Celestial Matters (35 page)

Aeson nodded.

“Aeson,” I said. “There is something more I must tell you.”

“Yes?”

“When you see the hill, I want you to know that I closed the eyes of Athena’s statues, but Alexander and Aristotle were taken from us without due ceremony.”

“You closed her eyes alone?” he said.

“Better that than to let Anaxamander defile Wisdom with his fool’s hand,” I said as we left the traitor’s cave.

Yellow Hare and I went to the water extractor to tell Ramonojon and Clovix about the meeting. We found Ramonojon bent over two barrels. One was the original water extractor, the other one a plain barrel covered with several layers of gray, sludgy cheesecloth. Ramonojon was slowly ladling the brackish water we had extracted from the first barrel into the second.

“Filtering the water?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Where have you been?”

We told him about Aeson’s recovery.

“Phan cured Aeson?” Ramonojon said after a moment’s silent thought.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I do not know,” I said. “But I suspect that old Middler wants to live. Strange considering that he came here to die.”

Ramonojon closed his eyes and began to speak in the Kanton dialect. I could tell he was quoting but I did not know the source. “Heaven endures,” he said. “Earth survives. The reason Heaven and Earth can endure and survive is that they do not live for themselves. Therefore they can endure forever.’”

He opened his eyes. “Lao-tzu, the
Canon of Way and Virtue.
”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling something not yet born stir in my heart.

Ramonojon smiled and turned back to his work. He pulled the cheesecloth away from the second barrel, dipped in a clean bowl, and handed it to me. My reflection stared up at me from the clear water. I drank eagerly, savoring the sweet, cold taste, then handed the bowl to Yellow Hare, who drank the remainder.

“Well done,” I said to Ramonojon. “But you will have to wait until after the meeting to finish this.”

“Meeting?” he said.

I explained. “Would you find Clovix and inform him?” I said.

“Yes, Commander,” Ramonojon said.

A quarter of an hour later, the five of us assembled in the stumps of ruins that dotted the top of the hill. We sat cross-legged on the bare moon rock in the place where the couches had been. Ares was high above us, shedding harsh red light down to mingle with the cold silver of the ground. The twisting of the crystal epicycles had brought the sun fragment up over the starboard side, adding ’Elios’s yellow to the harmony of illuminations.

The wind whipped coldly through me, biting into my wool robes, but whatever was in Phan’s pills kept me comfortable no matter the temperature. The pure waterless air had dried my skin to cracking, but that did not hurt either. The only pain I felt was that of loss as I sat amid the ruins of work and beauty.

I had set myself down next to Aeson. Yellow Hare was to my left and Ramonojon next to her. Clovix sat down among us, but he showed not the former arrogance of the slave, but the pride of a man fulfilling his duties.

Uninvited, Phan, Miiama, and Mihradarius came together at the base of the hill. The old Taoist, I knew, had been resting from his ordeal. As to the traitor and the assassin, Yellow Hare informed me that they had been conducting a private survey of the ship, no doubt looking to reassure themselves that there was no chance of our survival. Their guards had formed themselves into a short phalanx a little way up the slope of the hill, interposing themselves between those three and us.

Aeson and I opened the meeting with a single prayer to Zeus. “Father of gods and men,” we prayed. “We cannot offer you proper sacrifice. We cannot give you the honor you are due. We can only lay ourselves before you as supplicants and humbly ask for your favor.”

Something stirred in my mind, something large and awesome like a distant thunderstorm preparing to approach. I looked over at Aeson and saw a gray cloud in his eyes. I nodded to him and he leaned forward to speak.

“Our task is to survive,” Aeson said, “and to return to Earth. Are we all agreed?”

All on top of the hill gave their assent.

Aeson stood up. All his Spartan grace had returned to him. He strode over to the remnants of Alexander’s statue, drawing our gazes along with him. Half of the pedestal and one of the conqueror’s legs were all that remained, but when Aeson approached I felt the hero-general’s presence return to the ruined statue.

“Since I woke,” Aeson said, “I have been praying to the gods and the heroes to furnish me with a means of survival. As I waited here on top of the hill for the rest of you to join me, the hero Alexander came to me with that means.”

Elation filled my heart at those words, but distant thunder rumbled again, muting my joy.

“When he was a young man,” Aeson said, “Alexander brought his army to the city of Gordius. The hero had been told a legend about a temple in that city. In that temple was a knotted rope; it was said that he who untied that knot would conquer the whole world.”

Aeson paused. The hackles on the back of my neck rose. In a formerly quiet corner of my heart there was a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning. In that sudden burst of luminescence I saw Athena and Kleio together holding up a globe of the earth for Father Zeus to study.

“Alexander went to look at the knot. He saw a mass of thongs twisted and tied around seven pieces of wood. One of his generals suggested he cut it with his sword. Alexander refused, saying, ‘Not every problem is solved by the blade.’ He sent back to his camp for Aristotle, who was traveling with him in order to watch his protégé carve his way through the world.

“Aristotle studied the knot for an hour, and then quickly untied it. Seven planks of wood clattered to the floor of the temple and the scientist handed a single uncut leather cord to his student. Alexander turned to the general who had wanted to sever the knot and said, ‘The right man is greater than the right sword.’”

Aeson paused again. Yellow Hare’s eyes were fixed on him and a flash of understanding passed between them, a spirit wholly Spartan but strangely unwarlike.

“Alexander’s message to me was clear. Our survival is a scientific, not a military problem,” Aeson said. “Therefore, I am turning complete control of this ship over to Commander Aias. All his instructions will be obeyed to the letter. I am vesting all my authority in him, including the traditional military duties to discipline the crew and to try and sentence traitors and spies.”

He walked over to me; the spirit of honor that lay across his shoulders drew me up to a standing posture. He delivered a full Spartan salute, then sat down at my feet. “We await your orders, Commander.”

I was stunned by this violation of protocol, this abrogation of duty on Aeson’s part, but deep within me I knew that he had done the right thing.

“You do me honor,” I said, and Athena and Kleio rose up in my mind, filling me with a great light. “If it be within my power, I will not disappoint you.”

The thunder cracked again, this time nearer to me. The great presence filled me with a vision of the universe. I rose up from the surface of Earth through the spheres, touching each of the gods in turn, until I reached the Sphere of Fixed Stars. I laid my hands upon that ebon ball with its glistening fires and felt the engine of the universe, the Prime Mover, rumbling behind it, giving impetus to all existence. Pure motion passed through my hand, filling my mind with a power that needed to be transmitted. I turned away from the sphere and descended again to Earth to bring that movement to the world of man.

The vision left me and I looked up into the concerned eyes of my comrades.

“I would like to speak with Aeson alone,” I said. Ramonojon and Clovix bowed to me and left, but Yellow Hare remained behind. I looked at her.

“Alone,” I said.

“Not out of my sight,” she said.

I nodded my agreement. She walked down the hill and joined the guards.

“Aeson,” I said, “I know that you did the right thing. But I do not know why it was right. Why did you, of all people, violate the rule of dual command?”

In the air he sketched a sign from the Orphic Mystery. I responded automatically with the countersign. “We are Eurydice trapped in ’Ades,” he said. “Only you can take the role of Orpheus and find the song that will lead us out.”

“How do you come to that comparison?”

“When I woke from my coma,” he said, “everything had changed. I felt not as if I were once again alive, but that I had finally died. That I stood upon the threshold of ’Ades confronted with the problem of Orpheus.”

“I understand,” I said. “But still, to give up dual command, the thing that has sustained the League through nine long centuries.”

“Aias, if by some strange spinning of the Fates the two of us found ourselves in the heart of the Middle Kingdom, surrounded by their armies and with no clear chance to survive, would you not feel as I do now?”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Would you not, if prompted by a divinity, pass over to me your authority, believing that I had the only hope of finding a way for us to escape?”

“Yes, Aeson, I would,” I said, bowing my head. “Please leave me and give me time to think.”

“Yes, Commander,” he said. He walked down the hill, past the guards, and entered into some heated argument with Mihradarius which I could not overhear.

I walked to the edge of the hill where the ship had split in two and stared over the ragged edge with its myriad of irregular facets all gleaming a cold silver. Three hundred thousand miles straight down lay the earth, a longer journey than even Orpheus had taken back from ’Ades, and I lacked the power of his voice to charm the universe. All I had was my mind and the impetus given me by Father Zeus.

I stared down that great fall and waited for that raw interior motion to turn into a coherent idea. But the only thought that came to me was the one ’Elios had burned into my mind when he pointed out my hubris. Your duty is to the Good.

“But what is the Good, here?” I said, calling down through the heavens to the sun god.

“To survive,” Yellow Hare said from behind me. “And to bring back to the League that which will aid our cause upon the earth.”

I turned around. Yellow Hare stood on top of the hill, the highest point in existence presently occupied by man. The glow of Ares had washed her steel armor into bronze, but the war god’s mantle did not lie across her shoulders. The divinity that set her golden eyes to glowing was Sparta’s patron, ’Era, queen of heaven.

“And what could we bring back to the League from this debacle?” I asked.

“I do not know,” Yellow Hare said while ’Era kept divine silence. “Aeson gave you his authority because only you can answer that question.”

I walked up the hill and joined Yellow Hare at the heights of humanity. “And have the Fates given me the power to answer it?” I said.

“They have,” ’Era said through her, “and you shall.”

Thunder filled my heart; I leaned forward and kissed Yellow Hare gently on the lips. Breath joined with breath and god with god. There was a moment when Zeus and ’Era spoke to one another through our mingled Pneuma. Then the gods were gone and only Yellow Hare and I remained. I stepped back from the embrace and looked into her golden eyes.

“You do me honor,” I said.

“As do you to me,” she replied.

We stood for a time in silent communion, exchanging wordless thoughts in light and breath; then we turned and walked in unison back down the hill.

All the survivors of the vessel were assembled at the base of the slope looking upward; even Mihradarius, Miiama, and Phan sat among the others. They had all been waiting for us, or rather for me, to come down with my judgment.

I looked over at Mihradarius. “Despite your actions, we will live and return to Earth,” I said. Then I turned to Miiama. “I am not ordering your executions now, for two reasons. First, it would put my soldiers’ lives at risk, and second, when we return to Earth, you will be taken prisoner and your actions dealt with in accord with the customs of war prisoners. Understand, however, that while you are on my ship you will be watched constantly. Any attempt to interfere with what we are doing and you will be killed before you succeed in any act of sabotage. You will live only so long as you keep still.”

“I am not concerned,” Mihradarius said. “There is no way to bring this wreckage back to Earth.”

“And how do you know that?” I said.

“Because I cannot think of any such way,” he replied. “And your mind was never a match for mine.”

“It is true,” I said, “that you are more blessed by the scientific Muses than I am. But there are other, greater sources of inspiration.”

Mihradarius shook his head as if shrugging off the insults of a madman.

Miiama had eyes only for Yellow Hare and Aeson; it was clear that he regarded me as no obstacle to his work. Only the Spartans were dangerous to him. Death lay on his shoulders, both ours and his, but Death did not come out of him, for on our side War opposed it. The spirits stared at each other through human eyes, then gradually subsided. Miiama would not kill unless he could kill us all, and neither Yellow Hare nor Aeson would attack without my orders.

I turned to look at Phan. He stared up into my eyes impassively. No words passed between us, but he slowly bowed his head.

“Very well,” I said. “Now as to how we shall survive. To begin with, our resources are: half of
Chandra’s Tear,
two hundred pounds of fire-gold, the net, and the sun fragment.”

Ramonojon looked up. “The fragment is a problem, not a resource.”

I shook my head, suddenly realizing what I had been saying. Athena and Ourania blessed me with the light of inspiration. “No, Ramonojon, the sun fragment is the only thing we have that is fast enough to bring us back to Earth. If we can guide it, it could pull us home like a horse pulls a chariot. The question is how we can control it.”

Phan stared at me quizzically. “I do not understand your problem,” he said. “Why would it be difficult to guide the fireball down to the earth?”

“Celestial matter moves in circles; that is its nature. How could we constrain it to a linear motion?”