Menelaus said, “Well, I just found out my entire search for the causes of the decline and fall of world empires is a fraud. There is no natural law or inevitable tendency to be found. If Soorm is right, history is controlled by some sort of mathematical science of statistics, and empires fall because the men who control that science, the Hermetic Order, decree it shall fall. I thought I was a doctor looking for the natural cause of a disease. I’m not. I am a detective looking for the poison used by an assassin.

“Where are the assassins now?” Menelaus continued. “Or doesn’t this tale ring any bells with you gentlemen? Were you aware that this current era of world history now is under the control of one of the Hermeticists? If so, which one? If not, why were you not informed?”

Ull said ponderously, “The simple academic reciprocity demanded by our way has been sated. You have asked your questions and had them answered.”

“Not quite,” said Menelaus. “I am also curious about the reasons for the decline of your civilization, my little blue guys. You cannot tell me you are still a going concern, can you? How many of you are left?”

Illiance said in a pedantic voice, “You show great charity to be concerned for our tribulations, but it appears best to accept your aid in the modes conformable to the contours of the situation, which is, to have you assist us in translation, rather than to answer a deposition. There is no need, at present, to rule out an expansion of such a broader basis for accepting your aid; but the matter is of lower priority at the moment.”

Ull said, “Ask him of this Wintermind of which he speaks. We have no referent for it.”

Menelaus translated the question.

Soorm had no eyebrows to raise, but something of a supercilious expression came over his stiff seal-like features when he goggled his eyes and gaped his shark-toothed mouth in a grin.

He spoke no word, but raised his hand and pointed with a webbed finger at the table on which the dog thing’s equipment rested. After a moment, the instrument began to whistle like a steam kettle, while the dog thing leaped to its hind legs and frantically touched control-points and clicked toggles and slapped mirror surfaces. Some crucial part of the mechanism failed: the little lights dotting the coral surfaces flared up and went dark, and all the mirrors faded to a dull gray.

Menelaus drew his hood up in order to hide his expression of disgust or anger.

But neither Ull nor Illiance seemed in the least perturbed. Mentor Ull said to Illiance in the fluting of the intertextual language of the Locusts, “Wintermind is a primitive form of the Mind Discipline.”

Illiance opened his eyes wider. “Instruct me, Mentor. I can see that it is a manifestation of biosoftware—the training that must be ingrained rather than implanted via needle. I see also that mental structures of the third order would be needed to instruct our detector to self-destruct. But how do you deduce that this is related to our Discipline?”

Mentor Ull said, “The Mind Discipline contains systemic neural pulses and alterations of brain wave frequency to alter internal mind states. Reference that relict Soorm scion Asvid used what he called Wintermind to break instinctive genetically imposed control-methods or addictions, including the naturally addictive epiphenomena of family love, which can be interpreted to be just such an internal mind state.”

Illiance nodded gravely. “Insightful! This suggests that your previous plan to use torment to deter uncooperative or inharmonious thought forms found in the organism is nugatory.”

Mentor Ull favored him with a dark and reptilian look. “Is that your sole concern? The subjective well being of these erratic and misshapen ancestral creatures? We may be able to deduce which aspect of the Divarication formula was used to create this discipline form.”

Illiance said, “That aspect seems unclear, Mentor.”

Mentor Ull said, “Not to a mind fixed and attentive, Student, cleared of complexity and distraction! The initial evidence suggests a mental but not neurological use of the Continuity Code, which is the sixth of the seven solutions of the Divarication problem, used specifically to overcome the Addiction divarication, which occurs in any information system where units enter a positive feedback loop—merely stimulating their pleasure reward without performing the act that merits it. The Continuity Code adds the mechanism of time-binding, so that short-term gain no longer overwhelms long-term loss. Is it not significant that the Hormagaunts were effectively immortal?”

Illiance said, “These conclusions remain tentative. It would be untoward to share this speculation with the—” He glanced at Menelaus. “—ah, with, ah whomever may be taking an interest in the research.”

Mentor Ull said, “You refer to the Expositors of our Order gathered at Mount Misery? Agreed. We cannot approach greater certainty until we interview a Nymph, and determine the characteristics of the social-psychological control mechanisms involved in the communal relations of the Natural Order of Man.”

Mentor Ull said to Menelaus in High Iatric, “With our deception-detection equipment in disorder, no further testament is needed at this time. Tell the relict Soorm scion Asvid that the Followers will escort him, and you, back to the confinement area.”

Menelaus said to Soorm in Leech, “The blue lordling says the dog things will drag us back to the prison yard, thanks to your blowing up their lie detector. We’re dismissed.”

7

The Old Man of Albion

1. A Private Place for Private Deeds

The next day, it was snowing, and no work could be done at the dig. Instead, the machines of the Blue Men crouched beneath a snapping, wind-tossed tarpaulin, cleaning and oiling their blades and spades with an endlessly repeated gesture like the gleeful hand-wringing of misers, or perhaps like flies washing. The snow was blowing vertically, not quite parallel to the sloping ground, and the horn had not sounded for the mess tent.

Each individual was in the tent assigned him. Whether that could be said of the lone figure leaving a temporary line of naked footprints in the snow was a matter of semantics. His tent was folded around him like a hooded cloak, and he carried the long train of metallic fabric over his arm, like a senator of old holding the drape of a toga, or a princess in a trailing gown suddenly found without her maidens of honor.

He came to one of the tents and shouted a halloo. He waited unanswered for a while, and shouted and shouted again.

“Hail and parley! Weapons down!”

Eventually the tent flap drew open, revealing the scowling dark-furred beast-face of Soorm the Hormagaunt.

“I am armed with a rock, and my name is Beta Sterling Anubis. May I enter?” The hooded man spoke in Leech.

“Think you I so soon forget?” rumbled Soorm.

“To introduce myself by weapon and name is merely a Chimerical custom.”

“How odd. You do not smell like a Chimera.”

“Easily explained. I am a Beta, and imperfect. The other Chimerae in the camp are Alpha, well bred of long bloodlines. May I enter?”

“No. I will exit. The tent cloth can be stiffened without warning by an electric signal to form a nearly airtight prison, and I have no wish to be trapped in a small space with you. The Blues doubtless have other sleights and oddities they could perform as well, while their substance is around us. Come!”

The big dark-furred man lumbered out of the tent and, taking the arm of Menelaus, stalked toward the trees not far away, pine and spruce conical hats of snow, from which the wind drew plumes. Without waiting for an invitation, Soorm parted the garments of Anubis and put a furry arm around him, drawing the material of the robes of Menelaus around him for warmth. Menelaus made no protest, but walked huddled up to the other man, his head almost in his armpit.