War in Heaven (3 page)

"We will now hear from the pilot, Danlo wi Soli Ringess," Lord Nikolos said as he stood to address his fellow lords. That was all the introduction that Danlo received. Lord Nikolos was a small but energetic man always eager to accomplish whatever task lay before him. He hated wasting words as a merchant does coins, and so he sat back down in his chair and studied Danlo coolly with his bright blue eyes.

"My lords," Danlo began. He took a deep breath, relieved to have put his heavy wooden chest down on the floor. He stood at the centre of the chamber where a circle of black diamond had been set into the floor's white stone. According to tradition, no pilot or anyone else who had taken vows could tell any untruth while standing in this circle. "My lords and master pilots, and master academicians," Danlo continued, "I would like to tell you of my journey. I ... have found Tannahill."

For a moment no one moved as more than a hundred faces stared straight at Danlo in wonderment. And then Danlo began to speak, and the men and women of his Order sat entranced while they listened to the story of a lone pilot who had possibly accomplished more than any other — more even than Dario the Bold or Danlo's own grandfather, Leopold Soli, who had penetrated almost to the galaxy's core and learned of the gods' mysterious secret wisdom known as the Elder Eddas. Danlo began his story with an account of his journey to the Solid State Entity. He told of the great chaos storm near the heart of the Entity that had killed Dolores Nun and Leander of Darkmoon and his seven other fellow pilots as they fell through swirling black spaces as deadly as any danger of the manifold. He had found his way through this storm, he said, only to fall out above an earthlike world upon which the Entity had imprisoned him for many days while She tested him. He spoke little of these tests. He had no liking for fame or glory, and so he stood breathing deeply under the watchful eyes of the lords as he tried to convey the essence of what he had learned from the Entity with as little focus as possible upon himself. But neither was he falsely modest, for he prized truth as some do gold. And the truth was that the Entity had entrusted him with great knowledge because he had shown great virtue in surviving the chaos space as well as Her tests.

"There is war in heaven," Danlo told the assembled masters and lords. Hillel Astoret, the brown-robed Lord Historian sitting behind Lord Nikolos, would later remark this as a great moment when the knowledge of universe-shaking events first came into the halls of the Order. "It is truly a terrible,
shaida
war. The Silicon God has made war upon the Solid State Entity. He has allies, other gods of the galaxy: they are Chimene, Maralah, Hsi Wang Mu, Iamme, and what we call the Degula Trinity. And the Entity is not alone, either. I believe that Pure Mind and the One are allied with her. And possibly even the April Colonial Intelligence. And my father, Mallory Ringess, if he truly became a god, is somehow involved with the Entity's design. Somewhere among the stars. I ... was not able to find out where."

Usually the Lords of the Order are as polite as women and men can be. But that day, despite the rule that anyone standing in the circle be allowed to speak without interruption except by the Lord of the Order himself, a dozen different lords turned their faces close to each other and began whispering urgently.

"I would like to ask for silence, please," Lord Nikolos said as he stood and held up his hand. Although he was physically smaller than almost anyone in the room, his calm, clear voice seemed to fill the hall and to sober the excited lords. Even the Sonderval, who was talking with Kolenya Mor, heard the call to obedience and immediately fell silent. "Let's allow the pilot to finish his story."

Danlo went on to tell of a crucial battle in this cosmic war between the gods: it seemed that the Silicon God had found a way to destroy Ede the God. This had been no small feat. Ede, as a man, as a human being living in the flesh, had been almost as small as Lord Nikolos. But after his great vastening, when he had carked his consciousness into a computer and become a god, he had grown. As a seed ice crystal may build into a hailstone many billion times larger than itself, this computer that was Ede had added neurologics and circuitry until Ede the God's body was vaster than whole worlds and filled the spaces of many star systems.

"The Entity told me where I might find Ede the God," Danlo said. "It was deeper into the Vild. There were many stars; many old supernovas. And I found the Star of Ede: it is a blue-white hotstar. And Ede himself, what was left of this god. It, he, was all wreckage. Fused neurologics and dead assemblers and hydrogen clouds spread out over light years of space. Ede must have been ... truly vast. And now he was dead. The Entity had said that he was dead, but that it might be that he was also somewhat alive."

Danlo paused to stare down at his wooden chest where it rested just outside the black diamond circle. Its top was carved with a great sunburst, and he closed his eyes for a moment as he dwelt in the remembrance of all the suns and light he had ever beheld.

"Pilot!" a voice called as if from far away. Danlo opened his eyes to see Lord Nikolos addressing him. "Pilot, the Entity is famous for speaking in paradoxes and riddles — did you ever discover what She meant?"

"Yes," Danlo said. "I did."

"Will you please share your discovery with us, then?"

"If you'd like," Danlo said, smiling. He stepped over to the wooden chest, opened it and drew out the devotionary computer, holding it up so that all the assembled lords could see the little glowing hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede.

"What is this?" Lord Nikolos demanded.

Hillel Astoret and several of the lords behind Lord Nikolos began talking all at once, pointing at the computer's jewelled eyes and shaking their heads in disapproval. Then Lord Nikolos turned his head at this interruption and caught the lords with his icy eyes until they fell silent.

"This," Danlo said, "is Nikolos Daru Ede. Ede the God — what is left of him."

The Ede hologram, with its seductive face and bright black eyes, seemed to stare straight at Lord Nikolos.

"Pilot, please remember where you are — this is no place for jokes!"

"But I am not joking."

"This," said Lord Nikolos, pointing at the glittering box that Danlo held in his hands, "is nothing more than a
religious
artifact."

Lord Nikolos was well known for despising man's irrational or mystical impulses, which was one reason he had been chosen to lead the Mission to the Old Church. He continued, "The Architects carry these
idols
around in order to worship an image of Ede, don't they? Aren't these devotionary computers programmed to speak Ede's blessings and other such nonsense?"

"Yes," Danlo said. "But it is possible ... for them to be programmed otherwise."

"Please explain yourself."

Danlo glanced at the Ede imago, and he almost smiled to see the eyes of the hologram flick sideways to catch his gaze.

"The Silicon God," he said, "did not slay Ede in a moment. The battle lasted many seconds. And at the end, a whole nebula of stars was destroyed. And Ede's brains were all destroyed — almost all. At the very end, Ede wrote a program compressing and encoding his essential self. It is this program that this devotionary computer now runs."

"Impossible!"

"Not ... impossible," Danlo said. He turned to see Lara Jesusa and some of the other master pilots smiling to give him encouragement in the face of Lord Nikolos' intense scepticism. "Ede the God is dead, truly. But it may be ... that he is also somewhat alive."

"This
machine
?" Lord Nikolos asked in his quiet but steely voice. "And where did you find this dead god that might be alive?"

"On an earth that Ede had made."

From far in the back of the hall came the sound of muffled laughter, perhaps from Sanura Snowden, the Lord Semanticist, or the Lord Imprimatur who sat nearby. At times Lord Nikolos was capable of a dry sense of humour, but he would not tolerate anyone making jokes at his expense.

"Please watch your words," Lord Nikolos chided Danlo. "You're a full pilot of the Order, and you've been taught to speak precisely. We do not refer to engineered worlds, no matter how earthlike their biospheres, as 'earths'."

"Neither do I, sir," Danlo said, and his dark blue eyes shone with amusement at Lord Nikolos' doubt. "The gods make earths. Truly. The Solid State Entity, and especially Ede the God — from the elements of dead stars, they have built these earths. Whole continents and oceans, forests and mountains and rocks, in exact duplication of Old Earth."

Danlo went on to describe a succession of blue-white earths that he had discovered around the stars of Ede the God. Now all the lords in the hall had fallen very quiet, and even Lord Nikolos sat back down in his chair and regarded Danlo with something like awe.

"I didn't know the gods had such power to remake the universe," Lord Nikolos said quietly.

Danlo looked boldly at Lord Nikolos and said, "But this is just what it
means
to be a god, yes? They make war upon each other ... in order to remake the universe according to their different visions of what must be."

"But why
earths
, Pilot?"

"I ... do not know." Danlo closed his eyes as he remembered the sandy beach and dark green forest of the earth upon which the Entity had imprisoned him. The Entity, at least, had certainly made Her earth as a laboratory for experimenting with the evolution of human beings. From images stolen from his mind, She had created a slel of Tamara Ten Ashtoreth, an almost perfect copy of the woman whom he had loved. The slel was meant to be a perfect woman — or rather a creation of a perfected humanity as it might someday be. "The Architects of the Cybernetic Churches have a doctrine. They call it the Program of the Second Creation. At the end of time, when Ede has grown to absorb the whole of the universe, then a miracle will occur. From his own infinite body, Ede will make an infinite number of earths. And all the Architects who have ever lived will be reincarnated into new bodies. Perfect bodies that will live for ever in these paradises."

At this piece of nonsense, Lord Nikolos pressed his lips together as if someone were trying to force a piece of rotten meat into his mouth. "But Ede the God is dead, you say."

"Yes."

"Do you really believe that Ede was making his earths as a home for the souls of dead Architects?"

"I ... do not like to believe anything."

"Nor I," Lord Nikolos said. "It's too bad that we can't simply ask the Ede of your devotionary computer what his original plan was."

Danlo smiled because he had asked the Ede exactly this question — and many others — to no avail.

"And now," Lord Nikolos went on, looking at Danlo, "I suppose I should ask you to give this devotionary to the Lord Tinker and Lord Programmer. They will take it down and disassemble it to discover the source of any programs that it might run."

In a moment — in the time it took for the devotionary computer to modulate the coherent light beams of its hologram — the glowing face of Nikolos Daru Ede fell into a mask of panic. And then a loud, almost whiny voice issued into the hall as Ede cried out, "No, please don't take me down!"

At this startling event, Lord Sung pointed her plump finger at the devotionary and gasped. Sanura Snowden and several other lords cried out, "What? What's this?"

Lord Nikolos just stared at the hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede while he sat blinking his icy blue eyes. And then he said simply, "It speaks."

"Oh, indeed, I do speak," the Ede said. "I see and hear, as well. The jewels on the devotionary's sides are computer eyes and — "

"We're familiar with such technologies," Lord Nikolos said. He, too, had been bred to politeness, but he had no compunction at interrupting a machine.

"I think, as well," the Ede said, "and therefore I am, as are you, self-aware, and I am — "

"A clever program, nothing more," Lord Nikolos said. "We're also familiar with Ai programs, though it may be that this one is more sophisticated than any our Order has seen. The Lord Programmer will be able to determine — "

"No, I must ask you not to take me down!" the Ede cried out again. Lord Nikolos and one hundred and twenty other lords gaped at the Ede hologram. No one had ever experienced an Ai program interrupting a human being.

Ede turned his frightened face to Danlo.

"Lord Nikolos," Danlo said, "I have borne this devotionary halfway across the Vild. I have valued its ... information."

"Are you asking to keep it for yourself ?"

"Yes."

"But a pilot may not keep
any
discovery to himself. You know our rule."

"Truly, I do. But this devotionary, this Ede, has aided me on my journey. I ... have made promises to him."

For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Lord Nikolos asked, "You made
promises
to an idol programmed out of a machine?"

"Yes. In return for helping me find Tannahill, I promised not to take him down. I promised to help him ... accomplish a thing."

"What thing?"

"His ... purpose."

"And do I dare ask what purpose you might think this machine could be programmed to achieve?"

Again, Danlo looked at the Ede hologram. He looked at Lord Nikolos and the Sonderval, and at the many other lords and masters. He felt his heart beating hard up through his throat and his face burning as if he had stood all day in the sun. He did not want to tell these cold-eyed men and women of Ede's purpose.

"Well Pilot?"

"He, this Ede, wants to ... "

The Ede flashed Danlo a hand sign, and Danlo suddenly stopped talking. And then Ede addressed Lord Nikolos and the other lords, and said, "I want to be a man again."

Lord Nikolos stared at the glowing hologram as if he couldn't understand the simple sounds of human (or artificial) speech. None of the lords in the hall seemed to know what Ede might mean.

"The pilot, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, promised to help me recover my body, if that is possible. To help me live as a man again."

Seeing Lord Nikolos' bewilderment, Danlo smiled and said, "I must tell you of his body."