Asimov's SF, April-May 2009 Read online

  “We have no reason to doubt his loyalty,” Faust replied. “He has been very useful to us in the past.”

  Capacious as the boat was, de Vere heard his name spoken. He came back toward the stern. “Will you stand lookout for a while, Master Faust?” he said. “Your senses are keener than mine, in spite of your years.”

  The German scholar got up meekly, and went to stand in the bow, allowing de Vere to take his seat.

  “The man you remember is no more, Master Bacon,” de Vere murmured. “I admit that I attached myself to the ether-ship's crew purely in order to win favor with the queen, in the days when her lovers reaped rich rewards of every sort, but the experience wrought as great a change in me as it did in my companions. The change was not as obviously consequential as the ones that afflicted Digges, Field, and Raleigh, but it was profound nevertheless. Tell me, Master Bacon, when you were at Cambridge, were you invited to join any societies?” He put sufficient emphasis on the final word for Francis to take his meaning.

  “Three of them,” Francis confirmed, truthfully. “I refused the invitations.”

  “Very commendable,” de Vere muttered. “I was not so scrupulous, during my brief sojourn at Oxford. When I did not graduate, I thought the society had washed its hands of me, but I found out differently the day before the ether-ship blasted off. When my parachute came down, I landed badly—not merely because I broke my ankles but because I came down in the marshes, among folk who live in mortal fear of the queen's revenue men. They brought me a surgeon, but he was the society's man; I had no opportunity to send word to Dee or the court. Since then ... well, Master Bacon, an oath is an oath, and I'm a man of honor.”

  Faust clambered back over the bench where Anthony and Marlowe were sitting in silence. “My old eyes are not as keen as your compliment implied, I fear,” he said. “You were right to be suspicious of the invitation you received, Master Bacon, but there really is a secret body of knowledge that has been handed down from time immemorial, and there were very good reasons for keeping it secret, which still apply. John Dee turned down an invitation too, many years ago, but none was ever issued to Leonard Digges or his son. Errors of judgment are inevitable.”

  “I am bound by other oaths,” Francis said. “I can't promise to keep anything you tell me from the queen or parliament, nor from John Dee. Nor will I betray any secret of theirs to your society.”

  “I understand that,” Faust said. “It's up to us to lead the way in honesty; the situation is desperate, and our old restraints have become inconvenient.”

  “Like the fog,” Francis muttered, looking around.

  “The fog is more likely to protect us than lead us to harm,” Faust replied. “We don't know exactly what resources our enemies have, but we know that they're working under the same spur of urgency.”

  “Are you taking us into danger, then?” The question came from Anthony.

  “You're already in danger,” growled de Vere. “The whole world is in peril.”

  Marlowe called out then: a questioning cry, which received an almost immediate reply. “Well judged, Kit,” de Vere said. As the oarsmen changed direction, though, he turned swiftly to Francis and said, “Tell me, Master Bacon—have you ever clasped the hand of the man of bronze?”

  Francis knew that he was referring to a man who sometimes kept company with Edward Kelley, though not frequently enough to deserve the superstitious judgment, noised about by some, that he was the wizard's familiar spirit. Bacon had always supposed that the nickname derived by way of Classical wordplay from the fact that he called himself Talos, although he was generally believed to be a Zingari rather than a Greek. “No,” he said, in reply to the question. “I haven't.”

  De Vere reached out and took Francis’ arm in order to guide his hand to the rope ladder he would have to climb in order to reach the deck of the launch's parent vessel. “That's a pity,” he said.

  “Why?” Francis asked, as he moved past the Earl to place his foot on the ladder's bottom rung, glad to find that it did not seem quite as unsteady as he had feared.

  “Because it means that there are secrets in Dee's camp from which you've been excluded,” de Vere told him, “and it might have given you a certain mental armor if you had.”

  * * * *

  3

  Francis was compelled to give his entire attention to the business of making himself safe on the ship's deck before he could spare any further thought for de Vere's dark hints. The vessel had lanterns fore and aft, like the launch, and at least two more attached to her masts, but their muted light did not allow Francis to make a proper judgment of her quality. She appeared to be a slender two-masted merchanter, some sixty feet from stem to stern. Her sails were furled and she lay very quietly at anchor, moored to a wooden dock that seemed utterly silent and lifeless. The name branded on the balustrade of the bridge was Himmel. There was a man at the wheel, and an officer beside him who must have been the vessel's master, but the fog hid their faces and the captain made no move to greet his new guest.

  Francis helped Anthony over the bulwark, and his brother stood close beside him while they waited for de Vere, Marlowe, and Faust to follow them. Faust spoke briefly to the captain and the helmsman in German, then led Francis and Anthony down below, to what was presumably the chart-room. There was a round table in the middle, at which two men were seated. Both stood up as the newcomers arrived.

  Because the lantern on the table had not been placed in the center, it illuminated one of the waiting men much more brightly than the other. He was tall and dark, and his beard was jet black, even though the lines in his face made him seem older than Faust; he wore a black hat, from which ringlets of hair depended over his temples. He met Francis’ gaze immediately, and bowed to him. The other, who was dressed in a monastic habit, kept his face modestly in shadow, but he also made a slight bow before sitting down again.

  “I'm Judah Low, Master Bacon,” the first man said, remaining on his feet and inclining his head again as Anthony moved to his brother's side. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I'm honored to meet you, sirs,” Francis said. “This is my brother, Anthony.”

  “Perhaps you'd like to show Master Bacon's companion around the ship, Lord Oxford,” the Rabbi suggested, diplomatically, as de Vere stepped into the room in his turn. Anthony made no objection to the dismissal, although he took care to cast a significant glance around the room before leaving meekly with de Vere. Faust came in as they left. When the door was closed, Low indicated that Francis should sit down, then followed his example. Faust took a place at the table too. Francis and Low were facing one another directly, with the mysterious monk to Low's right and Faust to his left.

  “You will inevitably be wary of us,” the Rabbi said, without further ado, “so I shall begin by summarizing what we know. John Dee and Thomas Digges are constructing a fleet of ether-ships at Wilton, financed by gold made by Edward Kelley with the aid of the philosopher's stone, with which they hope to defend the Earth against the Selenite Armada. The fleet is armed with weapons whose design has been furnished by an ethereal, which names itself Aristocles. Despite having such men as Philip Sidney and Francis Drake at his disposal, Dee is not optimistic that the Armada can be prevented from landing at least some of its vessels safely and establishing nests of soldier ants, which have been alchemically redesigned to operate in the atmospheric and affinitive conditions that pertain at the Earth's surface. Dee has recently been in communication with Thomas Muffet, who believes that he has made considerable progress in the alchemical techniques taught to him by Walter Raleigh's Arachnid associates, even though the Spider Matriarchs were killed during the Tahitian revolt. Raleigh and his remaining Adapted Men are willing to serve as a land army tracking down and assaulting Selenite nests, wherever they might be established on the Earth's surface. Muffet and his daughter hope to mount a defense of a different sort, equipping individual humans with the means to resist the metamorphoses that the Selenites intend to force upon the
ir bodies and minds.”

  “It seems,” Francis said, “that you are better informed in some respects than I am.”

  “Dee has good reasons for discretion,” Low observed. “The Royal College of Physicians still harbors resentment against Muffet, and John Foxe is likely to regard his schemes with instinctive horror, considering them diabolically inspired. Dee must be anxious to preserve his detente with the Church, at least until the fleet is launched.”

  And I am known to be on friendly terms with John Field, Francis thought. It is a relationship that has proved useful to Dee, and should not have earned me his distrust. Aloud, he said: “I must reserve my judgment on that.”

  Low nodded his head. His dark eyebrows shielded his eyes, but Francis saw him dart a glance at his companion, as if seeking reassurance that he had permission to proceed. Faust had not uttered a word; it seemed that he too was in the habit of deferring to the enigmatic monk.

  “We are also informed that the queen has denied you permission to fly with the fleet,” Low said.

  “I'm a scholar,” Francis said, “and Her Majesty deems that I shall be far more use to her and England with my feet on the ground, no matter what the fleet can achieve.” That was, indeed, the reason that the queen had given him, although it was whispered in the court that she had become besotted with him, in a quasi-maternal fashion, and was too fearful of losing him to allow him a part in such a dangerous enterprise. In 1572, when the first ether-ship had been launched, the gentlemen of the court had been very eager to impress her by risking their lives, but she was sixteen years older now, and the temper of life at court had changed completely. Queen Jane represented herself now as the mother of the nation, and made a show of regarding all her courtiers as her children rather than potential lovers—but she still played favorites, in her fashion, and was still prepared to indulge her whims to the narrow extent that protocol and politics permitted.

  “Do you regret that, Master Bacon?” Low asked, his voice surprisingly smooth and mellow.

  “Anthony regrets it more, I think,” Francis replied. “The queen forbade us both, out of some strange sense of fairness. He's more a man of action than I am. Still, I would be a coward, would I not, if I were to take comfort from the fact that other men will fight a fearsome battle on my behalf, while I sit safely home?”

  “Do you believe Francis Drake's claim that the crew of Dee's original ether-ship traveled much further than the moon—to the very heart of the Milky Way?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “Tom Digges believes it now, although he needed the evidence of Edward Kelley's angel to convince him, and Dee is similarly convinced. Does de Vere believe it?”

  “Yes, he does,” Low replied. “He had his doubts, for a while, but they have been conclusively settled. If you were offered an opportunity to do as he did—to travel to the heart of the galaxy, within sight of the blazing rim of the Black Pit—would you take it, even if there were dire risks involved?”

  “Are you offering me such an opportunity?” Francis asked, warily.

  “Yes,” said the Rabbi, bluntly.

  “How great are the risks?” Francis asked, for want of anything better to say.

  “Only slightly greater, we suspect, than the risk of remaining here on Earth—but a trifle more urgent. On the other hand, the potential reward of making the journey might be far greater than any that could accrue from remaining Earthbound all your life.”

  “You cannot expect me to make a decision until I know far more,” Francis said. “You need to explain exactly what you are proposing to do, and why. I'm not a coward—but I'm not a fool, either.”

  Instead of answering that, Judah Low turned to look at his companion and master. The monk leaned forward, as if by way of response, putting his face into the direct glare of the lantern for the first time. He was an old man, seemingly much older than either Low or Faust, although he did not seem weak in limb or gaze. His hair and beard were white and his eyes were also very pale, almost colorless. His features seemed benevolent; he radiated a peculiar impression of kindness and gentleness.

  “I am prepared to grant you access to a great secret, Master Bacon,” the monk said, solemnly. “I ask nothing of you in return, but I must warn you that it will change you irredeemably.”

  Francis was tempted to shrug his shoulders as a gesture of bravado, but he resisted the impulse. “It is my ambition to write a better encyclopedia than Stephen Batman's,” he said, speaking slowly in order to give himself time to think, “which will cast down all the false idols that have confused the beliefs of men for far too long. My intention is to write a comprehensive account of what is genuinely known and proven to be true, and to expel the mythical therefrom. I will not take your arcane secrets on trust, but I am enthusiastic to listen to them.”

  The monk smiled, without a trace of irony in his generous expression. “Take my hand, then,” he said, and reached out across the table.

  The old man's fingers were long and slender, the skin very coarse and wrinkled. Francis could not help but remember what de Vere had said to him in guiding him to the rope-ladder, and hesitated; when he reached out his own hand it was merely to invite the other to seize it, rather than taking the initiative himself.

  The monk did seize it—but not palm to palm, as in a conventional handshake. He grasped Francis’ wrist; and Francis gripped his reflexively in return.

  Then Francis looked the old man full in the face, and saw what he really was.

  The creature in monkish drab was not a churchman at all, nor even human, but was something dark and grey, soft and slightly moist. It had a face, of sorts, but its eyes were not human eyes and its mouth was not a human mouth. It was very slightly reminiscent of a snail's face, although the stalks supporting its eyes were very short.

  Francis realized that Judah Low really was attended by a golem: a humanoid creature formed out of flesh with the texture of clay. Francis was seized by a sudden conviction that Faust really was the scholar who had won his dubious reputation at the beginning of the century—but his eyes remained locked on the golem's. It was not Judah Low who was the golem's master, he realized, but the other way around. It was the golem that had brought him here, and it was the golem that was offering to send him into the heart of the True Civilization, to the Imperial Throne of the Great Fleshcores. He guessed then what the golem really was.

  “How long have you been on Earth?” Francis asked, when the other let go of his wrist and the clasp was broken. He was astonished by the coolness of his own voice, and the pertinence of his question.

  “Almost twenty thousand years,” the fleshcore-fragment replied, placidly resuming whatever glamour it was that gave him the appearance of a monkish scholar. “I believed that I had long grown accustomed to the hectic pace of life here, but I was unready for its rapid acceleration in the last half-century. There may still be time, even so, for me to summon help that might save the world.”

  * * * *

  4

  “I presume,” Francis said to the golem, “that you've employed many guises and many names in the past.”

  “My kind has a casual attitude to names,” the golem told him. “The one I use nowadays is Christian Rosenkreutz; before that I was Johann Heidenberg, otherwise known as Trithemius.”

  Francis remembered the latter name from his studies. “Trithemius was abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Sponheim a hundred years ago,” he said, attempting to shore up his reputation for cleverness. “Dee helped the queen's diplomatic service set up systems of secret communication based on the principles outlined in his—your—Steganographia. The first humanist history is also credited to you—Stephen Batman knew it well. You taught Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus too.”

  “The problem with able pupils,” said the creature wearing the appearance of an old man, with a wistful sigh, “is that many of them come to believe that they have learned everything they need to know in order to make further progress by themselves—but that is also their grea
test virtue.”

  “And who were you before you were Trithemius?” Francis asked, curiously.

  “It is only very recently that I have been forced to compromise with the documentary enthusiasm of chroniclers and lawmakers by inventing dates of birth and death,” the golem told him. “Most of the names foisted upon me have been easily committed to oblivion, although some survive stubbornly in legend.”

  “Plato?” Francis guessed. “Pythagoras? Zoroaster? Prometheus?”

  “There was no single Pythagoras, Zoroaster or Prometheus,” the golem told him. “There were six of us once, although I have been the sole survivor for several centuries. My kind does not have a determinate lifespan, but is not immune to the vicissitudes of time and chance. Plato was a mortal like yourself. Do you recall his family name, by the way?”

  This time, Francis was not caught at a loss. “The same as Kelley's angel informant,” he said. “Aristocles. Drake says that he remembers Tom Digges using the name during the adventure of the ether-ship. Tom agrees, although he confesses that his memory of what happened then is still very hazy.”

  “De Vere's is clearer,” the golem told him, “and he remembers that Aristocles was the name Digges gave to their insect guide, not the ethereal that invaded his body and made a voice inside his mind.”

  Francis frowned. “Drake told me that the insect that accompanied them from the moon to the heart of the Milky Way was destroyed by a humanoid machine. Does de Vere remember that?”

  “Quite clearly,” the golem told him. “What he does not know is how the insect came to be given the name. He thinks it unlikely to have been Digges’ choice.”

  “Tom is a highly educated man, after his fashion,” Francis said, “but de Vere might be right; he's not given to obscure Classical allusions. If the angel—the ethereal—is using the name now, it was presumably the one who chose it, although why it should have claimed the name for itself after first attributing it to another I cannot tell.” Tired of seeming trivia, he hurried to change the subject, adding: “When you said that there was no single Prometheus, you weren't denying that you and your kin had played a Promethean role in human affairs. Is all of human progress—moral, intellectual, and technological—the result of some experiment mounted by the Great Fleshcores twenty thousand years ago?”