He couldn’t put it off any longer. Finn had been dragging his feet on this project and he knew it, mostly because he dreaded what the old knight’s reaction might be. And what the papers might reveal about his genealogy. Menachem wasn’t happy with his squire – that much had been clear from the start. What Finn feared most about handing over the family trees was that the old knight would pinpoint a branch on them and say “There, there, it should have been them.”

The high crags of Babylon looked especially foreboding tonight, silhouetted against the moonless sky. He’d gotten the knight to explain it to him once - the nights on Mercury were long. The lamps had to be lit. Tonight, the lamps were not lit. Babylon Squire held his lantern higher and regretted that he did not have the Wick, only a poster tube and the heavy knowledge that tonight he would have to explain the concept of genocide to a ghost.

He descended wordlessly to the knight’s courtyard at the bottom of the city. Trespassing in Menachem’s personal chambers was the fastest way to summon the ghost, and the squire had become progressively more bold in seeking the old man out. He was even something approaching surefooted as he descended the long corridor to the knight’s study. The room was already blazing blue when he arrived, the ancient guardian of Babylon leaning over his desk.

“I thought you might come back eventually,” said the knight, not looking up from the map he was carefully lettering. “Has your sorry face got anything to show for its efforts?”

So they were back to insults and condescension. The squire had expected it, but just once would it be too much for the knight to be proud of him? He uncapped the poster tube and began to slide its contents out. “Clear a space on the table,” he said.

“You do not order me, boy,” snapped Menachem. Babylon squire took a step backwards.

“I brought the documents you asked me to find,” he explained, trying again. “Please, I’d like to show them to you, I’ll need a space on the table.”

Begrudgingly, the knight cleared away his maps. The Squire tentatively moved forward and spread out his ridiculously expensive high-resolution prints.

“These aren’t the originals,” sniffed the knight, returning. The squire shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “I had to make copies. The originals are with my grandfather.” Ignoring any further criticism Menachem might have to offer, he finished spreading the papers out. “I found lineages and family trees. It’s in Yiddish, I can’t speak it, but it’s got, look-“

He pointed to the family crest inscribed into the top corner of the papers. Menachem leaned in to look. “That would appear to be some form of the sign of Babylon,” he agreed.

“My grandfather said it was a ner tamid, a light that never goes out,” supplied Babylon Squire. Menachem shot him a look.

“I know what my own sigil means,” he said, and the squire backed off a bit, giving the knight his space to read. Any moment now, it was going to happen. That thing he was dreading. Menachem would turn around and rattle off a list of people it should have been instead of Finn.

The knight was silent for a long time. The squire was certain that his heart stopped for at least a portion of that time. He stopped breathing, even, waiting for that moment. That awful, invalidating moment.

Finally, Menachem straightened. “This runs first-born son to first-born son for thirty generations,” he declared. “Yet you say I am your ancestor on your mother’s side.”

“My mother has no brothers,” replied the squire, adopting the knight’s antiquated syntax as his own to hide his stammer. “Nor siblings of any kind. My grandfather was eldest of seven—

“As you have mentioned,” nodded the knight. “What sort of war kills all but the eldest son? Usually it is just the opposite. The eldest son marches off, his siblings survive.”

“It was hardly an ordinary war,” replied the squire. It was here, one of the many moments he’d been dreading. “When you lived, wars on earth were fought with swords. Men on horseback.”

“Do not tell me what I already know,” snapped the knight. “My wars were fought with magic, with darkness and with light.”

The squire swallowed dryly. “This war was fought with bombs – explosives. Fire and gas. Tanks and airplanes.” Never mind that the knight would not know what a tank or an airplane was. “My grandfather’s family lived in, um, a country called Poland. It was invaded. They rounded up—

This felt completely inappropriate. Babylon squire hesitated. Wouldn’t it be better to just let the knight continue, ignorant of what humanity was capable of?

Menachem had noticed his silence. “Who did they round up?” he asked.

“The Jews, mostly,” replied Babylon squire quietly.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” said the knight, returning to the papers before him. “How did these documents survive?”

Still cautious, the squire approached the table again. “Last time we spoke, you told me that people carry things with them,” he said reverently. “My grandfather told me his mother had a cousin who was already settled in America. They arranged for him to cross the border. He had a box with the original copies of these documents in it, that he was told to protect with his life.”

“And somehow, they made their way to you,” nodded knight, shifting through the pages.

“Did I do well?” asked Babylon. “I found what you asked me to find—

“You followed an order,” replied the knight, his voice lacking the genial notes that Babylon had hoped to hear there. “You shouldn’t expect to be rewarded simply for doing as you are told.”

The squire’s heart sank. He did not look at the knight.

“I reserve praise for those who go above and beyond the call of duty,” said Menachem. “All you have done is what I have asked. I do not need to thank you for that.”

Babylon squire’s sense of accomplishment vanished. “Right,” he nodded. “Foolish of me, really.” Maybe this was what people meant when they complained that America was too reward-driven a society. He was quiet for a long time after that, content to let the knight study the papers without his squire’s interference.

“You’ve fallen silent,” observed Menachem after a while. “It’s uncharacteristic of you.”

At least he’d noticed, rationalized the squire. “Does it answer your questions, at least?” he asked, temper and indignation rising. “Of why I’m what’s become of you, and not anyone else? Why your squire’s not someone more noble? Isn’t taller? More handsome? Less of a goofball?”

“Don’t be foolish,” snapped the knight, once he had apparently heard Babylon squire demean himself enough.

“How is it foolishness if it’s true?” snapped Babylon squire. “It’s not a secret that you hate me.”

He wished he hadn’t said it, if only because of the flash of hurt that he saw cross the knight’s face before he became stoic once more. “I admit I was disappointed when I first laid eyes on you,” admitted the knight heavily. “But you are a hard worker, and you underestimate your own potential. I make things difficult for you because it is the only way you will ever learn.”

Needless to say, the squire was shocked into silence by this admission.

“I am not proud of you – yet,” judged the knight. “But I trust that in time you will force me to change my judgement of you.”

The squire nodded, unsure of what to say. Finally, he settled for, “…Should I take the papers back to Earth with me? Or leave them here for you to study more?”

Menachem was a step ahead of him, already rolling the sheets up and putting them back into the poster tube. “I have seen enough,” he said, handing the tube to Babylon squire. “I can see that there is a question you want to ask.”

Put on the spot, the squire didn’t have a chance to come up with any bullshit to tell the knight. “Did you find someone else it could have been? Someone else who could have been your successor?”

The knight shook his head. “No. It could only have been you. It was always meant to be you.”

Satisfied with this admission – and at a loss for responses – Babylon squire turned and retreated up the long hallway towards the courtyard, and did not speak again until he swore the oath to return to Earth.