War in Heaven (34 page)

It was now that the great flaw in the Sonderval's strategy stood out like a wormrunner's diamond illumined in a laser beam. In battle on foot, with swords and shields, the sudden appearance of the enemy at one's rear can strike terror into a whole army. The fear of cold steel in one's back is as ancient as it is terrible, and it can cause even the bravest of warriors to throw down their arms and surrender. In his planning of the battle, the Sonderval had calculated on such an effect. But he had reasoned from analogy and metaphor, which is always a dangerous thing to do. In truth, this battle with lightships in space was not much like the slaughter befalling the Roman legions at Kannae millennia earlier. The lightships — and black ships and all the other ships — had no vulnerable 'backs' to protect. They could fight backwards as easily as forwards — or to either side, or up or down. (Or, considering the manifold's complex topology, in or out, or through, or between.) Encirclement
could
render a great swarm of ships nearly useless. If they were compressed into a volume of space containing too few point-sources, only a few dozen ships at any time might open windows to the manifold and make mappings with which to manoeuvre. Although the six thousand Ringist ships massed against the Fellowship's centre felt some effects of such a compression, the failure of the Sonderval's Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth battle groups in completing the encirclement allowed the Ringists far too much freedom to fight. Thus the Sonderval's strategy failed on two counts. And so the Fellowship began to lose the battle. It began and ended with the collapse of the Sonderval's First Battle Group. Within a thousand seconds, their strategic movement of falling backwards through space became a rout. With the Ringist fleet molested at the rear by only the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth battle groups, their main force of ships turned to pulverize the Sonderval's centre. His remaining battle groups proved to be no help. At this point in the battle they were supposed to close in like diamond teeth upon the encircled body of Ringist ships and tear them apart. But the Ringists were too many, and the five central battle groups of the Fellowship found themselves fighting for their very existence. As the battle entered its second movement, it was these ten thousand ships that found themselves in danger of encirclement. In truth, except for the Eleventh and Twelfth battle groups and Bardo's incomparable Tenth, the whole of the Fellowship fleet had come close to falling apart.

Bardo was perhaps the first one to appreciate this. The Sonderval, fighting like a furious shagshay bull surrounded by wolves, immersed in the middle of what the ancients had called the fog of war, had neither the time nor perspective to appreciate the extreme peril of the Fellowship's position. He couldn't guess that the entire Second Battle Group commanded by Helena Charbo in the
Infinite Pearl
was about to be caught in a thinspace and nearly annihilated. He couldn't see what Bardo saw: that the battle might yet be won (or at least not completely lost), but only if the Fellowship drove the Ringist cadres from the three great spinning thickspaces, and quickly.

In the first seconds of his attack, Bardo saw that the ships of his First Battle Group would be too few to accomplish this objective. And so he ordered his twenty sets to fall back for a moment and regroup near a barren, cratered planet half a million miles from the first thickspace. Leaving Lara Jesusa in temporary command of all twenty sets, he took another few precious moments to abandon his battle group and fall off into the manifold. He made a mapping to a point-exit a few million miles away. The
Sword of Shiva
fell out into realspace. And there, in the bright red light of Mara's Star, Bardo found the Eleventh Battle Group fiercely pressing into the Ringists' rear. By light-radio, he sent his imago beaming into the pit of the
Diamond Lotus
from which Cristobel led his attack. He spoke to Cristobel; he invited Cristobel likewise to send an imago of himself into the pit of the
Sword of Shiva.
Thus, with lightships flashing through space and the battle raging all around them, with the fate of the Civilized Worlds (and perhaps much else) hanging upon their actions, they paused for a few moments to talk.

"I must ask you to join in the attack of the thickspaces," Bardo said. Although the great, graceful form that appeared in the pit of Cristobel's ship was made only of light, it seemed almost real. With his battle armour of black nall and his flashing black eyes, Bardo was an imposing figure of a man.

"And abandon the Sonderval's plan?" Cristobel asked. He was a large, leonine man with a pointed face and an always-lurking sneer to his voice. He had quick, green eyes that never failed to find the weakness in others. "I would have thought that you, of all his pilots, would remain faithful to his plan."

"And I would have thought that you'd be the first to betray it."

"Oh, no," Cristobel said. "I'll see his plan executed perfectly — as will everyone else."

"Even if it means our defeat?"

Cristobel fell silent as he looked at Bardo. And Bardo instantly understood that Cristobel
wanted
the Sonderval's plan to fail: it would show the entire Fellowship the Sonderval's failings as Lord Pilot, and leave the way open for Cristobel's own ascendancy.

"How quickly you lose hope," Cristobel said. "How faithless you are."

Bardo's face fell purple with anger, but he restrained himself. He said, "My faith is to the Fellowship and to the Sonderval himself, not to his plan."

"How convenient for you."

In space, two hundred miles away, a hydrogen missile suddenly exploded, sending a shock of photons pinging against the hulls of the
Diamond Lotus
and the
Sword of Shiva.
For a moment Cristobel broke interface to speak with two of his battle group's lightship pilots. And then he reappeared to resume his conclave with Bardo.

"Is it clear to you that we're losing the battle?" Bardo asked.

"No — is it clear to you?"

In the pit of his ship (and in the pit of Cristobel's), Bardo closed his eyes as he interfaced a computer simulation of the manifold. In this numinous space beneath space, ten thousand ripples of light flowed outwards in circles and interfered with each other in a hideously complex pattern. To read the tells and determine the movements of the tens of thousands of ships of the two fleets was nearly impossible; it was like looking at the boiling black sea after a meteor storm and trying to determine the exact location at which every bit of sizzling iron had plunged into the water.

Nevertheless, when Bardo broke interface and looked at Cristobel, his eyes were like black pools filled with thousands of flickering lights. He said, "I can
see
the ships of the two fleets. I can see the battle as it unfolds."

"Oh, you can see it, can you?"

"By God, I can. The lights blossoming outwards like a field of fireflowers — there's a pattern there. If you look deeply enough, a terribly beautiful pattern to the way the ships must open the windows to the manifold and move."

"I never knew that you were a mystic," Cristobel said.

"I can see the two fleets as they are, right now. I can see the battle as it must unfold. As it
will.
"

"I never knew that you were a scryer as well."

Bardo's eyes fixed on Cristobel as if he could have drowned him in the anger that he felt boiling inside. But he said only, "Ah, too bad. It's already too late."

"And a doomsaying scryer, at that."

Just then Bardo looked down at his huge, trembling hand. If his imago had been made of matter, not light, he might have slapped Cristobel's sneering face.

"We must take the thickspaces," Bardo said. "There'll come a moment when the Sonderval will see that the battle is lost. He'll have to call for a retreat. If we hold open the thickspaces, our ships can fall through and regroup around another star."

"And how will the Sonderval know that we hold the thickspaces?"

"I've sent him messages by light-radio telling him that we'll attack. I've also sent Odinan Rodas to find him should those messages never be received."

"Then we should wait for the Sonderval to advise us of a new plan."

"No, too long, too far," Bardo said. His hands cupped each other and then suddenly moved apart as if demonstrating the way that a battle among lightships and black ships inevitably spread out through space. "We're at least ninety million miles from the First Battle Group. It would take more than a thousand seconds for his signal to return to us. And longer still for him to make his decision. Too, too long."

"But he, not you, is Lord Pilot and — "

"Even now we waste time talking," Bardo growled. "We must take the thickspaces. And we must do it now."

"I must continue to follow the Sonderval's laughable plan. And so should you."

"You, of all men, I knew I couldn't reason with," Bardo said. "And that's why I must command you to fall with me against the thickspaces."

"
Command
me? Does a monkey command its master? By what right?"

"By the right of what's right, by God!"

"You fall against the thickspaces, then, if that's what you want to do."

"By God I will! And after the battle is lost, in remembrance of every pilot who died because of your heartlessness, I'll fall against
you.
"

At this, despite himself, Cristobel's quick green eyes showed an instant concern. He asked, "What do you mean?"

"If we meet on the street or in a bar, I'll squeeze your throat until your eyes pop out of your head. If we meet in deep space, I'll hunt you ship to ship and send you into the nearest star to join the poor pilots whom you betrayed."

"
You
, hunt
me
?"

"As I once hunted seals on the ice."

"Pesheval Lai will hunt Cristobel the Bold?"

Bardo, who had been born Pesheval Sarojin Vishnu-Shiva Lai, smiled sadly, then said, "As the solar winds of the core stars blow through the galaxy."

"I don't believe you," Cristobel said. "There was a time when you were a coward."

"True," Bardo admitted, nodding his head.

"Pesheval Lai — we used to call you Piss-All Lai because you were so afraid of the fourth-year novices that you used to wet your bed every night."

"But now," Bardo said softly, "Bardo is Bardo. And it's Bardo in the
Sword of Shiva
, not Pesheval Lai, who will fall against you."

"I'm a better pilot than you," Cristobel said. "If you fall against the
Diamond Lotus
, you fall to your death."

At this boast Bardo just stared at Cristobel. He stared and stared, and his black eyes blazed with a desire to find out who the better pilot truly was. All his life he had struggled with the fears that had once led him to be a coward; now he was willing to risk his life to move beyond his fear into something finer and much vaster. And Cristobel saw this. There was a wildness of the soul — a true boldness — shining as a deep light in Bardo's eyes. Cristobel must have feared that, despite his name, he himself lacked this light. And he must have feared that Bardo could see through him as easily as he might a jellyfish.

"We'll not fall against each other," Bardo finally said. "Because you'll do as I've asked."

There was a moment. As Bardo and Cristobel stared at each other, there came a moment when they both knew who was the better pilot and the better man. Leadership is made of such moments; it is a subtle almost ineffable quality, at its best when it doesn't have to threaten, as Bardo had threatened Cristobel. But now, in the truth of what passed between their eyes, as lasers flashed outside their ships and windows to the manifold opened in bursts of light, Bardo threatened no longer. He only touched Cristobel with the fire of his heart and the greatness of his soul. And this was enough.

"As one pilot to another," Bardo said, "I'm asking for your help."

Cristobel looked away from Bardo down at his hands. At last he said, "Very well, then, if you ask my help, I'll lead my ships against the thickspaces."

Bardo did not waste time exulting in his victory. He thanked Cristobel, then said, "I'll go to find Alesar Estarei and ask his help as well. I'll tell him that you and your ships will rendezvous with the Tenth Battle Group near the fifth planet."

"Very well."

"Farewell, Pilot," Bardo said. "And fall well, by God. Fall well."

With that, Bardo's imago faded into nothingness as he took his ship back into the manifold. It took him only a few moments to find Alesar Estarei, three million miles away, leading the Twelfth Battle Group against a few ragged cadres of Ringist ships. And it took him only a few moments more to persuade Alesar to join him and Cristobel at the fixed-points in space near the fifth planet.

In less than ninety seconds, the ships of the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth battle groups gathered together under Bardo's command. While the main battle raged some ninety million miles away through the light-torn spaces around Mara's Star, Bardo led his groups in a lesser battle. Even with Cristobel's and Alesar's help, however, he still had only thirty-nine lightships against the sixty-two defending the thickspaces. And his lesser ships numbered only four thousand against five thousand. But the battle
is
to the swift and the strong; the training and coordination of the Tenth Battle Group gave them greater speed, and Bardo's great strength of purpose fired all his pilots with a rare will to fight.

If the Ringists had possessed a similar will — to watch lightship destroy lightship and die down to the last pilot — they might have repelled Bardo's attack. But, in truth, few men and women are willing simply to stand and die. In the face of such fierceness, the Ringist pilots began to lose heart and then to panic. The black ship cadres from Clarity and Maniwold fled the thickspaces first, followed by those from Melthin, Eanna, Kittery and Rollo's Rock. Within a hundred seconds, the whole of the Ringist force holding the thickspaces began to evaporate like ice crystals in a hot sun.

Only the pilots of the Ringist lightships found the courage to face the likes of Lara Jesusa, Yannis Helaku, Duncan li Gur and Ivar Rey in the
Flame of God.
But then an event occurred that gave pause to even the most bloodthirsty Ringist pilot. Bardo took the
Sword of Shiva
into successive duels with three lightships; then, having sent three of the Order's finest into the hell of Mara's Star within ten seconds, he fought a simultaneous duel with both Dag of Thorskalle and Nicabar Blackstone. Using a brilliant mathematics that he had once discovered — Bardo's so-called Boomerang Theorem — Bardo looped back along his serpentine pathway through the manifold and reappeared in realspace just as Dag of Thorskalle and Nicabar Blackstone were about to make a mapping. It is probable that they thought they had forced Bardo into a Japanese Fold or other such trap; they no doubt had calculated that they would surprise Bardo when he fell out into realspace at one of two probable fixed-points. But it was Bardo who surprised them. In a tenth of a second, he made a mapping for the two doomed pilots — and
Odin's Spear
and
Ark of the Angels
vanished into the star that had already consumed so many men and women in its terrible fire. But these were two of the Ringists' heroes, pilots who had braved the Hell's Gate and fought with Leopold Soli in the Pilots' War. When their friends saw what Bardo had done, they decided to join the other Ringists in fleeing the thickspaces. As their cadre master reminded them, they could always regroup and return later with a greater force.