The smoothness had deceived him, and the lack of noise. The engines in his day always lost some energy through heat, noise, and vibration. Maybe here in the future, they had found a way to machine-tool their engines to more perfect specifications. More precise fits meant less vibration. Montrose realized the titanic energy supply the Hermeticists had brought back from the Diamond Star meant not just more raw power to level mountains and burn fortresses, but more energy, and hence more time, effort, and precision, were free to be spent on a wide variety of tasks. What was the major difference between a savage caveman and a civilized Texan, after all? Not just tools and organization, but the magnitude of power at his fingertips.
His mother once had said that the difference from a caveman was education. That may be. But what, ultimately, was education? Something to increase the efficiency of brainpower. What was brainpower? What was a brain, really, except for an engine that turned the noise into signal—an engine that took a chaos of raw sense data and turned it into organized patterns of pretty electroneural charges holding meaningful conclusions about the universe? The more energy a civilization controlled, the more brainpower it could bring to bear on a wider range of non-routine tasks.
The thought cheered him. Maybe the future that Del Azarchel had made was not so bad. It sure sounded like some sort of renaissance or industrial revolution was ongoing, if Blackie’s boasts were true.
Ah, but that was the stone in the shoe, wasn’t it?
“Hey, Doc. I was wondering about the fighting.”
“What fighting?”
“You know—brush wars, proxy wars, border disputes, Mormon lynching. That sort of thing. I mean, it seems quiet now, but you know how these things go.”
Nothing could have convinced Montrose more rapidly than the look of surprise on the old doctor’s face that perhaps he had misjudged Del Azarchel. Could there really be, for once in human history, no fighting going on? Montrose did not think it possible; and yet the shock of the doc was perfectly sincere.
The man said with a tinge of exasperation in his voice, “What are you talking about? Warfare was all abolished by the Concordats. The police are all locally controlled, each by their parish. There are unpaid volunteer militias in some areas, but they are armed with nonlethal weapons, pain-induction rays, and gumthrowers, for they face rioters and malcontents, not armed forces. There is no need to heed rogue stations—the accredited press maintains accurate reports.”
“Pox! No one has guns?”
The doctor turned his eyes upward, as if in thought. “The ruling houses in each area will keep retainers and men-at-arms, of course, or employ ignoble horse troopers to run down poachers or wiremen trying to set up pirate powercast rectennae. Most regional Parliaments maintain honor squads, as a symbol of their sovereignty. Protectorate areas are patrolled by Landkeepers, and they are armed. The Holy Father has the Swiss Guard. Of course, with contraterrene weapons, you do not need an army to depopulate a city, merely one civic assassin.” The doctor’s face was stern, and his shrug was short. He was clearly a man who did not think well of firearms.
“What is this Concordat?”
“The social covenant. The Princess has ordained peace throughout the world.” The old man’s face softened into a mass of wrinkles when he smiled. “We have no external enemies, and hence no wars. Peace has smiled on the human race at last!”
There was a light in his eyes when he said the Princess.
Montrose did not want to spoil the mood by pointing out that the Roman Empire and the Chinese had no significant external enemies, but were racked by horrific civil wars everytime a dynasty lost its grip on power, or someone thought it should.
“What’s your name, Doc?”
“Kyi.”
“Family name or Christian name?”
The doctor inclined his head respectfully. “That is my Medicine-Buddha name, which more fully is Sgra-dbyangs kyi rgyal-po, whom I emulate. My refuge name is Bhlogrochosnyi, Intellect Cosmic Order Sun, obtained when I took refuge in the three jewels of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. I am of Tashilhupo, who follow the Yellow Hat sect.”
“Uh … that’s right nice. Doctor Key…”
“Kyi.”
“Doctor Kyi … if I can ask. Who is this Princess of yours?”
The doctor looked amused. “So you are infatuated just from her picture?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“I am a doctor: I know the signs of neural imbalance. She is Her Serene Highness the Sovereign Princess Rania of Monaco, daughter of Rainier. Her mother bore her aboard the Hermetic, making the princess the first born beneath the light of another sun: Her phylum is classed as Exosolar. Place your dreams elsewhere. She is above your rank.”
“Impossible.”
The old man shook his head wearily. “Resign yourself. The effort the Noble Master expended in recovering your sanity has placed you in a debt beyond recovery. And I do not mean a monetary debt—only the lower orders concern themselves with such things. I mean the honor code that governs the arms-bearing class. By any rational calculation of debt, you are a client, a dependent, of the Nobilissimus, a retainer, even if you take no oath—and therefore you cannot impose yourself on his fiancée.”
Montrose forced a smile onto his face, and uttered a bitter laugh. “Why would I care about that? I never met the girl! Seems a little, ah, on the young side for him, though, don’t she? Where did you say she was born?—and anyhow, I meant it was impossible that she was birthed aboard ship.”
Dr. Kyi said coolly, “She was aboard the great ship when the Hermetic received the capitulation from the Old Order.”
“Which old order is that?”
“The Purity Order: Azania, the Coptic Union, and Greater Manchuria. Superceded, now. They were absorbed peacefully into the Concordat.”
“How did they win? The Hermeticists, I mean. The ship was an antique. She was not a warship, wasn’t carrying missiles or linears or nothing.”
“I am no soldier. I can only say what I have heard.”
“Then tell me.”
“Let me hook your suit to my bag first, that I may do a complete scan and checkup. May we proceed?”
Montrose submitted with ill grace.
The way the doctor told it, the weapons of the Hermetic were her sails and magnetic umbra. The ship enjoyed several incomparable advantages: Because contraterrene is ultralightweight, hard to detect, and impossible to deflect, once the vessels closed to engagement distances, even a microscopic fleck flung at an incoming vessel, striking any part of it, would emit a pulse of radiation hot enough to blind or cripple it.
With her immensely more powerful drives, the Hermetic was able to outmaneuver her foes, and she had no supply lines to protect. The Old Order vessels were overextended; they tried to re-supply by using unmanned high-acceleration canisters, but the Hermetic jinxed their radio-controls, and sent the supplies off-target. Her radio-emitters were more powerful than any Earthly emitter, even at interplanetary ranges. Her attacks were handled with a precision the finest computers on Earth could not match.
From beyond Mars, the Hermetic used her sail to focus (with impossible accuracy) solar beams onto navigation satellites orbiting the Earth, burning them like ants beneath a magnifying glass, and the captains of the scattered vehicles of the Old Order suddenly were blind and lost without Earth-based navigation.
“Perhaps,” the old doctor said, “had they been truly devout to their cause, the Copts could have calculated their positions with sextants and almanacs, and plotted their orbits with their onboard equipment, but then the voice of the Princess came across their radio-sets, calling them each by name, and offering them the Concordat. Their choice was to become the military backbone of the New Order, with land, dignities, and honors long denied to them, or to perish of exhaustion in the vacuum. Her voice none could deny: she is not of this Earth.”