by Dana Fredsti
Deep inside, the mix of raw matter and ship-stuff underwent a complex series of alchemical transmutations as the body forming underground absorbed nutrients from the surrounding matter. If a single pearl had been buried in solid rock, it could rebuild itself—and if that same pearl had instead been suspended in midair, it could still grow like an aerophytic plant, using sunlight, air, inhuman patience, and its own take on photosynthesis.
Bones of superstructure formed first, then walls and connective tissues, finally giving rise to other sophisticated and specialized configurations. The coding inherent to each pearl engaged, activating higher functions. In the final stages, its internal power systems reached a critical mass. Engines formed and began to recharge. As energy surged through the construct, its mind awakened from its deep coma.
Engines activated, and the pliant body twisted and nosed upward, burrowing up through the layers of soil until the massive shape breached the surface and shook off the dirt. Gleaming, it powered up the energized fields of its wings, reborn like a true phoenix.
The Vanuatu went off in search of Amber.
21
Alexandria, Boulevard Aspendia in the Royal Quarter
just south of the Prefectural Palace
Ten days after the Event
“The palace is ours. Target is dead ahead.”
Oberleutnant Dietrich put down the wireless, feeling much less triumphant than his words had sounded. The time had finally come for them to take the king and checkmate the city. Rommel would be pleased with that, at least.
He wiped his brow, trying not to look at the staring eyes of his dead radioman. How many of them were left? he wondered. What the hell had happened today? How had medieval desert folk mounted such a ferocious defense— against Panzers, for god’s sake? It boggled the mind.
As they approached the palace grounds, he shook off his dark thoughts.
“Why are we stopped?”
“We’re not, sir!” The driver revved the engine. They could hear the treads rolling, yet they were not moving forward. Dietrich swore and raised the hatch for a closer look. Yes, the treads were moving—just not the tank.
To his left and right, the treads of Wedge Two and Three were in motion, too, but both tanks were suspended a few feet off the ground—and slowly rising. Just like his tank was.
“Was zum Teufel?” he murmured.
A shadow fell across him. Startled, he looked up to find a brilliant, prismatic avian shape hanging serenely in the sky directly above them. A voice came down, speaking perfect German.
“We are outside of your arc of fire. I recommend you surrender now, before we raise you another five hundred meters off the ground.”
Dietrich stared speechless for a few moments, certain he was suffering from some combination of shell shock and heat madness. His men opened their hatches as well, blinking up at the impossible. Then he pulled out his Luger.
“Scheiß drauf…”
He chucked it over the side.
“We surrender!”
The three tanks slowly sank back to the ground once more.
“Surrender accepted. Welcome to Alexandria.”
* * *
The prefectural palace gardens served as the Vanuatu’s temporary berth. There was no time to celebrate or to mourn, or to rest—they had a world to save. Not everyone was planning on going. No one wanted to talk about what would happen if the mission failed—or, for that matter, if it succeeded. Either way, it was time for goodbyes.
Singh and MacIntyre offered to stay behind to help Hypatia and the prefect Orestes restore life to normal—or whatever would pass for it—in Alexandria. They took Blake’s advice to board the ship just long enough to get linguistic implants, though both were noticeably uncomfortable aboard the futuristic vessel.
“Sure I can’t talk you two into going with us?” Blake asked once the procedure was done. “We’re likely to need all the help we can get.”
“Aye, right.” MacIntyre looked dubious. “Like we’d want tae gang tae th’ sooth pole when this place is sae well tidy wi’ bonnie lassies.” He peered around the Vanuatu in apprehension, rubbing his temples as if feeling for the implants. Blake was reasonably certain it wasn’t his social life that kept him behind.
He turned to Singh.
“Keep this one out of trouble, will you?”
The Sikh shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”
Blake clasped hands with both of them, and they headed out.
* * *
Amber and Cam walked up to Kha-Hotep as he stood in front of the Vanuatu, gazing up at it in wonder. Cam laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Can you believe it was built by the sons of men?”
Kha-Hotep shook his head. “Who could even dream such a thing? Truly, it is like a lotus-vision become real.”
“We have to leave—but will you come with us, Kha?” Amber asked.
“Of course,” he said. “How could I leave my brother Cam?”
Cam grinned. “It will be a little colder than Egypt, I think.”
“Isn’t everywhere?”
Amber hugged him. “I’m glad. Do you think Leila will come, too? Where is she?”
Kha-Hotep pointed to a lane of the garden, where Leila was walking with Ibn Fadlan.
* * *
“I am truly sorry you lost your hijab during the fighting,” he said sympathetically.
You mean when I tore it off and threw it away? she thought. All her life, growing up in 1980s Cairo, Leila had never been out in public without a headscarf, but ever since the firefight she’d wanted to let her hair remain free. It made her feel like an Amazon, somehow, and she liked that. Perhaps it made her a bad person but, secretly, it energized her.
The fact that it made the self-assured tenth-century imam so ill at ease was a bonus.
“Thank you, Mullah,” she said.
“Trust that God will provide you with another.”
She nodded. We’ll see about that.
“It’s time to go. Will you not come with us?” she asked him, uncertain if she really wanted him to say yes.
“It is kind of you to ask,” he replied. “But I have no heart to travel so far from Mecca. On the contrary, I would ask you to come with me back to Baghdad.”
“To be your wife?” she asked, her voice harder than she meant.
“If God wills it,” he answered, “but regardless, if you were to but see its many-splendored beauties, I think you would count your eyes blessed.”
She started to explain yet again what was riding on their mission, and that neither of them would be able to go to Baghdad, if it even still existed. But she knew it was no use.
“Perhaps I’ll come visit you after all this.” She smiled.
“God grant it be so.”
“A peaceful journey to you, Mullah. Wish ours well, too, will you?”
“Success or failure is in his hands. Maktub, Child. It is written.”
An electronic chime rang out across the palace grounds, followed by Blake’s amplified voice.
“Time to get a move on, you lot. Say your goodbyes already and then all aboard!”
* * *
“I guess that’s it, then,” Nellie said to Hypatia and Orestes. “Prefect, my lady…” She struggled for words, and settled for, “All the best.”
“Our city cannot thank you enough for what you and your companions have done, Nellie,” Orestes said, taking her hand.
“We will never forget you,” Hypatia added. “Farewell.”
If we accomplish what we need to accomplish, you will forget, Nellie thought bitterly. When we succeed, none of this will ever have even happened, and if we fail—well… She couldn’t finish the thought. Somehow it made her heart hurt all the more.
“Thank you both,” she said instead. “Best of luck to all of you.” There was so much more she wanted to say, and couldn’t. What she needed was to get straight up that gangplank and get out of there. Feet and heart leaden, she made herself walk away.
She made it halfway up the gangplank before stopping, and took one last look back at Hypatia. The thought of her terrible fate haunted Nellie. Had she saved Hypatia, only to allow her enemies to murder her, once they regained their courage?
“Let’s move it, Nell,” Blake called down.
“Hold your horses, I’ll be right back.”
* * *
Hypatia looked up in surprise as Nellie ran back.
“Nellie? Aren’t you going?”
“No,” she said, catching her breath. “I mean, not yet. What I mean is…”
“What?”
“Please—come with us.”
Hypatia opened her mouth in surprise. “I…” She hesitated. “I cannot. I’m needed here. I have a duty to the city.”
“We need you. Please.”
Orestes cleared his throat. “The Lady Hypatia is quite right. Her duty binds her here.”
“But—”
“There is nothing more to be said,” Hypatia said, her eyes downcast.
“There is one thing more to be considered,” Orestes said softly to the mathematician and philosopher. “It seems, should their mission fail, Alexandria will be doomed. So if there is a part you can play in saving it, duty compels you to do so.”
Hypatia looked up, shaking her head.
“You have learned something of logic, it seems,” she said, with the smallest of smiles.
“My teacher was the finest,” he said, matching hers. “Thus I release you from your duty for such a quest as this. If it be your will, my lady.”
Nellie turned to her, eyes pleading. “Then—you will come?”
“To the end of the world?”
Hypatia took Nellie’s hand.
“Of course I will go to the end of world with you.”
22
En route to Antarctica
Late evening
Ten days after the Event
Blake had hit the sack almost as soon as the ship had taken off—his reward for saving Alexandria was going to be a night of sound sleep. Nellie had no such luck. She lay in her unquestionably comfortable bunk, staring into the darkness and wondering why, after what had been one of the most taxing days of her life, she couldn’t fall asleep.
When she’d parted ways from her companions after dinner, her yawns had nearly cracked her face in half. Instead of falling into peaceful slumber, however, she’d tossed and turned for hours.
Sleep, Nellie told herself.
Her mutinous brain refused to submit, so she finally gave up and rose from her bunk. Wrapping herself in one of the ship’s wonderfully soft bathrobes, she decided a brief constitutional was in order, and left her cabin to head down to the commons. Perhaps the ship could mix up a nightcap for her. A disturbing thought immediately followed.
Dear Lord, I hope I’m not turning into Harcourt.
When she reached the door of the commons, Nellie halted in surprise. She wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping.
Curled up against the window, Hypatia sat on a divan, gazing out at the stars. A slant of moonlight framed her perfectly, making it seem as though the most exquisite Alma-Tadema painting had come to life. Nellie held her breath, afraid to spoil the moment.
Acting on some unbidden awareness, Hypatia turned.
“Nellie.” She smiled. “Come look at the stars with me.”
Nellie stood frozen in place, at an unaccustomed loss for words.
“Did I say it correctly?” Hypatia asked.
Nellie nodded.
“Téleia.” Perfectly.
“No, no! Let us speak—” Hypatia paused, her new implant cueing her with the unfamiliar word. “English.” She patted the divan, and her eyes went wide when the seat lengthened to make room. Nellie broke into a grin and joined her.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Nellie said. “I suppose you couldn’t, either.” Hypatia’s eyes were bright.
“Who could sleep while we sail so high above the Earth? Though in your era, I suppose such marvels must be commonplace.”
“I’m not quite so jaded.” Nellie laughed. “All this effortless air travel came a bit after my time, I’m afraid. What are you looking at?”
“The stars of the south. I’ve only ever seen the charts of these constellations in the ancient star catalogs of Eudoxus and Hipparchus, but I never dreamt I would ever behold them with my own eyes.” Hypatia pointed out a pair of bright yellow stars. “That is Rigil Kentaurus, the hoof of the Centaur Chiron.” Nellie watched as she pointed out the rest of the constellation. “And see,” Hypatia continued, “that one is Eridanus, it marks the path of reckless Phaethon.”
“Phaethon?”
“The son of Helios Hyperion, the Radiant. Rashly he took up the reins of his father’s sun-chariot, a task outstripping the young demigod’s mettle. First the steeds bolted, climbing too high, and the Earth below froze in their absence. Young Phaethon pulled back tight upon the reins, and the chariot plunged down too closely this time, and so scorched the Earth to ashen waste. From Olympus, the immortal gods looked upon this in great distress, thus Father Zeus cast forth a thunderbolt to strike the chariot. And so Phaethon fell, tumbling to his death.”
Nellie listened with rapt attention. She liked the way English sounded on her tongue, tinged with the woman’s refined Greek accent. Hypatia’s eyes lit up with unconcealed delight as she stared at the night sky.
“And here we are, soaring just like Phaethon—and praying we don’t get struck down by a bolt from the heavens.”
Nellie flashed on all the extraordinary experiences she had lived through over the past ten days. To think that, if they succeeded in their mission, all those memories—even this one—would vanish like a soap bubble.
The thought of that made her heart hurt.
Hypatia entranced her. The woman was so… alive, her eyes bright with the sheer joy of learning. She could see why the legends of her beauty had endured down through the centuries, only to be eclipsed by the dreadful fate Hypatia had suffered… would still suffer if they succeeded in saving the world.
Yet if they failed… everyone would die.
“Over the long millennia, the precession of the equinoxes—” Hypatia stopped and looked embarrassed. “Listen to me prattle on, as if I was still in my classroom.”
“No, not at all!” Nellie snapped back to attention. “I could listen to you all night.”
“You are most kind.” Hypatia smiled. “Truly, Nellie, you are not a barbarian.”
“A barbarian?” Nellie gave a surprised laugh. “Me?”
Hypatia laughed as well, her smile now tinged with embarrassment.
“Forgive me. It is a coarse word, but your tongue doesn’t sound like the angry barking of the Ostrogoths and the Vandals. Eng-lish…” She played out the word. “It seems to be a beautiful and expressive language. Where do they speak it—Englicia? No, that’s not right…”
“England,” Nellie said. “It’s an island far to the northwest of Alexandria. But my country is even further away than that—it’s in the New World.”
“The ‘new’ world?” Hypatia sounded intrigued. “What do you mean? What is the ‘old’ world?”
“I’ll show you,” Nellie replied, secretly delighted for the chance to teach such a formidably intelligent woman something new. “Ship, could you conjure up a globe for us?”
A hovering pinpoint of light flared into existence, and then expanded into a meter-wide sphere, glittering with brilliant colors and covered in a haze that Nellie assumed represented clouds. Hypatia gasped in amazement.
“Here is a satellite view of Earth taken on February 2, 2219. Would you like to see a political globe instead?” Nellie considered for a moment.
“Yes, please,” she responded. “From the year 1888, perhaps?” The gauzy cloud cover disappeared, replaced with distinct lines laying out latitude and longitude, and national borders.
“That’s lovely,” Nellie said. “Thank you, Ship.”
Hypatia leaned closer, focusing
on the Mediterranean, laid in perfect detail, then the huge masses of Africa and Asia, and the tantalizing islands of terra incognita lurking on the fringes of her familiar world. Nellie continued with her impromptu lecture.
“Now, before the explorer Columbus set sail, everyone thought the world was flat—”
“Flat? Surely not!” Hypatia exclaimed. “Three hundred years before my time, Eratosthenes of Cyrene proved the world was round.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Forgive my interruption. Please, continue.”
“Well then,” Nellie said, “in Columbus’s time it seems there were many benighted unfortunates who believed the world was flat, but once he sailed to the New World, the truth became undeniable.” Tracing a path across the Atlantic Ocean, she pointed at the Western Hemisphere. “Here is that new land he discovered.”
Hypatia eyes lit up again. She stared at the strange new continents, sounding out their exotic names as her implant translated them.
“Greenland… Dominion of Canada… United States… Mexico… South America… how marvelous!” Nellie beamed— Hypatia’s delight was infectious. She pointed to a spot on the northern continent.
“Now, here is my home. New York, one of the great cities of the modern world.”
“Someday you must take me there.”
Nellie paused, uncertain how to respond. Before she could decide what to say, Hypatia quickly spoke up again.
“Tell me—does the ship’s sight also extend up into the aether itself? Can we see into the celestial spheres? The starry firmament?” She grabbed Nellie’s arm. “I want to see everything in the cosmos!”
“Whatever you like,” Nellie replied, wanting nothing more than to give her the universe. “Ship, can you do the honors?”
“That particular theory of celestial mechanics has not been borne out by astrophysics, nor has the existence of aether. Would you like to see a historical representation of the model instead? That would be theoretical.”
“No,” Hypatia answered. “Show me things as they truly are.”
The globe shrank until the moon joined it, the two spheres rotating as they danced together. Hypatia pointed to the craters, visible in stark detail.
“Its surface is so rough and spattered, like raindrops fallen upon dust. Such raw chaos,” she murmured. “Please, can we see the other six wanderers surrounding the Earth? Mars, Saturn, the sun, and the rest?”
