“In two hundred thousand years, perhaps. If our calendar has kept the reckoning correct, then the Celestial Princess of legend returns in seventy thousand years, less than half that extent, carrying the verdict of minds from beyond the Milky Way, to say whether mankind is condemned or vindicated.”

Del Azarchel frowned, but could not contradict her. “I hope to lessen the period significantly.”

“No one is concerned with such remote futurity,” Amphithöe continued artlessly. “The mission of the Celestial Princess is pointless, because whatever awaits her here will be nothing like the mankind she sought to free. One wonders what purpose so romantically mad a venture serves! No doubt it is because she had not the tranquility to resign herself with grace to fate.”

Montrose barked, “Some of us standing right damn here are pestilent damn poxy concerned! And I will be the damned whatever awaiting her here, my own damned self, with a grin on my gob and a pawful of poesies, and may Satan sodomize me in blue-hot hell if I ain’t! I am just set sick she set out to win the freedom for a race that includes such souls as yours. Do you like being a lickspittle? It weren’t tranquility she had none of; it was puling yellow cowardice!”

Montrose was flabbergasted into silence when Del Azarchel interrupted in a mild voice, “Dear child, please realize that you are talking to Rania’s husband. He will die if he loses faith in her return. Your words wound him.” But then the smile of Del Azarchel grew and shined with malice. “Oh, well done! More of the same, please!”

She looked so meek and miserable that Montrose was reminded of the look on the face of his Aunt Bertholda’s cat he used to dunk in the rain barrel every June to celebrate the Spring’s first snowmelt.

Montrose lowered his voice and spoke in a gentler tone. “Sorry, there, I didn’t mean to shoot my mouth in your ear. Say! Who are you, anyway? I mean, you keep saying ‘we’ and ‘us.’ Who sent you?”

She said, “Forgive me, I thought that was clear. My masters are the Remnant Order of the Post-Final Stipulation. We hail from the Madagascar peninsula. The Wise Manitra is our Judge of our Age for the span of years allotted us, and first among the Cliometric College. The Noble Angatra is Master of our part of the World and Lawgiver, and commands the Hermetic Scholars and the Warrior-priests. Our Celestial Princess for whom they compete is the Fair Ranavalona, whose gentle commands the common people, groves, glades, aquaculture, and the trees with love obey. Our commonwealth is therefore organized as you designed, as a balanced triumvirate.”

Montrose raised an eyebrow. “As we designed—?”

Amphithöe bowed again, cheeks turning pink as if in shame. “I am of the serving class and design, and so am only permitted the First Comprehension. Many things are excised from the Second Comprehension for our ease of understanding, and to prevent vexatious debate. The received history says you three, the Princess, the Master, and the Judge, established our constitution and baseline law-equations. At least, so I was taught.”

Del Azarchel made a dismissive motion with his hand, and said in a dignified voice, “Your teachers are to be commended for the care they took. Do not interpret any question of ours as implying that we contradict them. We are curious about the events that transpired on Earth while we sojourned in the outer Solar System, for we intercepted no signals, and saw no signs. What ended the war?”

She said mildly, “Since the Celestial Princess left, there is always war.”

Del Azarchel blushed. It was one of the few times Montrose had ever seen Del Azarchel turn red in the face, and Montrose was surprised. Then he realized: Del Azarchel was ashamed that his Hermeticists could not produce a world peace without Rania’s genius. The main justification for Del Azarchel’s dream of universal empire was that it would produce peace, law, order, and plenty. Without that, what did Del Azarchel’s dream offer him?

Montrose said archly to him, “You asked for more of the same, eh?”

Del Azarchel said stiffly to her, “I mean the End of Days. The Hyades invasion. That war.”

She smiled gently and said, “It was a matter for Swans and Ghosts. Those of my level were not involved. The war was between Tellus, a Potentate of intelligence eight hundred thousand, and Asmodel, a Hyades Virtue of intelligence five hundred million. Where there is battle in heaven, what can we mortals who eat bread and perish know of it?”

Montrose saw the dumbfounded look on Del Azarchel’s face, and coughed to cover a laugh. Montrose said to Amphithöe, “Ma’am, lemme explain. Blackie and me have a wager. I say that man won the war and kicked the aliens’ skinny pale hindquarters to perdition, and he says they established them a colony, complete with military governor. Who is right?”

The smile of Amphithöe vanished.

Seeing her expression, Del Azarchel said, “The commands of the local overlords must reach their subjects somehow.”

She looked bewildered. “Is there a local overlord on this globe? I have not been told.”

Menelaus scowled. “Don’t yank my pissing pole! You cannot tell if there are aliens on the planet or not? Look roundabouts for nine-foot-tall nine-legged spiders wearing gas masks! That will give you some clue. There was a war. You must have captured some enemy soldiers. You saw what the foe looked like!”

“No one saw any biological formations,” said Amphithöe. “There were no landings, no ground troops. No one knows what the Hyades’ physical manifestations are. We observed their battle-planet, a world made of silver cloud and black liquid, a gas giant. We observed engines they lowered to the surface of the Earth, called skyhooks. We see the pattern they left on the moon like the burning thumbprint of a war god. The only other manifestation of their power was the murk.”

Del Azarchel said, “And what is this murk?”

She looked fearfully at the sky. “Blood drops of the black world. It is not for me to speak of. I would unwittingly mislead, and this is a matter for shame. You must ask those who know.”

Del Azarchel said, “Whatever they left behind must be where the minds now governing our system reside.…”

The girl looked bewildered. “Reside? The Noösphere is everywhere, in the sea and mountain, in empty cities, in living gold, in gems, in books, in the minds of the Swans. Those of my rank are not allowed to address the Swans, lest we provoke a curse, or touch their minds, lest we lose our souls.”

Montrose said to Del Azarchel, “She can’t answer our questions. I am assuming the captain does not want to talk to us directly because we might ask something he would be ashamed to admit he does not know, but more ashamed to lie about. The psychology of what we see here, do you notice any alien influences? So far, this is very human. If there were Hyades powers running the joint, at least some sign or hint of an utterly unearthly bio-psychological ‘frame’ or symbol-perception set would crop up, don’t you think? Where are the loan-words? Where is the alien science?”

Del Azarchel said, “A high level of isolation between ruler and client might prevent human imitation of their conquerors. Or the alien psychology could be too alien to be impersonated. As for the science, has it occurred to you that we are in a sailing ship precisely because the aliens are suppressing native technology? Also, if your theory were right, Amphithöe—did I pronounce that correctly, sweet child?—she would be boasting of the victory. There is something else, too.…”

And Del Azarchel, with a charming smile and impish eyebrow raised, extended his hand toward Amphithöe. The Nymph shyly offered her hand in return, and he took it and bowed over it, as if about to kiss it. But all he did was hold it near his face.

Without letting go her hand, he straightened, and nodded to Montrose. “Lean down and sniff. The biochemical composition is different from others aboard.”