The ruling families Xi Boötis had been subjected to a ruthless eons-long breeding program by the cunning of the Potentate Euphrasy, and—whether by coincidence or nonhuman design it was not known—these were among the millions torn from their homes in the Fifty-Third Millennium and flung to Arcturus by the pitiless Virtues whom human astronomers dubbed Lamathon and Nahalon: and from them arose the Aestevals of Nightspore, the ancestors of the Strangermen.

Vigil pointed at the runes and hieroglyphs of the alien script. “These figures are nonsense. The extrapolations here and here show genetic drifts which will turn all the races of man, one by one, into placid and homogenous underlings, craving control by their superiors, then being addicted to control, then being incapable to live without it. These Last Men, once they are developed, would be congenitally unable to tolerate freedom, honor, virtue, truth, or beauty. This is not peace! This is an abomination!”

He looked around the chamber, his eyes haunted and lost. “Is this—this insolent treason against everything for which we stand, everything we cherish, everything we are—?” He almost could not force the words out of his mouth. “Is this Rania’s plan?”

Slowly he lowered the sword and hefted it in his hand. “How can she mean this to happen to us? It would be no different from if the Vindication of Man had never happened. All her tens of thousands of years of star-faring, beyond the galaxy, farther than the realms of death and back again—is all human history and struggle to be made into nothing?”

The Aruspex said, “The cliometric calculus of what becomes of the Stability should this plan is made public is perfectly clear in the Chi and Psi region: no one follows any futurian leading him into the slave pit. All our friends and kin would be stoned, or deleted, or subjected to mind-desolation. The Tormented are a turbulent people, when provoked.”

“What, then, did you intend? To allow this future to unfold and ensure the desecration of our race?”

The Aruspex said, “No. We conspired to break our ties with the Empyrean, allow no further Great Ships to launch or land, and become the antithesis of the Stability in all ways, expunging all connections of trade and radio contact, knowing ourselves too minor to come to the attention of Hyades, or any greater Domination or Dominion. The stars and endless unhorizoned vistas of eternity which once so proudly we ordained our children’s remotest children would conquer, all this we foreswore.”

Vigil shook his head. “But—wait. There is no vector showing the approach of a multigeneration warship. And the worlds conquered by the Emancipation in secret—where are the figures and vector sums for their new plotted courses in history?”

The Aruspex said, “I will not hide the truth: your father wished the ship to land, uncaring of what would become of our current social order, or perhaps desiring its overthrow, for the flooded world the Emancipation will impose also appears nowhere in Rania’s planning. He thought it better to shatter the chessboard of history than to continue the game where checkmate is inevitable. For this reason he perished—but whether it was suicide or murder, I do not know.”

Vigil said, “He died to place me here, to make the decision he knew was right, but had not the strength to make. Halting the ship both breaks this horrible plan and fulfills all oaths as Stabiles—even though it means the end of the Stability.”

The Aruspex said, “Will you use your terrible power to force us to betray the oath of the Stability and land a ship that we are sworn not to allow? This warship destroys, rather than upholds, the plan of history.”

Vigil said, “Allowing the ship to land may introduce vectors to defeat what Rania has planned—if we are wise enough to know whether opposition to Rania is justified. We swore oaths to her, unbreakable oaths, and if the wisdom she brought back from beyond the galaxy is wisdom we cannot bear—who are we to pit our minds against it?”

The Aruspex said coldly, “It may be that there are reasons sound and sensible to sacrifice our sovereignty of this world to upend the Plan for Universal Peace, which is a fraud. Maybe that is so. But whether so or not—you, My Lord Hermeticist, you have no right to threaten the world with destruction if the Table fails to halt this warship and make that sacrifice. You boast that you will never break an oath. Will you obliterate us with that sword for upholding rather than breaking ours? For to land this warship would be the abolition of the Stability, in whose name that sword is given its power, and your hand given to hold it.”

Vigil raised his eyes, tilting the blade this way and that, as if reading the ancient letters again. “Well? Is there still a case against this Chamber, these men, this order, this world, this age? Do I still have jurisdiction here?”

He winced as information forms like hot needles entered his brain. Despite all that was said, this remains a matter for the mortal order to judge. It is not permitted that we should advise you. Condemnation and clemency are still yours to grant or withhold.

Vigil lowered the sword again, weary, confused, defeated. He turned and looked left and right. Here was the Terraformer in green, the Lighthousekeeper in white, the motionless Chrematist in red, propped up at the Table. Opposite him was the Aedile in gold, nervous, and the senile Chronometrician in saffron. He looked at the Portreeve in his dun uniform. “Who sent the Myrmidon to save me from my attackers? I assume it was you.”

But the Portreeve touched one ear and displayed his palm, fingers spread. Signal loss: message not understood. It was the old gesture indicating confusion.

Vigil supposed it did not matter. As if his eyeballs weighed more than nature allowed, he found his gaze being pulled back to the mocking horror of the Peace Plan inscribed in the Table. It promised so much and delivered nothing at all.

Vigil tried to imagine the seventy suns of mankind shining on the fourscore worlds and the forty-two sailing vessels, larger than continents, carrying their millions in long flight through the night. Each sun and world, each radio house and interstellar laser, all were manned and crewed and served by the Loyal and Self-Correctional Order of Prognostic Actuarial Cliometric Stability.

He said aloud, “How can the secret future brought back from M3 by the Swan Princess be so horribly wrong, so horribly false? Everyone knows she solved the riddle called history! How can there be a warship in existence at all? How can there be war?”

The counselor behind him named Cricket said, “Well, scabby scrotum of the damned devil, I know the answer to that! It’s obvious. Been saying for years. No one listens to me.”

But another voice spoke over him and drowned him out: There is war because the Master of Empyrean has willed it. He is conquering all the worlds as he comes!

7

The Ambitions of the Imperator

1. The Dead Speak

Vigil saw the potent glitter in every eye in the chamber and realized that the Lords of the Stability, Companions, and Commensals were all raising their intelligence as rapidly as they could, reckless of their energy budgets. Then he realized that the dead man had just spoken, and he started doubling his intellect as well.

The Chrematist stood, and as he did so, the color left his red robes, turning all the fabric black. The whiteness left the skin cells of his face and hands as the hibernation of untold years was ended. The features grew young, sharp-cheeked; a face of striking aquiline comeliness peered forth from the departing hoarfrost. The white hair turned black as rapidly as burning paper, as did the pointed beard and slender mustachios beneath a long, straight nose. The wrinkled skin grew young. The eyes were green as the eyes of a beast of prey.