“Who?”

“Some sort of union of powers, a hegemony, seated in the Hyades Cluster, dominated by a single influence: a Domination. An agency of some sort, an Armada, was launched from the star Epsilon Tauri.”

“Eh?”

Montrose was glassy-eyed. “Ain,” he muttered. “Oculus Borealis. Coronis. One of the Hyades sisters.”

“Montrose! What are you—?”

Montrose straightened up and spoke in a clear, level voice. “When the Hermetic mined the Diamond Star, disturbances in the photosphere, output changes, could not be hidden. Call it eighty years and change for the light-signal to reach the star 20 Arietis, which is apparently one of their decision nexi, and then another fifteen lightyears to reach the star Epsilon Tauri. Pox! I reckon they have already launched. There must have been some visible change to the output of Epsilon Tauri, because Earth is in the beam-path of their launching laser … And it is not a who. It’s a what. Biological life is not really suited for star travel. Too short-lived…”

Montrose drew a deep breath.

“Blackie, I think we’re in trouble.”

A note of music came from Del Azarchel. It was a mournful, solemn sound, like the wind from an oboe. It came from his amulet of red metal.

Blackie scowled at his wrist. “The others were listening to us.”

“Others? Others from what?”

“Come! We are summoned.”

“Summoned where?”

But he was talking to a retreating chairback. There was a click and a hiss as the door unlocked and opened.

9

Extraterrestrial Conflict Resolution

1. Shipsuit

Menelaus trotted after, and caught up to the nonwheelchair as it slid down the corridor. “But we’re right in the middle of something important here!”

“They must be included. We dare not defy their call.”

“You told me you were the Master of the World!”

“And I also told you the only title of mine that means anything is Senior of the Landing Party.”

“Come again?”

“The Hermetic is still aloft. Come, you have a lawyerly mind: What was the official end-date of the expedition?”

“Uh—When the final report to the Joint Commission gets filed.”

“It is not our fault the Commission disbanded while we were away, is it? You are also summoned. You are now awake and fit for duty. No longer on the sick roster.”

There came a clatter of many booted feet. Down the corridor toward them came Del Azarchel’s coterie of ministers and secretaries, footmen and officers, and a squad of Conquistadores in morion helmets, breastplates, and pikes.

The group also had a wardrobe master and a valet. Montrose stared goggle-eyed when the valet started stripping the tunic and trousers off of Del Azarchel, whose throne did not stop moving during this whole, awkward operation. The back of the throne folded down, changing it into something like a gurney, and assistants in blue uniforms with deft motions pushed the naked body of the Master of the World this way and that, in order to wriggle him into his clothing. It was done as nonchalantly as a nurse diapering a baby. The other courtiers and soldiers marched alongside, looking at nothing, noticing nothing.

One or two of the valets attempted a similar deal on him, but Montrose shrugged them away, grabbed the clothing out of their hands, and ran around a convenient corner with the bundle.

He unfolded it. The garment was a spacer’s uniform of ultra-lightweight black silk, with fittings at the wrists and neckline to accept gauntlets and helmet. The fabric looked almost like an organism, because countless tiny tubules for air and coolant ran through the cloth, like the branching veins in a leaf.

But the garb was clearly ceremonial: instead of painting his feet with insulator, for example, he was given a pair of black toe-socks decorated with clips of silver. A scarlet and sable oxygen hood hung down his back, obviously meant for show, not use, and a square of bright-cloth, mirror with its patterns of solar cells, was hung from one epaulette. It was not plugged into a battery, nor was there a parasol wand, so it was also for show, not to protect him from radiant solar heat in a vacuum.

Oddly, the gauntlets were not real gauntlets, there was no lining of pressure-reactive control material: They were just made of soft fabric, not vacuum-proof, and just tucked into his belt at a jaunty angle. Even more oddly, the left sleeve of the uniform was shorter than the right, leaving one forearm bare. Even if he had donned the left gauntlet, it would not have mated with the wrist fittings.

A valet came looking for him. Montrose was willing to let the other man dress him, for the simple reason that one could not fasten up a shipsuit properly by oneself, and Montrose did not know how closely this simpler copy mimicked the original.

He jogged back, finding Del Azarchel waiting in a garden-space beneath a blue dome, and a fountain and pool of water splashed on the tiled floor not far away. The throng had grown. Del Azarchel was now surrounded by a crowd of retainers and courtiers larger than what had been there before. He was telling them about the coming Armada from Epsilon Tauri. Montrose heard a tense question or two, and then a breath of relief swept through the garden-chamber. The courtiers were chuckling. “Eight thousand years,” said one, a handsome youth in a metallic wig. “It is further in our future than all recorded history rests in our past—”

Del Azarchel raised his hand, and the courtiers, all of them, fell silent as if a switch had been thrown. Del Azarchel was now dressed in a black shipsuit like Montrose wore, except that there were silver fittings at his throat and shoulders.

Montrose came forward, caught sight of himself in the glass on the wall behind Del Azarchel, and smiled. “We’re not going to shave our heads? The suit officer won’t let us board if we don’t have clean skull fits.”

Del Azarchel smiled with the left half of his mouth, raising one eyebrow. “You think this is not real? It is very real, I assure you. Hylics are not allowed to wear these fabrics. Only us.”

“Who-lacks?” Montrose recalled that the Iron Ghost version of Del Azarchel had also used the word.

Del Azarchel made a rueful smile. “Hylics. An unfortunate term, perhaps, coined in more contentious times—it refers to the common people, the mundane ones, those who trod the earth.”

“Whad’ya mean only us? Us who?”

“The Men of the Stars. The Learned. We who possess the secret knowledge. You remember the perfume of outer space? That smell, the strange ozone smell of the outer darkness? You remember what it is like to step into the airlock, and hear the ringing in your ears as pressure returns, and catch a whiff of that strange odor, it tingles in the nose like dark smoke, long after the valve is shut and the atmosphere is pumped in. You recall? Those who wish to depart the Earth and smell that scent, they are our servants here, and students. They are called by a nobler name: Psychics.”

From the looks of pride that stiffened on the faces of the men around him, Montrose understood this referred to the dandies in jeweled coats, wearing their odd wigs of white wire.

“I thought they were your roughhouse boys. Knights and bishops and, and, uh, rooks or whatever you call them. Count Dracula and Duke Ellington and so on.”

“Think of them as a Mandarin class. They have the power to rule, it is true, but it is due to the merit of their several attainments, the exemplary nature of their service to human destiny.” The men stood taller at these words, proud as petted hounds. “The elite of this new age are the acolytes and familiars of the Highest Order; students of the hidden truth; men who have moved beyond the Hylic stage of pure selfish materialism. It is a meritocracy of the mind, the rule by philosopher-kings. And so we call them Psychics.”