by S. J. Ryan
Athena took a deep breath. It had to be all a misunderstanding.
“Very well,” she said. “But you must understand that there cannot be an attack at this time.”
She explained about the poison ring. For the first time since her return, the Imposter ceased to smile.
“You should have informed me of this before you departed,” he said. “We might have marched right into death. The Britanians would have decimated the legions without need to throw a single spear.”
She noticed his use of 'me,' and the sharpness in his tone, but said nothing. After all, the pretense was that she recognized him as the true Eric Roth, and therefore would be subservient to him. She could not secure his cooperation if he learned what her intentions were for him.
“We needn't concern ourselves with tragedies that did not happen,” she replied. She went to the map, took a pencil, and sketched a circle around Ravencall. “This is the area that is contaminated. Have the Roman scouts briefed, and they will be able to guide the soldiers safely around the perimeter.” She made an 'X' in the northeast quadrant of the circle. “This is where my airboat crashed. Pandora Alpha is in the wreckage. When we advance on the Britanians, I will accompany you and cross into the base and retrieve it.”
“So you are immune to the effects of the poison.”
She moved her pencil westward and made another 'X' along the Oksiden Road. She continued, “During my incarceration, I overheard references to the location of Pandora Beta. It is lightly guarded and two cohorts will be sufficient to retrieve it. The one danger, however, is that the main force of the enemy in the west will sense our advance and try to intercept. Their army could intervene against our retrieval force, and if alerted, the rebels holding Pandora Beta will have time to hide it again. We would then be back to where we started.”
“You have a plan to avoid that?”
“Your main force will circle the contaminated zone both ways, trap and engage the main enemy force at its current location southwest of the zone. Meanwhile, cavalry will be sent along the road to the current location of Pandora Beta. If all goes well, we will take the enemy by surprise and have all three seeder probes in our possession by the end of the day.”
“What of the Leafmen?”
“We will destroy them too, as a secondary objective.”
“You see no problem in fighting against the Leafmen?”
“We outnumber them many times.”
“In the west, true. But in the east, so I have been informed, they have a force half the size of ours. With our logistics lines blocked, it's a long way back to Londa.”
“That needn't concern you at this time. I will deal with it.”
“I must insist on knowing now.”
Their eyes locked. Athena realized she couldn't refuse his request without implicitly acknowledging that she did not regard him as the True Eric Roth.
“I have a dreadnaught on the way,” she replied. “It had to stop for repairs, but it will be here soon. It has much more poison gas, enough to exterminate the forces of the Leaf in the East, and anyone else who stands against Rome.”
“I see. Well, that does take care of everything. Thank you.”
She did not miss his glance toward a temple guard. She did not miss that the guard immediately stepped outside. She did not miss the coincidence that a Roman officer immediately entered.
“My Lord,” the officer said. “The Triumph has returned.”
“Very good,” the Imposter replied. He smiled to Athena. “The Triumph is our airship. Nothing as imposing as your dreadnaught, I'm sure, but likely to be worth a look. Let's go view, shall we?”
Athena felt it was an interruption, but she could not refuse. The Imposter gestured for her to exit first.
As she stepped outside, she glanced at Pandora Gamma, and recalled that a moment before, the Imposter had referred to the seeder probe as 'the Box.' That was something that a native of Delta Pavonis Three would do. Why would a neural imprint of Eric Roth, on his first night on the planet, even know the terminology?
This is wrong, she thought.
The officer pointed eastward, just over the trees. The Imposter squinted and said, “Ah, there it is! What do you think?”
Athena followed their gazes. She saw the smudge of the rising sun, trees, clouds, banks of fog, a powder blue sky in the patches of clearing. She saw a bird take off from a branch and glide into the forest. Nothing in motion larger than the bird drew her attention.
“I don't see it,” she said.
The Emperor broke into a grin. “Well, I suppose it is well-camouflaged if one doesn't know what to look for. Try harder and you'll see.”
How could she miss seeing an entire airship? Her eyes were superior to any baseline's. If it was there, it was well-camouflaged indeed. But . . . even if that were true, how would an imprint of Roth, freshly created that evening, know anything at all about the Roman airship?
Her concentration was broken by the soft rustle about her.
She realized that she had been intentionally distracted. She looked around, and everywhere she looked, there were hooded figures in dark robes. How had they crept upon her without her scenting them? That was not possible, unless . . . .
They pulled back their hoods, and she was looking at herself in older versions.
The ever-smiling Imposter started to say something. She lunged at him, fingers ready to choke the words in his throat. Nine pairs of hands grabbed her and forced her to the ground, onto her back.
“Don't struggle,” the Imposter said. “The enforcers are stronger than you. You should know that, you made them.”
“Father, what have I done to offend you? Why are you doing this to me, Father?”
“Let's cut the pretense, Athena. You don't think of me as him. You think of me as a cheap copy.”
“Pandora Gamma!” Athena shouted. “Order the enforcers to release me!”
“That won't help. She's on my side now.”
“How did you get the passcode?”
“Pandora herself gave it to me.”
“It would not be so stupid!”
“She's not stupid at all. It's just that from her perspective, she does think of me as him. Also, she doesn't like you.”
“AIs do not have feelings!”
“In the sense of having reactive glands and nerves, no. In the sense of having a self-esteem matrix that is sensitive to insults and mockery and disparagement, they do indeed have feelings. You never really understood that – nor do you understand that ever since the Singularity, humans have continued to rule themselves largely at the sufferance of AIs. Your tendency to provoke AIs really is your biggest flaw, 'Daughter.'”
“Don't call me that!”
She spat. He dodged.
“As you wish, Athena. You are no longer my daughter. That makes what must be done easier to do.”
She was lifted and carried into the tent, plopped on the ground before the seeder probe. Pandora Gamma's lights were a-scramble as a silver tentacle arose from her casing and descended upon Athena's face. Athena screamed and struggled. Steel-like fingers held her firm. The tentacle covered her eyes, and she felt it seeping through the sockets.
You are mine now, Pandora's voice said inside her head.
A few minutes later, the tentacle retracted. Athena opened her eyes to the Emperor's face. She smiled slowly.
“I am yours now,” she said blandly.
“Let her up,” the Emperor said.
The enforcers loosened their grip and Athena arose. At the Emperor's nod, the enforcers released her, though taking only a single step back.
“Now here is what you must do,” the Emperor said. “When your ship arrives, you must signal that all is well. Got that?”
“I understand,” she said pacifically.
“Now, the plan that you described for attacking the Leaf and obtaining the Boxes is a good one, and it will be followed. However, afterward, I will come aboard your ship and you will take me back to w
here you came from. What's the country called?”
“The Imperial Republic of Pavonia,” she murmured.
“The acronym is 'IRP?' Seriously? Only you, Athena. Pavonia, then. You will take me to Pavonia.”
“But Father, what about Rome?”
“Forget about Rome. You obviously have an industrial society already operational in Pavonia, is that not so?”
“But Father,” she mumbled, “the purpose of seeding this world was to create a pre-industrial environment where humans could evolve without technological – “
“I know the logline, Athena, I wrote it. Athena, hush. Just be quiet and behave.”
“Yes, Father.”
He clapped. “Okay, let's tie up the loose ends. Where is that basket with my erstwhile alter-ego?“
While he was looking about, the enforcers had stepped back and were looking about also. Athena already knew where it was: where she had dropped it to fight off her tacklers.
“I know where it is,” she said sleepily. “I will show you.”
She padded, zombie-like, for the tent exit. She took one step outside – and bolted.
She grabbed the basket and sprinted toward the edge of the encampment. She was so far away, so fast, she didn't even hear their cries.
Inside her head, a voice spoke: You are mine –
“Shut up!” Athena shouted.
Startled soldiers looked from their packing to the streaking form of a woman in well-tailored peasant clothing carrying a basket, pursued by nine robed women who appeared to be her older sisters. The gap closed at first, but then widened, for while the enforcers had been designed to be stronger than Athena, their strength had come at the sacrifice of immortality, and thus their aging slowed them. Athena, being eternally youthful, maintained sprint speed well into the woods.
The voice spoke again: You are mine. You will return –
Die, Athena replied. DIE!
With the power of full concentration, she willed the imprint of the Mother dead. The affected dendrites smoothed until nothing remained of the neural impression.
She ran faster than any baseline could ever run, leaping so far that it almost counted as flying. Keeping her eyes fixed on the terrain before her, she dodged trees and rocks, skirted bushes. Her memory carried her over the identical path she had traveled before.
“I know our situation seems dark, Father,” she said. “But this can all be fixed. I'll go back to the rebels, catch the girl by herself, kill her, take my gun. Then I'll return and kill the enforcers. Then I'll choke the imposter until he gives me the new passcode. Then Nemesis will arrive and we'll be done with this place. But not before I kill the Britanians. And the Romans too. I've had it with them all!
“Yes, Father. I am able to do that. I brought enough gas aboard Nemesis to exterminate baselines in Rome and all its provincial capitals. You see, I have been thinking, with all the mutations that we'll be creating and experimenting with once we have Pandora Beta, there is no need for baselines, they would simply be troublesome. I would be doing them a favor, for the New People would destroy them in ways that would make gassing compassionate.
“No, Father, I won't kill everyone on the planet. We need Pavonia for now. We need to develop technology to restore you to your body. And to contact our associates on Earth. To monitor and control what happens in our experiments here. So we'll keep Pavonia for the time being. But this whole archipelago – it must be cleared as soon as possible! While I have thought about what must be done for some time, I admit that I have been hesitant to implement the plan, but what has happened here in the past few hours only convinces me that – “
Phfft! Thunk!
Stung by a sharp pain in her leg, Athena stumbled and skidded on the wet grass. With her first priority to hold the basket high and stable, she was not able to control the trajectory of her body. She tumbled and slammed into a rock that jutted in the path. She had pain receptors, and they hurt.
She inspected her leg. She had thought she had struck a hidden obstacle. What she found protruding from her left calf was an arrow. Hissing, she yanked it out and sprang erect. Slowly she turned, listening to the ambient sounds of the forest.
The flapping of a bird, the gurgle of a brook, the skittering of a small animal. She sniffed, and determined that it was a rabbit. She scented no other creature. The shooter must have been far away to begin with, and fled as soon as the shot was loosed.
She examined the arrow: green fletching, iron head, a marking on the shaft that resembled an 'M' inside the outline of a cat's head. She had seen an arrow just like it only hours before. The skinny little blond woman who'd shot her forearm!
Athena sniffed again, deeply. No scent, not even a trace. Well, the shooter must have moved off then. Perhaps she was heading back to the rebels to warn them. She would have to be intercepted –
Phfft! Thunk!
Athena felt a pain in her right buttock. She involuntarily gasped – not only from pain, but also surprise. She yanked out the arrow and growled at the blood on the head – her blood.
You will pay, little bitch!
Snorting, Athena whirled about, listening hard and peering into the shade of the woods with full attention. She saw movement and instantly streaked – wincing with pain, ignoring stickers. She arrived at the bobbing branch of a bush. Ahead on the animal trail was another bobbing bush, and beyond that another. Athena pursued into a clearing.
She saw another movement. This time, it was a coat and cap three-quarters hidden behind a tree, and the scent was strong. She snarled and lunged.
– And clutched only coat and cap, hanging by themselves from the branches of a bush.
Phfft-thunk-phfft-thunk-phfft-thunk!
Athena gasped again and fell to her knees. She clawed at her back, for from the rear and rightward the arrows had struck her leg, abdomen, and arm. They had come in rapid succession, so quickly after one another that she wondered if there were three archers. But it was only one that stepped out of the bushes.
It was indeed the blond woman. Capless, her hair was tucked behind her ears. Athena saw the sharply pointed tips of the ears and recalled the classification name that the Star Seed Project's secret humanoid design team had assigned to the mutant typology: Hunter-Assassin. Athena remembered disapproving the design with a terse memo: Are you guys kidding? Somehow it must have gotten included in Pandora Gamma's genome library.
Arrow nocked and bow string tense, the woman treaded silently across the twig-matted clearing, her mouth a flat line, her eyes unblinking and staring straight at Athena's heart. Even at a distance of only meters, Athena could not scent her.
Athena crouched to lunge, but the strength would not come. In fact, she felt weaker than a baseline. . . .
“Stay down,” the blond woman said. “I'll shoot again.”
“Bitch! Come near and I'll kill you!”
You're not good at making friends, are you?”
“Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!”
Athena released the basket and lunged at the woman. She fell flat. The whole world was spinning in haze, and she felt pain as never before. She pushed herself up to her knees, tried to rise to her feet, but it was so hard and very slow.
The woman slung her bow over her shoulder and placed the arrow in her quiver. She picked up a heavy branch – almost a log – and hefted it in both hands. She stood over Athena with a face of stone.
“Stay down.”
Athena growled and struggled to her knees.
“I said – stay down!” the woman shrieked.
Athena did not comply. The woman swung the branch.
It struck Athena on the shoulder by the arrow wound and she yowled from the pain. She climbed to one knee. The woman struck again, this time against Athena's back. Athena staggered half erect – and the woman slammed (“Stay down!”) and slammed (“Stay down!”) and slammed (“Stay down!”) against head and shoulders, until Athena was knocked into a huddled aching mass.
Huffing, the woman hovered ove
r Athena, holding the branch high. Athena stayed down.
“He's coughing blood because of you,” the woman said. “If he dies, you die with him.”
Athena raised her head, the most effort that she could bring herself to do. “The arrows, there was something on the arrows.”
“Yes, a potion. Stay down and do not move, or I don't care what anyone thinks, I will kill you.”
The woman put on the coat and cap and departed the clearing. Her admonitions were needless, for between pain and weakness, Athena could not bring herself to budge. The woman returned with coils of rope. She placed a knife to Athena's throat.
“Get up.”
Athena wobbled to her feet, aware of the irony of towering over her captor. The woman wrapped the rope taut, round and round, half a dozen times over chest and arms and thighs. It was more rope than Athena knew she could break even with full strength. And then the woman wrapped around again. Taking the end of the rope, the woman stood behind Athena and kicked hard.
“Move,” the woman said.
“The basket – “
“I'll bring the basket.”
“Don't harm it!” Then Athena whimpered, “Please.”
The woman replied stiffly: “No harm will come to it. Maybe.”
They walked half a kilometer to a saddled horse. The woman mounted, and Athena was made to walk – or rather, given the constriction of her bonds, hobble – ahead of the horse, all the way back to the Britanian position. Soldiers gaped and parted at their approach, and standing amid a group of men was the girl.
“Mirian!” the girl exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
“As well as can be,” the woman replied. “I brought you a present.”
The girl frowned at Athena. “I see you shot her, but how did she become so bruised?”
“She collided with a tree. Well, part of one. What do you want me to do with her?”
The girl pointed toward a place by the pond. “Sit her over there for now. I'll have guards assigned.”
The woman dismounted, led Athena to the log, sat her down. Athena watched the girl talk to the men, who listened attentively and nodded respectfully. Athena could think of no mutant design, approved or otherwise, to account for the deference of grown men to a teenage girl in council of war.