Celestial Matters

by Garfinkle, Richard

  Ramonojon nodded to me and walked unsteadily aftward, passing around the large hill in the center of Chandra’s Tear, presumably on his way to his underground laboratory in the stern of my ship.

  A dozen of Anaxamander’s security guards had assembled and were waiting patiently in front of the sealed cargo capsules. Behind them were about twenty large male slaves, lolling around in that pretense of interest that passes for discipline among northerners. I had been away from command for so long that it took me a moment to realize they were awaiting my permission before they began the inspection.

  “Proceed, Security Chief,” I said to Anaxamander. He saluted as I turned to leave, and set his men to work inspecting crates.

  Captain Yellow Hare followed me as I slowly walked to port and a little astern. It took us a good ten minutes of ambling across bare moon rock to reach the steel dome that served as dormitory for my junior scientists. I thought about poking my head in and giving a general greeting to my subordinates, but decided to wait until after the staff meeting. Instead I walked fifty yards aft to the small, square marble building that squatted above my cave. As one of the ship’s senior staff, I had the privacy of a home; most of the crew lived either in the port dormitory or the starboard barracks, depending on whether they were my scientists or Aeson’s soldiers.

  I passed between the green and red Doric columns of my home into the bare chamber that held only a spiral staircase cut downward into Chandra’s Tear. I walked down those shallow silver stairs, into the body of my ship.

  My hand grazed along the smooth cut wall of shimmering silver as I descended into my darkened quarters. Darkened? The slaves must have left the night blankets in place along the walls, ceiling, and floor; those blankets were a necessary precaution if one wanted to sleep in a cave carved from everglowing rock. Crewmen on some of the celestial ships had gone mad trying to shut their eyes against the constant moonlight.

  I stopped to get my bearings before plowing into the darkness. There was always a chance that the slaves had rearranged some of the furniture, and I did not want to trip. But as I stepped into my cave, someone reached out and grabbed my arm, twisted me around, and threw me to the floor. A hand reached round to cover my mouth before I could cry out. I tried to roll out from under him, but he held me tight. A voice whispered in my ear in broken ’Ellenic, “Don’t struggle. Or you die painful.”

  The voice was halting but there was an almost Spartan confidence in it.

  Then I heard a dull thud, and the hand fell from my face. For a moment I was pressed harder against the ground, and then my attacker was gone from my back. I rolled away and jumped up. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I knew Captain Yellow Hare was fighting for my life in the darkness.

  I ran over to the wall and fumbled around until I felt the heavy cotton cord. I yanked it and the port wall night blanket rolled up like scroll into the ceiling. Silver light washed into the room, illuminating two struggling figures. Yellow Hare was locked corps-a-corps and sword to sword with a man in a grey silk gi. A Middler was on my ship!

  I ran to my desk, cradled in the narrow aft end of the oval cave, picked up my heavy mahogany stool, and threw it at the Middler’s back. He turned to duck and Yellow Hare stabbed him through the chest, steel puncturing silk, then skin, then heart. He crumpled soundlessly to the floor.

  The Spartan leaned down to make sure he was dead, then walked over to me.

  “Don’t you ever put yourself at risk again!” she snarled, her divine stoniness breaking into human anger. “I am here to protect you, not you to protect me. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “No injuries,” she said. “Listen to me carefully, Commander. You are not a soldier; your presence makes it harder for me to fight, since I have to keep track of where you are. The next time this happens, I want you to find a hiding place and stay in it.”

  “Next time?”

  “Yes, Commander, next time. Until I know how an enemy assassin got on board a supposedly secure ship, we must assume that there will be further attempts on your life.”

  “I understand, Captain,” I said.

  “And will you do what I feel is necessary for your safety, Commander?”

  “As long as it does not interfere with my duties,” I replied.

  She nodded and then turned to look around the room, making sure everything was safe, then turned to examine the body. “A Nipponian commando. The Middlers don’t use them very often.”

  She picked up the body with casual ease and walked up the staircase. “I will have a word with your security chief about this breach while you ready yourself for that meeting.”

  Alone in my home, where an assassin had been lying in wait for me. In my cave, on my ship.

  I dropped into a seated position on the floor and gripped the black wool blanket with unsteady hands. My eyes drifted over to the starboard wall and the rows of scroll-filled cubbyholes that lined it. For several minutes I found myself wishing I could pull one of the scrolls out of its hole and lose myself in science or history. Anything to rid my mind of assassins and bodyguards.

  Athena roused me from my stupor; she held the Aigis in front of my mind’s eye, showing me the head of Medusa, sliced off by Perseus. The choice implicit in the goddess’s gesture was clear. I could sit on the floor like a stone statue or stand up like a man. I thanked the goddess for her challenging presence as I rose from the ground.

  I took off my sweat-stained traveling robes and threw them on the floor near my sleeping couch in the bow end of the cave. Then I opened the large cedar trunk near the head of the couch. The smell of fresh camphor and myrrh told me my clothes had been well cared for during my absence.

  There was a jar of fresh oil next to my sleeping couch, so I rubbed some on my face and arms. I took a deep breath to clear my head and inhaled the pungent scent of spilled blood.

  Eager to get out of the room, I donned clean scholar’s robes and affixed the golden owl badge of scientific command to my left shoulder, just under the blue fringe. I laced on thin walking sandals with soles roughened for waking on Chandra’s Tear, and secreted the copy of Ssu-ma X’ien’s history in the bottom of the chest.

  Dignity restored, I marched out of the cave and up the stairs to the surface of my ship. The ground hummed slightly and jerked a bit under my feet; the wind had picked up and the air was crisp, cold, and much drier than it had been. We had left the dock and were now circling perhaps forty miles above the earth and still climbing. I could feel the pure air separating my jumbled thoughts into clear, bright strands as the excess atoms of water and earth drifted out of my body with each deep breath I took. Every scholar knows that the heaviness of terrestrial Pneuma can fog a man’s mind, tying his ideas into unreasoned knots; few realize the consequences of this, that the farther you go from the earth, the clearer your thoughts become.

  Chandra’s Tear continued to orbit the earth at her natural speed, the same pace as Selene herself kept in her daily circuit around the globe. The prow of the ship was tilted slightly upward, so my ship continued to gently rise. All to the good since this was the region of the sky most often patrolled by Middler battle kites. Once we were above three hundred miles, common belief held, we would be safe.

  Captain Yellow Hare was waiting for me outside the anteroom. The assassin’s body was nowhere to be seen.

  She followed me closely as we hurried amidships toward the hill which Aeson and I used as meeting area and command center. Five minutes before the meeting was to start Yellow Hare and I reached the staircase carved into the port side of the hill and climbed the steep steps until we reached the colonnaded courtyard that crowned the highest point on my ship.

  The port-side entry into the quadrangle, like its counterparts to fore and starboard, was blessed with a fifteen-foot-high statue of Athena and guarded by two of Aeson’s soldiers. The three-sided symmetry of the gates was violated by the aft end of the courtyard. That was occupied by three squa
re blue buildings: my office, the ship’s library, and Aeson’s office.

  Yellow Hare and I passed through the port-side portal; the guards saluted us while we bowed to the red-and-gold statue of the goddess. Spear and Aigis upraised, this image of Pallas was armed for war; her piercing glance continually blessed Chandra’s Tear and its crew with her battle skills while the chalcedony owl on her shoulder looked inward to the courtyard, blessing the ship’s commanders with her wisdom.

  We walked toward the center of the courtyard, where a pair of nine-foot-tall statues stood on four-foot-high pedestals. One was of Aristotle, painted in differing shades of blue. The great scientist held aloft in his right hand a glass model of the universe that moved in perfect imitation of the eternal movement begun by the Prime Mover. The model glinted in the sunlight, showing in intricate detail the seven planets held in their concentric crystal spheres, orbiting in their divine dance of cycles and epicycles around Earth.

  Across from Aristotle was a statue of Alexander. It was carved from obsidian in the graceful Toltek style. The famous general carried a sword in one hand, pointed downward toward the earth, and a spear in the other, pointed up as if to challenge the gods. Both statues were of the heroes in the glory of their last years. Aristotle was stooped over at eighty, but his eyes still shone with genius. And Alexander at seventy-seven showed the long beard and craggy face of experience, but his muscles still held the tone and power Spartan training had imparted to the native grace of a young Makedonian prince.

  Yellow Hare and I reached the circle of marble couches between the statues where meetings were held. The rest of the senior staff—Kleon, Ramonojon, Mihradarius, Anaxamander, and of course Aeson—were already present, leaving only the couch nearest Aristotle, my seat, unoccupied. Aeson stood up from the couch closest to Alexander and walked toward me. The others quickly stood as well.

  Aeson reached out for me and we grasped arms at the elbow. There was sadness in his gray eyes, and a twitch at his mouth that betrayed a nervousness that neither he nor any other Spartan would ever admit to.

  I smiled at him, glad to once again feel his friendship. I released his arm and looked around the circle.

  Anaxamander stood as he always did. His chest was puffed out and his gaze was tilted slightly upward, as if he were posing for a hero’s statue. Ramonojon was next to him. He hadn’t changed out of his traveling clothes. Kleon was next to him, shuffling his feet nervously. He alternated between eyeing the navigation tower and glaring at Anaxamander.

  I turned to Mihradarius. He was dressed as I was, in the Athenian style. “Commander Aias,” he said formally. “I return your ship to you.”

  “Thank you Senior Ouranologist,” I said. Mihradarius seemed neither relieved nor saddened by the loss of command, as if it had been neither burden nor blessing, just another problem for his matchless intellect to solve.

  Aeson nodded to me. We walked to the table in the center of the couches and picked up from it two gold goblets full of dark purple wine. We turned away from each other and walked out of the circle, I toward Aristotle, Aeson toward Alexander.

  We stopped at precisely the same moment and poured libations at the feet of the heroes.

  “Bless this assembly,” we said.

  “Avert the dangers of battle,” Aeson said.

  “Avert the dangers of folly,” I said.

  “Keep us safe in body and mind,” we said.

  “Bless this assembly.”

  The wine flowed over the statues into the heavy silver bowls in front of them. Aeson and I turned in unison, replaced the goblets on the table, and walked back to our couches. I sat down and nodded to Aeson, giving him full authority over the meeting.

  “Two days ago,” he said, “this ship was docked in South Atlantea when we received an emergency message capsule relayed from Delos through Tenoktiklan. It concerned Project Man-maker.…”

  That surprised me. We rarely received any information about the other two branches of the Prometheus Projects.

  “The message said that Aristogaros of Athens, Scientific Commander of Project Manmaker, had been killed by two Nipponian commandoes in his supposedly secret laboratory in the desert of Sudan. The message commanded us to tighten security and assign a bodyguard to our Scientific Commander.”

  He turned to me and his voice took on tones of elder-brotherly irony. “Our Scientific Commander, however, had been unwise enough to be on vacation.”

  Two days of worry were chiseled into his face, but his voice still held its Spartan calmness.

  Aeson continued. “I sent a message to Sparta requesting Captain Yellow Hare as a bodyguard.” He nodded to her. “She is the best commando in the League’s army. The two attacks on Aias make it clear that I acted just in time.”

  “Attacks!?” Kleon shrieked. “What attacks?”

  Aeson nodded to Yellow Hare, who gave a terse account of the battle kite and the assassin. “Commander, Aeson,” she concluded. “I have already questioned your Security Chief as to how the Nipponian got on board this vessel.”

  “What was your answer, Security Chief?” Aeson said to Anaxamander.

  “Sir,” Anaxamander said, trying to remain stoic in the face of two displeased Spartans, “this ship has too many scientists in her crew for proper discipline to be maintained.”

  “Nevertheless,” Aeson said, “this must not happen again. I am giving Captain Yellow Hare full authority to do whatever she thinks necessary to protect Commander Aias. You and your men are to obey her orders without question.”

  The Security Chief saluted without saying a word, but I could see anger brewing in him like thunder in the brows of Zeus.

  Aeson went on. “From this point until we leave for ’Elios, contact between this ship and Earth will be minimized. We will make as few cargo stops as possible and there will be no more leave.”

  Mihradarius started to protest, but Aeson cut him off with a look. “Security will be tightened, all incoming capsules will be searched, and all senior staff members will let the guards know where they are at all times. Only Aias has been ordered to have a bodyguard, but any senior scientist who wants one will be given one.”

  Mihradarius and Ramonojon looked at each other for a moment, then shook their heads. Mihradarius looked annoyed at the suggestion; Ramonojon seemed sad.

  Kleon, however, wanted one and an increased detail of soldiers at the entrance to the navigation tower.

  Aeson coughed and looked at me expectantly. I had to say something to avoid dampening the morale of my subordinates. No muse came to inspire me with words to rally my people, so I said what I always said when the military needed to do something that my staff did not like. “For the sake of the project, I expect everyone to cooperate with the army on this matter.”

  They grumbled but accepted. Aeson nodded, encouraging me to take control of the meeting. I cocked my head toward my brilliant Persian underling. “Progress report.”

  Mihradarius stood up and walked over to the statue of Aristotle. “During the month you were gone, I completed my tests on the four sun net prototypes. My conclusion was that model Delta is the only design that can stand the stress of our return journey.”

  Ramonojon looked up, blinking in momentary surprise. “Might I see your calculations?”

  “If you insist,” Mihradarius said, “but, no offense to your intellect, Chief Dynamicist, I doubt you could follow my mathematics.”

  Oh no, I thought, not another argument.

  “I am merely curious,” Ramonojon said.

  Mihradarius glared at him, then shrugged. “You can see the logs of the experiments if you want.”

  Ramonojon nodded and lapsed into silence. I breathed a sigh of relief that Ramonojon had not brought about another flare-up in Mihradarius’s temper.

  The Persian continued. “To build net Delta, we need twenty cubic feet of Aphroditean matter as well as seventy cubic feet of ’Ermean matter.”

  I swore under my breath. Getting material from ’Ermes
was expensive enough, but at least the Delian League had a base there. To get the rock from Aphrodite a special expedition would have to be sent. That, combined with Kleon’s acquisition of the Ares impellers, would cripple our budget. I could already hear Kroisos shouting at me about wasting the League’s funds. But Mihradarius said we needed it, so I would have to get it.

  “Build as much of the net as you can,” I said. “We’ll send a requisition to Delos and hope they approve it. If not we may have to stop at Aphrodite on our way out, mine the material ourselves, and weave the net as we go.”

  I turned to Kleon. “How long to install the impellers?”

  He hummed and tapped his left foot while he calculated. “A week, two at the most.”

  “Ramonojon, how much reshaping will the ship need?”

  He looked up suddenly. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  What was the matter with him? “How long will it take to alter the ship’s dynamics to work with the new impellers?”

  “Hmm. A month.”

  “That little time?” I would have thought he would need six weeks or even two months to do that large a reconfiguration.

  He seemed surprised at the question. “Yes, I expect so.”

  “Anything else?” I asked. “Anyone?”

  No one spoke. Through the silence of the meeting, the winds of the upper air touched my ears with the rumblings of my crew’s life. From the forward part of the ship I heard Aeson’s troops drilling. From under the hill came the noise of slaves working in the storage caves and the grunts of half-formed animals from the spontaneous-generation farm. And from aft there warbled the high-pitched arguments of junior scientists making minor alterations to the sun net apparatus.

  I looked up to at ’Elios, rising above us in his fiery majesty. In the gleam of daylight, I felt the touch of Apollo in my voice. “Man and Nature conspire to halt us,” I said. “But we will yet touch the sun.”

  “This meeting is ended,” I said, returning my gaze to the assembly. “May the gods bless our work.”

  δ

  I should have known something else was wrong; Zeus, it was my duty to know. However the rest of my actions are judged, however my doxa comes to be seen, let all know that I indict myself, that I was derelict in my command during those first three weeks back on Chandra’s Tear.