Because the exoskeletons were open, organs or instruments could be formed at will out of the golden substance as need dictated, and reach through the bars and lattices of the bodily frame. The skeletal ribs and slats were like Japanese fans or Venetian blinds, and could be expanded to cover all the golden body with armor.
Montrose recognized the golden stuff as Aurum Vitae, the rod-logic substance which, long and long ago, the Savants had attempted to coat the world. Beneath the amber surface he could see dimly the central creatures, one or two in each exoskeleton.
The central creatures were shaped like unborn babies, big-headed things with shrimplike bodies curled below, vestigial hands and feet dangling. External nerve paths ran from the skull and spine of each creature throughout the volume of the lump of pulsing gold he occupied. Nutriment placentas and recycling cells were connected to navel and anus by umbilicus and catheter. The golden fluid acted both as brain and as womb to them. Additional inputs like bundles of cable ran to eye sockets, ears, and the jawless hole in the front of the skull. These connections ran to a sensory exchange box floating just under an iron mask each creature carried on the surface of its golden integument.
The ostrich carried his iron mask on his helmet; the worm on his bow. The headless centaur carried his on his upright turret. The wheel had a mask perched at either side of its hub, at the crotch where his three right or three left arms met.
The masks were jointed so that mouth-slits and eyebrow-lines could be arranged in crude representations of human expressions, to assist the word communication, but all four masks at the moment showed the same blank look of stoic dispassion.
“Well,” Montrose said in English, “ain’t you just the most suck-ugly little critters Frankenstein ever barfed up on a bad day?”
The biped replied on two channels of information, in a grammar format called Rosetta stone, so that parallel meanings could be compared.
The first channel was the Swan initiation language. No two Swans spoke the same language, so each pair or trio of Swans seeking to address each other formulated a separate language for that dyad or triad. (If there was ever a time when any Swan spoke to a crowd, Montrose was unaware of it.) The initiation language was a set of protocols to aid the speed of linguistic development. Circuits in the crystal walls where more of Montrose’s brain circuits were hidden began the process of comparing signal codes and developing a common language.
The second channel contained a set of chimes or reverberations, an auditory code based on Monument logic-sets very similar to the Savant language of old. It was so logical and so mathematically elegant that Montrose could almost translate it by ear, without reference to the Swan singing of the first channel.
The biped mask said, “The comment is irrelevant, and will be discarded.” The voice was calm, and could have been a human voice.
“Hm. Will you discard it if’n I says it twice? Y’all are the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen without a butt.”
“The comment is again irrelevant. What can you deduce of this embassy by inspection? It is more efficient not to repeat known values.”
That was a reasonable request to make to a man above one’s own intelligence. It would be a waste of time for the biped to repeat things Montrose had already figured out. “You’re Blackie’s men. I recognize his handiwork. So how come you did not radio ahead and ask whatever you meant to ask? I could have said ‘No’ and ‘Go burn in Perdition’ with a lot less expense and trouble, and saved y’all a trip. Who you hiding from? Jupiter? His intelligence level is roughly fifty million these days. I take it that means you think you can hide from him for a while, but not forever.” Montrose had the gigantic exoskeleton of crystal tubes supporting him raise up his left hand, as slowly as a crane lifting a support beam to an upper story of a skyscraper, so he could tilt his huge head and rest his cheek on his fist. “There be two things I cannot puzzle out, not just by looking at you. First is, who do you think you are? For what purpose were you made? Second is, what is the point of all this?”
“We are the Third Human race, and stand to the Swans as they stand to the Firstlings. We are coherent where they are fissiparous. By Firstlings, we are called the Myrmidons.”
“I thought the word referred to ants, or maybe bullies who don’t question orders.”
There was no reply to that.
“My name’s Menelaus. And don’t say Meany Louse, cause that joke weren’t funny even back when I was human. How you doing? You fellers want anything to drink? I got whiskey. You can try the mechanical bull, excepting you ain’t got butts.”
The mask on the blunt prow of the wormlike serpent spoke. “We have no need for alcohol nor athletics. We suffer no fatigue, we require no entertainment nor diversion, and we have no capacity for joy.” The voice was cold, as emotionless as if a winter forest had spoken.
“No family names, neither, I take it?” Montrose said. “No families? No nothing?”
The serpent mask said, “We are the first iteration of incarnate humanity that has done entirely away with the vagaries of sex, being reproduced artificially upon decree. It has freed us of much of the inefficiencies and disturbances of baseline humanity. We are creatures of pure reason, the Men of the Mind.”
“So the suicide rate among you is really high, huhn?”
The wheel masks spoke. Its voices were machinelike, too inhuman even to sound cold. “Each individual is owned by, and thought-monitored by, and obeys, whichever commission designs him; and owns whomever he designs and commissions. Any man who takes up a duty one of us fails, takes on his role and privileges and rank. If our memories are sufficiently worthy to be placed in long-term storage, and passed on to next generations, then the memory-lineage is given a name-designation, and downloaded into receptor engrams in the child organism. Hence suicide is irrelevant.”
“Except a high suicide rate shows you weren’t built right. Some things can’t be changed in human nature, no matter what Blackie says.”
The wheel masks spoke again. “There are pain-inducing circuits wired into the brain which allow for remote monitoring of neural-electrical activity. The torment causes no physical damage, and any thoughts, hopes, or prayers which might allow the subject sufficient fortitude to resist the pain are isolated as nerve paths and treated with opiates, hindering concentration. The technique tends to deter serial mass-suicides.”
The serpent mask added, “The change to human nature can be made if sufficient pain and sacrifice is inflicted.”
“Nasty. And Blackie actually thought critters of your crippled psychology were what the Hyades wanted as slaves, eh?”
The centaur mask spoke for the first time. Its voice was a baritone, with inflections ringing with pride and command. It sounded human and more than human. “You mock the heroic nature of our race.”
“Damn straight, I do.”
The centaur reared up on its hind legs, assuming the posture of a four-handed giant. The mask in the center of the human-shaped upper torso said coldly, “We suffer that others may live. All humanity would perish if the Myrmidons did not stand ready to preserve them. Our moral code is of iron, and it dictates that extinction must be avoided at all costs.”
Menelaus said wryly, “Lots of men say they have a code which promotes survival. Funny thing is, those are the very codes that don’t.”
“Lesser men may say what they wish. We are Myrmidons. We stand ready to pay that cost.”
“So what about your suicide rate? That don’t sound like survival at all costs to me.”
The centaur folded itself down on its haunches. “An elite force must purge the weak from its candidates: it is the same for races. Life serves life.”