“Who cares if it's stable or not? The point is he makes it work well enough to cross oceans with it. And right now, he already has more wizards with him than there are in all of Cali.”
“Xander has more than four in Denver,” he told her. “And soon he'll have many more.”
She closed her eyes and then opened them again. “You think Xander's fledglings are ready to take on wizards who can fly across the Pacific safely? They're experienced. And from the reports I've received, Wu is used to using things like swizzle cannons in battle. Face it. He didn't conquer all of China with a bunch of students.”
Lobsang glared at her, but he knew she was right. Carolyn and Nathan and Esteban and even Kareef had no battle experience. Xander and Lester might be able to put up a decent fight (and he was learning how to do some of that himself), but the rest of them, while they could make artifacts, were certainly not trained to be weapons. “So what are you saying? That we should just surrender before he attacks?”
“Of course not. I'm saying this changes everything. Maybe we should join forces against him.”
“What, you and me? Working together?”
“You have a better idea?”
“I'm sure I could come up with one, given time.”
“I should love to hear it, if that day ever comes,” she said. “Meanwhile, we have today, Dog. What shall we do with it?”
His gaze swept the roof of the 'scraper. “The first thing we're going to do is find a way to get down off this building.”
“And the second?”
“If you want to live, you're going to stop calling me 'Dog',” he told her. “My name is Lobsang.”
Chapter 3
Wu: Good Health Hunting
“All warfare is based on deception.”
– The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
Different cultures think of things differently. An example of this is the idea of completeness. In the “New World” of the Americas, as in the European countries that colonized it, he knew, they associated completeness with either the number three (beginning, middle, end or father, mother, child) or the number four (north, south, east, west or earth, air, fire, water). In his own China, however, completeness was associated with the number five (north, south, east, west, and toward the center). To refer to totality, the ancient books of his country always used five, such as in “the five colors” to refer to all colors. The traditional Chinese music often employed five tones, like the five black keys in each octave of a piano. Emphasizing the five notes made disharmony impossible, but he found it a little boring.
Part of him wondered if that explained the Cloud Chariot's design, with four wizards controlling lift as he, the fifth occupant, directed the two swizzles mounted horizontally for thrust and steering.
He imagined his appearance must have alarmed the two wizards on the rooftop. By now they must be wondering what his intentions were.
By now, he also wondered. Am I here because I wanted to prove I could make the crossing? Was it another conquest?
I do not need more conquests. Emperor of China should be enough. But that wasn't exactly true, was it? He had one final conquest to make, of his own body's limitations. According to his physician, the reason his wives had borne no male heirs for him was some subtle damage that affected his seed. Only a woman can make a child, but only a man could determine whether that child would be male or female.
Some might call his demand for a male heir a ridiculous chauvinism that belonged in the past. There have been male and female rulers, he thought. Why should I insist that a son follows me on the throne?
But he knew his reasons. It was not that he thought a woman could not be a capable ruler. A ridiculous thought. The strength it took to govern a country and hold it together did not come from mere muscles and testosterone.
The problem was, there were many in china who thought that way. Oh yes, he could groom one of his many daughters for the succession. Or several, and let them compete for the honor. But not all of his countrymen would accept an Empress at this time in history.
As with so many other problems, he blamed it on the Tourists, those meddling aliens who'd wrecked Earth's civilization with their Gifts. After civilization fell, and existing weapon systems failed also, there were always low-tech alternatives.
But those alternatives involved muscle power. It took muscle power to draw a good bow, muscles to swing a heavy ax, and only by muscles could a sword strike or parry an attack.
In many kinds of animals, the female is larger and more dangerous: insects, birds, even fish. There is no reason for the female to be weaker than the male, for once the eggs are laid she has no limitations on her activity. But mammals are different. Long ago, nature decreed that our ancestors would protect developing embryos from varying temperatures by carrying the young inside the mother. This worked, but created problems.
As the mother carrying live young grew heavier, less mobile, and unable to engage in combat without endangering the children inside her, the responsibility of defense and hunting fell more upon the male. And so it was that the blind hand of evolution selected for larger, sturdier males. In humans, this meant that the average adult woman had less upper-body strength than an average adolescent male. Naturally, there were examples of stronger women and weaker men, but the average was, in terms of pure muscle power, that men were stronger.
In many humans, this engendered the idea that males were somehow intrinsically superior, as if muscular strength was the only important criterion. Fortunately, technological progress had largely obliterated the male advantage in many areas, because we externalized strength into machines, replacing muscles with motors and hydraulic pistons. And anyone could learn to control a machine. With the coming of the Age of Computers, this trend reached its apex, for even a child could wield strength when all it took was fingers typing on a keyboard.
But then the Tourists came and changed everything.
The end of the modern Golden Age came when the Gifts and all systems using them failed and hurled us back into barbarism. And in barbaric times, muscles are once again the engines of combat. Once again it was often the strongest arm that won a sword fight. And once again many people began thinking that men were stronger, and that men were the ones who should rule.
Any daughter of his would have to struggle against this new chauvinism. He would prefer to avoid making the succession any harder than it had to be. The best way of doing that would be to have a son. And so I am here.
Where was that damned tissue regenerator that his physician had said might cure his condition? He'd been told it was the last one still functioning, and that it was near the American west coast.
Naturally, he'd presumed that it was in the hands of whatever passed for government here. If such an artifact existed, surely whoever ruled would want it for their own health.
So far, however, this presumption had not served him. He'd headed south, toward greater population density, but that self-proclaimed “Queen of Angeles” claimed the artifact was currently in possession of tribes to the north, in a place called the Shrine. So now he headed north again.
Chapter 4
Alessia: Never Let It Go
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
Yes, the ship was unusual. A little too unusual to escape the curiosity of the local experts. And so here she was, dealing with another of them. Alessia sighed inside, but kept her impatience from escaping to her exterior. They were so close, now. The only thing that could possibly hold her back now was if Marcello failed her. But he never failed her. Would never fail her.
The harbor-master pointed at the plans again. “There's no place for the masts! Whatever fool drew these up must have never set foot on a sailboat. You don't finish the deck and then cut holes for the masts. They have to be planned for, from the very beginning. Who designed this monstrosity?”
I did, she thought. But she didn't say it. She glanced out of his office window, look
ing down at the docks to where the Libertà rested. “Someone I trust,” she said.
“Then your trust is misplaced, mademoiselle. I can't imagine how you talked anyone into investing in this, this craziness. Didn't anyone try to tell you? If you cut holes now to ship the masts, without proper bracing for them, you'll tear your boat apart in the first storm you encounter.”
She just smiled at him. There won't be any masts.
“Is any of this getting through to you?” His agitation seemed to be an example of perpetual motion. She wasn't arguing with the man, yet he continued to complain. “Look at the keel! Or show it to me, because I must have gone blind. You cannot sail without a keel. The wind will just push your boat sideways. Without a keel there is no balancing force. All you will be able to do is run before the wind, letting it push you as it pushes the waves. The only vessels without keels these days are canoes and barges. And this is far too big to be a canoe.”
“A keel would only slow it down,” she said. “More drag.”
The man just shook his head. “And what are these for?” he asked, pointing to several ring-shaped objects on a separate page. According to the notations in the margin, they were barely a meter across.
“For fishing,” she said. The truthful answer concealed more than it revealed, yet it was true. Well, partly.
He stared at her as if she were insane. “For fishing? I suppose you could put nets on them, but that's not how it is done. They're too small to hold any decent sized net, and you've made no provision for cranes to haul them up over the deck. If you have any luck at all, a net full of fish can be a very heavy thing. The Ancients had their machines to help them. Nowadays, all we have are block-and-tackle arrays. But even with the best pulleys, you still need a crane, and bracing for it.”
She smiled again. “I hear your objections, harbor-master.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Your father was a bold seaman and an able captain. Many a time he brought back rich cargoes from across the Mediterranean. For your sake, I do hope you've not spent too much of your inheritance on this mess.”
Only all of it. “I appreciate your concerns, harbor-master. Do we have your permission to embark?”
He sighed. “When your ship is seaworthy. I trust you'll not attempt to sail until then?”
Her eyebrows rose. “We would never depart until the ship is ready, harbor-master. After all, money's not all I inherited from my father.”
She strode from his office, her shoulder-length blonde hair stirring in the evening's land breeze. The sun had set on the Port of Hyeres, but the sea still held the warmth of the day, and as heated air rose from the cooling ocean, it pulled the already-cooler air from France out over the waves.
She could feel it pulling her, as well, to a voyage that would carry her farther than her father had ever dreamed to go. But where was Marcello? If he didn't get here soon...
Someone had pulled a cart onto the pier. She marched up to the man bent over it. “What the hell is this doing here? No one offloads at night."
A familiar face turned to her as the man straightened. “How else did you expect me to get them here? Carry them on my back? Cast iron's heavy.”
“Marcello!” In an instant, their arms were about each other. “Did you have any trouble getting them?” she whispered, as he held her.
“No more than you had paying for them. The fabricator was a little curious about what we would do with them.” He pulled back the tarp over the rear of the cart. Four huge rings gleamed dully in the moonlight, each a meter in diameter and ten centimeters thick. They resembled nothing so much as wedding rings for gods: flat on the inside, rounded on the outside.
She studied them. Acceptable. Cast in one piece, with no welds that corrosion could seize a foothold on. Solid bits of matter from the hearts of long-dead stars that now would roam the Earth. “What did you tell him?”
“Tyres for the wheels of a heavy cart.”
She had to laugh at that. Yes, she knew that the practice of reinforcing wagon wheels with circular iron bands around the wooden wheel rims made wheels more sturdy. That was done with thin ribbons of iron, heated to slip it over the wheels, so that the cooling metal shrank and gripped the rim of the wheel firmly. But these rings were far too thick for that; heated, they'd char any wheel, even if you managed to slip them on it. “And he really believed that?”
Marcello shrugged. “Like all artisans, he believed in money. Let's get them aboard.”
Helping him slide them out of the cart, she soon saw he was right about the weight. But they stood them up on edge and rolled them up the gangplank.
“Are you sure they'll be enough?” he asked, and not for the first time.
“One would be enough, if we braced it properly. But two are better,” she told him, as they maneuvered two of the rings down into the hold.
Rubin and Tala looked up from securing some of the cargo. “About time someone else did a little work,” said Rubin, the shorter of the two, reaching up to grasp the ring Marcello was lowering. “Are you going to mount the other two tonight?”
Alessia shook her head, lowering another ring down to him. “Too dark now. We'll do it tomorrow morning.” It was a pity the ironmonger had taken so long to finish her order, she thought. She would have preferred to slip away tonight, even if the darkness made navigation trickier. “Where are the others?”
Tala adjusted the second ring so that it lay on crates across the center line from the first one, balancing it. “Colin and Teresa are probably in their cabin. Benito and Francesca, who knows? Maybe they wanted to say goodbye to their parents.”
She lashed it in place as Rubin did the same for its twin, while Alessia watched from above. The additional iron would complicate the magnetic deviation of the Libertà's compass enough as it was. Hopefully, locating the rings symmetrically port and starboard of it would make for a simpler pattern of deflection from magnetic north.
Alessia left them to it and strode forward, studying her ship, trying to think of anything she'd forgotten. The Libertà's shape, from above would have resembled a spearpoint. She'd considered naming it the Pilum, after the ancient Roman spear often used to disable and make useless the enemy's shields. But her ship was no weapon of war, but an instrument of freedom, hence the name.
Perhaps I should have added a mast, she thought. The ship would attract less attention if it appeared more conventional. But she'd rejected the idea early on. The Libertà had been designed for speed, any more protrusions would only increase drag and slow it down.
After she had taken a turn topside around the deck, she stood at the bow looking southwest over the Mediterranean. She wouldn't have been human if she didn't some second thoughts about the voyage. Thousands of miles, millions of waves, storms, perhaps pirates...there were so many things what could go wrong on a journey like this. No one she'd heard of had tried anything like it in a hundred years.
But that was the point, wasn't it? To launch this spear into the unknown. To fly in the face of adversity, daring the danger, to see what could be seen. And maybe, even, to come back.
Marcellio joined her at the bow. “Do you want me to go ashore and look for them?”
She slipped an arm around him. “No. Let them have their last night in France.” Not everyone could leave as easily as her. With her parents gone, and now all of the inheritance spent, nothing remained to hold her back.
“You seem so calm. Don't you have any worries, any concerns? For all we know, the rest of the world has fallen into savagery. Even if we get there, we could be eaten by cannibals.”
“You don't really believe that,” she told him, managing to sound more certain than she felt. In a way, the Libertà proved that the Old World, at least had not completely collapsed. From the tin in the bronze fittings (from England), the teak in the hatches and external railings (from India) and the steel in her bolts (Germany), so many things from so many places had come together to breathe life into her dream. If only her father had lived to see i
t. But part of him would go with her, the part that had told her stories, taught her skills, and given encouragement to her aspirations with his favorite phrase: never let it go.
Later, they made love one more time before leaving France, also called L'hexagone.
They were up early the next morining. Benito and Francesca were still missing. Alessia fretted about that while Marcello stripped off his shirt and tied a safety line around his waist. “Maybe I should have sent you after them, after all. I'd hate to leave without our physician and main cook.”
“They'll be here,” he predicted, lifting one of the iron rings not stowed in the hold. “He's always behind schedule, and she's probably grabbing some extra spices.”
She handed him a wrench and glanced at the pier. So far, so good. But she saw no sign of the missing couple yet. She supposed they were lucky that the ship's design automatically reduced the need for crew. “Be careful.”
“Oui, mon capitaine,” he laughed, holding the ring and the wrench out away from his body for safety as he stepped off the ship and dropped into the water. Alessia frowned and held onto the line with both hands, bracing her feet on the deck. She supposed they'd never let her forget the fact that her design and the money to implement it entitled her to the captaincy. She was a great believer in egalitarianism...but a ship must have a captain. And after all, it was the simple truth that she could have taken the ship out herself, alone if she had to. Of all the crew, Alessia was the only one who was truly indispensable.
Not that she ever thought of her husband as indispensable. If any of them were able to hold their breath longer than Marcello, he'd be the one holding this line and they'd be the ones in the water.
After a minute she bagn to worry. But less than a minute later his head broke the surface and he lifted one arm free of it to flip the wrench up to her. After she snatched it out of the air and set it down, she grabbed the line again. His head went under the water for a second, and then he lunged up out of it with a powerful kick and armstroke, and she hailed on the line, helping him scramble over the gunwale and back onto the deck.
Tonespace: The Space of Energy (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 3) Page 37