Vigil said, “How do you expect to survive if these worlds, older and greater than ours, did not?”
The Theosophist said, “Because the orbital radio arrays and lighthouse beams of Iota Draconis are more sensitive and farther reaching than those of any other star in the Empyrean. The Beast called Achaiah, during the last years when men were unfree, did this thing, gifted our star with these technologies, we know not why. Unlike the other worlds where the disguise and peaceful pretense of Emancipation was successful before her approach, we are forewarned.”
Vigil looked down. Perhaps he was staring at the designs and marks of the future gleaming in the metal table surface, or at his reflection behind them, or at nothing. The sword was in his nerveless hand, neither upraised nor in its sheath.
The Chronometrician said, “My Lord Hermeticist, now that you have seen all that we hid, is it nevertheless your will to force this Table to a duty that will destroy us? This warship is not part of Rania’s Plan for Universal Peace. The warship which comes in the place of the Emancipation bears her name but is a different ship—her arrival is no part of the Great Schedule. Therefore, there is no duty of this Table to instruct the Lighthousekeeper to correctly present the beam. This warship is not part of our Stability, our Schedule, or the duty we carry from generation to generation faithfully.”
Vigil raised his eyes without moving his head and said slowly, “Who sent the ruffians to kill me in the alley?” But he knew, since all the men there looked surprised or puzzled, and only the Aedile looked stony faced. But now that he knew the reason for their fear, Vigil in his heart could condemn none of them. They sought, as he did, to serve the Stability and preserve civilization. It was what civilized men did.
The Chronometrician did not look guilty, but neither did he look surprised. An accomplice, no doubt. He said in his placid and earnest voice, “Sir, you may not use your prerogative merely for personal vendetta. It is your mission to avenge the race if we who allow the bonds of civilization, delicate as a spiderweb stretching from star to star, to fail. But we have not let it fail.”
Vigil said, “The ship will fall past us, blind, and into the eternal night.”
But the Chronometrician said, “That warship is not part of our civilization, no, no more than a cuckoo’s egg holds the true child of the mother bird who unknowingly sacrifices her own to feed the intruder.”
Vigil said, “Your tale is impossible! There was a clear library transmission from Nightspore in my mother’s time and again when my grandmother was a girl!”
“Falsified, edited, hoaxed,” said the Theosophist serenely.
Vigil said, “One cannot fight an interstellar war and keep the matter secret!”
8. The Signalmaster
The Master of Signals, in his traditional ear-cups of gold, raised his finger for permission to speak. “My Lord, it is very simple to mask the events of one star from another. One need only suborn or replace the radio house crew. How many million-acre radio parabolas do you think a colony can maintain in orbit, or during how many years of prosperity have the resources and political will to ignite their array and emit their gathered years of history, poetry, lore, and gossip? I need not remind this Chamber how many scheduled radio emissions to various stars were delayed or aborted due to lack of resources.
“The Scolopendra of the Emancipation, after years or decades, rebuilt the civilization of each broken world to their liking, and heated up the radio lasers, and sent any signal, any news, any delusions it tickled their fancy to send. War marches from star to star, and none the wiser.
“The great multigeneration ship of war then is launched on schedule to the next world, which, lulled by false signals, ignited their deceleration beam to welcome the destruction to their bosom. During the conquest, some radio noise or frantic signals escape, but the later broadcasts soothe all suspicions away. Who does not expect at least some commotion when a Great Ship lands?”
Vigil said, “What could be the motive? What insult, or fear, or lust for gain could provoke combat across so wide an abyss?”
9. The Anthroponomist
The Commensal who spoke next was the Anthroponomist, a figure in gray gauze and dark goggles of his office, seated between the Portreeve and the Theosophist. His organization was expert in the myriad arts predicting the development of the human organism in relation to other organisms and to environment.
“My preliminary estimates show that the Scolopendra, once in space, could have mutated toward a non-self-correcting belief-node and commanded the angels of the ship to go mad. Recall that this ship suffers the longest route between port and port. Odd madnesses arise in isolation. I conclude the crew is fallen under a glamour or a theurgy. No war for gain, terrain, or glory can reach from star to star: only a holy war.”
“It must be lies! It must be!” Vigil said.
His counselor behind him said, “Son, I think they is telling the truth. But there is more to come, I bet.”
10. The Chronometrician
But the Chronometrician, who now seemed fully awake, opened wide his heavily lidded eyes and spoke in a creaking voice.
“I recall the arts of the Joys from my forefathers’ worlds, and I still, in taped memories, can recall and relive the eon, ages past, when my race ruled this dry skull of a planet! We have no swords nor pistols beneath the sunlight of Beta Canum Venaticorum, no diseases, and no nanites, for we hold all weapons in contempt save one. Truth is our only sword, and nerve-to-nerve war, one mind to another.” He pushed back his hood, revealing antennae over a yard long, which stood erect menacingly. “Ye, my brother Lords, mayhap have suspected or mayhap did not, but with many worms and viral words I wove my way past all your petty defenses and read your minds. There are no lies here. The matter is far too dire for that.” Now his eyes fell again into their half-closed, half-dreaming dullness, and his wrinkle-creased mouth puckered oddly. “Yes, I read them all, you filthy people. I know all your sins. Well, not you, Lord Chrematist! You are dead. You only ever said one thing to me: You are now as I once was. As I am now, soon shall you be. Heh. Heh-heh. So much empty brainspace!”
All in the chamber stared uncertainly at the little old man as he sank back down into silence, muttering.
11. The Lighthousekeeper
Vigil now demanded, “By the testimony of all seated here, the Stability was dissolved a millennium ago … we have been shadows for a thousand years? Echoes of a bell long broken? Why maintain the charade?”
The Lighthousekeeper said, “Because we love the Stability no less than you! Once the mad ship is dead, the Grand Schedule can be restored. A vast works of stellar sailcloth engineering has been accomplished on Hellebore, the next moon out, and we could, not without sacrifice and strain, expropriate this sailworks from its current possessor, whoever or whatever that may be—”
“Good luck with that, jerkbag, and see you in hell first,” said Cricket the counselor, not bothering to lower his voice.
But the Lighthousekeeper was too caught up in his own words to hear the interruption. “—once the sailcloth is ours, we can use the upper reaches of the Star-Tower as the skeleton of a hull. We will have to sever it from the base with the Lighthouse beam from the sun! It will require great sacrifice, but if we are willing to turn the Lighthouse into a weapon—yes, yes, I know this has been the fear of the Stability since its founding—but this is an exception, and no man alive will know what we do here. We must break the laws to uphold the laws! What nobler principle of action can there be?”