“Stranger, I wish I knew.”

To the right of the Aedile, at the corner, was the one man who had not risen to his feet for the anthem of the Stranger. Here was the Terraformer, who sat upon a massive throne of polished bronze. His cloak was green like forest pines, and set with gold disks. His hands and feet, when glimpsed beneath his robes, were covered with the skin-cell-bonded black armor of a phylarch of planet Eurotas. Upon his diadem he bore the iron Theta of Ecology.

Born as Franz Rubezahl, his adoption name was Francisco Leafsmith. He was an Ostracized, the only one of his despised race ever to hold the post, but he had survived the nineteen trials and three examinations, and the Pilgrims dared not deny him the post he had earned. He had the harsh, square face of a Nicor who had reverted to air breathing, and a black coiffure of facial hair called beard circling his lips and chin, though the skin between his nose and upper lip was bare. This mouth-hair gave him a savage, prehistoric look; and even when in repose, his features seemed to wear a sneer. He had inherited neither height nor oversized cranium from his giant ancestors. If anything, he was shorter and stockier than his public memory-images were allowed to retain.

In one armored hand he held a silver scepter Vigil knew to be an antenna to the command channel of the biosphere, a symbol of the terror and power which the Terraformer once had held. He had plucked this from the hand of the previous Terraformer and slew him with it in single combat, one ecosystem against the other, in a duel that had scalded the dry crater valleys and arid dunes of Southeastern Hemisphere.

At one time, plagues could be called up from the ground as easily as comets used to make the crater lakes of Torment during her birth millennium could be called down from heaven. Like Vigil, the man was not a speaking member of the Table: he represented the civic and secular power. But his retinue was far greater than Vigil’s one counsel and three honor guards. Behind the Terraformer stood the solicitors and barristers, castellans, cavaliers, monsters, legates, and clerks of the worldly orders, with their hetaerae, paramours and demimondes.

Vigil noted that when he took his eyes off the Terraformer, the visual memory of how short the man was vanished from his recollection. There was no entry in his memory log, no sensation. The implication was that Fox Maidens, or some superhuman order impatient with human laws, introduced a sight-borne mudra into the Terraformer’s information aura in the Noösphere, and no one had the patience or political will to abate the nuance. It was just a small hint of corruption, but it stank in Vigil’s nostrils. A man who will trample the law in small things, for personal vanity, what will he do if great things weigh in the balance?

The bridegroom thought it little to give

A dole of bread, a purse,

A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,

Or for the rich a curse;

From some subtle tell or clue of the necromancer’s antennae (which, by birth, should have been attuned only to the frequencies of his lingering hereditary ghosts), an internal creature prompted Vigil to intuit that the Lighthousekeeper Phosphoros was communing with the Theosophist, the Sixth Speaker.

This man was garbed in simple and severe robes of white and argent, and his gorget of silver was set with pallid cabochons. In his hand he held an augmentation pearl the size of a plum, which permitted its wielder to meet the gaze of immortals, machines, and posthumans. He was large-eyed and finely featured, but, like all his race, bald and boasting no visible earlobes. His skin was waxy green as a holly leaf, and his brow adorned with golden tendrils. His race was a subspecies of the Locusts, called the Beatharians, originally from Aesculapius. Beatharians could sustain their lives without food and drink, absorbing nutriment from sweet perfume and the fierce sunlight of 70 Ophiuchi. He was a Wanderer, whose people arrived, conquered, flourished, and dwindled over a thousand years ago.

He was able to meet Vigil’s piercing look without a flush of shame, nor did his eyes ever waver from their clear emerald-green serenity, no matter how many internals Vigils compiled into his brainspace to increase force, influence, and terror of his gaze.

Vigil stopped short of casting a mudra from his eyes, but his eyeballs ached with the unspent emotion. The perfection of the armor of tranquility radiating from the Theosophist made Vigil wonder if perhaps this man had recaptured the legendary ascetic practices of his ancestors on Aesculapius. The green man also had adopted a Pilgrim name, and called himself Oeoen Orison.

But whether or not a man was asked

To mar the love of two

By harboring woe in the bridal house,

The bridegroom wished he knew.

When the music sank away, the Lords and Attendants and Companions seated themselves.

An ostiarius wearing an absurd atef crown with a coincidence rangefinder issuing from it to the left and right by a cubit, announced Vigil, reported his name and lineage and rank to the Archaeomnemonicist, ending the long list of titles and dignities with, “Senior member of the Landing Party, and Starman Most Recently Returned from the Vasty Deep.”

The ostiarius then raised his hand and the long lenses of his headgear and swiveled his palm left and right, crossed his arms on his chest, and gripped his right wrist with his left hand, which meant, Is there any who challenges this man’s right to enter?

One of the three men acting as Vigil’s honor guard stepped forward, took off a gauntlet, and dashed it, ringing, to the crystal panels of the floor. Whoso would bar my lord from entry must speak now or hold his peace forever.

The ugly man who had been a janitor, valet, watchman, bailiff, and was now his counsel murmured on a private channel, “Who is trying to prevent you from being recognized and taking your seat has to pick up the gauntlet, or he cannot lodge a point of order to protest your being recognized.”

Vigil sent back, “Why do we bind ourselves with so many laws, so intricate, so absurd? For a man to step across a room and sit down and talk, we have to wrestle with this rigmarole! The Great Ship and all her generations, and our world’s honor and eventual fate, and the stability of the Stability itself, hang in the balance—and we must pause to see who stoops to pick up a trifle of hand clothing?”

The ugly man sent quietly, “You live in a day when a rich man can rent more brains than you, or carry an Archangel in his poxing pocket. So don’t scoff at having rules fixed and clear! Whenever men gather like vultures to decide their futures, no matter what they call themselves, they eventually become a good old boys’ club. The mood of a club always favors the richest member. The rules of a club occasionally favor the poor one. Let us see if the rules favor us now. If someone picks up that gauntlet, the guys set against you are desperate.”

The Powerman in a uniform of black and red, one of the Companions whose seat was behind the siege of the Lighthousekeeper rose to his feet, raised his finger lamp for permission to speak, and was recognized. His name was Seppel Phosphoros, and he was the cousin of the Lighthousekeeper. “I object! This is not the Landing Party Senior. That office is vested in Waiting Starmanson, Lord Hermeticist, who yet is alive and breathes the air of Torment, not in this person. He cannot be recognized by the Table.”

The Powerman sent a handservant to retrieve the gauntlet. The handservant, a leonine Argive of the Sinner race returned and knelt and proffered the gauntlet to Seppel Phosphoros, Lord Powerhouse.

Vigil said impatiently, “Waiting Starmanson, Lord Hermeticist, is legally dead, and his privileges and rank vested in me, properly and according to the forms. Yonder sits the Archivist, Companion of the Second Speaker and Lord Chronometrician: as a point of order, I pray the Table subpoena the records of the World Memory to confirm my account.”