Launch Pad (12 page)

The Externalist heresy was proclaimed again today in the Plenary Hall. To my surprise, the Thalassocretes have taken custody of the young man in question, but I have secured his work for the nonce. There is a possibility of empirical evidence.

M.

O O O

Evidence.

Proof.

Had Ion known last night this letter was coming, known as he was dying? Or was it simply that now happened to be the world’s time for such trials? The cloying smell of cooling eggs provided no answer.

Still, Quinx felt a swift trip to Highpassage would be in order. With their profound challenge to the roots of Lateran doctrine, Externalists were a far more troublesome heresy than the dissenters such as the Machinists or the Originalists. Putting paid to this renewed outbreak of Externalism before it had a chance to establish and multiply was an utmost priority. And that errand in turn would keep him safely away from the deliberations of the Assemblage of Primates, who would surely be meeting in camera the moment the Gatekeeper’s body had been sufficiently blessed. Death was an unfortunate pause in events, but politics continued forever.

There was a young man to see, and a Thalassojustity to face down. Again.

Why people insisted on resisting the obvious and holy truths of the Increate was one of those mysteries of free will that a priest could spend his lifetime contemplating without any success. If all the saints of ancient days could not answer such a question, surely Bilious Quinx would be no wiser.

Questions he could not answer, but problems he could solve. “Brother Kurts …”

“Sir?”

“Does the airship pilot perhaps await our pleasure?”

There was the briefest pause, then the slightest tone of satisfaction in the monk’s reply. “I have already made certain of it, sir.”

O O O

The advantages of the reflecting telescope over the refracting telescope cannot be overstated, and should be obvious to any thinking man. While the great refractors of the past century have multiplied our understanding of the Increate’s work amidst the heavens, the practical exigencies of glass-making, gravity, and the engineering arts limit the refracting mirrors to less than fifty inches of diameter. Advances in the philosophy of the reflecting telescope have produced designs by such luminaries as Kingdom Obasa’s son and successor, BruneI, for mirrors of a hundred inches or greater! Even now, the Planetary Society raises a subscription for such a heavenly monster to be placed upon Mount Sysiphe north of High passage, that we might enumerate the craters of the moon and count the colors of the stars to better understand the glories of Creation. A true union of Science and Faith can only prosper from such noble endeavors.

—Editorial in the Highpassage Argus-Intelligencer,
November 2nd, H.3123, Th.1997, L.6011

O O O

“Lesser Bench” was a misnomer. Morgan knew that. Everybody knew that. The Greater Bench met only in solemn conclave on the beach to hear capital cases, and certain classes of piracy accusations. Everything else that transpired in the Thalassojustity took place under the purview of the Lesser Bench.

The question was which of those benches.

The two Marines dragged Morgan into the interior of the Thalassojustity Palace.

The main nave soared to the roof, some eighty feet above, and was lined with enormous statues of sea captains and Thalassocretes through the ages. The joke ran that the bodies remained the same and the heads were switched from time to time. What ever the truth, the sculpture represented one of the greatest troves of Classical art in the world, with continuous provenance stretching back well before the onset of consistent recordkeeping.

Glorious, strange, and too large for the world—that was the majesty of the Thalassojustity, encapsulated in the dialectic of art.

At the moment, Morgan was feeling inglorious, ordinary, and far too small. Even the marble flags here were oversized, designed to intimidate.

He was scooted a bit too fast past the massive altarpiece at the far end of the nave, through a bronze door wrought with an overly detailed relief of some long-forgotten naval battle, and into a far more ordinary hallway that could have been found in any reasonably modern commercial building in Highpassage. Electricks flickered overhead, giving a reddish-yellow cast to the light. Entrances lining each side of the hallway were so mundane as to be aggressive in their plainness—dark brown, two paneled doors, each relieved with frosted glass painted with the name of some bureau or official. Cocked-open transoms above each provided some relief from a warmth that must be stifling in high summer.

Only the carpet, a finely napped deep blue that Morgan could not put a name to, betrayed the true wealth of this place.

Well down the hall he was propelled into an intersecting corridor with doors set much farther apart. Larger rooms for larger purposes? The Courts of the Lesser Bench, he realized, as they passed a door where gold-flecked lettering proclaimed “EXCISE BENCH.”

The door he was pushed through was marked “LOYALTY BENCH.”

Morgan’s heart stuttered cold and hard. The treason court. Where offenses against the Thalassojustity itself, or against the common good, were tried.

The door slammed behind him. No Marines. Morgan whirled, taking in the small gallery, the judge’s podium, stands for witness and examiner, the interrogation chair, glass cabinets where evidence or exhibits might be stored.

And no one present. No judge, no advocates, no clerks of the court, no bailiffs, no witnesses, no one at all but himself. Defendant?

The walls rose high, two or three stories, though not as tall as the nave. These were paneled with inlays of half a dozen different colored woods to create a pleasing abstract pattern. Electrick chandeliers dangled overhead. Their fat iron arms signaled their gas lamp history.

Morgan ceased gaping and sat down in the gallery. He had no desire to approach the front of the courtroom. As nothing seemed to be taking place, he simply closed his eyes for a moment. His heartbeat calmed for the first time since stepping to the podium back at the Plenary Hall of the Planetary Society.

Without sight, other senses sharpened. He smelled the furniture polish and floor wax of the courtroom, along with the faint ozone scent of the electricks. All of it masked the underlying accumulation of human stress and fear. Perspiration had left its indelible mark in the air.

The sounds of the room were similar: a faint buzz from the lights, the creak and sigh of old wood, the footfalls of someone approaching.

Morgan’s eyes shot open and he stiffened.

The newcomer—no door had opened, had it?—was gloriously dark-skinned as any king of old, gray eyes almost silver in a cragged and noble face. His hair was worked back in prince-rows, each set with tiny turquoise and silver beads so that he seemed almost to be wearing a net upon his head. A silver hoop hung from his left ear, the conciscrux of the Thalassojustity tiny in his right. Barefoot, he wore a laborer’s canvas trousers and shirt, though dyed a deep maroon rather than the usual blue or grubby tan. Despite the attire, this one would not have fooled any thinking observer for more than a moment, not with his bearing.

After a moment, Morgan finally registered how small the man was. Barely shoulder high, four foot nine at the most. That was when he knew who he faced—Eraster Goins, presiding judge of the Lesser Benches. The Thalassocrete.

“Pardon my state of undress,” Goins said politely. “I was attending to some physical matters when I was informed of the requirement for my presence.”

“I … Sir …” Morgan made the hand-sign of his lodge.

A crinkling smile emerged that was entirely at odds with the power of this man’s word. Goins could summon fleets, lay waste to cities, claim the life of almost anyone, at his mere whim. “Of course I know that, Dr. Abutti. You do not need to demonstrate your loyalty or training at this time.”

At this time. “Wh-what, then, sir?”

“Well …” Goins cracked his knuckles, took a moment to find great interest in the beds of his nails. Morgan did not think this was a man ordinarily at a loss for words. “So far as anyone in the city of Highpassage is concerned, you are in here being thrashed within an inch of your now-worthless life. This matter will be of specific interest to certain Lateran observers.”

Morgan was moved to briefly study his own hands. He was under threat, certainly. No one talked to Goins or his ilk without placing themselves at great risk. A single false word could misplace an entire career, or a lifetime’s work. Or freedom.

“This is about my speech at the Planetary Society, isn’t it?”

“Your perspicacity shall soon be legendary.” Goins’ tone managed to be simultaneously ironically airy and edged with a whiff of fatality. “Perhaps you would care to explain to me what you thought you were about?”

“Am I on trial?” Morgan regretted the words the instant he’d blurted them out.

“No, but you certainly could be.” Goins’ eyes narrowed, his smile now gone to some faraway place. “You would enjoy the process far less than you’re enjoying this discussion, I shall be pleased to assure you.”

“No, I didn’t mean …” Morgan stopped stumbling through reflexive excuses and instead summoned both his courage and his words. Proof was proof, by the stars. He couldn’t explain everything, but he could explain a great deal more than was comfortable. “I have new evidence concerning the Eight Gardens, and the origins of man.”

“I do not believe that is considered an open question. Are you a Lateran theologian, to revisit Dispersionism? That is a matter for our contemplative competitor on the southern verge of the Attik Main.”

Morgan made the sign of the Increate across his chest. “I do not presume to challenge faith, I just—”

“No?” Goins’ voice rose. “What precisely did you intend to present to the Planetary Society, then?”

He was sweating now, his gut knotted. This had always been the crux of the matter. The world was so true, so logical. Until it wasn’t. His newly summoned courage deserted Morgan, apparently to be followed by a fading sense of self-preservation. “A mistake, sir. I intended to present a mistake.”

“Hmmm.” Goins took Morgan’s attaché case from his unresisting hands, tugged open the flap. “A mistake. That’s better. You still haven’t answered my question, however.” The presiding judge leaned close. “What was the mistake?”

Morgan opened his mouth, to have his lips stopped by the single tap of his inquisitor’s finger.

“Heed me carefully, Dr. Morgan Abutti. We have no copyist present. No autonomic locugraphitor hums nearby. No clerks of the court labor at my elbow to give later in convenient testimony. I do not ask you this from my seat of responsibility at the head of the Pirate’s Steps. I do not wear my robe and chain of office. No oaths have been sworn beyond those we both live under every day of our lives.” Goins leaned close. “At this moment, I am merely a man, asking a simple question of another mere man. Both of us stand before the Increate now as always clad only in our honor. After you have answered, we may make other decisions. Other testimonies may be required, each suitable to their intended audiences. For now, I only listen. To the truth entire as you understand it.

“So tell me. What was the mistake?”

“I believed something I saw of significance in the heavens,” Morgan said simply. “Though what I found runs against the word and the will of the Increate, and everything that has been taught to us in the six thousand years since They first placed man in the Eight Gardens and awoke us to Their world.”

“Mmm.” Goins stepped away from Morgan, paced briefly back and forth before turning to face him again. “I trust we are not so lucky that this mistake in the heavens was presented to you by an eight-winged angel with glowing eyes? Or perhaps the voice of the Increate Themselves whispering in your sleeping ear? I am going to assume that your … mistake … arrived borne on the back of evidence derived from the latest and most pleasing artefacts of Dame Progress, objective and empirical in the hand.”

Morgan stared at Goins, appalled. “Had an angel told me what I have learned, you could call me both blest and crazed. Almost all would smile behind their hands and carry on.”

“Precisely.”

“’Twas no angel, sir. No miracle at all, except that of optics, patience, and an emulsion of silver salts painted onto a glass plate to be exposed to the night sky before moonrise could flood the world with pallid light.”

“Mmm.” This time Goins did not pace, but stared instead at Morgan. “And what do you think this photographic truth signifies? Speaking in your professional capacity, of course.”

Morgan’s heart sank further. He was close to tears, torn. “I c-cannot deny the Increate.”

“Why not? You were prepared to do so in front of seven hundred people in the Plenary Hall not two hours past.”

“Forgive me. I … I did not understand what it was I was about.” He wanted to groan, cry, shriek. It was as if he were being torn apart. “Is not truth part of Their creation?”

Goins leaned close. “What you did was take some photographs of the night sky, study them, and draw conclusions. You did this being the good scientist that you are, trained at the University of Highpassage and the New Garaden Institute. One of our New Men, concerned with the evidence of the world before them rather than the testimony of tradition. I don’t want to know what the innocent boy who prayed to the Increate every night believes. I want to know what the educated man peering into the telescope thinks.”

The words poured out of Morgan Abutti with the strength of confession. “There is something artificial at the Earth’s trailing solar libration point. A small body, similar to one of the asteroids. I believe it to be a vessel for traveling the aether. I speculate it to be the true home and origin of mankind. Whatever I believe does not matter, for all will be revealed in due time. This artificial world has begun to move, and will soon be visiting us here in our own skies.”

Goins’ response shocked Morgan. “It has begun to move?” he asked in a voice of awed surprise.

Morgan’s heart froze. The presiding judge’s words implied that he’d already known of this. He fell back on the most basic refuge of his profession. “The stars do not lie, sir. We may misunderstand their evidence, but the stars do not lie.”