The Voyage of the Iron Dragon

by Robert Kroese

  “Alma is going?”

  “Of course not. I meant she’ll figure something out here. She and her team. O’Brien will have to go.” Alma’s legs were crippled from polio; there was no way she was going to make a trip across the ocean to Nova Scotia.

  “O’Brien is getting old,” Sigurd said.

  “We’re all getting old,” Reyes said. “But there isn’t anybody else. I mean, we try to train these kids… geologists, chemists, engineers… but I’m starting to think this whole thing is a cosmic joke. We get marooned here with just enough knowledge, just enough hope to think maybe we can change things.”

  In the beginning, Reyes had been optimistic: she knew that humans would someday reach the stars, and that those humans were biologically no different from the Vikings and others at Svartalfheim. The only difference was knowledge and infrastructure. The spacemen had the knowledge, and given enough time, the infrastructure could be built. The idea of building a spaceship in medieval Europe sounded crazy, but in theory there was no reason it couldn’t work.

  Over the past twenty years, though, the true scope of the challenged they faced had become clear to Reyes. They’d raised a generation of teachers, engineers and scientists, but they were nowhere close to having the infrastructure needed to build a Titan rocket. Maybe the third generation could do it, assuming they still believed in the mission and their plans weren’t thwarted by the Cho-ta’an or their other enemies.

  Their challenges would not be over once they’d built a rocket capable of carrying astronauts into orbit. The astronauts would then need to rendezvous with the derelict Cho-ta’an ship—their only option for interstellar travel since Andrea Luhman was destroyed. For this, they would use a replica of the Gemini capsule designed by NASA in the 1960s, which could carry two astronauts. The pilot of the Gemini capsule would have to execute a complicated maneuver called a Hohmann transfer to match the orbit and location of the Cho-ta’an ship. The astronauts would then exit the Gemini capsule, board the Cho-ta’an ship and make any necessary repairs to get the ship functioning.

  Assuming they were successful in all of this, they would be in the strange position of trying to end a war that had not yet started. The Fractalists had given them the planet-killer bomb intending that they deliver it to the IDL headquarters on Geneva, but that was now impossible, for a couple of reasons. For one, the bomb had been destroyed when the Cho-ta’an had attacked Andrea Luhman. For another, the IDL would not exist for another 1200 years.

  The planet-killer they had been given was probably not the only one, but even if they could get their hands on another, delivering it 1200 years early posed a problem: if humans arrived on Geneva to find a planet-killer giftwrapped for them, it would change history. If the IDL had possessed a planet-killer from the beginning, they never would have let the Cho-ta’an hunt humanity to near-extinction. All the evidence Reyes and the others had from twenty-two years living in the ancient past confirmed the theory that history could not be changed. Time and time again, the spacemen and their allies had gotten into situations where they seemed on the cusp of altering Earth’s history, only to find that history had a way of getting the last word. Sigurd’s continually frustrated efforts to kill King Harald were the prime example, but there were a dozen others. The no-paradox rule held even in the case of the Siege of Paris, where events contradicted historical sources: it had turned out that Gabe himself had been the cause of the discrepancy: he’d convinced Abbo Cernuus, the author of the only firsthand account of the siege, to leave the spacemen’s contributions out of his story.

  If it were true that history could not be changed, then it followed that any attempts to change it would fail. They could not deliver a planet-killer to Geneva for humans to find before the war with the Cho-ta’an started, because if they had, history would have unfolded differently than it had. If they wanted to stop the Cho-ta’an, they had to do it without contradicting what was known to be known. In essence, they had to find a loophole.

  Before the planet-killer had been destroyed, Reyes had hoped to deliver it someplace it would be located by the IDL, but only after Andrea Luhman went through the Perseid gate, disappearing into the past. That way, they could alter the outcome of the war without trying to undo what had already happened. From the perspective of the IDL leadership, Andrea Luhman would vanish and then, coincidentally, the IDL would locate the planet-killer bomb, which had been hidden up to that point, just in time to end the war.

  Making this happen had always been a dicey proposition, and now that the planet-killer had been destroyed, it was out of the question. So rather than pilot the Cho-ta’an ship to Geneva, the astronauts would go to the planet where Andrea Luhman’s crew had been given the planet-killer by the Fractalists. Their hope was to arrive before the Fractalists arrived but after the aliens who built the planet-killer abandoned the planet. The no-paradox rule would prevent the astronauts from absconding with the bomb that the Fractalists had given them, but they might locate another bomb or technical specifications that would allow the IDL to build their own bomb. If nothing else, they could take the bomb apart, document its design, and then reassemble it. Whatever they learned would be put into a coded message which would be broadcast at a predetermined time by the Cho-ta’an ship. If they were fortunate enough to find another bomb, it would be loaded aboard the ship as well. They would program the ship to travel to the Geneva system and then go dark for 1200 years, hiding amongst the outer planets. Shortly before Andrea Luhman was destined to vanish, the ship would come alive and transmit its message via a highly focused laser beam to the IDL headquarters on Geneva. By the time the IDL brass received the message, Andrea Luhman would be gone—and the IDL would have the information it needed to end the war.

  Very little was known about the Izarians, the race who had built the bomb. Before the Fractalists had shown Andrea Luhman’s crew evidence of their civilization, humanity had not even known of their existence. The Fractalists had said that the Izarians had occupied their planet hundreds of years before the Fractalists arrived, but whether they would be there when the astronauts from the Iron Dragon arrived in the mid-tenth century was unknown. The astronauts might find that they’d beaten the Izarians to the planet by five hundred years. Alternately, they might the subterranean outpost still occupied by Izarians, who would not necessarily be friendly to humans and would almost certainly not hand over their most powerful weapon. There was little Reyes could do about such possibilities but hope for the best.

  “We have to believe your people were sent back in time for a reason,” Sigurd said. “It can’t just be a fluke that people with such knowledge were given a chance to change the future, just as everything seemed hopeless.”

  “I want to believe that,” Reyes said. “But what evidence do we have, really? What reason do we have to go on?”

  “My reasons are in the other room,” Sigurd said.

  Reyes sat up slowly, opening her eyes to star at Sigurd’s face. His blond hair had thinned since they had married, eighteen years earlier, and deep creases lined his face. “And that’s enough for you,” she said. “But what does any of it matter if we’re all doomed? If humanity is going to be snuffed out?”

  “It matters,” Sigurd said. “Every moment matters. My people have always believed humanity would come to its end at Ragnarök. But after Ragnarök, humanity will be reborn.”

  “But what if it’s not? What if it’s just the end? What if the wolf swallows the sun and that’s it? Show’s over?”

  “Then we will still have had this moment, here, together.”

  Reyes leaned against him. “I’m just so tired, Sigurd. Jesus, I’m so tired.”

  “I know, my love. I am sorry. You work very hard, and you get very little in return.”

  “You know I would rather be with you and the girls if I could, right? You know I didn’t choose this?”

  “I knew you were fighting a war when I married you. I swore an oath to remain at your side. My time for fighting is over,
but I will remain at your side until Ragnarök. And then we shall die together, and perhaps be reborn in another place, where we have more time.” He wrapped his arms around her.

  “And you will see Yngvi again,” she said softly.

  Sigurd squeezed her tight, holding her in the unending twilight.

  Chapter Nine

  A loud thudding awoke Theo from a sound sleep. He threw a pillow over his head, willing the noise away, but his wife’s elbow in his ribs was not so easy to ignore.

  “Stop, woman!” Theo growled. “I surrender!”

  “Get up, you worthless lump,” Theodora snapped. “I’m not dressed.”

  “Get up for what?” Theo asked, and then he heard the mewling voice of Paulus, one of the house servants, at the bedroom door.

  “Please, sir. He won’t go away.”

  “Who won’t go away?” Theo snapped, sitting up.

  “One of Sergius’s men. I believe he is called Titus. He says it is urgent that you come to the Vatican right away.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday, ’Lord.”

  “I’m meeting the Pope for lunch in three hours. This can’t wait until then?”

  “Evidently not, sir.”

  Theo sighed heavily. “Tell this Titus I’ll be down presently.”

  “Yes, M’Lord.”

  Theo threw off the bed covers and planted his feet on the ground. “This new Pope of yours is trying my patience,” he said. “He’s forgotten at whose whim he serves.”

  Theodora yawned. “I understood that the Pope serves by the grace of God Himself.”

  “Don’t be cheeky, woman. If I wanted Sergius defrocked, Mother Mary herself couldn’t stop me. I’d have thrown him on his ear already, but I’ve got enough to do without having to train another Pope. Are you getting up?”

  “Meeting with the Pope before breakfast is bad for my digestion,” Theodora said. “I’m sure you can handle whatever emergency is ruffling his feathers this time.”

  Theo muttered an oath and began to get dressed.

  *****

  Half an hour later, Theo was escorted into a large, opulent reception chamber in the Vatican. At the far end of the room, on an ornate chair on a raised dais, sat Sergius III, the recently installed Pope. Before the Pope stood another man, a priest, judging by his dirty brown frock and shaved head. Theo ordered the escort to leave him be and marched up to the dais, next to the priest. It irritated Theo to be summoned before the Pope in this manner, as if he were no better than an itinerant cleric. Sergius was going to need a reminder of his place.

  “Who is this?” Theo demanded. “Why did you summon me?”

  The priest’s eyes widened at Theo’s tone. It was unthinkable for any ordinary man to speak to the Pope in such a manner.

  “My reasons will be clear in a moment,” Sergius said flatly. He turned to the priest. “This is Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, an advisor and old friend. Tell him your name, son.”

  The priest nodded uncertainly. “Your Highness,” the priest said with a bow. “My n-name is Osric. I m-minister to fishermen and residents of some scattered hamlets in Scotland.”

  Theo folded his arms across his chest. “And what is so urgent about your work among the shit-spattered peasants of Scotland that I need to be wakened from a dead sleep in the middle of the night?” This latter was an exaggeration; the sun had risen before Theo got to the Vatican.

  “I s-saw, something, Your Highness.”

  Theo sighed, turning to Sergius. “If you summoned me here to listen to stories of the Virgin appearing to shepherds in Scotland….”

  Sergius held up his hand. “Continue, my son.”

  “It was a m-m-machine,” Osric said. “A t-terrible, infernal machine, belching great clouds of black and white smoke.” The priest’s eyes had gone glassy, as if he were recalling a mystical vision. “It was like a house, but it rested on a great assembly of wheels that allowed it to move along the ground, scaling hillsides like some hideous worm. Two men rode inside the machine, one to control its movements and the other to feed a furnace that gave the machine its impetus. But the most horrifying aspect was a great articulated arm that reached out from the front of the thing. At the end of the arm was an iron scoop with teeth that allowed it to dig into the earth as if it were flour. With this scoop, the machine could move a much earth as a hundred men.”

  Theo regarded the man skeptically. “Where did you see this, exactly? Who were these men?”

  “It was at a coal mine, Your Highness. It is a remote area, in territory claimed by the Norsemen. From what I can gather, these miners operate under a charter blessed by Harald Fairhair himself.”

  “They were using this machine to mine coal?”

  “I had not seen them use anything like it on my previous visits to the camp. If they used it in the past, they were careful not to be seen. These were special circumstances, as I happened to visit the mine shortly after a cave-in. I believe they were desperate to rescue some trapped miners, and so were not as careful as they ordinarily would have been.”

  “You saw them rescuing these miners?”

  “I did, Your Highness. Several of them, whom I believe had been trapped underground for some time.”

  “Did you speak to them?”

  “I… I was afraid of being seen, so I left. In the past, these miners have not been… welcoming toward me, and I feared what they would do if they knew I had seen their machine.”

  Theo nodded. “Your cowardice can be forgiven, under the circumstances.”

  Osric bowed toward Theo.

  “That is all for now, my son,” Sergius said. “The attendant outside will show you to your quarters. You will speak to no one else of these matters.”

  “Of course, Your Excellency,” Osric said. “Thank you, Your Excellency.” He bowed again and then turned to leave. When he was gone, Theo spoke.

  “You believe this ‘infernal machine’ is related to the warnings of your demon,” he said.

  “Gurryek warned of a secretive cult using strange machines to further their diabolical ends.”

  “The demon’s warnings were vague—probably deliberately so.”

  “It said the cult was originated in the North. It specifically stated we were likely to encounter them in Britain or Normandy. And let us not forget its counsel regarding the Magyars and our other enemies, which has proved invaluable in forestalling their advance. Had we not urged Hrólfr to send a contingent of troops to Porto-Santa Rufina, as the demon suggested, the diocese would have fallen into the hands of the Saracens.”

  “Perhaps,” said Theo. He was still not convinced of the creature’s supernatural origins, but he had to admit it had an uncanny knack for prognostication. The day they rescued the demon from Christopher’s cellar it had predicted that Berengar of Friuli, along with an army of Magyar mercenaries, would, in a week’s time, defeat Frankish forces at Verona and take Louis III captive. When the event came to pass—down to the detail of Berengar having Louis III blinded for breaking a promise not to return to Italy—Theo was forced to admit that either the demon had somehow infiltrated Berengar’s inner circle of advisers or it really could see the future. Since then, Christopher had relied heavily on the demon’s advice, while Theo, unsure of its motives, had remained circumspect. He found it strange that the demon’s gift did not seem to extend to its own circumstances; it had not, for example, been able to foresee or prevent its capture by Christopher’s agents two years earlier. Further, its knowledge of future events was both fragmented and shallow: when they had pressed it for details on the Frankish defeat at Verona, for example, its evasive response indicated that it did not understand the significance of an Italian king defeating the Holy Roman Emperor, and in fact seemed to be confused about the location of Verona. In Theo’s experience, seers tended to speak in terms of visions and feelings; the demon spoke as if it were an addled child reading a grocery list. It knew dates, names, and events, but had no understanding of how any of it f
it together.

  “Where is your demon now?” Theo asked. He referred to the creature in this way because he knew it irritated Sergius.

  “In his quarters, of course.”

  “I wasn’t sure if he’d been given a bishopric yet,” Theo clarified. “Have you spoken to it about this?”

  “No. I did not want you to think I’d briefed it. It seemed wise that we should question it together.”

  “Good,” Theo said. “If it’s not too much trouble for you to leave your throne for a moment, perhaps we should do that.”

  *****

  “It is as I have foreseen,” Gurryek said. “As the cult’s plans advance, they become more brazen.” The creature, dressed in a gray cotton robe, lay semi-reclined on a long couch against the far end of the small, windowless room. The cell, a repurposed storage room, was hardly luxurious, but it was a vast improvement over its accommodations in Pope Christopher’s basement. In addition to the couch, it was furnished with a desk, several oil-burning lamps, a wooden chair and several dozen books, mostly on history and natural philosophy. These things were rewards for the demon’s usefulness.

  “And this cult’s plans are what, exactly?” Sergius asked.

  “To bring about the end of the world, as foretold in your book of Revelation.”

  “History ends with the return of Christ and the establishment of a New Heaven and a New Earth,” Sergius said.

  “That is one possibility,” Gurryek replied. “We intend a different outcome.”

  “You speak on behalf of the demons,” Theo said, “but in the same breath you betray them.”

  “My kind have forgotten me,” Gurryek said. “I do what I must do to survive.”

  You do more than survive, Theo thought. There aren’t a dozen men in Rome with a library to match this one. The demon, locked away in a subterranean corner of the Vatican and under constant guard, had no chance of escaping, but Theo still worried about its influence on the outside world. He suspected the demon was playing them all—had perhaps even allowed itself to be taken captive in order to whisper in the ear of the Pope—but he had not yet figured out the demon’s angle. The fact that it spent its days poring over Aristotle and Cicero bothered him for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint.