Celestial Matters Page 15

  “Wouldn’t that fit in with your plans?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not just the killing that must be ended, it’s the decision to kill. Don’t you see, if I said nothing about Mihradarius’s error, I would be responsible for your death and the deaths of everyone on this ship.”

  I believed most of what he was saying, but not his convenient claim that there was something wrong with the net. It seemed to me that the wisest thing for Ramonojon to do to further his ends was make me doubt Mihradarius, because without the Persian, Sunthief would have to be scrapped.

  “I will do what I can to free you,” I said. “But I have to carry out Sunthief; it’s my duty, my dharma.”

  “I understand,” he said. “But I still hope to change your mind.”

  I turned to Yellow Hare. “Let us go,” I said to her in ’Ellenic. She nodded and followed me through the steel door. We walked slowly up the passage and onto the surface, then back up the hill to my office. I expected her to ask me what Ramonojon and I had discussed, but she held silent.

  I sat down at my desk and stared up at the ceiling while I tried to digest the interview. Yellow Hare assumed her customary place next to the door, still and holy as a statue.

  A few minutes’ contemplation led me to conclude that I had to prevent Ramonojon being sent back to Earth for trial while the rest of us journeyed to the sun. That was the only option that would give me time to prove his innocence and see Sunthief through to its conclusion.

  “Captain,” I said to Yellow Hare, “would you please dispatch a messenger to ask Aeson and Anaxamander to join me here.”

  “Yes, Commander,” she said. She opened the door and waved over one of the messenger slaves waiting in the library.

  Aeson arrived immediately. I asked him to wait until the security chief appeared. Anaxamander took several minutes, explaining that he had been reviewing the troops.

  “I have come to a decision concerning Ramonojon,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed firmly on Aeson. “I know that he is not the spy, but cannot provide any evidence for this.”

  None of them spoke, so I continued. “I refuse to let you send him down to Earth for trial.”

  “Refuse?” Anaxamander said. “Commander Aias, this is a military matter. You cannot countermand this order.”

  I turned to Aeson. “But you can,” I said.

  “True,” Aeson said. “But I must have a reason.”

  “I cannot give you one,” I said. “But I swear by Athena that if you do not do as I ask, then I will resign my command and Sunthief will never be completed.”

  Ares rose up behind my co-commander’s eyes, and the anger of war was in his voice. “Aias! How can you say that after—” He cut himself off, not wanting to let Anaxamander hear what the Archons had told us. “Aias of Athens, you have a sworn duty.”

  “I have two sworn duties,” I said. “To the state and to my friend.”

  Aeson scowled at me, but I held my ground and gradually his features softened, as Athena replaced Ares in his mind. “I can’t let Ramonojon out of the brig without proof,” he said.

  “Agreed,” I said. “But you will keep him on this ship.”

  “Very well.”

  “Security Chief,” I said to Anaxamander, “your men will keep searching. There is still a spy on this ship. I want him found quickly. We leave for the sun in a matter of days.”

  “But … I thought…”

  “That will be all, Security Chief.”

  “Yes,… Commander.”

  η

  For the next several days sleep was a precious rarity as Aeson and I struggled to make the ship and crew ready for departure. He relied on Spartan discipline to keep awake; I needed twice daily injections of Choleric Humour, which had the unfortunate effect of giving me a short temper.

  My staff were treated to a side of me they had never seen before, and assuredly did not like. Instead of discussion they were treated to blunt orders, instead of questions, demands, and instead of explanations they received silence.

  My first act was to call Mihradarius and Kleon into my office and tell them about our new departure date.

  “Why are the Archons doing this?” Mihradarius said.

  “That’s no concern of yours,” I snapped. “All you have to do is make sure your subordinates do their work.”

  “But, Aias—”

  “There will be no argument,” I said. “Just go do it.”

  He pulled up the hem of his robes, showing me his scholar’s blue border. I knew I had committed an offense against his dignity as a graduate of the Akademe, but the humour had filled my blood with the fire of Ares, giving me freedom from the cares of Akademic propriety. Athena tried to call my attention to something, but I could not hear her over her brother’s battle cries.

  I turned to Kleon, leaving Mihradarius to fume. “Finalize the flight path,” I said. “Make your last corrections and show them to me.”

  Kleon darted out to complete his assignment. Mihradarius followed slowly, favoring me with a questioning glance just before he stepped out the door.

  I felt a momentary flush of guilt. “Choleric Humour,” I said. He nodded and closed the door quietly behind him.

  After they had gone, I sent a messenger to Anaxamander reminding him to report on his search for the real spy. It was not until much later that I learned that he did not do so.

  From that point onward my memories are blurred. Papers crossed my desk; people came to me, mostly panicking about one thing or another. My reading was cursory, my responses short. But I know that things happened during those days that came to matter a great deal. Therefore, I must crave a moment’s indulgence; permit me to ask for the blessings of Themis and Mnemosyne, that my own thought and memory might be retrieved from that fog of sleeplessness and anger.

  Two important events present themselves to the mirror of my mind.

  One of Ramonojon’s subordinates, Balance Manager Roxana, the cautious, middle-aged Persian woman whose duty was to check the results of all reshapings in order to ensure the stability of the ship, came to see me sometime during the third day of preparations.

  “Commander,” she said, after hesitantly entering. “There’s a slight discrepancy in the balance of the ship. I wanted to ask Ramonojon about it, but…” She paused for a moment, staring at my scowl. An unaccustomed resoluteness came over her normally timid face. “Commander, I’ve worked under him for over seven years. I can’t believe he’s a spy.”

  “He isn’t,” I said. Gratitude that someone else shared my opinion threatened to drive the humour from my blood, but the injection was too recent for self-created emotion to overwhelm it.

  “Can you get him out of the brig, sir?” she asked.

  “Don’t you think I would if I could?”

  She jumped back, almost colliding with Yellow Hare. “Yes, of course, I’m sorry, Commander.”

  “Scientific command does not extend to security matters,” I explained, restraining the false anger. “Now, tell me about this balance problem; I don’t have much time to spare.”

  “That’s just it, sir, it’s not a problem; the ship is flying too well.”

  “Too well?” Ares rose up in my mind. How could she come and bother me about things working when all my thoughts needed to be directed toward solving problems? But the calming hand of Athena stopped me from shouting. I still could not hear what the goddess of wisdom had to say, but she managed to restrain me from an outburst. She was right to do so, of course. The dynamicists had been thrown into confusion by Ramonojon’s arrest; the last thing they needed was fury from me.

  “Thank you for the information,” I said. “Once we’re under way, detail some people to find the cause. But for the next few days only come to me with bad news.”

  “Yes, Commander,” she said, slipping out the door. “Sorry to trouble you.”

  The other memory is vaguer. Mihradarius and Kleon had joined me for dinner in my office; we were to have a brief discussion and the
n I was to take the three hours’ sleep I needed to keep from being driven to mania by the injections.

  I remember eating fried goose liver and barley bread, but what were we talking about? Oh, yes, we were making preliminary plans for our actual approach to the sun. Mihradarius needed to know approximately how close we would come to ’Elios himself so that he could make the final adjustments to the net design.

  The Persian was remarkably quiet during the meeting, making only a few comments as Kleon and I plotted the approach and concluded that Chandra’s Tear could safely stand two miles off the sun, provided we were on the inner side of the crystal sphere of ’Elios. I remember Kleon staring at the maps of the heavens and singing to himself, and I remember that neither of them met my eyes once during the meeting. But most of all, I remember feeling Ramonojon’s absence.

  The days of anger finally ended when I crossed the final problem off my list and went to the hospital for a blissful twenty-four hours of dreamless sleep under Euripos’s watchful eyes. I awoke feeling my own emotions for the first time in days and vowed never to subject myself to that rage again.

  While I had slept, Chandra’s Tear had docked one final time at the Pillars of ’Erakles to let off those crew members who would not be needed for the long journey: about thirty scientists whose work was already complete were shipped down to Earth, along with several dozen excess slaves.

  When I returned to my office, I found the final crew roster on my desk. Sixty-eight slaves, mostly working in the spon-gen farm and the storage cavern, one hundred soldiers including twenty-two gunners, seven scientists who were directly responsible to me, four navigators and six engineers working for Kleon, twenty-five workers given to Mihradarius to weave the net, and twenty-two dynamicists without an overseer. I hoped Ramonojon would be free so they could receive proper guidance.

  Aeson joined me as I was reviewing the list.

  “Are we ready?” I asked.

  He covered a yawn with his hand and blinked his bloodshot eyes. “As best we are able.”

  He looked at me expectantly. I turned to Yellow Hare. “Captain, would you call in two messengers?”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  A pair of lithe youths clad in short red tunics with leather message pouches on baldrics entered my office. “Announce a general inspection,” I told the first, “and tell the crew to assemble in the amphitheater for the departure ceremony.”

  The lad bowed and darted away. I turned to the second. “Tell Clovix to bring the sacrificial regalia and the animals to the amphitheater in two hours.”

  He also bowed and left.

  “We should prepare ourselves as well,” Aeson said as he turned to go. “I’ll join you at the stern cannon battery in one hour.”

  Yellow Hare and I returned to my quarters; slaves washed and oiled me, then dressed me in my purple ceremonial robes, put a wreath of laurel leaves on my head, and pinned a golden owl-badge on my left shoulder. Thus arrayed for my priestly duties, I could feel the gods and heroes gather around me waiting for the homage of sacrifice.

  While I was being prepared my bodyguard cleaned her armor and donned a necklace of iron beads carved into little masks of Ares and Athena. The gods of battle stood behind her, raising her up above the human. I saw the greatness of her warrior’s soul and felt more keenly than ever before the honor her service bestowed on me.

  “With your permission,” I said to her, “we should join Aeson.”

  “As you command,” she replied.

  Aeson was waiting for us at the aft end of the ship. He was dressed exactly as I was except that his badge was an iron peacock, and his robes bulged oddly on his chest and hips, betraying the breastplate and sword he wore under them.

  “Hail to you, brother, in Athena’s name,” I said, touching the owl lightly with my fingertips.

  “Hail to you, brother, in ’Era’s name,” he answered, clasping his fist over the peacock.

  With slow formality we traversed the surface and the underground of Chandra’s Tear from stern to stem, asking the gods to bless the ship in each of its parts and as a whole. But also with our expert mortal eyes we checked each place to make sure all was in order. The net assembly was ready to receive the sun net when it was knitted. The labs were orderly, though there were signs of last-minute panicked cleaning in the dynamicist’s laboratory. The gaming fields, commissary, and command hill were festooned with blue and red ribbons as befitted the celebration. The hospital, storage caves, and spontaneous-generation farm were only adequately clean, but no more than that could be expected. The barracks, arsenal, and cannon batteries were deemed satisfactory by my two Spartan companions. We passed by the amphitheater, where the crew awaited us, and the navigation tower, which Kleon had personally blessed with Pythagorean rites. We stopped when we reached the point of the teardrop, the fore end of my ship.

  The sky below us was cloudless and we could see the blue waters, rocky islands, and ragged coasts of the Mediterranean stretched out five hundred miles below us.

  “Poseidon, though we do not sail on your ocean, give us your blessings,” I said to the waters. “For we are sailors with the same fears as those who go across your seas. Bless this ship that she may sail across the skies without mishap, and bless her sailors that they may return home safely.”

  I felt no touch of acknowledgment from the deity so I looked down, hoping to see some omen in the waters, but they were too far below to make out any details.

  We turned our backs on the world and processed solemnly to the stage of the amphitheater. The crew were assembled on the benches, senior staff at the bottom, their juniors above them, and so on upward to the higher tiers occupied by the lowest-ranking soldiers.

  On the stage was a red marble altar filigreed with gold, and on that were a blazing fire, a golden bowl, and a sharp steel knife with a handle of chalcedony. Beside the altar, tethered by ropes were a bull, three white sheep, and three black lambs.

  Aeson held the bull while I slit its throat with the knife, then roasted it on the fire, offering its life to Father Zeus with prayers for our success. I felt the touch of that greatest of gods and his appreciation of the honor. Then I sacrificed one of the sheep to Athena and felt her familiar presence reassuring me. Aeson burned the second sheep to ’Era. I do not know what passed between him and the queen of heaven, but I saw his face grow stern and grim. Then we both gave the last of the snowy flock to ’Ephaistos, praying that the device on which our success depended would succeed. Aeson and I leaned close to read the flames, but neither of us saw any omens therein.

  Then in quick succession we gave the blood of the three black lambs to Aristotle, Alexander, and Daidalos, patron hero of celestial navigation. I could feel the heroes drawing life and presence from the drafts of blood, but when they had drunk their fill they departed in silence.

  We spoke no words to the crew; they knew what the ceremony meant, they knew what was to happen, and they knew that all our fates rested in the laps of the gods. Aeson, Yellow Hare, and I waited in silence on the stage as the crew filed out slowly to take up their flight stations. As they passed some raised their hands in salute, but many walked by without acknowledging us, their thoughts intertwined with the gods.

  When the last man had left, slaves entered and began to clear the stage and clean away the blood while we left to change from priestly garb to the robes of command.

  Half an hour later, Yellow Hare, Aeson, and I met again at the base of the navigation tower. The divine presence of the ceremony had not left us and we could find nothing to say to one another. We climbed the spiral stairs in silence and entered the control room.

  Kleon was carrying the scroll with the initial flight path over to the rostrum next to the control seat.

  “Come in, come in,” he said. “Strap down and we’ll be under way.”

  Yellow Hare, Aeson, and I carefully tied ourselves to the cushioned marble couches riveted to the rear wall of the control tower.

  “We are ready,”
I said to Kleon. My words sounded distant to my ears, as if I had been pulled back from my body and the world around it.

  “Excellent.” He sat down before the control panel and secured his chest and legs to the floor with half a dozen padded leather thongs.

  “Brace for lift!” he called into the speaking tube in front of the control panel. His voice reverberated slowly through the artificially dense air which filled the tube, deepening the timbre of his words, giving them bass overtones he could never have sung himself. A few seconds later the words emerged from the megaphone on top of the tower and echoed across Chandra’s Tear for all the crew to hear.

  Kleon rubbed his hands together and his fingers twitched like a musician eager to play. He pulled down, one after another in rapid succession, the twenty short levers above his head. I heard the tooth-grinding sound of gears turning in the belly of the ship as the ballast spheres that had been hanging down below its centerline were pulled up into the underside of Chandra’s Tear. Then, a sloshing noise as they emptied their cargo of water into the ship’s reservoir. No longer weighted down by the natural heaviness of the water, Chandra’s Tear began to rise slowly into the sky.

  Kleon leaned forward and pulled twenty levers sticking up near his feet. There was an audible hiss that whispered like a west wind across the ship, and a gleam appeared from the window as the twenty fire-gold lift balls were pushed up on their pillars out of the containment pits on the rim of the ship and up to fifty feet above the surface. There was a sudden pull upward as the twenty-foot-across orbs rarefied the air above us. We began to rise faster, but still no swifter than a climbing hawk.

  Kleon did nothing for several minutes but rock back and forth on his stool like a rower on a galley, keeping time to the Pythagorean rhythms of flight.

  “Now,” he whispered. “Brace for speed!” he shouted into the speaking tube, and his voice boomed like war drums across the sky.

  Kleon pushed four of the control levers to his right. “Tertiary impellers deployed.”

  A line of gold rods emerged from the bow like the spears of a phalanx. Chandra’s Tear tilted upward ever so slightly, and the air around the bow became bright and clear, sharpening my vision. A whine rose up from the bow as fire burned water out of the air.