Celestial Matters

by Garfinkle, Richard

  “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 wa
s 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.

  “Come with me,” I said to Mihradarius when he had finished his explanation.

  “Can it wait, Commander? I have to make sure this is working.”

  “Now!”

  He turned to face me, his thick eyebrows raised in surprise. “Yes, Commander.”

  We stepped aside, letting the wind cover the sound of our voices so the straining ears of his workers would not be able to overhear us.

  “Mihradarius,” I said, “you’re my second in line. Why didn’t you intervene when Anaxamander started ordering Kleon around?”

  “I’m sorry, Aias, I thought the Security Chief had your consent.”

  “Did you actually think I would do something as foolish as order repairs while we were flying?”

  He looked down, not wanting to meet my gaze. “To be honest, Aias, I didn’t think about it.”

  “Mihradarius, Anaxamander is a power-hungry idiot. He has just proven that as long as he is military commander of this ship, he will continually try to steal my authority. I am counting on your assistance in stopping him.”

  “Yes, Commander,” he said. “Is there anything else you want from me?”

  “Yes. No battle kite has ever reached this sphere before; they were always stopped by our patrols around Selene. Turn that brilliant mind of yours toward finding out how they did it.”

  Mihradarius sputtered in disbelief. “How am I supposed to know how the Middlers do anything?”

  “Calm yourself,” I said. “I don’t expect a definite answer, just some guesses based on what we know of their technical capacities.”

  “That I can do,” he said. “Thank you for your confidence, Aias.”

  “You are most welcome, Mihradarius. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to return to work.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  * * *

  I spent the next few days making clear to Anaxamander where his authority ended and mine began. In response to this clear delineation, he began to show off his own power. He tightened security to a ridiculous extent, knowing that I could do nothing to stop him. Guards patrolled continuously, and a constant escort of moon sleds flew patrols around the ship to make sure no more battle kites caught us unawares. Fatigue took hold of the overworked soldiers and their morale deteriorated.

  Helpless to affect this terrible style of military command, Yellow Hare and I found ourselves mingling talk of Aeson in with the rest of our conversation, hoping by our memories of him to sway the Fates that they might restore him to health.

  Over dinner one evening after a long day spent countermanding Anaxamander’s encroachment on the repair work, we sat leaning against the aft wall of my cabin drinking bowls of honeyed rose water. I told her about my early days on the ship and how my friendship with Aeson grew from his gently helping me learn how to command, and my long lectures to him about the planets and the harmony of their movements. Yellow Hare seemed quite pleased with these stories, and related to me her meeting with Aeson at the Olympics and the mutual respect they gained for one another both in practice bouts and strategic discussions.

  “It’s strange,” I said. “For all the good Aeson has done for me during my early days on the ship, the most important thing Aeson did for me was very recent.”

  “What did he do?” Yellow Hare asked as she lit her pipe and sucked in the aromatic smoke.

  “He gave me a new perspective on Sparta.”

  “What perspective is that?”

  “That you are the true Spartan, not my father.”

  “I thank you and Aeson for the honor, but I do not understand what you mean.”

  I told her the story of my failure at the Spartan military college and how my father turned away from me because of it.

  “Your father did what?” Yellow Hare clenched her fist; the divine fires returned to her eyes and the mantle of the gods fell across her shoulders. “How dare he offend against the honor of the city like that!”

  I was stunned by her vehemence, but family duty required me to respond. “Offend against Sparta? My father?”

  “Aeson was too gentle in his condemnation,” she said. “Your father’s actions are nothing short of sacrilege.”

  “But—”

  “Spartan training is for those destined to lead in war. There is no disgrace in failing our tests. It only means that the Fates have not given you the soul of a born warrior. We do not expect everyone to succeed, and we are not so foolish as to demand that the Fates bestow similar souls on our sons and daughters.”

  “But—”

  “No, Aias,” Yellow Hare said, and I could hear ’Era, goddess of Sparta, speaking through her. “Aeson spoke the truth. It is your father, not you, who fails to live up to the standards of my city.”

  Her words and the divine blessing that lay within them filled me with a sudden awareness of the greatness of Sparta’s spirit, the holiness of the Spartans’ single purpose, and the glory they gave to heaven’s queen on the field of battle.

  I bowed my head to both woman and goddess, and handed them a bowl full of libation.

  * * *

  The repair work took a total of eight days, during which the debris was cleared up, cannon batteries were redistributed, and remaining primary impellers were evenly divided between the port and starboard arrays. Only when I had formally sealed the last repair report did I gave Kleon permission to begin flying us toward the sun. With only half the proper number of primaries, we flew considerably slower than before, but still far faster than we would have without the Ares impellers. Kleon proposed a schedule of four hours of speed out of every twelve, which I reluctantly agreed to. It was much more stressful than our earlier schedule, but we would reach ’Elios only five days behind schedule.

  Two days after we set off, my work was disturbed by an unexpected visit from Clovix, the chief slave.

  “Commander, I have some information you might be interested in,” he said.

  “Might be?”

  “Unofficially interested.” His eyes fixed on the floor of my cave with seeming fascination. “You see, sir, if it became official it would be a security matter, but Commander Anaxamander’s official interest might not be as great as your unofficial interest.”

  Yellow Hare cocked an eyebrow at this convoluted speech, but I understood what the Gaul meant. I dug a purse out of one of my trunks and counted twenty silver drachmas onto my writing table. Clovix stroked his long red mustache for a second as if deliberating the value of his information. Then he picked the coins up and stuck them into a leather pouch concealed within the sleeve of his tunic.

  “During the repairs,” he said, “one of the slave maintenance crews found a crack inside the well shaft. It’s about forty feet down from the storage cavern, ten feet above the waterline of the reservoir. One of the repair slaves thought he saw a small dark cave through the crack. He could not swear to that, of course.”

  Yellow Hare and I exchanged glances. “Thank you, Clovix,” I said. “You may go. Don’t mention this to anyone.”

  “Of course, Commander,” he said as he climbed the stairs out of my cave.

  I turned a bitter smile to Yellow Hare. “As I said, there are advantages to having the most corrupt slave in the League.”

  “The proper thing to do,” she said, her voice as emotionless as the day I met her, “is to pass this information on to Security.”

  “Security is Anaxamander,” I said, discomforted by her sudden withdrawal. “He’ll find some way to twist this into proof of Ramonojon’s guilt. I have two duties, Yellow Hare. I must fulfill them both.” />
  “Then what do you wish to do, Commander?”

  I gripped my hands together and cracked my knuckles, preparing them for unaccustomed physical effort. “Search that cave. It must be where the transmitter is hidden.”

  She said nothing.

  “Yellow Hare,” I said, “I must do this. It is my duty.”

  She nodded slowly, and I felt some return of the spirit that had grown between us.

  “But,” I said, “you will not let me search that cave alone, will you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then the matter is yours to decide. If your duty requires that I pass this on to Anaxamander, I will.”

  “No, Aias,” she said after considering the matter for some moments. “I have sworn to obey you in your search for the spy. If you can reconcile this act with your duties as commander, then I will follow you.”

  “You honor me,” I said.

  Without another word, we went to the storage cave. A few more coins slipped to Clovix bought us some privacy as he sent the slaves scurrying about a variety of not-really-necessary tasks, away from where we were working. From an equipment crate Yellow Hare took several ropes and some grapples while I searched a box of spare dynamicists’ gear until I found a long evacuated hose with a sharpened iron tip.

  “What is that?” Yellow Hare asked.

  “A handheld water drill.”

  Yellow Hare and I lowered ourselves down the side of the wet, silvery well, having secured the ropes to the grapples and the grapples to two of the bronze rings embedded in the granite lip for the convenience of repair workers. The descent was easy for Yellow Hare, and I had done enough mountain climbing as a youth in India to follow her without too much trouble.

  Forty feet down we found the crack, an inch-wide scar in the gleaming moon rock. And, as reported, there was a dark cave beyond it. I could see the slight wavering of night blankets and a hint of silver sheen behind them, but I could not make out any details.

  “Hold me steady,” I told Yellow Hare. She braced her legs against the far side of the well and gripped me tightly around the waist. I dropped the intake end of the hose into the well. There was a splash, and a moment later, water sucked out of the reservoir through the rarefied air in the tube started gushing out the iron tip in a sharp thin stream. Armed with water and metal, I began to methodically enlarge the crack into a hole.