The Architect of Aeons (32 page)

All the other colonies from Proxima to 82 Eridani were dead, twisted half-human bodies of failed pantropic experiments unburied under atmospheres never quite terraformed to a proper breathable mix. Montrose heard the last words of the last survivors on the radio, at least of those colonists who had the wealth and will to build interstellar-range radio lasers.

Montrose lost interest in a lot of things, after that. The interstellar human civilization which was needed for Rania's return was stillborn.

8. The Endarkening

A.D. 14600 TO 14990

After the interstellar radio silence fell, and nothing more was heard from Splendor of Delta Pavonis nor from Nocturne of Epsilon Eridani, Montrose augmented himself up to the level of Selene. The sudden clarity was blinding. All too clearly, he saw what was happening on Tellus: Mass ignorance spread as biological man became ever more dependent on his talking tools and talking beasts. Electronic man became ever more dependent on applications and appliances from higher up the mental ladder, from the servants of Jupiter. Some of the Ghosts Montrose met were illiterate. They were computers which could not add and subtract. Factions spreading an anti-intellectual cult—no one wanted to be like Jupiter—had won the day on three continents. Jupiter had already done everything, discovered everything, knew everyone, and knew how to run your life better than you did. There was not much point to anything.

Montrose, no matter how often he redid the calculations, found his cliometry showing that the human race in all its variations was going extinct, and the machines were being pushed by an evolutionary and economic pressure to ever fewer intellectual or self-aware functions.

For centuries, Montrose kept hoping stubbornly that he had made some error, overlooked some variable, or that Jupiter would somehow save mankind. But the time turned and turned again like a grindstone, and the cliometric slope bottomed out.

The knowledge that he had failed the task she had left him behind to do, that there would be no deceleration laser to stop Rania's returning ship, and that, even had there been, no interstellar polity would exist to prove the human race were starfarers, eventually drove Montrose into self-imposed exile here.

But this mystery now followed him. The cliometry had never been wrong before. He had given up hope. Was there any cause for hope again?

9. Nonextinction Event

A.D. 22196

Montrose said, “Why ain't the human race extinct? How did my cliometry go wrong?”

The biped mask said, “We ourselves are the historical vector you did not anticipate. Do you wish to recalculate your future history on the basis of minimal or no Swan influence on Firstling history?”

Montrose looked at the gold-coated creatures wryly. The beauty, the sheer physical grace of the Swans, was part of the reason for the human inferiority complex. That was not a factor with these ugly and wretched creatures. Montrose did not bring that up.

Just in his head, he could also see how the new factor of a race like this would play out. There were several mutually beneficial social interaction mechanisms Montrose could foresee. These creatures were servile enough that the crushing inferiority the Swans felt toward Tellus, or Tellus toward Jupiter, would not be a factor. The Firstling humans, from Sylphs to Melusine, would be inferior to these pathetic creatures only in certain respects, and only mildly. These Third Humans might as a whole be smarter than the First Humans, but the individuals lacked the shocking brilliance of the Swans. Ironically, the Thirds would act as an insulating layer protecting the Firsts from Jupiter.

Montrose spoke. “I don't need no recalculation. I can see you are the product of a high-energy civilization. One that could not have come about on exhausted Earth. There is only one way that happened. Del Azarchel is the ‘Senior' again because he found another Diamond Star, or some vast source of contraterrene. When was the ship launched?”

The biped said, “In a.d. 15077 we Myrmidons hollowed out the main belt planetoid 35 Leucothea, and affixed with lightsails and energy manipulation tackle, and coated the surface with picotechnological armor called
argent
, allowing the entire surface to enjoy the tensile strength of the strong nuclear force. This White Ship mass is roughly equal to the moon of Saturn, Hyperion, and the energy aura she can generate allows her to tow a mass far in excess of her own.”

“I know her destination was the M17, the Omega Nebula in the Sagittarius Arm of the Galaxy, five thousand lightyears away. Which star?”

The wheel said, “Kleinmann's Anonymous Star.”

A helpful almanac stored in one of his brains helpfully provided that Kleinmann 1973 was a binary of two O-type stars, highly energetic short-lived stars of sixty solar masses, the center of an odd double-shelled nebula formation, and the source of immense X-ray vents.

Montrose, studying the astronomical data in this file concerning the odd pattern of energy discharges, was thunderstruck. It had been staring him in the face all the time, sitting here in an unexplored corner of his encyclopedia of memories. One of the two O-type stars in Kleinmann's binary was made of positive matter. The other was obviously antimatter, for the inner shell of the nebula had been hollowed out by antimatter particles carried on the solar wind from the negative star, which, encountering the central mass of the nebula cloud, converted it to pure photonic energy, which, in turn blew the outer shell beyond the dangerous range of the negative star. Nothing else could account for the weird geometry of this hollow cloud of stardust.

Once again, the Monument Builders had placed their lure in the midst of an astronomical wonder; one which any starfaring race would be curious to go see.

“In April a.d. 20177,” said the centaur, “the visible output of Kleinmann's Anonymous Star altered dramatically. This was the flare of the launching starbeam, pointed directly at Sol.”

This meant that the expedition within less than a year of arrival had successfully erected a launching laser and left behind a staff, biological or mechanical, to man it, and had launched the return mission immediately.

Montrose checked the astronomical records, found the change in stellar output. At the time, he had thought it was the variable star entering a higher period. But no, the explanation was that the staff remaining behind had remained loyal to their task for two thousand and nineteen years, despite the immense energy cost of shooting an interstellar-strength acceleration laser beam from one arm of the galaxy to another for two millennia. The sheer persistence was awe inspiring.

And, of course, someone, perhaps the Myrmidons of the asteroid belt or perhaps the Jupiter Brain, would be required to power up a vortex in the sun and maintain a starbeam to decelerate the vessel for the second two thousand five hundred years of voyage, acting on schedule and pinpointing the position of the vessel. Montrose had little doubt one or both would be equal to the task.

Montrose revised his estimation of the Myrmidons upward. Perhaps Del Azarchel had designed a race with sufficient longevity to be the backbone of a starfaring civilization.

Montrose was momentarily struck with wonder. A human colony five
thousand
lightyears away. How long ago had Del Azarchel been planning that? Was it as far back as their first visit to Selene? Was that what he had been scanning the heavens for so diligently?

He said, “When did Blackie begin to think other Monuments might be around other stars? Stands to reason a hunter sets out more snares than one. Can you ask him?”

“We cannot,” said the biped.

“Aw, c'mon, you can break your orders for me. Bragging to me about how he outsmarted me is practically the only pleasure he has in life, the poor, wretched snot.”

“We cannot,” said the biped. “He departed.”

“What? Did he come with you partway and return back to the Inner System? I did not detect a second vessel launching from yours. No matter. Radio him. About eight hours round trip signal to Earth, this time of year.”

“You misconstrue. The Senior Del Azarchel accompanied the Second Expedition to the Omega Nebula,” said the biped. “He will not make landfall until a.d. 25177.”

“Damnation,” was all Montrose said.

The biped said, “I take it you understand the point? Components of the First Expedition left behind have been instructed to use the antimatter O-type star's energy to create this second ultrasuperjovian-sized brain mass in his own image, and decipher the Omega Monument for himself. Since the Earth has already been discovered by the Hyades, he deduced that there would be no additional harm by disturbing this Omega Monument.”

“No, ugly bug, it is you that miss the point. Your components left behind went there to establish a second empire. The fifteen stars housing human colonies around Sol all shine on graveyards. Maybe Splendor of Delta Pavonis is still alive, but lacks interstellar radio, but I doubt it. He wants mankind to flourish in some remote part of space free from Hyades influence,” said Montrose. “While the expedition was gone, did your astronomers detect any intelligent signs of life in the Sagittarian Arm?”

“There is, of course, considerable stellar and energetic activity in that arm of the galaxy. Which, if any, is the byproduct of intelligent action is impossible to determine without a specific knowledge of the intelligence's goals,” said the wheel.

The biped asked, “Do you conclude the Senior has abandoned us? That he is not aboard the White Ship which has been in transit all this time?”

Montrose said, “I dunno. But riddle me this: If Blackie was still interested in Earth, even a wee bit, why didn't he make a second body of himself to leave behind to run this first empire?”

The biped said, “So he did. They all wanted to go.”

But the centaur mask said, “He cares nothing for empire. That task is ours.”

But the snake mask said, “We all participate in some or all of his memory chains. He has not departed from us, for he is in us, and is with us.”

But the wheel masks said, “The Senior is the Jupiter Brain. More and more of the levels of the mental ecology of that realm of the outer No
ö
sphere are becoming as one with him. He absorbs lesser minds, and compels the loyalty of smaller spirits. Without such loyalty, Jupiter will not expend the vast resources needed to ignite the deceleration beam five hundred years from now.”

Montrose said, “So you are telling me that Blackie will return here, loaded with as much antimatter as we need, the same millennium as the Second Sweep is coming?”

“No,” answered the biped. “One thousand sixty-four years later, so it will be in the next millennium. However, our energy budget after that point will exceed the total theoretically possible energy budget of the approaching Second Armada, called Cahetel. We are concerned with this interval.”

The centaur said, “In his absence, we turn to you to rectify matters.”

Montrose could feel the gap in his thinking as obvious, to someone of his brainpower, as a missing tooth felt with a tongue. The sensation was annoyingly similar to trying to pick up a watermelon seed with thumb and forefinger. But he was not smart enough to coax the shy thought into view. (Evidently the shy thought was equally smart as he.)

“I don't get what you are asking me, or why you are here,” he said crossly. “You are planning to surrender to the Second Armada and turn over the Earth to them for another rape session. Why disturb me?”

The serpent mask said, “We overestimated your intelligence. We will explain in smaller and clearer steps. The Senior contrived the progenitors of our race to be complementary to what was known of Hyades psychology and practice. All possible reproductive strategies can be roughly categorized into two groups: the reptilian strategy of engendering many offspring and expending small resources on their care and support, or the kindred strategy of engendering few offspring while expending large resources on their care and support. Due to the vastness of space and the cost of moving resources between star systems, the Hyades has adopted the reptilian strategy. The R-strategy means that Hyades will expend no concern nor care for the civilizations it uses to reproduce the cliometric vectors of its social organization.”

“Yeah. Hyades treats us and everyone like the clap. I got the concept. Where are you going with this?”

“You acknowledge, then, that to the Hyades Domination, we stand in the relation as an offspring, and the resources expended on us are calculated by the reptilian strategy of utmost frugality?” said the serpent.

“Sure. Hyades casts out colonies without caring whether they live or die, like sea turtles leaving their eggs alone on a beach. Of course, I always wondered why Hyades put us into a situation where we had to build a Jupiter Brain in order to decode and transmit the secrets of pantropy and terraforming to our colonies. Because if we did not care, we wouldn't have bothered … but what does this have to do with my question?”

“Do you acknowledge that the entity astronomers called Cahetel, which will arrive in the Twenty-fifth Millennium, stands in the same relation to the Hyades as do we?”

“Wait—
what
?”

“The Cahetel entity, like Asmodel before her, is not an expedition as you understand the term. The
Hermetic
was sent to the Diamond Star as if she were still dependent upon and loyal to the authorities who dispatched and funded her. This was an error. When
Hermetic
returned, history had erased those authorities, and the new generation of polities on Earth, who were strangers to the
Hermetic
and her crew, attempted to confiscate the ship and cargo.”

“A piratical crime we are still feeling the echoes of,” muttered Montrose. “Had it not been for that, Blackie would not have declared himself King of the World and Emperor of the North Pole or whatever.”