then, I assure you—issued a monitum—”