8. The Final Peace Equation

Vigil said to the Judge of Ages, “You are a man of legend—on Nightspore, in the buried nation of Threal, they worship you as a god. How do I address you?”

“Call me Meany. Or, if you want to be formal and proper and posh, call me Doc. I ain’t a doctor doctor, a real doctor, a sawbones, but I got a degree in math from Soko University in Oddifornia. They say the continent is tilted, on account of the Anglos is so light-headed they pull the East Coast up, so all the loose screws roll to the other coast. Heh. I hain’t told that joke since that continent was still around. Still funny, if’n you ask me.”

Vigil drew a deep breath, trying to bring order to his agitated inner creatures. “Why is there a warship coming?”

Montrose took a small twig out of an inner pocket and scraped thoughtfully at the gaps between his teeth. He paused to push his tongue into his cheek, as if chasing some stray scrap, and then he spat. “I could say ’cause Blackie’s coming. Well, he is sort of here also. That is a puppet of his that he radioed ahead. When he sent his gear, his crown and sword and stuff, near as I can figure, must have left Tellus on the same ship I shipped out on, the Errantry. Easy enough to do, since the Guild works for him. I was launched by the Starfaring Guild, but landed by the Stability, which tells you how long ago that was. It means he must have recognized what was going on same time I did, within ten years plus or minus. Right, Blackie?”

Before Del Azarchel, could answer, Vigil said, “Sir, that was not my question.”

“Well, ask what you mean, dammit. It’s not like I can read your mind! We ain’t on the same circuit.”

Vigil said doggedly, “Even before she departed for M3, the Swan Princess knew the secret of how to use the cliometric equations to reach peace. She could prevent world wars and defuse mutinies before they occurred. The Memento Stone would, if anything, include a more complete answer, allowing us to cooperate with the aliens without the horror of forced repopulation to far worlds. So the Stone could only increase, not decrease, her skill at reading the Monument and rendering peace! We know the aliens are not at open war. Therefore, there is a Final Peace Equation. We know that…”

Vigil realized he was rambling, telling the Judge of Ages matters this ancient being must have known before Vigil was born, or his world, or his ancestors’ worlds, or his family, clan, race, language.

Montrose did not seem impatient. He merely nodded. “You’re getting warm. Go on.”

“From these facts, we know the human race cannot be growing in any direction but more and more civilized and peaceful. And yet—look! There sits the herald of an incoming multigeneration warship, asking to set terms of the combat!”

Montrose shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe you should be asking a different question, sonny.”

“What would that be, sir?”

“The peaceful future where we ain’t gunna study war no more, why, that future would not need Stability Lords as proud and picky about their honor as a pack of Spaniards, would it? So one question maybe you should be asking yourself is this: Why did the interstellar plans of future history give rise to customs and civilizations like what we got now? Like something from the Dark Ages? The First Dark Ages, I mean.”

Vigil looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

Montrose said, “Seems to me that what you is really asking is, what the plague is your life for, a man like you? You’d rather die than break your word, and there ain’t no such man like that when sweet reason reigns and all folks is fat and happy. So what is your life for, Vigil Starmanson? Why is there such a thing as a you?” He grinned and spat out the toothpick. “That is your real question, ain’t it?”

Vigil sighed. Everything in his life turned on the answer. “Yes, sir,” he said humbly. “That is my question. You said you know the answer and that no one heeds you.”

“Ain’t that so! Yessirree—I surely do know. It’s obvious.”

“Will you tell us?”

“Nope.”

Vigil restrained the urge to jolt the Judge of Ages with a mudra from the glance of an evil eye to induce vomiting spasms. It would be more in keeping with the dignity of the ancient man simply to smite with the sword. But he checked that impulse as well. “What? And why not?”

“And have you ignore me, too? Figure it out your own damned self.”

The Master of the Empyrean raised his hand and signaled with his finger lamp. “I ask the Lord Hermeticist grant me time enough to answer his query, that we might move rapidly on to other business? I mean to have that braking laser lit and properly presented, or else no one leaves this chamber alive.”

Vigil said, “One question first: You sent the Myrmidon to save me?”

“I did not.”

“Who did?”

“No one sent him. I am him. Despite their extinction, I still from time to time can find an empty body with mind-circuits formatted correctly to receive my imprint, buried in a library, or in various hiding holes in hollow asteroids, or bunkers on abandoned moons. I meant to have you do the duty I gave you and force this stubborn Table to do their duty I gave them, but unexpected events intruded. Your planet, Torment, somehow slipped the information about the true nature of Rania’s Final Peace Equation into the hand of your Cliometrician here. This made events spin out of control, requiring me to drop my mask and speak.”

Vigil said to the Aruspex, “This copy of the Final Peace Equation, this abomination on the table before us—where did you get it?”

The Aruspex made a fist: the gesture for assent. “He speaks the truth. It came from Torment herself. Thanks to our uniquely potent receivers, she has been spying for centuries on the other Potentates and Powers of the Empyrean, decoding the secret and subconscious thoughts of our Dominion as they as crawled at lightspeed from Altair to Proxima to 61 Cygni. She discovered the unedited versions of the severed plan for human evolution, beamed to each separate Stability on every world, and reconnected them. As if by mischance, my people came across her information in an unguarded file. I trespassed on my own initiative, no doubt with her awareness: whether technically that counts as intervention in human life, I leave to others to decide.”

Vigil turned to Del Azarchel, “You have the floor. Explain this enigma.”

Del Azarchel said, “If Rania, once returned from M3, has the power and motivation to impose peace on mankind, then there can be no war; and yet an interstellar war is and has been ongoing for centuries, and war will tear the Empyrean in pieces and force those pieces to flee to ever more distant stars and colonize there. Your question is, how can this be, and what is your life for?”

Vigil waited, seething with impatience. Del Azarchel paused, smiling, enjoying the unhappy silence. With a smile, the Master of the Empyrean spread his hands, as if to show he had no more tricks in his glove circuits, no mudras, no hidden finger-commands to make.

“Simple. Rania never returned from M3.”

9. The End of History

A dumbfounded silence clutched all the men there.

The voice of Montrose was as loud as the bray of a mule in the quiet chamber. “Like I been saying all along. The millions aboard the Errantry knew it, and so do their children sixteen hundred years later. Polite folk to this day will not sup with an Errant or walk into their shops or grottos because Errants will not mouth the polite lies. So much misery, so many years of prejudice and hate, just to save Blackie’s brittle little asinine pride, eh?”

Del Azarchel’s face grew dark with a blush, and his eyes narrowed.

Vigil said, “What do you mean?”

Montrose said, “I am sure the fake Rania who came back from the stars made a perfectly nice wife for Blackie. All he wanted was the reputation of it, right? Ain’t that right, Blackie? You never wanted the girl, just wanted the world to think she was your’n. And so you must have figured it out quick as I did, but you had all the media smother the knowledge and hired folk to spread rumors, rewrite history books, censor memories, all that stuff.”