—From the Interregnum Exhibit at the Bureau of Historical Sciences
1
THE 87TH OF CLOVES, 14,810 GE
In the Long Ago and Far Away, when the first of our mystically inspired ancestors rose from their animalhood to grope after civilization, our priests declared that the Highest Moral Authority commands a man to refrain from murderering another man. And yet... since those misty times, as mankind scattered its seed among the stars, seeking enlightenment, that very priesthood has always taken upon itself the onerous task of redefining murder to exclude whatever current methods are being used by the peerage-of-the-moment to kill their fellow men.
—Emperor Ojaisun-the-Adrolt, 3231-3245 GE, prior to his execution for depraved malthanatostomy by an ambitious daughter, after being defeated at Lalaw il
Emit Osa? He should at least—at least—be certain of his own name. He spoke the mental sound. “Eron Osa.” He listened carefully to its echo. EErroonn OOssaa. Until it faded away on a whisper. Eron Osaaaaa...He couldn’t be sure. The resonance was familiar only in a distant way, as if it was an identity he had used as a child. Then who was he now? He was damned if he was going to ask the robed men on the podium.
A helmeted court crier announced that it was the 87th watch of the month of Cloves of the 14,810th year of the Galactic Era, sixteen centuries and fifty-three years after the establishment of the Second Empire. A court formality.
Such linear facts, unlike his identity, were water-clear in his mind. Physically he was inside the dermis of invincible Splendid Wisdom, a place he had feared and sought all his life though he couldn’t remember why now that he was here in this teeming vortex of power whose people were so introverted upon themselves that they were hardly conscious of their planet’s rotation around a sun. The 14,810th year On Splendid Wisdom the year was merely the time it took for light to travel one league, and a league saw no dawn or sunset and passed through no seasons. For an unreachable moment Eron was a child staring up at the slow rotation of stars through trees somewhere else in the Galaxy. A league was only the cold 16th power of the meter, another unit so ancient that most scholars believed it had been created by the almost mythical Eta Cumingans—though Eron’s mindless-mind suspected that it was even more primordial than that and in doing so gave him a stabbing hint of a place he had been—in a fully adult body. But the image was gone before he could resolve it.
All these thoughts were comically inappropriate for a man who was on trial for his life, whose mind was locked up in custody and destined for destruction. Why? For what? It was puzzling. Without his mind, he didn’t even understand the charges.
Disorientation was evoking a mad mixture of base fear and astonished awe. He was a dumb animal thrust into captivity. Essentials about the nature of his plight were continually eluding his consciousness while trivial physical details received by his senses struck him in unnaturally splendid ways that distracted from some vital quest. Though he recognized this marvelous interior as the revered star chamber of the psychohistorian’s Lyceum—maddeningly, he was never able to recall what failing had brought him here to judgment—if what was going on was a judgment ritual. He was certain that the nobly dressed men in front of him were powerful psychohistorians even while their identities were as hard to bethink as his own.
His accusers—yes, they were accusing him—had forcibly sundered him from his quantronic “familiar”—and its absence from the back of his neck left vertiginous gaps in his past that staggered him when he tried to perform mentally— the abilities of his “fam” had been part of his mind ever since he had learned how to hug his father’s knees. Did he even remember it being taken? Yet, in spite of mysteries confounding his past, even his recent past, the present remained vivid. The meaning of many things eluded him, but the immediacy of color and shape filled the void, astounding his senses.
Baroque balcony-stalls, inlaid with carved wood, bridged the plasteel pillars. The pillars rose up, level after level, until they branched into transverse arches and buttresses that blossomed around stained luminescent splendor. In a planet like Splendid Wisdom, crusted over with city, architecture had gone wild with its interior decor. He recognized the famous Cross of the Arkhein, an artifact of Splendid Wisdom predating the Empire by eighteen millennia. Why should he remember so well those hardy settlers who had carved it but remember little else from more recent history?
Richly surrounded, his famlessness anguished him. When he asked himself simple questions like who had conceived this vast architectural magnificence, his mind received no answer— had the construction predated the Great Sack of Splendid Wisdom? ... but what was this intrusive idea of a devastating Sack?... something to do with the Interregnum?... but just how long ago had this Interregnum blighted the Galaxy?... a century?..^ millennium?...ten millennia?... the numbers, the details, wouldn’t come. No matter. The chamber was beautiful. Why did he think that those brilliant transparencies up there glowed so unnaturally?
No, no. Avoid these glorious distractions. Focus on the rostrum. Not easy. Though he was sure he was understanding most of the words, the strings of words themselves seemed to meld into gibberish. Half his thoughts could not be completed because large domains of his mind remained unresponsive. Still, some intents formed clearly. When he concentrated, he could follow the emotional tone of the trial well enough to sense that things were proceeding in an ominous way which he was in no position to control. The strategic mistakes he seemed to have made were evidently lethal. He was at the mercy...
On the carved dais sat an ancient machine, quaint, scuffed, now elevated to ceremonial tasks. It had once hummed unobtrusively in a comer of the Founder’s office, a nondescript disintegrator for debonding unwanted desktop trivia into constituent atoms. The fmstratingly anonymous rulers of this court floated above the rostrum in aerochairs, respectfully girding their machine. Did it serve as their holy executioner?
He felt strongly that he should be able to attach names to the faces of his accusers. He was certain that he had once known them, every one, powerful psychohistorians all. Every face was familiar. But each face—almost with a name— flickered beyond the reach of his scrutiny. Were they... ?
Probing the past, trying to give it meaning, became too much of a strain and his attention was drawn, in fascination, to the court’s formal robes—viridian and safranine silken chasubles embroidered with camelian symbols. Unexpectedly those symbols reminded him that he was a mathematician—but the mathematics itself was tantalizingly out of reach. It occurred to him that it must be the loss of the mathematics that he was regretting with such pain.
A stately Pscholar of the psychohistorians left his chair to stand solemnly beside the Founder’s ancient atomizer. He seemed to be the court’s spokesman, there to announce the collective will. But when he spoke, it was with the voice of a man who made his decisions independently of counsel. “The matter is settled. Eron Osa...”
The defendant went into alert. So Eron Osa was his name! It annoyed him that the court knew his name well enough to condemn him but that he did not know theirs to condemn them. Still, it was exciting to hear his name verified. It took away one question mark.