The eternity artifact, p.1
The Eternity Artifact, page 1
THE
ETERNITY
ARTIFACT
L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE ETERNITY ARTIFACT
Copyright © 2005 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by David G. Hartwell
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-5345-0
ISBN-10: 0-7653-5345-8
First Edition: October 2005
First Mass Market Edition: August 2006
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5
For Robert and Nesby, in memoriam,
in proof that dreams are carried unto the generations.
“Love of knowledge is the basis of all scholarship and lies
eternally at the root of the tree of civilization.”
“The eternal love of God surpasses all other loves, and is to be valued
above all worldly and other transient affections.”
“Love is a delusion, an eternal romanticization
of lust perpetuated by oversexed males.”
“A true artist’s love of life, of the endless and eternal,
and all that it encompasses, is expressed in every brushstroke.”
“What separates artifices and artifacts from mere assemblages of components,
what defines them and their use, is the love with which
they are constructed and applied.”
PREFACE
The last—and most unusual—discovery of the ill-fated and underfunded Deep Space Exploration program of the League of Worlds was Chronos [see “B2,” “DSE, Section 4-1,” “Galactic Anomalies”]…
Chronos is a perfect sphere of compressed matter in a state that appears as neither regular matter, nor that which would be classified as neutronium. Its diameter is 15,020 kilometers [1.178 T-norm], with an approximate mass of 1.9714X1015 kilograms [density is weighty 280 T-norm]. Remote tests and probes indicate no atmosphere, and a surface that is perfectly polished [variation less than .0001 mm.] under a thin layer of galactic dust and detritus. Chronos rotates on its own axis with a period of eleven standard hours…
Based on the accumulation and composition of surface matter, the trajectory of the body, the images and sensor readings, the DSE team estimated that Chronos had been formed between 4 and 10 billion years ago. This preliminary finding ignited controversies in all major systems, and two other brief expeditions [see “Covenant Rim Expedition” and “CW Chronos Probe”] were mounted. Their instrumentation was less elaborate, but essentially confirmed the findings of the DSE expedition…
Equally remarkable is the body’s location and velocity. Chronos was detected beyond the outer edge of the trailing arm of the Galaxy moving at a thirty-degree inclination to the galactic ecliptic and tangent to the arm at a constant velocity of 66 km/sec. Because of its speed and gravitational characteristics, confirmation of its properties was both difficult and costly, and those expenses were a major factor in the termination of the DSE program… After the initial furor over the findings of all three expeditions, all the systems of the Galaxy abandoned the enigma that was Chronos to its lonely journey, citing the difficulties and costs involved in further explorations…
—UNIVERSE OF WONDER
J. Joshua Moorty,
D.Sci. Pan-Media
Delhi, O.E., 4323
THE ETERNITY ARTIFACT
PROLOGUE
GOODMAN
Tyang Ku Wong stepped onto the dais and crossed to the podium. Podiums haven’t been necessary in millennia, except for symbolic reasons, but symbols are critical to humanity, whatever the culture. From where I stood on the west side of the dais with the half squad of White Guards, Ku Wong would be less than ten meters away.
The Hall of Deliberation was hushed as the recently elected people’s advocates of the Middle Kingdom waited to hear him. I already knew the basis of his address and the policies he intended to follow as First Advocate. That was why I was there.
My hands felt like they were sweating under the pseudohand full-gloves that ran from fingernails to elbow. So did my face, under the real-flesh that wasn’t my own. The sweating was an illusion, not from nervousness, but from a systemic reaction to the nanothin layer between my flesh and the foreign DNA of the arm-gloves and head-flesh.
With the other White Guards, I remained perfectly motionless.
Ku Wong stepped behind the podium. The front was carved in the likeness of a spray of bamboo stalks behind the seal of the Middle Kingdom. He let the silence draw out before he spoke. The instantlinguistic made what he said intelligible, but that was only because I’d had practice. Years of it. Speaking was still easier than comprehending.
“… the people of the Middle Kingdom have made their wishes known, and you are here on Tiananmen to enact the laws and policies necessary. The election has made it clear that the Middle Kingdom must be run on principles of enlightened humanism and secularism, and not by the dead hands of ancient prophets and barbaric gods. In an age of enlightenment—and we of the Middle Kingdom are indeed blessed to live in such an age—there is no place for religious and cultural paternalism. There is no place for unbridled feministic anarchy. There is no place for unfettered capitalism, nor for dictatorial government command-and-control. Most important, there is no place for the worship of power for the sake of power. We will continue to oppose all the ancient evils, whether based on superstition and blind belief or upon unchecked power and greed. We will oppose such policies and beliefs both within our worlds—and without—and we will stand firm against those who would force such upon us, or who would endeavor to seduce us with poetic polemics of the past…”
A roar of applause filled the Hall.
I had no doubt that Ku Wong’s words sounded better in their original Mandarin, but the instalinguistics were accurate enough. I waited for the next round of applause.
“… in the course of human events, each people has the choice of whether the day ahead will be a bright tomorrow or a faded yesterday chained by memories of a despotic past. The worlds of the Middle Kingdom have chosen tomorrow, unlike those of Covenanters, who have proved that they will drag all around them, such as the ill-fated Libracracy, into a despotic religious tyranny, or those of the Alliance. Tomorrow will be ours…”
Just before the applause rose to the highest point, I twisted my hand slightly. The miniature nanodarts flashed unseen across the space that separated me from the First Advocate.
He paused, looking surprised. “… will be ours… for we have… prepared…”
A few in the front row—the new ministers—leaned forward. Ku Wong never stuttered.
Abruptly, a pillar of flame flared where he had stood. It was so hot the podium turned black even before the pyrotic darts finished their reactive consumption. The darts had been so small and so comparatively slow that the kinetic energy screens had not been triggered. The multiple microlaunchers in my uniform had disintegrated, and the residue would show nothing.
For less than a second, the Hall of Deliberation was still. Then, chaos erupted.
“Covenanters! Murder!”
With the other guards, I dashed forward. We formed a barrier around the ashes that had been the First Advocate of the Middle Kingdom. Nanette barriers dropped into place, separating the dais from the Hall proper.
“White Guards! Re-form on the wings!” The commands came from nowhere, but the voice was that of General Tse-Sung, the Advocate of Security.
We re-formed. Energy fields flashed over and around us. I waited as hard-faced men and women in brilliant white appeared, with the shoulder braids of Security on their singlesuits.
One team appeared to my right.
“Lao Xun, forward!”
Xun stepped forward. The Security specialists aimed scanners and analyzers at him.
The head analyst nodded. “To the right. Wait there.”
“ChoWang, forward!”
I stepped forward. The analyzers took minute samples from the backs of my wrists and cheeks and neck. The only weak points for my visible body parts were my eyes themselves, but the politics of scanning eyes had limited DNA sampling there and retinal scans.
“Clear. Step to the right.”
I formed up next to Lao Xun. Neither of us spoke.
For the next two hours, the Security specialists scanned everything and everyone. The scans were not only for DNA, but for internal weapons. The scans showed that I was ChoWang and that I had no internal weapons or anomalies. That was as it should have been.
All I had to do was to remain calm and carry out the duties of the Guard I had removed and replaced. To do otherwise would have called attention to who I was, and would have been as fatal to me as my nanodarts had been to the First Advocate.
Another two standard hours—and two more screenings—passed before we were dismissed and confined to quarters. This mission had been completed satisfactorily. Getting back to New Zion would be tedious, but not a real problem.
While the universe might suspect that the Council of Twelve had decreed the First Advocate’s
In some senses, an operative’s easiest tasks were the missions. In working for the Council, the members and their personal crusaders were more dangerous to you than the operatives of other governments.
As I waited for the opportunity to leave the barracks, I couldn’t help but wonder what the next assignment would be.
SEEKING
1 FITZHUGH
At times, every professor believes that his classroom represents the abnegation of intelligence, if not absolute abiosis. This feeling has been universewide since long before the Tellurian Diaspora. Lughday was no exception, especially not for my fourth-period class, Historical Trends 1001, the introductory course, one of the core requirements for undergraduates.
I walked through the door into the small amphitheatre classroom and toward the dais. Forty bodies sat waiting in four tiers, arrayed in a semicircle—all avoiding my scrutiny. At times such as the one before me, I could only wish that the university did not require all full professors to teach one introductory course every year, at a bare minimum. I’d drawn fourth period—right after lunch, and that made it even more of a challenge.
I stationed myself behind the podium, the representation of a practice significantly untransformed in almost ten thousand recorded years of human history—and for the last five, savants and pedants had prognosticated the decline of personal- and physical-presence classroom instruction. Yet in all instances where such ill-considered experimentation in technologically based pedagogical methodology had been attempted in an effort to replace what had worked, if imperfectly, the outcomes and the ramifications had ranged from social catastrophe to unmitigated disaster, even as my predecessors in pedagogy had predicted such eventualities.
Technology and implementation had never constituted the difficulty, but rather the genetic and physiological strengths and limitations of human cognitive and learning patterns. From a historical perspective, successful technological applications are those that enhance human capacities, not those that force humans into prestructured technological niches or functions.
As I cleared my throat and stepped to the podium, the murmurs died away. I glanced down at the shielded screen before picking a name, smiling politely, and speaking. “Scholar Finzel, please identify the single most critical aspect of the events leading to the Sunnite-Covenanter Conflagration of 3237.”
“Ser?” Finzel offered a blank look.
For the second class of the first semester, blank looks were not exactly infrequent, not for beginning students, especially for those from nonshielded continents or from the occasional off-planet scholar. “I realize neolatry precludes your interest in matters of past history, but since the Conflagration resulted in the devastation of Meath, extensive damage to the Celtic worlds of the Comity, and significant taxation increases for the entire Comity, and since both the Covenanters and the Alliance have continued to rearm and rebuild their fleets, with a continued hostility exemplified most recently by the so-called pacification of the Mazarene systems and the forcible annexation of the Walden Libracracy…”
That not-so-gentle reminder did not remove the expression of incomprehension, but only added one of veiled hostility. I used the screen to check his background. As I’d vaguely recalled, he was from Ulster, where he could have netlinked and been provided the answer.
“Scholar Finzel,” I said politely, “Gregory is a shielded continent, and the university is a shielded institution. You are expected to read the texts before class. For some reason, you seem unable to comprehend this basic requirement. I suggest you remedy the situation before the next class.” I turned to a student with a modicum of interest in her eyes. “Scholar MacAfee?”
“According to Robertson Janes, ser, there were two linked causes of the Conflagration. The first was the malfunction of the communications linkages of the Covenanter fleet command, and the second was the widespread perception among the population of the Alliance worlds that the Covenanters intended to spread a nanogeneviris that would transform all herbivores into hogs.” A hint of a smile crossed Scholar MacAfee’s lips.
“You’re in the general area,” I replied, “but I don’t believe that Janes said the Covenanter fleet’s command communications malfunctioned. Do you recall exactly what he wrote?”
MacAfee frowned.
“Anyone else?”
“Ser?” The tentative voice was that of Ariel Leanore, a dark-haired young woman who looked more like a girl barely into seminary, rather than at university.
“Yes?”
“I think… didn’t he write something… it was more like… the expectations of instantaneous response resulted in the ill-considered reprisal on Hajj Majora… and that reprisal made the Sunnis so angry that they passed the legislation funding the High Caliph’s declaration of Jihad. There were rumors about the Spear of Iblis, but those were noncausal…” Leanore paused, her voice trailing away.
“Very good, Scholar Leanore.” I stopped and surveyed the faces, seeing that most of them still hadn’t grasped the impact of Janes’s words. “The expectations of instantaneous response… what does that mean?”
All forty faces were blank with the impermeability of incomprehension. When I had been in the service, I had believed that such an expression was limited to those of less-than-advanced intelligence. The years in academia had convinced me that it appeared upon the visages of all too many individuals in the adolescent and postadolescent years, regardless of innate intelligence or the lack thereof.
“What it means…” I drew out the words. “… is that instantaneous communications and control preclude the opportunity for considered thought and reflection. The Covenanter command had the ability to order and carry out an immediate reprisal. They did so. They did not think about the fact that the Covenanter trading combines on Hajj Majora had, within the terms of their culture, acted responsibly against those Covenanters who had manipulated the terms of exchange in a manner that could be most charitably described as fraud.” I cleared my throat There are definite disadvantages to auditory lectures, especially without even sonic boosting, but my discomfort was irrelevant to those who had enacted the shielding compact “Now that you know that, why did I initially suggest that there was only one critical aspect to these events?”
“You suggest that both events listed by Janes share a commonality, ser?” That was Scholar Amyla Sucharil, one of three exchange students from the worlds of the Middle Kingdom.
“Not only the events cited by Janes, but those cited by Yamato and Alharif.”
“Isn’t it communications? They all deal with communications, ser,” suggested Leanore.
Young Ariel might have been tentative, but at least she was thinking, unlike most of the others. “Exactly! Both the events cited by Janes were the result of misunderstanding and misapplications of the use and function of communications, if in different societal aspects. If you apply the same tests to the examples of Yamato and Alharif, you’ll find a similar pattern.” I smiled, not that I wanted to, because it was likely to be a long afternoon. “History illustrates a pattern in communications. In low-tech civilizations, only immediate personal communications can be conveyed with any speed, and those are often without detail. As more detail is required, communications slow. As technology improves, there is always a trade-off between speed and detail, because improving technology results in greater societal and infrastructural complexity, which requires greater detail. Until the development of fullband comm and nanoprocessing, this trade-off existed to a greater or lesser degree. For the past millennium or so, however, the limitation on communications has not been the technology. What has it been?” I surveyed the faces, some beginning to show apprehension as they realized that they did not know the answer, and that I might indeed call upon them.
