Montrose said softly, “Blackie. As far as I know, you ain’t never out-and-out broken your word. In all your years as world tyrant and baby-smooching politician, I never heard tell of you giving your sworn word and breaking it—and so I reckon you are superhuman after all. Is that still so? You still a man of your word?”

Alalloel looked on with amazement on her finely boned, delicate features. “What is this? Do you still, at this late hour, intend some deception, some maneuver? The entire volume of Pellucid, overlaid with the lobotomized layer upon layer of Exarchel—the world consciousness—is ours. We are not merely the Swan Paramounts: we are Earth. There is no resource in your reach that we cannot foresee.”

Montrose held out his hand. “What do you say, Blackie? Truce? Up until we see Rania again. If we don’t, neither of us will see her, not never. Pax?”

Del Azarchel put out his hand. “Truce. You have my word.” He tried to keep a smile off his features, but he could not. He grinned, and his teeth were very white against his dark beard.

Alalloel said, “We will be able to foresee and forestall anything which you—”

Montrose reached out and touched one of the eyes on the feathers of her neural cloak. He said, in English, “Null. Classify same, retroactive through all databases.” He pointed at Del Azarchel, “Null and classify as null.”

5. Hysterical Blindness

Del Azarchel burst out with the laughter he had been holding in. “No, my dear Swans, you will indeed be able to foresee anything he is about to do unless you have a code built into your base psychology creating a blind spot you cannot see through. Oh, my. That is amusing to see it finally happen to someone else. Refreshing.”

Montrose turned to the others gathered there. “Anyone else? I don’t have time to speak to every member of each race that comes up, so you people gathered here have to decide for them. ’Taint very democratic-like, but we’re pressed for time.”

Soorm said, “If you can turn us invisible to the Noösphere, what was the point of negotiating our places in the civilization that is to come?”

Montrose said, “My magic only affects their perceptions, not their memories or legal agreements. They won’t be able to see you, up until the moment any one of y’all is dumb enough to stick a telephone or a library chip in your head or something like that. I cannot make the Locusts into phantasms. But that does not mean they cannot make a deal with you, make swaps and trades, all that good stuff. The shoemaker does not need to see the elves to make a deal, just leave out the shoe leather and a bowl of milk. Who wants in to the world of phantasms? It will be a life of hardship.”

Trey Azurine would not answer, but merely shrugged.

Scipio said, “There are no Giants here, but I will speak on their behalf, as the only surviving Cryonarch. Hide them in the phantasm system.”

Ctesibius said, “It would ill behoove the glory of the Savant race if we hid from the world that is the expression of what we sought. For myself and for the Scholars, I say we shall be visible. We decline the offer.”

Sarmento i Illa d’Or said, “The Hermetic Order will also decline the offer. These Swans are insane if they think to oppose the Hyades, but we have learned over the centuries never to dispute creatures higher on the Darwinian scale. We will remain visible. They have offered us a place in their service.”

Mickey said, “How are these Swan creatures different from the Machine? Make the whole race of the Wise into your phantasms, I beseech you.”

Vulpina said, “The Chimerae are a free people. We can survive without the eyes of these godlike, therefore hateful, creatures on us. Camouflage us.”

Sir Guiden said, “Any men from the world before the Giants could not understand the thoughts or the meaning of these Swans, and it would crush their spirits. The elder race of which I believe I am the only representative here, base-stock Homo sapiens, on their behalf, I ask for the sanctuary of invisibility to their eyes.”

Oenoe said, “Our race was made to carry no metals and emit no waves, so that the men of the factory-dark cities and the bloodstained iron fastnesses of war would never see us. We will live in the woods unseen: this is our way. The Einheriar and Valkyrie, our military orders, you must excuse, however, from your work. The Swan must see and speak with them, if they are to be used against the Hyades in the futile gesture of impossible war for love of which they entered your Tombs, O Judge of Ages Past.”

Soorm said, “Is this a trick question? I don’t want those creepy things watching me.”

Ull said, “I speak for the Locusts. We are part of the Noösphere of this age.”

Keirthlin said, her strange, silvery eyes gleaming, “And I speak for Inquilines. When and if we are convinced the Potentate of Earth is benevolent, it will be simple enough to restore our tendrils and seek union. Make us phantasms.”

And everyone was surprised when Alalloel said, “And us as well.”

6. All Bets Are Off

Only three voices came from her mouth.

Montrose stared at her. “How come you can still see and hear me?”

She said, “I—this one whose body this is—I am of the Lree. I am a Melusine. The Melusine did not slay Exarchel or invade the brain space of Pellucid. We are not Swans. Our psychology and philosophy is nothing like that of these semianarchic Pan sapiens creatures you accidentally created. We have no interest in being forced to be part of their system, until and unless we are assured that the principle of strict reciprocity is followed, both on a personal and on a macroscopic scale.”

Montrose touched the feather of her cloak again and he issued the commands.

The winged men, women, dwarfs and giants, dolphins and other shapes either hovering in the air or standing throng on throng along the steaming, vapor-breathing hillsides staggered and spread their wings in alarm, countless eyes glinting frantically.

Montrose said, “You will still be able to speak with them, make deals, even go them to settle disputes, by talking through Ctesibius or any other Savant who wakes. He touches the Noösphere only with a one-way link. Locusts might also be able to act as intermediaries, depending on their degree of neural immersion.”

Mickey stepped forward. “Where are you going?”

Montrose said, “Where you cannot follow. This has only been one-sixth of the time between Rania’s departure in A.D. 2401 and her earliest possible date of return in A.D. 70000 when Kochab and Pherkad are the pole stars. And even that shall be only the first beginning of my life.”

“Or mine,” smiled Del Azarchel darkly. He said to Mickey in Latin, “Come with us. Montrose will not mind, and perhaps I can persuade you to take up my service again, be a Savant, and create an emulation of yourself, a greater soul. You will be deathless.”

Sir Guiden stepped near, and spoke. “Before you hear him, discover from the Hermeticists if his offers lead to joy or grief.”

Del Azarchel narrowed his darkly glimmering eyes. “I spoke no false things to them. I told them plainly they were my dogs, and I their master. Had they obeyed me in all things and in all thoughts, they would know no reason to utter complaint. I was honest in my word.”

“Honesty in word is laudable, Master of the World, but it excuses no sins,” said Sir Guiden.

Del Azarchel turned his head and said to Montrose, “Is this your creature? Tell him to curb his tongue and remind him who he addresses. If he is not your creature, then do not interfere should I deign to smite him.”

Montrose said, “Climb off your buggerified high horse, Blackie, before you get a nosebleed. You ain’t smiting nobody, not for a goodly parcel of time as yet. Sir Guy, this here is my friend Blackie, and he is a pullelo, a gutter rat from Toledo in Spain, who is trying hard to live up to some crazy-ass notion of chivalry he learned from a man named Trajano during a hard period of his hard life, so don’t tell his flaws out to him, it ain’t fitting. Blackie lost his empire today, so don’t irk him. Again. What can I do for you, Sir Guy?”