The Architect of Aeons

by John C. Wright

  “Cahetel cannot act against his equations, and I know it.

  “So I know I cannot make any sort of bargain with it to stop the forced colonization of hell planets out there with mutated versions of humanity. But I can twist his arm to make it talk.

  “So it has got to talk to me. In fact—come to think of it—you tell him to increase whatever energy budget and mental resources he is using to determine how to talk to me. He can damn well learn how humans think and learn to express itself more clearly. He has not had to be clear before because the Equations forced him to conclude it was inefficient. But it is efficient now.

  “So you tell that damn bastard to talk or else.”

  2. The Second Sweep Stars

  Montrose saw on higher and lower bands of the spectrum the increase of electronic activity in the dripping murk clinging to the dead skull, and also saw heat radiate from the black floor on which the giant stood. Other signals showed that the Sedna brain that was woven throughout the volume of the little world, the brain which was also made of murk, also now part of Cahetel, increased its activity.

  “Is English that hard to learn?” muttered Montrose.

  “Artificial beings tend to be quite logical, sir,” said the serpentine delicately.

  Now the screens of the dome lit up with diagrams of a volume of space centered on Sol.

  Montrose saw stars that he recognized from the extensive atlases lodged in his eidetic memory: He recognized 107 Piscium and 41 Arae and Alula Australis, variable double star. Here was Wolf 25 in Pisces and HR 4458 in Hydra and Zeta Reticuli orbited by a vast ring of debris. There was Tabit, and Chi Orionis and 61 Ursae Majoris famed in ancient tales. Montrose recognized Zeta Tucanae and Xi Boötis and Beta Canum Venaticorum Formalhaut surrounded by its many disks of debris, and a dozen others.

  These were all stars of Sol-like characteristics known to hold Earth-like worlds. All rested within twenty to thirty-three lightyears. Cahetel was presenting the targets of the Second Sweep.

  Next, were displayed certain of the stars of the First Sweep. Lines indicating possible shipping flight paths connecting the second group of stars to the first. Perhaps Cahetel was indicating that eleven more colonies survived than anyone knew, surviving only as a few wretched and starving stragglers unable to mount an interstellar-strength radio laser. Or perhaps Cahetel was indicating that the Black Fleet, now impressed into service as deracination vessels, would visit and recolonize the failed worlds en route to the new colonies.

  Lines issuing from Delta Pavonis and Epsilon Eridani indicated that Cahetel had indeed read and understood the message capsules left in his path by the humans, and knew that these colonies had survived. These worlds, too, would be forced to contribute a certain large percentage of their populations into the deadly maw of interstellar colonization.

  Now the view on the major screen moved outward, and maps and navigation charts displayed a larger segment of the Orion Arm of the galaxy. Again, lines and spheres showing the growth over millennia and billennia of colonies were displayed, but these were not the human colonies.

  Montrose straightened up, eyes wide.

  He was being shown the presence of other alien races, and their plans for expansion.

  3. The Potentates and Powers

  Here was the Hyades Cluster at 151 lightyears away, the cluster of civilizations Rania had christened The Domination.

  There were other lesser planets, Powers and Principalities, reduced to servitude by expeditions of Virtues sent out by Epsilon Tauri. Mankind’s fellow slaves.

  One was HD 28678, a single star with a single gas giant, some seven hundred forty lights from Sol. The gas giant was alive like Jupiter, and had absorbed all the lesser planets and asteroids in the system to itself.

  Another was 49 Eridani, which Earthly astronomers thought to be a blue subgiant star. There was a semi-permeable Dyson sphere around the star, which absorbed wavelengths useful to the civilization there, and only let pass through the vibrations not useful to them. The star hence appeared cooler and older than its true temperature, classification, and age. The star also appeared larger than its real size, since the diameter was that of the outer layer of Dyson sphere plates.

  A third was T Tauri, a young and brilliant variable star some 420 lightyears beyond the Hyades cluster. The information showed twenty or thirty separate races had evolved on the surfaces of asteroids, planetoids, centaurs, and plutinos in the dozen belts and archipelagoes in that system, as the immense energy of the star apparently created an immense evolutionary fecundity. All but ten of the alien races of T Tauri had reformed themselves into machinelike forms of life, and blended with each other. There was cliometric information listed as well. The system was in the midst of an engineering project, and all the matter of the many belts and clouds was being broken down and reassembled.

  Another: he saw the star Beta Tauri, called Alnath, a near neighbor only 131 lightyears from Earth, but far beyond the thirty-three lightyear diameter the Hyades defined for the Second Sweep of mankind. The gas giant there spawned a race of beings whose civilization radiated radio signals which might have been detected from Earth, had the proper instruments been orbited in the late Neolithic. But Ain discovered the emissions thousands of years ago, sent an emissary, and the wasteful radio noise was stopped, as new energy systems and new communication systems were imposed. By the time Marconi on Earth invented the first crystal radio set, Alnath was silent.

  And there were twenty more. Only two polities (one Archangel, one Potentate) were thriving on solid planets, but these were small worlds, like Mercury, cinders huddled near their gigantic suns, and their civilizations had grown outward from the bottoms of boiling lakes and steaming oceans of chemicals never seen on Earth outside of a metallurgical laboratory.

  The other lesser races enthralled by Hyades were born in gas giants of the “Fire Giant” type unknown to Sol: bodies larger than Jupiter nearer their home stars than Venus.

  Apparently life did not often arise on planets like Earth. Its atmosphere was too thin, and its temperature too cold, to aid in the formation of the most useful and most likely of organic chemicals.

  And none of the planets, not one, depicted a race of beings that evolved to dwell on the surface of their worlds. All were aquatic. They were either Mercury-creatures shaped like swarms of motes smaller than viruses swimming through seas of molten metal or else were Jupiter-monsters larger than archipelagoes swimming through methane hydrospheres thicker and darker than any oceans of Earth.

  In neither case were there any images or specifications of the biological forms of the subject species. Listed here were only energy outputs, locations and number of communication centers, volume of calculation power. Hyades did not record any information about the shapes and biological limitations of bodies.

  Montrose saw the cliometric information on evolution rates, if “evolution” were the proper word for artificial changes. He assumed there was no more point to tracking the bodily shapes of creatures scores or hundreds of lightyears away, information decades or centuries in the past, than there would have been to track changes in lady’s fashions. Brain information could at will be edited, redacted, copied, or transcribed directly into bodies (biological or mechanical or both or neither) that could be created, altered, and shed at will. The individual members, across interstellar distances, were as insignificant as the individual cells in a human body. These civilizations were Noöspheres now. According to the Cold Equations, the only thing that really mattered about them was the volume of matter and energy in spacetime they could transform from useless to useful forms: how much work they could do.

  And these so-called primitive races were not primitive at all. Some had library systems covering part of their world, or several worlds, or had thinking engines filling the volume of moons and planets and gas giants: They were Archangels, Potentates, and Powers.

  Some were in advance of Sol, with megascale engineering structures orbiting their home stars in rings and
ovals and woven strands of material, hemispheres or globes surrounding their suns, some or all of the material in the clouds and planetary belts and cometary haloes redesigned, transformed, made into self-aware calculation substances. They were Virtues, Principalities, and Hosts.

  If there were any conquered civilization or species below what Rania had dubbed the Angelic level, the level equal to what Del Azarchel had achieved by reducing the entire hydrosphere of Earth to a coherent thinking system, it was not shown on these charts. Kardashev Zero species were too insignificant to be included.

  Whatever hope Montrose might have harbored for contacting these beings, his fellow servants, and fomenting a general rebellion was dashed when he saw how much more advanced they were than Tellus, how much more bound to the Hyades systems of law and trade.

  And these were only the projects under the rule of the star Ain. What mighty works preoccupied the four hundred remaining conquering stars in the Hyades Cluster were not imparted in the Cahetel maps and diagrams.

  4. The Minions of Praesepe

  The view widened again. Now the screens showed farther stars and greater beings. Here were the other Dominations, the equals of Hyades, and the fellow servants of something far superior to them, a Dominion seated in M44, the Praesepe Cluster. Montrose saw where the centers of power of the Dominations bound in fealty to Praesepe were.

  Closest to Hyades was a small Domination whose capital was in the Melotte 111 star cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices, some 270 lightyears distant from Sol, occupying fifty stars.

  This cluster of interlocking civilizations had made the choice of Achilles, to live splendid and short lives: the cliometric calculus showed rapid expansion followed by a sudden drop off and senescence. Circa A.D. 3,500,000 the various creatures and components of Melotte 111 Domination would destroy themselves in a series of psychological socioeconomic contractions. These extinctions would leave behind a rich detritus of elements, of artifacts, of libraries. A group of interstellar civilizations, now in the planning stage, destined to combine into a Domination in that same vicinity circa A.D. 5,500,000 would discover this detritus, and be catapulted precociously into the higher levels of mental topography, and become a Dominion. This Dominion would prove so useful against the wars and deprivations anticipated to arise throughout the Orion Arm in that era, that Praesepe did nothing to interfere with the suicidal shortsightedness of Melotte 111.

  Next in size and power was a supercivilization spread throughout the famous Pleiades Cluster at 440 lights, a cluster dominated by hot, blue, and extremely luminous stars which (so the cliometric information revealed) had been fed interstellar rivers of gas to increase their burning and shorten their lives. For what purpose, the notation did not say.

  Montrose saw the expansion plans of Ptolemy’s Cluster at eight hundred lights away, one of the closer servants races. The servant of Praesepe farthest from Earth was seated in the Cone Nebula, over two thousand lightyears away.

  Xi Persei in the California Nebula, fifteen hundred lights from Sol, was the center of an immense globe of expansion, far outstripping the modest effort of Hyades. The smallest globe of expansion was in M42, also called the Orion Nebula, at sixteen hundred lights centered at Trapezium Cluster, where the civilization was busily making new stars. The cliometric mathematics displayed on side screens associated with these stars showed that Orion Nebula was destined to outstrip and overtake his master, the Dominion at Praesepe. This would take place in roughly a billion years.

  And these maps did not reach beyond two thousand lightyears. Everything here was within one small segment of the Orion Arm. A few points in the Sagittarius or Perseus Arms were depicted, such as Ximen del Azarchel’s destination and flight path—yes, the motion of a vessel that large and that fast was observable to any large-scale orbital telescope. But few or no shipping lanes crossed between arms of the galaxy, and no downward chains of command. Where a shipping lane did cross the void between arms, one or more artificial columns or streamers of dust and nebular material had been constructed like a bridge. It was the opposite of what he would have expected. Emptier space was less economical for the starfaring civilizations to cross. That implied some sort of hydrogen ramscoop ship technology at work.

  He corrected himself. He could not conclude that all starfaring civilizations were so limited. M3, for example, an Authority occupying a cloud of five hundred thousand stars, was orders of magnitude more powerful than these little polities of fifty or five hundred stars. Their chains of command reached across galactic distances all the way to Sol. The Authority technology could be as far beyond the Hyades as the Hyades was beyond Jupiter.

  The largest scale star charts displayed the relative position of the arms of the Milky Way and the subgalaxies orbiting the core, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy would almost complete one orbit of the Milky Way in that period of time before the gravitic and tidal forces disrupted its structure, and brought its stars slowly into indistinguishable union with the other Milky Way stars.

  Montrose, looking at the time values for those predictions, had the disorienting sensation of being a mayfly looking at a mountain. Surely, the mountain would wear down in time, but when measured in terms of the number of mayfly lives added end-to-end, it became horrendous.

  Then he wondered if any currents, whenever they crossed his path, felt Montrose was such a mountain.

  “Ridiculous!” he said to himself. “I am just like any other man.” And he put the thought into a side pocket of his perfect memory to have a subpersonality examine later in more depth. For the moment, he wanted to concentrate on the alien.

  Why was it showing him this material?

  “Do you have a name?” he asked aloud.

  The black-coated, dripping skull seemed to be looking at him. The voice of the serpentine came from several of the nearby screens at once: Answered previously. We are the Cahetel of Hyades.

  “That is the name we call you. Have you no name for yourself?”

  Have you no name for yourself.

  For a moment, he wondered why the creature was repeating him. The voice was without inflection, since the creature had not mastered the nuances of using spacing, tone, and pitch for information, so he did not realize it had asked him a question.

  He said, “Menelaus Montrose.”

  That is the name your mother called you. Have you no name for yourself?

  It learned quickly. That sentence ended on a high note, indicating a question.

  “I did not pick my own name when I was christened.”

  Nor did we.

  And in this sentence there was a clear hint of dry humor in the tone of voice. It learned quickly indeed.

  He did not know which was worse, that this creature had actually made an indirect point in a fashion he understood, or that the creature had access to his dead self’s memories, and could read some or all of them.

  Perhaps anticipating his thoughts, the entity spoke again.

  Names issue from the verbal centers of ideation, occupying a mono-topological plane of the mental procedural ecology. Your Potentate had begun to experiment with multiple mental topographies, but intellects beneath the Virtue level are restricted to a single dimension of thought-to-symbol rationality. The Virtue Cahetel is polydimensional, ergo mental topological transformations no longer concern us. We employ preverbal structures for symbolization between signifiers and signified, and one-to-one unambiguities between signified logic relations.

  That was more like it. That sounded like an alien. Poxing incomprehensible.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Since the serpentine was using the same voice pattern as the alien, Montrose for a moment thought the alien was answering: “He is requesting a clarifying simplification.” But no, the serpentine was explaining Montrose’s comment to the entity.

  The Cahetel entity spoke. Again, its voice betrayed more nuance. It almost sounded alive. Not quite
.

  Simplification: Our system uses different and unique names for different and unique object-events in the extensions of spacetime matter-energy, and symbolizes similarities of category by nominal similarities. Since we are not the same Cahetel now as when the moment ago we began to speak, we have no consistent name to offer.

  “You seem the same to me.”

  That is a limitation of your perception. If you insist on aberrant symbolism, call me Menelaus Montrose. His memory information now serves Hyades.

  He is, as we are, of Cahetel. He is, as we, of Ain. He is, as we, of Hyades.

  Menelaus Montrose will not endure. The elements of our purpose proving inefficient must and shall be obliterated.

  5. The Fellow Servants

  That comment made a tremor run through him. Montrose was surprised at himself. Was talking to this abomination actually so much worse than staring down the bore of an enemy pistol? Apparently it was. When he wiped his palms on his trousers, he realized they were slick with sweat.

  “Let’s stick with calling you Cahetel. Why are you showing me these star charts, these maps of time?”

  That you may enter a correct plea. You now speak for the human race, including biological and formal systems, Angels, Archangels, and Potentates, up through your Power housed in your innermost planet.

  “Innermost? Jupiter is the fifth planet, not the first.”

  The smaller, rocky bodies of the inner system are no longer significant. Do you have sufficient to plead with us? What you say determines the outcome for your race and its generations.

  “Sufficient what? Sufficient information, you mean?”

  Montrose now realized why he was so frightened. One wrong phrase, one wrong word, and he lost everything.

  He would lose his life and his world and their future.

  He would lose Rania.

  Montrose dearly wished his bigger, smarter self, the titanic body holding the calculation power of the Selene mind occupying the core of the moon, were here to advise him. His dim and flattened memories of what his larger self had meant to do, what he had understood about the universe, were like a dream that evaporates on waking. He wondered if men in the old days who suffered grievous head injuries, and forgot how to read and write, or senile grandfathers reduced to the thinking level of small children knew what this was like.