Continent of Lies
Nothing in his
earlier life had prepared Pierce for what came next. It beggared
belief: a series of synthetic aperture radar scans transmitted by a
probe millions of years ago in another galaxy had triggered a
diplomatic crisis, threatening world war and civilizational
autocide.
The Hegemony, despite
being a Science Empire, was not the only nation in this age. (True
world governments were rare, cumbersome dinosaurs notorious for
their absolute top-down corruption and catastrophic-failure modes:
the Stasis tended to discourage them.) The Hegemony shared their
world with the Autonomous Directorate of Zan, a harshly abstemious
land of puritanical library scientists (located on a continent
which had once been attached to North America and Africa); sundry
secular monarchies, republics, tyrannies, autarchies, and communes
(who thought their superpower neighbors mildly insane for wasting
so much of their wealth on academic institutions, rather than the
usual aimless and undirected pursuit of human happiness); and the
Kingdom of Blattaria (whose inhabitants obeyed the prehistoric
prophet Haldane with fanatical zeal, studying the arthropoda in ecstatic devotional
raptures).
The Hegemony was
geographically the largest of the great powers, unified by a set of
common filing and monitoring protocols; but it was not a monolithic
entity. The authorities of the western principality of Stongu
(special area of study: the rocky moons of Hot Jupiters in M-33)
had reacted to the discovery of Civilization on the moon of a water
giant with a spectacular display of sour grapes, accusing the
northeastern Zealantians of fabricating
data in a desperate attempt to justify a hit-and-run raid on
the Hegemony’s federal tax base. Quite what the academics of Leng
were supposed to do with these funds was never specified, nor was
it necessary to say any more in order to get the blood boiling in
the seminaries and colleges. Fabricating
data had a deadly ring to it in any Science Empire, much
like the words crusade and jihad in the millennium prior to Pierce’s birth.
Once the accusation had been raised, it could not be ignored—and
this presented the Hegemony with a major internal
problem.
“Honored soldier of
the Guardians of Time, our gratitude would be unbounded were you to
choose to intercede for us,” said the speaker for the delegation
from the Dean’s Lodge that called on his household barely two days
after the discovery. “We would not normally dream of petitioning
your eminence, but the geopolitical implications are
alarming.”
And indeed, they
were; for the Hegemony supplied information to the Autonomous
Directorate, in return for the boundless supplies of energy
harvested by the solar collectors that blanketed the Directorate’s
inland deserts. Allegations of fabricating
data could damage the value of the Hegemony’s currency;
indeed, the aggressive and intolerant Zanfolk might consider it
grounds for war (and an excuse for yet another of their tiresome
attempts to obtain the vineyards and breadbasket islands of the
Outer Nesh archipelago).
“I will do what I
can.” Pierce bowed deeply to the delegates, who numbered no less
than a round dozen deans and even a vice-chancellor or two: he
studiously avoided making eye contact with his father-in-law, who
stood at the back. “If you are absolutely sure of the merits of
your case, I can consult the Library, then testify publicly,
insofar as I am authorized to do so. Would that be
acceptable?”
The vice-chancellor
of the Old College of Leng—an institution with a history of over
six thousand years at this point—bowed in return, his face stiff
with gratitude. “We are certain of our case, and consequently
willing to abide by the word of the Library of the Guardians of
Time. Please permit me to express my gratitude once
more—”
After half an hour of
formalities, the delegation finally departed. Xiri reemerged from
her seclusion to direct the servants and robots in setting the
receiving room of their mansion aright; the boys also emerged,
showing no sign of understanding what had just happened. “Xiri, I
need to go to the Final Library,” Pierce told her, taking her hands
in his and watching for signs of understanding.
“Why, that’s
wonderful, is it not? My lord? Pierce?” She stared into his eyes.
“Why are you worried?”
Pierce swallowed
bitter saliva. “The Library is not a place, Xiri, it’s a
time. It contains the sum total of all
recorded human knowledge, after the end of humanity. I’m near to
graduation, I’m allowed to go there to use it, but it’s not, it’s
not safe. Sometimes people who go to
the Library disappear and don’t come back. And sometimes they come
back changed. It’s not just a passive archive.”
Xiri nodded, but
looked skeptical. “But what kind of danger can it pose, given the
question you’re going to put to it? You’re just asking for
confirmation that we’ve been honoring our sources. That’s not like
asking for the place and time of your own death, is
it?”
“I hope you’re right,
but I don’t know for sure.” Pierce paused. “That’s the problem.” He
raised her hands to his lips and kissed the backs of her fingers.
If it must be done, best do it fast.
“I’ll go and find out. I’ll be back soon . . .”
He stepped back a
pace and activated his phone. “Agent-trainee
Pierce, requesting a Library slot.”
There was a brief
pause while the relays stored his message, awaited a transmission
slot, then fired them through the timegate to Control. Then he felt
the telltale buzzing in the vicinity of his left kidney that warned
of an incoming wormhole. It opened around him, spinning out and
engulfing him in scant milliseconds, almost too fast to see: then
he was no longer standing in the hall of his own mansion but on a
dark plain of artificial limestone, facing a doorway set into the
edge of a vast geodesic dome made from some translucent material:
the Final Library.
A Brief Alternate
History of the Solar System: Part Three