***
He found Primary Officer Nikolides at the heart of the horseshoe-shaped bridge, arms crossed casually across her chest. The deep cinnamon skin of her shaven head glowed in the light of multiple screens: a real-time chart of their passage from the Charites Pylon to the trinary system itself on the main screen; several images of the nearby, massive Iona Nebula on various screens on the right and left; more screens scrolling real-time data on the turbos, the structure of the ship, communications to and from ships and satellites in and around the Charites.
Mammeri stopped beside her, resting his hands on the padded railing. Stathopoulos sat at his navigation station directly below, focused, making minute adjustments to their heading as needed. Beside him, Lakhanpal scowled ferociously at the small comm screen in front of her, and at the larger ones above her head. On Stathopoulos' left, Marine Captain ferch Alun -- her red hair already beginning to pull loose from the tight bun on the back of her head -- was sighing loudly and repeating something into her mic. The Engineering and Therapeum stations sat empty.
Mammeri leaned over and and whispered, "I thought she was going to cut her hair."
Nikolides' mouth twisted in a half-smile and she whispered back, "That was the plan. There is a bet going as to whether or not she'll actually go through with it this time."
"Oh?"
"Mmm. Three-to-one odds against. Care to place a wager?"
Mammeri quickly shook his head. "Where his Marines are involved, a ship's Captain never is." At the sound of a soft step, he turned and found a smiling Tadi holding a tray: hot cacahuatl flavored with strawberry and mint sticks, and a cup of mango lassi. Dark eyes sparkling, Nikolides grabbed the cup of lassi.
"My apologies, Captain. I saw Prophētēs Kyrillos entering your office, and thought it best not to interrupt."
"Mmm." Mammeri's mouth tightened at mention of the priest. "Not to worry, Tadi." He picked up the cup of cacahuatl, swirling the sticks; they slowly began to melt, the scents of strawberry and mint mixing. He inhaled deeply.
With a satisfied burp and thunk of her cup, Nikolides set the glass back on the tray. "Thank you, Tadi. Very tasty."
"I'll let Chef Serra know that you enjoyed it." A bow and Tadi slipped quietly away.
Below, Lakhanpal growled and muttered something impolite about the parentage of the Fox' communications system. Mammeri peered down at her, saw her punching away at buttons and screens, decided that she was dealing with whatever it was, and turned back to his Primary Officer. "Phyllis, a personal question, if I might?"
She turned towards him, tipping her head slightly. "Of course."
"How long did you serve as an Oracle for Artemis at Brauron?"
A long pause, a deep breath. "I was called when I was seven. I served Her until menarche, at twelve. Then She chose another."
"And ... nothing since? No visions, possession? ... Dreams?"
Nikolides' eyes darted to the screen behind him, filled with the huge stellar nursery that was the Iona Nebula, then quickly away. "Once. She came to me once, in a vision. After the Alexander the Great was lost. She told me -- " Her voice cracked, and she stopped.
"It doesn't matter." Mammeri turned away, suddenly ashamed at his questions. "Never mind."
"No." Nikolides shook her head. "It does matter. I kept it to myself. Perhaps I should not have. Perhaps Her message was not for me alone, but for -- all the families. She said my son -- she said they went to Elysium with honor, and that Alexander Himself was there to greet them." Blinking rapidly, lips pulled into a tight smile, Nikolides took a deep breath. Then another. "Well, I actually feel better." Another breath."I've been holding on to that for twenty years. I should have let it go sooner."
The flavored sticks completely melted, Mammeri took a tentative sip of his still-hot cacahuatl. The strawberry and mint made his tongue tingle. A deeper sip. He wrapped his hands around the cup. "Thank you, Phyllis."
She dipped her head. "You are most welcome, Ajeddig. And thank you, as well."
***
"Captain?" Lakhanpal looked up at him from her communications station, still scowling. "If you are free, Pythia Theone is requesting your presence in the garden."
"Nn." He grunted, one eyebrow climbing in surprise. "Tell her I am honored by her request, and I shall be there in a few moments." He turned towards the lift. "You have the bridge, Nikolides."
"Aye, Captain. Stathopoulos, update on our position, please."
"Ma'am, currently T-minus six hours eight minutes from planet Antheia -- "
The rest was lost in the whoosh of the doors closing behind him and the low hum of the lift. As a diplomatic vessel, the Fox was not a large stellar barque: only four levels. The garden, to the rear of the bridge, took up a chunk of levels one and two and was one of the few rooms on the ship with an unobstructed view of outer space; granted, it was through a dome of plasteen two feet thick, but it could be quite impressive. And quite romantic (so he had been told).
The lift slid down its tube and rotated smoothly into position. The doors whooshed open and his ankles were immediately attacked. The Fox' mascots had borne their second litter only a few months ago, and the baby fennec foxes seemed to like nothing more than chewing on his boots. And sleeping his bed. And stealing food from the kitchen. Captain ferch Alun had yet to figure out how they got around the ship so well.
He sighed and bent to pick them up. One snarled at him and slipped away, stumbling back across the gravel and soil towards the foxes' den. The other yawned wide and curled into the crook of his elbow. He glared down at the kit. "You would be the one who keeps making a mess of my bed, wouldn't you?"
The kit yawned again, great bat-like ears lowering in contentment.
A soft laugh rolled across the garden towards him. "I'm afraid this is all my fault. I'm keeping them up past their bedtime."
Mammeri stepped out of the lift, gravel crunching beneath his boots. The garden spread a good twenty feet to either side of him and another twenty feet ahead of him. Fruits and vegetables of every variety grew here, in low hills of rich soil, in hanging baskets, in hydroponics beds and aeroponics beds. Orange and lime and lemon trees, apple and plum trees, cocoa and yucca, lettuce, spinach and beans, tomatoes, olives, potatoes, yams, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, peppers and peanuts, and more herbs than he could identify. More than enough to feed the crew and their guests, with plenty left over to trade on various colony worlds or with other ships for supplies. It was amazing what some people would trade for fresh spinach.
Following the sound of human laughter and purring, snarling fennec foxes, he walked around a small stand of miniature apple trees, green fruit just turning pink, and found the Oracle sitting on the ground. His mouth dropped open in surprise. The foxes were jumping all over her, whining in delight. They ran in circles, hopped into her lap, climbed over her shoulders, tugged at her skirts, sniffed her hair. Prophētēs Oreias sat on a bench nearby, head resting in his hands, a resigned look on his face. Prophētēs Kyrillos, on the other hand, was bouncing around as madly as the foxes, desperately trying to catch them.
And the Oracle, Beloved of Apollo, God-Kissed, was laughing.
"Oh, yes, I did not know that they are nocturnal and when we came in, well, I am afraid that we woke them up." She rubbed noses with the mother fennec fox, while papa tried to pull off one of her slippers. Kyrillos made a grab for him, but father fox jumped away, snarling, the slipper in his teeth.
With a sudden heave, the kit in Mammeri's arms pushed away and went chasing after his father, trying to take the slipper for himself. They disappeared around a low hill of blueberry bushes, Kyrillos in pursuit.
Mammeri swallowed hard. "My profoundest apologies, Pythia." He bowed deeply. "I did not -- "
"Oh, hush, Captain," she shooshed him. She tickled the ears of one kit, while another tried to climb up her arm. "They are delightful. Just wonderful." She looked up at him, blue eyes warm. The gray threads in her dark hair looked silver in the garden's light,
the thick locks held back by a blue silk scarf knotted at the back of her neck. A huge grin spread across her face. "Are they yours?"
Mammeri shifted on his feet, dropping his gaze. "As much as any fox could be said to belong to someone, yes, I suppose. The mated pair, the mother and father, they killed a snake that crawled into my tent when I was camping outside Carthage several years ago. Then they got into my box of supplies. And then ... they refused to leave."
"They like you."
"They like that I have boots for them to chew on. And a warm bed to sleep in. When Pharaoh (Gods Preserve Him) appointed me Captain of this vessel, I brought them along." He shrugged. "It seemed appropriate to name the ship after them." He cleared his throat. "Are you well, then, Pythia? I have been led -- I understand that you have not been sleeping .... "
Her smile disappeared and her hand stilled where it was stroking the back of one of the kits. "A Pythia never sleeps well, Captain. Even when we are not speaking for the God, we can still ... hear Him. It is not the same as when we sit in trance and speak with His voice, but it is still there, a low murmur, a whisper. When we sleep, the whisper is louder, but not as clear. What it says, the images it paints, are not always distinct, easy to understand." A tight, hard smile. "Such is the case the last few nights. But -- " she drew a deep breath " -- I believe I have puzzled out the meaning, finally, of the dream that has been plaguing me. When it finally becomes clear to you, too, I do hope that you will understand, and that you can forgive me."
Mammeri's heart sped up and his stomach twisted. "I ... beg your pardon?"
She looked up at him finally, the warmth gone from her eyes. "You see -- you could not be on the bridge."
He turned and ran for the lift, kicking up gravel.
Alarms blared. Nikolides' voice, firm, calm, snapped overhead. "Battle stations! Hostiles inbound! All hands, battle stations!"
The barque lurched hard to the starboard, throwing him against the frame of the door. The a-grav stuttered. The lights flickered. Did he hear the foxes screaming or people? He pushed himself upright and stumbled into the lift. The doors slammed shut and the lift pushed forward. The ship lurched again and the sound of rending metal filled his ears. There was a fire somewhere; he could smell it. The lift slammed to a halt, throwing him against the wall. Then it kicked forward again. His head hurt, and his shoulder. He stayed on the floor until the lift, only half rotated into position, finally stopped at the rear of the bridge. The doors creaked open. Dragging himself to his feet, he squeezed through the narrow opening; there was just enough room between the body of the lift and the bulkhead. His pants and jacket snagged and tore. The door slammed open behind him, than banged shut.
The bridge was smoky. A small fire burned at the Therapeum station. Lakhanpal was on the floor, head bleeding. Tadi was there, pressing a med patch to the comm officer's wound. Nikolides was yelling. So was ferch Alun. The alarm was still screaming. Half the screens were out. The main screen was flickering, jumping back and forth between a graph of their route, images of the Iona Nebula, and --
"Pirates!" Nikolides spat, holding tight to the railing. The ship lurched again.
"Impact!" ferch Alun yelled over the alarm. "Port side, section four!"
Engineering.
"Kill the alarm!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tadi reach up and slap a button on Lakhanpal's console. Silence, now, except for the creak and groan of the Fox, and the high-pitched whine of the turbos. "Report -- "
But Nikolides was already speaking. " -- six of them. We took out one with torpedoes, but the other five have done serious damage to the engines -- "
"Engineering to bridge!" Yassemidis snarled over the comm. His Primary Engineer was unhappy. "We've lost turbos one and three, and five is about to go. We either drop down to thrusters or we overload."
"Understood. Bridge out." He leaned over the railing. "Stathopoulos, new heading: one-zero-zero mark one-two-zero mark three-zero -- "
" Aye!"
" -- Aerowen, give them something to choke on. Lock torpedoes on the lead raider."
Ferch Alun's hands danced across her console. Her hair was loose. "Aye, locked and ready."
"Away!"
On a still-functioning screen above her head, two lights blinked, one each on the port and starboard launchers. The lights angled away from the barque, towards the nearest hostile. "Impact, three, two -- " The lead raider veered away. One torpedo followed and the triangular shape of the pirate glowed momentarily red, then returned yellow. The other torpedo slammed into a second triangle that tried to move out of the way too late; red, then nothing. Ferch Alun grinned. "Two down, one crippled. Three hostiles still in pursuit."
"Captain," Stathopoulos called up. "Coming up on the Iona Nebula. Sixty seconds."
Mouth tight, gripping the railing hard, Nikolides glanced over at him. "Not that we really have any choice, but are you sure?"
"We're still six hours out from the Charites. Where else are we going to go?"
"Thirty seconds."
"Bridge!" Yassemidis snarled overhead. "Turbo five is about to go!"
"Heavenly Tanit," Mammeri whispered, "watch over your devoted children and lead them safely to sweet waters."
"Iona Nebula, contact ... now."
The Fox plunged into the roiling clouds of the stellar nursery. Purple and indigo and pink clouds swirled around them. Protostars, encircled by disks of debris, burned garish yellow and gold and blue, alone and in pairs and threes. Asteroids whirled around the barque, dangerously close. Stathopoulos' fingers skipped and hopped across his console. The Fox plunged to the port as two gigantic rocks suddenly loomed in front of them and collided. More asteroids swung into view.
"Aerowen?"
"Two hostiles still in pursuit, Captain."
"Take us in further, Stathopoulos."
"Aye -- "
There was a low rumble and the barque shuddered.
"There goes turbo five," Nikolides muttered. No port side engines left. If they could find someplace to land or pull into orbit .... No, definitely orbit. If they landed, they might not get off the ground again.
The clouds thickened around the barque.
"No contact with the hostiles, Captain." Ferch Alun leaned back in her chair. Grimacing in irritation, she pulled her hair back and twisted it into a knot.
"Good." Mammeri swung away from the railing and headed down the ramp towards Stathopoulos' station. "Now, how does it look out there? We need someplace we can hide for a bit ...." He studied the small screens in front of his navigator, and just above his head. The large main screen continued to flicker, jumping back and forth between different shots of the interior of the nebula: twin protostars, large asteroid, purple-pink clouds, a rogue planetoid. "There," he pointed. "That planetoid should be large enough for us to orbit."
At his feet, Lakhanpal groaned. She was pale, her eyes glassy. With Tadi's help, she pushed herself upright. The bondswoman tossed aside the bloody med patch and pressed a second to the gash on Lakhanpal's head. Mammeri knelt down as she coughed and whispered. "Buoy. I got ... 'mergency buoy ... before ...." She started coughing.
"Good job, Bhāskara." He called up to his Primary Officer. "Nikolides, get us to that planetoid." He pulled Lakhanpal's left arm over his shoulder and hefted her to her feet. "I'll be in the Therapeum."
"Aye, Captain. Stathopoulos, new heading ...."
***
The Therapeum was loud, busy, and reeked of burnt cloth and flesh. All four of the permanent beds were taken -- Mammeri winced when he saw the bloody mess that was Engineer Okoye's left arm -- and the medical staff had rolled out another half dozen emergency beds. Mammeri maneuvered Lakhanpal over to the only bed that was still free. Primary Therapist Villanova appeared out of the chaos, his uniform smeared with blood and other fluids, and gently lifted Lakhanpal's legs onto the bed.
"Short version." He pulled out fresh med patches with one hand and pressed a hypo to Lakhanpal's neck with the other. His normally neat b
londe hair was sticking out in harried spikes. He tossed the hypo aside and reached for a packet of med gel. "Danae!" he yelled across the room. "More gel packs!"
"Pirates. We're hiding out in the Nebula until we can do repairs."
"Not a good hiding spot. Get down to Engineering. Okoye said the entire port side is gone."
"Already on my way." Mammeri spun, danced around Danae as she suddenly appeared with the gel packs, backed out of the way as a bleeding, unconscious Engineer De was carried in, and ran out the door.
He didn't trust the lifts. He took the emergency ladders down to the third level, noting battle damage as he ran. Blown electrical panels, small fires, dangling conduits and hoses. Cracks. There were cracks in the bulkhead of his ship.
The main door to Engineering was stuck a quarter of the way open. He slipped into the space, braced himself, and used his legs to push the door open. He stepped the rest of the way in and immediately started coughing. He pressed his sleeve to his face.
The room reeked of hot, fast-burning fire. Now extinguished, but the air was still heavy with soot and the smell of chemical extinguisher. Bits of metal and glass and plasteen and ceramic crunched under his boots. A few red and yellow lights flashed here and there; not enough to illuminate the two-level space. The turbos were ... Mammeri stared. As tall as three men and as wide around as a redwood, the six turbos were built directly into and through the hull of the barque, like the oars on sea-going vessels of old; only the top third protruded into Engineering itself. They should have been glowing a warm, rich gold, plasma cycling round and round, propelling the barque through space. Instead .... the entire port side arrangement -- one, three and five -- were cracked, melted, shredded, maimed. On the starboard side, turbos two, four and six, though stained and pitted and silent, seemed to be intact.
"Better hope we can get that closed again if we need to." Yassemidis' voice echoed from the far end of the dark room. The clomp-crunch of his boots. As he came into view, Mammeri saw a respirator hanging loose around his neck. He was covered in black soot and pink chemical extinguisher and blood and sweat, and his uniform was torn in a dozen places. His thick dark hair was matted and clumpy. "The port -- " He coughed and raised the respirator for a quick breath " -- port turbos are useless." He gestured to the starboard. "Functional, but we won't go very fast. And we need to move at least one of 'em over to port. Egbokhare and Ni Muirne and me are gonna need help, till De and Okoye get back on their feet."
The Shining Cities: An Anthology of Pagan Science Fiction Page 14