The Vindication of Man

by John C. Wright

  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.”

  The Powerman smiled an unkind smile, saying, “Irregular! I ask the Chamber scribe and memory officer to erase the interruption both from electronic and living memory herewith, since the person speaking them is not recognized to speak, nor may Commensals address the Table without being recognized!”

  The Archivist, a man with the sharp, smiling features, red hair, and eerie beauty of a Meanderer, signaled with his finger lamp and said, “I will raise the same point of order. If the right of the presentment to be seated is in question, a prayer to the archives to confirm the record and memory of the world is not lawful.”

  The Powerman said to the Aedile, “First Speaker, I move that, rather than trifling with records whose veracity cannot be determined, we appoint a legate to travel to the Bitter Waters Parish in the Northwestern Hemisphere and inspect the body and mind-relics of Waiting Starmanson, our beloved friend and boon companion, and that examination commission of theosophists and physicians be empaneled to make a formal report to this body of the status of Waiting Starmanson and his fitness to serve. And I further move that this legate receive his commission with dispatch, at the end of this fiscal quarter, one-fourth of an Edenyear from now by the Sacerdotal calendar, or by the Vulgate Calendar two and a half Torment-years about Wormwood, which is two degrees of the great year about Eldsich, in the Forty-First Lesser Spring of the Great Autumn.”

  Before anyone else reacted, the Theosophist Orison focused his finger lamp, quick as a darting ray, at the Aedile and said with unctuous serenity, “I second the motion.”

  Vigil shouted, “Absurdity! The Emancipation will be pastfallen and unrecoverable by such time!”

  The Aedile said, “The matter has been moved and seconded, and persons not yet recognized by this Chamber may not speak. We must decide by poll whether the challenge of your honor guard is met and defeated.” And this twinkle in his eyes, the ripp
le in the scaly cheeks of gold, told Vigil this was a meaningless formality. The decision to exclude Vigil had been discussed and made privately, long before the meeting had been called to order.

  4. Canvassing

  Vigil opened other channels of perception through cameras in his robes and the antique amulet on his wrist (which was surprisingly responsive and tense, considering from which remote millennium the design originated) and examined the Speakers of the Stability.

  The Theosophist in white and the dark-eyed Lighthousekeeper in blue and silver were of one mind with the Aedile and would vote against seating Vigil.

  That left three others:

  The Chrematist was so thickly dressed in his richly patterned hood and stole of crimson velvet that Vigil did not realize until then that the man was dead, his face white with the icy paleness of an unrecoverable hibernation failure: a slumberer who would never thaw. He was, in fact, a death-manikin. Servomotors at each joint beneath the robes and fibers in his gloves had permitted him to stand and hail the anthem or do whatever polite gesture ritual required: but the Board of Stockholders who sold of the speakership to their wealthiest member would never meet to replace him, not until he was declared legally incompetent. Vigil wondered darkly who had been empaneled years ago or decades ago to make that determination, suspecting it was the Theosophists.

  His name in life had been Aruji, but, swearing fealty to the Pilgrims, he joined himself to one of their families under the Festal name Eosphoros.

  The Fifth Speaker was the Portreeve. He wore a hair shirt under his glittering robes of office, for he was an Errant whose traditions hailed from the planet Penance. About his neck was his key of office handed him when he was appointed by the College of Emeritus Portreeves. His face had the unnatural beauty the Optimates inherited from their Swan forefathers, but, as ever, no Firstling human could read such features.

  The Second Speaker was the Chronometrician in saffron robes, hood, and stole, a Lorentz chronometer of gold sitting on the table before him. Two of the countless many leaves of the chronometer were open just then, one dial showing local time, the other tuned to the frame of reference of the Emancipation. He was as ancient as a mummy. His ancestors were Joys from of Beta Canum Venaticorum, and therefore even in decrepitude, his features were graceful, dignified. There was a sly tilt to the features, and a wry slant to the mouth, that argued against the senility he showed on the surface. He had earned his position by sheer seniority and seemed to be paying no attention to his surroundings. Since his race never closed their eyes in sleep, it was not clear he was awake. Flickers and indications on the medical channel showed that he was not as dead as the Chrematist.

  This meant the vote was lost before even any ballot was cast. Vigil would never take his father’s place, nor be allowed to wield the vengeance needed to bring the Great Ship Emancipation to rest. It was a dizzying sensation, to have come so far, reached so near, and be thwarted by a mere technicality.

  5. A Legal Nicety

  The ugly man next to Vigil prodded him with an elbow and pointed at Vigil’s black gauntlet lying on the black Table surface before the siege of the Lighthousekeeper. “All these damn rules are leftovers from the Starfarer’s Guild. You know who all founded the Guild, right?”

  Vigil knew. The Judge of Ages and the Master of the Empyrean together had founded it as part of their gentleman’s agreement.

  As sharply and suddenly as if struck by lightning from a static-pregnant sandstorm cloud, Vigil understood the dark meaning of certain of the ancient ornaments in the chamber. Some of the formalities were older than spaceflight and were known only on Eden, the Mother of Man, and the planet with the bloodiest history imaginable.

  Vigil raised both hands, brought them to his throat, and emitted nine shrieks of white noise on a radio channel, three long, three short, and three long again. Attention! Life-or-Death Situation!

  The Powerman in anger rose to his feet. “The unrecognized may not intrude unwanted signals during due processes! I ask that the bailiff remove the interloper!”

  The Portreeve had no finger lamp, but signaled with his key of office. “Order. The interloper is not an interloper yet. We have counted no ballot.”

  Vigil stepped over to the siege of the Powerman and took the small, white ceremonial gavel from its hook. With a great swung of his arm, he struck the shield that hung over the back of the siege, saying in the ancient language, “I pray the original form of the challenge be observed. I am the Lord Starfarer, Chief Hermeticist, and Senior of the Landing Party! I defy and traduce whoso says otherwise, and will defend my right to the same with my body!”

  The discipline of the Chamber was broken as everyone at once spoke or signaled or cast his mind into deep archives.

  Finally, the Aedile quieted the murmuring with a great flash from his finger lamp, tuned to an eye-dazzling brightness. “The Chamber asks the advice and counsel of the Chronometrician for an interpretation of these things.”

  The Chronometrician seemed to have fallen asleep, but two of his Companions, garbed in saffron, signaled for recognition and were recognized. The Archaeomnemonicist said, “Casting my memory to the earliest strata of the Stability mind-records shows that these gavels or hammers have always been retained for the function of registering a defiance. As a party at interest, the gavel was correct to allow itself to be handled, and as the siege seating him who picked up the gauntlet, the shield of the Powerhouse Officer was correct to allow itself to ring. The objects are behaving as designed, all according to protocol. The duel must be fought, until satisfaction or death, and without mudras, mandala, or nerve-indications, with macroscopic weapons alone.”

  The Powerman was as pale as the Chrematist as the blood left his face, and his eyes darted left and right, as if measuring the distance to the exit doors. His throat was too dry to speak, but his voice came from the ornamental cloak pin he wore, “But what does this mean?”

  Vigil said, “As well you know, My Lord. A fight to the death.”

  Vigil’s masked and bewigged counsel said to Vigil, “Hand me back my shooting iron and call me your Second so I can drill the bastard through his empty skull and get on with this damnified charade. I want to find out what’s up.”

  But the Censor who sat behind the Chronometrician had the floor, and raised his finger, “I speak in my official capacity as Dress Code Officer! The sumptuary regulations are often disregarded, but they are also still in force! By an antique and momentous law, the Companions and siege of the Lighthousekeeper must be unarmed, as sign that the Lighthouse must never be used as a weapon, nor scald a ship in flight or roast a world beneath with its dire ray! Hence no duel can take place: the Powerhouse Officer is not of the arms-bearing class.”

  Vigil unceremoniously shrugged off this weapon belt and dropped it, with his pistol and sword and all clanging to the glass floor, and doffed his other gauntlet. “By naked hands I will slay whoso denied my right to be here!”

  The sleek and slender body of the Powerman, whose ancestors had been necromancers of Schattenreich, and, before that, Locusts of Mars, was like the body of a maiden next to that of an ape. But before anyone could speak, the Powerman said, “I appoint Xu Maioxen as my champion!”

  This was evidently the name of the burly lion-headed handservant, shining with fulvous fur and rippling with muscles, who had previously picked up the gauntlet. He was an Expatriate, which meant that his ancestors were Sinners from 61 Ursae Majoris, which meant that he had retractable talons, fangs like a saber-toothed tiger, and swifter reactions and harder muscles than a baseline human should have.

  The Chronometrician began to speak in his weak and spiderish voice about the proper formalities for a duel, the exchanges of challenges through Seconds, the appointment of surgeons, and such, but the Expatriate man shook his mane, roared, and leaped.

  Vigil did not bother with grace or flourishes. He caught the man in midair, throwing himself backward with the momentum. He broke the back and most of the ribs of
the lion man with the might of his arms alone and drove the body headfirst as it continued its fall down on the chamber floor with enough force to shatter the spine and to crack the heavy skull like an egg so that brain stuffs spread across the invisible surface with a sickening smell.

  Vigil turned to the Powerman, saying, “Do you doubt my right to—?” But he stopped. The slender man was dead. He had fallen prone, even though there was no sign of wound, no scent of energy, no hint of any nerve-mudra tingling in the air.

  All the speakers were now on their feet, even the slumbering corpse of the Chrematist (whose servos evidently thought it polite to stand when all others did). The Aedile said in a weak voice, “What struck down Seppel Phosphoros? Why is he dead? I yield the floor and the balance of my time to anyone who can explain this madness.”

  Vigil’s counsel, the ugly man in the breathing mask, had picked up the dropped sword and translucent pistol. “I reckon I can tell you. Your joker saw physical danger, so he fled into the infosphere, and left his body behind, and was just pulling strings like by remote control. But the rule of the duel says that the primary has to die if his partial dies, or else there ain’t no point. Now, in real life, these two guys here was two different men, but the law ain’t got nothing to do with real life. In the eyes of the law, an agent acts on his master’s behalf and becomes his partial self. Since the one was working on the other’s orders, Torment decided to put both men on the same circuit. So when one died, the other was deleted. If leperdick there had just stayed put, he’d be still alive.”

  The Aedile stuttered, “How can this be? Why has Torment stirred herself to interfere with us? It is unlawful!”

  “Ha! That’s rich and rank as stallion manure on a sunny spring day, coming from your mouth, buddy.”

  The Aedile stared at him. “Who are you?”

  The ugly man said, “I am Jiminy Goddamn Cricket, here to tell you to always let your mother-raping conscience be your plaguing guide! Are you going to let this boy sit down at your little tea party, or is he going to have to pluck the heads off more people?”