Celestial Matters (40 page)

I held on with all the strength that lay in my arms and all the will I could muster. I counted the heartbeats—five, ten, twenty—as we flew over the lamp that lit the universe. The ship turned pitch black from the wash of golden gleam that shone up from below. Tongues of fire danced beneath us, and then we were over the top of the sun, and the light shone from behind. The shadow of the hill fell across the bow of
Phoenix,
a long shadow as if the sun were setting directly behind me. We were past ’Elios, past the sphere of the sun god and away from the solar wind and the wild eddies of Xi that railed like the worst sea storms around that ball of celestial flame.

I let go of the wire and the sun fragment resumed its normal pull on the ship. The Xi strengtheners stopped humming and we took up an orbit just a few tens of miles below the crystal sphere that held the sun.

Thank you, lord of the day, I prayed. I give thanks to you, O ’Elios, for the safety of my people.

Not yet! burned the words in my mind. Not yet!

But despite this divine warning, my heart was filled with relief. We had passed through the fire and had entered the inhabited spheres. I left my cabin to join my crew in celebration. When I stepped out onto the surface of the ship, I saw a spot of silver in the sky off our port bow. As I watched, it grew larger and resolved itself into a glowing triangle. Then I realized what it was: the fore end of
Chandra’s Tear,
circling lazily in a slightly higher orbit than
Rebuke of the Phoenix.

Poor ghost ship, I thought, I hope your dead are resting.

As if in answer four small spots of silver flew out from the back end of the broken ship. Moon sleds, but piloted by whom?

Whoever they were, I could not let them find Phan before I had time to explain his presence and our circumstances. Assuming I could explain.

I turned and ran aft toward my copilot’s cabin. A hundred yards from my goal, I smelled rarefied air and heard the clear moonstone-on-moonstone clang of a sled landing behind me.

“Aias, halt!” said an all-too-familiar voice.

I stopped and turned around, hardly daring to believe what I had heard. There, dressed in scorched armor and wearing a tattered air-cooling cloak, his skin blistered, scarred, and browner than an Aethiopian’s, was Anaxamander, pointing an evac thrower at my chest.

At that moment I cursed the gods and the Fates; I railed against heaven for letting this man survive. For that blasphemy, I beg the forgiveness of the gods.

“Anaxamander,” I said, “put down that weapon and surrender yourself. Enough of my crew have died because of you.”

He laughed and his pinprick-pupiled eyes gleamed as he raised the thrower. “Did you think you had escaped retribution, traitor?”

“Fool,” I replied, “Mihradarius was the traitor, he who advised you and set you on this course to ruin. I say again, put down your weapon.”

He stood there waiting, not heeding my words, posed like a military statue. Behind him on the open deck of
Rebuke of the Phoenix
three more moon sleds landed, and two dozen of my old ship’s soldiers stepped off. They too showed signs of prolonged exposure to the sun: scorched clothes, darkly tanned skin, and pupils small as the eyes of needles.

“How?” I said. “How did you survive?”

“I prepared,” Anaxamander said, looking up toward the heavens. “A true soldier always prepares. I knew that you and Ramonojon might have sabotaged the ship, so I provisioned four moon sleds and detailed my most loyal soldiers to pilot them. I was not on
Chandra’s Tear
when your treasonous acts destroyed it. After the disaster I and my surviving crew flew back into the near half of the ship. We have waited weeks for rescue. Then we saw you returning with the prize of your treachery. What was your plan, Aias, to use the sun fragment against Delos? Against Athens? Against Sparta?”

I said nothing, knowing that no reason, no evidence, would penetrate the solid wall of folly in Anaxamander’s mind.

“Search this vessel,” Anaxamander said as his soldiers gathered around him. “Everyone on board is a traitor. Take prisoners if you can; kill if you have to.”

The soldiers broke up into four squads of six. Three of the groups spread out across the ship; one remained as a guard for Anaxamander. I prayed Yellow Hare, Aeson, and our own three soldiers would be able to deal with the small squadrons.

“Now, traitor,” the security chief said to me, “what is that?”

He pointed at Phan’s control cabin. I said nothing.

“Bring him,” Anaxamander growled, and two of the soldiers walked behind me and grabbed my arms, twisting them behind my back. I bit back the pain, not wanting to show any weakness in front of the imbecile who had destroyed my ship. The guards force-marched me after their lunatic leader to the secondary control cabin. Two men went inside and a few moments later dragged Phan out. His face was a mass of bruises, and he stumbled as they pushed him.

He looked up at me with sad, dead eyes and started to speak. Anaxamander hit him on the shoulder with the barrel of his evac thrower. “Silence, Middler!”

Phan groaned and slumped against one of the guards. The soldier pushed him away and watched smiling as the old man fell to the ground, tearing his silk robe at the knees.

“Enough!” I said.

“Be quiet, traitor,” Anaxamander said. He slapped me across the face with his gauntleted fist. I felt blood flowing from my cheek, but I bit my lip to keep from making a sound.

The guards pulled Phan to his feet, and we stood waiting at the base of the hill while Anaxamander surveyed our new ship and scowled at us.

A few minutes later, surrounded by six guards, Yellow Hare was escorted up from the brig cells. She had been stripped naked except for a bloodstained linen bandage around her shoulder, but the gods of war had enveloped her in a cloak of dignity and none of the soldiers dared approach or taunt her. She turned her golden eyes toward me and I felt a spirit of quiet confidence grow in my heart. Then she looked at Anaxamander and I saw her swear to deliver his soul to ’Ades. At that moment, naked and injured, with six evac throwers pointed at her, Yellow Hare’s glare quelled Anaxamander. The Security Chief turned away. I saw the fear in his eyes, and I knew that he was about to have Yellow Hare shot.

“Do not give that order,” I hissed to him. “Naked and dying she would still be able to kill you before the soul left her body.”

“I am not afraid of that Xeroki,” he said, and in those words I saw how tightly madness had gripped his soul.

“Then you are a greater fool than I thought,” I said, hoping that this one truth might reach him. “She is a Spartan, a warrior in body and soul.”

“It is of no consequence,” he said, blustering for himself and for his guards. “We will bring this traitor back to Sparta and show them that they do not always choose their officers rightly.”

He turned to the guards. “Was there anyone else below?”

“Yes, Commander,” one of them said.

Four more of Anaxamander’s guards emerged from the tunnel, escorting Ramonojon, Clovix, and our three soldiers; there was no sign of Aeson. Ramonojon seemed impassive. Clovix’s eyes gleamed as he saw Anaxamander; the slave almost licked his lips. But when the Security Chief’s gaze lit on Clovix, the Gaul resumed his long-abandoned servile posture.

“What happened?” I whispered to Yellow Hare as the guards escorted her over to me. “How were you hurt?”

She glowered and adjusted her bandage. “I was careless. They threatened to kill Ramonojon. I interfered. One of them shot me in the shoulder.”

“Where is Aeson?” I whispered in Xeroki.

“He left the brig when you and Phan stopped the ship. I do not know where he went.”

“Good. Maybe he can do something about…” My voice trailed off as I saw six soldiers escorting my co-commander up from the storage cave. Aeson walked with the full solemnity of a Spartan general surrounded by a guard of honor, and the soldiers, basking in the glow of his reflected glory, grew larger than their comrades.

“Security Chief!” Aeson shouted in his best parade ground voice. “What is the meaning of this?”

The blood drained from Anaxamander’s sunburned face. “Commander?” he whispered.

Aeson strode forward like Zeus deigning to be seen among mortals. “Security Chief Anaxamander, you are relieved of command. Hand over your weapons.”

For a moment, Anaxamander wavered under the pressure of Spartan authority. He looked down, avoiding the gaze of his commander, and his soul balanced on the edge of realization. The colossal error he had committed battered at him. All the self-justification, all the insinuations Mihradarius had poured into his ears, all the evidence he had compounded in his own mind against Ramonojon, Yellow Hare, and myself could not be turned against Aeson, his unsullied superior.

Had Anaxamander possessed a warrior’s soul, a true Spartan spirit, he would have surrendered then and there and given himself over for punishment. But he was only a play soldier, a pretend Spartan, all appearance, no spirit. He could not accept that he had brought about the catastrophe that had befallen those under his command.

His spine stiffened by hubris, he raised up eyes blinded by até and spoke: “Aeson of Sparta, I arrest you for the crime of treason against the League.”

The madman turned his back on his own commander and on the true way of the warrior. “Guards, put him with the other prisoners.”

The soldiers looked first at Aeson, then at Anaxamander. Slowly, tentatively, they raised their throwers and pointed them at Aeson.

Aeson was herded over with the rest of us and forced to sit down on the side of the hill; he did so with quiet dignity. They kept us together in a circle, except for Phan, whom they isolated.

“Why did they obey Anaxamander instead of you?” I whispered to Aeson.

“Survival training,” he and Yellow Hare said simultaneously.

I raised a questioning eyebrow.

“It is done,” Yellow Hare said, “by sending a group of soldiers and a commander into long-term danger. If the commander keeps the soldiers alive, they learn to obey him instinctively. When they come out they will do anything he asks.”

“And these soldiers,” Aeson said, “have been trapped orbiting near the sun with meager food and water for weeks. After that long even Anaxamander’s blustering manner could raise a man’s spirits to the point of loyalty.”

The Security Chief walked around the neat little circle of his prisoners like a hen counting her eggs. Then he resumed his heroic posture, looking skyward. “And now, we will fly this ship back to Earth to fulfill our mission.” He looked lovingly across the bow at the sun fragment floating in midair. “’AngXou will burn!”

“And how will you fly this ship to the Middle Kingdom’s capital?” I asked.

He pointed his thrower at me. “You will be my pilot.”

“Why should I do that?”

His guards pointed their throwers at our little circle of prisoners. “If you do not,” Anaxamander said, gesturing theatrically, “you will all die.”

Athena touched my heart then, reminding me that given time wisdom would overcome folly. “Very well,” I said, “but I cannot fly this ship alone.”

He waved his hands around the circle. “You have all the assistance you need.”

I pointed at the mournful figure of Phan, sitting isolated a dozen yards away. “I need him.”

Anaxamander snorted. “Ridiculous. You are just trying to keep your spy alive.”

“I swear by the river Styx that without Phan Xu-Tzu this ship will never reach Earth.”

“A blasphemer as well as a traitor,” Anaxamander said.

“Nevertheless,” I said, “I have sworn, and the gods will not permit me to contravene that oath.”

“The gods will already condemn you for your crimes,” he said.

“If you will not accept the oath that cannot be broken,” I said, “then look around you. This ship uses Middler technology. No Delian scientist understands their equipment. Do you think that I am the only exception?”

Anaxamander stroked his chin and slowly nodded. He was too blind to accept my word, but he could easily believe in my incapability.

“Very well, you shall have your Middler,” Anaxamander said, feigning magnanimity. “His death is only delayed.”

As is yours, I vowed silently.

“Let me explain the situation to Phan,” I said. “I can make him cooperate.”

“No one will speak with the Middler,” Anaxamander said. “He will be locked up until you actually need his help flying this ship.”

There was no point in arguing further so I nodded my acquiescence.

“We will depart for Earth when this ship is secured!” Anaxamander said to the world around him.

He pointed at Clovix. “Slave! Attend me!”

Anaxamander turned away, and the guards parted to let the chief slave stand. Clovix stepped forward, back bent, walking meekly but quickly behind Anaxamander. The Gaul’s posture seemed more subservient than he had ever been, but in that crouch I saw an angry wolf poised to spring. The ghosts of all of
Chandra’s Tear’s
dead slaves clustered about Clovix thirsting for Anaxamander’s blood. The fires of vengeance gleamed in the Gaul’s sharp blue eyes. He stalked forward head bowed until, when he was only a foot behind the Security Chief, the Gaul leaped up, grabbed Anaxamander by the back of the throat, and started to wring his neck.

There was a hail of tetras from the throwers of the guards, and the blond giant’s body fell to the ground. His soul departed from his body and joined the throng of spirits. I could feel the touch of his breath upon me, trying to fill me with his need for vengeance, to enrage me as he had been enraged. But the goddess of wisdom shielded me from the throng of spirits.

Return to ’Ades, I said to them. Anaxamander’s death will not come today, but I vow to you that it will come.

Anaxamander gasped and choked, holding his throat until he regained his breath.

“A slave revolt as well,” Anaxamander said.

“Clovix wanted proper revenge for your actions,” I said. “Your foolishness killed those who were under his command.”

“Your treason did that,” Anaxamander said. He waved a dismissive hand toward the guards. “Lock up the prisoners and throw this slave’s body overboard.”