Maliboeus, who had been recently re-elected as a Tribune, said, “But surely the Overlord will read your mind and memory, and see your plan.”
“He will, but by then it will be too late…”
Aeneas felt the pulse, a tiny burst of power in comparison to the endless volumes of death energy all around him, lance through the core of Rhazakhang and slay the warlord instantly.
Aeneas felt his thoughts being ripped, one thought chain after another, directly from his brain, as the Overlord impatiently sought the answer to this very question.
The Overlord was an archvampire, a thing that could change its amoeboid body to liquid or solid at will, or change any part of any needed organ. Hence, any part of the vast body could be changed into thinking material. The Overlord coated not just the whole palace here, and the endless expanse of one ringworld a lightyear in radius, but many such ringworlds, forming a nearly solid nested ball of material, nearly a dozen square light years in surface area. The mental substrate of the Overlord filled a Dyson that could encompass a star cluster. The brain of Aeneas was merely a two pound lopsided sphere of gray matter!
Had it been in words, the monster’s demand would have read: LET IS BE SAID HOW YOU, A MERE LIVING CREATURE, DARE HOPE TO READ A MIND SO VAST OR CARRY OUT A PLAN SO FOOLISH, WITH BUT ONE SMALL, PUNY, SINGLE BRAIN?
“Why do people keep assuming I have only one brain? That is the mistake the first assassin made the first time someone tried to kill me. The brain you are talking to is a disposable spare.”
In his thoughts, clear and plain, Aeneas revealed the myriads of hidden brains hidden beneath hidden brains he possessed, each connected by contortion gates and warp channels to hundreds of stars in Andromeda.
These stars were tamed and surrounded by working armatures. Their energy he could teleport inside his body, hold there, and release, and also use that same energy to power his thought probes. It was a combination of the Nine Technologies of the Forerunners which the Forerunners themselves never explored.
“I used my ability to form living metal, bioadmantium, and applied it to Tipler Ring Material, which is a solidified form of neutronium plasma. My body literally contains a miniature sun, and I have several more suns standing by in nullspace, which will be contorted into your body the moment you receive these thoughts. Meanwhile, thought-probes driven by all the power of dozens of suns have forced their way into your mental libraries, found the information needed, and transmitted that same information back to the targeting system of the main Andromeda Armature.”
CALL OFF THE ATTACK! YOU ARE THE LEADER, THE HEIR TO LORD TELLUS! YOUR SERVANTS WILL STAY THEIR HANDS IF THEIR MASTER IS THREATENED!
“No, that was a lie, a bit of misinformation fed to you in the same way Lord Tellus, in his day, when he first learned of you, convinced you he was a vampire himself who merely had Earth as his private horde of snackfoods.
“You morons. You can make yourselves smarter than living men by an overabundance of life energy, but you cannot understand how we think, how we can act unselfishly, how we can live for others. How we forgive. I am never going to find out who killed my father.
“You see, the Forerunners told me where the living light that slays the vampires really and ultimately comes from. From living beings, yes, but what is the first source of life? Who is the source of all truth, beauty, goodness? Who ignited the Big Bang that set all time and space in motion, thereby creating the laws of nature? Only someone outside timespace and above the laws of nature could have done it.
“You knew at one time, but forced yourself to forget, when you chose death over life.
“I am not the top of the pyramid of vampires of my galaxy as you are the top of the pyramid of yours. We built a townhall, not a pyramid, and we made all of us lords of creation.
“I am just a private citizen. I own a farm. I design, make, and breed beasts and birds and fish and bugs out of all fashion of substances for every imaginable environment, so that no niche, not even the photospheres of blazing suns, will hereafter be empty of abundant life!
“I live with my wife. She weaves and composes dream-stuff, and enjoys some fame at it. By day, she hunts creatures I make. Can I show you photographic memories of my great-great-great-granddaughter, Nephelethea?”
The brain of the Uttermost Overlord, vast beyond telling though it was, could not comprehend the concepts he was shown. A leaderless galaxy? Worlds ruled by laws, not by ruthlessness?
A man with infinite, unbridled power who threw it all away? A king who put aside his crown to come here, and stand in the dark, in a mortuary-space of endless bones? An emperor who scorned his throne, and came here to be tormented? To become a captive, a food beast, less than a slave?
Aeneas could see the monster’s thoughts were confused and snarled as it wrestled with the impossible paradox: the ancient abomination could not utter a word, could not construct a coherent thought.
“As I said, I came out of retirement to volunteer for this undercover operation. Since it was my idea, I did not want to send another in my place. And by the time you see and understand this thought in my head, all of the Milky Way will be embedded into the faster-than-light naked singularity horizon of the ancient and living stars you captured. You see, the effect of a singularity unfolding is even faster than faster-than-light warp effects. It is instantaneous. It is above anything in nature and acts faster. It is ultrasuperluminary.”
The frustration and bitter wonder of the Overlord forced itself into a coherent thought: HOW? BUT HOW CAN YOU CHANGE YOURSELF FROM A MAN TO A STAR? YOU ARE MERELY MORTAL! MERELY A LIMITED, LIVING THING!
“Living, yes. Merely, no.”
IMPOSSIBLE! ABSURD! HOW CAN YOU CREATE NEW SCIENCES WHERE NONE EXISTED BEFORE? HOW CAN YOU MAKE OF YOURSELF MORE THAN YOU ARE? HOW?
But the answer that was in the brain of Aeneas was not pulled forth, for the Uttermost Overlord was dead to the last trace of his immense brainspace, larger than worlds. Even had he lived, he would not have understood the answer.
Space and time convulsed with the shocks being released from Andromeda into the heart of Milky Way. The armature of the Great Sphere encircling the supermassive black hole was destroyed as that singularity unfolded instantly, filling the light years with flame.
Aeneas, wrapped in zones of protective force, hanging above an ocean of space now ablaze with white light, paused for a moment. He saw the inverted supermassive black hole of the core now flaming with rainbow upon burning rainbow of glorious energy brilliant and bright on all wavelengths. He saw whole solar systems of living suns and worlds rising from the deep, shining on the mental wavelengths with the pure, strong thoughts of all those Forerunner races who had fought to the last, never contemplating surrender.
Despite that there was none to hear, before entering a warpchannel back to his home and wife, Aeneas smiled and broadcast into the universe an answer to that final question:
“Because we live.”
Science Fiction
Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright
Unwithering Realm: The Door into Nowhere by John C. Wright
Unwithering Realm: The Darkest Tower by John C. Wright
Unwithering Realm: The Lord of the Black Land by John C. Wright
Unwithering Realm: The Blood Storm by John C. Wright
No Gods, Only Daimons by Kai Wai Cheah
Hammer of the Witches by Kai Wai Cheah
The Corroding Empire: Corrosion by Johan Kalsi
Back From the Dead by Rolf Nelson
Hyperspace Demons by Jonathan Moeller
Mutiny in Space by Rod Walker
Alien Game by Rod Walker
Young Man's War by Rod Walker
QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Jeff Sutton, Jean Sutton, and Vox Day
>
Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War by Thomas Hobbes
Fantasy
One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright
The Book of Feasts & Seasons by John C. Wright
Iron Chamber of Memory by John C. Wright
Moth & Cobweb 1: Swan Knight's Son by John C. Wright
Moth & Cobweb 2: Feast of the Elfs by John C. Wright
Moth & Cobweb 3: Swan Knight's Sword by John C. Wright
Moth & Cobweb 4: Daughter of Danger by John C. Wright
Moth & Cobweb 5: City of Corpses by John C. Wright
Moth & Cobweb 6: Tithe to Tartarus by John C. Wright
Arts of Dark and Light 0: Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day
Arts of Dark and Light 1: A Throne of Bones by Vox Day
Arts of Dark and Light 2: A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day
A Magic Broken by Vox Day
The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day
The Last Witchking by Vox Day
The Altar of Hate by Vox Day
The War in Heaven by Vox Day
The World in Shadow by Vox Day
The Wrath of Angels by Vox Day
Military Science Fiction
There Will Be War Vol. I ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. II ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. III ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. IV ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. V ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. VI ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. VII ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. VIII ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. IX ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. X ed. Jerry Pournelle
Plague Wars 0: The Eden Plague by David VanDyke
Plague Wars 1: Reaper's Run by David VanDyke
Plague Wars 2: Skull's Shadows by David VanDyke
Galactic Liberation 1: Starship Liberator by David VanDyke and B.V. Larson
Galactic Liberation 2: Battleship Indomitable by David VanDyke and B.V. Larson
Riding the Red Horse Vol. 1 ed. Tom Kratman and Vox Day
Fiction
An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity by J. Mulrooney
Hitler in Hell by Martin van Creveld
Loki's Child by Fenris Wulf
The Ames Archives 1: Brings the Lightning by Peter Grant
The Ames Archives 2: Rocky Mountain Retribution by Peter Grant
The Missionaries by Owen Stanley
Non-Fiction
4th Generation Warfare Handbook by William S. Lind and LtCol Gregory A. Thiele, USMC
A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind by Martin van Creveld
Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld
Clio & Me: An Intellectual Autobiography by Martin van Creveld
Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind
On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind
MAGA Mindset: Making YOU and America Great Again by Mike Cernovich
The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne
Appendix N: A Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons by Jeffro Johnson
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright
Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander
Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting by David the Good
Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening by David the Good
Push the Zone: The Good Guide to Growing Tropical Plants Beyond the Tropics by David the Good
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day
SJWs Always Double Down: Anticipating the Thought Police by Vox Day
Collected Columns, Vol. I: Innocence & Intellect, 2001—2005 by Vox Day
Collected Columns, Vol. II: Conceit & Crisis, 2006—2009 by Vox Day
Collected Columns, Vol. III: Failure & Freedom, 2010—2012 by Vox Day
Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America by John Red Eagle and Vox Day
On the Existence of Gods by Dominic Saltarelli and Vox Day
On the Question of Free Trade by James D. Miller and Vox Day
Do We Need God To Be Good? by C.R. Hallpike
The LawDog Files by LawDog
The LawDog Files: African Adventures by LawDog
The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon by Moira Greyland
Superluminary_The World Armada Page 18
