The Swan spoke in an eerie voice. “I am Svanhildr the Anarchist, elected against my will and by many filthy threats to represent the cliometric unity of the interests of Second Humanity. I am, if you like, the Judge of Swans. By my counsel, Amphithöe was allowed, because of the sacred fetters of motherhood, to speak first her passionate plea. But let no one say she speaks alone or selfishly. All, all are gathered here. We have brought all the living creatures of the world to this place to beg and plead with you, Judge of Ages. Spare us. Do not expose us naked to the gaze of monstrous Jupiter.”
Montrose said, “It is death, death for the colonists, death for the human race, death for Rania, if I agree with you.”
Another man spoke. He was of a form and fashion from a century unknown to Montrose, bear-faced and dark-furred with emerald-green and night-adapted eyes, and ears like dark semicircles. At his shoulder was a sword taller than himself, made of pale wood. “Your Honor, then let us die free. If our histories do not tell lies about you, you alone of the men of the primordial world before the flames, before the antecpyrosis, you alone understand what freedom means. You came from a free land called Texas. You spoke against the Master of the World. You dueled him; he threw on your head a tower that reached to the stars, and you in retaliation burned the world with fire from hell, and took him by the foot and flung him to the moon. Are the legends false?”
“Actually, I grabbed him by the balls for the moon fling, but the history books sort of cleaned it up.”
A small Locust, blue as cobalt, stepped from behind the grass. He was so short that the grass was over his head. Montrose was so sharply reminded of little Preceptor Illiance from seven hundred years ago, that for a moment, he thought some memory from his newly reconstructed mind had by error forced its way into his sense impressions.
The Blue Man spoke in a voice like a woodwind instrument. “Sir! If you are the legendary being, the one man who protected mankind from the Machine for so long, be him now! Do not forsake us!”
And he flung himself on his face. The bear-faced warrior with the longbow and the proud Swan with her shining wings also lowered themselves to the ground, and the two lay full upon their faces.
In the distance, even the Giants bowed, like a line of mountains crumbling into the sea.
As if upon the signal of some trumpet inaudible to mortals, the grasses were flattened at that moment by a harsh and sustained wind from the north, and the wide field became apparent to view. The number of those who prostrated themselves was greater than Montrose had suspected, for many had been Locusts, or other dwarfish subspecies, and many more had been slumbering in a kneeling position, and did not rise when thawed, and so had been hidden in the grass until now.
It was so many people, all groveling to him. Montrose, overcome with emotion, turned his face away from them. But there was no escape for his gaze. Behind him, the river was filled with mermaids and dolphins and whales of the Melusine lineages, and they had extended their pleading hands to him, those who had hands, or turned on their backs to expose their throats, those who had not.
The Swan raised her head and spoke, “We do not deceive you. Walk the world. Come to know and love her fields and forests and floes of ice, her storming seas and skies of cold aurora fire!”
The bear-faced warrior said, “I vow you will not find one soul, not one, who does not call on you to leave us our liberty, our possessions, our children, our lives! All will weep for your mercy!”
The Locust said, “We will be nothing in the eyes of Jupiter. He will decide all futures without consulting us, and all our dreams and hopes and enterprises will be in vain.”
Amphithöe said, “Jupiter does not love us. You do.”
Del Azarchel, again, could think of a thousand things to say. He was sure each one of them would convince Montrose on the spot to damn Jupiter, and to damn the race, the dreams of Del Azarchel, to hell. A man with no more than ordinary self-control would have spoken. Del Azarchel was not ordinary.
So Del Azarchel, face as calm as a desperate poker player whose whole fortune and all his future waits in the center of the table for the final turn of a doubtful card, merely watched as Montrose, as if in a daze, walked down the flight of stairs to the water. Two dolphins and a mermaid offered him a small two-masted boat with a glass hull, and into the hull dropped fruits and flowers, and then swam backward away, reverently, never taking their eyes from Montrose.
Del Azarchel watched as Montrose sailed away with the current, downstream.
Then Del Azarchel turned and said lightly to Amphithöe, “Dearest Mother, what do you suppose will happen if that boast proves false, and he finds someone, somewhere on Earth, who would, as would I, far rather suffer slavery if it meant reaching the stars, than to squat in the mudhole we call home, calling our masterless misery freedom? Someone, just one?”
Amphithöe said, “Proud son, do you not understand this era yet? We are the children of Father Reyes y Pastor. He died to stop you. He died to save his soul. We shall do likewise.”
Del Azarchel smiled. “Gentle Mother, you are as uninformed about the fate of my father confessor as you are unwise about your own. But no matter! My reflected glory seems to have elevated you to a high station, where you speak in embassy for all the peoples and nations and kingdoms of the world! Does this mean you have a feast for me? I am weary of spaceman’s rations and claustrophobic cabins. I dream of flaming pits and suckling pigs. May we have a barbecue?”
5. The Voice in the Tree
A.D. 11301
How long Montrose stayed in the little dry meadow between two snowy peaks was something he loaded into a memory file that he expunged. Losing track of time helped him concentrate.
But as the snow crept down the mountain slopes, he departed that eerie cabin made of giant toadstools and woven ferns which had sprung up in a single still and silent midnight hour for his use, inexplicably. He glanced back only once to see that that the mushroom cabin was already melting, being torn to bits by insects smaller than dust specks.
The hike down the pass toward the river canyon was a long and thirsty one, and his feet ached in the moccasins he’d made from suicidal deer. Atop a small hillock halfway down the mighty slope, he saw an ash tree with a branch just the width and length to suit him for a walking stick.
He brought out his tomahawk and swung. The axe-blade came from the nanomachines in his blood which he had kneaded into a wedge of substance like bee’s wax. When the blood-machines were activated, they tried to put the wax into biosuspension, making it white and hard as diamond. With a solid noise, the white blade bit into the tree just where the branch met the trunk.
The tree shuddered, and blood oozed from the joint of the branch. At first, Menelaus thought something had gone wrong with his axe-head, and released blood particles from suspension.
He squinted. The tree was bleeding.
When the wind rustled the leaves, the leaves vibrated, turning their edges into the wind oddly. It formed a strange, breathless voice, reminiscent of grass whistle: “Judge of Ages, must you wound those who owe you kindness?”
Menelaus was startled. “Sorry but I—I didn’t think you’d get hurt. Or talk.”
“No pain is felt. Take the branch and welcome. We exist to serve man, as you do. All we have is free for your use, and the use of your fellow man.”
“You speak English?”
“As a courtesy to you. All living creatures were imprinted with the knowledge of your speech and background, that you might hear and know our beseeching.”