Sarmento i Illa d’Or scowled so that his jowls bunched with displeasure. “Phaugh! I withdraw my objection!”
Montrose said, “What’s going on here?”
Reyes y Pastor raised both hands, touched his red armband, and worked some unseen control. The others in the chamber all copied the gesture, solemnly, all arms moving in unison, like a salute.
Reyes y Pastor answered him, “We meet in the Conclave to establish the destiny of the human race. We have the tools to shape the evolution of Mankind into higher forms: and since the Hyades will send emissaries to bind our remote descendants, we now have the necessity. And do not doubt we have the power. There are many mysteries our order learned in the deep of outer space we thought not fit to share with the base stock of Man.”
As he spoke, his voice changed, growing deeper and stronger. By the time he had done speaking, Reyes y Pastor had stood from his wheelchair on legs now perfectly whole. Dark color flushed through his hair. His skin was red, and his veins were visible, pulsing, and when the odd blush passed, his flesh was young, unwrinkled, without liver spots, moles, or marks. Age fell from him like a dropped cloak. His flesh was now plump and pink; a mummy no longer, he rose to his feet, kicking aside, as a discarded prop, his wheelchair.
A young man, hale and healthy, stood before him, blazing with virility. Only his eyes were uncannily old—old with the cruel wisdom of many years.
The sloppy flab of Sarmento i Illa d’Or flowed or crawled under his skin, changing and thickening into muscle tissue. The plump, old pear-shaped man was now a young Hercules with a bull-like neck, an immense, wide chest, shoulders that could bear mountains.
Montrose looked around the chamber. All the men were on their feet. Some of them endured the transformation as stoically as Reyes y Pastor: others where hissing, wincing, and wheezing, and their skins were swollen and flushed as if in some painful ecstasy. One man—it looked like a scarecrow version of Dr. Coronimas, the ship’s Magnetohydrodynamicist and Engineer’s Mate—was rolling on the floor, and those near him looked down with cool and impatient eyes. But even Coronimas climbed to his feet, smiling and youthful.
In less than a minute all stood there, their hair suddenly dark, arrogance fresh as early springtide shining on their faces, but wintry old age still in their eyes.
At that moment came footsteps from beyond the portal. Del Azarchel, dark, young, and handsome as a devil strode into the chamber. “All here? Good. Let’s get started.”
Narcís D’Aragó stepped behind Del Azarchel and touched his bracelet to a control-strip of sensitive material near the door. The immense steel values swung slowly shut on mechanical pistons, and fell to, clanging like an iron coffin lid.
The hue of the lights from the overhead screens became brighter, more yellowy. “Senior, Learned fellows, the hatch is shut.”
Montrose looked behind him. He was trapped in here with the mutineers.
10
The Fatherhood of Man
1. The Secret of Youth
“So you don’t tell anyone you came back with the secret of eternal youth, eh?” said Montrose, feeling anger prickle him, despite his awe.
And indeed he was awed: whatever programmed cell-bodies were stored into their armbands had acted immediately upon entering their bloodstreams, and started issuing molecular commands to the bodily cells. Even their hair changed immediately, losing its gray throughout the length of each strand, rather than merely at the roots. Montrose could not fathom the speed of it: No biological process known to him would happen so quickly. Each cell must have been separately programmed with a dimorphism, trained to return to its youthful shape and consistency at the first trace of stimulant.
Melchor de Ulloa smiled ingratiatingly. “It is extended youth, but not eternal. A genetic form of divarication correction—an application of your own work to cellular biochemistry. You should feel proud!”
Montrose remembered the wrinkled face of old Doctor Kyi. “I’d feel a damn sight prouder if’n we’d’ve shared it.”
Reyes y Pastor said calmly, “The Learned Conclave thought it not in the bests interests of Mankind to preserve the present generation, and all its accumulated genetic flaws and primitive memes. Extending the aging process slows the evolutionary process, as the older bloodlines must give way before the new bloodlines can arise, improving the breed.”
The mention of breeding brought something to Montrose’s attention. He saw the similarity of features: olive-skinned, dark-eyed, Mediterranean. There was only one blonde in the room: the Engineer’s Mate Coronimas, whose fair hair was a genetic marker of ancient Norse conquests in Portugal.
All of Latino descent. In other words, only the Hispanospheric moiety of the joint expedition had returned. The mutiny had fractured loyalties along racial lines.
Ximen Del Azarchel touched Menelaus Montrose on the elbow and gestured toward the table. “Please sit. Join us.”
Montrose recognized the O-shaped table for what it was. It was the Table Round, the gathering of King Arthur’s knights, from the stories Del Azarchel so loved. Had he not, years ago, likened the Hermetic expedition unto knight errantry?
Except that this group seemed more a gathering of Mordreds than of Galahads.
Montrose pondered a moment, torn between hot anger and cold curiosity. Whatever crimes this group had committed, even if new to him, were years in the past. And they were his friends—he was a member of the crew, after all, a position he had worked so hard to achieve.
Perhaps he owed them a hearing. No point in storming out before he found out what they had to say. In any case, he had nowhere else to go, and the doors were sealed. And, dammit, he wanted to know what they knew!
He sat.
The seat was not particularly comfortable. He took a sip from his water glass. It was not particularly cold. Whatever the Hermeticists were up to, they certainly did not coddle themselves.
The meeting of these seventy-odd scientific overlords of the world seemed to be handled with less formality than Montrose had seen in town meetings of the eight selectmen back in Bridge-to-Nowhere. There seemed to be no minutes being kept, and no one serving as Chairman.
The first order of business was reviewing Montrose’s cure of the Iron Ghost. The event had been recorded from the sensitive fabric of the walls, from every possible angle.
2. Mr. Hyde
At first, the overhead plates showed Menelaus, looking sleepy, laying on the floor next to a white-haired Del Azarchel in the cold room, surrounded by the cylinders and cables snaking across the floor. A small silver cup had rolled from the fingers of the prone figure and lay in the floor in a puddle of alcohol—and presumably whatever had been mingled with the alcohol.
The image of Del Azarchel wheeled his throne over to a tiny doll-like Menelaus, and leaned down to help him to his feet. In small, tinny voices, he and Menelaus discussed the divarication problem. Menelaus seemed to be sleepy, perhaps drunk, and his head hung down. He was speaking slowly but normally, his expression and body language normal.
It changed slowly. Menelaus seemed to get more excited. He began pacing and gesturing wildly. His face almost glowed. And then the image of Menelaus was speaking rapidly, face flushed red as if from some terrible exertion. There was something hypnotic, sinister, in the clipped, rapid, uninflected way in which he spoke, as if he meant to speak much more rapidly.