“Oh. I kind of hoped I’d be of some use around here for a while. The way you’ve been talking, things are going to start popping around here any second.”
“And so they will, my boy,” Mervyn told him gravely. “So they will. You have the power, and some formal training, but very little self-control, I fear. Still, only your heritage makes me hesitant to accept your services. You folks, as I said, always seem to make your own trouble and inflict it on everybody else.”
“Well, if you think it’s a curse, it’s going to come anyway, so I can’t lose any sleep over it. At least that Soul Rider’s over a thousand kilometers from here.”
“I know, I know. Don’t worry so much, son. Have a seat and relax.” He paused a moment, trying to find a bit of strength for person-to-person intensity. He never was very good at this sort of thing. “I have news of your grandmother.”
“You do!” He frowned suddenly. “Bad news, I take it.”
“In a way. I was correct in all things. Zelligman Ivan was clearing away the one distinct threat to him—the woman who routed Haldayne from this cluster and helped destroy his predecessor here—as well as currying favor with New Eden. He delivered her to them. A young Fluxlord named Richards was witness to the result. She allowed herself, in Flux, to be transformed into one of their kind of women and then married Adam Tilghman, the strongest mind and will of New Eden.”
“What! I don’t believe you! She would never—”
“Yes she would, and did,” Mervyn responded calmly. “You know only the loving grandmother and the warrior legends. We forget sometimes that those are human beings under all that guff. You think nothing of stalking a comely young lady and taking her to bed, but none of us can really imagine our parents doing such a thing or acting in such a manner. Family and authority figures are rarely taken as they are—real people with real hurts and wants and needs. Your grandmother considers herself a total failure, a killer of thousands. For over forty years there’s been nobody except possibly me whom she could relate to, human-to-human, and not as a legend, an institution, or a parent— and she blames me for part of her problems.”
Jeff was absolutely crushed. He simply couldn’t believe it. “They brainwashed her, that’s all.”
“Undoubtedly, but it didn’t take. She has more automatic protection than I do, and while I admit my body may be killed I consider my mind invulnerable to external pressure. If she took that binding spell it’s because she wanted to.”
“But she always hated them and everything they stood for!”
“Ah. yes, but we’re not dealing with a machine here. This is a person. She is paying off her guilt in a way that is physically painless. She’s had a life like no other, one of greatness, but it is for others to see and understand that. For every great thing she accomplished, she died inside, and benefited not a whit. No, if suicide runs in families, then you’re immune. What your grandmother and mother endured would have destroyed lesser people quickly. It just finally caught up to Cass.”
Jeff sat there quietly for a moment, trying to understand what Mervyn was saying. On an intellectual level he followed it, but on a personal one he would never understand it. “So what you’re saying is that the pressures of her life finally caught up to her, and she had a breakdown, and now she’s found a way out without shooting herself in the head.”
“That’s about it. It does, however, cause a severe headache for me. Don’t underestimate Tilghman. He’ll use her as a symbol. Her conversion has already spread terror among the local Fluxlords, who can’t jump fast enough to get on the New Eden bandwagon. Just tonight your grandmother is hostess to a dinner gathering of the uppermost echelons of New Eden. I don’t need to be there to know what they’re talking about. New Eden, with the intervening Fluxlords in line, is about to move on Anchor Nantzee, the most highly industrialized Anchor in the cluster and one of the top four on World. Bakha gives him the raw materials, and Logh is the breadbasket. Mareh, with its hordes of sheep and textile mills, is least important to him, but if Nantzee goes it’ll fall into his hands almost for the asking. His cult will control an entire cluster, and the vast bulk of Flux in between. It’s the start of a new Empire, and this time a very ugly one that might engulf us all.”
“Then this is where I guess I’d better be. Uh—sir?”
“Yes?”
“How do you know there’s this dinner party going on tonight? I thought you said New Eden was air-tight.”
“No, it’s not air-tight. What I told you was that what you were proposing was impossible. It is far easier to get information than to act on it. I, my boy, am off to Anchor Nantzee in a matter of hours, with a few stops at some nervous Fluxlands.”
“Surely the Nine could take them out!”
“Possibly. Certainly, so long as they have to move forces through Flux. But the Nine will not take them out. The Nine does not interfere as a group unless it is to directly thwart a dangerous act by the Seven. Had Coydt lived and been in control, we would have stopped it, but he’s long dead. New Eden hates the Seven as much or more than we do. I tried to get that distinction across to Sondra, but failed. If they take the cluster they will do as good or better a job of defending our Gate as we would. Old Zelligman is running around trying to break in, but he’s frustrated. On a personal level, I spent a good deal of time trying to talk them into some action, and failed miserably. I’m on my own in this, for humanitarian reasons and because I don’t like messes like this in my neighborhood. And to quiet you once and for all I should tell you that a majority of the Nine, like a majority of the Seven, are female.”
Jeff shook his head in wonder. “Then how could they . . . ?”
“Because they are committed to a higher duty. And, in a pinch, so am I. But I’m not pinched. Unless I’ve missed something very, very important, the Gates are not at risk here. The terrible thing about New Eden is that it is the legacy we have reaped from the past two thousand years. The men who built it and formed it are our children. They are the children of an overbearing, dictatorial matriarchy in Anchor and the abuse of power by wizards in Flux. Coydt, and your mother and grandmother, are all victims in different ways. We let the matriarchal church go on and on in our complacency and did not stop it, and now the hate has combined with power, and is striking out. You see, we didn’t tell them or teach them that enslavement or dictatorship by a privileged class based on a random inheritance of power or a restrictive religion was wrong. We condoned it, as maintaining the status quo. We weren’t affected—oh, no! We were the powerful wizards. All of the leaders of New Eden grew up as slaves of the system, but we didn’t teach them an alternative system. So now the slaves are masters of Flux and Anchor—and they are retaining the system, merely turning the ruling class on its head. We taught them to hate, to oppress, to be ruthless. And we were very, very good teachers. . . .”
Onregon Sligh entered and sat down in a chair, nodding to the Chief Judge. “Adam?”
“Doctor. I want to know ahead of time if we’re ready. I’ve read your reports, but I want it directly from you.”
“I don’t feel there’s going to be any great difficulty with the takeover. It’s quite risky, but I think you’ll make it on sheer gall.”
“That isn’t what I mean and you know it. Do you know how to do what we have talked about for so long?”
“I believe I do. We have enough amplifiers now to do it with half the cluster, but I do wish you’d wait until we have Mareh. Not only is that amplifier shield around the Gate an unknown quantity—we don’t know if the signals will pass through or around it and our field tests have given contradictory results—but the process requires eight wizards, and they will be smart enough to realize what we’re up to in time to stop it. That’ll put eight wizards with amplifiers right at our throat.”
“Would you need less if we had Mareh?”
“No, the same. But we’d eliminate the potential problem with the shield at the Gate. It would be irrelevant. And doing it now, to half a cluster, would tip off the whole of World. The Fluxlords would be up in arms over their very survival.”
“Could they undo it?”
“I don’t believe so. I believe that the ancients who designed the machines did so for just this purpose and no other. Once it’s complete, it’s done. But, remember, we don’t know what sort of file they designed for so vast an area. They were not a secretive lot. The filing system is rather straightforward. If we had thought of the full implications of the category ‘Landscape Architecture’ rather than dismissing it as a euphemism for gardening, we’d have seen it long before. No guarantees, though. But the filing system is not the language of those programs. An inconceivable number of atoms goes into making up just you, yourself. Not even a wizard can duplicate a human being; he can only modify it. Now consider the number of atoms that goes into making up the whole of an Anchor— New Eden, for example—and all that it contains. All arranged just so in exactly the right order to make what you see. Now consider that a program, a small metallic cube that would fit in my hand, contains that information for a much greater mass. Far greater. I can read the label, and I can read the instructions—but no mind alive today or in the foreseeable future could grasp the mathematics in that cube. It had to be manufactured by another machine, and that by another machine, and so forth down the line until you get to where a man designed one. Men tell it what to do, what to make, but I doubt if the men who built it knew how it stored that information.”
Adam Tilghman nodded thoughtfully. “So we’ll never know what we’re getting, and we just have to trust that the ancients numbered things in order. All right, I’ll accept that. But we must have a test, and soon. I don’t fear the Flux armies. By the time the alarm is raised we’ll be at Mareh’s gates, and they’ll have to come through the cluster to get at us and fight on our terms. I am, however, fascinated by the idea of it. What do you think will happen to the Fluxlands in the way?”
“The forms of those lands will be overtaken and overrun by the program. The people and other living creatures who live there will, however, most likely freeze as they are.”
“Hmmm . . . Yet there will be no wizard’s powers binding them. They will rebel, and be violent opponents of any Fluxlords entering. I think we can use that to good advantage, until we’re ready to directly incorporate them under our system.” He reached back and pulled a long, tasseled rope in back of him.
“Yes, but you don’t address the major problem. Where will we get eight wizards strong enough who are also willing to operate the machines?”
“Doctor, you are the most brilliant mind of our age in science, possibly of many ages, but you’ll never think like a commander or a politician. Has it not occurred to you that we have in our midst a number of sufficiently powerful wizards who will obediently climb up into those things and do exactly what we tell them?”
At that moment the doors to the study opened; Cassie entered and scampered over to Tilghman, kneeling before him. “Yes, my husband?”
Adam Tilghman grinned at Sligh, who sat there, mouth open. “You can tell the other gentlemen to come in now, Cassie. And—Cassie?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Think about packing. We’re going on a little trip soon.”
8
PLAYING HARDBALL DIPLOMACY
Cassie had felt only excitement at the prospect of a trip. The doctors were not at all concerned about it, since Fluxwives were absolutely perfect baby machines. Short of injury or death, she would deliver normally and with no complications exactly on schedule, trip or not. This, in fact, had been the convincing factor for Tilghman, for he wanted her along both for political reasons and because he considered it intolerable that a child of his might be born while he was away.
It was a large wagon train, heavily defended with over four hundred soldiers, many armed with strange-looking weapons, as well as several wizards in New Eden’s employ and, to ease commercial problems, a tough-looking stringer in charge of leading them.
It was only when the void loomed in front of her that she grew suddenly fearful, and turned and clutched Adam. He put his arm around her and said, soothingly, “It’s all right.” They passed into Flux without hesitation, and she felt a sudden chill run through her as her defenses automatically activated. Suzl’s spell faded away and she came to face reality as if waking from a soft and pleasant dream. It was this her subconscious had feared and known would happen, but now that it had she found she didn’t mind it so much.
The front of their wagon resembled a coach, with plush seats and a canvas covering that could be brought up and around to seal them off from the outside world. The driver sat higher, atop the wagon and essentially out of sight, only the long reins reaching upward betraying his presence. Aft was almost a small apartment, with a bed, a food storage and preparation center, a fold-out table and a couple of fold-down chairs, even a small wardrobe cabinet, all nicely carpeted. Side casks dispensed fresh water, mixed fruit juice, and wine. It was a kind of luxury few had known on the trail.
She looked up at Adam and let out a short gasp. The unmistakable aura of Flux power was within him, something she could feel and sense rather than see.
“Yes,” he told her, “I am what they call a wizard, too, and a pretty good one, I think. My father lost to a better one, and until all this came along I was right-hand man, so to speak, to my father’s murderer. She was strong, and always surrounded herself with other strong women wizards.”
She frowned. “Then why do you hate wizardry so?”
“Because it is a poison. It makes men into animals, where only the strongest gets to rule and make the rules. Even Coydt van Haas wasn’t born bad—wizardry made him that way, and his own power corrupted him and fed his hatred until it consumed him. Uh—-do I disturb you mentioning him?”
She shook her head negatively. “No, my husband. The webs are clear from my mind, it is true, but it is no longer important. What I am now is all that is important.”
He stared down at her. “And what are you now, Cassie?”
“Your wife. The mother-to-be of your children.”
He had hoped something like this would happen, but nothing was ever certain and this least of all. “You’re getting back into politics now, you know.”
She nodded. “Suzl said I was destined to be the wife of a great leader, not a great leader myself. I feel—wanted, and needed. I hope this is so.”
“Oh. it is, Cassie, it is. Things won’t always be the way they are now. Men and women have different roles in life, but these extremes won’t last. They can’t. The scriptures say nothing about dull wives, they only define roles and duties. It’ll just take some patience, I’m afraid. Hatred and the memories of hurt run deep, and revenge and short-term satisfactions of our baser natures are easier for most to accept. Champion, for example, was created by a cruel, vain witch as a sexual plaything. By reversing things, he’s content and continually reassured about himself. He’ll oppose every change, and he’ll have to be carefully handled. He’s a brilliant general, but like all brilliant generals he’s a terribly dangerous man who interprets scripture in a rigid and deeply personal way.”
The holy book used by New Eden in its churches was a fragmentary one, culled from a number of books whose whole had been lost somewhere in the past. Still, even in wildly differing texts, there had been much agreement. There was one God who was everywhere, and who had created World and the first man, whose name had been Adam. Woman had been made by God from man. to ease his loneliness and bear and rear his children. But Eve had been corrupted by Hell and had dragged man down with her, and so the woman would always require a man’s judgment and must defer to him. Another fragment had told of marriage, service, and duty to husband through the story of someone named Ruth. The ancient heroes were all male; the ancient heroines were all victims or mothers of great men. It presented a concrete and logical view to the leaders of New Eden. Still, their past oppressions had been at the hands of women, so when in power they had overreacted.
Adam Tilghman had read concrete evidence of the all-pervasive Church’s falsity in the ancient scriptural fragments that had indicated an older and to him far more logical way. Yet, “I want a nation of Ruths, not zombies,” he told her sincerely. “When we are secure we will move that way, and you shall be in the lead.”
“Where you go, so shall I,” she said, and liked it.
She looked out into the void, and saw both old friend and bitter enemy there. She tried to conjure up the simplest of spells, and found that she had forgotten how, nor could she read the few spells on those who came near. She could see the strings, and thought them pretty, but she had no idea where they might lead. Still, her binding spells, not only to Adam but those for defense as well, were in perfect working order, and she felt she had nothing to fear from the void.
New Eden had seemed to her grotesque on the surface, but particularly out here she realized that it was no worse than many Fluxlands and better than most. Adam, in particular, was different from the rest of them, who were spending the rest of their lives working out their hatreds and revenges. Adam Tilghman had been called a ruthless monster, but she knew that this simply wasn’t so. There was no generalized hatred in him, only vision and purpose, a vision and purpose that required decisive and even ruthless action at times, for he would eventually have to impose that purpose and vision on others. She understood, vaguely, that this trip was his mission to save lives on both sides, not take them.
The journey to Nantzee was about fifteen hundred kilometers, and they made very good time despite brief stops at various Fluxlands along the way. These stops were courtesy calls, as it were—politically necessary, but accomplished in the shortest time possible. These stops, brief as they were, were another revelation to Cassie. She had seen hundreds, perhaps more, of these little “countries” which existed in reality by the force of will of the local Flux wizard with the most power, but, somehow, she’d never quite looked at them this critically before.
Almost invariably, the active deity, worshipped by the population, was the wizard in charge. The people there thought the way the wizard decreed, they acted the way the wizard wanted, and in many cases were caricatures of real human beings, turned into creatures to fit a dream landscape. For perhaps the first time she looked at them not as something taken for granted but from Adam’s viewpoint, and they were indeed repulsive to her in that regard. Oppression, it seemed, did not exist when you were not one of the oppressed. Oh, you knew it academically, but you accepted it. New Eden, by comparison, seemed to look better and better even from her place in that society.
Adam was right, she decided. This sort of power corrupted absolutely, no matter who possessed. She had run a Fluxland as a religious center, but she had been just as autocratic and just as godlike in her own way—only she had rationalized all of it at that time. Even after, she had accepted the Fluxlands as normal and the Fluxlords as equals.
It was no longer a wonder to her that the system had created the excesses of New Eden; rather, she wondered that it had created so few. One did not upset such a system easily, and not without cost, but Adam’s determination that the system must be upset and his dedication to that eventual goal made him far more of a revolutionary than World had ever seen before, and she loved him for it and understood it perfectly.
Additionally, she found that her own presence was quite a shock to the Fluxlords and others they met. She smiled and was the deferential wife but she answered their questions. Yes, she was the same Cass/Kasdi who had built the empire. No, she had not been forced into this position, but had taken it voluntarily and now believed in it. They could read the spells for themselves and see their voluntary nature. She had not been transformed, she had been converted. It shook them up, the men as much as the women.
Although a fast stringer train or a military march could make eighty kilometers a day or more, the fifty that they made, considering the size of their party and all the stops, was considered nothing less than a miracle. As they went, her belly and breasts continued to swell, but her body continued to cope with whatever changing conditions it faced. As Suzl had pointed out, the Fluxgirls had been designed for baby-making.
They carried six girls from the household staff with them to help her, particularly for after the child was born, but she found she liked the way the men seemed more and more solicitous of her and how kindly and helpful they became, even the hardest of them. It had not been this way with Spirit, where much had been done to conceal her condition and the attitude had been an entirely impatient one: get it over with and get the kid away from her so she could go about her job.
As they approached Anchor Nantzee, they began to run into large masses of men in New Eden’s black uniforms, many setting up large machines or practicing the various arts of war. After the peace and serenity of the trip to date, it was a sudden, shocking reminder that this journey was no diplomatic jaunt but rather a stratagem in an impending war. She had seen, and even organized, too many such massings, and she had hoped never to see another. The sheer manpower, all military professionals, coupled with the huge assortment of strange and new weaponry told her that Anchor Nantzee would indeed fall. Its only choice was whether to do so bloodily or with minimal loss of life.
Tilghman spent many hours in conference with military leaders, including the hard-to-miss General Champion, going over maps and charts and playing with little toy armies.
She did not want to know the plans; she wanted no more part in military bloodletting.
Adam was visibly tired, but rested very little, and they soon went forward, out onto the Anchor apron, and approached the ancient gates of the Anchor, the high stone walls and fortifications looking very much like those of Anchor Logh. She had been in Nantzee, but never through the front gate. Adam had told her to dress her grandest, and she had, although she was surprised when only their wagon passed through the armored double gate into Anchor, leaving the entourage behind on the apron and in Flux.
Although superficially the same, Anchor Nantzee was quite different from Anchor Logh. This was hilly, even mountainous country, with great folded mountains running as far as the eye could see, cut only occasionally by river gorges, evergreens and other hardy trees running all the way to their summits. The main highway from the gate led after a kilometer to the first of these narrow gorges and to a small town at the bottom of the pass. Above, clearly visible, complex fortifications had been carved into and out of the surrounding very high ground. Any army that got through the gate would have to get through this trap as well. It looked formidable indeed to her.
It was cooler here, too, than in the constant warmth of Flux or Anchor Logh, and there was a slight breeze, but she decided against a coat or wrap. After her Flux appearances she fully understood her purpose here, and she was determined to carry it out if lives could be saved.
Large tents had been set up in a park-like area just outside the town, and they headed there. Various flags flew from the tents, although she recognized none of them. They could have represented leaders of various boroughs of the Anchor, or quite a bit more than that. She quickly learned, though, that the hammer and tongs symbol represented Nantzee itself, and she knew that the starburst represented the Church.
“Be honest, tell only the truth, conceal nothing,” Tilghman instructed her. “Don’t think or mull over any answers, just say what you feel.” Those, she decided, were the easiest instructions ever given to her.
Mervyn moved through the small crowd of people feeling more like he was at a social function than at a conference of war. He nibbled idly on a sandwich and looked over the crowd, then frowned and spotted someone whose face he simply never thought he’d see in person—particularly not in a situation like this. He blinked and stared hard, then realized that the prim, aristocratic fellow with the goatee had to be who he’d first thought he was. Nobody else would look like that on purpose. Slowly, he made his way closer.
Zelligman Ivan looked over and spotted the figure of the old man in flowing satin robes coming towards him, and he stood up and smiled as the other reached his lone table. “Please! Have a seat and welcome!” Ivan said warmly. “The wine is not the best, but one takes what one can get under the circumstances.”
Mervyn pulled over a folding chair and sat down, putting his sandwich on the table. Ivan poured a drink from a wine bottle and handed it to him.
“So we meet at last,” the old wizard said. “I must admit, Zelligman, that you are the last person I would have expected to see here.”
The other nodded. “I know. Not really my territory, but, damn it, it’s where the action is. Those psychotic thugs have the whole file, the top ancient technology along with the instructions. No matter what our differences, Mervyn, we have that in common. That’s our common heritage over there being perverted and used like a bludgeon by reactionary idiots.”
The old man nodded. “I agree, although you certainly have been a busy little bee with them. I owe you more than one for that, Zelligman.”
Ivan shrugged. “It was truly nothing personal. What are a few lives compared to what might be gained? No, don’t go moralizing on me, old man! You’ve been responsible for more than your share of innocents yourself, and you still sleep well at night. They were paranoid about her being so close, and they were paranoid about what they perceived as your base so close to their front door. I made an offer to ease their paranoia, and they took it.”
“And the price? Some advanced communications equipment, perhaps?”
Zelligman Ivan sighed. “You should know that they are even less enamored of that idea than you are. I hardly expect that from them—they are primitive, animalistic thugs, but their leaders are not that stupid. No, we expect that such a device will be naturally available when they secure this cluster, as they almost certainly will. They will need a method of communications to keep their little empire secure. No, the price was supposed to be a copy of Toby Haller’s journal.”
Mervyn looked suddenly ashen, as if having a seizure, and it took him a moment to recover his composure. “But that’s a myth! Your father and mine both would have sold their souls for it, but after all this time it simply cannot exist!”
“I am certain it does. Coydt found it—or, rather, a copy of it on one of the small storage modules—quite by accident, in the midst of a mass of mostly junk that was also on the module. He would never allow anyone else to read it, or know much of its contents, but he definitely did have it, and he definitely did read it. Indeed, it was after that that he began to act very oddly and very much on his own. He began to question our very goals, and, in fact, began sounding more like you than one of us, but he was very strong and he knew too much and he had too much. We didn’t dare touch him until we knew where his library was and how to secure it intact, and by the time we knew—it was too late.”
“But the journal! You’re suggesting New Eden has it?”
“I know they have it, and I know, too, that the Chief Judges have all read it and quite a bit more of the ancient nontechnical writings. Much of their odd theology comes from those writings, but it’s the journal that has fed their moral self-righteous mission. You know its reputation— that it would shatter World to its foundations and drive the strong mad.”
Mervyn did know. Quite a number of legends were associated with the journal, that one paramount among them. The journal, it was said, was the only true record surviving from the ancient days that held the true answers to World. Written in longhand by one of the first of the truly powerful wizards of Flux, it was said to reveal all the basic secrets of the universe, written as it was by one driven from Anchor but still of the old civilization. The original had been reported almost everywhere on World, including the Cold Wastes of the void, two thousand kilometers from Anchors and Hellgates, where magic was weak or nonexistent and no known creatures could live for long. Most now considered it merely a fable, a nonexistent book created by some imaginative or insane mind in ages long gone.
“If such a book really exists,” Mervyn said, “surely you have agents within New Eden capable of securing at least a copy of it.”
“It exists. Ask old man Tilghman when you meet him. He’s read it. But it’s not in the temple, I’ll tell you that, and its audience is very limited. I suspect the old man himself has it somewhere, but where is a different story. I can hardly risk my people on such a blind chase.”
“Well, they promised it to you, and you delivered. What happened?”
“They backed off. This general of theirs, Gunderson Champion, promised it to me. He’s never read it, but it doesn’t interest him much. You can’t conquer masses of territory or kill thousands with it, so it’s irrelevant to him. He simply couldn’t deliver, though. The judges pulled a switch and I got mostly theological garbage. Gave me the thing at Tilghman’s wedding and I rushed off with it. Sat through ten days of crap before I realized they’d given me a ringer. I wish I knew when. To think it might actually have been right there, and I didn’t know it!”
Mervyn had regained complete control. “Tilghman’s wedding? To Cass? You were there?”
“I was. A most interesting and unexpected experience. I half expected to lose the book right then, as soon as I realized that she could have broken off and escaped. But she didn’t, to my great relief. She was almost enough for Coydt, who was as far ahead of me as I am of the worm in Flux power. I’ll never understand it. I could read her protective spells. I was already looking for an exit and fast.”
“You of all people should know that the human mind is the most complex of all things. I think I understand, but I’m not really certain.”
“Well, perhaps you can ask her. I understand the old man’s brought her with him, and her ready to drop his child any time now.”