“This is Mars,” said Aenea. “Colonel Kassad will leave us here.”
The Colonel had come down from his close regard of the Shrike after the quantum-shift jump. There was no word or phrase for what we did: one moment the treeship was in the Biosphere System, coasting at low velocity, drives dead, under attack by a swarm of archangels, and the next instant we were in low and stable orbit around this dead world in Old Earth System.
“How did you do that?” I had asked Aenea a second after she had done it. I’d had no doubt whatsoever that she had … shifted … us there.
“I learned to hear the music of the spheres,” she said. “And then to take a step.”
I kept staring at her. I was still holding her hand. I had no plans to release it until she spoke to me in plain language.
“One can understand a place, Raul,” she said, knowing that so many others were undoubtedly listening at that moment, “and when you do, it is like hearing the music of it. Each world a different chord. Each star system a different sonata. Each specific place a clear and distinct note.”
I did not release her hand. “And the farcasting without a farcaster?” I said.
Aenea nodded. “Freecasting. A quantum leap in the real sense of the term,” she said. “Moving in the macro universe the way an electron moves in the infinitely micro. Taking a step with the help of the Void Which Binds.”
I was shaking my head. “Energy. Where does the energy come from, kiddo? Nothing comes from nothing.”
“But everything comes from everything.”
“What does that mean, Aenea?”
She pulled her fingers from mine but touched my cheek. “Remember our discussion long, long ago about the Newtonian physics of love?”
“Love is an emotion, kiddo. Not a form of energy.”
“It’s both, Raul. It truly is. And it is the only key to unlocking the universe’s greatest supply of energy.”
“Are you talking about religion?” I said, half furious at either her opacity or my denseness or both.
“No,” she said, “I’m talking about quasars deliberately ignited, about pulsars tamed, about the exploding cores of galaxies tapped for energy like steam turbines. I’m talking about an engineering project two and a half billion years old and barely begun.”
I could only stare.
She shook her head. “Later, my love. For now understand that farcasting without a farcaster really works. There were never any real farcasters … never any magical doors opening onto different worlds … only the TechnoCore’s perversion of this form of the Void’s second most wonderful gift.”
I should have said, What is the Void’s first most wonderful gift? but I assumed then that it was the learning-the-language-of-the-dead recording of sentient races’ memories … my mother’s voice, to be more precise. But what I did say then was, “So this is how you moved Rachel and Theo and you from world to world without time-debt.”
“Yes.”
“And took the Consul’s ship from T’ien Shan System to Biosphere with no Hawking drive.”
“Yes.”
I was about to say, And traveled to whatever world where you met your lover, were married, and had a child, but the words would not form.
“This is Mars,” she said next, filling the silence. “Colonel Kassad will leave us here.”
The tall warrior stepped to Aenea’s side. Rachel came closer, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him.
“Someday you will be called Moneta,” Kassad said softly. “And we will be lovers.”
“Yes,” said Rachel and stepped back.
Aenea took the tall man’s hand. He was still in quaint battle garb, the assault rifle held comfortably in the crook of his arm. Smiling slightly, the Colonel looked up at the highest platform where the Shrike still stood, the blood light of Mars on his carapace.
“Raul,” said Aenea, “will you come as well?”
I took her other hand.
• • •
THE WIND WAS BLOWING SAND INTO MY EYES AND I could not breathe. Aenea handed me an osmosis mask and I slipped mine on as she set hers in place.
The sand was red, the rocks were red, and the sky was a stormy pink. We were standing in a dry river valley bounded by rocky cliffs. The riverbed was strewn with boulders—some as big as the Consul’s ship. Colonel Kassad pulled on the helmet cowl of his combat suit and static rasped in our comthread pickups. “Where I started,” he said. “In the Tharsis Relocation Slums a few hundred klicks that direction.” He gestured toward where the sun hung low and small above the cliffs. The suited figure, ominous in its size and bulk, the heavy assault weapon looking anything but obsolete here on the plain of Mars, turned toward Aenea. “What would you have me do, woman?”
Aenea spoke in the crisp, quick, sure syllables of command. “The Pax has retreated from Mars and Old Earth System temporarily because of the Palestinian uprising here and the resurgence of the Martian War Machine in space. There is nothing strategic enough to hold them here now while their resources are stretched so thin.”
Kassad nodded.
“But they’ll be back,” said Aenea. “Back in force. Not just to pacify Mars, but to occupy the entire system.” She paused to look around. I followed her gaze and saw the dark human figures moving down the boulder field toward us. They carried weapons.
“You must keep them out of the system, Colonel,” said my friend. “Do whatever you must … sacrifice whomever you must … but keep them out of Old Earth System for the next five standard years.”
I had never heard Aenea sound so adamant or ruthless.
“Five standard years,” said Colonel Kassad. I could see his thin smile behind the cowl visor. “No problem. If it was five Martian years, I might have to strain a bit.”
Aenea smiled. The figures were moving closer through the blowing sand. “You’ll have to take the leadership of the Martian resistance movement,” she said, her voice deadly serious. “Take it any way you can.”
“I will,” said Kassad and the firmness in his voice matched Aenea’s.
“Consolidate the various tribes and warrior factions,” said Aenea.
“I will.”
“Form a more permanent alliance with the War Machine spacers.”
Kassad nodded. The figures were less than a hundred meters away now. I could see weapons raised.
“Protect Old Earth,” said Aenea. “Keep the Pax away at all costs.”
I was shocked. Colonel Kassad must have been surprised as well. “You mean Old Earth System,” he said.
Aenea shook her head. “Old Earth, Fedmahn. Keep the Pax away. You have approximately a year to consolidate control of the entire system. Good luck.”
The two shook hands.
“Your mother was a fine, brave woman,” said the Colonel. “I valued her friendship.”
“And she valued yours.”
The dark figures were moving closer, keeping to the cover of boulders and dunes. Colonel Kassad walked toward them, his right hand high, the assault weapon still easy in his arm.
Aenea came closer and took my hand again. “It’s cold, isn’t it, Raul?”
It was. There was a flash of light like a painless blow to the back of one’s head and we were on the bridge platform of the Yggdrasill Our friends backed away at the sight of our appearance; the fear of magic dies hard in a species. Mars turned red and cold beyond our branches and containment field.
“What course, Revered One Who Teaches?” said Het Masteen.
“Just turn outward to where we can clearly see the stars,” said Aenea.
29
he Yggdrasill continued on. The Tree of Pain its captain, the Templar True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen, called it. I could not argue. Each jump took more energy from my Aenea, my love, my poor, tired Aenea, and each separation filled the depleting pool of energy with a growing reservoir of sadness. And through it all the Shrike stood useless and alone on its high platform, like a hideous bowsprit on a doomed ship or a macabre dark ang
el on the top of a mirthless Christmas tree.
After leaving Colonel Kassad on Mars, the treeship jumped to orbit around Maui-Covenant. The world was in rebellion but deep within Pax space and I expected hordes of Pax warships to rise up in challenge, but there was no attack during the few hours we were there.
“One of the benefits of the armada attack on the Biosphere Startree,” Aenea said with sad irony. “They’ve stripped the inner systems of fighting ships.”
It was Theo whose hand Aenea took for the step down to Maui-Covenant. Again, I accompanied my friend and her friend.
I blinked away the white light and we were on a motile isle, its treesails filling with warm tropical wind, the sky and sea a breathtaking blue. Other isles kept pace while dolphin outriders left white wakes on either side of the convoy.
There were people on the high platform and although they were mystified by our appearance, they were not alarmed. Theo hugged the tall blond man and his dark-haired wife who came forward to greet us.
“Aenea, Raul,” she said, “I am pleased to introduce Merin and Deneb Aspic-Coreau.”
“Merin?” I said, feeling the strength in the man’s handshake.
He smiled. “Ten generations removed from the Merin Aspic,” he said. “But a direct descendant. As Deneb is of our famed lady, Siri.” He put his hand on Aenea’s shoulder. “You have come back just as promised. And brought our fiercest fighter back with you.”
“I have,” said Aenea. “And you must keep her safe. For the next days and months, you must keep clear of contact with the Pax.”
Deneb Aspic-Coreau laughed. I noticed without a trace of desire that she might be the healthiest, most beautiful woman I had ever seen. “We’re running for our lives as it is, One Who Teaches. Thrice we’ve tried to destroy the oil platform complex at Three Currents, and thrice they have cut us down like Thomas hawks. Now we are just hoping to reach the Equatorial Archipelago and hide among the isle migration, eventually to regroup at the submersible base at Lat Zero.”
“Protect her at all costs,” repeated Aenea. She turned to Theo. “I will miss you, my friend.”
Theo Bernard visibly attempted to keep from weeping, failed, and hugged Aenea fiercely. “All the time … was good,” Theo said and stood back. “I pray for your success. And I pray that you fail … for your own good.”
Aenea shook her head. “Pray for all of our success.” She held her hand up in farewell and walked back to the lower platform with me.
I could smell the intoxicating salt-and-fish scent of the sea. The sun was so fierce it made me squint, but the air temperature was perfect. The water on the dolphins’ skin was as clear to me as the sweat on my own forearms. I could imagine staying in this place forever.
“We have to go,” said Aenea. She took my hand.
A torchship did appear on radar just as we climbed out of Maui-Covenant’s gravity well, but we ignored it as Aenea stood alone on the bridge platform, staring at the stars.
I went over to stand next to her.
“Can you hear them?” she whispered.
“The stars?” I said.
“The worlds,” she said. “The people on them. Their secrets and silences. So many heartbeats.”
I shook my head. “When I am not concentrating on something else,” I said, “I am still haunted by voices and images from elsewhere. Other times. My father hunting in the moors with his brothers. Father Glaucus being thrown to his death by Rhadamanth Nemes.”
She looked at me. “You saw that?”
“Yes. It was horrible. He could not see who it was who had attacked him. The fall … the darkness … the cold … the moments of pain before he died. He had refused to accept the cruciform. It was why the Church sent him to Sol Draconi Septem … exile in the ice.”
“Yes,” said Aenea. “I’ve touched those last memories of his many times in the past ten years. But there are other memories of Father Glaucus, Raul. Warm and beautiful memories … filled with light. I hope you find them.”
“I just want the voices to stop,” I said truthfully. “This …”I gestured around at the treeship, the people we knew, Het Masteen at his bridge controls. “This is all too important.”
Aenea smiled. “It’s all too important. That’s the damned problem, isn’t it?” She turned her face back to the stars. “No, Raul, what you have to hear before you take a step is not the resonance of the language of the dead … or even of the living. It is … the essence of things.” I hesitated, not wanting to make a fool of myself, but went on:
“… So
A million times ocean must ebb and flow,
And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die,
These things accomplished. If he utterly …”
Aenea broke in:
“… Scans all depths of magic, and expounds
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sounds;
If he explores all forms and substances
Straight homeward to their symbol-essences;
He shall not die …”
She smiled again. “I wonder how Uncle Martin is. Is he cold-sleeping the years away? Railing at his poor android servants? Still working on his unfinished Cantos? In all my dreams, I never manage to see Uncle Martin.”
“He’s dying,” I said.
Aenea blinked in shock.
“I dreamed of him … saw him … this morning,” I said. “He’s defrosted himself for the last time, he’s told his faithful servants. The machines are keeping him alive. The Poulsen treatments have finally worn off. He’s …” I stopped.
“Tell me,” said Aenea.
“He’s staying alive until he can see you again,” I said. “But he’s very frail.”
Aenea looked away. “It’s strange,” she said. “My mother fought with Uncle Martin during the entire pilgrimage. At times they could have killed one another. Before she died, he was her closest friend. Now …” She stopped, her voice thick.
“You’ll just have to stay alive, kiddo,” I said, my own voice strange. “Stay alive, stay healthy, and go back to see the old man. You owe him that.”
“Take my hand, Raul.”
The ship farcast through light.
AROUND TAU CETI CENTER WE WERE IMMEDIATELY attacked, not only by Pax ships but by rebel torchships fighting for the planetary secession started by the ambitious female Archbishop Achilla Silvaski. The containment field flared like a nova.
“Surely you can’t ’cast through this,” I said to Aenea when she offered the Tromo Trochi of Dhomu and me her hands.
“One does not ’cast through anything,” said my friend, and took our hands, and we were on the surface of the former capital of the late and unlamented Hegemony.
The Tromo Trochi had never been to TC2, indeed, had never been off the world of T’ien Shan, but his merchant interests were aroused by the tales of this onetime capitalist capital of the human universe.
“It is a pity that I have nothing to trade,” said the clever trader. “In six months on so fecund a world, I would have built a commercial empire.”
Aenea reached into the shoulder pack she had carried and lifted out a heavy bar of gold. “This should get you started,” she said. “But remember your true duties here.”
Holding the bar, the little man bowed. “I will never forget, One Who Teaches. I have not suffered to learn the language of the dead to no avail.”
“Just stay safe for the next few months,” said Aenea. “And then, I am confident, you will be able to afford transport to any world you choose.”
“I would come to wherever you are, M. Aenea,” said the trader with the only visible show of emotion I had ever seen from him. “And I would pay all of my wealth—past, future, and fantasized—to do so:”
I had to blink at this. It occurred to me for the first time that many of Aenea’s disciples might be—probably were—a little bit in love with her, as well as very much in awe of her. To hear it from this coin-obsessed merchant, though, was a shock.
Aenea touched h
is arm. “Be safe and stay well.”
The Yggdrasill was still under attack when we returned. It was under attack when Aenea ’cast us away from the Tau Ceti System.
The inner city-world of Lusus was much as I remembered it from my brief sojourn there: a series of Hive towers above the vertical canyons of gray metal. George Tsarong and Jigme Norbu bade us farewell there. The stocky, heavily muscled George—weeping as he hugged Aenea—might have passed for an average Lusian in dim light, but the skeletal Jigme would stand out in the Hive-bound crowds. But Lusus was used to offworlders and our two foremen would do well as long as they had money. But Lusus was one of the few Pax worlds to have returned to universal credit cards and Aenea did not have one of these in her backpack.
A few minutes after we stepped from the empty Dreg’s Hive corridors, however, seven figures in crimson cloaks approached. I stepped between Aenea and these ominous figures, but rather than attack, the seven men went to their knees on the greasy floor, bowed their heads, and chanted:
“BLESSED BE SHE
BLESSED BE THE SOURCE OF OUR SALVATION
BLESSED BE THE INSTRUMENT OF OUR
ATONEMENT
BLESSED BE THE FRUIT OF OUR
RECONCILIATION
BLESSED BE SHE.”
“The Shrike Cult,” I said stupidly. “I thought they were gone—wiped out during the Fall.”
“We prefer to be referred to as the Church of the Final Atonement,” said the first man, rising from his knees but still bowing in Aenea’s direction. “And no … we were not ‘wiped out’ as you put it … merely driven underground. Welcome, Daughter of Light. Welcome, Bride of the Avatar.”
Aenea shook her head with visible impatience. “I am bride of no one, Bishop Duruyen. These are the two men I have brought to entrust to your protection for the next ten months.”
The Bishop in red bowed his bald head. “Just as your prophecies said, Daughter of Light.”
“Not prophecies,” said Aenea. “Promises.” She turned and hugged George and Jigme a final time.