Celestial Matters (25 page)

One of the work slaves came up to me. The loinclothed man wiped his dirtied hands on his burnoose and bowed quickly. “Commander,” he said, averting his eyes from mine, “we have a problem. The statues of divine Athena at the hill gates. All three of them were damaged in the attack. The engineers said they’ll fall over the first time the ship goes fast. But—”

“I understand,” I said, raising a hand to silence him. “Send someone for my priest’s robes, a cloth of virgin wool, and a jar of pure water.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Aias?” Yellow Hare said, in a strangely tentative voice.

“Yes?”

“Can you deconsecrate the statues alone?”

Alone. Without Aeson, without my brother in priestly duties. But what other options did I have? The proper thing to do would have been to enlist his successor’s help. But—

“I won’t have that fool Anaxamander wiping away Wisdom’s eyes,” I said out loud.

“Could anyone else help you?” Yellow Hare asked.

“What about you?” I asked. The prospect of divine service with Yellow Hare at my side filled me with the first joy I had felt since the attack.

But she shook her head. “I have never undertaken the duties of a priest,” she said.

“What?” I said. “A Spartan officer, not doing priest work? That’s unheard of.”

“I cannot have a second way to be close to the gods,” she said, and I saw the gods of war rise up in battle array behind her, defending the purity of her contact with them. Then I comprehended; for her to pick up the knife of sacrifice, to speak the ritual prayers, to call the gods to her, she would first have to move away from them and see them in priestly light rather than feel them in her warrior’s heart. And though most men would regard such a change of view as a blessing, Yellow Hare saw it as a denial of her duty to the gods.

“I understand,” I said.

“You do?”

“Yes. You honor the gods more with your devotion than you would with a thousand ceremonies.”

“No one has ever known what I meant before,” she said. We both fell silent for a time. And in the depths of our shared quiet something began to sing in my thoughts, something large and broad and older than the gods. For the first time in my life, I heard the distant wings of Eros, beating in time to the barely audible music of the spheres.

Yellow Hare reached out and touched my arm. “Is there anyone else on the ship who can help you perform the ceremony?”

In that touch and that reminder of duty, she shared with me her pure Spartan vision of the world, letting me inside the walls of the city that had been shut to me in youth.

“Mihradarius can,” I said. But in the distant music I heard a chord of mournful threnody. “No, I will perform the ceremony myself.”

“Yes, Aias,” Yellow Hare said.

I waited until ’Elios had orbited far enough from the ship that the sky was only as bright as a harsh hot noon. Then I shed the coverings of head and eye and once again saw the world without the mediation of distorting glass. I donned my purple robes of priesthood and walked to each of the gates in turn to perform the most painful ceremony it had ever been my duty to enact.

I wet the virgin cloth with water and wiped the paint away from the goddesses’ eyes until they were sightless sockets of white marble. As each statue in turn went blind, I could feel Athena’s presence withdraw from the courtyard and from the ship. But, to my great relief, I could still feel the blessed goddess in my heart. At the end of the ceremony I burned the cloth in a fire newly kindled from olive wood. Only when the last ember of that flame had fallen to ashes did I let the slaves uproot the statues and cart them down to the storage cave, where they would be packed in crates until we could take them back to Earth and properly bury them.

*   *   *

The engineers came to me soon thereafter with the report that my office was in danger of collapse and that most of the documents in the library had fallen from the ship. I blame the Fates for the unpleasant irony that the only safe structure remaining on the hill was Aeson’s office, now occupied by Anaxamander. I ordered the slaves to bring the scrolls from my office to my cave, and had a messenger inform the security chief that I would be working down there from now on.

Yellow Hare and I returned to my home, which had suffered some damage in the battle. Furniture had been toppled. All the papers had fallen out of their pigeonholes and were strewn about the floor. My stool and sleeping couch were both splintered. We waited in silence while the slaves finished cleaning up, replacing the broken furniture and bringing down my office supplies.

I wanted to speak to Yellow Hare, but Athena required my attention, filling my heart with her presence and my thoughts with the memory of her vanishing eyes. The goddess did not leave me until I fell asleep exhausted from the strain of worship. That night I dreamed again of being a dolphin swimming in the deep ocean tides.

I woke to the sharp taste of rarefied air and a slight shuddering in the floor that meant the ship was flying under the tertiary impellers, not very fast but enough to make walking about the ship difficult.

“How long have we been under way?” I asked Yellow Hare, who, of course, was awake, armored, and watching me from beside the stairway.

“Kleon called ‘brace for speed’ two hours ago,” she said. “I thought about waking you, but you were thrashing in your sleep as if you were in the grip of a god, and I did not want to disturb your communion.”

“You honor me,” I said as I sat up, and I could tell from the bow of her head and the slight smile on her lips that she had heard all the meanings I put into those words.

She handed me my command robes, which I donned, and we walked carefully out onto the injured surface of
Chandra’s Tear
and bowward toward Kleon’s tower. The ship rocked and skipped irregularly as it flew across the sky, making it necessary to step gingerly.

As we rounded the fore-edge of the hill, I saw to my amazement and horror that a crew of engineers and slaves was carving up the ruins of the amphitheater and carrying away the debris on float carts. Agile men, used to handling the twisting bulk of heavy water drills and the burning edges of unwieldy fire planes in dangerous conditions, teetered on unsteady feet as they cut away sections of the stage.

“Stop work!” I shouted. “Put down your tools and move away from there.”

The foreman turned to look, saw that I was the one giving the orders, and pulled his crew out of the crumbling edifice. Just in time. One of the high tiers of seats, weakened by the dragon’s fire and the high-pressure water of the stone carvers, fell over and shattered into a cascade of rocks that bombarded the stage where the men had been working.

“Who ordered you to do this?” I asked.

“We thought you had, sir,” the foreman said. “Kleon said he was relaying the commander’s instructions.”

Anaxamander! I thought.

“No repairs are to be done at speed,” I said. “Is that clear?”

“Clear, sir! Should we relay that order to the other crews?”

“What other crews?”

“The ones working on the impellers.”

“The impellers! Get those men back on the ship!”

“Yes, sir!”

The crew dispersed to convey my orders, and Yellow Hare and I continued our frustratingly slow walk to Kleon’s tower. The guards at the base saluted hesitantly and asked if there was any new word about Aeson. I shook my head and passed into the navigator’s sanctum.

Yellow Hare and I found Kleon seated in the control chair. He was staring out over the bow of
Chandra’s Tear
at the gleaming phalanx of tertiary impellers and whistling the Pythagorean scales over and over again.

“Kleon! Why are we at speed?”

“Aias! What? I thought you had approved … I mean … Mihradarius found the Aphroditean matter for the net in the wreckage. He said there was no need to stay. Then Anaxamander came to see me. He told me to cast off and make for ’Elios. He said we had to get away from Aphrodite quickly. I thought that you had to have ratified the orders before he gave them to me.”

I took a deep breath of clarifying air and pulled the fangs of anger from my voice.

“Kleon,” I said, “I would never give an order to fly and repair the ship at the same time.”

“I didn’t think you would,” he said. “But Anaxamander asked me if it was possible. I had to tell him we could do it.”

“Did you tell him how many men would be injured or killed clearing away the debris and fixing the impellers?”

“Yes, but he said this was a military operation and fatalities were to be expected. I didn’t know what to do. I thought you had approved.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “And from now on, I want you to double-check Anaxamander’s orders with me.”

“Yes, Aias,” he said. “What should I do now?”

“Stop the ship, then send out the repair crews.”

“Thank you, Commander,” he said. Kleon turned to the speaking tube and called, “Brace for stop.”

He retracted the tertiary impellers, and the ship slowed into a lazy orbit a few hundred miles above the sphere of Aphrodite.

“Aias,” Kleon said, hesitantly. “What do I say to Anaxamander if he comes around with more orders?”

“Tell him that you are not in his line of command!”

“Yes, Aias,” Kleon said, but I could hear his fear of the security chief.

Yellow Hare and I left the tower and walked aft. The unaugmented natural motion of the ship caressed my feet, soothing me. A growl in my stomach reminded me that I had not eaten since before the attack, so we bypassed the hill and made for the commissary.

The slaves were very slow serving us, but extremely apologetic about it. Several of them had been injured in the battle, and the tunnel from the storage cavern to the kitchens had suffered a minor cave-in. I settled for a loaf of day-old bread, a cold chicken, and some dried figs. Yellow Hare ate cold venison and fresh squash.

We reclined on slightly battered couches and ate in silence while slaves ran in and out, taking meals to the now safely working repair crews. But halfway through our meal a soldier ran into the commissary from the direction of the hill, came over to my couch, and started talking without even a salute.

“Commander Anaxamander wants to see you now!”

Commander Anaxamander? “Tell Security Chief Anaxamander I’ll be with him presently,” I said.

“Now!” The man paused for a moment. “Sir,” he added.

Yellow Hare put down her knife and plate and stepped between my couch and the soldier. The man turned pale and took a pace backward.

“Commander Aias said he would be along presently,” she said in a voice that could have frozen fire.

Sweat broke out on the man’s forehead. “My orders are to bring him immediately.”

“There’s no need to chastise the soldier, Captain Yellow Hare,” I said, emphasizing her rank. “He is just doing his duty.”

I waved to one of the slaves, who brought me a bowl of water in which I washed my hands. The soldier grew increasingly nervous as I took my time to clean up. But he did not dare say a word with Yellow Hare’s piercing gold eyes fixed on him.

“We will now leave,” I said at last. “I think it is time Anaxamander learned the limits of his command.”

Yellow Hare and I accompanied the soldier to the hilltop. Most of the debris had been cleared away, but no one was working to repair the library or my office.

Anaxamander was sitting in Aeson’s plain granite office, on Aeson’s plain oak stool, in front of Aeson’s plain pine writing table, drinking from Aeson’s black-figure wine bowl decorated with the marriage of Gaea and Ouranous.

“You are dismissed, Captain Yellow Hare,” Anaxamander said without looking up or acknowledging my presence.

“No,” she said.

Now he looked up, an expression of disbelief at her disobedience carved onto his aquiline face. “As military commander of
Chandra’s Tear,
I gave you an order, Captain.”

“Acting Commander Anaxamander,” she said. “I am not part of this ship’s chain of command. If I were, then as the only active Spartan officer remaining I would be sitting behind that desk, not you. My orders come directly from the Archons and only they can countermand them.”

At the cold reminder that he was no Spartan, Anaxamander’s face soured. He turned away from Yellow Hare to face me. He started to speak, but I interrupted.

“Anaxamander, I know you’ve never held a command before, so I thought I should clear away some of your misconceptions. Kleon is one of my subordinates; you are not to give him orders. Furthermore, I decide when this ship flies, and I decide when repairs are done.”

“We were attacked,” the Security Chief said. “We needed to leave Aphrodite quickly.”

“Then you should have talked to me about it!” I said. “That is how dual command works and has worked since the Delian League was founded.” He was about to respond but I did not give him time to even draw breath. “Another thing, Acting Commander. Protocol dictates that if you wish to ask me to a meeting, you send a messenger slave with a request, not a soldier with an order. Now, what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

“A military matter,” he said.

“Very well,” I said, I sat down on the stool in front of the desk. “Now, what is this military matter?”

He shoved a sheet of papyrus across the desk. “Sign this and affix your seal.”

I looked over the paper, rolled it up, and tossed it on the floor. “You are not going to execute Ramonojon,” I said.

“Too many of our soldiers have died because of that spy.”

“Ramonojon had nothing to do with this,” I said, holding my voice steady. “He was in the brig when the ship was attacked.”

The Security Chief leaned back and studied me with angry eyes. “Why are you still defending that traitor Ramonojon?” he asked.

“I regret that you do not understand,” I said. “This meeting is concluded.”

I stood up and left, followed by Yellow Hare.

“Now what?” my bodyguard asked.

“I have to talk to Mihradarius.”

We found the Persian by the sun net assembly. He was watching his staff as they loaded the bales of spun Aphroditean matter into the hopper of the knitting machines, where the threads would be woven together and coiled into the strands of the sun net. As the first green cords emerged from the far end of the long bronze extruding tube, Mihradarius instructed the twenty knitters in how to draw out the cables and then join them to the already completed Selenean and ’Ermean sections stowed in the large containment box next to the trolley.