“There was none such at the Citadel of Family Bishop,” Killeen said begrudgingly.
Toby recalled seeing a wall in the mined Blaine Arcology that held some such message on it. He started to say so but Cermo cut him off with a wave. “Look, however they slung their alphabet. I can see this plain. It’s a story about a woman who led humanity. They won. But what’s all this stuff about pearl palaces?”
“I figure that’s the Chandelier,” Killeen said distantly.
“Makes sense,” Toby said, quickly referring to his Isaac Aspect. “That word ‘pearl’ means a jewel—a kind of foggy one, like thin cat beer.”
This time Shibo was puzzled.
What is “cat beer”?
“Milk. Sorry, it’s a kid’s joke.” Toby whispered to her.
He had said it without thinking. He wanted to be taken seriously here, not as just a funnel for Shibo’s expertise. He had not let Cermo or Killeen have direct access to Shibo through comm interface, which would have been an easy techno-trick. Then they would have just bypassed him completely, a kid left out of adult business.
“There’s a lot I don’t understand about this engraving,” Killeen said. “First, can you get it writ right for us?”
For Shibo it was easy. In a few moments she relayed to one of the big wall screens.
“So I was right.” Killeen slammed a fist on his desk. “They had a long era when they beat the mechs—see, the ‘five kinds of living dead.’ I saw that written on a monument, a tomb, years ago—remember? You were both there.”
Cermo frowned. “Ummm, I recall something . . .”
Toby said, “I remember. The inscription was about a powerful ‘He,’ though, and—”
“It was about mechs, for sure,” Killeen went on. “And this ‘she,’ a great leader—they took her away somewhere.”
Cermo’s brow wrinkled doubtfully. “How’s that?”
“Plain as starshine,” Killeen said, getting up with muscular energy and pacing before the screen. “See? This ‘she’ ‘voyaged on to place immutable’ after her ‘bodily form evaped’—evaporated? She’ll ‘rise as shall we all who plunge inward to the lair and library.’ They left the Chandelier, at least some of them. And went somewhere else, this ‘lair’ where they’d be safe.”
Cermo nodded reluctantly. “Yeasay, I remember a tomb. As for the rest . . .”
“It’s obvious!” Killeen paced quickly. “Look, I recorded it using one of my Aspects. Here—”
On a screen flashed:
He,
on whose arm fame was inscribed, when, in battle in the vasty countries, he kneaded and turned back the first attack. With his breast he parted the tide of enemies—those hideous ones, mad-mechanical and unmerciful to the fallen.
There was more, and Killeen rattled on, reciting passages and comparing them with the inscription they had seen near a tomb, and none of it made any particular sense to Toby. Some, like He: Who led Humankind from the steel palaces aloft, probably referred to the Chandelier Era. Others, such as He: by the breezes of whose prowess the southern ocean is still perfumed, must have come from a time when there were oceans on Snowglade, not just the lakes he knew, that shrank every year. But there were plenty, like He: Who set forth Humanity in the names of the Pieces, that made no sense at all. And his Isaac Aspect told him that even the folk of the Arcologies were mystified by such wordy relics.
Killeen paced and talked, paced and talked. When his famous ardor came on him like this, he had a hypnotic energy. But Toby could see a quiet frenzy building in his father and did not like the signs.
Cermo intervened, voice smooth and soothing. “Could be, lotsa big fat maybes in there—but that’s not the point, Cap’n, ’member?”
Killeen blinked and took a deep breath. “I . . . suppose not. I had hoped that the engraving would give us some way to deal with this tight spot we’re in.”
Toby tried to keep his voice light and businesslike. “What spot?”
Cermo said to his Cap’n, “We should hold a Gathering.”
“Yeasay. I can present our choices to the Family—”
“What spot?”
Cermo said, “The explosion in the Chandelier, it was the energy source for a pulse of radiation. We thought it was meant to catch us, but could be the emission was the true intent.”
Toby kept his face blank to cover his surprise, the way his father sometimes did. “I didn’t pick up anything, on any comm band.”
Killeen thumbed up a spectrum plot on a wall screen. “No wonder. It was far up in frequency, way above anything we can see. Gamma rays. And beamed—Argo picked it up, just barely.”
“Beamed which way?” Toby persisted.
“Outward. Toward some of those places Quath told us to avoid.” Killeen gazed somberly at his son.
Toby felt a burst of sympathy for his father. Killeen had taken so much on faith, and now that would all be tested. They had followed Quath’s advice ever since their long flight began from Trump. They had gone to that world hoping to make it be New Bishop, thinking they would settle there. But they had been driven out.
And the Family had not even protested when members of Quath’s species had followed them—though at a distance, propelling forward a huge glowing instrument of their own gigantic craft. It was somewhere behind them, acting as a kind of rear guard that nobody quite understood. They had swooped and dodged to get this close to True Galactic Center, avoiding obstacles Quath found in the confusing star maps. All on faith, flying nearly blind. Without knowing what strange strategies would work here.
“Burglar alarm,” Toby blurted.
Cermo asked, “Huh? The emission?”
“Beamed at somebody who wanted to know when humans returned here,” Toby said with more certainty than he felt—a skill he thought of as adult, manly.
Killeen nodded. “Mechs.”
