War in Heaven. David Zindell
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