Ultima

by Stephen Baxter

  “Probably as much as anybody at my pay grade, nauarchus.”

  That made Kerys laugh. But then she looked down at the heavily armed and suspicious troops on the ground waiting to greet them, and up at the looming presence of the asteroid preparing to smash this world to slag, and she considered the unlikely sequence of events that would be necessary if this bright, eager remex was to survive the day—and all because of her, Kerys, and her insane plan.

  “Nauarchus! The troops below. They seem distracted. Look, they’re turning away from us. They’re running, toward—what? A new muster point to the south of here.”

  Kerys tweaked her wings, and swiveled in the air so she could see better. And she made out a vehicle roaring across the ground, coated with heavy black armor, churning up a cloud of Martian dust behind it, with the flag of the Legio XC Victrix fluttering in the thin air: roaring straight toward the compound to the south, where that spindly tree grew tall.

  “That’s the testudo. They made it.” She couldn’t help raise a fist, careless of being seen from the ground. “Go, you ugly Roman bastards! Go, go!”

  • • •

  The testudo bounced as it raced over the ground, and Gnaeus had to cling to the edge of his couch. They were following one of the dirt tracks the Brikanti had laid down, but it was no Roman road—or at least it wasn’t meant to be taken at this speed.

  Still, Gnaeus peered ahead at the mighty trunk of the tree, marveling at the green of its leaves, vivid in the Martian light despite the obscuring air tent within which the whole tree was enclosed. The tent itself was a cylinder, faintly visible because of a coating of adhered dust. The vehicle was already so close that Gnaeus Junius couldn’t see the tree’s upper branches, its crown.

  “That thing is ridiculous,” Titus Valerius said, as he worked the levers that controlled the charging testudo.

  “It’s a quarter of a mile tall, Titus Valerius. It’s a marvel of biology—of human engineering.”

  Titus grunted. “A marvel to which these Brikanti and their druidh would nail us if we ever gave them the chance. And as for its length, you and I can pace it out when we’ve brought it down.”

  “It seems a crime.”

  “Most actions of the Roman army seem like crimes if you’re on the receiving end of them, I daresay, sir.” He called over his shoulder, “All right, lads, wake up and be ready to move. We’ll topple that unnatural thing, and then it’s out of this tin can and at the Brikanti.”

  “Let us at them, Titus Valerius.”

  “Don’t sound too eager, Scorpus, will you? Now then, shut up and let me concentrate on that cursed tree.”

  The testudo carried a rack of missiles, and there was a simple sight stencilled on the forward window. All Titus had to do, Gnaeus knew, was to line up the sight mark directly on the trunk of the tree, which was a conveniently vertical and highly visible target. They reached a comparatively smooth stretch of track, the jolting of the vehicle subsided, comparatively—and Titus at last closed the firing switch.

  When the missiles flew, the testudo rattled and bounced, and the men cheered. The missiles were powered only by Xin fire-of-life powder with an oxidizing compound, Gnaeus knew, but they delivered a kick when they soared away anyhow. Gnaeus could see the missiles swoop in, burning low over the ground, with the Brikanti scattering from their path—and then that tent over the tree blew apart in filmy shreds, an instant before the missiles slammed into the base of the tree itself, not far above a mighty, sprawling root system. A fireball swathed the lower trunk, stretching perhaps fifty paces up into the air. Just for an instant it wasn’t clear if the damage done to the tree had been terminal, and Gnaeus, who had contributed to the calculations of the missile power necessary, felt a twinge of anxiety. He could see the Brikanti troops standing, turning, peering up at their tree in dismay.

  But then the upper trunk leaned, visibly, and there was a crack, loud in the thin air.

  “Ha!” Titus roared. “We did it, boys! We broke the back of their god. Now let’s break a few Brikanti heads!” He wrenched at his drive levers, and the testudo turned and skidded to a halt in a spray of dust.

  The big doors immediately slammed open, and the men released their buckles and were out of the hull in heartbeats, just as they’d been trained. They immediately closed with the Brikanti on the ground, who were still forming up, still raising their weapons.

  By the time Gnaeus Junius had followed Titus out of the testudo, he found himself surrounded by warriors in heavily armored pressure suits colliding clumsily with one another, many wielding weapons that would have been impossibly heavy if not for the Martian gravity—and all of them trying to get at the Brikanti. Nobody was using ballistae, or other fire-of-life weapons, Gnaeus noticed. These were space-going soldiers, on both sides; the inhibition against using such weapons in fragile extraterrestrial environments must run deep. So it was swords and knives, hand to hand.

  Gnaeus was relieved to see that they were nowhere near the falling trunk of the tree, which continued to topple, almost gracefully. But the air was full of the cracks and groans of shattering wood, bits of ripped bark and shredded trunk came flying out of a rising dust cloud, and there were even shreds of the destroyed pressure tent tumbling in the air. It was almost impossible to remember that this was just a diversion, meant to distract the Brikanti troops from their spacecraft and Earthshine’s bunker, the true targets of the operation.

  It was chaos. It was glorious. His own blood surging, Gnaeus drew his own gladio and charged into the fray.

  29

  As Kerys and Freydis came fluttering down from the sky under their leather wings, one officer stayed at her post before the Celyn.

  As soon as she hit the ground, as soon as her boots crunched on Martian dust, Kerys shucked off her wings, letting them subside in the thin air, and stalked toward the waiting officer. Stalked—you couldn’t really stalk in low gravity, and that was a perennial problem for officers working in these conditions and trying to look imposing. It was more that she glided across the ground with a commanding air.

  But she kept her gaze locked firmly on the officer who was standing between her and the Celyn. The officer wore a standard Brikanti Navy-issue pressure suit, with shoulder flashes to show her rank. From what Kerys could see of her face, she looked young, younger even than Freydis. And she hefted a heavy projectile weapon, not lowering it as Kerys approached.

  Kerys halted only paces from the officer. Still that weapon didn’t waver, though its muzzle was only a hand’s breadth from Kerys’s chest. And still the officer held her place, though the fear and uncertainty were obvious in her eyes. Kerys felt a stab of sympathy, and shame at what she had to do.

  She made sure the officer had seen her own shoulder flashes, and recognized her rank of nauarchus. Then she switched her communications to a standard channel and snapped, “Your name?”

  “That is irrelevant, nauarchus. With respect. Our orders—my orders—were to secure this vessel against intruders. And—”

  “Your name,” Kerys repeated silkily. “You see my uniform. What harm can it do to tell me your name?”

  “Gerloc,” she said at last. “My name is Gerloc. I come from Atrebatu, which is—”

  “I don’t care where Atrebatu is. So, Gerloc. I can see you’re a druidh.”

  “Yes. My Navy rank and druidh level are—”

  Kerys waved that away. “And you’re a Navy officer. This is a Navy vessel.”

  “Yes, nauarchus.”

  “You say your orders were to secure this vessel against intruders.”

  “Yes, nauarchus.”

  “Very well.” Kerys glanced around, deliberately casual. Then she forced herself to scream in the girl’s face. “And do I look like an intruder to you?”

  “No! I mean, yes—nauarchus.”

  “Did you not hear the instructions my ship broadcast?”<
br />
  “Yes. But we had no orders concerning your arrival. The Roman ship that brought you here, we had no clearance, and then your descent on the wings without calling ahead—”

  Kerys deliberately backed off. She said more calmly, “Have you never heard of a snap inspection? What use would that be if my arrival was heralded in advance, as if I was some pompous Caesar returning to the fleshpots of Rome?”

  The girl didn’t budge. “But, nauarchus—”

  Kerys held a hand to the side of her helmet, and the other palm up. “Hush. Can you not hear that? That’s your own trierarchus giving me clearance. You’re to stand aside. Aren’t you getting it? Maybe your equipment is faulty.”

  Gerloc lifted her free hand to her own helmet, and with a troubled expression glanced away from Kerys.

  That moment was all Kerys needed. She stepped inside the arc of the weapon, grabbed Gerloc’s helmet with two hands, and yanked it forward. The back of Gerloc’s head clattered against her helmet, and she was immediately rendered unconscious. Kerys carefully lowered her to the Martian ground, while behind her Freydis hurried forward to collect Gerloc’s weapon.

  “That was kind of you, nauarchus,” Freydis said. “Relatively.”

  Kerys knelt over the girl. “I hated having to do that. This one stood her ground while the rest of the idiots around her went running off in pursuit of glory. Stood her ground in spite of all the pressure I could bring to bear on her. She had her orders, and she obeyed them, and this is her reward, from me, her commanding officer. At least I was able to spare her a broken nose or a few lost teeth.”

  Freydis looked up at the sky. “Nauarchus, maybe we’d better get moving. That thing in the sky isn’t slowing down any.”

  “Too true. Come on, Freydis. Keep your weapons ready. Try not to kill, but if you have to—”

  “I can see there’s a greater good, nauarchus.”

  “There is indeed. I want this bucket to be off the ground in an hour, or less.” She looked down at the inert body of Gerloc, who looked as if she were sleeping peacefully. “Help me haul her aboard the Celyn.”

  “Of course, nauarchus. Umm—why?”

  “Because she may have a better chance of survival aboard than if we leave her here. She deserves that much. But bind her hands and feet, in case her sense of duty gets in the way again.”

  “Yes, nauarchus.”

  Glancing over at Freydis, Kerys saw that Höd was actually casting a shadow now, from the soft features of the woman’s young face, behind her visor. “Let’s hope, in the end, that all our heroics aren’t necessary after all . . . Come on, let’s get on with it.”

  • • •

  Eilidh, piloting the small kernel-driven landing yacht bearing her fractious and complicated companions, was ordered to descend to the third of the surface complex’s compounds, centered on Earthshine’s heavy bunker. But she wasn’t to land until the operations at the tree and at the Celyn were well under way, the guards drawn off. So after she had guided the yacht through its entry into the Martian air she hovered, waiting for a final confirming order from Quintus Fabius, who watched from the Malleus Jesu.

  Mardina, surrounded by her family and companions, carefully followed the progress of the military operation on the ground. It wasn’t just that her life depended on its outcome. She was actually interested in it, the first genuine action she had ever been a part of.

  She felt she was learning constantly, not least from Quintus Fabius and his officers as they had studied this strange surface target, and he had improvised his plan of attack. Nothing specific about that, she thought, could ever be taught in an academy, or on a training ground, or even on maneuvers out in the field. All training could do would be to leave you with a certain suppleness of mind—suppleness, wrapped around a bony core of determination. Quintus Fabius had never lost sight of the ultimate goal of this operation, for all its confusion and complexity: to find a way to stop the ice ball, Höd, hitting the planet Mars, if he possibly could.

  And now here she herself was, involved in this horribly ambiguous part of the operation herself. She was glad to be involved in the action. But she wished he was doing something simpler! Morally clearer! Even if more dangerous. She would have loved to bowl across the surface of Mars with Titus Valerius in his testudo, firing missiles at the sacred giant tree, or to storm that waiting spacecraft with Kerys and Freydis . . .

  Not that there wasn’t danger enough in her own assignment. The yacht was broadcasting continual identifying messages, and images of the craft’s occupants: crucially, the faces of Beth and Mardina. All this was an attempt to get through to Earthshine, to persuade him to let them through. Fine. But it was all terribly flaky. They were so exposed in this yacht, hanging here in the air. It only needed a few of the ground troops to behave in an unexpected way—in fact, to follow their orders—and it could all go wrong. Mardina herself had watched as one lone officer had stood by her post at the spacecraft, the Celyn, and held up the nauarchus Kerys.

  Worse than that, however, was the fact that in this fragile little ship Mardina was stuck with her family, among other lunatics. Her mother, Beth, who could hardly bear to look at her father, Ari. The strange slave boy, Chu Yuen, sitting as ever in his submissive posture, eyes averted, his pack containing the mysterious machine, Collius, cradled in his lap as if it were the most precious treasure in the world—well, Mardina supposed, for him it was, as it was probably all that kept him from being cast down into some even worse situation than this. And, to complete the party, here at her own insistence was Academician Penny Kalinski, a woman who Mardina, her former pupil, was very fond of—but she was so hopelessly old. What was Penny doing descending into a combat zone with an asteroid about to be dropped on her gray head?

  This strange crew, all save Eilidh at the controls, were strapped into couches set in a rough circle in this small, cramped cabin, all facing each other, all trying to avoid the others’ eyes.

  But at last the message came from the Malleus that they were clear to land.

  It was Stef Kalinski who spoke to them from the ship. As the operation had sorted itself out, she had volunteered her services to Quintus Fabius as capcom for the yacht, as she put it, a strange prejonbar word that nobody understood, except possibly Penny. Now her voice called clear and strong from the speaker. “We finally got word from the bunker. Earthshine can see you. He says you’re free to land. You should see a docking port, suitable for ships of Roman, Brikanti or Xin design. Take her down when you’re ready, Eilidh.”

  “Thank you, Colonel Kalinski—”

  And suddenly Earthshine was here. Standing in the cabin before them. He was tall, urbane, wearing a suit that was not unlike Brikanti garb, Mardina thought, but was too smart, sharp—too finely made—and his shoes were polished leather. He wore a brooch on one lapel, a bit of carved stone at which Ari stared greedily.

  It had to be him. Mardina had never seen him before but she knew of no other being with such powers of projection. Yet there was an air of unreality about him, a translucence, a hint of an inner golden glow. When he smiled, even his teeth shone faintly golden.

  Still, this was an intrusion into a military vessel. Eilidh reached for a weapon.

  Ari Guthfrithson called out sharply, “Be calm! This is not real. He is an image—like a reflection in a mirror. And he can no more harm you than could such a reflection.”

  Penny glared. “Well, don’t try your tricks on me, you chimera. How are you doing this? This craft doesn’t have the technological substrate to support virtual reality.” She used the English phrase.

  “But I do,” the ColU said mournfully from his satchel, which Chu held to his chest. “I received a signal from the ground, a request for interfacing, transmission capacity. I would have warned you all—”

  “But I overrode you, didn’t I?” Earthshine said. “You are just a farm robot after all. Well, not even th
at anymore. Whereas I, you see, am in control of the situation. As always.”

  “No,” said Penny Kalinski. “You can’t grab hold of this ship, can you? Because it’s too primitive for your interfaces.”

  “I could shoot you down in an instant.”

  “But you won’t,” Ari said. “Because she’s on board.” He gestured at Beth; Mardina’s mother, as so often when challenged like this, was shut in on herself, angry, resentful. “And her—Mardina, your great – granddaughter.”

  “You seek to manipulate me, in your crude ways.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” Penny laughed, showing the remains of her teeth. “For all you’re so powerful, you have human weaknesses still.”

  “Weaknesses? Would you call a capacity for loyalty to one’s family a weakness? Oh, but I forgot; you’ve spent most of your life fighting against your own rejection by your impossible sister, haven’t you? What do you know, then, of family?”

  She was still glaring at him. “Only that you helped me rediscover it once. In Paris, remember? Shame on you for speaking to me this way now, Earthshine.”

  And to Mardina’s astonishment it was Earthshine who dropped his head first.

  Ari watched this exchange, fascinated and amused. “Well, well. Perhaps it was worth bringing along this wizened matriarch after all.”

  “We do have history,” Earthshine said. “So here we are. I believe I know what you want. But why don’t you tell me, in your own words?”

  “We want to know what you’re doing here, Earthshine,” Penny said clearly. “Here on Mars. And we want to know why you’re bringing an asteroid crashing down on this planet—on your own head, apparently. Though I’m quite certain you don’t intend to die here—if to ‘die’ means anything to you at all.”