The Fifth Speaker was the Portreeve. He wore a hair shirt under his glittering robes of office, for he was an Errant whose traditions hailed from the planet Penance. About his neck was his key of office handed him when he was appointed by the College of Emeritus Portreeves. His face had the unnatural beauty the Optimates inherited from their Swan forefathers, but, as ever, no Firstling human could read such features.
The Second Speaker was the Chronometrician in saffron robes, hood, and stole, a Lorentz chronometer of gold sitting on the table before him. Two of the countless many leaves of the chronometer were open just then, one dial showing local time, the other tuned to the frame of reference of the Emancipation. He was as ancient as a mummy. His ancestors were Joys from of Beta Canum Venaticorum, and therefore even in decrepitude, his features were graceful, dignified. There was a sly tilt to the features, and a wry slant to the mouth, that argued against the senility he showed on the surface. He had earned his position by sheer seniority and seemed to be paying no attention to his surroundings. Since his race never closed their eyes in sleep, it was not clear he was awake. Flickers and indications on the medical channel showed that he was not as dead as the Chrematist.
This meant the vote was lost before even any ballot was cast. Vigil would never take his father’s place, nor be allowed to wield the vengeance needed to bring the Great Ship Emancipation to rest. It was a dizzying sensation, to have come so far, reached so near, and be thwarted by a mere technicality.
5. A Legal Nicety
The ugly man next to Vigil prodded him with an elbow and pointed at Vigil’s black gauntlet lying on the black Table surface before the siege of the Lighthousekeeper. “All these damn rules are leftovers from the Starfarer’s Guild. You know who all founded the Guild, right?”
Vigil knew. The Judge of Ages and the Master of the Empyrean together had founded it as part of their gentleman’s agreement.
As sharply and suddenly as if struck by lightning from a static-pregnant sandstorm cloud, Vigil understood the dark meaning of certain of the ancient ornaments in the chamber. Some of the formalities were older than spaceflight and were known only on Eden, the Mother of Man, and the planet with the bloodiest history imaginable.
Vigil raised both hands, brought them to his throat, and emitted nine shrieks of white noise on a radio channel, three long, three short, and three long again. Attention! Life-or-Death Situation!
The Powerman in anger rose to his feet. “The unrecognized may not intrude unwanted signals during due processes! I ask that the bailiff remove the interloper!”
The Portreeve had no finger lamp, but signaled with his key of office. “Order. The interloper is not an interloper yet. We have counted no ballot.”
Vigil stepped over to the siege of the Powerman and took the small, white ceremonial gavel from its hook. With a great swung of his arm, he struck the shield that hung over the back of the siege, saying in the ancient language, “I pray the original form of the challenge be observed. I am the Lord Starfarer, Chief Hermeticist, and Senior of the Landing Party! I defy and traduce whoso says otherwise, and will defend my right to the same with my body!”
The discipline of the Chamber was broken as everyone at once spoke or signaled or cast his mind into deep archives.
Finally, the Aedile quieted the murmuring with a great flash from his finger lamp, tuned to an eye-dazzling brightness. “The Chamber asks the advice and counsel of the Chronometrician for an interpretation of these things.”
The Chronometrician seemed to have fallen asleep, but two of his Companions, garbed in saffron, signaled for recognition and were recognized. The Archaeomnemonicist said, “Casting my memory to the earliest strata of the Stability mind-records shows that these gavels or hammers have always been retained for the function of registering a defiance. As a party at interest, the gavel was correct to allow itself to be handled, and as the siege seating him who picked up the gauntlet, the shield of the Powerhouse Officer was correct to allow itself to ring. The objects are behaving as designed, all according to protocol. The duel must be fought, until satisfaction or death, and without mudras, mandala, or nerve-indications, with macroscopic weapons alone.”
The Powerman was as pale as the Chrematist as the blood left his face, and his eyes darted left and right, as if measuring the distance to the exit doors. His throat was too dry to speak, but his voice came from the ornamental cloak pin he wore, “But what does this mean?”
Vigil said, “As well you know, My Lord. A fight to the death.”
Vigil’s masked and bewigged counsel said to Vigil, “Hand me back my shooting iron and call me your Second so I can drill the bastard through his empty skull and get on with this damnified charade. I want to find out what’s up.”
But the Censor who sat behind the Chronometrician had the floor, and raised his finger, “I speak in my official capacity as Dress Code Officer! The sumptuary regulations are often disregarded, but they are also still in force! By an antique and momentous law, the Companions and siege of the Lighthousekeeper must be unarmed, as sign that the Lighthouse must never be used as a weapon, nor scald a ship in flight or roast a world beneath with its dire ray! Hence no duel can take place: the Powerhouse Officer is not of the arms-bearing class.”
Vigil unceremoniously shrugged off this weapon belt and dropped it, with his pistol and sword and all clanging to the glass floor, and doffed his other gauntlet. “By naked hands I will slay whoso denied my right to be here!”
The sleek and slender body of the Powerman, whose ancestors had been necromancers of Schattenreich, and, before that, Locusts of Mars, was like the body of a maiden next to that of an ape. But before anyone could speak, the Powerman said, “I appoint Xu Maioxen as my champion!”
This was evidently the name of the burly lion-headed handservant, shining with fulvous fur and rippling with muscles, who had previously picked up the gauntlet. He was an Expatriate, which meant that his ancestors were Sinners from 61 Ursae Majoris, which meant that he had retractable talons, fangs like a saber-toothed tiger, and swifter reactions and harder muscles than a baseline human should have.
The Chronometrician began to speak in his weak and spiderish voice about the proper formalities for a duel, the exchanges of challenges through Seconds, the appointment of surgeons, and such, but the Expatriate man shook his mane, roared, and leaped.
Vigil did not bother with grace or flourishes. He caught the man in midair, throwing himself backward with the momentum. He broke the back and most of the ribs of the lion man with the might of his arms alone and drove the body headfirst as it continued its fall down on the chamber floor with enough force to shatter the spine and to crack the heavy skull like an egg so that brain stuffs spread across the invisible surface with a sickening smell.
Vigil turned to the Powerman, saying, “Do you doubt my right to—?” But he stopped. The slender man was dead. He had fallen prone, even though there was no sign of wound, no scent of energy, no hint of any nerve-mudra tingling in the air.
All the speakers were now on their feet, even the slumbering corpse of the Chrematist (whose servos evidently thought it polite to stand when all others did). The Aedile said in a weak voice, “What struck down Seppel Phosphoros? Why is he dead? I yield the floor and the balance of my time to anyone who can explain this madness.”
Vigil’s counsel, the ugly man in the breathing mask, had picked up the dropped sword and translucent pistol. “I reckon I can tell you. Your joker saw physical danger, so he fled into the infosphere, and left his body behind, and was just pulling strings like by remote control. But the rule of the duel says that the primary has to die if his partial dies, or else there ain’t no point. Now, in real life, these two guys here was two different men, but the law ain’t got nothing to do with real life. In the eyes of the law, an agent acts on his master’s behalf and becomes his partial self. Since the one was working on the other’s orders, Torment decided to put both men on the same circuit. So when one died, the other was deleted. If leperdick there had just stayed put, he’d be still alive.”