The Moon's Shadow (Saga of the Skolian Empire)

by Asaro, Catherine

  So Jai wept. The tears released, giving way to the sorrow he had locked within himself for so long.

  Kelric waited on the balcony of the apartment that Dehya and Eldrin kept in the city on the Orbiter. The great lamp that served as a “sun” had completed its arc across the sky and now night filled the spherical habitat, lit by star lamps that sparkled in the hemisphere above them.

  Standing at the rail, he gazed at the graceful bridges and buildings below. As he took a swallow of his drink, a rustle came from behind him. Then Dehya joined him.

  “I’ve always loved this view,” she said.

  “It is beautiful.”

  For a while they stood appreciating the city. Strains of music came from within the apartment, as Eldrin worked on his latest composition.

  “Do you believe he did it?” Dehya asked.

  Kelric didn’t need to ask whom she meant. “No, I don’t think so.” He doubted they would ever know the truth, but he didn’t believe Jaibriol Qox had killed his Joint Commanders.

  “I’m not sure I believe they assassinated each other,” Dehya said.

  “Why not?” Gods knew, Hightons spent an inordinate amount of time plotting against one another.

  “It’s hard to explain.” Her face was pensive in the silvery light. “Intuition, maybe, or the calculations I’ve been running on my neural nodes.” She tilted her head, listening. Eldrin’s voice graced the night, soaring into high notes, then dropping into deep, rumbling tones. Softly she said, “I should so like to make the stars safe for the people I love.”

  Kelric thought of Jeejon, captivated by the VR arcade he had built for her. “I also.”

  “Perhaps hope exists for the talks after all.”

  He felt less optimism. “Even if the emperor forbids the raids, I doubt he can enforce such a law.”

  Dehya sighed. “Nor can I imagine any Skolian sending escaped slaves back to Eube.”

  Kelric thought of Jeejon. “Nor I.”

  “I hate the suggested compromise.”

  “Yet still we negotiate.”

  She spoke with pain. “Perhaps it is because we hope this treaty will lay the first stones in a path that leads to compromises we can better accept.”

  Seeing her face luminous in the starlight, he thought that here, in the forgiving night of home, she was willing to hope. He didn’t yet dare give in to that gossamer dream.

  “Perhaps someday,” he said.

  Dehya sipped her drink. “It may take decades. Half a century. But perhaps someday.”

  “Why half a century?”

  “The models I’ve been running predict something then. Lightning?”

  “A storm?”

  “I don’t know. But changes will come.”

  Kelric looked out over the city sparkling in the night. “He is unusual, this new emperor of Eube.”

  “A miracle,” Dehya murmured.

  “Maybe.” It was as far as he could go in speaking his wish for peace. He had seen too much of the ugliness humanity produced to believe the Traders could ever change.

  But deep within his heart, hope stirred.

  Jai knew he had to face Tarquine. He could put it off no longer. In the day that had passed since the deaths of Kaliga and Taratus, he had barely had time to breathe, let alone talk to his wife. But he couldn’t avoid this forever. When Robert told him she had gone to one of the palace gardens, Jai went in search of her.

  Fog wreathed the grounds. He couldn’t see the sky, where the moons G4 and G5 shone. He knew now how he would surface G5, Tarquine’s moon. As a geode: steel-diamond on the exterior, brilliant crystals underneath, knife-edged but startling in their beauty. He had also chosen a name for his mother’s moon. Prism. It was what his family had called the world where they had lived in exile for fifteen years, the place where he had been happy and loved. If asked, he would say it was what his father called the sanctuary where Jai and his mother had lived in seclusion.

  He followed an overgrown path that wound through a lush woods, with hoary trees on either side, and trellises covered by vines heavy with silver, blue, and rose flowers. Walkways crisscrossed the garden. Deeper in the woods, ancient trees leaned over a latticework tower, their branches dripping long fronds of moss. The tower was three stories tall.

  Tarquine stood framed within an opening at the top.

  Jai wondered how such beauty could exist amid such violence, both in Eube and in his wife. He entered the base of the tower, a circular area ten paces across, its lattice walls threaded by vines with curling tendrils. He stopped at the stairs that spiraled up around the inner wall and turned to the captain of his bodyguards. “You may wait here.”

  The captain bowed. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

  Jai started up the stairs, his hand on the rail. But after a few steps, he paused, looking down. “Captain.”

  “Yes, Your Highness?”

  “It would please me to know your name.”

  “I haven’t one.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “I have a serial number. Would you like that?”

  Sadness filled Jai. To grieve for a living being designed to be more machine than man hurt at a level too deep for him to define. He spoke his younger brother’s name. “Vitar.”

  The captain’s forehead furrowed. “Your Highness?”

  “You have a name now,” Jai said. “Vitar.” The Razer resembled Jai’s younger brother. “If I had ever had a brother, I would have liked him to have that name.”

  The captain’s gaze widened, giving lie to the serial number that labeled him as a machine. “I am honored.”

  Jai tried to smile, but he couldn’t. He inclined his head, then resumed climbing. His Razers stayed below, monitoring his progress on their cybernetic arms.

  The staircase ended at the third level. Tarquine was a few paces away, her back to him, her black-garbed figure silhouetted against the overcast sky. Mist curled around her legs.

  Jai went to stand with his wife.

  Tarquine turned to him. “You look well today.”

  He wondered if he would ever be well again. “So do you.” That much was true. She was devastating. Such cold, deadly beauty.

  “Have you heard news from the Skolians?” she asked.

  “Yes.” In the muffled day, Jai felt unnaturally quiet. “They have agreed to resume the talks.” He thought of General Barthol Iquar, Tarquine’s nephew, and of Admiral Erix Muze, the grandson of High Judge Calope Muze. “Both of ESComm’s new Joint Commanders have sworn to support the talks. General Barthol will attend.”

  “Good.” Dark satisfaction showed in Tarquine’s gaze.

  Jai wondered if he even knew how to define good anymore. “My security people found evidence of a message that Admiral Kaliga sent from his hospital room in the palace. It was well hidden. It took them a long time to uncover it.”

  “A message?” Her face was inscrutable.

  “To Raziquon’s kin. It includes reference to Kaliga’s involvement in the attempts against my life.”

  “So,” Tarquine murmured. “Kaliga implicated himself.”

  Jai didn’t believe for a moment Kaliga had sent the message. Someone else had been in the admiral’s room during that crucial time. Whoever it had been would never speak, and no neural scan of the admiral’s brain could prove his innocence now.

  He wanted to ask Tarquine the questions that burned within him. Why had she gone to such drastic lengths to further peace talks she had never seemed to want in the first place? Had she done it for Kelric? But he didn’t know if he could bear to hear her answers.

  He said only, “Without opposition from Kaliga, Taratus, or Raziquon, we may establish a treaty with the Skolians.”

  “The newscasts are already calling it the Paris Accord.”

  His voice caught. “So I’ve heard.”

  She searched his face. “Are you happy, Jaibriol? It is what you wanted, yes?”

  “Yes.” He had dreamed of it. He should rejoice. And he did f
eel a bittersweet joy. But he had never expected it to come at the price of murder. That Tarquine had told him nothing of her plans made no difference; unknowing or not, he was responsible.

  She spoke pensively. “A thought has come to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She turned back to the gardens, her hands clasped behind her back. “That it may be desirable, sometimes, to act in benefit of Eube rather than of oneself.”

  Jai didn’t know whether to weep at her words or disbelieve them. Her calmness contrasted with her usual tension. She seemed to have made peace with something, but what, he had no idea.

  “Is that why you support the talks?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t have chosen to have them.”

  “Then what is it you think may benefit Eube?”

  Facing him, she spoke quietly. “To have an emperor with decency rather than avarice, one who desires what is best for his people over what will satisfy his greed.”

  Jai’s perception suddenly shifted. She hadn’t done this for herself; she had done it for him. He had agonized for so long, fearing her avarice and ambition, and her hunger for Kelric. Even knowing her mind, he hadn’t seen the truth until now. It wasn’t Kelric she wanted.

  It was him.

  He didn’t know where to put that knowledge. Tarquine was a force of nature he had unleashed. She would never share his beliefs in right and wrong, yet she would support him to the death. Literally. Was it worth the devastating price she exacted from his conscience? He would pay that price, if it meant Eube and Skolia could someday find their way to peace, but the stain on his soul would never leave.

  He spoke in a low voice. “I’m not sure I will ever understand you.”

  She spoke quietly. “I have discovered I understand myself far less than I thought.”

  “You have questions?”

  “One.” She gazed at the ancient trees. “I found the answer without ever asking it aloud.”

  “What did you find?”

  She hesitated. “I could be wrong about it.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know if I am truly capable of this.”

  “Of what?”

  Another silence.

  Then she said, “Of loving another human being.”

  Tarquine faced him then, really faced him. “You are goodness and I am not. Nor will I ever be. I cannot change that much.” She took his hand. “But whatever hells our marriage was made within, I am glad of its making.”

  Jai spoke softly. “I, too.” It was true, gods help him.

  Standing together, the emperor and empress looked out at the new universe they were creating, one shrouded in mist, but with the hint of sun lightening the overcast.

  Author’s Note: The Moons of Glory

  The moons of the planet Glory are a dramatic presence in its sky, with brilliant colors and marked size variations. I based their behavior on the moons of Saturn. The two systems aren’t identical; Saturn has at least eighteen moons (probably more), whereas Glory has only fourteen. But many similarities exist.

  I’ve called the moons G1, G2, G3, and so on; the smaller the number, the closer the moon’s orbit to Glory, the capital world of Eube. Some of the moons are very close in, but the smallest orbit is still outside the Roche limit that determines how close a moon can orbit before gravitational forces pull it apart.

  Glory is a large planet with a light core, a radius three times Earth’s, and an average density a bit less than one third that of Earth, which gives it a surface gravity of 92 percent ours. The sun of Glory subtends an angle of 0.45° in the sky, which means it appears slightly smaller than the sun in our sky.

  The two innermost moons of Glory, G1 and G2, are small, about 30–40 kilometers in diameter, less than 1 percent the diameter of Earth’s Moon. Their distance from Glory is roughly eleven percent the distance of our Moon from Earth, with G1 closer than G2. As seen from Glory, each satellite subtends an angle of 0.04°–0.05° in the sky. For comparison, Earth’s Moon subtends about 0.5° in our sky, making it more than ten times the width that G1 or G2 subtends in the sky of Glory.

  The next two moons, G3 and G4, have orbits close together, separated by only 50 kilometers. Their behavior follows that of two Saturn moons—Janus and Epimetheus. Specifically, they periodically switch orbits. The swap occurs because they approach each other closely enough to trade momentum. Suppose G3 is initially closer to Glory; it then travels a bit faster than G4 due to its smaller orbit. As G3 approaches G4, the gravity of G4 pulls G3 into a larger orbit, which slows G3 down. Similarly, G3 pulls G4 into a smaller orbit, speeding G4 up. So G3 becomes the outer moon and G4 drops into the inner orbit. In other words, as the two moons near each other, they swap orbits. The inner moon then speeds off from the outer, and the process repeats when the moon comes back around.

  Seen from Glory, the two moons would gradually appear to approach each other but then “bounce” away again without touching or passing. If you were on the satellite that lags behind, you would see your moon approach the leading moon. As the two neared, yours would slow down while the other sped up, seeming to “run away” every time you almost caught up.

  Eube Qox, the first emperor, originally named G3 and G4 in honor of his sisters, Tarquine and Ilina. However, those designations are falling out of use. The satellites of Glory are named for empresses, with the moon that appears largest from the surface of Glory named for the first empress, the second largest named for the second empress, and so on. Although G4 and G3 appear the same size, they are, respectively, the sixth and seventh largest, and will be renamed for the sixth and seventh empresses. Each subtends an angle of 0.13° in the sky, about one quarter the width of our Moon as seen from Earth. They have an elongated shape, particularly G3.

  The next satellite is G5, which appears in the sky as the fourth largest moon; as such, it should be named for the fourth empress, the wife of Jaibriol II and mother of Jaibriol (Jai) III. Jai cannot give it his mother’s name—Sauscony Valdoria—so he chose one that honors her without revealing her identity as the military leader of Eube’s enemies. Her moon subtends an angle of 0.28° in the sky, more than half the width of our Moon in Earth’s sky.

  The next moon, G6, is the third largest in actual size and also as seen from Glory. The third emperor, Ur Qox, named it Viquara in honor of his wife and surfaced it with synthetic diamond, making it the brightest object in Glory’s sky. It subtends an angle of 0.39°, about three-quarters the size of our Moon.

  G7 is the fifth largest moon as seen from Glory. Jaibriol III (Jai) named it Tarquine in honor of his wife (which is another reason G3 lost its name). He had the moon resurfaced to resemble a geode, with a steel-diamond composite on the outside, brilliant and hard. Inside, it has a crystalline structure in incredible colors.

  Three moons share the eighth orbit: G8a, G8b, and G8c. The largest, G8b, is called Mirella after the first empress. She married Eube Qox, who founded the Eubian Concord. In her honor, he surfaced the moon with a ruby composite, turning it a vivid red. As seen from Glory, Mirella is the largest moon, but in actual size, it is the second largest, with a diameter only about 40 percent that of G11. However, G11 is over four times farther away from Glory, so in the sky it appears smaller than Mirella. The diameter of Mirella is about half that of Earth’s Moon, but its distance from Glory is only about one quarter the Earth-Moon distance; Mirella thus subtends an angle of 0.98° in the sky of Glory, twice the width of the Moon in our sky.

  Two tiny moons share Mirella’s orbit. G8a is 60° ahead in and G8c is 60° behind, each of them at a Lagrange point, which is an unusually stable point in an orbit. They have blocky shapes and each subtends an angle of 0.02° in the sky, which is about 1/25 the width of Earth’s Moon in our sky. Together, the three G8 moons form the same type of system as the Trojan moons of Saturn–Tethys and its tiny companions Calypso and Telesto.

  G9 and G10 are tiny moons that appear the same size as G8a and G8c. They are actually a bit larger than Mi
rella’s companions, but they orbit farther out from Glory. G9 is about three times as far from Glory as G1, the innermost moon, and subtends an angle of 0.03° in the sky of Glory; G10 is four times as far out as G1 and subtends an angle of 0.02°.

  G11 is the largest moon. As seen from Glory, however, it appears as the second largest because it is so far out from the planet. It is called Zara for the wife of Jaibriol I, the second emperor. Zara subtends an angle of 0.59° in the sky, making it about 60 percent the size of Mirella as seen from Glory and about 120 percent the width of our Moon in the sky. Jaibriol I had its surface turned into gold to honor his empress.

  Zara raises substantial tides on the Glory, exerting a force about one and a half times that of the Moon on Earth. Mirella has an even greater effect, exerting a tidal force over six times that of our Moon. Several other Glory satellites also have a significant effect: Viquara, at 47 percent the effect of the Moon on Earth; G4 (Soz’s moon) at 20 percent; Tarquine (G5), at 5 percent; G4 at 4 percent; and G1 and G3, both roughly 1 percent. The other moons exert smaller forces. The combined effect of the moons and the sun of Glory creates huge, complicated tides and distorts the planet.

  The last moon, G12, is tiny. Its unusually large orbit puts it approximately one hundred times farther out than G1, the innermost satellite, and ten times as far out as Zara, its closest companion.

  Shadows

  During an eclipse of a sun by a moon, the moon moves between the planet and the sun so that its shadow falls across the planet. From the surface of the planet, the sun appears covered by a dark disk. In a total eclipse, all of the sun is covered and a period of darkness results; in a partial eclipse only part of the sun is covered.

  An eclipse is total when a planet passes through the inner portion of the moon’s shadow—the umbra—the central cone of shadow created by the overlap of shadows from all edges of the moon. Surrounding the umbra is an outer, lighter cone of shadow—the penumbra. In a total eclipse, the planet passes through the penumbra, into the umbra, out of the umbra, and finally out of the penumbra again. In a partial eclipse, the planet passes through the penumbra.