“And yet here you are, the last remnant of an extinct species, and your grim deeds did not win you the racial immortality you crave. You are as dead as the Giants, but far more ignobly.”
Yndech said, “No one can defy the cold logic of the Darwinian calculation. Those who do not place survival as paramount, by definition do not survive. Self-sacrifice is always a losing survival strategy!”
The Giant opened wide his eyes, and they were like two scalding lamps, and Yndech put up his arms over his face, and quailed.
The massive voice boomed: “The Consensus Advocacy met in final conclave and read the Cliometric calculations of our future. We saw that if we continued to expand our numbers, the technological infrastructure needed to reproduce our race at replacement levels would be great—for even to bear a single child required extensive biogenetic modification and neurosurgery—so great indeed that the conversion of all biological life to nanomechanical life would be inevitable, and the human race be extinct. We chose instead to destroy the technological basis of man, and preserve the whole which was greater than our part. Do you say we did wrong? Hypocrites! The human race—and all races represented here in this chamber, and all of history—owes themselves to our sacrifice. Therefore you shall not, if I can prevent, bring any coercion to bear on the Judge of Ages, for he is the grandfather of the Giants, and all the races after owe their very existence to him.”
The Blue Men had nothing to say back.
Subsonically, meanwhile, in another language, Bashan said to Menelaus, “Doctor Montrose, I can open that firing station for you, but only by exposing myself to gunfire unto death. This saddens me, for my only purpose, once I deduced the existence of the chess game throughout all human history, the chess game in which the fated part of the race of Giants was merely to be a sacrificial pawn, was to discover whether that sacrifice was worthwhile. I instructed my coffin to wake me when your deadly game with Del Azarchel was to be concluded. I wanted to see your last duel. I left my world and outlived all history, and lost everything, merely to slake that curiosity. Now I die that you might live. So I shall never know.”
Menelaus again spoke in Merikan, which the Blue Men could hear but not understand, saying, “I can at least satisfy your curiosity. If De Ulloa, D’Aragó, Pastor, and Coronimas are dead, and Ull is about to die, the only Hermeticist left is Sarmento i Illa d’Or: I can see the end of the chess game. It is a sacrifice move. I lose my rook and checkmate him. But you must get me to the fire control station before the Blues figure out who I am. Which cannot be that far off: practically everyone in the room knows.”
4. None in This Chamber
The Giant said to Yndech and the Blue Men, “Simplifiers! I tell you the simple truth. You will not discover who or where the Judge of Ages is. None in this chamber will or can betray him. Have your translator pass the question along, and see for yourselves.”
Menelaus wondered what Bashan the Giant had in mind; but he trusted him, so when Yndech in Iatric gave the command, Menelaus obeyed, and spoke the question in several tongues to the other Thaws: he demanded of the Thaws to reveal who among them did not conform to the standards of their times.
Soorm answered without needing to wait for a translation. “I represent the Configuration of Iatrocratic Clades. Speaking on behalf of my people and my age of history, let me report that we all live in isolated Clades and scattered hermitages, and most of us are allergic to each other. We have no rules of conformity. This means, first, that we cannot see nonconformity even if we wanted to, and second, we would rather die than conform to your command, so we will never want to. Go eat your own mothers, culls!” And Crile and Gload roared and shrieked like lions and vultures.
Oenoe cried in a voice like ringing music, “The Natural Order of Man loves the Judge of Ages and is beloved by him. We would not betray him even for kisses.”
Illiance now spoke up, “Anubis? Did you translate that correctly? Kisses?”
Menelaus said, “Well, she actually referred to a more intimate congress, but the meaning is the same.”
Alpha Daae spoke sternly, “The Eugenic General Emergency Command of the Commonwealth of Virginia, her federal allies, protectorates, and conquered territories, rejects the authority of mixed-bloods, ferals, strays, and under-creatures to direct our actions. We are not under the command of the Judge of Ages, but our honor will not permit us to yield to you. In the name of the Republic, the Senate, and the Bloodlines, I hereby impose martial law; I countermand the order of the Blue Men; and I compel all in this chamber to answer no question of theirs. Whoever speaks first, dies, and your name will live on in my weapon.”
Fuamnach of Whalesong Coven screeched in a scraping voice and said, “Is not the Judge of Ages a demigod, a prince of the twilight land between life and death? The Delphic Acroamatic Progressive Order reverently seeks to escape his curse, and asks him, if he is within the sound of our voices, to heed how we pray and conjure and convoke that he might spare us, and excuse us our previous trespasses. You are all doomed.” And as her voice shrieked out, all the tall Witches and their menfolk raised their hands on high. And they all moaned, “Do-oo-om.”
Linder Keir said, “The identity of the Judge of Ages is known to me, but certain fine distinctions of the neuropsychological, interpersonal, legal, and ethical codes which govern every nuance of Linderling behavior prevent my telling you. The actions of the Blue Men are highly suspect and unethical.”
Rada Lwa said, “I heard his voice earlier, but I do not see him in the chamber. He is still outside, and you’ve missed him!”
Ctesibius looked at Menelaus, uttered a hard, sharp laugh of despair, and said no word, but sat shaking his head as if in weary amusement.
5. Finality Speaks
Hearing these translated responses, one after another, the little Blue Men began bobbing their heads in an odd gesture, tilting first one ear toward one shoulder, then the other, and frowning at the chamber floor. Illiance said, “Clearly our means were inappropriate to our goal. We attempted an indirect, unsimplistic approach, and now suffer the penalty. I suggest surrender, immediate and without qualification, to the Judge of Ages, and he may decide the fate of our race without coercion from us.”
And Bashan smiled thinly.
Ull was saying querulously, “Improbable! Unacceptable! Suicidal! Our goals must be achieved, if not by correct means, then…”
Illiance made a harsh, cutting gesture with the side of his hand. “Locust! Be silent! You have no part of the counsels of the Order of Simplified Vulnerary Aetiology! We seek to cure pain, not to inflict! You are the child of a world that has been superseded by our world! Evolution condemns you!”
But a new voice, eerie, multiple, also speaking Intertextual, interrupted: “Founder Ull is also the father of the next world, the one that superseded the Locusts and all their Inquiline subspecies, Blue and Gray, Simple and Linderling. You who condemn in the name of evolution are hence condemned in the name of evolution.”
Not just the Blue Men, but all in the chamber turned at the sound of this.
Alalloel opened her mouth, and a voice which had not spoken before, which sounded like half a dozen voices, male and female, high and low, speaking in unison, then said in Intertextual, “I have been unable to act hitherto, as I am in the process of receiving four hundred years of download memory templates and data, format, philosophical, and mathematical improvements; additional mental applications and channels; and a socio-legal body of precedents applying to various mental environments. These downloads came from my parallel and descendent personalities of the Lree mind-group, which had to be located and restored from archive for this purpose. It is considerable information, but the protocols of the Melusine require that I, being the ranking agent in place, be first consulted before a verdict is rendered. The Final Stipulation of the Noösphere Protocols has waited patiently for my education and decision.