In Memoria, In Horto

OT-3905 4. – Civitas, Memory Garden

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Dragosig Stanislaw, a Mantleguard High Code Enforcer, feathered his mechanical hand along the ornate craftsmanship of a door wrought by the Lexwright Carpenter’s Guild. The hand sent neural feedback up his muscular arm, a cleaner signal than the human hand it had replaced. It was fashioned after old things, a hinged door that spoke of ceremony and weight, imbued with the reverence Cortex society holds for all that came before. Other doors slid into walls at the approach of a human, but here the weight of Memory was made to move man.

For three years, Stanislaw saw orders pass his desk, orders to stop the Garmethdes Covenant when they sought to reinterpret history with the color of their faith. The order was now his, here, before the Memory Garden, under the white-blue wash of the gas giant that Civitas circled. He looked to his right, where his Mantleguard subordinate cuffed a paralyzed Garmethdes lookout. He looked to his left, where a Lexwright Memorykeeper wrung his hands.

He shoved the heavy door open and strode in. His cohort followed, and moved to stun the Garmethdes acolytes at the Memory Garden’s terminals. The first was torn from his ritualistic data alterations and pinned to the ground by two Mantleguard, his memory-inscribed robes spreading on the distressed stone floor.

The ritual was interrupted, and both sides drew deadly arms. “STOP,” Stanislaw boomed, his arm shot out from his squared shoulder to command. The room froze. “Lower your weapons. These are Cortex, we all belong to the same Chain.” The Mantleguard cohort obeyed, and the Garmethdes acolytes looked to their leader at the head terminal.

Stanislaw’s gaze snapped to the head terminal. It was a set of screens recessed into a huge hearth, glowing a warm amber that warded off the pale glow.

The man at the terminal looked over his robed shoulder. It was a salt-and-pepper haired, deep-set eyed, and smooth shaved countenance familiar to Stanislaw. He knew his honor from fighting Armada together, amid the deep space flare of Tachyon beams and spacecraft-shattering plasma shell volleys. He was Louis Borromeo, a Garmethdes Covenant Intendant.

Borromeo glowered at the Mantleguard’s number. “Do as he says,” came his low, raven-like voice. “We are all children of the Prime All-Father,” he said as he turned to descend from the raised hearth.

Stanislaw lowered his arm and approached. “Intendant Borromeo, you and your cohort are to be bound and tried for violating the Echelon Code,” Stanislaw pronounced as the two men met in the middle, then his voice softened. “Borromeo, I know you, you are an honorable man, but the ambition of your faith has taken you too far.”

Borromeo’s gaze was cool, and he rebutted, “No ambition, I am but playing my role in the Chain as an Intendant of the Covenant faithful.”

Stanislaw straightened. “That role is still bound by the Code. The Garmethdes Covenant is but a Directorate of our good society, its Intendants cannot take the place of the High Conclave’s Code Monarchs.”

“But still, the Code says that loyalty must not commit one to silence: I saw The Chain fracturing, but the High Conclave has delayed hearings for three years. So it is the path I have chosen, the Mantle I bear to correct these errors,” Borromeo said.

Stanislaw’s broad chest expanded. He stepped forward and jammed a finger to Borromeo’s sternum. “You arrogant man! No path is above the Code, especially not ones chosen by the self!”

Borromeo held his ground and bared his teeth in a sneer. “I serve Memory! Most of the people commemorated in this Memory Garden were from my Directorate! Why shouldn’t their remembrance reflect what they believed?”

“Reflect? It is not just the remembrance of your people you’ve changed! You’ve altered Memory itself! Your role -”

“Altered! So your Lexwright Memorykeepers disgrace the role they were assigned to, violating your precious Echelon Code!” Borromeo spat.

Stanislaw took a step back, and looked at the Lexwright who had followed him in. The Memorykeeper’s thin lips were sealed, a solemn frown there, and his gaze was rooted to the floor.

“You didn’t know!” Borromeo judged the Code Enforcer’s reaction. “You’re enforcing their tainted work, obedient link! They alter, they redact, they delete wholesale -” his voice caught, tearing Stanislaw’s penetrating look from the Memorykeeper. There was such bitterness, rage, sorrow etched in the man’s face. “My daughter wore the Chain nobly, and she fought Armada to the last! And Memory of her was erased, for what?! Because she expressed the faith of her father? Because the Horizon Strider appeared to her and she proclaimed him to be the All-Father?! Tell me!” He roared.

Stanislaw’s mouth opened, but no sound came forth. The Lexwright Memorykeepers and their AIs did prune on occasion, he knew, but to prune someone who was still in living memory was unheard of. It would be a grave violation of the continuity of Memory that Cortex promised to humanity.

And then Borromeo’s shoulders sank, his gaze casting to the side. “I used to - I used to converse with a Chorial of her, every night: she recorded so much, it replicated her voice so well.” He clutched at some inscription on his robe. “All I have left of her is a scrap of journal…” His voice broke again, and he hung his head, face darkened by shadow.

After a long while, Borromeo spoke in a breathy voice, “You don’t understand.”

The worn accusation pulled Stanislaw out of his mired mind, and out of those thoughts he plucked a smoldering resolve. There was a Chain, so human, that preceded and informed the structures Cortex devised, and it was broken. “No. I understand,” he rumbled as he stepped forward and put a steady, warm, human hand on Borromeo.

“We have failed you. I will not see this failure stand.”

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