by S. J. Ryan
"One of your spies, right?"
Inoldia's face snapped a gaze on him so quickly that he stepped back.
"Who told you?"
"Damn, Inoldia, you think all men are idiots."
Inoldia didn't bother to answer that, because of course it was true. But her glare deepened and she repeated, "Who told you that she was a spy?"
"It's – it's obvious. Why would you conceal her identity otherwise? It's also obvious that she must be of great importance if you're personally escorting her to see your head sister or whoever is in charge there. I would guess then that she is placed within the household of – "
"Enough!" Inoldia hissed.
Valarion was silent, but Inoldia knew that state would only be temporary. She wondered, Is there a more talkative man of senatorial rank?
"We should discuss the matter of Britan," he said.
"Not now."
"I know the Plague is running its course, but – "
"She can hear."
Valarion glanced back at the veiled figure. She was standing near the stern, on the opposite side of the boat.
"She's too far to . . . unless . . . oh."
At a distance of three kilometers, a reflector atop one of the towers flashed a challenge. Inoldia provided the boat's signalman with the pass code, and the boat was approved for approach.
The four towers were encompassed by six high walls in a hexagonal arrangement. The walls were sheer and met the sea with a shore of jagged rocks. Valarion's eyes rested on the battlements. Inoldia wondered if he was so foolish as to contemplate a siege of the island.
Guards met them at the marina, allowing Inoldia and the veiled figure to disembark, but not Valarion.
"You will wait," Inoldia said.
Valarion provided a scowl, but nodded to his bodyguards to stand down.
The guards at the gate bowed reverently and Inoldia and her charge were allowed through the arch into the main courtyard. Inoldia wove through the workers and guards, noting that no hooded figures were to be seen, further confirmation that this was to be a meeting of the full Council.
Ahead lay the green dome of the council building. Guards bowed as she entered. She stopped at the side room and draped herself with an oversized coarse brown habit, lastly pulling the hood over her head.
They continued into the dark chamber and stood in the center. The doors were sealed. Then another smaller door opened at the far end, and the nine members of the Council of Sisters emerged in their coarse hooded habits and mounted their elevated platforms and sat at their benches.
"This is in regard to the matter of Archimedes meeting this morning with the Emperor," the High Priestess said.
Her voice was firm yet creaked with dryness. It always made Inoldia think of an ancient door slowly opening to a sepulcher that had been sealed for as long as time had been.
The High Priestess continued, "The spy will give her complete report."
The voice of a young woman spoke from beneath the veil. It was soft and weak and cracked with tension. But the narrative was thorough and precise in its details.
The girl stated, "And then he said something about dancing faeries and Moonstar. Then – then there was comment made of – of – of . . . of how the whole city was astir with the beholding of the app – 'apprition.'"
Her hands were writhing and Inoldia smelled the girl's terror even from meters away. Unlike her hearing, the girl's eyes were those of a normal human, and the chamber must have seemed almost totally dark. Even if it had been alight, the hoods would have obscured the faces of the Sisters in shadow.
"Go on," the High Priestess said.
The girl half-turned toward Inoldia. "There was mention of Valarion, and a – a . . . consort-witch."
There was no reaction from the council, but Inoldia twisted a small smile. She hardly needed the speaker to be identified for that jibe. In all of Rome, only one man was impudent enough to publicly call her a witch. The irony was that she really didn't mind. It was the word 'consort' that insulted her, and too many in Rome used that in reference to her and Valarion.
"Surely there is more to their meeting," the High Priestess said. "Our spies at the imperial treasury report that Archimedes visited them afterward. Tell what you may know of that."
"The – the Emperor wanted the old man to build something that was very expensive."
Oh-so-slightly, the entire council leaned forward, and Inoldia found herself doing so too. For all their scorn of Archimedes, they like all of Rome were fascinated by the continuous flow of inventions created by the greatest scientist in the history of Ne'arth.
"And what is this device that the Emperor wanted built?"
"The old man called it a . . . 'tala-skoop.' That's all I know."
The hoods of the council priestesses twisted toward each other, but even Inoldia could not fathom the conversation. She could, however, sense the waves of confusion and concern. There was no mortal who could upset them as did Archimedes, which was why they had given orders for the acolytes at the city temple to signal them every time Archimedes had an audience with Hadron.
"Wait in the room at the end of the hall," the High Priestess said. "You are not to hear what we say. So seal the door tightly, or it will be your life."
The girl departed and, on cue, Inoldia stepped forward. "It is obviously a weapon of some – "
"We did not say you could speak."
For an instant, Inoldia quivered more than the girl.
"As we have related to you before, the signs in the heavens are not without cause. You will accelerate our plans with the General with respect to the conquest of Britan. Our highest priority is still to find our lost mother. Do not take direct action yet against Archimedes, but for now uncover what he is doing and report. And see to the girl's needs. Tell her to increase the dosage two-fold."
Inoldia bowed. “I will do as the council wishes.”
“Yes, you will. You are dismissed.”
Inoldia bowed ever more deeply and back-stepped out of the council chamber. In the anteroom she removed the thick robe, straightened her regular robe, and tracked the girl's emanations to a well-insulated inner room. She affected a smile, which only seemed to alarm the girl more.
"You have done well," Inoldia said, bequeathing a bag of coins.
"I thank the Sisters for all they have done for me. I – I – would still be deaf, if not – "
Inoldia cupped the girl's ears and let power flow. "You have the best hearing in Rome now."
With the girl veiled once more and in accompaniment, Inoldia strode through the temple vestibule into the courtyard, through the gate and down to the dock, and onto the ship. Valarion quietly stared at the walls.
"You've had as close a look as we allow," Inoldia said. "And what do you think?"
"The other day I stood outside the Temple of Wisdom and watched for a time as the crowds submitted their donations. I see where their money has been spent, but surely you don't pay for all this through the contributions of your followers."
"We have other sources of revenue."
"I'm sure you do. Say – "
"No more questions I hope. Or would you prefer to be replaced in our plans?"
And the second most powerful man in the Empire said nothing more for the duration of the return trip.
8.
Matt's eyes reflexively flickered open. The medic's lenses stared back from mere centimeters. Matt remembered what happened last time and restrained himself.
"I'll be good now," he said.
The medic remained impassive. Matt sat 'up' and it backed off. He took a breath and looked around. Okay, he was still in the compartment. But things were definitely different. The dust was gone and so was the minty smell. But most of all, he was different. He no longer felt like Death. He no longer felt even a mild headache.
His fingernails had been cut. His hair had been groomed. His jumpsuit was immaculate. This was how you're supposed to emerge from a star pod, he thought.
"Yes, Matt. I have almost completed full regeneration of my basic systems. Here is the data in detail."
A window of tables and graphs popped in Matt's view. Matt scanned the overview: Ivan's processing speed had been cut by a few percent, his memory storage had degraded but since it was holographically redundant it had been reconstituted with zero loss. The worst damage was in the biomechanical interfaces, but those appeared to be on the regeneration.
Matt smiled. In Ivan's biometric displays, Matt's body was listed as a 'support system,' providing energy and repair materials.
"You're looking good." Matt said, by habit reaching into empty space and punching the display's Close icon. He faced the medic and said, "I'm feeling fine. Thank you for your assistance. I would like to leave now."
The medic backed away and Matt heard a pop from the wall beyond his feet. A human-sized handle had elevated from the center of a circular hatch flush with the wall.
Matt undid the leg straps and floated free. It had been years – centuries – since his school field trip to Goddard Station in Earth orbit, but Matt's free-fall maneuvering skills came back readily. He twisted and flexed, orienting his body properly, and pushed off the pod. He floated gently to the hatch handle and wrapped his fingers around it and pulled.
Nothing happened. He pulled hard. Nothing. Then he remembered. Centuries. He pulled harder.
The hatch seal hissed. The air inside the compartment thinned and chilled and stung his lungs. Matt swung the hatch open and peered through. He saw a cylindrical compartment, large enough to allow the passage of a single person.
Three pairs of red eyes stared. The dim, flickering light of the compartment gleamed off their insectoid bodies. The nearest creature extended an arm – out of which shot a sharp, blinding flame. Then it resumed welding. The other two robots resumed their labors of replacing wall modules.
"Why all the repair work?" Matt asked. "Was the station damaged?"
"Matt, the station keeper requests communication with my host. Is that acceptable?"
"Patch him through."
"This is Herman, Delta Pavonis Station Keeper," a stern voice boomed in his head . "Identify yourself."
Matt doubted that it would help, but said, "Mattimeo Jackson," and had Ivan give his Project ID.
"Identity confirmed," Herman replied. "Welcome, Mattimeo Jackson. You have full authority at this station."
"Thank you, Herman. Call me Matt. Now, could you please turn up the lights and heat?"
"I will comply, but be informed that there is less than fourteen hours of life support services available even at the current restricted power consumption. Do you still wish to increase expenditure rate for life support?"
"I guess not. Herman, you seem to be doing a lot of repair work on yourself. Have you sustained damage?"
"I have not."
"It is possible," Ivan said, "that the repairs are necessary due to the extended age of the station."
"That makes sense. Herman, how old are you?"
"I do not have any records on that matter. I will forward a request to Alpha Centauri for the information. Expected response time is 33 years."
Matt calculated. Sixteen years for the message to go there at lightspeed. A few months for someone to look up the answer and reply. Sixteen years for a response to come back at lightspeed.
"Never mind. Let's try another approach. Uh, Herman, do you keep a maintenance log?"
"Yes."
"What is the date of the first entry in your log?"
"March 7, 2441. A filter was replaced in the –"
"Never mind about that. Okay, 2441 and it's now 2834 . . . that would put your minimum operational age at . . . Ivan, calculate."
"Three hundred ninety-three years."
"It would have taken 190 years to get here at point one lightspeed Ivan, calculate 2441 minus 190.”
“That would be the year 2251.”
“Herman, I'm guessing you were launched about fifty years after my pod was diverted here, with the goal of retrieving my pod."
"I do not have any records on that matter. I will forward a request to Alpha Centauri for the information. Expected response time is 33 years."
"Herman, don't forward any more requests to Alpha Centauri unless I specifically request you to do so."
"I understand."
"By the way, Herman, have you received any communications from In-System, Alpha Centauri, Sol, or anywhere else, of any type, at any time in your operational life?"
"I have no record of any communications received."
"Not even a systems upgrade or signal check?"
"I have no record of any communications received."
Matt cut Herman out of the link and subvocaled to Ivan, "Well, this is getting nowhere."
"He is extremely task-oriented,” Ivan replied.
"I get the feeling he's something they slapped together to make a public-relations effort of rescuing me. Maybe they intended to send something better later on, but then they lost interest."
"By 'they,' you mean the leaders of the Star Seed Project."
"Yeah, those 'they.' To be honest, I never really felt comfortable around them. They seemed to think of us colonists as commodities. I talked to Mom and Dad about it, but they were their friends so they pretended not to notice. But, even the AIs didn't seem to care about us as persons."
Matt groped at what to say next. It was not his brain, or Ivan's, that came up with the answer. Rather it was his stomach, which commented by growling.
"Herman, is there any food aboard this station?"
"Food and beverage stores aboard this station have expired. Food printing is offline. I can re-task printers for food printing, but it will require a minimum of two days."
"Thirteen hours and forty-two minutes of life support services are remaining," Ivan said.
"I haven't forgotten that we're on a short schedule,” Matt replied, barely refraining from snapping.
He propelled himself to the opposite end of the passage. He noted the banded structure, like the passage was made of so many large stacked donuts. Too bulky to be accelerated up to a reasonable velocity in a single launch, the station must have been sent via proton cannon array in segments, and even at that, much of the bulk must have been printed from materials extracted from asteroids or low-gravity moons within the Delta Pavonis solar system.
At the end opposite the pod chamber, the passage tube opened into a transparent bubble that overlooked, from an altitude of what appeared to be hundreds of kilometers, a planet of white clouds and blue seas.
"I take it that's Delta Pavonis III," Matt said. "Did they ever decide on a name for the planet?"
"Over twenty candidate names were offered,” Ivan replied. “Would you like me to list them in order of popularity?"
“Maybe later."
Matt thought back to the field trip to Goddard Station. There had been a much larger observation bubble there, though he had to share it with dozens of other people. Conversations had been hushed. There was something about the subtle drift of cloud patterns that was mesmerizing. Then and now.
He continued, "It looks terraformed. More terraformed than Tian when we left Earth. Well, if it's terraformed, somebody must have been here to terraform it, and maybe they're still here. Ivan, can you zoom in on the surface?"
Ivan's neural mesh image-enhanced the visual data from Matt's eyeballs. Below the clouds, the surface was mainly water, sprinkled with islands. The islands were barren in some areas, covered lushly with green in others. Many of the islands had volcanic calderas, some of them smoldering, one of them erupting. It was interesting, but not what Matt was looking for.
"Herman, do you have an external camera with zoom?"
"I have two. One is not functional. A request has been forwarded to Alpha Centauri – "
"Herman, I told you not to forward any more requests to Alpha Centauri."
"I
understand. I was reporting on a request that had been previously forwarded."
"I see. I'm sorry. Well, don't report on your having forwarded requests, either. Now, about your external camera, the one that's operational. Can you turn camera control over to Ivan and let him see the telemetry too?"
A window popped in Matt's field of vision, showing a telescopic view of the seas and clouds below. At Matt's direction, Ivan zoomed to maximum magnification. Matt saw trees and brush, and – a village. He breathlessly did a double take. Between the huts moved bipedal forms, and they surely looked human. But the technology – or rather, the lack! Buildings made of organic materials, no vehicles, no paved roads, no lighting . . . .
Doesn't mean they're technologically backward, he thought. A person from the twentieth century, walking into a home of the twenty-first century, might have thought it was a technological step backward in that there was no landline telephone. A person from the early twenty-first century, walking into a home of the late twenty-first century, would have wondered where the computers had gone.
Ivan broke the silence. "Matt, the station environmental systems continue to deteriorate."
"Yeah. We're going to have to leave soon or I'm going back into biogel, and I'm not doing that if I can help it. Herman, does this station have any orbit-to-surface vehicles?"
"This station has two available Version 12.4 OSVs,” Herman replied. “Neither is operational at this time. Components of Unit 3 are being cannibalized to make Unit 2 operational in anticipation of your usage of it."
"You thought ahead like that? That's clever."
"I was the one who made the request to cannibalize the other vehicle," Ivan said.
"Well, I should have known. Thank you, Ivan. So where are the OSVs?"
There were three hatches set equilaterally around the collar of the observation bubble. Ivan provided an arrow in Matt's vision that pointed to the hatch (marked '2') for the operational OSV. Matt opened and, shooing out a spiderbot, floated inside. It was quite roomy, or would have been, had it not been crammed with stale food rations and nonoperational printers.
The lights flickered and the air was too cold. The couch did not automatically conform to the curvature of his spine. He ran his finger along the interior of the spherical shell and came away with a film of dust.
