The Vindication of Man Page 18

  But this hiding of the eyes was something more primal: it spoke of something ancient, of weapons older than mudra, older than disease. It was a gesture to ward off the deadly shekinah of atomic or coherent-light weapons that could blind the non-Patrician eye.

  Sacerdotes never bowed so low, nor hid their eyes in their elbows, and their traditions were older than mind-recordings in the most ancient archives, and some said, older than the printing press, which had been invented on the planet Splendor of Delta Pavonis.

  Vigil concluded that this gesture came from the somatic tradition of Eden, the home of Man, since it clearly was a gesture that would never develop during shipborne evolution. This meant that it was a gesture peculiar to the Order of Stability Lords.

  But, if so, it was part of the tradition his father had kept from him, or had not known to pass along. That implied an interruption of transmissions from the older generations: there was no more fearsome crime among the First Human Race than for one faction, or order, or nation, or race to redact the past of another, or interfere with their memory.

  What had his father not told him?

  His battle internal noted that everyone in arm’s reach was hiding their eyes or exposing the backs of their necks. Better yet, no one was in a good position to block his path down the corridor leading to the interior of the Palace of Future History.

  Vigil turned sideways, sidled past the seneschal, and walked briskly down the hall, then trotted, and then started running, before anyone could put out a hand to halt him. Over his shoulder, he called as he sped ever more quickly, “Sentries, as you were! Return to your posts! Well done! I will commend you to your superiors for your zeal and precision in the execution of your duties!”

  Away he fled.

  3. The Mandala of the Hermetic Door

  It took a long moment for the seneschal to struggle to his feet, and, tottering on his tall shoes, to come trotting after him, trying to keep up. The distance between them increased as Vigil ran lightly past the bemused siren. The seneschal was puffing and blowing, unable to draw breath to speak, signaling via an internal creature-to-creature envoy, but Vigil’s internals recoiled wryly and did not answer the signal.

  At the end of the far corridor was a vestry booth, with racks for air-lances and armor and trees for shoes and helmets, as well as ceremonial valves and fonts for functions no longer performed, but which mocked long-forgotten airlock procedures. Three steps beyond the booth loomed the azure-and-black doors leading into the six-sided Presence Chamber, flanked to either side by golden pillars.

  He knew from his father’s instructions that there were twelve doors leading into the chamber from twelve different anterooms, each with its own set of apartments, archives ceremonies, life support, scents, and musical score.

  Somewhere behind the walls nearby, from six other directions, other doors of other hues and heraldries hung under other mandalas admitted the Six Speaking Lords of the Table of Stability: the Aedile, the Chronometrician, the Chrematist, the Lighthousekeeper, the Portreeve, and the Theosophist. And each had his Companions or Attendants who entered with him.

  Interspersed were five further doors, slightly smaller in dignity, for the Commensal Lords, also called the Silent Lords, who could not speak until addressed: the Castigator, the Vatic Essomenic Officer, the Onomastician, the Anthroponomist, the Terraformer.

  His door here was one of those of second dignity. It was inscribed with a winged globe, two apple trees guarded by dragons, and the image of Icarus. This was the door reserved for the use of his office, the Darwinian Corrective Officer, also called by its ancient title, the Hermeticist. His position was that of a Commensal, a member who could only speak when called upon.

  Vigil made the mistake, as he ran toward the door, of looking up to admire the nocturnal ebony and celestial silver ornaments of the architrave and doorposts. Unfortunately, above the door, half-hidden in a set of eye-dazzling mirrors and lenses lodged between capitals of the pillars, stood an ancient mandala. No mere heirloom, this: it was fully charged and correctly established, and the image jumped into his eyes like the gaze of a basilisk.

  This was a mandala, unsurprisingly, established to enforce decorum. Although the soul of Vigil and several internal minds attempted two or three meditative tricks or slippery definitions, he could not convince his hindbrain or midbrain of the idea that running swiftly here was in keeping with the grave dignity of the chamber. An alien force moved through his nervous system, leaving him flaccid and unable to make himself run. Perforce, he slowed, and his steps became sober, his expression and gesture magnanimous and filled with pomp and grandeur.

  This allowed the seneschal, who apparently had smart material in his absurd shoes to allow him to lengthen his stride when need be without toppling, to loom up behind him and catch Vigil by the shoulder.

  “My good lord,” said the seneschal, “my office requires I present you, but only once certain formalities—”

  Vigil raised his hand to his shoulder, intending to break the man’s thumb, but the mandala looming above the doors filled his vision and prevented violence. He was only allowed to brush the hand away. Vigil said, “Tell me your name and lineage, that I might know whose family to encompass in my complaint.”

  The seneschal laughed with relief. “Is it legal action you contemplate? My line is a client of the Leafsmith family, who hold the monopoly on barristers, jurists, and prosecutors. No writ can prevail.”

  Vigil was shocked at the open admission of the corruption of the legal system. Perhaps he was merely a rural boy from the far reservations to the north, unequal to the sophistication and decay of this great city.

  He gritted his teeth and whispered, “And my vengeance?”

  Once again, like a marionette with its programming flummoxed, the man fell prone, crouching and striking his tall, ridiculous hat against the floor.

  4. Nice Costume

  At that same moment, a tall, bleak-featured, and ugly man came around the corner, pushing a bucket on wheels and carrying a mop. Vigil was puzzled at the sight, since he had never seen a mop that required a man to carry it before. Perhaps it was a manual antique.

  His interest in antiques pulled his eyes toward the mop. It was a long moment before he looked at the man. Only then did Vigil realize the man was like no one he had seen before.

  The man’s bloodline was uncertain, but there was something Chimerical in his deep-set eyes, which never seemed to blink. The man was dressed in the smock and headscarf of a janitor and wore boots like a Nomad or Esne. In his mouth was a device Vigil had never seen before, some sort of incense burner or intoxicant. It looked like a roll of leaves tightly wound together and lit on fire. The smoke was clinging and unpleasant, and the tall man drew it into his mouth with a deep breath. The smoke came pouring out of an odd organ on the front of the man’s face. The organ occupied the position where a nose would be, but only if a nose was two or three times its normal size, crooked, and hooked like the bill of a bird.

  The man’s hair, which was close cropped, was colored like Fox hair, a reddish hue that no normal human ever wore. On one hand were scars from old knife fights. His ears and Adam’s Apple protruded. The errors and ungainliness of the face was such that Vigil realized this must be the member of some order of ascetics who had vowed to avoid all cosmetic corrections. But what order would take so cruel a vow?

  But no! Vigil let one of his internals utter a silent laugh. He had forgotten the day. The janitor was returning from a fancy dress ball, and his face was comically marred to resemble some figure from the history of some far world, or perhaps a horror tale circulating among small boys. Vigil felt sorry for the man. Most masqueraders made the mistake of assuming that the fuzzy and discolored old records were literal and that people in the old days actually looked so stiff and so uncomely. Vigil knew that was not true. Only the most ancient of all races of man, the long-extinct Sylphs, or the nameless race that came before them, did not have access to nanocellular regeneration te
chniques.

  “Nice costume,” said Vigil.

  “I didn’t reckon you’d spy through it so right quick as all that. I keep forgetting every Jack and Harry is as bright as whatever he needs to be, these days. So what is it going to be?”

  The tall man spread his hands and moved his shoulders up. It was a gesture Vigil did not recognize; it did not seem to be a mudra, nor was it in the list for recognized military command gestures.

  Vigil’s father would have known everyone in the Palace of Future History on sight and should have shared all his memories with his son. Was the janitor expecting Vigil to call him by name, despite his uncosmetic surgery?

  The janitor then plucked his headscarf off, pushed it into a pocket of his smock, drew the smock over his head, and threw it in a corner. Then he dropped the mop handle. The mop stared up sullenly, slithered over to the dropped smock, and picked it up.

  Vigil, without moving his eyes, looked down through a nearby camera spot at where the seneschal was crouching on all fours. Vigil certainly did not want to admit in the seneschal’s hearing that he had no idea what was going on here.

  Vigil said, “I am summoned to the Table. Ruffians attempted to impede me, and the sentries and this man here to delay me. The lighthouse beam is misaligned and the Emancipation will not be landed, and all the Stability is in vain. I am not easily halted, and I weary of these delays. So? What now? What do you think it is going to be?”

  The janitor shifted his cylinder of smoldering leaf from one corner of his mouth to the other with a twist of his lips.

  “You being bushwhacked, that weren’t none of my doing, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Vigil said quite honestly, “I was not thinking that, no.”

  “I’m retired,” the tall man said.

  Vigil looked at where the sad mop was holding the smock and headscarf. “Yes, I see that. I have need of someone who knows the details of procedure here. Are you familiar with them?”

  The other said, “The standard procedures ain’t changed since the days when the Starfarer’s Guild was founded, for obvious reasons, even if some younger folk forget what they are for.”

  Vigil’s antiquarian interests were provoked. “You have traveled far and slumbered long?”

  He meant it as a question, but the man obviously took it as a statement, because the man nodded. “Obviously I know all the old procedures. You know who I am.”

  Vigil was sure, now, that the man was an Esne of the Errant line. No one else was so proud and crude. “I know who you are,” he said graciously, “but let not our difference in station be a difficulty!”

  The man nodded. “Won’t bug me if it don’t bug you.”

  “There are things my father did not tell me. I do not wish to shame his name. You may join my retinue if you need employment. You can serve as my valet and help me negotiate these difficulties. I have no one else.”

  The ex-janitor looked so surprised that his mouth sagged, and his smoking cylinder fell from his lips, but he managed to catch it nimbly in his hand and juggle it, swearing strange oaths, between his two hands, not quite burning himself.

  The man eventually got the smoldering tube back in his mouth. “My aunt Bertholda’s sagging pestilential putrefic paps, is you offering me a job? A job? Like for pay?”

  The man must be of a very low caste indeed, if the offer of such a humble post so astonished him.

  “I do not think any difference in rank or race matters,” said Vigil, trying not to sound condescending. “The Sacerdotes say all races are equal in the eyes of Providence, despite the inequalities in the Hermeticists who created them placed in them.”

  The fellow laughed. “A man after my own heart! I ain’t heard talk like that in a long time. But what makes you think I will help you land the ship? I don’t need anything on her. What’s she carrying for me? ’Cept a big headache.”

  Vigil blinked at the fellow in astonishment. Was he mad? Many folk departed from normal psychological states during festivities or added some humorously psychotic subpersonality to their psychic architecture.

  Vigil said, “My dear valet, I was not expecting you to help me land the ship, but I would appreciate any advice concerning protocols as I confront the Table, or the personalities of the men involved. They have betrayed their oaths and forgotten them. Are you of their party or of mine?”

  The man said, “I could ask you the same question. I don’t want you to blow up the planet if she don’t land. Why not let her fall on by?”

  Vigil did not understand the question. It seemed a matter too obvious and too large to fit into words. It was like asking why civilization was better than savagery. The only thing he could think to say was: “The ship must land.”

  “Why?”

  “So that the Schedule be kept, the inviolate Schedule, to which countless men of ages past and yet to come on many worlds devote our lives. So that we may prove that we recall our oaths.”

  “Why?”

  “I am loyal to Rania. Surely every loyal subject loves his princess. Don’t you?”

  Again, the reaction was odd. Surely the man had been drinking spirits, or his spirits had been drinking alcohol, for he grew suddenly melancholy. “I reckon I still love her, too. So, sure, come on. Maybe I can buffalo whatever else is sniffing for me. Call me your Yes Man, then.”

  Vigil was not sure what half these words meant, and the local subsystems could not provide him a lexicon either. Perhaps the man’s name was Yesman, or perhaps he came from a race or sept which called itself by such an odd title.

  5

  The Chamber of the Black Hexagon

  1. Valet, Watchman, Bailiff, Counsel

  The valet, Yesman, or whatever his name was, said heavily, “Well, let’s tart you up, or else the pox-riddled cross-grained curs will toss you out on your ear for trifling with their laws.” He took Vigil over to the vestry booth and adorned him in additional regalia.

  Black leg sheathes with silver studs were buckled to his legs, symbols of the magnetic greaves once used for extravehicular activity; a war belt with sword and prong pistol, weapons carefully calculated not to breach the hull or damage the engineering, the valet slung over one shoulder and buckled around his waist.

  The valet took the prong pistol, broke it open, snorted in disgust at the design of the cartridges, said, “This is a poxing toy for kids!” He threw the weapon in the trash can. “Take this.” He slipped a glass pistol of antique design out from his own jacket and into the holster.

  When the valet made as if to place the mask back on Vigil, Vigil shied back, saying, “I am convinced ancient man was designed by the Hermeticists not to itch in their faces. There is no explanation otherwise for the uncouth garb the ancients wore.”

  “Heh. This uniform is as old as I am, sonny, so don’t mock it. But I think the rules allow you to go unmasked. Not throwing this thing away. Lemme see.” The valet adjusted the mask fittings and thrust his huge nose into it, followed by the rest of his face. Rummaging around in the vestry, he slung a spare cloak of ribbed silver over his own shoulders and found a deep hood in which to hide the bristles of his short-cropped red hair.

  An internal creature prodded Vigil and drew his attention to where the seneschal still crouched on the floor, motionless, evidently awaiting some order or signal.

  The valet said, “They got a number of legal tricks they can pull to prevent you from sitting down. One of them is letting that guy there not open the door. Point your finger at him, say or sign the words, I grant you leave, your shift is over.”

  The seneschal stood up, looking surprised. He said, “Milord, this is not proper! I refuse to take my leave time! I hereby lodge a formal protest with the Officer of the Watch.”

  The valet said, “Tell him to shut his yam-eating scrofulous trap. Since his shift is over, he does not have access to the circuits to lodge a potato, much less lodge a protest. Tell him to stuff a pipe up his fundament and blow smoke out of his bunghole for an hour and a hal
f, until the next watch change.”

  The seneschal snarled at the valet, “But I can raise a point of order at any time and call the Officer of the Watch at any time! You are legally required to stand by until he arrives! And since he is in yonder chamber, now lawfully allowed to depart it, aha! You also must abide here with me until the next watch change! That is ninety minutes by the Sacerdotal reckoning of time! Doors! You are my witness!”

  Vigil gave the mudra to open the doors, but they refused the command. A lantern to the left of the door turned from blue to red, and the architrave displayed a mudra which indicated the need to stand by until the Officer of the Watch arrived.

  The valet sighed. “Okay, you guys think you can choke me with laws and rut your dangles up with me. Hellfire and pestulation! I am a goddamn pus-licking, low-down, snake-tongued, crook-brained lawyer, and I’ll stuff the law books down your craw one jot and tittle at a time, you rut with me!” He turned angrily to Vigil. “Now they got my dander up, and that’s never fun for no one but me! Draw the damn pistol I just gave you, and shoot it at the floor.”

  Vigil did so. The glass weapon was magnetic, so there was no noise of discharge, but the report of the shot ripping through the sound barrier, and the crack of the marble floor, shocked the hearing.

  Bells, whistles, and flutes began shrieking and ringing, along with the sound of the sackbut and timbrel, cornet, cymbals, psaltery, dulcimer. The lanterns flared with colors of rose, cyan, scarlet, and gold, and many voices spoke in languages long forgotten.

  A nearby door, but not the locked door leading into the Chamber, now swung open. A trio of guards in brass and black armor and air-helms of silver, plumes of poison-detection feathers spreading from their crests, came into the room at a quick march, pacification wands at the ready. They must have just that moment been woken from slumber, no doubt stacked in a closet against the hour when they were needed, because the one in the front was still white in the face, the chemicals of long-term hibernation not yet faded from his cells. He had also not yet closed his face mask, so the valet only skinned a few knuckles when he punched the man in the face and knocked him to the ground.