David Zindell - 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.