Garen had forbidden anyone access to the throne room; he had smashed the cameras and sensors. He hadn't even cleaned the human and animal viscera, nor the stars of blood. The morbid map they composed was the object of his contemplation.
His power-rather mysterious even to himself-had granted him vengeance, status, and above all, protection; but paradoxically the dangers were becoming greater and greater, at least in his mind. He was perfectly aware that this was an illusion, the turmoil of his emotions, and yet those emotions dominated him and overcame his rationality.
Foremost among the dangers was the loss of his power. The Blind Gods had entrusted it to him with a specific mission: to go to the planet where "the Gates of Empyrea" were located (whatever that might be) and to slay a great creature there. He did not know what this planet or these gates were, even though his power had whispered to him with certainty that it was that small uninhabitable sphere on the Antiochian war front called Caliban.
This piece of information had, strangely enough, slipped into his mind to hide there. He disliked the idea of serving a master, and he was torn between two options:
– He fulfills his mission, and his masters take back his tool-his power.
– He does not fulfill his mission, and his masters take back his tool to give it to another.
Of course, he had at one point considered going there, finding and perhaps opening these Gates, but that idea had struck him as strangely uninteresting, unproductive, unworthy-and he trusted his instinct. The anti-entropic radiation was dulling the thought in his mind without his realizing it, and from the height of his pride, he could never have conceived it.
He told himself he was going to carry out that damned mission, and then he would "enjoy life" as a reward. After all, his entire existence had been nothing but service to humanity, punctuated by a grim episode of survival in exile.
He cleaned the throne room with a thought, and summoned a high-ranking official, dry as a mummy, supposedly forty years old-he looked a hundred-by the name of Evalds. Evalds was a psychopath, particularly useful for tracking and reporting delicate affairs like Lodovico or the slain Wau. He had sexual fantasies tied to murder that constantly haunted his psyche, and Garen had long since given up probing him. That such a vile being could be allowed in the Tower of Origin revolted him: Garen saw him as the symbol of a corrupted and degenerate era, one that had ended thanks to him, and he only kept Evalds around under the current state of emergency. When all was over, he told himself, Evalds would pay for what he had done.
- "Evalds, I am leaving for Gilgamesh to reach Caliban. I want it done as soon as possible."
- "Aleph," said Evalds, bowing. "Today I was to take you to Munich to retrieve the UniPsi report on the Wau."
- "I no longer wish to deal with that matter. The Wau are no more. Take an A-Wau with you and arrange for journalists to see the A-Wau carrying the inert body of the Wau. And bring the Armor to Lodovico, along with the UniPsi report."
- "Aleph, you told me you wanted-"
- "Evalds, I know perfectly well what I told you. I know everything, including the apocalyptic painting you hide in your head. I want no more talk of this Wau. I have faith in Dian-she is an upright person and of rare intelligence. I am aware that I do not have her respect nor her affection, but my actions will inevitably win her over to my cause. She is the most competent and motivated person to uncover the secret of the Wau's psi power. If she finds it, so much the better. If not-well… the Order has fallen silent, and I have the intuition that it will remain so. I have better things to do than chase ghosts."
A Gemini Golem was placed in the throne room, and another was loaded onto the Tyger which took the Aleph aboard the venerable and powerful Gilgamesh. The ship made a Drift toward Prospero, Calchas, and finally Caliban, blocking the traffic of millions of vessels to secure the Aleph's passage, while on the surfaces of inhabited planets, Garen's faithful prostrated themselves before the ship's transit, a speck of dust in the sky.
Caliban, a white planet of tangled clouds and ice caps, appeared abruptly before the viewing bay.
The Aleph ordered silence on the bridge, and the sixty officers as well as Admiral Gulmira fell quiet. He approached as close as possible to the vast window that looked out onto the planet.
He searched for the beast… a massive beast, he imagined-something proportionate to his gift. It was there. Unmistakable. It flew within the cloudy atmosphere. It was white and gray like the clouds. Invisible. A flat worm one thousand one hundred and eight kilometers long and three wide… carried by the winds. It radiated a strong energetic power-magnetism, perhaps? Impossible to tell. It looked peaceful. It calmly followed the equatorial currents. What a tragedy, Garen thought, that while there are so many Xenos who wish for the death of humankind, I must bring an end to this unique and immense creature… but this is my mission. The mission of the Blind Gods. I must satisfy them.
He extended his hand. The thing began to tear apart but reformed. He tried to push it back into quantum nonexistence… it resisted. He inhaled, focused, and had to struggle with all his might before the intrigued fleet officers to bring it to an end. Then, its quasi-Transient structure finally tore for good and fell in shreds through the atmosphere. All energy was gone.
Garen gazed at the planet and its stars, sweating, psychically drained. It no longer left him indifferent. A spark of curiosity shone in him like the flame of a candle. The Gates of Empyrea… He felt anger toward the Blind Gods, who had clearly used him like a rifle in some perverse safari. Could they not have done themselves what had taken him only a few minutes? He had heard the rumor brought back by his spies in Xeno territory, that the entirety of the Xenos worshipped the Blind Gods and their Gates of Empyrea.
There can be no cult but a human one, he thought-none but the Dominion. None but that which venerates him, he dared to think… He had completed his mission. He still possessed all his power. He was free to do whatever he wished now.
Without ceasing to stare at Caliban, which now fascinated him, he declared:
- "Gulmira, summon the Hyperion."
- "Uh, Aleph, we are not supposed to pronounce that word…"
The Aleph turned toward the officers.
- "No secret shall exist for anyone under my command. Caliban is a planet harboring a major danger connected to the Blind Gods. Humanity has designed a vessel, the Hyperion, capable of shattering planets. Our mission is to save all sentient and friendly species from that danger."
- "Aleph," said Gulmira, bowing, "the Hyperion is not yet completed. We're a few weeks away…"
- "Very well," said the Aleph, with contained anger. "How many Endymions do we have in the fleet?"
- "Three hundred fifty-three today, one more tomorrow."
- "Would it be too much to ask the Stellar Fleet to station about fifty here, around Caliban?"
- "At your command. Should we monitor anything in particular?"
- "You obliterate on sight anything that approaches-even a poor lost traveler. Consider this planet as harboring a grave disease which, if not contained with the utmost rigor, will destroy absolutely everything. You order the Hyperion to arrive as soon as possible, and you destroy it. Keep me informed of everything-down to the smallest asteroid that falls here."
Gulmira saluted the Aleph respectfully.
The Gilgamesh having been requisitioned, he departed with an elite commando and a Gemini Golem aboard a simple, unmarked Ozy, first to Calchas, then to Prospero. Before returning to Earth, he claimed he wished to make a discreet stop at the Omnipole. He was dropped off in the suite of Prefecture 1-no less than the highest, and probably the most spacious place on the planet.
An obscenely vast penthouse towering over half a trillion humans, above a thin layer of clouds, where one could glimpse the continent-city by its lights through a luxurious bay window. Garen pretended to meditate, to work, to rest-but once again, he was about to change his appearance: to descend, invisible, into the city, to mingle with humans.
Endowed with another face, another build-discreet, but with just enough charisma to please anyone who laid eyes on him-he roamed the populous streets, narrower and narrower as he descended through the strata of the city.
What could be more intoxicating for the elite than to mingle with the rabble, so that it confesses by itself the mediocrity-spoken without judgment-of its ambitions, without his even having to read their thoughts? What joy, to go anywhere, to mix with anyone, to fear nothing?
Humans don't want a planet, Halva had said, just a bit of love. He stopped at a half-wrecked LE terminal, covered with a sexual drawing, located between a Xeno prostitute bar and a storage place in judicial liquidation after a looting-from the holes in the wall one could see citizenship-suspended outcasts living in misery. He wanted to ask Evalds to fetch Halva and bring her to Origin. He wanted to see her again. He told himself: I need a drop of Yang in my Yin.
But Evalds did not answer. Yes, he must be in Munich or already at Lodovico. Garen left the message to the President of the HS, out of perversity: she feared only one thing-to no longer be within the Aleph's circle… Let her bring a destitute stranger to the Tower of Origin. She would not understand a thing, would torture herself with why.
He would descend deeper into the Omnipole, to where security had abandoned the idea of doing its job. There, he would find his counterparts-those who worshipped the Dominion without knowing it, who had decided to take whatever they wanted without respecting the codes of society. Except that they were at the very bottom and possessed nothing, while he held the universe in his hand. Invisible, he would slip into their dwellings and observe their despairing daily life, devoid of ambition. He wanted to gorge himself on it, certainly, but he also hoped to understand them-and perhaps, to love them.
Halva was right: there was everything in the Aleph, except true love. In his life of competition and exile, there had been no room for love. Soon, he would love-while controlling the right measure of love and anger-and he would be perfect in every respect.
Fourth level down already, beneath a light well. It was already dangerous: someone had picked a fight with him by shoulder-checking him, but he had managed to calm things down with a psi flick. From the light well, a cloud passed and rain fell. It was rendered acidic by the emissions of the upper levels, and the regulars stepped away from the hole, leaving Garen alone. He felt the rain bite into his skin but regenerated it at once. He even lifted his eyes to the sky. The pain of the acid in his eyes felt good. He thought that he could have killed the one who had picked that fight. He thought of the people he had killed during the taking of Origin, or because he had been annoyed or under pressure. He even thought of Lodovico, though he admitted that it had been another Garen, then.
The problem with death is that it is irreversible-even for him, even for his victims. He knew that if he left the door of his guilt slightly ajar, it would rush in, haunt him, torture him. As if he had within him a lawyer of guilt, he thought for a moment that it was a powerful and perhaps necessary force. He then left that door ajar, making a pact with himself: by letting guilt haunt him, he would be absolved of crimes he should never have committed.
He was overwhelmed with emotion, but the physical pain of the rain seemed to wash him. He would be very careful from then on. He would tolerate from his own actions only the good of all.
He had completed his mission for the Blind Gods, and they had not taken his power away. They were even now. He had done something for them and had been justly rewarded. Better than that-he had been chosen, elected. He was destined to be the perfect leader. He felt immensely relieved. He experienced, sincerely, a new feeling for the first time in his life: gratitude.
From now on, everything was possible. The universe was, without limit, his playground-and, as the crowning perfection, he had decided to be wise.
He had decided to be good, perhaps-an absolute blasphemy for the Grip that had saved him from exile-good, whatever the cost, even to weakness. The Gods have no need to pray, but to listen to the prayers of others.