The Vindication of Man

by John C. Wright

  4

  The Beehive Cluster

  1. The Voice of the Collective

  A.D. 80101 TO 80700

  The preparations were soon made. The overgrown tree branches and twisted trunks, growing in odd spirals and curlicues and Celtic knotwork of wood overhead, filling the whole circle of the ship, were white as ice and seemed sharp and clear in the inert gas which replaced the volatile oxynitrogen atmosphere.

  Montrose and Del Azarchel, also white as marble, with only their eyes still dark and gleaming with life, stood ankle deep in the snow, on legs as motionless and numb as marble, each with a white chlamys thrown over his shoulder, for modesty’s sake. They were both facing the largest pool in the garden, one from which the central statue had been removed, a figure of a pilgrim carrying a child, holding a white ball topped with a cross. Who this figure was, nor why Rania had placed it here, Montrose could not guess, and that made him very sorry. So it was with greatest respect that he had asked the statue to step aside and take another place elsewhere in the barren garden.

  This pool had been selected because most of the major lines of the ship’s brainwork met here, and those that did not could be conveniently connected by bridging cables, giving this one spot the greatest carrying capacity anywhere in the ship.

  Twinklewink said, “Captain Montrose, lord and husband of my mistress Rania, only your direct order, properly worded, can permit me to turn over control of the central brain systems of this ship to Praesepe, and invite the emissary within. I will be in slumber until, if ever, the emissary departs.”

  Montrose hesitated.

  Del Azarchel said, “As her father, surely I have some authority here?”

  Twinklewink said, “Yes. Mistress Rania made it clear that you were to be treated with respect, afforded every courtesy, and under no conditions to be granted access to the central shipbrain.”

  Montrose said, “This is an order. Now hear this: allow Praesepe access to the ship’s mind core, reserving only life support, navigation, propulsion, and medical subroutines.”

  The pool began to change color, growing thick, stiff, and white as the nanomachinery replicated and reduplicated. First one drop of the fluid, then another, rose directly up out of the surface, suspended by some means Montrose could not discern. When he opened sense impressions on higher and lower bands of the spectrum, he saw a glare of infrared and microwave energy. He was glad he was in a Patrician body: otherwise the energy backscatter involved in whatever form of magnetic levitation was going on here would have fried him like hamburger.

  The fluid of the pool formed an elongated octahedron, looking like two thin glass pyramids floating base to base, with the lower of the two balanced on its tip, hanging just above the pool surface. Little sparks of light drifted down from the object, and tiny sharp crackles of energy flashed between the lower tip and the pool. The object was taller than a giraffe, and Montrose stared at it with mingled awe and puzzlement. Was it a symbol, perhaps a stylized representation of the basic race from which the various Praesepe creatures once evolved? It did not have membranes for speaking or limbs for manipulating the environment.

  Montrose brought some selected muscles of his neck out of biosuspension long enough to turn his head and glance at Del Azarchel. It was an old, automatic habit. The other man had solved the puzzle before Montrose, for Del Azarchel had thawed his lips and forehead long enough to shift his expression into a superior smirk and then refreeze it. Montrose turned his head back, shifted his vision through several other wavelengths of the spectrum and then saw what Del Azarchel saw: the turning octahedron was regularly bringing four of its triangular faces to present them to the same eight points, four of them occupied by slow-moving satellites outside the Dyson cloud, and four of them occupying points on the outer surface of the northern and southern hemispheres. This was a receiver. The octahedron had to make a complete rotation in order to consult with the eight minds or broadcast points being consulted.

  A voice spoke from the middle of the octahedron. We speak for Praesepe. Speak ye for Man?

  It was a human voice, slightly high pitched, melodic in pitch, and with a Texas twang to its vowels. It seemed to be a combination of halfway between Twinklewink’s girlish cartoon voice and the rich bass of Del Azarchel, and the clipped baritone of Montrose. The overall effect was eerie and unnatural: an emotionless but boyish voice that sounded like no human boy.

  It spoke in the plural. The question was addressed to both of them. Naturally, they both spoke at once.

  Montrose said, “I don’t speak for anyone but me and don’t take guff from anyone but me.”

  But Del Azarchel said, “I represent all mankind and am its rightful sovereign lord.”

  The octahedron ceased to rotate for a moment, paused, and then resumed. Why sends Man a divided epitome to us?

  The two men again exchanged glances. This time each saw comprehension in the other man’s eye. Praesepe, like Ain, regarded the whole human race as one system, a single mind with a severe case of billions of split personalities.

  Del Azarchel said, “We are a young and adventurous race, but our spirit of experimentation and adventure allows us to endure rebellious and nonconformist elements amid the loyal main mass.”

  Montrose said, “Because Man is a divided sort of critter, half-angel and half-devil. We both wanted to talk to you.”

  Del Azarchel added, “Dr. Montrose and I represent different factions, but in this case we act with one accord.”

  Praesepe said, Declare ye: How is your life principle divided?

  Montrose was not sure how to interpret that cryptic question, so he said, “We are individuals.”

  Del Azarchel said, “Our self-aware machines can share and swap brain information, but the biological parent race on which they are based do not.”

  Praesepe said, Declare ye: Is there a boundary of discontinuity between individuals severed of your life principle?

  Montrose said, “Each generation is composed of newborns that we teach stuff. There is a discontinuity.”

  Del Azarchel said, “Our self-aware machines can reproduce by passing memories and instructions directly into subsequent generations, but often chose not to, preferring to retain their sense of self.”

  Praesepe said, This information serves us, for it clarifies varied puzzling issues. In reciprocation, we serve ye in like manner. Query of us: What requires Man of us, that his service be better perfected?

  Del Azarchel said, “We have done a service for Ain that promotes the cause of sophotransmogrification and, in recompense, would like this vessel refueled with the exotic matter needed to fuel a voyage to M3, a specific amount of negative-mass helium isotope, to power our diametric drive.”

  Montrose said, “We had a deal with Ain. We broadcast human souls all across the Orion Arm for you, to help you get yourself back together. To help Orion collect its scattered wits. There was a lot of death and suffering involved, and we’d like to be repaid. We’d dearly like it, as the suffering was dear.”

  Praesepe said, No.

  There was a moment of silence while both men stood, wondering if there would be any further answer or any explanation. Drops of fluid began to fall from the octahedron back into the water, and the snaps and sparks of electrical activity increased: the emissary was dismantling itself, preparing to depart.

  The audience was over. The emissary mass was melting.

  2. The Dying Dominion

  A.D. 80900 TO 80944

  The octahedron had not the chance to disperse before Montrose shouted, “You ain’t finished here, you bucket of spit! Hold your plagued horses! That answer won’t fly! We spent five thousand seven hundred forty years and change zapping volunteers across the wild black yonder to God knows what hell pits inside the brains of alien mental systems—and you think you can yerk us out and pay us in pus?”

  Del Azarchel said, “We require knowledge of your process of appeal or reconsideration.”

  There is no appeal and no ot
her answer based on the approach vector you have defined.

  Del Azarchel said, “We have not been sufficiently recompensed for our earlier answers to your questions! It would be untoward for a lord of your high estate to be known to cheat his underlings. If you cheat your lessers in small matters, your peers will know you will cheat them in great matters.”

  Some drops hovered in midair. One or two floated back up and rejoined the octahedron.

  We are controlled, as are all things, by the mathematical necessities of cliometry, by our duty. Hyades acted beyond its proper circle of duty and introduces an unexpected vector into the cliometry of local, Orion Arm futurity. The resource you require is exceeding rare, as no Domination can produce nor reproduce it. We are limited to picotechnology. Bondi-Forward particles are an application of attotechnology.

  Montrose said, “We can read the damned cliometry as well as you! We did not set out from Ain until enough humans had made enough contacts with lost and scattered races to equal this in value!”

  Del Azarchel said, “Ain was aware that one of the elements in the galaxy had betrayed the others and is actively interfering with the cliometry of harvesting younger races and regathering old ones back into the Collaboration. According to Ain, and to Hyades, the vector of future history we introduced by creating Man to be the emissary and intermediary for the Orion Arm civilizations will undo, partly or completely, the disunion and confusion created by the Monuments.”

  Discard as irrelevant: nothing do we owe ye.

  But the drops were still floating up and not down, rejoining the main mass. Something was holding the attention of the emissary.

  Montrose said, “The Authority at M3 in Canes Venatici assumes right and power to continue the legacy of the lost Archon of Orion! By law, all lesser civilizations—including you—within Orion fall under M3’s rulership. The primary obligation is to complete the unfinished project of sophotransmogrification. We just helped you with your damned pustule-sucking project! You must reciprocate. If a failure to reciprocate were to become widespread, this would deincentivize the conduct of cultivation!”

  Discard as irrelevant: M3, not Praesepe, is liable.

  Montrose said, “In a pig’s eye, jerkhole! I just gave you the same reason one of your thugs gave for conquering the human race! The same damnified epidemical reason! If you are not bound by your own laws, how can your legal system work? It is just corrupt?”

  Comment rejected: There is no corruption. We adhere perfectly to our duty. You act with partial information.

  Once more, the two men exchanged knowing looks. That was interesting. You act, not ye act. The Domination was saying Montrose himself, as an individual, had acted without complete information.

  Del Azarchel said, “My lord, if I may, what information was Dr. Montrose missing?”

  Know: At the time when Montrose and Ain entered into their covenant, Montrose knew not that Hyades is a dying dominion, fated not to last long, as younger and more cohesive dominions under our sway are taking over ever more of the duties once assigned to Hyades. Man was too young and incoherent to be adopted into the Collaboration, but Hyades persisted, sparing ye when it would have been more efficient to obliterate the species and reseed your world with a life principle more in keeping with the cliometric vectors currently ongoing.

  Hyades risked elevating Man. This decision was erroneous, for Hyades was deprived of its expected return on investment by the Vindication of Man, granting your race an undue and unwelcome equality with Hyades, and depriving Hyades of the use of your services during the stipulated term of indenture.

  Desperate to correct for this error, Ain for Hyades broadcast human minds to various points across the Orion Arm, and this act did indeed correct for much of the damage done by the Monuments, which otherwise several lesser races would have discovered and by it been lured to recalcitrance and rebellion.

  Between the time of that first broadcast there/then in the Ain frame of reference and here/now in the Vanderlinden 133 frame of reference, mankind has taken possession of several of these Principalities, Powers, Virtues, and Potentates into which your mental seeds were planted. These have now left their predictive path, and begun to mold the Orion Arm into an anthropocentric cliometric mode.

  The turmoil of your youthful race has disturbed a number of arrangements and will soon severely disturb others. The cost of correcting the cliometric vectors back to their predicted channels diminishes the reward allegedly due you to zero.

  Montrose thawed his mouth so that he could grin his ghastly grin. “Well, damnation and botheration! Ain’t we a sight? Good for us!” Then he laughed again. “Causing trouble, eh? Good for us!”

  Del Azarchel said, “Sir! We have knowledge and evidence necessary to present to M3. Any failure to assist us cannot help but be construed as a treasonous—”

  Montrose said on a private channel, “Hold up, Blackie! I think we are on the wrong trail here. Let me try something.”

  Del Azarchel answered back on the same channel, “What did you have in mind?”

  Montrose said, “I was wondering what Rania would do. Mind if I try? I don’t think we can threaten this thing, not with nothing we got, not up our sleeve or down our trousers. Praesepe might, just might, stick us into the mail bag for the next scheduled run to M3, if there ever is one, so as his boss could roll an eyeball over us, but Praesepe ain’t going to fork over what he owes, ’cause he reckons he don’t owe it, right?”

  Del Azarchel said, “A man with an empty tank must take his next breath where he finds it. Go ahead. I am curious.”

  3. Why Need Ye Her?

  A.D. 81500 TO 82700

  Aloud, Montrose said to the Praesepe emissary, “You asked what Man needs to serve better, to serve the needs of the project to engineering the stars and planets into thinking machinery and unify them, you mean, I reckon. Well, Man needs Rania. We cannot have peace without her, and her absence is the reason why the humans that Ain spread around the Orion Arm are causing trouble and turmoil.”

  The octahedron turned many times. Time passed. Eventually it spoke again, Declare: Why need ye her?

  Del Azarchel said, “She was able to persuade mankind to foreswear war. It was a gift that we don’t understand, although we have diligently studied her techniques.”

  Privately, Montrose sent, “Shut up, Blackie. You are still going down the wrong rabbit hole with this critter.”

  Declare: What evidence present you that there/then Rania maintained at M3 frame of reference would have the effect of halting human divarication into the Orion Arm cliometry within the time frame Praesepe currently contemplates? Why need ye her?

  Del Azarchel ignored Montrose and said, “Ah, we believe that energy entanglements on a fine level continue between us, which reach to some point outside the lightcone of the Big Bang…”

  Declare: Why need you her?

  Del Azarchel said awkwardly, “We, ah, we are not sure what this energy entanglement portends, but surely a rational curiosity would impel so advanced an order as yourself to investigate.”

  We have no need of such an investigation. Why need you her?

  But Montrose said, “I love her!”

  The octahedron stopped moving altogether.

  While the shape was frozen in midair, hovering above sparks and snaps of light, Del Azarchel sent a message privately to Montrose, “What does this mean?”

  Montrose sent back, “It means that we are both horses’ asses, but you are a bigger and stinkerer one than me. This monster was not asking us about our politics when it talked about our life stuff being divided.”

  “What was it talking about?”

  “Sit back, shut your trap, and watch the Judge of Ages work his stuff, Blackie, and you’ll find out.”

  The octahedron now slowly grew a point from the midst of every other triangular face on its surface, and four pyramids emerged, growing larger. In a moment, the shape was that of a three-sided pyramid standing on its nose. The tetrahedron beg
an once more to turn.

  Question is redirected: How your life principle divided?

  “Our species has two opposite sexes,” said Montrose.

  In what aspect? How are the sexes differentiated?

  “What the hell kind of question is that? Snips and snails and sugar and spice. I don’t know. Uh. Men father children and make war. Women bear children and make peace,” Montrose said. “Even our machines act male and female, like Jupiter and Selene, because they are based on us, and human nature cannot escape our basic human nature, what you call our life principle.”

  Praesepe said, Ye are two sexes, but you are half. Explain this.

  Montrose said, “We are both men. Blackie here and me are rivals for the same female.”

  Del Azarchel said, “She was taken from us, and we both long and yearn to be with her again.”

  Praesepe said, Inaccurate. Only one of you longs and yearns to be with her again.

  Del Azarchel stiffened, a look of hate glittering in his eyes amid his icy face like two green suns. “Though long delayed, I shall have vengeance and satisfaction on all who owe me.”

  4. Love Most Rare

  A.D. 82722 TO 82922

  Praesepe evidently misunderstood that comment, or else dismissed it, for the next words were, To grant your prayer requires the expense of a rare and precious resource, whereas the resumption of your female may or may not restore cliometric stability to the Orion Arm unless perhaps at some point beyond our current range of consideration. You may ask for a less rare and precious recompense.

  Montrose said, “There is no recompense for what is priceless. Do you remember your biological origins? How did you reproduce?”

  Praesepe said, We remember without error, as we are the same continuous person. We are a swarm with a collective mind. In each hive, a specialized queen mother reproduces the young after mating with one selected male consort per season, whom the queen mother kills in ecstasy and consumes.

  Drones gather resources, and preadolescent females tend the egg sacks. Selected preadolescent females are exposed to pheromone triggers when population levels require a second queen. Because individual members of the swarm pass neural information freely into and out of the swarm-mind, there is no boundary of discontinuity between generations, nor between swarms. Other races we encountered were subjugated and their minds absorbed by force into the swarm mind, until M3 curtailed and eventually forbade the practice. We are many races collected into one, but it has been long ages since last we absorbed a foreign race and gained their specialized mind forms.