The camp had grown. Small stone buildings were going up, designed and built by the Engineer, with stone he grew himself, which perfectly matched the natural local stone. The workers’ huts had all been rebuilt, and the small township of locals had grown.
“I think this is everything you might need,” the Doctor said as she quickly examined the items she had packed for the Captain. “No matter what the cause of the queen’s stomach trouble, you should be able to help her. But I really would feel better if I were going with you.”
Queen Hetepheres, wife of King Snefru, had sent a messenger to camp that morning asking that the Captain, leader of the healing visitors, attend to her at once in the palace at Memphis. She had briefly described a mild stomachache.
“I’d like you to go with me, but she specifically asked that I alone go and bring only a few servants,” he said. “I’ll pass the Mechanic off as one so I can have some protection, but I can’t pretend you’re anything other than our chief doctor. If she’s pleased with things, perhaps I can bring you next time.”
“All right. But call if you need a consultation,” she said, tapping the communicator clipped to the Captain’s waist.
“I will.” He shouldered the pack, and the Doctor walked back to her camp medical station, where a line of patients was already waiting for her.
The Archaeologist waited until the Doctor was well out of earshot, then looked up at her husband and spoke seriously. “Knowing about the hierarchy of government here, there could be several reasons they’re calling for you alone. Remember, they will want to categorize you, and they haven’t been able to do this yet. The workers at camp are whispering to each other that you’re a god. This could be a threat to the palace. Or a boon, for there is nothing better as a king than clearly having a god on your side.”
“Perhaps she really just wants medical treatment,” he ventured.
“Yes, perhaps. But if they perceive you as a threat, this is an easy way to get you there alone, on their terms.”
He took her words seriously, though he was distracted by thoughts of the queen. There was another possibility his wife hadn’t mentioned…
“If it comes to physical danger,” she continued, “you should use the idea of godhood to its full advantage.”
“What do you mean?”
“Claim it outright.”
“Darling, I can hardly—”
“Only if you have to.” She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned close to him. “Only if you have to. I don’t want you getting killed up there.”
The Captain was moved by the concern in her voice. Their mission charter forbade them from disturbing local religions and customs, but he could see his wife did not care at the moment. He brushed a hand across her cheek. “All right, then. In this unlikely case, which god should I be?”
“Osiris,” she said without hesitating. It was evidently a matter she had considered extensively.
“Osiris,” he repeated. He knew very little about Egyptian religion.
“He’s a strange god,” she said, “without a clear-cut job in the Egyptian pantheon. But the stories about him make it clear that he’s a martyr. He is married to Isis and has a son called Horus—fits well for us. And he has blond hair.”
“Really?”
“It may just be the sun’s rays shining behind his head, but it’s close enough.” She smiled and tugged at his hair. “He was, the story goes, murdered by Seth, his brother. His death, through many bloody battles, was ultimately avenged by his son Horus. A martyr is the most sympathetic and thus the most powerful figure in any religion.”
“If he’s already murdered, how can I be him?”
She smiled as a teacher might at a naïve student. “Your death doesn’t matter. The god is ever-living. If you have already died, then you are now incarnated again. It will not matter to them, for the god is timeless. Perpetually living out his destiny.”
The Captain looked down at her, the fine bones of her face, her blue eyes with traces of lines around them. “You really do love me, don’t you?”
“Always,” she said tenderly, taking his hands in hers. “This is only a last recourse. As you say, maybe she only has a stomachache.” She glanced over at the Mechanic, who was still staring at them with impatience. “The Mechanic says I’m a trusting wife to let you go off alone to tend to that beautiful queen.”
The Captain pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “As if I could ever look at another,” he said. They smiled at each other; then he released her and walked to the litters. The Archaeologist watched as the litter bearers took up their positions and the Captain and Mechanic climbed in. Then she walked back to camp.
“It takes a patient man to have a wife,” the Mechanic observed as he settled into the cushions of his litter. “I couldn’t do it myself.”
“It has the occasional reward,” the Captain said, glancing back at her.
It took three hours to thread through the outlying villages and then the city proper, making their way to the hill at the very center of Memphis, where they were ushered out of the packed streets and through the palace gates. The Captain threw back the curtains of his litter as they passed through the king’s gardens. There were orchards of fig and olive and date and plum trees, groves of neat vines, clear pools of water where birds bathed themselves, and a thousand breeds of flowers that bobbed their colored heads in the afternoon breeze. Gardeners, naked except for small strips of cloth tied around their waists, tended to each plant by hand, watering them from clay pots. Members of the royal family took their leisure in the gardens, picnicking or lying in shade.
Turning his head, the Captain could see out over Memphis and down to the Nile itself, wide and brown, carrying ships back and forth and up and down, enabling the trade of the entire nation.
The palace itself was not one building, but many. There was a residence for the king, a residence for the queen, a harem building for the king’s many consorts, concubines, and lesser ladies, and endless rooms for servants. The buildings were of mud brick and wood, whitewashed and decorated with murals.
Since entering the palace gates, the litters had been escorted by a squad of house guards, strong young men with short black wigs and dark chests. The escort led the Captain and Mechanic to the queen’s house, stopping them in a great pillared forecourt, shaded by high, leafy palm trees growing from pots along the perimeter.
Here they dismounted their litters and, with the small cadre of servants they’d brought from camp, were shown to an entrance hall. They were met by a chubby eunuch with dark, oiled hair and heavy jewelry. He conducted them through shady halls, past rooms of women-servants and children, up two flights of wooden stairs, and at last to the chamber of Queen Hetepheres.
“Your men-servants must wait outside,” the eunuch said to the Captain in effeminate tones.
The Captain had not thought of this. He had brought the Mechanic and three male workers to provide him some protection and also to make him look important for the queen. He had not thought to bring women, preferring to save them the long, hot journey to the palace. But, of course, men would not be allowed in the queen’s chamber unless absolutely necessary.
He gestured at the Mechanic. Reluctantly, the Mechanic nodded and took up a position at one side of the door, and the men followed suit.
The Captain and the eunuch entered the room. The Captain’s first impression was of light and space. It was a very large chamber. Unglazed windows along the ceiling let in fresh air and streams of sunlight. There were soft carpets on the floor and finely carved wooden furniture, colored in gold and black and green.
The queen lay on a narrow green couch with wooden legs carved like lions’ paws. She wore a long wig of tiny braids that hung about her shoulders. Her dress was pale-blue linen, with a V-neck, and strips that covered her breasts and tied behind her neck. The Captain found himself breathless for a moment. Her beauty had dulled in his memory since that day in the market square, and it was now reinstated in its
full flush.
He bowed slightly. “Your Highness, it is an honor.”
She returned the bow with a nod of her head. He moved forward with his pack and knelt by her, smelling the honey scent of her perfume. He began his examinations with questions about where she felt pain, what she had eaten, and if anything of late had been upsetting to her. He spoke through his translator but used whole sentences of the local language, for he had been dedicating himself to learning it.
He was surprised when she broke off, after answering several of his questions, and turned to the eunuch, who was hovering nearby.
“Ptah,” she commanded. “I wish you to stand in the corner, with your back to me.”
The eunuch hesitated for the briefest of seconds, then dipped his head and obeyed. His new position put him out of earshot.
“Cap-tan,” the queen said, looking at him. “I fear my ailment has solved itself since the morning. My stomach is quite well. But there are other reasons for you to be here.”
Her voice was low and intimate as she said this, and he knew immediately that there was no danger to him here, at least none of the kind his wife had prepared him for. He kept his face blank, but he was very aware of the positions of his hands, which were resting on the couch next to her stomach and breast.
“There is magic in you,” she whispered. “That much we all agree.” She touched his translator. “And you have the color of the sun.” She touched his hair. “But I want to know. Are you a god? The workers in the fields murmur that you are. Some of the merchants seem to agree. But we in the palace do not know.”
The Captain guessed then that her husband the king did not know of this visit. She had called him on her own, and it seemed she felt the same attraction for him that he was experiencing for her, an overpowering sense of their bodies and their closeness.
There was no need to make the claim of his own godhood. It was a last recourse, and he was in no danger. No, there was no need, except his own need to be great in the eyes of this woman, to have power over her. Before he allowed himself to think, the words were forming on his lips. “Do you not know me, lady? Do you not see the god Osiris kneeled before you?”
She drew in her breath slowly, staring up at him with a look that was a mixture of fear and desire. “It is as I thought…” she whispered, and she touched his hair again. “Your rage was great in the market that day. Will you bring destruction upon my husband’s land?”
“No,” he said softly, already feeling the weight of his deification. “Not destruction. Only peace and longer life.”
She smiled and he smiled back, a superior smile now, the smile of a god at a mortal. He would not touch her today. He would not kiss her or caress her, though it was clear to him that she would welcome such an advance. All of that would come later. No, a god has patience. And he was now a god.
CHAPTER 16
2605 BC
Year 2 of Kinley Earth Survey
“There’s no reason to take this as anything other than what it says,” the Doctor argued. “It says rescue must wait, not rescue won’t be sent.”
“But there is no way to judge the magnitude of what’s happened.” The Archaeologist’s voice sounded calmer than she felt. “We’re operating off too little data.”
“That could be said of either course of action,” the Doctor pointed out. She wore a look of numbed shock, poorly concealed by an attempt to speak rationally.
The entire crew was present. They were sitting in the meeting tent, around a large table of heavy, dark plastic that the Engineer had designed some months before. It was nighttime outside, but the tent was well lit with yellow lamps. A few of them were already beginning to wonder how long they would continue to have such luxuries. Though everyone was there, only the chief officers of the mission were involved in this argument. The others were waiting to see what their leaders would say.
The courier ship had finally returned from Herrod, bringing their response. The crystal computer cell on which the response had been coded was sitting in the center of the table. Beneath it was a sheet of paper onto which the message had been transcribed:
War. We hold tenuously. Rescue must wait.
That was all. No explanation of who was at war, no detailing of the extent of damage. Just seven words.
“I don’t understand who could be at war,” the Engineer said quietly, and not for the first time. “Things have been very stable.”
“That’s exactly the point,” the Captain replied. “We don’t know who’s at war; we don’t know who’s holding tenuously. What we do know is that rescue will not be coming as scheduled.”
“It could be,” said the Engine Supervisor, piping up for the first time, “that only the station receiving our last message was under attack. Perhaps there’s been a governmental coup and the space agencies have been shut down.”
“There could be additional messages on their way here.” This from someone else.
The faces of the crew sitting around the table were an interesting study in human stress. Each wondered what had happened back home, and each had a different reaction to the uncertainty. Most were in mild shock at the least. Some were running, for the moment, on automatic, as their minds tried to envision the fate of loved people and places.
The Lion did not contribute to the debate. He was sitting quietly, watching the faces of the others.
“Could be, could be, could be,” the Captain said dismissively, standing up to capture their attention completely. “Everything we conjecture could be. It could be that the message is a hoax. It could be that Herrod has been destroyed entirely. And any scenario between those two extremes could be. There is no way to know. Perhaps we will never know. I am holding this meeting because we must change the way we think about this mission. Nothing about our return is certain.” He looked at the faces in front of him. “Therefore we must operate as though we won’t be going home. We should think about making a life here.”
That caused an uproar; there were shouts of “No” and “You can’t be serious.” Seated next to the Doctor and the Engineer, the Mechanic whispered pointedly, “That’s easy for him to say.”
“Yes,” the Doctor muttered under her breath. “Exactly.” Then she raised her voice and aimed it at the Captain. “That might be convenient for you, Captain, but the rest of us don’t find life here quite as appealing.”
The room quieted. The Doctor had expressed feelings many of them shared. The Captain turned to her, knowing he should ignore the comment but, out of pride, unable to do so. “What do you mean by that?”
“What do you think I mean?” she asked, holding his gaze. “You haven’t done much to dispel the natives’ image of you as a god.”
“What choice has he had?” This from the Archaeologist, who rose from her chair to defend her husband. “As long as they look to him for wisdom, we, the crew, are safe. He didn’t conjure up the earthquake, but it’s served us well.”
“Served us well?” the Doctor said incredulously. “Thousands of people were killed! We spent months tending to the injured.”
“Unfortunate,” the Archaeologist responded, modifying her tone somewhat, “but it has also been useful. Don’t think the king would have continued to tolerate us in his land if we were ordinary mortals.”
“Again, convenient reasoning,” the Doctor said. The Engineer tried to soothe her by patting her hand, but she ignored him. “But I didn’t see us in any danger before he was a god.” She turned back to the Captain. “Doesn’t it bother you that you’re violating our mission charter and the code of a scientist?”
“I didn’t ask them to worship me,” the Captain said.
“You haven’t asked them not to.” It was the Lion who said this, entering the conversation for the first time. His voice was quiet as he looked over at his father and mother.
The Captain looked back at his son. “It is an expedient I’ve made use of, nothing more.”
“There are surely other ways of befriending and appeasing the
king,” the Lion said, still quietly. “We’ve all sworn oaths as scientists and observers. You are disrupting their religion.”
The Captain sighed, irritated at himself for being drawn into argument. It was none of their business what he did. “I acknowledge that I have not always made perfect choices,” he said in a tone that was almost contrite, “but this is not the time for a philosophical debate. There are other matters at hand.”
This small admission of responsibility served its purpose. The Lion fell silent, and attention came back to the reason for the meeting.
The Archaeologist resumed her seat, and the Captain slowly sat down as well. “What concerns us now,” he continued, “is how this message alters our mission. And our lives. I believe we should prepare for the worst. First of all, we should confine ourselves to the local area. I don’t think it’s wise to use the shuttle unless absolutely necessary. We must assume that we can’t count on rescue at all and act accordingly, conserving our resources and supplies.”
“With all due respect, Captain,” said the Engineer, “they will come for us. How long it takes is another matter, but they will come.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I put myself in their place,” the Engineer explained. He, of the group, seemed the least emotionally affected by the news from home. This was not actually the case, but he had trained himself over the years to attack problems without emotion. Emotion could follow later, but if surrendered to up front would cloud the issue. “If the war was not overly destructive,” he continued, “Herrod will still have all or most of its space-faring capability. Facilities may take some time to be returned to normal operation, but they will eventually be up and running, and there will be no reason not to complete the full course of surveys on Earth. In fact, the war will likely increase interest in locating other livable planets. No one wants to have all their eggs in one basket, so to speak.