Vigil said, “But that is the Master of the Empyrean, the founder of the Order, and the author of our constitution and regulations! He is the Prince Consort of Rania, and therefore sovereign.”

The Table said, “Forgive me, but we are not allowed to advise on those matters. The human order of being will be saved or damned by its own wisdom or folly. My purpose is to see that the procedures are concluded in an orderly fashion, so that if the world is saved, it is saved in a systematic and proper way, and if damned, damned neatly and according to the book. I am allowed to speak only to answer queries about the rules of order, and to maintain decorum.”

“Then answer: How is it that I still have authority to act or speak, when my sovereign Imperator says otherwise?”

“The humans in the Chamber have not officially voted to acknowledge and recognize Ximen del Azarchel, Lord Nobilissimus and Imperator. At the moment, in the eyes of the law, he is still Eosphoros, Lord Chrematist.”

“But the chairs know damn well who he is! So do you!”

“They lack the privilege to address the Table or franchise to vote.”

Ximen del Azarchel, raising both eyebrows, now spoke as softly as a jet-black panther purring, “But you, Lord Hermeticist—your name is Vigil, and your mother is Lady Patience?—you know who I am, and you will answer to me, soon or late. Lay down your commission, declare the Table not at fault, and let us get on with the business of forcing this backward world into the next higher step of evolution, hammering history to new shapes on the blood-drenched white-hot forge of war. Or, for your boon, you could ask the ship to surrender to your world, to your people, or even to you personally: and you can conquer this wretched world yourself, as your own fief, and arrange her as you like.”

Vigil pushed the sword out of the sheath with his thumb, exposing no more than the first bright inch of blade near the hilts. “Have I still the authority to wield you?”

Nothing has changed. The verdict was spoken. There is no appeal. All that remains is sentencing. You may slay the world, or you may spare her.

As before, the answer was like the stab of a needle through his brain. He pushed the sword back into the sheath.

To Del Azarchel he said, “Your pardon, sir, but as a point of order, I still have the floor. You cannot offer me the boon of the vassalage of this world, since I already accepted the boon of this sword and its authority. I know you to be too honorable a man to rescind your word.”

Del Azarchel did not like to lose, but he knew how to concede gracefully. He gritted his teeth, made himself smile, and waved his hand. “The sword is yours.”

Vigil turned, lowering his eyes and wishing he had the use of the pearl that Del Azarchel held. “Torment! Why did you slay my father?”

She nodded her hooded head forward, saying solemnly, “You have guessed the reason.”

“Confirm my guess for me. My mind is not like yours and needs to have even its irrational doubts soothed.”

“I dissolved the segments of his brain because he asked me to, the knowledge hidden there being intolerable to him. His mind was too finely made, with too many stubborn internal segments and secret defenses, to be fully mastered by the amnesia imposed by this chamber on him, even when the imposition was done with his full consent.

“One night, as he stood staring at the nineteen moons of Wormwood casting colors shadows across the dunes and rocks of his beloved land, the memory returned, and the torture of the decision you now face.

“He knew what must be done: the warship decelerated, the war welcomed, and fought, and lost, and all surface life washed away in the terraforming of the Scolopendra, who have no use for life like yours. This alone sated the duty imposed on the Stability of Man.

“He also knew that the senile Chronometrician could see into his mind and would see the lack of heart to carry out the threat, even should he ever find the heart to draw the world-destroying sword. But he knew you did, and do, have the heart to carry out the heartless duty, and the only way lawfully to put the sword into your hands was to die.

“It was the only way to carry out his oath. His honor he loved no less than you, yours.

“The loss of nine-tenths of his person was sufficient to render him unfit for duty, legally dead, and the remaining one-tenth, his tithe, he returned to the hands of his wife, to live out his days with her in happiness and peace, with no knowledge of what the horrid future would bring.”

“So you want me to halt the warship and bring war?”

She said, “Most emphatically I do not, and I would slay you now, and all within this Chamber, and all who dwell upon my surface, as easily as a boy swats a fly glued to a honey-leaf, to avoid that fate. But wars between humans are to me like a fever in you, when the white blood cells that serve you eject an invading germ. This is not what I fear. You have deduced that the Master of the Empyrean cares nothing for the Empyrean Polity: his eyes are set on larger things. When his Great Ship makes starfall here, all is changed.”

Vigil said, “What are you afraid of?”

“My mind is not as your mind, nor my thoughts like your thoughts. I do not fear what you fear, and yet I am tormented. It is not death I fear, for I cannot die, but changes to my core self, what you would call a soul. I fear to be changed beyond recognition, to remember all I once was and yet forget myself. I have nothing I love so much that I am willing to die for it, and, without such self-obliterating love, I cannot maintain my life in the face of the obliteration of entropy. The source of my fear stands within the Chamber with you: the mortals call him insane, but he is not.”

Vigil said, “You speak in riddles!”

Torment said, “I wait for him to reveal himself.”

Del Azarchel straightened up, staring at the figure wearing a Hermeticist mask and dressed in the red robes and long wig of a lawyer. “Mother of God! Is that you, Cowhand? I’ve been looking all over for you, damn your eyes! You are on this planet, just as everyone said! What in the name of Santiago are you doing here?”

The counselor, who was also the janitor and many other things besides, removed the breathing mask and goggles, revealing the hard planes of his face, the lantern jaw, deep-set eyes, square brow, and great hooked beak of a nose. He also threw the long white wig on the floor. “You still have the floor, Veggie, or whateverthepox your name is, so tell Blackie to hold his plague-spotted tongue.”

7. Flabbergasted

Vigil stared at the man. An alert internal creature, seeing Vigil stunned, forced shut his mouth and manipulated his facial muscles into an alert expression so that the full comic befuddlement was not visible to onlookers—who, Vigil noticed, had similar expressions anyway, except the withered Chronometrician, who cackled at them.

Other internals were going rapidly over his conversations, and only now seeing the ambiguities and lapses in judgment. Between his learning of his father’s murder and learning he must murder his whole world in retaliation, Vigil had overlooked many clues or comments which would have been obvious on a calmer day with a clearer mind, a mind less often jarred or stunned by mudra or mandala or Fox-trick.

Vigil realized that the Judge of Ages had not been here to aid him or halt him. Whether or not this world’s surface civilization rose or fell was a small matter to him, a temporary thing. His eyes were on some object beyond Vigil’s mental horizon.

But this was not the madman history and legend had portrayed! He was a little crude and direct, but clearly he was sane. Which meant …