Del Azarchel pointed, and all the floor lit up with branch on branch of Cliometric equations.

The calculation set was profound, reaching an illusory dozens of feet down below what now seemed a crystal floor. De Ulloa cried out in awe, Sarmento grunted, and the golden antennae of Coronimas perked up in surprise. Reyes y Pastor crossed himself, and even the impassive masklike face Narcís D’Aragó twitched and raised an eyebrow.

3. The Allotment of the Eons

Del Azarchel addressed the remnant of the Hermetic Order.

“Each of you have seen the Cliometric projections. Some lines of evolution are dead ends. One will break through to the next level of intellectual topography, an event horizon of human augmentation beyond which no predictions can be made. Study the chessboard, gentlemen! Where would you make your move? Not just Montrose, but human nature and inhuman entropy are all your oppositions in this game. Learned Melchor de Ulloa, you speak first.”

Melchor de Ulloa spread his supine hands, a gesture that could have been used either to placate or to beg alms. His voice was honey. “A society where everyone’s rights are respected produces liberty and this produces invention, discovery, change, and evolution. The main hindrances to man’s ever-upward triumph are hatred, aggression, and fear. The only cure is toleration, education, and the growth of institutions based not on rigid rules and dogmatism, but on open-minded willingness to attempt all options, seek all experiments, try all, dare all, risk all: and thus will man discover all. This willingness is based on social factors independent of political economic structures: it is the artistic vision, the worldview, of the consensus of the people that eventually shapes society.

“Scientifically speaking, this consensus is based on structures in the lower brain, related to various subconscious symmetry-recognition ganglia whose nature we have examined intimately during our work to elevate the Cetaceans to sapience. The Monument describes eighty-one nonverbal communications systems, of which one, music, is comprehensible to the nervous patterns of mammalian Earthly life.

“Artistic vision fathers cultural values, not the other way around; all moral codes are merely the epiphenomena of the irrational subconscious, and of the dreams only freedom can free. I see the doubt on your features, gentlemen, but I can demonstrate my claims with a simple spline equation. Give me control not of the laws nor the religions nor philosophy of man, but merely of their music, and I can guide Man to the Asymptote.”

Del Azarchel said, “I have already set in motion what is needful to destroy the Giants, and set the humans of normal intellect free from their control. I foretell a dieback, and Dark Ages lasting until the Fifth Millennium. Once this is accomplished, I will grant to you between the years A.D. 4000 to A.D. 5000 to play out your experiment. Remake mankind as you wish. Learned Narcís D’Aragó, I see you object.”

Narcís D’Aragó stood as if at parade rest, hands clasped behind his back. His voice was ice. “Let us talk no more of natural right, or of phlogiston, or of fairy godmothers. Does a man have a natural right to life? That is quaint poetry, but let him beat against the waves of the sea when he is drowning to see what rights nature gives.

“We should stick to facts. The fact is that rights are artificial, a legal fiction, a man-made mechanism to increase group survival value, nothing more. Justice is strength. Without strength is no survival—and all rational moral codes have survival as their object.

“You recall the Fifth Postulate of the Negative Sum divarication proof? It proves that the individual cannot survive without the group, and the group cannot survive unless the individual is willing to die for it. What is needed for mankind is logic, the stern and simple logic of survival.

“The existence of religion—pardon me, Father, but it is true—is based on a genetic marker inclining toward mystical altruism, all men being brothers and all that saccharine fluff.

“No. Rational altruism can beat mystical altruism hands down, for money, love, or marbles. Give me control of men’s genetics, and I can shape his destiny, and break human nature open like an egg, and release the dragon within.”

Del Azarchel said, “If Melchor de Ulloa falls short, then I will give you between the years A.D. 5000 to A.D. 6000 to accomplish your purpose. If he has achieved the asymptote within his allotted span, your task will be merely to aid him. Learned Sarmento i Illa d’Or! I have never known you to agree with Learned D’Aragó on any point. What say you?”

Sarmento i Illa D’Or, with the studied arrogance of a Hercules, crossed his huge arms across his broad chest and tilted back his head. His voice was the murmur of a bear in winter, disturbed from long, cold sleep. “Bah! Control the emotional nature! Control the music! Control the genetics! Control the thinking! It is all hogwash. What about not controlling? What about setting mankind free? And I mean free of all restrictions, moral, mental, intellectual—everything. I say there is no rational moral code that does not take into account the simple scientific fact that all organisms seek pleasure and flee pain. This is the starting point of all rational thought about human nature.

“The trick is to tie pleasure into the proper incentives without imposing a system of control the sheep will detect and resent. To do this, you shape the future. You dig the canals and dikes, and merely let the water find its own way at its own pace into your channels.

“The factor that controls the future is demographics. When populations outstrip food supplies, human life is cheap, wages drop, sexual restrictions come into play, and to keep those restrictions, an apparatus of coercion arises that soon reaches all aspects of life. Ancient China was overpopulated, and it sterilized their ability to progress despite an immense head start; Europe outstripped them, because the Black Death had lowered the population level so that every individual life was precious—that, and not empty talk about the sanctity of life—that is what led to the group discipline D’Aragó talks about, as well as the liberty and tolerance De Ulloa mentioned. It is all in the numbers.”

“Shall I make you the angel of death, able to lower population rates?” asked Del Azarchel with a dark look.

“No, Learned Senior. Give me the heavens instead, and I will raise them,” said Sarmento.

“What?” said Del Azarchel.

“Demographics is based on food supply,” Sarmento rumbled. “Which is based on acquisition technology, whether huntsman, herdsmen, or husbandman. So give me control of the climate, wind, and weather. The ancient experiments in weather control were not implemented by a posthuman Iron Ghost, and so the many variables of climate adjustment could not be managed. If I can establish the growing season, shorten or extend it, then I can shape the agrotechnology, the demographics, the pleasure-seeking incentives of human action, and thus the culture that will grow out of it.”

Del Azarchel said, “If D’Aragó falls short, then I give you between the years A.D. 6000 to A.D. 7000, but I will grant you longer if you ask, for I doubt your theory is sound.”

Sarmento said, “But I must have more time! The method I propose is very slow.”

Jaume Coronimas raised his finger. “Are you giving away blocks of a thousand years each, Learned Del Azarchel? Learned Sarmento can have half of my time. My proposal is more efficient.”

Coronimas had drawn a series of figures, calculations of his own, in the palm of his left glove with the stylus tip hidden in the finger of his right. Coronimas twitched his golden antennae downward, and at this gesture, the circuits displayed his work in the mirrored floor panels at his feet.