Chapter 12

The king had grown younger.

During the time Archer and Sol had spent building ships and artificial people, the rejuvenation serum had begun to show results.

The king had fewer wrinkles. His hair and beard had taken on a brownish hue, and Panfred said he felt twenty years younger.

Panfred and Archer spent a great deal of time together.

The king would visit the shipyard, watch the construction work, and talk with Archer.

Their most frequent topic of conversation was the building of civilizations.

Panfred was fascinated by the primitive world Archer had come from. He envied the opportunity Archer had been given to build a tribe, a city, a people, a nation.

And he loved the idea that the Four Crowns would now be supplying that primitive world with advanced technology.

The king imagined ships from the Four Crowns soaring through the skies of Archer’s world while ordinary people stared upward in amazement.

The King of Ramman also discussed the civilization of his own world with Archer.

“Now that the waters have returned, we’ll be able to reclaim what our ancestors lost thousands of years ago,” Panfred mused.

“Do you know anything about where humans in the Four Crowns originally came from?” he asked Archer.

“No,” Archer replied. “I assumed humans had always been here.”

“No,” the king said. “Thousands of years ago, this world—the world of the Four Crowns—was colonized by the human race.

“Humans came here from somewhere else.

“Where exactly, no one remembers anymore.

“But we have always known that this world was not our original home.

“The colonies developed. People built cities, extracted resources, grew, multiplied.

“Centuries passed.

“Everything was going well.

“And then archaeologists dug up something interesting:

“An underground network of artificial mechanisms.”

“The terraformers?” Archer asked.

“Among other things,” Panfred said.

“Yes, Glimorsky told me how humanity’s actions awakened the giants,” the Painter said. “He also told me that there were once a trillion humans living in the Four Crowns.”

“Yes. There were,” the king said. “An incredible number.

“There truly were a trillion of us.

“But did Glimorsky tell you why the race of giants became so angry with us?”

“Did you ruin their climate?” Archer asked.

“Not exactly,” the king explained. “The reason was something else.

“The climate on the surface had been calibrated to support a microscopic life-form that sustained the sleeping giants.

“It wasn’t so much their climate that we destroyed.

“It was their ecosystem.”

“I saw one of the dead giants,” Archer said. “From the Green Ripper.

“An incredible creature.

“It’s difficult to imagine what it must have been like to fight a war against them.”

“Yes, indeed,” the king agreed. “If only we had known what that war would cost us.

“The interesting thing is that several centuries passed before the giants began to feel the effects of their perfect biosphere breaking down.

“Several centuries during which we could have restored the climate to its previous settings and probably returned the crucial microorganism to its former population.

“But we were too greedy.

“The colonies generated enormous profits, and giving them up seemed foolish.

“More than that, we began to believe that the sleeping giants would simply starve to death.

“Then this world would finally belong to us.

“We were wrong.

“The giants awakened.

“They were furious.

“And they rose to the surface.

“The war between humans and giants began.”

“Glimorsky showed me how effective your cannons are against the giants,” Archer said. “I watched a volley of cannonballs tear into the body of a dead giant as though it were butter.

“It looked like you had the means to fight back.”

“We didn’t develop those cannons until the post-apocalyptic era, after we had lost much of our space-age technology.

“If we had known beforehand what those creatures were capable of, we would have abandoned the Four Crowns.

“We would have returned to wherever we originally came from and left behind everything we had built here.

“But we were far too confident.

“And then it was too late.

“The giants established a blockade, cutting us off from our homeworld.

“They created a technological weapon that made travel back to our home systems simply impossible.

“Many of our technologies stopped working altogether.

“The colonies were on their own.

“There was no point waiting for help.

“And so began the war for survival.”

“What killed your people?” Archer asked. “What happened to the trillion?”

“A small fraction died in the giants’ attacks,” the king said.

“Most died of starvation.

“The giants destroyed our infrastructure, and without it, we could no longer feed a population of that size.

“We were dying out.

“Approximately three thousand eight hundred years have passed between then and today.

“No one knows exactly how long.

“Among other things, the giants possessed technology capable of altering the flow of time.

“Over those millennia, the giants were completely exterminated.

“The planet is ours now.

“But before they were destroyed, the last giants activated a drought protocol in their terraforming system.

“All the water retreated deep underground.

“The biosphere withered.

“And the giants destroyed the keys needed to restart the climate-control system.”

“You searched for the aquameter for three thousand years?” Archer asked. “That’s difficult to imagine.

“How do you spend three thousand years searching for something that might not even exist?”

“We had no choice,” the king replied. “And we had hope.

“After we defeated the giants in the war and discovered that we lacked only a single artifact, we became much more thorough in our archaeology.

“We discovered many underground structures belonging to the giants’ civilization. They contained countless artifacts and mechanisms.

“And when the seas and oceans dried up, many structures left behind by our fallen enemies became visible from the air.

“There was no shortage of discoveries for us to study.

“And every new discovery brought new hope.

“We always felt as though we were just one step away from solving the mystery.

“Even though we couldn’t find the artifact itself, we found the plans for making one.

“Yes, we couldn’t reproduce the technology required to create monolithic objects, but we believed we would eventually find another solution.

“Unfortunately,” the king said, “after three thousand years of searching, a chance encounter with a traveler from another world solved the unsolvable problem.”

“Interesting,” Archer said thoughtfully.

“When I created the portal to your world, I had no idea where I was going.

“I knew nothing about this place.

“All I did was imagine a world full of people and adventures.

“And now I wonder...

“Could the magic brush have deliberately chosen your world from countless possibilities?

“Could the brush have preferences of its own?

“Could it have known that your world desperately needed a Painter with a magic brush?”

“That is an interesting question,” King Panfred said. “You could let our scientists study your brush. Perhaps they might discover something about it.”

“No,” Archer said. “I don’t want to part with the brush.

“At least not yet.”

“As you wish,” the king said.

They also discussed the future of the Four Crowns.

The king was convinced that over the next hundred years, ordinary people would gain greater freedom and political power, eventually replacing monarchy with a different form of government.

Panfred believed that the other three kingdoms would most likely cling to power until the bitter end, and that their conservative policies would cause them to miss countless opportunities.

“I, for one, will be happy to relinquish my duties as monarch and transfer power to a new republican government,” the king declared confidently.

“Perhaps that will make Ramman the new center of civilization in the Four Crowns.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad outcome to me,” Archer said. “Even if the other three kingdoms remain stubborn.”

“Still, I worry about the people living under the other three Crowns,” the king said.

“Because those three monarchs refuse to bring their monarchies to an end, a million people will be forced to live in the past.”

“That isn’t something you can change,” Archer said. “To save those million people, you’d have to go to war with the other kingdoms.

“You’d have to take power away from the other three monarchs by force.

“You wouldn’t resort to war, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” the king replied. “But I might not object to encouraging revolutions in their countries.

“Helping ordinary people overthrow their monarchies and establish democracies.”

“Then perhaps you should start by setting an example,” Archer said.

“Give up your monarchy.

“Establish a democracy.

“Build a prosperous nation.

“And let the people of the other countries look at you and wish they had the same.”

“Hmm...” Panfred considered this.

“Set an example.

“That’s an interesting idea.

“But what if we didn’t simply abolish the monarchy and establish a democracy?

“What if we staged a revolution?

“Pretended there was an uprising in Ramman and that the uprising succeeded?

“That a revolution had created a new and prosperous nation?

“Then the people of the other kingdoms might be more inclined to start revolutions of their own.”

“Deception,” Archer said.

“Deception,” the king repeated. “But for the good of everyone.”

“I couldn’t do that,” the Painter said. “Scheming, deceiving entire populations, playing political games...

“Even for the good of everyone, I couldn’t do it.”

“That’s what you think now,” the king said. “You’re speaking as a ruler who has ruled for what? Less than a year?

“Spend your entire life surrounded by politics, and you might sing a different tune.”

“I don’t know,” Archer replied.

“But perhaps you’re right,” the King of Ramman said with a sigh.

“Perhaps the example I should set for the world isn’t a fake revolution, but my own abdication.

“We could hold a referendum and let the people decide what form of government Ramman should have.

“My only concern is that if I relinquish my authority as monarch too soon, the alliance between Ramman and the Shod might be dissolved, and you won’t receive all the benefits you’ve earned.

“You’ve already spent four months in our world, and you’re still serving us rather than yourself.

“When do you plan to return to your own world with the spoils you’ve rightfully earned?”

“Soon, I think,” Archer said. “The factory producing ships and crews is up and running.

“It can continue operating without me. Without Sol.

“I think we’ll be going home soon.

“I just don’t know for how long.”

“You’ll bring technology from our world back to yours, won’t you?” the king asked.

“Yes,” Archer replied.

“Then you’ll have plenty to keep you busy at home,” the king said. “You’ll be building your civilization.

“What do you think about migration?”

“Migration?” Archer asked.

“Yes,” the king replied. “People migrating from Ramman to your world. To your city.

“You told me that your greatest limitation is your lack of population.

“I would have no objection to sending some of the people of my kingdom to your world, under your leadership.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Archer said.

“Think about it,” the king said.

“And let me know what you want to take back to your world with you.

“I’ll prepare everything you need.”