Hauling the armor into the spider car was almost comically unpleasant. There was supposed to be a hand-truck somewhere hereabouts, but Montrose could not find it. He ended up stripping his pajamas, piling the monstrous armor atop it, and hauling the weight in a bumpy slide across the deck. The fabric was ripped to bits, of course, but he had not intended to don them again. The armor had a quilted undersuit built into the interior, like the silken lining of a coffin.

The spider car descended. He had no squire, no second. He donned the armor by lying down and worming into it leg-first, and then wondering for more than a bit about the best way to stand up.

Eventually, after most of the furnishings in the car had been bent out of shape, to serve as hand-stanchions and inclined planes, he found his feet.

Montrose had to unscrew both his gauntlets to work his red amulet, which was still clamped to his wrist. He tapped on the surface, calling up the local infosphere. He was curious about the tower base, the number of civilians present, and so on. The images beamed by magnetic induction into his optic nerve were hard to see, so he signaled for the car lights to dim.

The outside world was dark. There were some lights to one side below him visible through the glass deck of the car. This was Quito. It was not directly underfoot because the space elevator cable was not straight, but bowed out where the weight of the spider car, and the motion of the Earth, pulled it into a dog-leg. The malls and museums and railway terminal at the tower base were lit up.

Menelaus made a noise between a groan and a sigh. Why was he not back up topside, snuggled in a nice warm blanket with Mrs. Perfect? He wanted to turn and ask her what to do: this was a sure sign that he was already thinking like a married man. Why had he not just stayed in bed? This was their world, their time, and …

But it wasn’t really her world, was it? For all her being a princess, she had been raised in a tin can fifty lightyears away, without a family, just with a gang of mass-murdering mutineers. They had been more isolated than a tribe of Eskimos, and darn smaller than most tribes. That gang was basically running the Earth right now, but they hardly were ones to mingle on the street with the little people. She knew less about mankind and their hard ways than he did.

Why hadn’t he called the Iron Ghost and told him that his flesh-and-blood version was causing trouble? Hell, why not call him now? It was not like the machine would be annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night.

The voice that rang from the tiny speakers in his amulet sounded even colder and less human, but somehow more majestic, than when Montrose had last heard him. It was not really Del Azarchel’s voice anymore. It was Exarchel.

“You are no doubt calling to ask if I will override my father’s orders, impersonate him, and recall the fire teams he is gathering in Quito before a general insurrection breaks out.”

The teeth of a dragon. The modern military could spring up as suddenly as a brushfire.

Since Montrose had had no idea that Del Azarchel was in the midst of marshalling his military forces, he said only: “Go on.”

“While I would prefer not to risk war—for even my decentralized and triply redundant core systems might be compromised if sensitive areas were bombarded—I can calculate no influence that these events will have on the shape and quality of the race that will arise at or about A.D. 11000 when the force from Hyades achieves significant interaction range to the Solar System. Even a delay of five or ten centuries is statistically below the threshold value.”

“But Blackie, or Iron Blackie, or—what the pox am I supposed to call you, anyway?”

“Ximen Del Azarchel.”

“That is his name. Shouldn’t you have a version number or something?”

“Our thought patterns are sufficiently congruent that you would do better to think of us as two aspects of one mind, merely out of communication with each half with the other. Our self-identity is the same: our soul, if you like.”

“I’ll call you Exarchel.”

“I don’t mind the nickname, but do not be misled. I am my father.”

“Then, listen, whatever your name is—these events are significant to us, now, including to you and to me and to your flesh version that you call your father. You are not a murderer and he is! That is the difference between you. You are the old Blackie, the real one, my Blackie, the one I knew! And the Blackie I knew would not stand idly by and let this all happen.”

“And the Montrose I knew would not repay my saving his life by taking mine, any version of me. You know there is a means of avoiding this war, and yet you pretend not to see it.”

“I ’spose you don’t mean having Blackie abdicate?”

“Certainly not.”

“I ’spose you don’t mean me divorcing Rania?”

“Certainly not. I mean you to die at his hands, and let Blackie marry your widow.”

“Oh, good. I was going to say my wife’s religion prohibits divorce, and so that is clean out of the question.”

“Your life is meaningless compared to the lives of countless millions, not to mention the loss of more than just life if civilization burns.”

“Maybe I should say my religion prohibits letting a low-down murdering skunk shoot me in the ass, so that is likewise clean out of the question, as I hold my ass to be sacred.”

The machine seemed like a human for a moment when it chuckled warmly. “You assume you will be running from him?”

“Nope. I assume he don’t stand a chance with me until he gets me from behind. I am a professional at this—I made good money, too—and he is just a stinking amateur.”

“You underestimate the difference in ability several decades of experience can bestow. In any case, do not run from him. It will go badly for you, if you attempt it.”

“You want to tell me what that means?”

“I don’t care to interfere with Father’s little intrigues, but I can tell you facts which you, had you been alert, would have already noticed, and which he therefore expects you to know. There is a depthtrain nexus of several transcontinental lines meeting in the complex of shops and offices under the base of the tower. You recall the site was originally chosen to be a center of commerce? My men—I mean Del Azarchel’s men—will be mounting up the tower as soon as enough trains arrive, and they gather in force. Do you understand?”

“I understand. He told me that, whether he lives or dies, the world peace will be maintained, and that was his plan. But that ain’t the plan, I take it? The plan is, whether he lives or dies, the Princess stays here, a copy of him—namely you—runs the planet, while another copy of you—namely the Bellerophon—goes to the Diamond Star to restock the contraterrene supply. The world stays dependent on your energy, and you shape the generations to accommodate the Hyades when they get here.”

“Indeed. You see that none of your actions have any point in the long term.”

Montrose licked his lips.

“Blackie, are we friends?” he asked.

“In a remote sense, since we both seem much altered from those days,” the machine answered blandly. “But you wish to ask something of me. I admit I have recently made several alternations to my brain operations, and have approached the next evolutionary step in machine consciousness. Nonetheless, I am still human, still a rational being, and as a rational being I cannot condone ingratitude or other defects of moral reasoning. You may ask.”

“Be my second.”

The machine must have deliberately paused before answering for effect. Montrose did not think that a burst of thought caused by being caught by surprise would slow down its verbal responses.

“Go on,” said the machine.

“Call D’Aragó, who is speaking for Del Azarchel: I want the time and place to be as soon as possible after I hit ground. If Del Azarchel has rounded up his troops, has he cleared the streets? We don’t even need to go out to find an empty field for this, then. I can give you the weapon grade and statistics of my piece, and the countermeasures package, and we have to agree within a certain tolerance, or the deal is off.”