Engineering Infinity (29 page)

With a roar like a hundred
thunders, flares light up on his shoulder-racks, rockets streak out, trailing
streams of boiling smoke; his major cannons, left and right, vomit explosive
flame, jarring mind and sense and hearing; minor cannons rattle with
jack-hammer concussions, a numbing blur of noise.

Azaziel’s aura flares to the
greatest of its great power, and cloaks the angel in an eye-searing flame. His
compensating field is insufficient; the shockwave of the attack throws him
backwards through the wall of the archives. The beautiful building is blackened
and smashed with fire, as Idomenes’ micro-rockets and beam-guided missiles jump
in through the holes.

Idomenes is beginning to realize
the enormity of his error when Azaziel, shaped now like a pillar of fire,
emerges from the archive, reducing roof and walls to tumbling ash as the
swirling column unfolds to its full height.

Like a tornado, Azaziel glides
forward, and an arm of lightning dips toward Idomenes. Lesser assemblers and
floating globes, like a black snowstorm, try to swirl into the path of the
beam; Idomenes has harness-jets and prosthetic leg-motors assist his panicked
leap to the side.

The beam of lightning tears off
huge chunks of Idomenes’ armour, and tosses him headlong in mid-leap, but the
blow is glancing, and the diamond panels refract the beam just enough to send
lances of scattered fire in to the observatory.

The beautiful building is impaled
with roaring flame.

Idomenes tries to cry out words
of apology, perhaps, or peace, but the roar of fire and explosion is all around
him. He jumps and fires, jumps and fires, smashing through more walls and roofs
as he does so.

Through the smoke and terror, he
can see the twin slender beams of Azaziel’s eyesight slicing through walls and
smoke-clouds, hunting him. Azaziel’s fiery column sweeps through the area,
devastating all. The fountains explode in a tangled convulsion of steam.

Azaziel’s shields falter, perhaps
grounded or cooled by the water. Idomenes forgets all thoughts of peace when he
sees the dark angel rising into the air, haloed in fire, stealing Lilimariah
away. He glimpses her teary face: her mouth and eyes are wide. He leaps, kicked
aloft by coughing jets, and attempts to grapple the angel.

A vast force of fire explodes in
his faceplate as his arms close around the burning pillar of Azaziel. His
diamond armour is blasted awry, molten lumps flying backward, but his arms
manage to grab something. Whatever is in his grasp slides under his whining
gauntlet-motors, and crackles with electrical tension, formless, like forcing
two opposite magnets together.

Azaziel’s calm, dispassionate
face is staring into the faceplate of Idomenes, a sight of eerie terror. Inches
before him, Idomenes sees the energy fields swirling in front of the dark angel’s
eyes, growing bright, gathering power... The dark angel squints...

Before Azaziel’s gaze can smite
him, an unexpected force thrusts the two combatants apart and flings them both
to the ground.

Here is Uriel, Prince of Angels
and foremost of their kind, blazing, and he stands in midair now between them.

From his upraised palms comes a
pulse. The combatants are held apart.

Here also is stern Ducaleon. The
old man wears a green thinking-robe; he is surrounded by glittering assemblers
more numerous and better-made than his son’s. In his brow he also carries a
ruby. A look of stern sorrow is graven on his features.

Ducaleon points with his glove,
and a command signal overrides Idomenes’ assemblers. The black diamonds
attempting to repair Idomenes’ armour now reverse their actions. The armour
sways and falls to pieces around Idomenes, disintegrating in huge sliding lumps
and glittering dusty slithers.

Azaziel, meanwhile, smothers his
aura. Gold light, not flame, surrounds him.

Idomenes is in pain from a dozen
burns, lacerations, sprains, pains even worse; he fears bones are broken. He
cannot rise to his feet, and the assemblers which normally would have been
swarming to heal him are fallen to the blackened ground, motionless.

Azaziel, on the other hand, has
not a strand of his black hair misplaced. He flexes his wings around him, and
crosses his arms on his chest. He says nothing. Lilimariah, behind him, is
unharmed, although her face is full of emotion.

Idomenes listens to his ears
ringing in the sudden silence.

All around them are the cratered
remains of once-great buildings; the works of his father’s architecture,
smouldering, blasted, ruined, destroyed.

Ducaleon says, “Abase yourself
before the high Exemplar Uriel and beg forgiveness, and you may, perhaps, be
spared.” (The word exemplar is an old term for the Invigilators, from the days
when they were meant to serve as examples to mankind, rather than as
punishers.) “The asteroids of ice begin already to fall. You have led a
blameless life. But if you err, even on the last day, even at the last hour,
you will not be saved.”

Idomenes, unable to rise, cranes
his head and looks toward Uriel. The arch-angel’s aura is so bright that it
crackles with sparks and little arcs of fire. “I apologize for harm I’ve done;
I meant no disrespect.” But the words come grudgingly forth. Idomenes does not
believe in his heart that he has done anything wrong.

Azaziel says with disdain, “Roll
over! Fetch! Play Dead!”

The light from Uriel’s eyes
touches Idomenes’ ruby; he sees his thoughts. Uriel says nothing.

Lilimariah, half-hidden behind
Azaziel’s back, her hand on the dark angel’s shoulders, says in a sad, haunted
voice, “Do not be slain for my sake. I’m sorry, Idomenes. I am under no
influence, now, nor any thoughts of mine bewitched. And yet I say: I must go
with Azaziel.”

“Is it him you love?” Idomenes
knows pain beyond his wounds. His voice is a hoarse rasp.

She hesitates. Then: “Yes. As
much as my heart can do.” Her voice is faint. Then she says, “Now make peace
with your father, and kiss his hands, and go your way with the angels of death,
who condemn and slay mankind.” The hatred in her voice is clear.

Ducaleon says to Uriel, “Tell me
my son can be saved. I have no one else.”

Uriel speaks. His voice is quiet
and gold. “His trust in us is gone. When humans do not trust, they fear. When
they fear, they kill.”

Idomenes lifts himself partway on
his hands, rearing up. Blood breaks through his burns. He winces. He shouts
out, “How can I believe in the justice of the Will, if the reasons of the
angels are not just?”

Ducaleon says: “Their justice is
beyond our understanding. But is there any race so deserving of death as
mankind? Can you think of an act of evil, no matter how heinous, which we have
not done? Not done in secret, but while crowds cheered?”

Idomenes shouts again, “Is the
innocent child who grows in Lilimariah’s womb so guilty that he is deserving of
death?”

Uriel speaks again. “He is
condemned because no one can guarantee that, when he grows, neither he nor any
of his progeny will never work murder or theft or deception on the innocent
hosts who live among the Will. Quite the opposite! When humans gather, crime is
certain.”

Idomenes is angry. “My life has
been in service to this? Is this what you call justice? None can survive this
rule! None can live so!”

Uriel says in a voice of haunting
beauty: “There are races that do not enslave, do not slay, do not war. There
are races which do not lie or falsify. You think them weak? But they are among
the strongest and finest denizens of the Will. They waste no treasure, nor
time, nor grief, nor lives, nor blood, to maintain the ungainly apparatus of
suspicion and bloodshed you call government, the princes and policemen and
hangmen without which you humans dare not risk to live with each other. Weak?
So would savages, whose every cottage was a fortress and every door a
barricade, think
your
race. And yet, among the stars
there are crystalline civilizations so complex, so swift, and so trusting that
a single lie could ruin them. Do you think the Will is weak, then? Observe the
strength granted those who serve it!”

And, at his word, an earthquake
shakes the mountain.

Idomenes looks to the railing. He
feels a swaying, weightless pitching. Beyond the rail, he sees the ground
departing slowly away. There comes a moment of mist. Then they are high, no
longer in twilight, but back in the day. Beyond the railing is cloud.

Ducaleon says: “We are risen! My
son is still with us! Does this mean he can be saved?” He points with his
gloves, and many assemblers swarm over Idomenes, tending to his wounds.

Uriel is silent, staring grimly
at Idomenes.

Ducaleon says, “Son! You know it
is wise to agree with the Exemplar. Think of what you will gain if you quell
the rebellion in your heart!”

Idomenes says, “Father, I mean
not to grieve you. But a man cannot make himself believe a lie just because it
profits him. Men do not hold to the truth because it is useful, or comely, or
safe. Men hold to the truth because it is true. And I was not told the truth!”

Azaziel mutters, “Proudly said!
Would that my docile brother angels had such hearts of fire as this lowly
mortal.”

Uriel says, “Truth we spoke not
to you, foreknowing you would say such words, too arrogant to be unsaid. Our
justice grounded on stern practicality.”

Lilimariah, her voice thick with
hatred, her eyes smoking, now spoke: “Death angel! What you call justice is
nothing but fear! Fear of mankind! And because you came, from fear, to doom us,
we have no fate but to make ourselves as fearsome as we can do! Fools! Fools!
All fools! We had no care for your World-Minds and your Will and all your grave
deliberations! Do you think murder is not murder because it is done by judges
or governments or gods? No, we prayed for those appeals, and every delay -
sixty long years of delay! - we Typhonides employed to make ourselves as ready
for war as we could do! What care we if you drown the world? Already my father
and his people have altered themselves, painful mutations and ugly, and sink
down to dwell in the deepest chasms of the ocean bed, where sunlight never can
reach. There they will breed a race of monstrosities, a race of magicians, in
sunless domes and fortresses far beneath the waves! From there they will wage
eternal war, fuelled by restless hate unending. You think to drown the world in
water? They shall drown the world in blood! You cannot blockade our ascent
forever! One day the stars shall be ours! Then the stars themselves shall drip
blood!”

Uriel turns to Idomenes, and says
gravely, “Do you see what it is we must act to prevent? This woman is unworthy
of your regard.”

Idomenes answers bravely, “And
yet she should not die.”

“Acknowledge our wisdom! The one
we chose to live is the only one worthy. Only Ducaleon. We spare his wife for
his sake.”

Now Uriel turns to Azaziel. “But
as for you, you have violated our laws. Capitulate to our judgment, meekly
surrender, or I bring terrible arms to bear!”

Azaziel laughs a laugh of scorn. “What
do I care for your frowning brow and threatening word? I know your arms, and I
know I am safe. But even if I were not, I would not cower to you. I will do
only what pride bids me do; so I have sworn, and will do no shameful thing, or
anything prompted only by fear.

“Capitulate? How?” the proud
angel continued, “Your own law says you will kill to protect anyone who might
one day perhaps - perhaps! - threaten the civilization you so adore. Should I
not have as much love as that for this my child, whom, if I capitulate, you
kill?

“No, tyrant, my ears are closed
to that base cruelty you call justice. Such reasoning offends reason, and would
make killers of us all. For each man perhaps might threaten all others: your
rule is the rule of endless war. I say no more to you; you are unworthy even of
contempt.

“I turn me now from the creature
I most despise to the one I most love. Hear my will. Pride likewise will not
allow me to cower beneath the bellies of dolphins, to live in the sunless mud
in the pits beneath your seas. The stars are mine! I claim them my birth-right!
We will go aloft, you and I, and I can instruct you in the secrets of angels.
Come! Will you go with me? You will never see friends or father or family again
if you go.”

She speaks in a voice of passion.
“You are my lord and master. Wherever you go, I find joy without equal. Carry
me up to your dark, wide abyss.”

Azaziel gathers her in his arms
and steps upwards into the air. Uriel starts to raise his hand, red-hot
lightnings forming in his palm, but Idomenes, staggering, steps toward the
couple and into his line of fire. Uriel withholds his stroke.

“Lilimariah!” Idomenes cries in a
ragged voice: “Wait - I - I still love you - come back -”

And Lilimariah, looking back over
the dark angel’s shoulder, has tears in her eyes. But she says only, “There are
duties stronger than love.”

Idomenes makes a choking cry and
clutches the railing, looking up.

It looks like a tear falling
down, shaken from Lilimariah as she turns her face away.

Something of sorrow appears for a
moment in Uriel’s face. He closes his fingers on his white fire, extinguishing
it without casting.

The teardrop glitters as it
falls. Unseen, at the last moment, it swerves in mid-air into Idomenes’ palm.
He closes his fingers to catch it.

Azaziel and Lilimariah, shining
in gold, dwindle to a bright point high above, and are gone.

Idomenes feels a sting in his
palm.

Behind him, he hears Ducaleon say
softly to Uriel, “Azaziel was your firstborn son. I grieve for you, old friend.
Perhaps he was enchanted.”

The assembler in Idomenes’ palm
manipulates his nervous system and creates the illusion of a voice in his ear. “Now
I break my oath as you broke yours for me. My love, my dearest love, my sweet
and only true love; I am compelled to go with Azaziel by my father’s will. The
love potion you found in me I injected willingly, without which Azaziel could
not have been deceived. He lowered his aura to embrace me, many nights, and the
mind-altering effects of this concocted love spread to him. His artificial
race, born from humans by the arts of the Ship to police and rule us, is not so
different, at their deep neural structures, from the spurned parental stock.
All that has been done, has been done to save my race from extinction. I have
been injected with your mother’s gift to replenish mankind. It was my father
who directed remotely that library (which you gave him) into me. It was
necessary to seduce a death-angel to our cause, for we had no other way to
establish a foothold on other planets, to spread far enough that no single
disaster could ever threaten us again. All else has been a feint. The tumults
in the city were meant to occupy the angels and thus prevent Azaziel’s capture.
The citadels which father has established at the bottom of the sea, the races
who shall be for centuries devoted to hatred and bitter war are likewise merely
a feint, that I and my child (and all my children to come) might be overlooked.
Evil I have done you, great evil. I beg your forgiveness knowing it might never
be granted; I pray you will remember me with a love that equals my own. My fate
is in your hands, the fate of all my generations, children and grandchildren
that should have been yours. To tell the death angels destroys all.”