Prophecy
“This is a story about the value of prophecy,” said the sage. The Long Ships of the Counter Xarctic Traders were already crossing the borderlands of the Immaculate Dominion. Ahead of them were the battle eaten husks of a dozen damaged worlds. Their war had been bitter and protracted. It had been poisoned with that unique kind of hatred which only religious differences can inspire and the traders knew that they must be careful. New Contact in these circumstances was a dangerous duty.
The Counter Xarctic Traders were engaged in ‘Oblique Meditation’. It is the practice amongst the Contact Communes to prepare for the difficulties of establishing relations with this special form of contemplation. The dark light years slipped past the Council as they listened to the sage.....
On the planet of Helldrone, which orbits within the double star system Darquin not far from ByRoute 45, there was once a human farmer who had two sons. The elder son was strong and handsome but not particularly intelligent, whilst the younger, though clever and kind, was considered rather ugly and lacked the muscular power of his brother. The boys’ mother had died of a fever when they were still quite young and their father had never remarried. He had been a good deal older than his wife, and by the time his sons reached manhood was already well over sixty years of age (as they measured it on Earth and Helldrone alike, for Helldrone was in the Solar Group in those days). The geology of Helldrone is driven by type ‘A’ plate tectonics and at the northern tip of the smaller southern continent (which is called Tycin) there lies a region populated by many active volcanoes. The farmer and his family lived in a small village on the lower slopes of one such volcano, a mountain which they called ‘Old Grumbler’. The dark soil that clothed ‘Old Grumbler’ was very fertile and the villagers grew a rich variety of crops, from the long blue waving stalks of cantaquon to the aromatic bright green leaves of quiston. As a consequence the village was quite prosperous. The houses were neat and well maintained with stone troughs of flowers outside each dwelling and a bank of beautifully planted geraniums around the black stone church. The farmer’s house was particularly fine, for he owned the largest single portion of land, high above the village, and for many years it had yielded the most excellent and bounteous crop. Now when the two sons were of an age to marry it happened that they both fell in love with the same girl, a flirtatious young woman who was the daughter of the priest. She, for her part, kept both men in suspense, first seeming to favour one and then the other. Indeed she had a string of admirers throughout the village and beyond it but although she teased the others most of her attention was concentrated on the two brothers. She refused to make up her mind, however, although both men had proposed to her and for three years it drove them to distraction. As the farmer grew older he became increasingly anxious about the future of his sons. He had counselled them both to forget the girl and to find another but they ignored him. Unhappy as he was with this situation, he remained confident it would resolve itself in time. Another thought had taken root that troubled him more deeply. A growing intimation of mortality made him wonder what would become of the young men when he was dead. According to the custom that prevailed in the region the elder son might expect to inherit the whole of his father’s estates, although it was not unheard of for a farm to be passed on to another son. Land was never divided, however, unless it had passed out of a family and to split his holdings between the two would disgrace them both. The farmer loved his sons equally and could not decide which of them should receive the farm, for the other would surely be impoverished. One morning in early summer when the bright yellow rays of Darquin alpha cast long shadows over the waving cantaquon and the mellow red glow of Darquin beta filled those shadows out and warmed the living loam, the farmer and his sons were working high on the slopes of ‘Old Grumbler’. The people on the slopes beneath and the people in the village far below seemed to belong to another world. Shading his eyes from the yellow rays, the farmer looked up from his digging towards the rising sun and so it was that he was the first to see the distant procession winding up the dusty road from the south east. The endless cyclic march of the ‘Divining Apostles’ had brought them to the village. Now the history of Helldrone is obscure and poorly documented. Before the humans colonised the system we know that it was settled by some schism of the Tetratic Empire who abandoned it after three thousand years. Long before the Tetratic exiles first arrived, the Querequian cultures had ceded space to an Amnyine enclave, which seems to have been locally important in that age. Even earlier, there are some archival records suggesting that the Grumm maintained a base in the system and before that there may have been a Cata-Zin presence on the planet, but the evidence for these ancient occupations is increasingly thin. The Solar Group knew little of these peoples and the human communities of Helldrone knew still less. They regarded any traces of previous alien intelligence on the planet with a mixture of awe and superstitious fear. Some forty years before our story begins, a group of human settlers had uncovered a cache of alien artefacts in archaeological diggings on the larger southern continent of Ucyn. We might guess that these were Amnyine Time Lode Toys and one of them was still functioning. The Amnyine may well have been amused by the fate of their ancient plaything. Without cultural cross cues the machine still made a mighty impression on its discoverers, so much so, in fact, that it inspired a new religious cult. These were the ‘Divining Apostles’. When the men returned to the village at yellow dusk, the ‘Divining Apostles’ had established camp on the common meadow across the stream from the inn and their beasts of burden had been set to graze and sleep in public fields on the northern road. There were nearly forty men, women and children on the continuous pilgrimage. The cult believed that it was their duty to parade the ‘Divining Machine’ throughout Helldrone. Already there was a buzz of excitement amongst the villagers. With their heads shaven and dressed in lurid purple and red robes the cult members were exotic and mysterious. Their tour of Helldrone took roughly five years but it did not run to a precise timetable so although the villagers had seen the ‘Divining Apostles’ before, their arrival was always somewhat unexpected. A circle of torches marked the limit of the camp. Inside were ten tents of canvas, water proof acrylics, silk and linen. Each one was sturdy and weathered but at the same time ornate and fashioned to display luxury and opulence. The largest of these tents was nearly as tall as the church and sufficiently imposing to be called a pavilion. It occupied an area comfortably big enough to have accommodated all the ‘Divining Apostles’ and was decorated with gold embroidered dragons and kytyl birds. It had taken most of the cult all day to construct. At the entrance to the pavilion two strongly built turbaned guards carried shining scimitars tied to broad crimson sashes about their waists. The ‘Divining Machine’ and the ‘High Apostles’ were established within. Outside, the lesser acolytes had set up food stalls by their fires to sell exotic spices from the south and roasted nuts from the northern continent. Mystics of Concentration were demonstrating their juggling skills. The ‘Divining Apostles’ were ready to receive the tribute of the villagers. The human colonists of Helldrone were practical men and women not given to the excesses of some religions, but they were not without their superstitions. It was good luck to jump the stream backwards without getting wet. ‘Old Grumbler’ must only be spoken of with hand on heart. It was bad luck to light a lantern between red and yellow sunrise. Their faith was pragmatic rather then idealistic. On the yellow day the Helldrone Congress said was Sunday they would go to church, but when the ‘Divining Apostles’ came they would feel no shame in visiting their camp, whatever the local priest may have preached from the pulpit. If they had been asked about it they might have said that it was simply prudent not to ignore any religion. They could see no harm in trying whatever forms were available. The farmer was third in the queue for an audience with ‘the machine that told the future’. Before he was granted admittance he had to agree an ‘offering’ with a senior acolyte. These alms fed and clothed the ‘Divining Apostles’ (and made them rich). Within the pavilion supplicants removed their shoes. Thick carpets of deep blue pile and heavy wall hangings muffled the sound of the crowd outside. One of the ‘Low Apostles’ instructed the farmer in the correct forms of address and in what to expect from the machine. He was then made to wait in an attitude of meditation in an outer chapel divided from the interior by more wall hangings which depicted scenes from the history of Helldrone’s human colonisation. At length, admitted to the ante chapel, he was led through a ritual chant of preparation by one of the ‘High Apostles’ after which he had to wait and meditate again until a yellow light above the inner sanctum indicated that the ‘Divining Machine’ was ready to receive him. In the inner sanctum there was a blue glow from four spotlights which was diffused by a thin and sweetly perfumed smoke rising from two censors. The ‘Divining Machine’ was displayed on a raised platform but the room was otherwise empty. The ‘Divining Apostles’ believed that each prophecy which the machine delivered was for the ears of one recipient only. Even their own ‘High Apostles’ waited outside until an audience was complete. “Be welcome,” the machine said. The voice seemed to come from all directions at once and had a peculiar neuter quality, but it was not harsh. A web work of metal struts and crystal lenses glittered in the blue light. “I am the Divining Machine. I am the machine which foretells the future through the past. Through the nodes of my being I hold communion with that which was. Through the interface with the present, which is your interview with me, I hold communion with that which is. When ‘that which was’ is married to ‘that which is’ their offspring are made plain to me and I proclaim ‘that which will be’. Speak of your life.” So the farmer related the brief summary of his life and problems which the ‘Low Apostle’ had advised him to compose. The machine did not interrupt but waited until the key closing phrase was spoken. “This is my truth. Integrate, Analyse and Proclaim Oh Machine!” A hypnotic pattern of lights now played over the complex field of the display and there was a potent pause. “Listen to my words. The cycle turns. Those who were once mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have. Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it. Your destiny is written in the book of fate and none may change it!” The audience was at an end and two days later the ‘Divining Apostles’ were on the road again. That autumn there were early storms which damaged the cantaquon. The harvest for the whole village was meagre but the yield from the farmer’s fields was particularly poor and there was no change in the situation of his sons. When the village elders met to discuss the community tithes and to allocate the bonded men for the coming year they were worried. The mayor, who had long been a rival of the farmer in wealth and status had harsh words for his old adversary. “If we do not meet the quota next year,” he said, “I shall have to invoke the ‘Command Laws’ for those estates which are badly managed”. There was much grumbling and discontent in the Hall. The ‘Command Laws’ dated back to the early colonisation of Helldrone more than two hundred and fifty years ago. No one had used them in the last twenty years but the Helldrone Congress had never revoked them. The ‘Command Laws’ were designed to impose external controls on the means of production in the economy if the natural market was seen to be failing. They were not popular though they had certainly been necessary. Most people felt that to use them now was an abuse of power. One bad harvest was hardly sufficient reason in what was still basically a wealthy village. During the discussions that followed the farmer was silent and withdrawn, and he kept his own council. In truth, he found little in village politics to interest him although it would have been better for him if he had paid more attention. Under oath not to discuss the revelation of the ’Divining Machine’ it was those menacing words that occupied his mind. He had donated a considerable amount to the ‘Divining Apostles’ to receive the prophecy and he felt bound to treat it seriously, but try as he might he could not understand it. As the winter deepened the farmer found himself brooding on the significance of the machine’s declaration more and more often. “Those who are mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have,” he remembered. “I am rich in possessions,” he thought, “and I know that I will lose all that I have when I am dead. The ‘Divining Machine’ knew that too. Didn’t I tell it as much, and didn’t I tell it that my problem was to decide how to pass on my property?” “Well then,” he thought, “I must assume that the ‘Divining Machine’ is trying to tell me something else. But what?” “Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it,” he remembered. “Then no decision of mine can affect the future,” he thought, and from this thought grew a deep and abiding melancholia. So severe was his depression that the farmer became paralysed by indecision and dreaded the prospect of any action, for he now knew that he could not hope to control all the consequences. He started to believe that the ‘Divining Machine’ had instructed him in such inaction. In Spring when Darquin alpha began to warm the land the farmer’s sons asked their father for instructions. What crop were they to plant? Should cantaquon be sown again or ought they to try the new strain of oats that the Helldrone Congress Agricultural Committee was promoting? How much land should be reserved for quiston? But the farmer said nothing. When at last the elder son despaired and made his own plans for the coming season, his father flew into a great rage and forbade him to do any work on the farm. His sons summoned the priest to talk to the old man but he could get no sense out of him. All the farmer would say was that fate had commanded him to wait and that it was a waste of effort to oppose his destiny. The traditions of Helldrone are very strong. It was quite unthinkable that either of the sons should oppose the will of their father. That season was a miserable one for the two young men. Their father was serene and composed in his fatalism but they both grew increasingly frustrated by his attitude which prevented them from working. They knew that another bad season would ruin them. Whilst the other men of the village laboured on the slopes of ‘Old Grumbler’ they remained idle and became the laughing stock of the village. The older brother took to drinking heavily in the inn and the younger took long walks to neighbouring villages, until the story spread and he grew ashamed to show his face. At the Harvest meeting of the village elders the primary decision of the mayor seemed inevitable to everyone except the farmer. He had refused to attend the annual gathering which he saw as trivial and irrelevant. He rarely left his house by this stage. It was almost a relief when the ‘Command Laws’ were used to impose a community tenant. Most of the villagers expected the task to be allocated to the farmer’s elder son. When a tenant was granted temporary rights over land he could reasonably anticipate to be gifted the full ownership in due course, assuming that his stewardship was satisfactory. In this case, the period of the tenancy would run until the farmer’s death. The mayor, however, was a cunning and greedy individual and he saw in this situation an opportunity to advance his own family. He argued against appointing either of the farmer’s sons, saying that the elder was an unreliable drunkard (and there were many in the inn who had been unfortunate enough to encounter his bitter anger which had blunted their natural sympathy) whilst the younger was a feckless wanderer. Instead the mayor proposed that his own younger son be granted the tenancy, and such were his political skills and powers of persuasion that he carried the meeting. The farmer’s sons were to be assigned as bondsmen, the elder to work under the new tenant and the younger to be assigned elsewhere. When the farmer heard about the outcome of the meeting it is said that his composure was broken for the first time since he had resigned himself to ‘destiny’, and he wept openly. He never spoke again and his elder son never visited him, but the younger son looked after the old man and though his father’s silence hurt him, he did not complain. The younger son had never expected to inherit the farm. And in the following autumn the priest’s daughter married the mayor’s younger son. Thus it was that, through the supreme folly of the old farmer, the prophecy of the ‘Divining Machine’ had come true.
The running lights of the Long Ship had dimmed and the red flames of the central fire acquired a new potency in the darkened Council Chamber. The flicker drive was almost idling as the helmsman steered the ship by the ‘Code Silent’ protocol. They were passing through one of the many EM mine fields which littered the Immaculate Dominion. A faint shudder passed down the length of the vessel. Somewhere in the flux strung void the Angel Host defence cloud which encompassed the fleet had detected and pre triggered a mine. Under ‘Code Silent’ operation all flicker drives were synchronised with the Angel Host, and the quantum jump energy which would have scattered the ship into infinity had been dumped as residual kinetics. Although the Long Ships were not military in design, they nevertheless possessed powerful calculation engines. The local vacuum energy density had stabilised in less than three nanoseconds and ten seconds later the flicker drive resumed. The hooded blue eyes of the Counter Xarctic traders glittered brightly as the sage continued.
Three years passed. The mayor’s son proved to be an inept farmer. He was idle and unimaginative, failing to rotate the crops properly and losing a large fraction of the tender quiston leaves to a late frost in the last year, because he over ruled the advice of his underlings and had the protective cloche tunnels removed too early. Even worse he was cruel to his workers (whom he took to blaming for his failures - the farmer’s elder son in particular) and his wife (whom he started to beat). Whilst the farmer’s elder son learned to tolerate the abuse his employer reserved for him, the young man grew increasingly outraged by the usurper’s behaviour towards his former sweetheart. She came to hate her husband. As is the way of such things, an illicit and dangerous affair began between the woman and her one time suitor. The old farmer died in the winter of the third year and when the spring came his younger son left the village to find new work and to travel the many roads of Helldrone. Late in the following autumn, the ‘Divining Apostles’ returned to the village. Once again a holiday atmosphere took hold of the people and in the red dusk of Darquin beta everyone went to visit the fair. The farmer’s elder son was in no real mood to enjoy the festivities. He had just spent several miserable hours ploughing the parched Upper Black Stone field to prepare it for next season’s cantaquon. The little diesel tractor was undergoing repairs and he had taken a team of horses to do the job. Families of ash worms and fat white beebleroot grubs were exposed to the air where the dusty soil was turned by his blade. In the china blue sky behind him the bold white Volcano birds (which were sometimes called the farmers' friends) had swooped and strutted over the furrows, feasting on the pests and purifying the land. Ploughing made the young man melancholy. Subdued and miserable, he still joined the crowds and some impulse made him decide to consult the ‘Divining Machine’. If the truth be told, the young man had always suspected that it was the advice of the ‘Divining Machine’ which had undone his father, but because the old man had never revealed what the machine said to him, he remained in doubt. He did not like the cult with their secretive ways and alien customs. But he was curious and credulous. Perhaps the machine did possess mystical powers? In any case he was profoundly unhappy with the present, and that alone was a strong motivation to wish to see the future. Once more the ‘Divining Apostles’ extracted their tithe from the client and as they had to his father before him, they conducted the young man to the inner sanctum. In the blue haze of the tent the bondsman’s sharper eyes picked out the lines of the power feeds coming from under the altar. The gem stones, which sparkled to the thoughts of the oracle, were set in intricate metal cages which pivoted about magnetic axes. “Be welcome,” the machine said. “I am the Divining Machine. I am the machine which foretells the future through the past. Through the nodes of my being I hold communion with that which was. Through the interface with the present, which is your interview with me, I hold communion with that which is. When ‘that which was’ is married to ‘that which is’ their offspring are made plain to me and I proclaim ‘that which will be’. Speak of your life.” So the young man told the story he had prepared, and the bitter passion of his frustration poisoned an unpleasant cocktail of sour times. He did not forget to conclude with the words the ‘High Apostles’ had taught him. “This is my truth. Integrate, Analyse and Proclaim Oh Machine!” The machine spoke. “Listen to my words. The cycle turns. Those who were once mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have. Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it. Your destiny is written in the book of fate and none may change it!” That same evening the farmer’s son met his landlord’s wife. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said to her. “I will try your plan.” The village was divided. In the living memory of the oldest inhabitants, no one had ever called on the Helldrone Congress to settle an internal dispute. Most of the people hadn’t even been to Asteron, the wind swept sea coast city of the regional government Law Men. If the mayor’s decision to invoke the ‘Command Laws’ had been controversial and unprecedented it was at least locally managed, but the farmer’s son was appealing to a law of the same vintage which allowed for a central review of land management under appeal. His case was that recent yields proved the appointed tenant no more fit for the task than the original land owner. In easy recent times the natural conservatism of the Helldrone colonists had become settled round the habits of local power. There was a peculiar irony in this attempted used of deep tradition as a radical way to attack established custom. Whilst many of those who disliked the mayor and his sons supported the challenge, the more hidebound amongst the older generation were strongly opposed to it. They did not want the Law Men ruling on village affairs. The labourer would never have thought of this scheme on his own but his lover was well educated in the history of Helldrone and it was she who had suggested it. And when her husband was drinking in the inn it was she who secretly helped his bondsman prepare the case against him. In later years, the young man confessed to his brother that he would have dismissed her idea as totally impracticable if the ‘Divining Machine’ hadn’t given him confidence that he would succeed. Human beings find it hard to keep secrets in small communities. The summons to the Law Men was the sensation of the year and the source of endless gossip. Some of this gossip turned into speculation. People found it hard to explain how the young bondsman had ever decided to try the plan. They all knew him well and knew that it was not in his character to conceive such an idea. Once village tongues were wagging it did not take them long to deduce the truth. Since the farmer’s son had made his petition public he had been obliged to leave his father’s farm and was now working on the communal market garden fields of the lower slopes. It was expected that Law Men would arrive from Asteron before that season’s harvest. On a day in high summer the mayor’s son was in the village arranging contract work with the blacksmith when he overheard the rumour about his wife’s relationship with his antagonist in the conversation of two careless villagers and he became instantly certain of it. Someone had to pay! In his cruel little mind he felt that he had borne the humiliation of his failure with the farm for too long. The scorn of upstarts round the village who were secretly opposed to him only fuelled his wrath. This was the spark that triggered the explosion. It did not matter to the mayor’s son whether the story was true; it was a pretext for action. Seizing a gun he set out to obtain redress for all the insults he considered life had stricken him with; the real and the imagined. It was fortunate for his wife that she was farther from her husband than her lover. He meant to kill and either would have done. Marching quickly and thoughtlessly he found his enemy hoeing cabbages by the brook. When the farmer’s son related the story to his brother, he made much of the peculiar quality of time as he saw the other approach and realised his intention. “I could feel every blade of grass between my toes, each one distinct and with its own little individual facet of life. The alpha sun was warm on the top of my head and my shirt was starting to stick to my shoulders and back in thin sweaty patches. A flock of Volcano birds passed overhead in a crystalline blue sky dotted with rich white cumulous clouds and I heard each individual cry as though it were a voice in some language I had once understood but now forgotten. The cabbages, baking green and fleshy, gave off the soil moist smell of their recent watering. Old Tom and Jake were working on the sluice gate about twenty meters upstream and their talk seemed to slow into silence, as though they had turned to living statues. The stream water bubbled like the cool blood in the veins of a sleeping giant. I have never felt my senses so sharply. But strangely I felt no fear. You see I had spoken to the ‘Divining Machine’ and I knew that fate was on my side.” The farmer’s younger son often thought about these words. It was quite unlike his brother to make such a poetic description, and dramatic though the moment had been this surprised him almost as much as the content of the story. Mistakes are often made by those controlled only by the strength of their passions. It should have been easy for the mayor’s son to shoot his victim but he came raging up the field out of control and fired too soon. The heavy soil of the market garden fields made him struggle to run up the slope and upset his aim. There was no point in running away. With the calm logic of a chess player sacrificing a pawn the farmer’s son stepped forward to close with his attacker. It was but a moment before they were confronting each other face to face. In the eternal instant that followed, the mayor’s son raised his gun again and should have had ample time for a second shot. He didn’t shoot. Perhaps he needed a fraction of a second to recover his breath and balance after climbing the field. Perhaps, although it seems unlikely, he had some momentary qualm about the murder he intended. Perhaps he had underestimated his enemy and wished to gloat for a little while. Who knows? I certainly don’t. In any case it was a fatal mistake. The farmer’s son swung the hoe round hard at his assailant’s head and struck him directly on the skull. The blow killed him immediately. After that, the dispute which the Law Men were to address was rendered academic. The death of his son took the heart out of the mayor and he did not stand for re election again. There was nothing that could be said against the farmer’s son. Witnesses had clearly seen him act in self defence. The farm was allocated to a temporary manager but when a new mayor was elected in the autumn he restored full ownership to the farmer’s elder son. After a decent period in mourning the young widow married the new land owner and if those in the village who had guessed at their earlier affair were not surprised, there were none outside the former mayor’s immediate family who did not wish them every happiness. Under the wise guidance of the couple their farm prospered and when his son was born two years later the young man was widely considered the most fortunate farmer in the village for he was well on the way to restoring the wealth his father had squandered. And so it was that the second prophecy of the ‘Divining Machine’ came true.
As the sage spoke, the last of the Long Ships emerged from the mined zone and the flicker drive picked up pseudo velocity. On the schematic panels that lined the Council chamber the stars began to move at a perceptible speed. The helmsman was running a course to the Varaquoise system, where the Immaculate Dominion had fought its final battles and where the suffering of its citizens had been the greatest. In the holds the cargo handling machines were loading the planet picket ships with stores of food and medicine. The Counter Xarctic traders had a pretty good idea of what would be needed. In this first mission their goods were gifts, for although the Communes know the price of everything it is also part of their philosophy to seek for the underlying value and they do not confuse the two. The ‘Oblique Meditation’ continued.
The farmer’s younger son travelled all over Helldrone doing a wide variety of odd jobs to earn his keep but none of them were much more than menial labour. From time to time he would visit his brother in the village bringing presents for the children who made up his growing family; carved wooden toys from the forests of Rye, skipping ropes from the hemp fields of Troove, pen knives from Lum and jasper from the shores of Paracyn. He found a job on a passenger steamer travelling between the southern continents and was sailing from New Grimsby to Asteron when news came over the ship’s radio of a massive volcanic eruption in the Asteron district. Looking from the gently rolling deck he could see ahead of him the plume of dark smoke rising into the purple sky of red dusk. In the next hour he learned that ‘Old Grumbler’ had finally blown his top. At the port he quit his job, bought a horse and set out for his old home with a heavy heart. The countryside was as dry and barren as his mood. The farming communities of the continent had experienced several bad seasons. The weather had not been kind and a new strain of blight had affected the cantaquon causing massive crop damage. There was no known fungicide which could deal with it safely and although some strains of the cereal showed promising signs of resistance these were not the ones which had been most widely planted. As he drew nearer to the village he began to encounter groups of refugees heading in the opposite direction. It was sometimes necessary to leave the road to let them pass. A fine grey ash had settled over the fields leaching the colour from everything and muffling the sound of the horse’s hooves on the road. ‘Old Grumbler’ had changed almost beyond recognition. The summit of the mountain had been completely blown away. The fields his father and brother had owned were gone forever. The village was buried beneath a landslide of rock and hot ash. No one had survived. Realising quickly that there could be no hope he sat by the side of the road for a bleak hour of silent grief. Only then did he mount his horse and set out again on the long road to Asteron. He was in no hurry and he needed time to come to terms with the tragedy so he took the back routes, wandering through the villages on the eastern bank of the river Julip. They were dirty, unattractive and poor but the money he had saved from his days as a sailor paid for his lodging in the local inns and he wasn’t concerned with luxury. And on the fourth night he arrived at one such anonymous hamlet to find the camp of the ‘Divining Apostles’. The gaiety of the crowd was sharply at odds with the young man’s mood but he was drawn into the camp anyway. It was far better to look for distractions than to brood in an empty inn. As he wandered round the tents he was struck by the contrast between the lives of the Apostles and the lives of the locals. This place had fared no better than many others on the continent. If conditions didn’t get better soon the Asteron district would no longer be considered as the garden of Helldrone. Famine would be a serious possibility. Despite this, the Apostles were wealthy and well fed. Their ‘show’ was just as impressive as he remembered from his youth, if not more so. When he came to the Pavilion where the ‘Divining Machine’ was housed he had made up his mind to hear from the famous oracle. The young man had no particular feelings of awe or veneration towards the machine. He had seen several alien ruins in his travels and lost much of the mystic wonder with which he once considered such things. All that motivated him was a mild curiosity and a sentimental knowledge that his father and brother had once applied to the machine for guidance. He was the last in the queue and had to wait for over two hours but he had nothing better to do. Negotiating with the acolyte for his entrance nearly made him turn away. The cult member wanted a detailed knowledge of his wealth and seemed able to assess the truth of his answers in an uncanny way. The price was set high and the young man was forcibly reminded of why the ‘Divining Apostles’ were so rich. In better days he would not have paid but he was weary at heart and a sudden wave of indifference to money broke his resistance. He was almost numb as he went through the rituals of preparation but in the inner sanctum his interest reawakened as he finally saw the ‘Divining Machine’. A knowledge of Amnyine relics gave him a better grasp of the significance of the rotating gems than the vast majority of pilgrims could have had. He was impressed. “Be welcome,” the machine said. The young man recognised the ‘pivot gem’ that guided the instrument of consciousness in Amnyine art (as they had practised it on Helldrone). It was a beautiful blue stone which sparkled under the arc lights like sunlight on the ocean. To its creators it had been a symbol of ancient records and memory. Over the millennia it had acquired significance as a physical manifestation of that link with the past. It was that rarest of metaphors; one which had become its own reality. “I am the Divining Machine. I am the machine which foretells the future through the past. Through the nodes of my being I hold communion with that which was. Through the interface with the present, which is your interview with me, I hold communion with that which is. When ‘that which was’ is married to ‘that which is’ their offspring are made plain to me and I proclaim ‘that which will be’. Speak of your life.” So the young man told his story and concluded as he had been taught. “This is my truth. Integrate, Analyse and Proclaim Oh Machine!” The machine spoke. “Listen to my words. The cycle turns. Those who were once mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have. Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it. Your destiny is written in the book of fate and none may change it!” When he heard these words a new understanding dawned in the brain of the listening man and with it came a growing and surprising sense of anger. “Is that all you’ve got to say?” he replied (and no one replied to the ‘Divining Machine’ ). “I’ll bet you say the same thing to everyone! I suspect I lost my father because he couldn’t cope with your cryptic nonsense. My brother made a great deal out of very little from your prophecy but much good it did him in the end. I suppose you’d say that he’s just lost all he had. I never won my first and truest love and have spent years wandering the planet only to return to find my family destroyed. And all you can do is mutter some ambiguous anodyne hogwash that any charlatan in the back streets of New Grimsby could make up in five seconds flat! You’re just a lazy overblown heap of old junk, aren’t you?” The lights of the machine seemed to blink with sheepish guilt. “Well if that’s all you’ve got to say for yourself,” the traveller said, “I’ll make sure I take something worth while out of this exchange”, and he reached into his pocket for a stout Lum knife. With dextrous ease he lent forward and touched the metal altar facing with the point of the knife, tracing a pattern which he had learned from an antique dealer in Garrabyne. As he had suspected, the traditional Amnyine access method worked for this machine as it did for all their artefacts. The magnetic locks on the dynamic axes were free. The tip of his blade clipped the ‘pivot gem’ and in seconds it was in tucked away in a pouch with his money. The ‘High Apostle’ never noticed its absence as he shut down the machine minutes later - convinced as he had become that the Prophet was immutable and blinded to the obvious by this simple prejudice. Unfortunately the laws of physics and engineering had other ideas. When the ‘Divining Apostles’ next set up their camp, the power source in the machine was no longer controlled through the pivot gem and within five minutes the complex of interlocking fields which held the ancient toy together dissolved in a cataclysmic explosion. The young farmer could see the rising pillar of smoke from his horse next evening. It reminded him of the smoke of ‘Old Grumbler’ and he shivered momentarily. It was not until the following morning that he realised what had happened. And that was the end of the ‘Divining Machine’ and the cult of the ‘Divining Apostles’ (for those that survived the explosion no longer had a prophetable source of income). But it is not the end of our story; for in later years a legend grew up on the smaller southern continent of Helldrone. It was said that a certain individual (who had been the last to receive a prophecy from the ‘Divining Machine’) had been granted special knowledge by the machine and an ability to see into the future. And it came to pass that this individual established a Temple of Prophecy. In the Temple of Prophecy was held the mystic gem which the machine had given to him - the gem which links the past and the future. The prophet became known far and wide for his wisdom and he would accept donations from pilgrims to tell their future. He cast the horoscopes of love struck young women and superstitious old men alike, and though he never took more from them than they could afford he soon became very wealthy. He married a beautiful young woman from the north (and it is said that he kept several mistresses, even into his nineties!). And if perchance on a dark night a stranger would bid him to tell them the truth about prophecy there were some who claimed (after his death) that he had told them something like the tale that I have just related to you. And so it was that the last prophecy of the ‘Divining Machine’ came true; for it referred to its own cult and to itself in foretelling that those who were once mighty and rich would lose all that they had. And so it was that the farmer’s younger son learned the true value of prophecy.
As the sage finished his story the Long Ships were matching local kinetic shift in preparation for entering orbit about Cellandine, the third moon of the gas giant Varaquoise II. It was on Cellandine that the heretical ‘True Prophet’ had made his last stand against the Orthodoxy of the Immaculate Dominion (an Orthodoxy already riven with internal strife which would later break it apart). No one could count the martyrs to prophecy lost in the nuclear bombardment and no one knew how many remained, condemned to a lingering death in the poisoned atmosphere, unless unlooked for help should save them. The Counter Xarctic Traders were silent as they made their final physical preparations for New Contact and they remembered the ‘Oblique Meditation’. When the sun rose over Cellandine, the first of the gifts of the Long Ships would descend. DMFW 24/06/95
On the planet of Helldrone, which orbits within the double star system Darquin not far from ByRoute 45, there was once a human farmer who had two sons. The elder son was strong and handsome but not particularly intelligent, whilst the younger, though clever and kind, was considered rather ugly and lacked the muscular power of his brother. The boys’ mother had died of a fever when they were still quite young and their father had never remarried. He had been a good deal older than his wife, and by the time his sons reached manhood was already well over sixty years of age (as they measured it on Earth and Helldrone alike, for Helldrone was in the Solar Group in those days). The geology of Helldrone is driven by type ‘A’ plate tectonics and at the northern tip of the smaller southern continent (which is called Tycin) there lies a region populated by many active volcanoes. The farmer and his family lived in a small village on the lower slopes of one such volcano, a mountain which they called ‘Old Grumbler’. The dark soil that clothed ‘Old Grumbler’ was very fertile and the villagers grew a rich variety of crops, from the long blue waving stalks of cantaquon to the aromatic bright green leaves of quiston. As a consequence the village was quite prosperous. The houses were neat and well maintained with stone troughs of flowers outside each dwelling and a bank of beautifully planted geraniums around the black stone church. The farmer’s house was particularly fine, for he owned the largest single portion of land, high above the village, and for many years it had yielded the most excellent and bounteous crop. Now when the two sons were of an age to marry it happened that they both fell in love with the same girl, a flirtatious young woman who was the daughter of the priest. She, for her part, kept both men in suspense, first seeming to favour one and then the other. Indeed she had a string of admirers throughout the village and beyond it but although she teased the others most of her attention was concentrated on the two brothers. She refused to make up her mind, however, although both men had proposed to her and for three years it drove them to distraction. As the farmer grew older he became increasingly anxious about the future of his sons. He had counselled them both to forget the girl and to find another but they ignored him. Unhappy as he was with this situation, he remained confident it would resolve itself in time. Another thought had taken root that troubled him more deeply. A growing intimation of mortality made him wonder what would become of the young men when he was dead. According to the custom that prevailed in the region the elder son might expect to inherit the whole of his father’s estates, although it was not unheard of for a farm to be passed on to another son. Land was never divided, however, unless it had passed out of a family and to split his holdings between the two would disgrace them both. The farmer loved his sons equally and could not decide which of them should receive the farm, for the other would surely be impoverished. One morning in early summer when the bright yellow rays of Darquin alpha cast long shadows over the waving cantaquon and the mellow red glow of Darquin beta filled those shadows out and warmed the living loam, the farmer and his sons were working high on the slopes of ‘Old Grumbler’. The people on the slopes beneath and the people in the village far below seemed to belong to another world. Shading his eyes from the yellow rays, the farmer looked up from his digging towards the rising sun and so it was that he was the first to see the distant procession winding up the dusty road from the south east. The endless cyclic march of the ‘Divining Apostles’ had brought them to the village. Now the history of Helldrone is obscure and poorly documented. Before the humans colonised the system we know that it was settled by some schism of the Tetratic Empire who abandoned it after three thousand years. Long before the Tetratic exiles first arrived, the Querequian cultures had ceded space to an Amnyine enclave, which seems to have been locally important in that age. Even earlier, there are some archival records suggesting that the Grumm maintained a base in the system and before that there may have been a Cata-Zin presence on the planet, but the evidence for these ancient occupations is increasingly thin. The Solar Group knew little of these peoples and the human communities of Helldrone knew still less. They regarded any traces of previous alien intelligence on the planet with a mixture of awe and superstitious fear. Some forty years before our story begins, a group of human settlers had uncovered a cache of alien artefacts in archaeological diggings on the larger southern continent of Ucyn. We might guess that these were Amnyine Time Lode Toys and one of them was still functioning. The Amnyine may well have been amused by the fate of their ancient plaything. Without cultural cross cues the machine still made a mighty impression on its discoverers, so much so, in fact, that it inspired a new religious cult. These were the ‘Divining Apostles’. When the men returned to the village at yellow dusk, the ‘Divining Apostles’ had established camp on the common meadow across the stream from the inn and their beasts of burden had been set to graze and sleep in public fields on the northern road. There were nearly forty men, women and children on the continuous pilgrimage. The cult believed that it was their duty to parade the ‘Divining Machine’ throughout Helldrone. Already there was a buzz of excitement amongst the villagers. With their heads shaven and dressed in lurid purple and red robes the cult members were exotic and mysterious. Their tour of Helldrone took roughly five years but it did not run to a precise timetable so although the villagers had seen the ‘Divining Apostles’ before, their arrival was always somewhat unexpected. A circle of torches marked the limit of the camp. Inside were ten tents of canvas, water proof acrylics, silk and linen. Each one was sturdy and weathered but at the same time ornate and fashioned to display luxury and opulence. The largest of these tents was nearly as tall as the church and sufficiently imposing to be called a pavilion. It occupied an area comfortably big enough to have accommodated all the ‘Divining Apostles’ and was decorated with gold embroidered dragons and kytyl birds. It had taken most of the cult all day to construct. At the entrance to the pavilion two strongly built turbaned guards carried shining scimitars tied to broad crimson sashes about their waists. The ‘Divining Machine’ and the ‘High Apostles’ were established within. Outside, the lesser acolytes had set up food stalls by their fires to sell exotic spices from the south and roasted nuts from the northern continent. Mystics of Concentration were demonstrating their juggling skills. The ‘Divining Apostles’ were ready to receive the tribute of the villagers. The human colonists of Helldrone were practical men and women not given to the excesses of some religions, but they were not without their superstitions. It was good luck to jump the stream backwards without getting wet. ‘Old Grumbler’ must only be spoken of with hand on heart. It was bad luck to light a lantern between red and yellow sunrise. Their faith was pragmatic rather then idealistic. On the yellow day the Helldrone Congress said was Sunday they would go to church, but when the ‘Divining Apostles’ came they would feel no shame in visiting their camp, whatever the local priest may have preached from the pulpit. If they had been asked about it they might have said that it was simply prudent not to ignore any religion. They could see no harm in trying whatever forms were available. The farmer was third in the queue for an audience with ‘the machine that told the future’. Before he was granted admittance he had to agree an ‘offering’ with a senior acolyte. These alms fed and clothed the ‘Divining Apostles’ (and made them rich). Within the pavilion supplicants removed their shoes. Thick carpets of deep blue pile and heavy wall hangings muffled the sound of the crowd outside. One of the ‘Low Apostles’ instructed the farmer in the correct forms of address and in what to expect from the machine. He was then made to wait in an attitude of meditation in an outer chapel divided from the interior by more wall hangings which depicted scenes from the history of Helldrone’s human colonisation. At length, admitted to the ante chapel, he was led through a ritual chant of preparation by one of the ‘High Apostles’ after which he had to wait and meditate again until a yellow light above the inner sanctum indicated that the ‘Divining Machine’ was ready to receive him. In the inner sanctum there was a blue glow from four spotlights which was diffused by a thin and sweetly perfumed smoke rising from two censors. The ‘Divining Machine’ was displayed on a raised platform but the room was otherwise empty. The ‘Divining Apostles’ believed that each prophecy which the machine delivered was for the ears of one recipient only. Even their own ‘High Apostles’ waited outside until an audience was complete. “Be welcome,” the machine said. The voice seemed to come from all directions at once and had a peculiar neuter quality, but it was not harsh. A web work of metal struts and crystal lenses glittered in the blue light. “I am the Divining Machine. I am the machine which foretells the future through the past. Through the nodes of my being I hold communion with that which was. Through the interface with the present, which is your interview with me, I hold communion with that which is. When ‘that which was’ is married to ‘that which is’ their offspring are made plain to me and I proclaim ‘that which will be’. Speak of your life.” So the farmer related the brief summary of his life and problems which the ‘Low Apostle’ had advised him to compose. The machine did not interrupt but waited until the key closing phrase was spoken. “This is my truth. Integrate, Analyse and Proclaim Oh Machine!” A hypnotic pattern of lights now played over the complex field of the display and there was a potent pause. “Listen to my words. The cycle turns. Those who were once mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have. Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it. Your destiny is written in the book of fate and none may change it!” The audience was at an end and two days later the ‘Divining Apostles’ were on the road again. That autumn there were early storms which damaged the cantaquon. The harvest for the whole village was meagre but the yield from the farmer’s fields was particularly poor and there was no change in the situation of his sons. When the village elders met to discuss the community tithes and to allocate the bonded men for the coming year they were worried. The mayor, who had long been a rival of the farmer in wealth and status had harsh words for his old adversary. “If we do not meet the quota next year,” he said, “I shall have to invoke the ‘Command Laws’ for those estates which are badly managed”. There was much grumbling and discontent in the Hall. The ‘Command Laws’ dated back to the early colonisation of Helldrone more than two hundred and fifty years ago. No one had used them in the last twenty years but the Helldrone Congress had never revoked them. The ‘Command Laws’ were designed to impose external controls on the means of production in the economy if the natural market was seen to be failing. They were not popular though they had certainly been necessary. Most people felt that to use them now was an abuse of power. One bad harvest was hardly sufficient reason in what was still basically a wealthy village. During the discussions that followed the farmer was silent and withdrawn, and he kept his own council. In truth, he found little in village politics to interest him although it would have been better for him if he had paid more attention. Under oath not to discuss the revelation of the ’Divining Machine’ it was those menacing words that occupied his mind. He had donated a considerable amount to the ‘Divining Apostles’ to receive the prophecy and he felt bound to treat it seriously, but try as he might he could not understand it. As the winter deepened the farmer found himself brooding on the significance of the machine’s declaration more and more often. “Those who are mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have,” he remembered. “I am rich in possessions,” he thought, “and I know that I will lose all that I have when I am dead. The ‘Divining Machine’ knew that too. Didn’t I tell it as much, and didn’t I tell it that my problem was to decide how to pass on my property?” “Well then,” he thought, “I must assume that the ‘Divining Machine’ is trying to tell me something else. But what?” “Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it,” he remembered. “Then no decision of mine can affect the future,” he thought, and from this thought grew a deep and abiding melancholia. So severe was his depression that the farmer became paralysed by indecision and dreaded the prospect of any action, for he now knew that he could not hope to control all the consequences. He started to believe that the ‘Divining Machine’ had instructed him in such inaction. In Spring when Darquin alpha began to warm the land the farmer’s sons asked their father for instructions. What crop were they to plant? Should cantaquon be sown again or ought they to try the new strain of oats that the Helldrone Congress Agricultural Committee was promoting? How much land should be reserved for quiston? But the farmer said nothing. When at last the elder son despaired and made his own plans for the coming season, his father flew into a great rage and forbade him to do any work on the farm. His sons summoned the priest to talk to the old man but he could get no sense out of him. All the farmer would say was that fate had commanded him to wait and that it was a waste of effort to oppose his destiny. The traditions of Helldrone are very strong. It was quite unthinkable that either of the sons should oppose the will of their father. That season was a miserable one for the two young men. Their father was serene and composed in his fatalism but they both grew increasingly frustrated by his attitude which prevented them from working. They knew that another bad season would ruin them. Whilst the other men of the village laboured on the slopes of ‘Old Grumbler’ they remained idle and became the laughing stock of the village. The older brother took to drinking heavily in the inn and the younger took long walks to neighbouring villages, until the story spread and he grew ashamed to show his face. At the Harvest meeting of the village elders the primary decision of the mayor seemed inevitable to everyone except the farmer. He had refused to attend the annual gathering which he saw as trivial and irrelevant. He rarely left his house by this stage. It was almost a relief when the ‘Command Laws’ were used to impose a community tenant. Most of the villagers expected the task to be allocated to the farmer’s elder son. When a tenant was granted temporary rights over land he could reasonably anticipate to be gifted the full ownership in due course, assuming that his stewardship was satisfactory. In this case, the period of the tenancy would run until the farmer’s death. The mayor, however, was a cunning and greedy individual and he saw in this situation an opportunity to advance his own family. He argued against appointing either of the farmer’s sons, saying that the elder was an unreliable drunkard (and there were many in the inn who had been unfortunate enough to encounter his bitter anger which had blunted their natural sympathy) whilst the younger was a feckless wanderer. Instead the mayor proposed that his own younger son be granted the tenancy, and such were his political skills and powers of persuasion that he carried the meeting. The farmer’s sons were to be assigned as bondsmen, the elder to work under the new tenant and the younger to be assigned elsewhere. When the farmer heard about the outcome of the meeting it is said that his composure was broken for the first time since he had resigned himself to ‘destiny’, and he wept openly. He never spoke again and his elder son never visited him, but the younger son looked after the old man and though his father’s silence hurt him, he did not complain. The younger son had never expected to inherit the farm. And in the following autumn the priest’s daughter married the mayor’s younger son. Thus it was that, through the supreme folly of the old farmer, the prophecy of the ‘Divining Machine’ had come true.
The running lights of the Long Ship had dimmed and the red flames of the central fire acquired a new potency in the darkened Council Chamber. The flicker drive was almost idling as the helmsman steered the ship by the ‘Code Silent’ protocol. They were passing through one of the many EM mine fields which littered the Immaculate Dominion. A faint shudder passed down the length of the vessel. Somewhere in the flux strung void the Angel Host defence cloud which encompassed the fleet had detected and pre triggered a mine. Under ‘Code Silent’ operation all flicker drives were synchronised with the Angel Host, and the quantum jump energy which would have scattered the ship into infinity had been dumped as residual kinetics. Although the Long Ships were not military in design, they nevertheless possessed powerful calculation engines. The local vacuum energy density had stabilised in less than three nanoseconds and ten seconds later the flicker drive resumed. The hooded blue eyes of the Counter Xarctic traders glittered brightly as the sage continued.
Three years passed. The mayor’s son proved to be an inept farmer. He was idle and unimaginative, failing to rotate the crops properly and losing a large fraction of the tender quiston leaves to a late frost in the last year, because he over ruled the advice of his underlings and had the protective cloche tunnels removed too early. Even worse he was cruel to his workers (whom he took to blaming for his failures - the farmer’s elder son in particular) and his wife (whom he started to beat). Whilst the farmer’s elder son learned to tolerate the abuse his employer reserved for him, the young man grew increasingly outraged by the usurper’s behaviour towards his former sweetheart. She came to hate her husband. As is the way of such things, an illicit and dangerous affair began between the woman and her one time suitor. The old farmer died in the winter of the third year and when the spring came his younger son left the village to find new work and to travel the many roads of Helldrone. Late in the following autumn, the ‘Divining Apostles’ returned to the village. Once again a holiday atmosphere took hold of the people and in the red dusk of Darquin beta everyone went to visit the fair. The farmer’s elder son was in no real mood to enjoy the festivities. He had just spent several miserable hours ploughing the parched Upper Black Stone field to prepare it for next season’s cantaquon. The little diesel tractor was undergoing repairs and he had taken a team of horses to do the job. Families of ash worms and fat white beebleroot grubs were exposed to the air where the dusty soil was turned by his blade. In the china blue sky behind him the bold white Volcano birds (which were sometimes called the farmers' friends) had swooped and strutted over the furrows, feasting on the pests and purifying the land. Ploughing made the young man melancholy. Subdued and miserable, he still joined the crowds and some impulse made him decide to consult the ‘Divining Machine’. If the truth be told, the young man had always suspected that it was the advice of the ‘Divining Machine’ which had undone his father, but because the old man had never revealed what the machine said to him, he remained in doubt. He did not like the cult with their secretive ways and alien customs. But he was curious and credulous. Perhaps the machine did possess mystical powers? In any case he was profoundly unhappy with the present, and that alone was a strong motivation to wish to see the future. Once more the ‘Divining Apostles’ extracted their tithe from the client and as they had to his father before him, they conducted the young man to the inner sanctum. In the blue haze of the tent the bondsman’s sharper eyes picked out the lines of the power feeds coming from under the altar. The gem stones, which sparkled to the thoughts of the oracle, were set in intricate metal cages which pivoted about magnetic axes. “Be welcome,” the machine said. “I am the Divining Machine. I am the machine which foretells the future through the past. Through the nodes of my being I hold communion with that which was. Through the interface with the present, which is your interview with me, I hold communion with that which is. When ‘that which was’ is married to ‘that which is’ their offspring are made plain to me and I proclaim ‘that which will be’. Speak of your life.” So the young man told the story he had prepared, and the bitter passion of his frustration poisoned an unpleasant cocktail of sour times. He did not forget to conclude with the words the ‘High Apostles’ had taught him. “This is my truth. Integrate, Analyse and Proclaim Oh Machine!” The machine spoke. “Listen to my words. The cycle turns. Those who were once mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have. Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it. Your destiny is written in the book of fate and none may change it!” That same evening the farmer’s son met his landlord’s wife. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said to her. “I will try your plan.” The village was divided. In the living memory of the oldest inhabitants, no one had ever called on the Helldrone Congress to settle an internal dispute. Most of the people hadn’t even been to Asteron, the wind swept sea coast city of the regional government Law Men. If the mayor’s decision to invoke the ‘Command Laws’ had been controversial and unprecedented it was at least locally managed, but the farmer’s son was appealing to a law of the same vintage which allowed for a central review of land management under appeal. His case was that recent yields proved the appointed tenant no more fit for the task than the original land owner. In easy recent times the natural conservatism of the Helldrone colonists had become settled round the habits of local power. There was a peculiar irony in this attempted used of deep tradition as a radical way to attack established custom. Whilst many of those who disliked the mayor and his sons supported the challenge, the more hidebound amongst the older generation were strongly opposed to it. They did not want the Law Men ruling on village affairs. The labourer would never have thought of this scheme on his own but his lover was well educated in the history of Helldrone and it was she who had suggested it. And when her husband was drinking in the inn it was she who secretly helped his bondsman prepare the case against him. In later years, the young man confessed to his brother that he would have dismissed her idea as totally impracticable if the ‘Divining Machine’ hadn’t given him confidence that he would succeed. Human beings find it hard to keep secrets in small communities. The summons to the Law Men was the sensation of the year and the source of endless gossip. Some of this gossip turned into speculation. People found it hard to explain how the young bondsman had ever decided to try the plan. They all knew him well and knew that it was not in his character to conceive such an idea. Once village tongues were wagging it did not take them long to deduce the truth. Since the farmer’s son had made his petition public he had been obliged to leave his father’s farm and was now working on the communal market garden fields of the lower slopes. It was expected that Law Men would arrive from Asteron before that season’s harvest. On a day in high summer the mayor’s son was in the village arranging contract work with the blacksmith when he overheard the rumour about his wife’s relationship with his antagonist in the conversation of two careless villagers and he became instantly certain of it. Someone had to pay! In his cruel little mind he felt that he had borne the humiliation of his failure with the farm for too long. The scorn of upstarts round the village who were secretly opposed to him only fuelled his wrath. This was the spark that triggered the explosion. It did not matter to the mayor’s son whether the story was true; it was a pretext for action. Seizing a gun he set out to obtain redress for all the insults he considered life had stricken him with; the real and the imagined. It was fortunate for his wife that she was farther from her husband than her lover. He meant to kill and either would have done. Marching quickly and thoughtlessly he found his enemy hoeing cabbages by the brook. When the farmer’s son related the story to his brother, he made much of the peculiar quality of time as he saw the other approach and realised his intention. “I could feel every blade of grass between my toes, each one distinct and with its own little individual facet of life. The alpha sun was warm on the top of my head and my shirt was starting to stick to my shoulders and back in thin sweaty patches. A flock of Volcano birds passed overhead in a crystalline blue sky dotted with rich white cumulous clouds and I heard each individual cry as though it were a voice in some language I had once understood but now forgotten. The cabbages, baking green and fleshy, gave off the soil moist smell of their recent watering. Old Tom and Jake were working on the sluice gate about twenty meters upstream and their talk seemed to slow into silence, as though they had turned to living statues. The stream water bubbled like the cool blood in the veins of a sleeping giant. I have never felt my senses so sharply. But strangely I felt no fear. You see I had spoken to the ‘Divining Machine’ and I knew that fate was on my side.” The farmer’s younger son often thought about these words. It was quite unlike his brother to make such a poetic description, and dramatic though the moment had been this surprised him almost as much as the content of the story. Mistakes are often made by those controlled only by the strength of their passions. It should have been easy for the mayor’s son to shoot his victim but he came raging up the field out of control and fired too soon. The heavy soil of the market garden fields made him struggle to run up the slope and upset his aim. There was no point in running away. With the calm logic of a chess player sacrificing a pawn the farmer’s son stepped forward to close with his attacker. It was but a moment before they were confronting each other face to face. In the eternal instant that followed, the mayor’s son raised his gun again and should have had ample time for a second shot. He didn’t shoot. Perhaps he needed a fraction of a second to recover his breath and balance after climbing the field. Perhaps, although it seems unlikely, he had some momentary qualm about the murder he intended. Perhaps he had underestimated his enemy and wished to gloat for a little while. Who knows? I certainly don’t. In any case it was a fatal mistake. The farmer’s son swung the hoe round hard at his assailant’s head and struck him directly on the skull. The blow killed him immediately. After that, the dispute which the Law Men were to address was rendered academic. The death of his son took the heart out of the mayor and he did not stand for re election again. There was nothing that could be said against the farmer’s son. Witnesses had clearly seen him act in self defence. The farm was allocated to a temporary manager but when a new mayor was elected in the autumn he restored full ownership to the farmer’s elder son. After a decent period in mourning the young widow married the new land owner and if those in the village who had guessed at their earlier affair were not surprised, there were none outside the former mayor’s immediate family who did not wish them every happiness. Under the wise guidance of the couple their farm prospered and when his son was born two years later the young man was widely considered the most fortunate farmer in the village for he was well on the way to restoring the wealth his father had squandered. And so it was that the second prophecy of the ‘Divining Machine’ came true.
As the sage spoke, the last of the Long Ships emerged from the mined zone and the flicker drive picked up pseudo velocity. On the schematic panels that lined the Council chamber the stars began to move at a perceptible speed. The helmsman was running a course to the Varaquoise system, where the Immaculate Dominion had fought its final battles and where the suffering of its citizens had been the greatest. In the holds the cargo handling machines were loading the planet picket ships with stores of food and medicine. The Counter Xarctic traders had a pretty good idea of what would be needed. In this first mission their goods were gifts, for although the Communes know the price of everything it is also part of their philosophy to seek for the underlying value and they do not confuse the two. The ‘Oblique Meditation’ continued.
The farmer’s younger son travelled all over Helldrone doing a wide variety of odd jobs to earn his keep but none of them were much more than menial labour. From time to time he would visit his brother in the village bringing presents for the children who made up his growing family; carved wooden toys from the forests of Rye, skipping ropes from the hemp fields of Troove, pen knives from Lum and jasper from the shores of Paracyn. He found a job on a passenger steamer travelling between the southern continents and was sailing from New Grimsby to Asteron when news came over the ship’s radio of a massive volcanic eruption in the Asteron district. Looking from the gently rolling deck he could see ahead of him the plume of dark smoke rising into the purple sky of red dusk. In the next hour he learned that ‘Old Grumbler’ had finally blown his top. At the port he quit his job, bought a horse and set out for his old home with a heavy heart. The countryside was as dry and barren as his mood. The farming communities of the continent had experienced several bad seasons. The weather had not been kind and a new strain of blight had affected the cantaquon causing massive crop damage. There was no known fungicide which could deal with it safely and although some strains of the cereal showed promising signs of resistance these were not the ones which had been most widely planted. As he drew nearer to the village he began to encounter groups of refugees heading in the opposite direction. It was sometimes necessary to leave the road to let them pass. A fine grey ash had settled over the fields leaching the colour from everything and muffling the sound of the horse’s hooves on the road. ‘Old Grumbler’ had changed almost beyond recognition. The summit of the mountain had been completely blown away. The fields his father and brother had owned were gone forever. The village was buried beneath a landslide of rock and hot ash. No one had survived. Realising quickly that there could be no hope he sat by the side of the road for a bleak hour of silent grief. Only then did he mount his horse and set out again on the long road to Asteron. He was in no hurry and he needed time to come to terms with the tragedy so he took the back routes, wandering through the villages on the eastern bank of the river Julip. They were dirty, unattractive and poor but the money he had saved from his days as a sailor paid for his lodging in the local inns and he wasn’t concerned with luxury. And on the fourth night he arrived at one such anonymous hamlet to find the camp of the ‘Divining Apostles’. The gaiety of the crowd was sharply at odds with the young man’s mood but he was drawn into the camp anyway. It was far better to look for distractions than to brood in an empty inn. As he wandered round the tents he was struck by the contrast between the lives of the Apostles and the lives of the locals. This place had fared no better than many others on the continent. If conditions didn’t get better soon the Asteron district would no longer be considered as the garden of Helldrone. Famine would be a serious possibility. Despite this, the Apostles were wealthy and well fed. Their ‘show’ was just as impressive as he remembered from his youth, if not more so. When he came to the Pavilion where the ‘Divining Machine’ was housed he had made up his mind to hear from the famous oracle. The young man had no particular feelings of awe or veneration towards the machine. He had seen several alien ruins in his travels and lost much of the mystic wonder with which he once considered such things. All that motivated him was a mild curiosity and a sentimental knowledge that his father and brother had once applied to the machine for guidance. He was the last in the queue and had to wait for over two hours but he had nothing better to do. Negotiating with the acolyte for his entrance nearly made him turn away. The cult member wanted a detailed knowledge of his wealth and seemed able to assess the truth of his answers in an uncanny way. The price was set high and the young man was forcibly reminded of why the ‘Divining Apostles’ were so rich. In better days he would not have paid but he was weary at heart and a sudden wave of indifference to money broke his resistance. He was almost numb as he went through the rituals of preparation but in the inner sanctum his interest reawakened as he finally saw the ‘Divining Machine’. A knowledge of Amnyine relics gave him a better grasp of the significance of the rotating gems than the vast majority of pilgrims could have had. He was impressed. “Be welcome,” the machine said. The young man recognised the ‘pivot gem’ that guided the instrument of consciousness in Amnyine art (as they had practised it on Helldrone). It was a beautiful blue stone which sparkled under the arc lights like sunlight on the ocean. To its creators it had been a symbol of ancient records and memory. Over the millennia it had acquired significance as a physical manifestation of that link with the past. It was that rarest of metaphors; one which had become its own reality. “I am the Divining Machine. I am the machine which foretells the future through the past. Through the nodes of my being I hold communion with that which was. Through the interface with the present, which is your interview with me, I hold communion with that which is. When ‘that which was’ is married to ‘that which is’ their offspring are made plain to me and I proclaim ‘that which will be’. Speak of your life.” So the young man told his story and concluded as he had been taught. “This is my truth. Integrate, Analyse and Proclaim Oh Machine!” The machine spoke. “Listen to my words. The cycle turns. Those who were once mighty and rich in possessions will lose all that they have. Their actions are like leaves in the gale of history and nought will avail them; better that they surrender than struggle against it. Your destiny is written in the book of fate and none may change it!” When he heard these words a new understanding dawned in the brain of the listening man and with it came a growing and surprising sense of anger. “Is that all you’ve got to say?” he replied (and no one replied to the ‘Divining Machine’ ). “I’ll bet you say the same thing to everyone! I suspect I lost my father because he couldn’t cope with your cryptic nonsense. My brother made a great deal out of very little from your prophecy but much good it did him in the end. I suppose you’d say that he’s just lost all he had. I never won my first and truest love and have spent years wandering the planet only to return to find my family destroyed. And all you can do is mutter some ambiguous anodyne hogwash that any charlatan in the back streets of New Grimsby could make up in five seconds flat! You’re just a lazy overblown heap of old junk, aren’t you?” The lights of the machine seemed to blink with sheepish guilt. “Well if that’s all you’ve got to say for yourself,” the traveller said, “I’ll make sure I take something worth while out of this exchange”, and he reached into his pocket for a stout Lum knife. With dextrous ease he lent forward and touched the metal altar facing with the point of the knife, tracing a pattern which he had learned from an antique dealer in Garrabyne. As he had suspected, the traditional Amnyine access method worked for this machine as it did for all their artefacts. The magnetic locks on the dynamic axes were free. The tip of his blade clipped the ‘pivot gem’ and in seconds it was in tucked away in a pouch with his money. The ‘High Apostle’ never noticed its absence as he shut down the machine minutes later - convinced as he had become that the Prophet was immutable and blinded to the obvious by this simple prejudice. Unfortunately the laws of physics and engineering had other ideas. When the ‘Divining Apostles’ next set up their camp, the power source in the machine was no longer controlled through the pivot gem and within five minutes the complex of interlocking fields which held the ancient toy together dissolved in a cataclysmic explosion. The young farmer could see the rising pillar of smoke from his horse next evening. It reminded him of the smoke of ‘Old Grumbler’ and he shivered momentarily. It was not until the following morning that he realised what had happened. And that was the end of the ‘Divining Machine’ and the cult of the ‘Divining Apostles’ (for those that survived the explosion no longer had a prophetable source of income). But it is not the end of our story; for in later years a legend grew up on the smaller southern continent of Helldrone. It was said that a certain individual (who had been the last to receive a prophecy from the ‘Divining Machine’) had been granted special knowledge by the machine and an ability to see into the future. And it came to pass that this individual established a Temple of Prophecy. In the Temple of Prophecy was held the mystic gem which the machine had given to him - the gem which links the past and the future. The prophet became known far and wide for his wisdom and he would accept donations from pilgrims to tell their future. He cast the horoscopes of love struck young women and superstitious old men alike, and though he never took more from them than they could afford he soon became very wealthy. He married a beautiful young woman from the north (and it is said that he kept several mistresses, even into his nineties!). And if perchance on a dark night a stranger would bid him to tell them the truth about prophecy there were some who claimed (after his death) that he had told them something like the tale that I have just related to you. And so it was that the last prophecy of the ‘Divining Machine’ came true; for it referred to its own cult and to itself in foretelling that those who were once mighty and rich would lose all that they had. And so it was that the farmer’s younger son learned the true value of prophecy.
As the sage finished his story the Long Ships were matching local kinetic shift in preparation for entering orbit about Cellandine, the third moon of the gas giant Varaquoise II. It was on Cellandine that the heretical ‘True Prophet’ had made his last stand against the Orthodoxy of the Immaculate Dominion (an Orthodoxy already riven with internal strife which would later break it apart). No one could count the martyrs to prophecy lost in the nuclear bombardment and no one knew how many remained, condemned to a lingering death in the poisoned atmosphere, unless unlooked for help should save them. The Counter Xarctic Traders were silent as they made their final physical preparations for New Contact and they remembered the ‘Oblique Meditation’. When the sun rose over Cellandine, the first of the gifts of the Long Ships would descend. DMFW 24/06/95
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