The Shining Cities: An Anthology of Pagan Science Fiction

by Lauren Teffeau

  He lowered himself to the bed beside her, his headlamp sweeping around the spare room: a DNA model on the desk, an icon of Demeter and Persephone, another of Cybele. Pictures of weird plants and alien life forms. And one picture of Nikolides and her son at the naming and blessing ceremony of the Alexander, tall, proud, smiling, wreaths of olive branches on their heads.

  "It was a supernova. The Alexander moved in to observe. The shock wave was more powerful than they expected. There was a cascade failure of systems all across the barque." He closed his eyes, imagining himself in the place of the Alexander's Captain, feeling his ship and crew die around him. "I am truly sorry, Phyllis. But ... we need to leave. The dead have given to us what we need to live. Now we need to leave them to their peace."

  He heard a shuddering breath over the comm, and her chest rose and fell. "Yes. Yes. This is a tomb, and we don't belong here." She stood, still clutching the scroll, and reached for the picture of the blessing ceremony. It pulled loose from the wall with a soft pop. "Leave the honorable dead to their rest."

  ***

  "Yassemidis?"

  "Aye, Captain." Clanging and swearing in the background. "Still a bit of a mess back here, but we're ready to go. Seventy percent with no problem. Can probably push it up to eighty."

  "Thank you. Ferch Alun, weapons?"

  "One port launcher operable, all three starboard launchers good. Still have ten torpedoes in the tube."

  "Good enough. Lakhanpal, keep your ears open. Stathopoulos ...."

  "Aye, Captain. Thrusters engaged. Retracting landing gear."

  The Fox shook as it lifted away from the deck of the Alexander and hovered for a few moments. The low grind and vibration through his hands and feet as the landing gear pulled in. The still-broken main screen showed part of the bay. As the Fox swung around, Mammeri caught a glimpse of the three damaged turbos -- blackened, twisted and in pieces -- scattered across the deck.

  "Remember," ferch Alun poked the navigator again. "You have to get us out to get the honey mead."

  Stathopoulos grinned and the barque slid smoothly forward. Dipping down, then sliding a bit starboard, the Fox skimmed through the broken bay door and out into the Nebula. Purple-pink clouds, brilliant baby stars, and asteroids of every size filled the screens above his head. "I believe that is now two horns of honey mead you owe me."

  The Marine Captain snorted.

  At sixty percent power, it was three hours to the edge of the Nebula. Lakhanpal hunched over her console, mic in one ear, hand pressed over the other. Fewer bandages now, and her skin had some color again. At some point, Tadi brought in a tray of refreshments (hot cacahuatl, pomegranate lassi, masala chai, oolong tea, and orange juice) and he tried to remember how long it had been since his last cacahuatl.

  "Approaching the edge of the Nebula, sixty seconds."

  "Lakhanpal?"

  "All quiet, sir."

  Nikolides scowled. "Considering how long we're overdue, even if they didn't pick up the distress call from the emergency buoy, Antheia still should have sent barques out."

  "Thirty seconds."

  "Hostile," ferch Alun snapped. On the small screen above her head, a large triangle appeared, blinking. "One contact. Three-zero mark nine-one mark seven. They have a lock!" Two smaller yellow triangles, angling towards the Fox.

  "Battle stations!" The alarm clanged. "Evasive!"

  "Aye, Captain!" Stathopoulos yelled back. "Twenty seconds to open space!"

  "Launch counter-measures."

  The Fox veered hard to starboard, around a cluster of asteroids. A dozen small blue lights whipped out of the aft launch tube, spreading out. One of the yellow lights drove right into them, taking out two blue lights.

  "One torpedo down!"

  "We're clear!" Stathopoulos yelled. The screens above his head changed from purple-pink to black space, sharp, distant stars, and the warm reddish-yellow globes of the Three Sisters.

  "T-minus five hours fourteen minutes Charites Syst -- "

  "Captain!" Lakhanpal whipped around, holding her mic tight against her ear. "Imperial Stellar Barque Imhotep's Glory is enroute. Sixteen minutes -- "

  "That torpedo is still on us," ferch Alun snapped.

  "Advise Imhotep to come faster. Stathopoulos, bring us around, get us behind him."

  The navigator grunted a barely audible "aye" as his fingers wove across the console, almost too fast for Mammeri to follow. The Captain gripped the railing as the ship pulled into a hard arc, the torpedo steadily closing the distance. The Fox pulled up and suddenly the aft turbos of the pirate vessel swung into view on the bridge screens. The barque shot forward. Nauseating grunches and crunches as the barque scrapped along the bottom hull of the hostile ship. Then they were away, the screens switching around just in time to see the pirate implode in a flash of gold and orange plasma.

  He must have been holding his breath, because his chest suddenly filled with air. Ferch Alun whooped. Lakhanpal leaped out of her chair and wrapped her arms tight around Stathopoulos. The navigator held his hand up to ferch Alun.

  "Three."

  Grinning, she swatted his hand away.

  "Lakhanpal."

  "Sir?" With a cough, she settled back into her seat.

  "Please advise Imhotep's Glory that the hostile has been eliminated, but there may be others still in the area."

  "Aye, Captain."

  He turned to his Primary Officer, and found her staring at one of the small side screens. The Iona Nebula, roiling and beautiful.

  "We have the Alexander's coordinates now," he assured her. "Pharaoh will dispatch salvage and funeral barques. As many of the dead as possible will be brought home to their families."

  "Yes, but not my son." She turned to him, dark eyes bright. "But I know he is at peace in Elysium -- so I am, too."

  ***

  A bare ten minutes after Imhotep's Glory pulled into a protective position to the Fox' port, she was joined by the Marcus Antonius the Magnificent and the Spear of Sutekh.

  Work crews from all three vessels descended upon the Fox in a wave of shuttlecraft, filling the barque's corridors with the whines and clangs of machinery and the chatter of strange voices. Intending to check on Engineering, Mammeri stopped outside the door when he heard Yassemidis exchanging insults with the Imhotep's Primary Engineer. He turned on his heel and headed to the garden, instead.

  A few of the crew were still there, including several of the injured. Villanova hovered around them, scowling in annoyance at his stubborn patients. At the center of the group sat Nikolides, scroll spread open across her lap, reading her son's poetry. A surprisingly still Kyrillos sat beside her, hands tucked into his robe. Kits piled in her lap, the Oracle smiled at him and patted the ground. Nodding a silent greeting, he settled down beside her. Great ears perked, one of the kits tumbled out of her skirts, slipper clenched between his teeth. He settled into the crook of Mammeri's arm, and went to sleep.

  A Wrecking Bar, a Chocolate Bar, and a Ka Offering for Naneferkaptah

  by Pell Kenner

   The annunciator gave a soft ping, indicating a successful transit through T-space. Tasheen slid her tablet aside and glanced at the central display, her eyes narrowing as she sorted through the flood of unfamiliar, mostly useless, information. Date... Excellent! The time was within ten years of her target, almost impossibly close. Even better, she was over water, so her arrival wouldn't be noticed. The stealth systems couldn't activate immediately after transit. There was some good reason for that, but it made no sense to her. In exasperation, the tech had told her: "It just needs to cool down first, so you have to wait.” Why didn't she say so in the first place?

  "AKH, as soon as the stealth is working, take us to the tomb of Naneferkaptah. Let's take a look around from about one klick above it.”

  “One kilometer and hover. Acknowledged,” her tablet whispered. She returned to her review of the tombs surrounding her target. If it was the wrong tomb, or the heka papyrus had already been stolen, she
'd have to figure out a plan B. Or C. There were only grant funds for one transit, and she would need something to show for it. Or find an entirely different subject for her thesis. Making grant funds disappear without a trace was a wonderful way to make sure you never saw more in the future. She felt a slight increase in vibration as the tiny craft began to move.

  Twenty minutes later, the AKH announced her arrival. She stared at the rows of mud-brick mastaba tombs, awed by a sudden sense of history. Even the first tentative pyramid was still in the future.

  “AKH, please scan for sentient life.” She had a flash of amusement. She didn't have time to personalize her tablet, other than selecting the least irritating, non-perky voice from the standard choices. She hadn't even given it a name. The stock commercial name for it was the same as the ancient Egyptian word for 'ascended ancestor' or 'shining one' -- just perfect for the upward-bound Egyptologist.

  “Positive scan for sentient life in the target area. Multiple groupings and individuals.”

  “Bleah. All right -- how many, who, and where? And what are they doing?”

  “I am designating group A on the map -- three Canis aureus lupaster. They appear to be sitting in the shade of a mastaba tomb, watching for prey and waiting for the sand to cool. There are also individual Naja haje sunning on rocks in areas B, C, and D, and they are –”

  “Wait .... Stop. I ask you who is in the area, and you're telling me about jackals? And what? Snakes?”

  “Correct. You specified 'sentient life', which by definition means creatures able to receive external stimuli. A fully-functional Canis aureus lupaster possesses sensora for perceiving visual, auditory, ofactory, tactile -- ”

  “Hemaar! I meant intelligent life! People!”

  “An Adaptive Koussevitzky Heuristic is designed to use words precisely. You should have said 'sapient life.' Even 'people' would have given you the desired result. Linking your reference to Equus africanus asinus ....”

  A petulant tone had crept into its voice. The manufacturer swore up and down that true artificial intelligence was impossible, but hers seemed to have developed a personality without her selecting it. Could it be a little revenge an anonymous programmer had inserted for not taking the time to pick a personality module?

  “Ignore the donkey reference. Fine. I give up. Are there any people ... living people, in the target area that might interfere with my investigation?”

  “The closest living humans are a group of three armed males, 3.7 kilometers from the target area. They are proceeding in a direction tangential to this location, at approximately two kilometers per hour. It is probable that they are necropolis guards.”

  “I should have plenty of time then. Set us down next to the mastaba entrance, as planned.” She checked her satchel for the umpteenth time. Yes, the papyrus she had lovingly crafted was still there. One of the hardest things to 'sell' to the review committee was that her visit would not create anachronisms. She had selected the pyramid texts of Unas, not yet written in this era, as a model for her papyrus, and painstakingly hand-painted the glyphs on a fresh scroll. If/when the text was stolen, it might still be new enough to catch the interest of the ambitious magician, allowing the legendary story to unfold, but it wouldn't introduce foreign ideas into the culture.

  After two minutes that seemed like hours, the hopper settled onto the sand and the hatch slid open. The coolness whooshed out, instantly replaced with the oven air of desert dusk. The air conditioner struggled briefly, then surrendered with a clattering sigh at the futility of cooling the Sahara.

  She stepped out and stood for a moment, savoring the feeling of victory, surrounded by row upon row of the countless mud-brick tombs. They looked new, with their walls still pristine, their corners sharp. Probably built a century or two ago. Only a year before she had knelt here, now thousands of years in the future, digging through shards and rubble that had been pawed by generations of archaeologists. Hoping for some little find she could hang a career on. Now she hung her satchel over her shoulder and hefted the iron wrecking bar, and made her way around the structure. At the false door, she set the heavy bar down and held up her AKH. “Record and translate, please.” It made the snicking sound that always seems to be associated with image capture.

  “As you can see, it does say Naneferkaptah. The rest of it is a bragging list of accomplishments. 'Great of Heka Power, Chief Magician to the Pharaoh, Bull of Ma'at, Son of Djehuty, Three-time winner of the All-Delta Bowling League ....' The bowling league was a simulation of humor, you understand.”

  “Ha ha. Quite entertaining. Anything else?” She was really beginning to wonder about this AKH. Had some random quantum-thingy triggered something?

  “There is a variant on the 'Leave your funeral offerings here, thank you very much.' Also a request to leave virtual offerings if you don't have anything good at hand. Again, a very early version of the standard request for a voice offering, not recorded elsewhere in the literature. There is also a warning not to take anything from the premises.”

  She pulled out a chocolate snack bar, unwrapped it, and laid it at the foot of the door. Holding her hands up as if she were holding an invisible tray, she recited: “Peret-kheru te henqet, kau apedu, shes menkhet, khet nebet nefret ankhet netjer im, en ka en Osir Naneferkaptah, maa-kheru!” There was no harm in wishing the dead magician lots of bread, beer, and other virtual treats. Probably nothing to it, even if the Kemetics said there was. Got to be respectful to the Kemetics, since their Temple Foundation was the only funding for unusual Egyptological projects. "I'm not here to steal -- I've got something to barter that you might really like.”

  She picked up her AKH and wrecking bar. "What's my quickest and best route to the interior?”

  “Deep scan indicates that if you remove the bricks indicated on this diagram, you can reach the interior with minimal disturbance. Be sure to stack the bricks in an orderly manner so you can replace them correctly. The actual entry should be done with great care to avoid damage to the contents of the tomb.”

  “Yes, AKH, I promise to be careful.” Being lectured on procedure by a program. Hmph. She knelt in the sand and began to work at loosening the first brick. Using a laser hadn't been an option. It would have melted the clay into ceramic, and been a glaring no-no in the anachronism department. Instead she had bought this iron wrecking bar from a junk store in Milwaukee. Finally. There. She laid the first brick to her right, and began to work its neighbor into the space where the first had been. The bar looked almost exactly like an ancient was scepter, and the moment she saw the pic of it she realized that the more common "crows' bar" would never do. Luckily there weren't that many passionate collectors of wrecking bars, so it was relatively inexpensive. She had painted little eyes on it, just like some of the ancient scepters. It was a detail the grant committee had appreciated.

  With each brick removed, it became easier to remove the others. She cleared an arch in the first layer big enough for her, then cleared the second and third layers. Behind the fourth layer there was open space. The long bar worked well to push a luminator into the interior. She hooked the bar on her belt, tied some twine to the handle of her satchel so she could pull it after her, and began to crawl through the opening, pushing the AKH ahead of her.

  Once inside, she turned around and retrieved her satchel. Standing up, she heard a dull thump and a cracking sound. The stupid wrecking bar had caught on the edge of an alabaster stele, knocking the tombstone-shaped tablet over and shattering it. The horror of having broken an irreplaceable treasure caused her stomach to clench, and she reflexively picked up a piece to see what she had ruined.

  She stared at the scattered pieces in shock, then concentrated on the one in her hand. "Hello, haven't seen you in a while.” The shard was identical to the one she had found digging in the ruins, thousands of years in the future! Her finger glided over the now-familiar glyphs of the magician's name. She began to think about the possibility that her breaking the stele made it not worth stealing, not
worth carting off to a museum. Until she found the shard and it brought her back here. Where she broke the stele and made it not worth stealing. The recursion began to make her feel dizzy, and she forced it from her mind. Instead she replaced the fragment in the exact position it had occupied, and pitched the offending wrecking bar out her entry tunnel before it could do any more damage. "I am sorry for breaking this stele, though its destruction seems to have been fated. As I said, I am here to trade, not steal.” It didn't cost anything to extend a little courtesy to non-existent ghosts, and should go over well with the committee members.

  She picked up the luminator, holding up the AKH to record the contents. Stunning. The tomb was packed with vividly-colored chests and boxes painted in a mix of geometric patterns, lively animals, and scenes of gods and goddesses being honored. Statuary and magical items were scattered throughout, and added to the welter of colors. She'd seen pics of early-tombs, but seeing this with her own eyes was different. You expect that a pic would be enhanced to look more attractive, and even the best-preserved museum examples faded after thousands of years. The effect of seeing it in person was hypnotic, and more than a bit stupefying. She forced her eyes closed and took several slow, deep breaths to clear her head, and try to get over the fact that she was seeing an ancient tomb when it was only a hundred years old, something only a tiny handful of people from her era had experienced. The little meditation helped; now she could concentrate on individual items.

  A seated statue of a man at the end of the room must have been Naneferkaptah himself, beside a sharp-nosed woman, his wife Ahwere. She spotted several other statues, including the magician's namesake god Ptah. There was also a goddess who was probably an early form of Aset, and ibis-headed Djehuty. Tasheen meticulously recorded the heaped treasures before returning to the statue of Djehuty. The god was reputed to be the author of the manuscript she sought; he would be where she would start her search.