Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights

by Lawrence White

  “It’s just the way things are,” he grumbled.

  “But it’s going to change. Remember how we talked about your lives changing because of the sky knights?” When he nodded uneasily, she continued. “This is one area that we can change sooner rather than later. In the long run, it will be even more important than our trip to the mine today. A lot of people have died at the hands of demons. We need to protect the survivors. Preventing disease is an important part of that.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “You’re a builder. Can you build a pipe?”

  “What’s a pipe?”

  “If you wrap clay around a straight tree trunk or branch and let it dry in the sun, then remove the branch and fire the clay in a kiln just like you fire the limestone, what comes out is a hard, hollow tube which we call a pipe.”

  “What would I do with it?”

  “Many things. If you connect enough pipes together, you can bring water right into your home from the well. Or with larger pipes you can carry your waste out of town, thereby keeping everyone healthier.”

  “That’s a big project. You’ll have to talk to the king.”

  “I will, but you’ll be the one who has to make it work. Will you spend a little time with me so I can show you?”

  “After we repair the wall.”

  “The wall will take many days to repair. With this limestone mortar you can only add what . . . three or four levels each day?”

  “So you’ve worked with it.”

  “No, but I read up on it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s been a long day and I’m hungry. Can we clean up and talk about it after dinner?”

  “Clean up?”

  “I need a bath.”

  “It’s too dangerous to go to the river.”

  She stared at him, her hopes for renewing her outlook on life evaporating. She thought about returning to a shuttle, but she decided he might be offended. Then she wondered if he’d be offended at the smell of a clean person.

  Hawke’s dusty visage from earlier in the day suddenly brought tears to her eyes. So much had happened since then that she had barely had time to consider what it meant to have him gone from her life. She shook her head at what he must have been thinking when they met. She had been barefoot on cultured, essentially clean grass and thinking it was a big deal. Things had been rough with the colony, but that roughness paled in comparison to here.

  She looked about herself and wondered if this place could ever become her home. The girlish, giddy adventure she had anticipated had evaporated with Hawke’s leaving, but her spirits sank even lower knowing the bath she so craved was out of reach. She wondered at Lieutenant Crowles’ contempt for a gzeikolt. Lifestyles there might not be as rewarding as he found this place to be, but they were at least clean. Even as a colonist, she had always had access to showers.

  Following dinner, she asked everyone to sit around the table. She brought out her pad, warning them that it might seem like magic, though it was not. When she turned it on, everyone gasped and pulled away except for Thaeron’s eleven year old daughter, Pen. Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward for a better view of the light emanating from the pad. As of yet, there were no meaningful images on the pad.

  “You have books, right?” Graylee asked her.

  “I’ve heard of them,” the girl answered, looking away from the pad toward her father.

  “The king has books,” Thaeron answered, eying the pad suspiciously.

  “I have stored many, many books inside my pad,” she said, lifting it and handing it to Pen. Pen took it gingerly and looked at it, then passed it to her father. He stared at it but did not touch it, and his wife would have nothing to do with it at all.

  “Some of the books in here have to do with ancient building processes. Well,” she said, suddenly embarrassed, “they’re ancient compared to where I come from. I mean no disrespect.”

  “We had this conversation earlier,” Thaeron said. “Your ancestors lived as we live.”

  She nodded. “Do you draw pictures of things you’re going to build before you build them?”

  “Sometimes. For complicated projects.”

  “We talked about pipes earlier.” She tapped on her pad and brought a line drawing of the pipe-making process to the screen. “This is how my ancestors made pipes from clay.” She showed him the drawings, moving from one screen to another as she showed him the process.

  She couldn’t tell at first if he was looking at the processes or the pad, but he quickly became engrossed. “They shaved a tree branch or trunk to be narrower on one end, then they covered it with clay and let it dry. After drying, they gently pounded the clay free and put it in a kiln. When they took the clay from the kiln and cooled it, they had a pipe. When they had more pipes, they inserted the narrow end of one pipe into the larger end of the other. They could make the pipe as long as they wanted.”

  “But they could carry it in small sections,” he said nodding his head thoughtfully.

  “They installed the pipes in trenches, then covered them up, but I don’t think you could do that here. Your town looks to me like it’s been built on solid rock.”

  “It is. I could not bury these pipes.”

  “But you could make them if your king agrees. Where you can’t bury the pipes, your stone masons can carve trenches and cover them with stone blocks, or you can rest them on flat stones along the streets or on the sides of buildings.”

  He looked up at her. “To stop sickness.”

  “It won’t stop it, but it will reduce it. Those are the kinds of things the sky knights want to show you.”

  Pen spoke up. “Will you tell us what your home is like?”

  Graylee leaned away from the table, though she was sitting on a bench and could not fully lean back. Could she show pictures to these people, she wondered? Were they ready for them? She wished she’d asked Hawke. Then she remembered and her heart missed a beat—Hawke was gone. She was on her own here with no guidance. She considered her plight for long enough that Thaeron called her back. When she looked at him, he was holding a cloth out to her.

  “Why do you cry?” he asked gently.

  She wiped the tears away with her sleeve, then wished she hadn’t. She suspected what she looked like, though thankfully there were no mirrors. “I came here because of a man. You know him—the Teacher.”

  Thaeron nodded silently. “He was injured today and taken away.”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice. Eventually, she said, “I’m told he might never return.”

  “Will you leave, too?” Pen asked, her eyes brimming in sympathy.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been preparing to come here for a long time. He wanted me to teach you how to build things. I can still do that, but before I go very much farther, I’ll have to teach you your numbers and how to read and write. It’s a big job. It’s his job.”

  “It’s part of the future you talked about earlier,” Thaeron said, “but what’s wrong with the way we live now?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” she answered, looking from him to Pen. “But each generation does things a little better, a little smarter. Eventually, mothers and babies will not die during childbirth. People will not die from illnesses. You won’t have to go to bed when it gets dark because you’ll have plenty of light for things like reading and sewing and learning. Aren’t those good things?”

  “Then show us,” Thaeron said.

  She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. The older you are the harder it is to learn new things. You could learn to read, but it would be a slow, difficult process. Pen could learn in a year. Younger people learn faster than older people.”

  “Why would anyone want to read?”

  “Because the things I want you to learn require lots of thinking. Reading guides the thinking process. Without numbers and reading, none of what I’m talking about will happen. I want to make sure Pen doesn’t die in childbirth some day or die of an il
lness.”

  “No father wants that,” Thaeron said. He looked at his wife. “The midwife told Ottsla she could not have another child.”

  “So you have no son, but you have a wonderful, bright daughter. Will you let her learn to read?”

  “I’ll think about it. Tell us about your home.”

  “Telling will not do it justice. If you have the courage to learn something else new, I’ll show you what my home is like.”

  He sat up straight with his arms folded across his chest. She took that as permission to proceed. Wishing Hawke was here, she took her pad and manipulated it under the table out of their sight.

  “We’ll start with the easy part,” she said. “I told you I stored many books in here. I’ve also stored other things. One of them is a painting of myself.” She brought the pad back up to the table and set it down for everyone to see. The picture was of her dressed for an evening of entertainment. The 3-dimensional picture looked completely life-like.

  “You can’t be here and in there at the same time.” Thaeron said with narrowed eyes.

  “Look at me,” she demanded. “Now close your eyes. Do you still see me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Am I in your head?”

  He rolled his eyes, demanding she get on with it.

  “When you close your eyes, you see an image of me. That’s what you’re seeing on my pad.”

  “Such fine clothes,” Pen breathed. “I didn’t know you were a princess.”

  Graylee put an arm around Pen’s shoulders and pulled her closer. “I’m not a princess. Where I come from, everyone has fine clothes. The fine clothes don’t make us better, it just means there are many generations separating us. Someday homes and clothes here will become more like mine.”

  “I like things the way they are.”

  Graylee nodded her agreement, then looked to Thaeron. “How long will you live?”

  He shrugged. “Who can say? Maybe 45 seasons.”

  “I’ll see over 100 seasons.”

  His gaze went first to his wife, then to Pen where his gaze softened. “I would choose that for her.”

  “Let’s talk more tomorrow,” she suggested.

  “You’re right. It’s been more than a full day.”

  “And now you’re a hero,” she said with a smile.

  “We’ll see. The king will be back in three days. He will not be happy with a hole in his wall.”

  * * * * *

  Thaeron set out the next morning with Graylee in tow, and to her amazement he allowed Pen to accompany them. As they walked they talked, though there were a lot of interruptions from people calling congratulations to Thaeron. By the time they reached the hole in the wall, his men were already at work.

  Graylee watched in amazement at the efficiency with which they repaired the footing and laid blocks. Lieutenants Bardek and Crowles found her standing back from the work with Pen beside her.

  “What’s your plan now?” Bardek asked.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “I don’t know! I guess I’ll wait to be reassigned.”

  Crowles spoke up. “Hawke made it clear to me that you would resign from the marines and become a member of his staff.”

  A hand involuntarily went to her throat. “But I’m a marine and proud of it.”

  “And you’ve fought gleasons. Hawke is no longer a marine, but he’s never stopped carrying a weapon, nor will you. But Graylee, you’re here for bigger and better things than us marines.”

  “Am I needed elsewhere?” she asked, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Probably.”

  “I need two more days. I’d like to get work started on a project here.”

  Crowles’ eyes narrowed. “What sort of project? We’re moving real carefully with these people.”

  “They need running water and a sewage system.”

  Crowles ran a hand through his hair, scratching here and there. “They definitely need that, but is this the place to start? We have to keep the whole planet in mind.”

  “You started fighting gleasons in one kingdom. After you learned there, you took what you learned to the rest of Tranxte. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about.”

  Crowles frowned and looked at Bardek. “What do you think?”

  Bardek stepped back with both hands raised in defense. “Hey, I’m a fighting man. You’re the one who’s been Hawke’s right-hand man.”

  Crowles looked back to Graylee. “What can you do in two days?”

  “Plant some seeds. That’s all I want to do at this point.”

  “Well, okay, unless some other crisis comes up. Are you ready to clean up?”

  “I was ready yesterday. Maybe tonight.”

  “Okay. Keep your comm at your side so I can call.”

  “I need a few things, but I don’t think they’re available on the shuttle. Do you by any chance have access to maps and writing utensils?”

  “No, but I can look into it. What exactly do you need?”

  “A detailed aerial shot of this town so we can outline pipe runs. Paper, and writing utensils would help.”

  “You’re joking. They don’t read and write.”

  “I know. I’m only talking about drawing pictures. Builder Thaeron sometimes draws up plans for things he builds.”

  Crowles scratched his head again while he considered, and she couldn’t resist. She stepped up to him and examined his hair. “Yep, lice,” she said, stepping back. “Been going native, have we?”

  He just rolled his eyes. “We’re used to it. I’ll deal with it.”

  “There’s one more thing,” she said.

  “What?”

  She looked to Pen, then back to Crowles. She’d been thinking about this since getting out of bed this morning. “I want to leave a pad behind, a blank pad with only one program—a program for teaching Galactic High Standard. I might add a few things from my own pad such as a primer on making clay pipes.”

  He shook his head slowly while he considered. Eventually, he said, “That’s a huge first. There are implications.”

  “I know. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Pads are powerful computers. They could someday be used for making weapons, that sort of thing, but by then they’ll probably have their own computers anyway. For the moment, it’s a way for us to start teaching. Governor Havlock is planning to bring in lots of teachers some day, but with all the various languages here, they won’t be productive for quite a while. Even when they learn the local language, they won’t be able to teach very much to people who don’t know their written language. On the other hand, if their students all speak Galactic High Standard, and I’m talking about all over the planet, they can get right to work.”

  Crowles was nodding his head thoughtfully, so she plunged ahead.

  “If I leave a pad behind everywhere I go, I think the younger people will treat it as a game. For them, learning a new language will be fun. It would give our future teachers a foundation for going forward.”

  He stared at her while he contemplated. In the end, he did not give her a complete answer. “I like the idea, but I have to pass this one upstairs.”

  She nodded. “One step at a time. Baby steps. I know the drill. This is just a trial. If it doesn’t work, the pad’s power supply will only last for a year or so.”

  He nodded grimly and turned away. “I’ll call from the shuttle.”

  “Deal with your lice while you’re at it,” she called.

  Lieutenant Bardek went with him, though she noticed he kept his distance.

  Thaeron led her and Pen on a tour of the town during which the two adults talked about how and where pipes could be laid. When they started back toward the hole in the wall late that afternoon, Graylee excused herself.

  “I’d like to go to the shuttle and clean up. I know it’s not a big thing to you, but it is to me. I can be back in time for supper.”

  “Oh! Can I go, Papa?” Pen asked, suddenly filled with excitement.

  He stared at her in amazement. �
��You want to go inside a sky ship?”

  “Yes!”

  “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “A little, but Sky Knight Graylee will take care of me. I know she will.”

  He looked to Graylee, preparing to refuse, but she spoke first. “Her future is calling her, just as I told you it would. Sky ships will be around for the rest of her life. She might as well get used to them.”

  “You’re moving too fast.”

  “Whose idea was it?”

  “Her mother won’t speak to me for a week.”

  “It’s only a week. I’m sure you’ve been there before.”

  “Will it fly?”

  “Yes. Their work is in the sky looking for demons.”

  “Do they fall?”

  “Never. She’ll be more safe in the ship than she is here.”

  He scratched his head and she suddenly felt a need to scratch her own head. He pulled Pen into a hug, then let her go and turned abruptly away.

  Graylee took Pen by the arm and started toward the main gate. “Do you know how hard that was for him?” she asked.

  Pen answered solemnly. “I do. I’m a little scared, M’Lady.”

  “I know. Fear can be a good thing sometimes, but I’ll take good care of you. Did you know I’m a teacher?”

  “You’ve used that word before. What’s a teacher?”

  Graylee took a moment to call the ship. She got the answer she hoped to get and focused back on Pen. “Do you go to school?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hmm. I see. I’m going to talk to your father about a school. It’s a place where you learn new things. A teacher is like a tutor, the one who guides your learning.”

  “I’d like that. Mother’s my teacher now, I guess.”

  “And that can’t change, Pen. I hope you know that.”

  “It won’t. I’m 11. I’ll have a family of my own in a few years, and I still have a lot to learn. This is way more exciting though.”

  “Have you chosen a husband?”

  “No. Boys are dumb.”

  “Would your friends find this exciting?”

  “Mmm . . .” She shook her head. “Probably not. Maybe.”