The Pillars of Eternity

by Barrington J. Bayley

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

When the Colonnaders plucked him from a life of misery and their surgeons rebuilt his twisted body with silicon bones, Joachim Boaz renamed himself after THE PILLARS OF ETERNITY. Now he seeks Meirjaihn the Wanderer, a planet that plots its own course between stars: for on its surface lies a gem that offers mastery over time itself . . .

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 173

Sample

He came slowly down the arcaded avenue that led from the landing ground. He was a blunt, stocky man encased in a modsuit,
the ribbed, scruffy appearance of which might have caused some to think of him as an old trader who had grown careless about
his equipment. They would have been wrong: though the modsuit was standard wear for shipkeepers, adaptable to a variety of
gravities, he would have been happy to shuck it off like a torn jacket. His muscles were lithe and flexible, though now beginning
to stiffen a little, for in his youth he had often scorned the use of a modsuit altogether, and he had trodden many worlds.
His face was clearly unaccustomed to expressing emotion: impassive, square, pockmarked, jutting forward from the collar of
the suit and surmounted by shorn grey hair. A perceptive person might have seen it as a face that masked suffering. This man,
such a person might have said, has known pain, and has not overcome it. But there were unlikely to be such persons here in
Hondora. A trader’s town, on a planet whose culture was all borrowed from other sources, had little room for sensitivity.
Here people would notice only how much he could be induced to bend in price, would ask only where he had been, where he was
able to go. They would take more interest in his ship than in himself.


His ship. They would do well, he might have said to himself, to look at his ship.

Joachim Boaz was how he named himself. Captain was how he styled himself, preferring the archaism over the more modern ‘shipkeeper’.
There was a reason for this eccentricity. He did not see himself as his ship’s keeper. Quite the reverse.


The air had a balmy, lemony quality, like aerial sherbet. It was distinctive of class-C planets, and resulted from the overlarge
yellow suns that abounded in the region, or more properly speaking from the mixture of secondary gases in the atmosphere,
gases which such suns exuded when they expelled the material that was to form planetary systems. Captain Boaz drew the tangy breeze deep into his
lungs. He cast a lingering glance at the luminous, sulphur-colored sky. He liked it here, to the extent he ever liked anything.


The arcade was fringed with fragrant tree blossoms. He pressed on, ignoring any who passed him on the avenue, and shortly
came to the edge of the town. Youths and girls gazed languidly through the shaded entrances of service rooms. Stray wisps
of conversation drifted to him, scarcely noticed by him but nevertheless recorded in his brain and simultaneously transmitted
to his ship which stood parked a mile away. ‘Choc me one more style …’ ‘…wild one …’‘… the rod gap’s closed up in Ariadne now …can’t get through …’‘… have you ever killed a girl like me before? …’


In the meantime his ship was transmitting subliminal signals to him, guiding him with unheard suggestions. He was prompted
to enter a drum-shaped room where men in dhotis and togas sat on benches against the walls. Some drank, some sniffed yellow
powder, some talked to breastless girls draped in loose shifts. Walls and ceiling were bare of ornament. They were the colour
of chalk, except at the rear where an ochrous red tunnel gaped, serving robots shifting from foot to foot in its mouth.


In the center of the room was a circular table occupied by five men, four of them shipkeepers, by the signs on their chests.
The other was a merchant with cargoes to be moved.


Pausing, Captain Boaz waited to be noticed. Eyes swivelled, saw his modsuit, his cargo carrier’s sign.

‘Will you join us, shipkeeper?’ called the merchant jovially. ‘The game is better the more the players.’

Idly Boaz thought: for you it is. He took a vacant seat, and spoke in a dour tone. ‘I can take a load Harkio way. Nowhere
else.’


‘Harkio?’ the merchant squeaked in surprise. Boaz was breaking an unspoken rule of contract bargaining by stating his intentions at the outset like this. The other players gave him glances of disapproval.


‘Yes, I might have something in that quarter,’ the merchant said smoothly. ‘Will you sit this round out, then? We’ll come
to it.’


Boaz nodded. He took a small deck of picture cards from his pocket and began to shuffle them in a habitual, self-calming ritual.
Those present would recognize the cards and know him for a colonnader.


He relaxed, inspecting a card occasionally. Games were played with such cards once. That was long ago, when a card deck could
be depended on to stay inert and not play tricks at the behest of its owner.


A slot in the center of the table disgorged the card pack’s equivalent: shiny cubes an inch on a side, guaranteed fully randomized
by the house. The merchant was banker. He took a cube; the others each took one. They all examined the facets for the symbols
that in a few moments appeared there.


Boaz ignored the proceedings and concentrated on his cards. No one seemed to know how game bargaining had begun; but shipkeepers
were generally born gamblers and, after all, it was only a logical extension of haggling. The shipkeepers made bids that represented
what they would be prepared to carry a cargo for. The merchant tried to drive them down by calling their bluff. In the last
resort it was the cards that decided.


It could mean that a shipkeeper would have to carry a cargo for below cost. Or he could collect an exorbitant fee. Usually,
however, matters worked out reasonably enough.


The merchant gave a grunt of satisfaction as he held up his cube, the signs flashing from it in pastel colors. ‘Excellent,
Rodrige. You will be able to afford a holiday after this trip! Now, then. The Ariadne gap is closed up, I hear. For the time
being I shall hold my Ariadne-vectored goods in store; perhaps the gap will open up again. Now let us see … Harkio!’ He looked up at Boaz. ‘Your name, shipkeeper?’


‘I am Captain Joachim Boaz,’ Boaz said.

‘Ah! How quaint! What is the load capacity of your ship?’

‘Two and one-fifth milliards.’

‘That should suffice. Let us play.’

Rodrige, who in fact had achieved a worse deal than he had hoped for, left the table with a sour face. Captain Boaz spoke
again.


‘I do not wish to play; I am not in the mood for it. I will take your cargo for the cost of the fuel plus a point eight per
cent for depreciation.’


The merchant’s face showed pleasure when he received this offer. The shipkeepers gave Boaz looks of malice. He was joyriding,
taking a cargo simply to finance himself as a passenger on his own ship. ‘That might be agreeable … any other offers, gentlemen?’


‘What could there be?’ muttered one bitterly. They left, allowing Boaz to feel their dislike.

When they had gone a look of anxiety crossed the merchant’s features. ‘Your ship … is it sound? I do not know you. Are you
qualified?’


The barest hint of a smile almost came to Boaz. He pulled an identibloc from his pocket. The merchant’s face smoothed out
and became bland as he read it. ‘Ah yes … that should do …’


‘My ship is open to your inspection.’

‘I will rely on your experience, good shipkeeper – or should I call you “Captain”, eh? Ha ha! Well, then, Harkio. I have a
consignment of Boems for Schloss III.’


‘Boems?’ said Boaz.

‘Something wrong, Captain?’ the merchant enquired.

A moral struggle ensued within Captain Boaz. He had always refused to take Boems before. Some philosophers classed them as
sentient beings. In which case to traffic in them would involve him in slavery.


‘I am not sure I can do it.’

‘What? Ah, I see your problem. You are a colonnader, are you not? You follow an ethical code. Luckily I am a sceptic in gnostical
matters. Well, you need not worry. These Boems have no conscious process. It has been scrambled out of them, if any ever existed.
They would classify as corpses.’


‘Then what use are they?’

‘Oh, they can perform many functions of the simpler sort,’ explained the merchant in good humour. ‘They are used mainly in
children’s toys. Does that clear it up for you?’


Boaz decided. He was keen to get to Harkio.

‘It’s agreed.’

‘Good. Now let me see … hmm, hmm.’ The merchant was computing the figures with his adp implant. ‘The Boems amass one point seven
eight milliards. What’s the mass of your ship?’


Boaz told him. The merchant worked out how many fuel sticks the trip would need, added a little leeway, reckoned the cost
plus Boaz’s depreciation.


‘Two hundred and twenty-eight point one eight nine psalters,’ he mutterd. Captain Boaz nodded, having simultaneously done
the same calculation on his own adplant. The merchant wrote out a contract on a vissheet, finishing with a flourish. Each
touched it to his forehead, recording his body odour as a signature of compliance with the terms. The merchant counted out
some domino-like coins from a bag on his lap, giving them to Boaz wrapped in a cloth.


‘Here you are, then. My goods will be delivered tomorrow morning.’

He left, looking satisfied. For a while Captain Boaz sat alone at the table, the folded cloth of money in his hand, watching
the fizzy sunshine filter through the open doorway.


A nymphgirl who had been drinking on a side bench stood up suddenly, discarded her shift and began to dance naked. Her body
was hairless, narrow-waisted and without breasts. She was just like a girl child enlarged to the size of a full-grown woman. It was the current fashion in
Hondora, again a fashion imported from nearby worlds.


The girl stopped dancing when a robot stepped quietly from the red tunnel to place a hand on her shoulder. ‘You must not do
that here, madam. This is a place of business. For that, you must go to other establishments.’


Wordlessly she picked up her shift. Glancing scornfully around her, she stalked out.

Captain Boaz rose to address the robot. ‘Where can I get ship fuel?’

‘The nearest stockist is close by, sir,’ the robot said, turning its smooth face toward him. ‘Proceed down the avenue and take
the second turning on the right. Proceed further a hundred yards. The stockist’s name is Samsam.’


Boaz quit the room and again walked the arcade, going deeper into Hondora. Further down, the avenue became more lively, assailing
him with motley smells and noises. Metal clashing, food frying, the aromas of a hundred mingled drugs and perfumes. He heard
laughter, screams of mirth, the tinkling sounds of soft music. Men and nymphgirls spilled out of doorless openings and chased
one another, kicking up the orange dust of the unpaved concourse.


Under shimmering awnings merchandise was displayed on glittering trays: foods, sweetmeats, drugs, trinkets, garments, a thousand
intricate artifacts. Captain Boaz’s step faltered. He had come to a stall offering Boems for sale. The pale micelike slabs
were piled carelessly in the trays, their crystalline ridges jammed into one another.


Were they decerebrated or not? Captain Boaz looked away and strode on.

The side street was quieter. Samsam’s was an unprepossessing shop without windows or display stall. Inside it was dim and
cool.


The shopkeeper shuffled out from the back, blinking. ‘Yes?’

‘Good day.’ Captain Boaz presented his credentials and placed the money on the counter. ‘I need fuel sticks. I’m told you
charge standard price, otherwise I’ll go elsewhere.’


‘Oh, yes indeed.’

The old man leaned across the counter, and his voice fell. ‘I can get you some for less, if you like.’

‘Thank you, no. I want no stolen merchandise, and no inferior fuel. Give me good rods.’

The shopkeeper turned to the shelves behind the counter that were stacked with sticks. ‘What size?’

‘X20. Give me five full-length, and one you’ll have to cut.’

‘What d’you want it cut to, then?’ The man selected sticks and laid them on the counter.

‘Give me thirty-seven over a hundred,’ Boaz said, stating a fraction.

‘Oh, I don’t cut to anything less than an inch,’ the shopkeeper grumbled. ‘I can’t get rid of scraps like that.’

‘Very well, give me four over ten,’ Boaz said impatiently. The man picked up a stick and took it to a cutting machine at the
end of the counter. He put it in the grip, calibrated it, and set the blade to whining at high speed through the yellow rod.


While this happened Boaz picked up another of the rods and ran his eye along it as if testing the straightness of an arrow.
It was about two feet long and two inches in diameter. It sparkled like sugar frosting and was rough to the touch.


The special kind of energy that resided in the rods was put there by a very expensive process. Each one would carry two milliards
of shipweight a distance of ten light-years. Boaz unfolded the cloth that contained his money and counted out rectangular
coins while the shopkeeper placed the sticks in a carrying bag. He received the change, thanked the vendor and stepped back out into the lemon sunshine.


Halfway down the side street, his ship told him he was being stalked. He tucked the fuel sticks under his arm. It was those
they were after. About a minute later, his ship reported the attack was imminent.


Then a spring lasso snaked out from the nearby wall, jerking him off balance. Like a paper box, a section of wall folded in
and revealed a narrow alley, and in it two men, one wielding the lasso and hauling Boaz inward, the other shifting from foot
to foot with hands reaching out, like a wrestler looking for a hold.


For a moment Boaz could not deploy his strength. Still clutching the fuel sticks, he was dragged into the alley. Only then
was he able to grab the lasso with his free hand, seizing it by the haft and pulling the man down on top of him.


For a stocky, modsuited man, his subsequent speed was a surprise to his attackers. He rolled, and was on his feet, in almost
the same movement delivering a kick to the lasso man’s coccyx, snapping his spine.


The man gave a bubbling moan, face down and moving his arms like a crippled insect. He would not live long. Boaz turned to
face the second robber over the semi-paralysed form of his comrade. The man had a gun. Boaz saw a snarl of fear, felt heat
as the beam struck his chest.


But this sensation was measured in microseconds. Two miles away on the landing ground Boaz’s ship was responding to the events
impinging on his body. Billions upon billions of digital pulses passed down the tight directional beam it maintained, and
set about arranging his body’s defences. The lethal shot from the thief’s gun was diverted, dissipated in a thin blaze of
light.


Taking one step forward with the fuel sticks still under his arm, Captain Boaz tore the gun from the mugger’s grasp, smashing
its handle against the wall so that the charge pack broke open and tossing it aside. The thief backed away with a glance to
his rear. The alley was a dead end, probably constructed specifically for the purpose of robbers.


‘We weren’t going to hurt you, shipkeeper,’ he pleaded quickly. ‘We only wanted your fuel sticks.’

‘Liar. That was a kill shot.’

‘Look what you did to my friend –’

He could not evade Boaz, who grabbed him by the front of his toga and forced him to his knees, still using only one hand.
Then he took him by the throat.


Just as Boaz began to throttle him, a transformation came over the thief’s face. His terror dissolved into a dreamy leer,
and he looked up at Boaz.


‘You goin’ to kill me?’ he asked breathlessly.

Boaz glanced at the still moaning form behind him. . . .