by Bodicea
“We are in space now. So, somehow, the Dead Guys have learned that the Adversary has returned. I must ask you, Ancestor, if all this is true, are the Aurelians the enemy we were held back in order to fight?”
“What difference does it make?” the Old Man demanded. “Will you not fight to save this planet if the Aurelians are not the Adversary? If they are, will allow a tactical defeat here in hopes of meeting them under more favorable terms.”
“You are a thousand times the tactician I will ever be,” Keeler told the old man. “I only wish to know. I must know everything about this situation.”
“Neg, you don’t. You can’t possibly know everything you need to know about this situation.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are not ready.”
Cheese Kyrine, the old man was off on one of his enigmatic Shao-Lin Master kicks. “O.K. The prophecy also states that when the Adversary returned, we would be the only humans to recognize it. We can read the Aurelians thoughts. The others can’t. I have to know if the Aurelians are the Adversary…”
“You think she can tell you that? What are you looking for? Do you think there’s a data point that reads. ‘We are the Adversary, the Dark Forces of Evil from the Great Crusades.
Boo!”
“That’s why you’re here. You would recognize the Adversary again if you saw them.”
“Not necessarily.”
“The accounts of the Adversary said that they were contemptuous of humanity. That applies to the Aurelians. They reveled in amoral superiority. That certainly applies to the Aurelians. They were cunning, deceptive, and they lay waste to everything in their past.
Aurelians, Aurelians, Aurelians.”
“All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles,” said the Old Man.
“All dogs are losers, but not all losers…”
“Queequeg!”
Queequeg purred and turned on the “Who me?” look.
“I am planning how best to commit this ship’s resources in the event I have to defend that planet…”
“That is simple. When you meet the Adversary, you must hold back nothing.” The ghostly light in the old man’s eyes shone like candle flames. “You do not compromise with evil. You do not make treaties with evil. You do not peacefully coexist with evil. In whatever manifestation you find it, you must fight it, resist it, and defeat it.”
“Do you believe the Aurelians are the Adversary?” Keeler pesisted. “Is the Odyssey Project the start of the Tenth Crusade?”
“Those may be two different things!”
“You allowed your consciousness to stay alive for millennia so you would recognize the Adversary when they returned. You guided and sustained the Sumacians. You approved and redesigned the Odyssey Project ships to fight the Adversary. This is what everything has led up to. We have to know what she learned on the Aurelian world-ship.”
“Then, you must ask her…”
The lighting in the room changed to orange and aqua. White spots began to swirl around the walls. “This is her new manifestation,” the Dead Guy explained.
“Wait until she talks,” said the cat.
“I am pretty,” came a voice. These same words were projected all over the walls in an elegant, curly-cue script.
“I have a pretty, pretty mind,” Caliph continued. Her voice was girlish, and punctuated with giggles and squeaks.
“She sounds like a nine year old girl,” Keeler said.
“Or a nine year old boy who’s a little light in the loafers,” Queequeg suggested.
“She is experimenting with different expressions of consciousness,” the Dead Guy said calmly. “As I had explained previously for anyone who was paying attention.”
Keeler sighed. “Caliph, this is Commander William Keeler… Did you achieve interface with the braincore of the Aurelian World-ship.”
The colors changed to a dark purple. “They don’t call him a braincore. They call him the Hanged Man. It’s a dumb, dumb name…. And he’s a dumb, dumb central processing Nexus.”
Steady. Steady. “Did you achieve interface with the central processing nexus of the Aurelian world ship?”
The colors went to purple and greens. The spots on the wall became smaller and more numerous. “Yes, it was easy, easy, easy…”
“What did you learn?”
The spots on the walls became an immense flow of ones and zeroes, flowing and coalescing around diagrams like whitewater making eddies around stones in a fast-flowing river. “I learned lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.”
“To be specific, she accumulated at least 9.89 times ten to the eleventh power data points,”
Queequeg explained. “That’s how much additional data was in the pod when I downloaded it from Winnie.”
“He was dumb!” Caliph insisted. “Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. And Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.”
“What did you learn about the Aurelians?”
“Boss,” Queequeg interrupted. “She learned 9.89 times ten to the eleventh power data points about the Aurelians. You are going to have to be more specific.”
Keeler rubbed his chin. He was still addressing the glowing column in the center of the room, but he had a sense that Caliph was all around him. “What did the Aurelians do to 12
822 Equuleus three?”
“Bad, bad things.”
The spots went away. The walls became a display of weapons falling to the surface of Medea, annihilating cities. The cities were blasted. Then, the Swords came, massed in the thousands, the moved across the landscape, laying waste to the smaller settlements, herding the people into cities. The people fought back, but their weapons were inadequate. Finally, there was an image of bright purple clouds spinning like pinwheels over the planet, annihilating all life. The pathogen.
“Who deployed it, the Aurelians or the Medeans?” Keeler asked.
“Don’t ask me. I’m just a girl,” Caliph said, giggling crazily.
O.K., she’s acting like a psychotic nine-year old girl. “Do you know what they plan to do to …
Bodicéa?”
The light all but disappeared from the room. “Bad, bad things.”
Keeler looked at the streams and flows of ones and zeroes swirling all around the room.
“Queequeg, can you make any kind of … meaningful sense out of this.”
The cat perked his ears forward alertly, pretending to study the data. “This is a litter-load of information, Boss.”
“Can you?”
“It will take a long time.”
“Of course, why shouldn’t it?” Keeler’s communicator chirped. “Keeler here.”
“Commander, this is Specialist Lagos of the Guardian Patrol. We found Specialist Bladerunner. He appears to have been attacked.”
“I know, I attacked him.”
A pause. “Are you all right, sir?”
“I’m fine. Bladerunner tried to kill me. I knocked him unconscious. Get him to Hospital. I’ll catch up with you there. Keeler out.”
He looked up and addressed the cat. “I want you to seek out any information they have about this system and the Medean system.”
“No,” said the dead guy. “Search for tactical files. Find out their battle plans, and their defenses.”
“Right, right, of course,” Keeler said. “That should be the first priority.” He tapped his communicator. “Keeler to Phil Miller.”
“Miller, War Room.”
“Phil, I’m in the Caliph Chamber. We’re downloading all the information Caliph rounded up when she interfaced with the braincore of the Aurelian Ship. We’ll be providing tactical updates as we process the datapoints.”
“Neat,” Miller came back, unemotively. “I’ll send you down a pizza and some ales.”
“Acknowledged, Keeler out.” Keeler looked around the chamber. “There’s no place to sit around here, is there.”
“You’re staying?” The Old Man said, delightedly.
“I have no
where else I need to be,” said the commander, settling down to the floor.
“Excellent,” the Dead Guy chortled delightedly. “If you are preparing to engage the Adversary, you will need the benefit of my tactical experience. I have a thousand stories to tell you.”
Tamarind stared at the tactical display, envisioning in his mind how the forthcoming battle would play out. The Sumacians had a term for this, the Battle-Trance. It was a discipline to foretell the pattern, the ebb and flow of battle. The challenge was to separate visualization from real prophecy. The best among them, those with a touch of precognition, could predict the coming battle with high accuracy.
The Aurelian ships were many and large. Pegasus’s Aves were smaller and outnumbered nine-to-one, but they were faster and more maneuverable, they packed great firepower. In his mind, they went into motion, and he saw them, not as holographic symbols, but as the ship’s they represented, fighting fiercely, bravely, and in the end…
He broke away with a shudder, and crossed to Miller. “The battle is almost upon us. We promised Tobias we would give him safe passage to our ship. I will go to the surface and collect him.”
Miller was taken aback. “I need you here.”
Tamarind shook his head. “I am trained in hand-to-hand combat, in leading ground forces.
You and Lt. Honeywell can ably conduct a battle between ships in space without me.”
“I can’t spare any Aves right now,” Miller told him. “Every available Aves is primed to defend our ship and we need every one. Except Prudence, which is on the surface with Commander Lear.”
Tamarind fixed Miller with a forceful gaze and tone. “We promised him we would take him on board in return for his help. He fulfilled his half of the deal.”
“Za, but it was a dead end.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. It does not matter. We made a pledge to him. I made a pledge to him, and I will fulfill it. I’ll go alone. No one else needs to be taken away from his duty. Ships do not win battles. Warriors win battles.”
Miller sighed. He checked the flight schedule. ” Basil is going to make one last run to get the last of our people off the planet. You can swing by Serenopolis on the way out.”’
“I should really go alone.”
“You have Basil, take it or leave it.”
Tamarind nodded. “As you wish.” He crossed the room, something about the way he walked, not really any different than the way anyone else walked, yet somehow, he made everyone in the room want to follow him in lockstep. He paused at the hatch, and a sudden weariness made his shoulders slump, just for a moment. He turned and called out. “Lt.
Commander Miller, always remember it was me who did this.”
Without saying anything further, or giving anyone else a chance to respond, he disappeared through the hatch and the doors seemed to close extra swift behind him.
Egomaniac, thought Miller.
Prudence set down in the designated landing area outside the city of Concordia. There was a kind of a streetcar that took the crew from the landing area to the Council House of the Inner Circle. The windows were covered with thick blue curtains made of a velvet-like material, which effectively sealed in the subtropical heat of the Bodicéan capital. The forty-minute trip to the Council House was like a ride in a slow, mobile sauna.
They were allowed to see nothing until the car stopped in a sub-basement of the Council House. They would never know if the city they had passed through was magnificent, filled with the finest examples of Bodicéan architecture, art and landscaping, or whether it was a workaday city, functional and utilitarian, with warrens of offices for adminicrats and petty bureautates.
To be honest about it, they all had other things on their minds.
They were kept in waiting in a chamber at the Council House of the Inner Circle for the rest of the day, where the air had the exact qualities of a church in summertime. They were kept waiting in a small, windowless chamber, and no one offered them food or water.
“I wish I had stayed with my ship,” Driver said.
“They wouldn’t have let you,” Alkema told him. “They can’t have men walking through the streets like they owned the place. The mere sight of one of us might set off a widespread panic.”
“I could have gone back to Pegasus, sent someone else to get you guys,” Driver complained.
He was not a happy camper.
“What, and miss out on the opportunity to spend several hours in the most boring room in the entire galaxy?” Alkema countered. He was at his worst, here. No one to play off. He missed the commander. Lear sat in a corner with her aide, dictating the terms of a new treaty into their vocal computers.
Trajan sat between Driver and Alkema. “I wish I had brought a game,” he said, another time. Flight Lt. Driver had saved his life while Pegasus had been visiting EdenWorld. Alkema detected a hint of hero-worship in the attitude of Trajan toward Matthew, but Matthew was distracted, completely unaware of it.
“What’s on your mind?” Alkema asked Driver.
“There’s … a personal situation on Pegasus I have been… trying to resolve.” The admission seemed to embarrass him. “I can’t resolve it while I am sitting down here.”
“It’s a woman, isn’t it?”
Matthew bristled. “Yea, it is a woman.”
“Anyone I know.”
Matthew looked at him, his eyes were dark and liquid. He realized Trajan was also hanging on every word of this. “Lt. Navigator Eliza Jane Change.”
Alkema seemed blown away by this. “Neg! No kidding? Eliza Jane Change? Whoa.
Whew.” He shook his head as though trying to make sense of it.
“Why her?” Trajan asked.
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” Matthew confessed.
“Friend, I don’t mean this to be harsh, but Lt. Navigator Change… she’s exceedingly hot, she’s hot as the surface of the sun, but she’s just as untouchable. Nobody can get close to her.
It’s not like she’s from another planet, she’s not even from a planet. She’s also a navigator, and all navigators, I don’t know why, are weird.” Alkema then backed off. “However, I’m sure she’s a fine woman.”
Matthew was uncomfortable, and wished he hadn’t revealed anything. “I know she’s difficult, and I have been asking myself why I even bother trying… I have told her over and over again that I want our relationship to be serious, maybe even … marriage at some point.
She won’t say yea, she won’t say nay, she won’t even say maybe. I can’t stand it.”
“Well, friend, there are a lot of other women on the ship. When we get back, we’ll both work on them. Between the two of us, they don’t have a chance.”
“But you already have a girlfriend,” said Trajan. “Pieta.”
Alkema really wanted to hit him.
“Sometimes, I think I want to give up on women entirely,” Driver concluded.
“Don’t say that. If you don’t find a suitable woman on Pegasus, then, who knows? The next colony might be the colony of lost swimsuit models who love sports and can squirt ale out of their breasts.”
“The next colony will probably be as fallen down as the last three. Even if it is intact, we stay there for, what, eighty-four Sapphirean days? Suppose I do meet a wonderful woman? I am supposed to ask her to leave behind her life and family to join me on Pegasus. “
“I don’t want to sound prejudiced,” Trajan put in, “but, I will only marry another Republicker.”
Alkema and Driver looked at him, both envied his innocence.
There was a commotion in the hallway outside the room as though a large number of people were out there. The five of the landing party stood in anticipation.
The large double doors swung open to reveal a phalanx of Circle Monitors, large women in black tunics carrying big ceremonial swords. They stood and held the door for several minutes before Ciel finally met them. She looked tired, very, very tired.
Lear moved to the front, making
one of the monitor’s tighten the grip on her sword. “First Advocate Ciel, you are well-met again.”
Ciel looked back at her through eyes that were rimmed with dark, sleepless circles. “You may soon disagree with my being, ‘well-met.’”
Lear looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
“I just sent a signal to the Aurelian Fleet,” she told them. “The Inner Circle has voted to accept the Aurelian Treaty.”
“Nay!” Lear sounded as though the wind had been knocked out of her.
“The treated passed the Inner Circle on a vote of eighty-four points to thirty-six. We are preparing to reveal the presence of the Aurelians to the Outer Circle. When they have been informed, we will address our people, and let them know … what has been decided on their behalf.”
“Let me offer you a second treaty, a friendship treaty with my Republic, which pledges our friendship and cooperation.”
Ciel held up a hand and looked at her sadly. “It’s now zero hour in Concordia, the 12th day of Floréal. You and all of your people have until zero hour on the 13th day of Floréal to evacuate the planet.”
“What?” Ciel said. “Was that part of the treaty?”
“No, it was demanded made by the party of opposition in return for support of the Treaty.
Your presence here, your hostility to the Aurelians, make conflict inevitable. Without you, the Aurelians have no reason to make war.”
Lear would not give up. “Ciel, please, let us talk.”
“I must address the Outer Circle. Then, I am going to go to my apartments. Perhaps, we can meet in the morning. I will need rest.” She turned to go, muttering something too quiet to be heard.
Lear moved forward to beg Ciel to wait, but a Monitor imposed her big brawny body between Lear and the leader. Ciel departed, followed by her guards. They were left alone again. The moment was weighing heavily upon them.
Does this mean I don’t have to see Pieta again? David thought.
I’m stuck here all night, Matthew thought.
I’m stuck here all night and I’ll probably have to see that dumb Pieta girl in the morning, Trajan thought.