War in Heaven

‘I … have not always been lucky,’ Danlo said. He pressed his palm against his left eye, which seemed to be the source of his terrible headaches. ‘In my life there has been much light, yes, and I have always sought its source, its centre. But sometimes I am afraid that I am only like a moth circling closer to the flames of what you call my star. Sometimes I have wondered if I am only being pulled towards a terrible fate.’

For a while, as they moved down a sunlit boulevard towards the three hills gleaming with new buildings, they talked about fate: the fate of the Order, the fate of the Civilized Worlds, the fate of pilots on desperate quests to the Vild’s deadly stars. The Sonderval told of pilots who had returned to Thiells having made significant discoveries. Helena Charbo, out by the great Bias Double, had found a world of lost Architects who had been sundered from the Old Church for almost two thousand years. And the fabulous Aja had befriended another group of lost Architects whose only means of journeying across the stars was to destroy them one by one: to cause a star to explode into a supernova, thereby tearing open great rents in the manifold into which their vast ships might fall and emerge light years away into the sun-drenched vacuum of realspace. All these lost Architects longed for reunion with their Mother Church, but they didn’t even know of Tannahill’s existence, much less where it might be found. They longed to interface the Old Church’s sacred computers and let the High Holy Ivi guide them through wondrous cybernetic realms straight to the mysterious face of Ede the God. It was the Order’s hope that if they could find Tannahill and win the Holy Ivi to their purpose, then the Church might re-establish its authority over the lost Architects and command them to stop destroying the stars. This was the essence of the Order’s mission to the Vild. And so the Order on Neverness had sent its finest pilots and professionals to Thiells to build a city. The ancient Order had divided in two, weakening itself, so that a new Order might flourish and grow.

‘The city will be complete in another year,’ the Sonderval said, pointing out of the sled’s window. ‘Of course, there’s enough space if needed to expand over the next fifty years – or fifty thousand.’

Danlo looked behind them past the light-field to the open plains covered with flowering bushes and little trees hung with red ritsa fruits. Truly, the city could expand almost infinitely down the mountainous peninsula and into the interior of this island continent that was as yet unnamed. But the heart of Lightstone would always be the three hills overlooking the ocean. There, to the west, on the gentle slopes of the centremost hill, the Order had almost finished building its new academy. There were the new dormitories to house novice pilots, and the new library, and the Soli Pavilion, and the great Cetic’s Tower rising up from the top of the hill like a massive white pillar holding up the sky. Just below it, on a little shelf of land overlooking the sea a few miles away, stood the circular Hall of the Lords. And all these buildings swept skywards with the grace of organic stone, a marvellously strong substance flecked with bits of tisander and diamond. Everywhere Danlo looked new houses and hospices and apartments and shops were arising almost magically like crystals exploding out of the earth. But it was no magic that made these lovely structures. Over the faces of every unfinished building swarmed billions of little black robots, layering down the lacy organic stone as efficiently as spiders spinning out the silk of their webs. In the hold of their deep-ships, the Order had brought some of these robots to Thiells, and had brought still other robots programmed to make yet more robots: disassemblers to mine minerals from every square foot of the rocky soil, and assemblers to put these elements together in beautiful new ways. The result of this outlawed technology (outlawed on Neverness and most of the Civilized Worlds), was that a city could almost be built overnight. The only thing Lightstone lacked was people, for the Order had sent scarcely more than ten thousand men and women into the Vild. But many of the peoples of the Vild, perhaps excited that a new power had arisen to save them from the fury of the stars, were pouring into the city. From the nearby worlds of Caraghar, Asherah, Eshte, Kimmit and Skalla they came to be part of this glorious undertaking. And on more distant Worlds further along the Orion Arm where the stars glittered like diamonds, the Order’s pilots spread the news of their great mission, and invited programmers and priests, artists and arhats and aliens to join them on Thiells. And so these people came to Lightstone, and the sky day and night shook with the thunder of rocket fire, and the new city grew. The Sonderval estimated its population at a hundred thousand. In another year, he said, more than a million human beings (and perhaps a few thousand aliens) would call her home.

‘We must train some of these to be pilots,’ the Sonderval said. ‘Now that you’ve been so lucky as to have found Tannahill, we’ll need many more pilots, won’t we?’

Soon the Sonderval’s sled rolled on to the hilly grounds of the new academy. Danlo, who knew every spire, stone and tree of Neverness’ academy, immediately felt like a stranger come calling on an alien world. Everything about this academy was different from the old, from the lawns of green grass to the sleds rolling down the academy’s stone streets. In truth, there were only a few of these gleaming black monstrosities, for only the Lords of the Order or a few illuminati from the rest of the city were permitted to take a sled down the academy’s tree-lined streets. But the Sonderval, after all, was the Lord Pilot of the Order, and it was with great pride that he guided his sled through a maze of unfamiliar streets and arrived in front of the Hall of the Lords.

‘The lords are waiting for you to address them,’ the Sonderval said. ‘I thank you for telling me of Tannahill, as little as that was.’

‘I … am sorry,’ Danlo said. ‘Sometimes it is difficult for me to talk very much, now. But soon you will hear the whole story of my journey.’

The Sonderval climbed out of the sled, and his face was set with a strange smile. ‘Yes, I will sit at table with a hundred other lords and listen to how the son of Mallory Ringess, alone of all pilots, accomplished his Order’s mission. Well, I am proud of you, Pilot. I’m proud that I tested you to be a novice and tutored you in topology – I suppose I knew that if anyone found Tannahill, it would be you.’

So saying, the Sonderval strode up the white steps of the hall. Danlo, bearing the large wooden chest of his possessions in his arms, hurried to follow him. Though far from the largest of the academy’s buildings, it was one of the most beautiful, with its circles of delicate stone sweeping into the air and suspended in space almost as if its makers had discovered the secret of cancelling gravity. The sunlight poured down its walls like liquid fire, and the organic stone seemed to gleam from within as if burning with billions of living jewels. Splendid it was, and Danlo who had spent too many days in the darkened pit of his ship, squinted against its dazzling light. Inside the doorway – in the curving entrance corridor filled with paintings and sculptures of some of the Order’s greatest Lords – the intense brightness softened to a warm radiance of colour. After the dull white and green plastics of Tannahill, Danlo was as thirsty for colour as a newly hatched thallow chick drinking in his first glimpse of the sky. And then the Sonderval led him through a set of doors opening into the main chamber. High above, surmounting the bright, open spaces of the hall, was a dome of clear organic stone. Its millions of tiny facets scattered the sunlight like many diamond prisms so that the whole of the hall danced with streamers of red and green and violet and blue. Lower down, there were yet more colours, not only the amethyst and golden flecks of the white floor, but all the colours of Danlo’s Order. At circular tables curving around the room waited all the Lords of the Order, each of the hundred and twelve men and women wearing a uniquely-hued silken robe. At the centre table sat Lord Nikolos, the Lord of the Order, in his bright yellow akashic’s robe. And next to him the ever- plump Morena Sung filled out the folds of an eschatologist’s blue silks. At this same table was the Lord Holist, Sul Estarei, wearing a robe of deep cobalt, and the mysterious Mithuna, the eyeless Lord Scryer, dressed all in white. Behind them were other lords: the Lord Horologe, Historian, Semanticist, Cetic, Programmer and all the other princes of the Order. As they sat close together whispering and wondering why a mere pilot had called them together, they formed a sea of colours from purple and pink to indigo and brown and orange and tens of others. The last lord to take his place that day was the Sonderval. He sat in the empty chair to the right of Lord Nikolos, and his black pilot’s robe almost overshadowed Lord Nikolos’ yellow. Black, as Danlo had been taught, was the colour of deep space and infinite possibilities, for out of the universe’s primeval blackness comes light and form and all things. For three thousand years, the pilots of the Order had always worn black, and now Danlo in his formal black robe took his place in front of the assembled lords as his father had before him.

‘We will now hear from the pilot, Danlo wi Soli Ringess,’ Lord Nikolos said as he stood to address his fellow lords. That was all the introduction that Danlo received. Lord Nikolos was a small but energetic man always eager to accomplish whatever task lay before him. He hated wasting words as a merchant does coins, and so he sat back down in his chair and studied Danlo coolly with his bright blue eyes.

‘My lords,’ Danlo began. He took a deep breath, relieved to have put his heavy wooden chest down on the floor. He stood at the centre of the chamber where a circle of black diamond had been set into the floor’s white stone. According to tradition, no pilot or anyone else who had taken vows could tell any untruth while standing in this circle. ‘My lords and master pilots, and master academicians,’ Danlo continued, ‘I would like to tell you of my journey. I … have found Tannahill.’

For a moment no one moved as more than a hundred faces stared straight at Danlo in wonderment. And then Danlo began to speak, and the men and women of his Order sat entranced while they listened to the story of a lone pilot who had possibly accomplished more than any other – more even than Dario the Bold or Danlo’s own grandfather, Leopold Soli, who had penetrated almost to the galaxy’s core and learned of the gods’ mysterious secret wisdom known as the Elder Eddas. Danlo began his story with an account of his journey to the Solid State Entity. He told of the great chaos storm near the heart of the Entity that had killed Dolores Nun and Leander of Darkmoon and his seven other fellow pilots as they fell through swirling black spaces as deadly as any danger of the manifold. He had found his way through this storm, he said, only to fall out above an earthlike world upon which the Entity had imprisoned him for many days while She tested him. He spoke little of these tests. He had no liking for fame or glory, and so he stood breathing deeply under the watchful eyes of the lords as he tried to convey the essence of what he had learned from the Entity with as little focus as possible upon himself. But neither was he falsely modest, for he prized truth as some do gold. And the truth was that the Entity had entrusted him with great knowledge because he had shown great virtue in surviving the chaos space as well as Her tests.

‘There is war in heaven,’ Danlo told the assembled masters and lords. Hillel Astoret, the brown-robed Lord Historian sitting behind Lord Nikolos, would later remark this as a great moment when the knowledge of universe-shaking events first came into the halls of the Order. ‘It is truly a terrible, shaida war. The Silicon God has made war upon the Solid State Entity. He has allies, other gods of the galaxy: they are Chimene, Maralah, Hsi Wang Mu, Iamme, and what we call the Degula Trinity. And the Entity is not alone, either. I believe that Pure Mind and the One are allied with her. And possibly even the April Colonial Intelligence. And my father, Mallory Ringess, if he truly became a god, is somehow involved with the Entity’s design. Somewhere among the stars. I … was not able to find out where.’

Usually the Lords of the Order are as polite as women and men can be. But that day, despite the rule that anyone standing in the circle be allowed to speak without interruption except by the Lord of the Order himself, a dozen different lords turned their faces close to each other and began whispering urgently.

‘I would like to ask for silence, please,’ Lord Nikolos said as he stood and held up his hand. Although he was physically smaller than almost anyone in the room, his calm, clear voice seemed to fill the hall and to sober the excited lords. Even the Sonderval, who was talking with Kolenya Mor, heard the call to obedience and immediately fell silent. ‘Let’s allow the pilot to finish his story.’

Danlo went on to tell of a crucial battle in this cosmic war between the gods: it seemed that the Silicon God had found a way to destroy Ede the God. This had been no small feat. Ede, as a man, as a human being living in the flesh, had been almost as small as Lord Nikolos. But after his great vastening, when he had carked his consciousness into a computer and become a god, he had grown. As a seed ice crystal may build into a hailstone many billion times larger than itself, this computer that was Ede had added neurologics and circuitry until Ede the God’s body was vaster than whole worlds and filled the spaces of many star systems.

‘The Entity told me where I might find Ede the God,’ Danlo said. ‘It was deeper into the Vild. There were many stars; many old supernovas. And I found the Star of Ede: it is a blue-white hotstar. And Ede himself, what was left of this god. It, he, was all wreckage. Fused neurologics and dead assemblers and hydrogen clouds spread out over light years of space. Ede must have been … truly vast. And now he was dead. The Entity had said that he was dead, but that it might be that he was also somewhat alive.’

Danlo paused to stare down at his wooden chest where it rested just outside the black diamond circle. Its top was carved with a great sunburst, and he closed his eyes for a moment as he dwelt in the remembrance of all the suns and light he had ever beheld.

‘Pilot!’ a voice called as if from far away. Danlo opened his eyes to see Lord Nikolos addressing him. ‘Pilot, the Entity is famous for speaking in paradoxes and riddles – did you ever discover what She meant?’

‘Yes,’ Danlo said. ‘I did.’

‘Will you please share your discovery with us, then?’

‘If you’d like,’ Danlo said, smiling. He stepped over to the wooden chest, opened it and drew out the devotionary computer, holding it up so that all the assembled lords could see the little glowing hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede.

‘What is this?’ Lord Nikolos demanded.

Hillel Astoret and several of the lords behind Lord Nikolos began talking all at once, pointing at the computer’s jewelled eyes and shaking their heads in disapproval. Then Lord Nikolos turned his head at this interruption and caught the lords with his icy eyes until they fell silent.

‘This,’ Danlo said, ‘is Nikolos Daru Ede. Ede the God – what is left of him.’

The Ede hologram, with its seductive face and bright black eyes, seemed to stare straight at Lord Nikolos.

‘Pilot, please remember where you are – this is no place for jokes!’

‘But I am not joking.’

‘This,’ said Lord Nikolos, pointing at the glittering box that Danlo held in his hands, ‘is nothing more than a religious artifact.’

Lord Nikolos was well known for despising man’s irrational or mystical impulses, which was one reason he had been chosen to lead the Mission to the Old Church. He continued, ‘The Architects carry these idols around in order to worship an image of Ede, don’t they? Aren’t these devotionary computers programmed to speak Ede’s blessings and other such nonsense?’

‘Yes,’ Danlo said. ‘But it is possible … for them to be programmed otherwise.’

‘Please explain yourself.’

Danlo glanced at the Ede imago, and he almost smiled to see the eyes of the hologram flick sideways to catch his gaze.

‘The Silicon God,’ he said, ‘did not slay Ede in a moment. The battle lasted many seconds. And at the end, a whole nebula of stars was destroyed. And Ede’s brains were all destroyed – almost all. At the very end, Ede wrote a program compressing and encoding his essential self. It is this program that this devotionary computer now runs.’

‘Impossible!’

‘Not … impossible,’ Danlo said. He turned to see Lara Jesusa and some of the other master pilots smiling to give him encouragement in the face of Lord Nikolos’ intense scepticism. ‘Ede the God is dead, truly. But it may be … that he is also somewhat alive.’

‘This machine?’ Lord Nikolos asked in his quiet but steely voice. ‘And where did you find this dead god that might be alive?’

‘On an earth that Ede had made.’

From far in the back of the hall came the sound of muffled laughter, perhaps from Sanura Snowden, the Lord Semanticist, or the Lord Imprimatur who sat nearby. At times Lord Nikolos was capable of a dry sense of humour, but he would not tolerate anyone making jokes at his expense.

‘Please watch your words,’ Lord Nikolos chided Danlo. ‘You’re a full pilot of the Order, and you’ve been taught to speak precisely. We do not refer to engineered worlds, no matter how earthlike their biospheres, as “earths”.’

‘Neither do I, sir,’ Danlo said, and his dark blue eyes shone with amusement at Lord Nikolos’ doubt. ‘The gods make earths. Truly. The Solid State Entity, and especially Ede the God – from the elements of dead stars, they have built these earths. Whole continents and oceans, forests and mountains and rocks, in exact duplication of Old Earth.’

Danlo went on to describe a succession of blue-white earths that he had discovered around the stars of Ede the God. Now all the lords in the hall had fallen very quiet, and even Lord Nikolos sat back down in his chair and regarded Danlo with something like awe.

‘I didn’t know the gods had such power to remake the universe,’ Lord Nikolos said quietly.

Danlo looked boldly at Lord Nikolos and said, ‘But this is just what it means to be a god, yes? They make war upon each other … in order to remake the universe according to their different visions of what must be.’

‘But why earths, Pilot?’

‘I … do not know.’ Danlo closed his eyes as he remembered the sandy beach and dark green forest of the earth upon which the Entity had imprisoned him. The Entity, at least, had certainly made Her earth as a laboratory for experimenting with the evolution of human beings. From images stolen from his mind, She had created a slel of Tamara Ten Ashtoreth, an almost perfect copy of the woman whom he had loved. The slel was meant to be a perfect woman – or rather a creation of a perfected humanity as it might someday be. ‘The Architects of the Cybernetic Churches have a doctrine. They call it the Program of the Second Creation. At the end of time, when Ede has grown to absorb the whole of the universe, then a miracle will occur. From his own infinite body, Ede will make an infinite number of earths. And all the Architects who have ever lived will be reincarnated into new bodies. Perfect bodies that will live for ever in these paradises.’

At this piece of nonsense, Lord Nikolos pressed his lips together as if someone were trying to force a piece of rotten meat into his mouth. ‘But Ede the God is dead, you say.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you really believe that Ede was making his earths as a home for the souls of dead Architects?’

‘I … do not like to believe anything.’

‘Nor I,’ Lord Nikolos said. ‘It’s too bad that we can’t simply ask the Ede of your devotionary computer what his original plan was.’

Danlo smiled because he had asked the Ede exactly this question – and many others – to no avail.

‘And now,’ Lord Nikolos went on, looking at Danlo, ‘I suppose I should ask you to give this devotionary to the Lord Tinker and Lord Programmer. They will take it down and disassemble it to discover the source of any programs that it might run.’

In a moment – in the time it took for the devotionary computer to modulate the coherent light beams of its hologram – the glowing face of Nikolos Daru Ede fell into a mask of panic. And then a loud, almost whiny voice issued into the hall as Ede cried out, ‘No, please don’t take me down!’

At this startling event. Lord Sung pointed her plump finger at the devotionary and gasped. Sanura Snowden and several other lords cried out, ‘What? What’s this?’

Lord Nikolos just stared at the hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede while he sat blinking his icy blue eyes. And then he said simply, ‘It speaks.’

‘Oh, indeed, I do speak,’ the Ede said. ‘I see and hear, as well. The jewels on the devotionary’s sides are computer eyes and—’

‘We’re familiar with such technologies,’ Lord Nikolos said. He, too, had been bred to politeness, but he had no compunction at interrupting a machine.

‘I think, as well,’ the Ede said, ‘and therefore I am, as are you, self-aware, and I am—’

‘A clever program, nothing more,’ Lord Nikolos said. ‘We’re also familiar with Ai programs, though it may be that this one is more sophisticated than any our Order has seen. The Lord Programmer will be able to determine —’

‘No, I must ask you not to take me down!’ the Ede cried out again. Lord Nikolos and one hundred and twenty other lords gaped at the Ede hologram. No one had ever experienced an Ai program interrupting a human being.

Ede turned his frightened face to Danlo.

‘Lord Nikolos,’ Danlo said, ‘I have borne this devotionary halfway across the Vild. I have valued its … information.’

‘Are you asking to keep it for yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘But a pilot may not keep any discovery to himself. You know our rule.’

‘Truly, I do. But this devotionary, this Ede, has aided me on my journey. I … have made promises to him.’

For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Lord Nikolos asked, ‘You made promises to an idol programmed out of a machine?’

‘Yes. In return for helping me find Tannahill, I promised not to take him down. I promised to help him … accomplish a thing.’

‘What thing?’

‘His … purpose.’

‘And do I dare ask what purpose you might think this machine could be programmed to achieve?’

Again, Danlo looked at the Ede hologram. He looked at Lord Nikolos and the Sonderval, and at the many other lords and masters. He felt his heart beating hard up through his throat and his face burning as if he had stood all day in the sun. He did not want to tell these cold-eyed men and women of Ede’s purpose.

‘Well, Pilot?’

‘He, this Ede, wants to …’

The Ede flashed Danlo a hand sign, and Danlo suddenly stopped talking. And then Ede addressed Lord Nikolos and the other lords, and said, ‘I want to be a man again.’

Lord Nikolos stared at the glowing hologram as if he couldn’t understand the simple sounds of human (or artificial) speech. None of the lords in the hall seemed to know what Ede might mean.

‘The pilot, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, promised to help me recover my body, if that is possible. To help me live as a man again.’

Seeing Lord Nikolos’ bewilderment, Danlo smiled and said, ‘I must tell you of his body.’

‘Please do,’ Lord Nikolos said with a sigh.

Danlo bowed his head, and then told the Lords of the Order of the body of Nikolos Daru Ede which the Architects had kept frozen in a clary crypt for three thousand years. He explained how the entire crypt had been stolen from Ede’s Tomb on Tannahill. The Ede hologram hoped that his body might someday be recovered; he prayed that the Order’s cryologists might be able to revive this body after reconfiguring the damaged neurons and synapses of its brain to instantiate the program of the devotionary computer. And thus to raise the dead. ‘We … were going to ask the Architects for the return of this body,’ Danlo said.