The Wau remained silent.
"What's wrong, did I say something that made you go limp?" mocked Lucky, playing with his dagger. "Maybe you've got a tiny one and don't want us to talk about it?"
His court rewarded him with a few laughs. A dangerous clown, far from his image as Lord of Trust.
"You were in the After and came back," the Wau said slowly.
"Look at this motherfucker, he's got dirt on everyone!"
"You're quick to call everyone a motherfucker when your own mother was a sex slave who fled with you into the Booz marshes. Get therapy and move on."
"Okay, you're a sharp-tongued motherfucker, I'll give you that. Let's get to it. Spill it."
"I want to go to the Royal Planet and meet Huan."
Murmurs rippled through the assembly.
"First off, you gotta call him His Highness, never Huan. A guy says Huan around here, we cut off his head. All right, we'll make a technical exception for you. Fine. What do you offer in exchange?"
"I'm not sure. I could kill you if you don't?"
"One minute you're killing, the next you're not?"
"I'm just like you-pragmatic."
"When we upload into the After, it's forever. When we come back as Androids, we're stored somewhere and updated regularly. Kill me, and I'll come back a thousand times."
"Once will be enough. After that, I'll pick someone from here and put them in your place. Someone who won't let you return, and who'll lead me to His Highness."
The Android twitched, trying to get back up, but couldn't move gracefully and rolled onto the ground. He stood-no one laughed-and retrieved the molecular dagger that had fallen.
"Follow me, buddy."
He led him into a large stone staircase descending underground. Mineral torches lit their descent in alternating hues of blue and gold.
"Huan, he's your leader, right?"
"Yes. Listen, Wau. You should really say His Highness-I'm not joking. He could get mad and kill people at random. So, the HS knows about the Royal Planet?"
"The HS thinks there are twelve of you with three Ozys, brains fried on the local drug."
The staircase curved 180 degrees, revealing a stellar map etched on a wall. A quick scan. None of the systems appeared in the LE's charts. What is this place?
"And you, how did you find out?"
"I met runaway sex slaves in the Booz marshes."
"I hate you."
"It's the truth."
"Since you know everything, fatso, you wouldn't happen to know a Stella Nori? Pretty face, good runner, a bit of a tactician, and a treacherous whore who breaks her promises. Word is she's a Wau."
"If Stella belongs to the Wau Order, then I have bad news for you: we don't know each other. Is that why you came back here?"
"For another one."
"Who would've thought that beneath your murderous clown act beats a romantic heart?"
A new room, immense. Still lit by Xeno torches... and inside... a massive entangled gate.
The technology of entangled gates, though simple in principle, becomes exponentially more complex to manufacture and power as its size increases. A one-micron gate costs as much as a vehicle, and indeed, they are generally found in every ship's Drift systems-allowing LEs from across the universe to communicate with the hubs on Prospero and especially Titus, where the main servers are located. A mini-gate, fifty centimeters wide, already costs two million thalers in research and development. Each gate is unique-every atom in one must correspond to the other.
The gates like the one Wau owns in his fortress cost a billion or two. It's quite likely that many wealthy individuals across the universe own one-a modern version of old bunkers, allowing refuge in a secure apartment hidden inside a distant asteroid.
Finally, the Entangled Gates of the five great planets, the Big Five: Prospero, Titus, Alonso, Antioch, and Earth, are all connected and can transport entire fleets of ships. Their cost was immense and beyond budgeting-modern pyramids, the work of countless computers, scientists... and today, each consumes several cubic meters of antimatter per day.
And before him, the Wau saw an Entangled Gate-vertical, rectangular, twenty meters tall by ten wide, on an opposite wall. Xeno manufacture. Appearing to operate without excessive energy. By what miracle...
It opened onto a dirt path lined with marble posts and wild grass, on a planet where two suns were rising. A few small Xeno animals, similar to gerbils, were entering and exiting the room.
And it all made sense: the Xeno tale, Babylon, the spiked seed, the path and its shadow.
Their voices echoed in the large space:
"I've got a question, fatso. They say the Aleph has an eye in every house and every ship, thanks to the Drift comm system."
"That's correct."
"So he knows what we're saying right now? And when I jerk off, he sees it?"
"Lucky, just because you can see everywhere doesn't mean your eye is in the right place at the right time. The Aleph is a god, but he's also a man, and that's our chance. He's like you, Lucky. Sometimes he jerks off, just like you. He's got better things to do. Especially since he thinks he's invincible."
"And you, do you jerk off?"
"My main source of pleasure is imagining the moment you'll finally shut up."
The Wau continued as Lucky stepped back.
"I want nothing to do with His Highness," said Lucky. "So go ahead and say we had no choice, which we didn't."
"Lucky, we're not done."
"Is that a threat?"
"No."
And the Wau stepped toward the gate, his giant shadow stretching behind him.
The Royal Planet… a planet with 19% oxygen, two suns-a yellow dwarf and a white dwarf. On the other side of the gate… rolling hills of grass and vivid red Xeno heather carving trenches between dwarf trees. Vast fields where, hunched over, not drones but men toiled-a landscape worthy of pre-stellar engravings of mythical Earth. In the sky, birds with eight-meter wingspans soared above.
Before him, the dirt road rose into a stairway carved into a cliff-steep hill, crowned like an acropolis by a bulbous dome, warped and open to the winds. The Xeno tale.
"I'm here to see His Highness," declared the Wau to two men who approached.
These men wore only tunics woven like those of primitive Xenos, but they carried sabers as sharp as molecular daggers: their edges shimmered, suggesting that the very molecules in the air were split by them. Intimidated by the Wau's size yet fierce in demeanor, they flanked him to lead him along the road. They trotted with dignity to match the giant's heavy strides.
The staircase became a series of checkpoints where the guards explained the situation to others and were replaced by better-equipped and better-dressed squads. As a drawn-out discussion unfolded in a sibilant dialect, the Wau looked out at the horizon: Ozys landing on distant cities or lifting off back into the firmament. The Brotherhood of Two Worlds… the world of the HS, where it has one foot and siphons resources, and this world, Xeno, isolated within a nebula… how many planets have they conquered? It's an unimaginable project, far beyond Andrei's suspicions, and one that would undoubtedly shake the HS Fleet's tacticians. The HS is in danger.
He was finally led to the summit. On the last step, his escorts prostrated themselves, without touching the white tiles engraved with mythical beasts. The dome was indeed open to the winds, but finely painted fabrics depicting landscapes of different worlds separated fragile rooms. A double colonnade framed a path leading to a round table of ivory and gold, surrounded by large wooden chairs draped in ample cloth. Between each column, the Wau noticed sleeping Chimera Protea… how many? Six, maybe seven. What a prize… to think the Order believed there was only one, maybe two, in the universe, while the Fleet pretended there was one per Endymion…
Huan arrived, flanked by two warriors in flexible graphene armor, each wielding blades with gleaming edges. Huan himself was a shriveled old man with gray skin, no longer able to walk: his 1.40-meter-tall body was supported by a gravity-manipulating seat, and his movements assisted by small drones. He was draped in purple and gold silks and wore a tall, weightless crown of light.
"Your Highness…" began the Wau… but the king gestured, and his left bodyguard lunged at the giant, who, surprised, twisted the man's arm and threw him to the ground. The warrior got up, looking fierce, and launched another assault. With a speed unexpected for his size, the Wau sidestepped, letting the attacker crash into a column. With controlled strength, he knocked him out against it.
He turned back to Huan, arms spread in astonishment, and the sovereign made another, symmetrical gesture. The second guard charged in turn. Annoyed, the Wau tried a psychic strike-but it failed. There was some kind of Transient artifact here absorbing psychic waves. How could that be?
Caught off guard, he barely dodged the assault and retreated for a moment. Then he picked up speed again, dodged, circled behind, and shoved the attacker down the stairs.
"Your Highness, do I really have to kill them? That's not why I came."
"That won't be necessary," the King replied with a final gesture.
The second soldier grimly nodded, approached his unconscious comrade, and decapitated him before dragging the body beneath a tapestry. The Wau watched impassively, cursing his lack of outrage, foresight, and understanding-but this was a diplomatic mission. He could not rebel.
"This kind of exercise helps me retain my best assets," commented Huan, rising slightly and indicating a column near the table where the Wau could sit. "Sit down-it is not fitting for a guest to stand taller than the King."
"Thank you for your time, Your Highness," said the Wau, complying.
"First, tell me: did Lucky let you through willingly?"
"Lucky offered the fiercest resistance, Your Highness. I don't know his condition as we speak."
"Good thing I keep my Chimeras close… no force in this world can surpass them, right?"
Impassive, the Wau lied: "Indeed, Your Highness."
A graceful woman in silk served the King a drink in a cup of blue crystal.
"You're a Wau, aren't you?"
"I am, Your Highness."
"How many of you are there? You seem rather formidable."
"The Royal Planet has no reason to fear us."
"Oh, I'll be the judge of that. And your number?"
"Fifty," the Wau lied at random.
He thought that at least, with this mysterious psi-barrier, no Empty Eye could pierce his lies.
"That's a large number, for such formidable fighters… even if my loyal Toyvo managed to push you back."
"Indeed, Your Highness."
"Have you come to offer me your services, Wau?"
A steward summoned servants in dirty canvas tunics to mop up the blood from the decapitation. They were brutalized with methods no longer used in the HS for centuries-methods the Wau never thought he would witness.
"In a manner of speaking. Your Highness, on the other side of the Entangled Gate, men have gathered under the rule of the Human Society."
"We know. A hypocritical and weak government… filthy planets where people die of disease, but the dead are hidden to preserve the illusion of happiness. And they want us to join them? Hahaha!"
Stewards, chancellors, ministers at his side burst into hearty laughter.
"Not exactly, Your Highness. There has been a regime change at the head of the HS. A human calling himself the Aleph, endowed with powers surpassing those of the Transients, now leads our civilization. He has a hegemonic vision that, I'm almost certain, will not align with your project of independence."
The Wau, however, believed that the moment the Aleph problem was solved, civilization's foundations would need to be restored on this planet and its colonies.
"And this Aleph sent you to threaten me?" asked the King smoothly.
"On the contrary. I am among those who oppose him."
"You want me to rise against him?"
Toyvo had returned behind him, standing at attention. The Wau felt both admiration and fear for such a human turned machine.
"I've seen that you have brave fighters, and I suspect your fleet is considerable. In exchange for your help during a single assault, which will take place sometime soon, the HS could assure you complete peace for the coming years. And perhaps you wouldn't need to hide in the slums of Babylon."
The Wau sighed inwardly. He could solve the problem alone, but it would take immense effort. By doing so, he could still honor the promise he had just made-after all, he did not belong to the HS.
"We are not hiding! Who says we aren't simply waiting for our moment to conquer you? Who says that today we don't possess a force greater than the HS?"
"I do. Aleph is stronger than I am, and I am stronger than your Chimeras."
The King was furious, his face twisted with hatred and rage. He gave a signal, and a Chimera stirred, advancing toward the Wau on silver spider-like legs.
The giant stood up, let the Chimera leap at him, and executed the Wau resonance attack-reducing it to dust. The fight lasted only a fraction of a second. Then he sat down again, almost casually. Shocked silence filled the assembly. Anger quickly gave way to fear… The Wau would have paid dearly to understand what was blocking his psychic ability here. Perhaps it was the planet itself? If only… everything would be simpler.
"I've thought about it," said the King. "My answer is no. Let the HS die like the cancer it has always been. We'll make a latrine of your wretched stellar grave. I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF!"
"Duly noted," said the Wau, rising. "As for me, I'll give you some time to think it over… there's no rush. I'll return at some point to see if you've changed your mind."
"Leave! Flee! I banish you! Set foot in my stellar kingdom again and I will kill you!"
"With all due respect, nothing and no one in your kingdom is capable of that. Farewell."
Dignified, the Wau descended the stairs amid the King's curses, looking with compassion at the inhabitants of the planet who toiled at exhausting labor-when on the other side of the great gate leading to Babylon, they could access a life of freedom.
A quiet fury rose within him.