The Aleph consults a digital watch, a priceless restored antique that betrays his vanity. Already twenty minutes. Anxiety devours him.
Huan, king of a myriad of worlds trapped in a nebula, impossible to reach by Drift, was a monarch far too demanding for the notorious lack of loyalty he had shown: as soon as the remnants of the dissident fleet had contacted him, he had hastened to sell them to the HS. The Aleph did not appreciate anyone standing against him, but he understood the logic; Huan's attitude, on the other hand, had no "honor," a medieval value but one to which those of Garen's stature, that is to say the aristocracy, clung.
In the height of arrogance, Huan had demanded eternal youth in exchange, but so be it, the pact had been sealed. The Aleph could do many things at a distance, like crush an enemy's heart, but the delicate operation of eternal youth required his presence in person.
Not wanting to signal to anyone a limit in his powers, he had requested to make a short trip-less than an hour-to the Royal Planet, to honor the Monarch and evaluate him in person. It was a puzzle of Drift and logistics, but the Fleet had found a way.
It was impossible that in an hour, in a day, or even in a month, a famished fleet could take power again on Origin, but as soon as he moved away from the nerve center and from the human worlds he personally held through the Entangled Gates, an anxiety rose in him. An anxiety whose true reason he repressed: because you were not much, and you became powerful, other not-muches could follow your path and take your place. But this weak-spirited thought filled him with shame, put him into a self-destructive rage difficult to contain. So he contented himself with hating Huan.
Twenty minutes, and he rises, levitating his own body, up the Acropolis where the King is, while his escort follows him running up the stairs. He lands like an angel before Huan and his assembly of sickly, weak servants from a life far from the sophisticated care of the HS, surrounded by stolen Chimera Protea and a few dark warriors armed with blades.
A band of peasants, in sum, who had dared demand that a God come to visit them. He read abject fear, deeply rooted, in the servants and high officials. A fear even greater than the one he himself inspired. A scandal. He read absolute loyalty in the guards, a loyalty even greater than the most zealous of his adjutants. A scandal.
King Huan, a shriveled, weak human creature, kept alive by fierce hatred and experimental equipment, made a vague hand gesture.
- "Aleph, sovereign of the HS, I have kept my word."
Placing his feet on the ground, the Aleph, well-built, towered over them all. He said nothing, simply extended his hand like a mage of ancient times. He plunged into the dying biology of the King…isolated, for each limb, each organ, healthy and vigorous cells, then destroyed and rebuilt all the others from these matrices-while preserving the information they processed, as with neurons. Then, in each of these cells, he modified the chemistry of the stem cell walls so that at every mitosis division would occur without any loss of information-the key, no more and no less, to eternal life. He increased Huan's muscle mass through division and generated enough fat for his body to sustain this transformation, drawing it from the quantum void and stabilizing it.
A process he knew well, for he had once performed it on himself.
In ten seconds, Huan had become a taller man again, touching the ground as if he had unfolded. He unfastened his gravitational support belt, which flew off with dignity into the sky, probably to stabilize in a few years at the Lagrange point between here and their sun. All his servants prostrated themselves, heads to the ground, except for his guards who conceded only one knee.
Huan was now a vigorous man of thirty, with immaculate skin, muscles bulging beneath a golden toga, and a vicious, intelligent gaze.
- "Rise," he ordered, "and behold your King."
They rose, and he continued a litany that he would be their King forever, and that he had truly earned this position, because he alone was worthy, etc…
The officers accompanying the Aleph finally arrived, breathless, at the marble palace open to the four winds. The Aleph ignored Huan. He turned his gaze to the planet.
Something blocked the psi faculties here. He focused to discover it, drawing on the eternal heat of the Moho: a giant creature, insect-fetus as large as a moon, curious experiment of a Transient who had forgotten it there, endlessly dreaming; and whose dreams, incomprehensible auroras, formed as many psychic walls. Concentrating, he killed it with a thought. He noted in his orders that his followers should take a cellular sample to clone the creature. It could be useful, one day.
Freed from the psychic walls, he then probed the population.
Villages worthy of the industrial era. No, medieval. Xenos used as beasts of burden. Subjects sometimes starving. A single thought in their heads: obey the system, worship the God-King or else they will be mutilated, tortured, killed. And everyone knew someone who had suffered that fate. The Aleph turned his eye to his past.
They had said the Lodovico project was inhuman, but that was false. It aimed to create the best of humanity, to push the HS toward something better. There had been sacrifices, but the Aleph, Garen Antor, bore the weight, and he had come back to redeem himself.
Huan did a thousand times worse for his simple glory. Garen was overcome with disgust. His watch indicated thirty-five minutes, but the anxiety had lessened. How could one worry about such mediocrity that was the lot of men? Huan had conquered many worlds but was profoundly stupid. Nothing would pose danger.
And his gaze fell upon the assembly. He noticed a creature in a nearby cage. It was a young man, starving, abused, two fingers freshly cut. But beneath the grime and traces of tears and abuse lay distant remnants of a life of ease: a manicure, a fashionable haircut, protected skin…he probed his mind and discovered his story: Dorian, son of a good Terran family, captured by the League of Antioch on Orion Prime for ransom. But Lucky, a daring pirate, passed himself off as the payers and kidnapped Dorian again, tricking the League's leader, a mere young woman. Since then, his family had paid regular tribute to the Brotherhood-that is, to Huan. And Huan, like the sadistic idiot he was, could not resist mutilating his golden goose from time to time.
The story of Dorian unlocked something in Garen. For Dorian came from a family he knew-his grandfather had been with him at Eton, and with him venerated the Grip. Anger rose in him-strange, he smiled. The abuse of a million peasants, that you could overlook, Garen, but the abuse of one of your peers, that is unacceptable. Are you worthy of being the Aleph if you make distinctions between humans?
His anger turned against Huan. He raised his hand again, and the King collapsed, dead.
- "I gave life, and I took it back."
gesture and they crumbled into dust. Finally, Toyvo, the loyal guard with a katana, hurled himself at the Aleph with superhuman speed, but Garen blocked the blade between two fingers. His eyes locked on his, he saw the loyalty and absolute self-sacrifice of a perfectly trained man, and felt admiration. He made him faint.
He had the cage opened, healed Dorian's wounds without, however, regrowing his mutilated fingers. These eternal wounds would be, for Dorian, the symbol of his downfall and his rebirth, and for the Aleph, of what he had almost forgotten to be.
The Aleph advanced and sat on the marble throne reserved for Huan. Out of principle, the officials displayed an angry mien, but Garen saw perfectly that it was a play in which they were well practiced.
- "Your King, Huan, became immortal because that was my word. He betrayed his word to my enemies for a bit of youth, and I see poorly how anything can be built with a monarch whose word is worth nothing. Your King, Huan, now, is dead. To betray his word made him a nobody, but some could say here that I did the same. So here is why he died: he committed the worst fault for a King-he did not take care of his subjects. I will appoint another King."
Dorian was pulling himself from his cage, his heart bursting with gratitude at the sight of the agents of the Stellar Fleet.
- "This new King will report to me. Under his reign, there will be no more mutilation, torture, or execution. You will all have access to housing, healthcare, food every day, and even a life after death without having to do anything other than behave with altruism toward others. When I say all, I mean you present here, and everyone on this planet and the other worlds."
The Aleph rose and showed the throne to Dorian.
- "Dorian, I appoint you King of these worlds in Huan's stead."
Dorian was dumbfounded…he could not even find words. A great shadow passed over his heart: he already saw himself returning home, to Earth, far from these madmen.
- "It's that…" Dorian hesitated. "I've had enough. I'm sorry…I don't know who you are, a Transient with a good heart, I suppose… I owe you my life…but I just want to see my family again."
- "I know. Your family kept you alive by paying a heavy tribute. Perhaps it would be time to repay your debt by honoring them. Become King."
- "But…" he smiled, lost, as only a sixteen-year-old kid who has suffered can… "I was their slave…what makes you think they will obey me?"
- "Because you will be my arm. Those who disobey you will die. Those who obey you will have all the benefits, and eternal life. Isn't that so?"
The servants and officials bowed respectfully. Garen smiled and Dorian stepped forward, stumbling on his numb legs, to sit upon the throne.
- "King Dorian, be good as those who treated you were evil. This is my only command."
Garen ordered his escort that news be sent to Dorian's family, and that A-Wau come to ensure his safety as well as the now effective application of the HS standards of life to these worlds.
When he descended, levitating gently, to the foot of the acropolis, all anxiety had vanished. Deep within, he felt he had done something good-that this new King, and his countless subjects, could now die for him and for his project.
He detached his watch and let the object, worth the price of ten ships, fall into the lush grass. Garen made a resolution he would never have imagined.
He would return to the Endymion Erebus, but not leave immediately for Earth. No one could rival his power, he now knew. Until now, he had simply not truly realized it. He would show himself, go from planet to planet, restore justice, and perform miracles.
Humanity would not follow his project because it was the best project, or because it opposed what it feared, but because he, Garen Antor, was a true living god, capable of the greatest miracles and the wisest justice, and that following him would simply be self-evident.