“This is most confusing, I will tell you Lemuel, there is a powerful mind behind this, one who has seen human tactics at work and adapted them to our environment here in Heaven. A powerful mind indeed.”
“Could it be… Azrael?” Lemuel’s voice was hushed, even as an Ophanim it was a major thing to name one of the Chayot Ha Kodesh has the mind behind the outbreak of terrorism in the Eternal City.
“Personally, I wouldn’t have thought him equal to this and he did well in the attack on New York. It needs a greater mind somehow…… ” Come on, old friend, take the bait.
“But there is only one mind greater than a Chayot Ha Kodesh. That would be.… ” The immensity of the blasphemy he had been about to commit struck Lemuel dumb.
“You are right of course. Anything else is unimaginable. It must be Azrael, Perhaps we will get the evidence we need soon.”
As they spoke, Michael watched the shadows of evening lengthen and Lemuel get agitated. He passed from excitement at her coming through irritation at her lateness and then to worry about her safety. Eventually he decided it was time to act. “Lemuel, old friend, something is seriously wrong isn’t it?”
“Maion is never late. If she says a time she is there on the beat. Never a second late.”
I know, Charmeine spoke highly of her qualities of punctuality. “Then we had better go looking for her. If she arrives here, your staff will look after her well I am sure. We will go out to meet her. Perhaps her work held her up.” Which is why, the first thing I am going to do is get telephones installed in Heaven. I’d love to have my Iphone work up here. All those apps.
“Zahuliel-Lan-Lemuel? Hear me. The Mighty Lord Michael-Lan and I are going out to look for the lady Maion. If she arrives here, make her welcome until we will return.”
“I hear and obey, Most Noble Ophanim.”
Michael and Lemuel inflated their flight sacs and took off, flying slowly down the main street away from Lemuel’s Palace.”
“Which way will she be coming old friend?”
“Along this street, I am sure.”
So am I. Or she was. Below them, an officer of the League of Holy Court noted the two angels flying overhead and was about to rebuke them when he recognized them. Flying inside city limits was discouraged now but such restrictions did not apply to the Mighty General Michael-Lan and anybody he chose to have with him. A little further down the street, Lemuel saw a group of people clustered by a temple, one of those destroyed by a bombing. He waved for Michael’s attention and back-winged to land by the group.
“What happened here?” As a chief investigator for the League of Holy Court, his word was law and his questions were answered. Instantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Michael-Lan staying back and letting him do the questioning.
“Some men grabbed a young female angel and pulled her into the ruins and then vanished.”
“And you did nothing to aid her?” Lemuel was furious, in his mind it was obvious who the victim had been.
“Most Noble Ophanim, we thought it was business of the League. There have been so many arrests…”
“You fools. The League does not arrest that way.” He pulled a small painting of Maion from a pocket of his robes. “Was this her?”
“It was, Most Noble Ophanim.”
“We’d better get back to your palace Lemuel.” Michael spoke quietly. “There may be word there. This could all be a foolish misunderstanding or an error of identity. We had better get to work clearing it up.”
The flight back was fast and Lemuel tore through his palace, in case Maion had arrived. But Zahuliel-Lan- Lemuel told him that nothing had been heard of her. By the time he got back, Michael-Lan was holding a scroll in his hands. “This was on your steps Lemuel. Perhaps you had better see what it is.” Because I already know.
Lemuel tore the scroll open. Two bloodstained white wing feathers fell out as he read the terse note within.
“What does it say old friend?”
“It is from The League of Divine Justice. They say they have taken Maion captive and unless we release all the political prisoners by noon tomorrow, they will start to send her back, piece by piece. Starting with her nose.”
Lemuel was shaking, almost on the verge of tears. Michael strode over to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t worry old friend. I won’t let that happen. I have people who can work miracles in this sort of situation and they’ll find Maion for us.”
“Who can work miracles beyond those of the Chayot Ha Kodesh Michael?”
“Humans.”
Chapter Fifty Nine
Lemuel’s Home, Eternal City, Heaven
“Is there any word of Maion yet.” Lemuel paced backwards and forwards, marking the hours as they crawled by. “Time is running out.”
“Don’t sweat it old friend. I told you that I would allow nothing to happen to your beloved.”
“But we have no idea where she is. How can we rescue her when we don’t know where she is.”
Because I do know exactly where she is, dummy. The only real problem is that I can’t tell you that I know where she is so we’re going to have to find out another way. Of course, knowing the answer always helps to solve any problem.
“We find out. We’ve used up all our resources and got nowhere. So, we call on people whose abilities are far beyond ours and who never stop asking questions. As I told you, humans. In particular, somebody who does work for me. Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss.”
“He is a great warrior?” Lemuel didn’t sound that hopeful.
“No, he keeps my household books in order.”
“A book-keeper. Michael, we don’t have time for your jokes.”
“Yes, my book-keeper and arguably the greatest mathematician who ever lived. That’s what we need now.” Michael-Lan stopped and raised his voice. “Johann? Have you got all the information you need.”
The human who came in was an inoffensive-looking man struggling with a great pile of scrolls. He barely made it to a table before losing his grip on them and sending them cascading over the floor. Looking at the chaos he sighed, muttered some words under his breath and started to gather them all up again. Watching the display, Lemuel nearly burst into tears. Then, the human peered owlishly at Michael. “I have everything I need, yes. All these maps, the Eternal City is so much larger than I thought. But I have them all.”
“So, where is Maion likely to be held?” Michael-Lan was entranced, he’d always thought Gauss was a humorless old stick but the man was putting on a spectacular display of eccentricity.
“Maion. Maion? Oh yes, the angel who disappeared.” He started scrambling through the scrolls again. “Here we are, she vanished from here did she not? Ah yes, the sight of an earlier bombing, that is very important. It allows us to use recursive analysis you see, with an asymptotic expansion to truncate the series. Now, any real number is said to be computable when there is a computable sequence converges effectively to it. So, with the abduction taking place at the same point as the bombing, we have our convergence point. This is very fortunate for a coincidence of position between these two coordinates allows us to modulate any desired level of accuracy. You follow me so far?”
Michael-Lan kept quiet, but Lemuel charged in with colors flying. “I follow you, yes.”
“Well, you will understand than that a recursive natural number has an inherent error function that indicates exactly how far through the sequence of data we must progress in order to guarantee that the sequence has converged with the desired level of precision. Now, all the bombings over the last few weeks give us an exemplary data set. I assume that you realize that any real number which happens to be rational is, on this definition, straightforwardly computable, but not every computable real need be rational? And from this it follows naturally that by plotting the positions of the bombings, we can calculate the convergence point at which the command facility must be located.”
“Of course.” Lemuel tried to stop his eyes rotating in circles while the mathematical theory flowed around him.
