The younger man’s ghostly face shaped itself into a faint smile. “Don’t we all?”
We proceeded on then in silence for several minutes. I could see the sign for the ship’s tramway up ahead, a white dash in a green circle. Presently Lorian spoke. “You didn’t answer my question.” He stopped once more, leaning on his cane. “Do you really dream the future?”
Shaking my head, I turned back once more to regard Commander Aristedes with narrowed eyes. The young commander did not need to know the Halfmortal woke sweating in the dark of the night from dreams of fang and fire and the memory of pale hands in dark water. He did not need to know about the shades of Uvanari and Gilliam Vas, of Emil Bordelon. Of Jinan and Switch.
“No,” I said. “I dream the past.”
CHAPTER 18
NIGHT JOURNEYS
TEN BY TEN AT first, then one by one my fellow crewmen went under the ice.
I did not join them.
In the end, I did not sleep, not when my six months were gone, nor after Valka entered fugue, nor even when the first year of our voyage had gone by. As I grew older, I would often spend my shorter voyages awake and alone, each day playing out as I have described, passing the long years in solitude aboard the sleeping vessel. I acquainted myself with the so-called night officers, the crewmen awakened to tend the ship while Corvo and the officers I knew best slept. I am ashamed to say that I no longer remember most of their names, though I recall young Roderick Halford, the night captain. The rest are little more than ghosts, such as the young woman with whom I played Druaja late into the evenings, or the old mechanic who greeted me on my walks around the ship’s equator. Most of the junior crewmen feared to speak to me, as though I were some species of ghost myself. There was an older woman—she reminded me of Doctor Chand from the Emeshi Colosso—who tended the hydroponics section and the bees. Always when I went to my private spot I would find her there, singing to the vegetables and the tiny, yellow-jacketed soldiers as they flew here and there in service to their queen.
It was then, too—on that first of my Night Journeys—that I first attempted to set to writing an account of my life up until that point, detailing my escape from Delos, my time on Emesh, our battle with Whent and Bordelon on Pharos. I abandoned the project just short of our arrival at Vorgossos. I was not willing to relive those months again, to walk Kharn’s gloomy halls in memory and meet the many horrors that served at his pleasure. I would not try again for many decades. Often I have wondered what became of those original texts—stories I have not recorded here. Languishing in some Imperial archive, I don’t doubt, or else spirited away by some enthusiast among my own people. Perhaps they will see the light someday. Perhaps they will find their way here to Colchis and languish in the Imperial Library alongside this accounting. Perhaps not. Who can say?
Thus the months passed and the years after. And in time the slumbering vessel began to stir. More faces appeared in the halls, and the sound of voices and of the public address system filled the vaulted halls and echoed among the arches and buttressed supports of the mighty holds. Soldiers ran drills and trained in the gymnasium, and the barracks high above resounded to the march of feet. The Irchtani awoke and were seated with the men in the messes, and in time I came no more to the hydroponics section, which was ever crowded then with techs minding the flora and harvesting the fishes. Corvo awoke first, and Durand, with Koskinen and Pherrine and White and the other bridge officers not far behind. Pallino and Elara came after, and Siran with Petros, Callista, and Dascalu—all the legionary officers. Valka came only near the end, and I waited at her bedside and presented her with the traditional glass of orange juice myself. Every one of the Tamerlane’s more than ninety thousand hands was awake and anxious and spoiling for action.
And days later . . . we’d arrived.
CHAPTER 19
THE JAWS ARE CLOSED
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN nothing?” I asked, my back to the bridge. I shut my eyes, unwilling to see the disappointing star field shining out beyond the bridge’s false window.
Lieutenant Juliana Pherrine’s voice quavered as she answered me. “I’m sorry, my lord. Osman’s scouts have probed more than sixty percent of the volume, but thus far they’ve found no sign of the lost legions.”
I swore, slammed my adamant fist against the glass, wishing that it were a real window, wishing I might shatter it at a blow and admit the empty Dark of space. “Tell the scouts they will deploy the last of their light probes and rendezvous with us at this location. I will accept their apologies in person.”
Rage is blindness. Gibson’s voice sounded in my ear. I mastered my breathing, inhaled sharply. “Thank you, lieutenant. That will be all.” I heard her feet retreating on the walk behind me, and only after she had vanished down the stair to take up her station once again did I turn and approach the captain’s station by the holography well. “Corvo, Varro, Aristedes, with me. M. Durand, you have the bridge.” I gave Valka a thin smile where she lingered by the captain’s chair, indicating in our private way that she should join us.
The ready room stood just off the bridge, through a side door that split open at my approach. I hardly slowed down, sweeping the others behind me like plankton in the passage of a shark.
“We were prepared for this, Hadrian,” Corvo said once the door had sealed. “There was always a chance the scouts would not have found anything by the time we arrived.”
I was nodding as she spoke. She was right, and acknowledging that wore my anger down.
Tor Varro cleared his throat. “There is little point in summoning the scouts to us. They’re on the far side of the target volume. We waste time calling them here. We should allow them to continue their sweep unmolested and to report to us by telegraph.”
He, too, was right. I’d acted hastily in ordering Pherrine to summon the scouts to us. I had been alone for far too long, and the impact of my years of solitude was making me coarse. I felt a sudden sympathy for Bassander Lin, who often stayed awake for lonely years between the stars.
“Very good,” I said. “Varro, tell Pherrine to belay my previous order, please.”
The scholiast bowed and shuffled from the room. I seated myself at the head of the table, assuming the seat typically occupied by the captain herself. My coat slid up, making me aware of the high collar where it played about my cheekbones. I hung one leg over the arm of the chair, eyes moving from Corvo to Aristedes to Valka. “Have the other ships all joined us?” I was fairly certain of the answer.
“We’re waiting on the Cyrusene,” Corvo said. “It was slightly off course and is correcting to meet us here.”
“How long?”
“Three days—they weren’t far off.”
“Right.” I chewed my tongue a moment, thinking. “We have a choice to make. Join the scouts patrolling the volume trying to find whatever may be out there or push on to Dion and Nemavand.”
Aristedes cleared his throat and—taking my sitting down for permission to do so himself—eased into the chair opposite my own at the end of the ellipsoid table. “Nemavand would be the strategic choice. Ramannu Province is in dire need of reinforcement. Cielcin raids across the region have increased, and if we lose Nemavand, we lose the Veil.”
“And then ’twill be fighting in Centaurus proper,” Valka said, but by her sympathetic smile I guessed she guessed my innermost thoughts. To push on to Nemavand—assuming we were not attacked crossing the volume to Dion—was to abandon the lost legions to whatever fate had found them, and it was surely to return to Forum in disgrace.
Not for the first time, the thought of going renegade reared in my mind. Most of the men and officers would follow me into exile if I took the Tamerlane and ran. We could take the fight to the Cielcin on our own terms . . . but no.
“We’re already fighting in Centaurus proper,” Lorian said. “This Dorayaica cut past the frontier to attack Hermonassa. There have been dee
per raids since the beginning of the war.”
“Possibly all led by Dorayaica,” I said.
“We’ve no way of knowing that,” Corvo said—quite correctly—though I could not shake a premonition that I was equally correct. I was equally sure that Dorayaica was the Aeta-Prince I had seen in my visions. The one who burned the stars.
Tor Varro returned at that moment, announced by the hissing of the doors. “The scouts will continue their work,” he said, not sitting.
“Very good, counselor,” I said. My fingers went to the pendant through my shirtfront. It was faintly warm. “But if we leave, we are almost certainly condemning those legions to die.”
“If they are not dead already,” Lorian said.
Valka massaged her tattooed arm. “Though if we do nothing, surely the next ships that pass this way may be lost, no?” She directed the question to Aristedes—whose role was tactics, after all. “Is that worth the risk?”
Lorian drummed on his cane with slow fingers, placing each fingertip with delicate care. I wondered if it was some orthopedic exercise. “It’s hard to say.”
“It is not likely that another fleet will pass this way so well prepared for attack,” Varro said. “If we are unsuccessful, it may be the road through Gododdin from the inner Empire becomes impassable, and all traffic will come nearer the core. It will add decades to our supply lines.” He shook his head. “Respectfully, I must disagree with Commander Aristedes. We should remain in the volume and attempt to locate who or whatever is behind these attacks.”
“We should,” Corvo interjected, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, “convene with the other captains at the very least.”
Massaging my jaw, I mused, “Three days will not hurt us. Inform the other ships that we will await the Cyrusene and convene once they exit warp.”
* * *
The holographs appeared like ghosts, like the shades of Tiresias and Agamemnon called from Hades by brave Ulysses. Corvo stood beside me in the main conference well—just down the hall from the bridge. There was Eldan, captain of the Pride of Zama, a swarthy fellow with an easy smile and the fine bones of a palatine nobile. And there were Adina of the Cyrusene, fair-haired and pale-eyed almost as Lorian; and Yanek, captain of the Androzani, a hook-nosed man who put me mind of an eagle I had seen once in my grandmother’s menagerie. Last of all was doughty Mahendra Verus, the dictionary definition of the Imperial officer in his crisp uniform glittering black and silver.
All saluted, thumping their chests and raising their right hands in greeting. “Lord Marlowe,” Verus said, nodding to each of us in turn, “Captains Corvo, Eldan, Adina, Yanek. I trust the journey was not hard on you.”
“Smooth sailing, captain,” Corvo replied, “and yourself?”
“Nothing to complain of.”
Captain Adina raised her voice. “Apologies for the delay. Our navigator had a slight rounding error calculating the jump.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “No matter, captain.” I stepped past Corvo into the middle of the projection well, onto a red target painted on the glossed metal floor. I took a moment studying the faces of the others, all practically strangers to me, though I had sat with Verus through hours of meetings. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a decision before us. As I am sure you are all aware by now, the scouts launched from Gododdin have thus far failed to ascertain the fate or location of the 116th and 337th Sagittarine Legions.”
“We should plow on ahead to Nemavand,” said smiling Eldan, taking Lorian’s position from our earlier discussions.
I raised an eyebrow at the smaller man. “Thank you for your opinion, Captain Eldan. I will take it under advisement. Now,” I swept my gaze over all those assembled before me, not bothering to mask my irritation with Eldan’s interruption. “We may do as the good captain so enthusiastically suggests, or we may remain and assist the scouts in their sweep.” I keyed the remote I’d taken from the wall, allowed a holograph of the local region to flower in the dark between us. Identical projections would be appearing seconds later on the other ships, delayed only by the speed-of-light lag between their ships and ours. Most of the volume glowed a pale white, with a glowing red rosette blossoming from the middle. “Our scouts have completed their sweep of everything within a nine light-year radius of the relay here.” I stuck a finger through the projection to indicate the center. “That leaves us with the outer layer of this volume to search.”
“Given the nine-year delay between the time stamp on the black box signal and its receipt by the relay, perhaps we will have something very soon.” Verus’s projection strode closer to the projection, ghostly hand sweeping about the edges of the space. “Do we know where Osman’s scouts are?”
“The Legendia?” Corvo shook her head, floating hair a shaggy cloud about her stern face. “Not precisely. They uploaded the results of their scan to the comms relay, but they’re currently at warp. The last we saw they were on the far side of the volume.”
“Do we know when they’re due to drop out of warp?” Adina asked. The scout ships had spent the past several years effecting micro-jumps through the volume surrounding the relay, pausing to deploy their light-probes before jumping again, hoping to find some scrap or shred of evidence to indicate that once a legion convoy had passed this way.
So far they had found nothing but ghosts.
The thought put me in mind of the fog-bound woods of Earth in the Golden Age, of armies marching beneath the whispering trees, never to return.
Beside me, Otavia Corvo checked some figure on her wrist-terminal. The captain wore entoptic lenses, I knew, so whatever it was she saw shone directly on her retinas. I hated the things myself, preferring the more primitive holograph displays hovering above the terminal. “Twenty-seven days.”
“Twenty-seven days!” Eldan exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “You want us to idle here for a month like some primitive sailing ship thirsty for a gust of wind?” He half-turned away, hoping perhaps to hide the look of disgust on his too-expressive face.
“No, captain,” I said in my iciest impersonation of my father. “I expect you to follow orders, whatever those orders may be.” I took a step nearer his projection, pausing just long enough that he turned—discomforted—to look at me. “I am entirely happy to discuss the particulars in person, if you would prefer to shuttle to the Tamerlane.”
“I . . .” Eldan’s eyes went over my shoulder to where Corvo stood, but he found neither help nor sympathy there. “I . . . that won’t be necessary.”
Briefly the Marlowe smile stole over my face. “Good.” I turned, conscious of my silhouette in the brushed metal wall of that round chamber, a black-clad specter tall and thin as a lance. “As I was saying, we have a decision to make. Captain Eldan has correctly guessed at the nature of that decision. Do we press on at once to reinforce Nemavand and the inner rim? Or do we remain and attempt to trap these trappers in a net of our own?” As I spoke, I held one hand out before me, palm up as if testing the weight of some invisible tray. I had made up my mind to remain, but I did not wish to bully the others into falling in line. “Captain Eldan here suggests that we should hurry on. He is mindful, no doubt, of our brothers and sisters at the front. That is admirable—but he has not thought it through.”
“Those legions are dead, boy!” Eldan waved a dismissive hand.
“You will address me as my lord, captain,” I said, pressing all the juice from each word. Only after I had spoken did I recognize my father’s voice. “And that may be, but if they are . . . their attackers certainly are not. Unless we can confirm this volume is empty, the road through Gododdin to the outer provinces will be as good as useless. We do not know what is out here.”
I clicked the remote in my left hand and disappeared the device into a pocket of my greatcoat. The holograph image of local space dissolved, leaving Corvo and me alone with the shades of the four captains.
Corvo spoke up. �
��I have a suggestion, captains.”
It had been her idea. I stepped smoothly aside and let my captain take her position on center stage. Otavia drew herself up to her full height. She towered over the two patricians and even the palatine Eldan. “This target volume is thirty-six light-years across. At full thrust we might cross that in . . . half a month?” She pretended to mull the figure over in her head before continuing. “I propose we proceed across the volume at slow warp. Say . . . 50 C.”
“Fifty times light speed? That’s . . . seven months to the far side? Eight?” Adina sounded scandalized. “So slow?”
“Foolishness,” Eldan said. “This is a waste of time.”
“Snivelry!” Yanek spat. “You would run and skip out of here without even trying for a fight?”
Verus raised a hand for quiet. “Enough, both of you. Eldan, we understand your position.” He folded his arms, chin tucked against his breastbone as he stood there thinking. “There’s good sense in what Captain Corvo suggests. It’ll give the scouts time to map more of the outer regions of the volume, right at that nine-light-year radius where the ships should be.”
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