by S. J. Ryan
Matt tried to push the hatch with both hands, but couldn't raise his left arm. "Ivan, is there something wrong with my arm?"
"Your left arm was broken during landing. I was going to inform you but you appeared to have other priorities at the time."
"Are you fixing my arm?"
"Yes, repairs should be accomplished within the day. I am also suppressing the nerve receptors. Is this action acceptable?"
"Yeah, do that. Thanks."
Matt put his good shoulder into the effort and shoved. The hatch cover flopped open. Bright light dazzled his eyes. He looked up and saw a blue sky and billowing clouds. He took a deep breath. With his good arm, he pulled himself to the half-out position and surveyed his surroundings.
The OSV had come to rest in a pond. Judging by the intersection of the water's surface with the curvature of the sphere, there was about a meter's depth to the bottom. There was no hissing of steam from the contact of the water with the surface of the sphere, as the exterior of the OSV was coated in a special ceramic that gained and shed heat very slowly so that even after burning through the atmosphere it was cool to the touch. The material seemed to have aged well over the centuries, for Matt saw no cracks in the tiling.
Long cords trailed from the top of the sphere, into the water and through clumps of reeds and cattails and then onto the shore, ending in billows of parachute fabric, which were animatedly tangled in trees and brush.
The pond was in a meadow. The meadow had tall stalks of grass near the water's edge, smaller ones farther away. There were leafy trees and evergreens. Beyond were hills, and beyond the hills were mountains, one of whose peaks was smoldering.
Matt felt the rustle of a breeze against his cheek. He exhaled the breath he had held since emerging from the vehicle, and breathed deeply of the new world. The air was fresh, but also had a whiff of methane. He wondered if that might be a product of all the volcanoes he had observed from orbit. Then he looked down again and remembered that he was in a swamp.
Something splashed at the water's edge. A frog puffed its throat on a lilypad, then leaped back into the water. Matt listened and heard the buzz of crickets and the chirp of birds. He saw several birds, some that looked like sparrows and others that looked like crows, alight on nearby trees.
A dragonfly hovered among the reeds. It was abnormally large but not terrifyingly so. It came within meters of the sphere, then zoomed away. Matt took his second breath.
So far, no sign of people. No bodies, no buildings. Except – that strand of smoke against the sky in the distance. A controlled fire, Matt thought, might be a good sign of human habitation.
Then he thought about the appropriateness of the word 'good.' He had no weapons and no idea whether the natives were friendly to visitors who fell from the sky uninvited. Given their apparent technological backwardness, the locals might worship him as a god or slay him as a demon.
But so far: sky, mountains, trees, brush, animals. All earth-like, all reminding him terribly of home. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt.
"Ivan, are you still connected to the station external camera?"
"Yes, Matt. The station is currently above our horizon. Would you like to see a view of where we are?"
Matt nodded, a gesture Ivan could sense and interpret. A virtual window popped in front of Matt, showing a real-time satellite view of the surrounding terrain. Matt oriented himself so that the picture aligned with the scene in front of him.
Ivan pointed an arrow at a dot in the center of a pond. Around the pond was a meadow. To the south was a straight line that appeared to be a road running east-west. Matt cross-referenced the satellite view with the smoke in the distance and confirmed the presence of huts and cultivated fields and moving figures that were humanoid in shape and walked like humans, but the telescope resolution wasn't good enough to assure him that they were human.
Matt zoomed out. There were other villages, specks for huts and patches for fields. Narrow, winding foot paths connected them to the road, upon which people (human or otherwise) and animal-drawn carts were creeping.
He punched out the window and cut out all the status displays in his field of vision, so that he saw the scene just as a normal human might have in the days before neural implants and heads-up displays.
So this, he thought, is what the world looked like before Technology. Not another human in sight, all the way to the horizon. Dad's vision has been realized, but on another world – and in another time.
And it was very quiet.
"You know what the weirdest thing is?" Matt asked.
Ivan remained silent, for although he did have programs that enabled him to grade phenomena according to human and objective criteria of what constituted 'weirdness,' he also had programs that advised him on when to be silent and listen to his human host.
Matt continued, "The weirdest thing is, this place looks like somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula. As if the star pod looped around a black hole and came back to Earth after the collapse of civilization."
"That scenario is extremely unlikely," Ivan said.
"Or maybe we went back in time."
"That also is unlikely."
"I know, but . . . it's weird. It seems like only yesterday I was with Dad in Seattle."
"Your sense of time compression is most likely due to the effect of the bioprocess suspension gel inhibiting the formation of new memories."
"I – I should be crying right now. I mean, I've lost everything. My family, my friends, my whole world. It's just you and me. I guess, though, you and me . . . that's enough. I mean, you know, I guess it's that I wasn't really close to people, that's why I'm able to be here and take in all the changes and it . . . it . . . it doesn't affect me emotionally . . . so much."
He pulled himself out so that he was sitting on the rim of the hatch opening. He gazed at the mountains and clouds. To the west, the sun – that is, Delta Pavonis – was being chipped away by a snowy peak.
After a few minutes, he finished weeping, and said in a shaking voice, "Ivan, isn't there a way for you to damp down human memories?"
"Neural implants do have the capability to repress traumatic memories for therapeutic purposes. It is not advisable to engage in the procedure without oversight of appropriately trained personnel."
"But you can do it."
"I would like to point out, Matt, that you are physiologically still a minor, and that such a procedure normally requires approval of your guardians."
"But under the circumstances, would you say that I even have guardians anymore?"
Ivan paused. He could calculate interstellar trajectories in milliseconds, but balancing sociological considerations took human-measurable time.
"I have concluded that under the circumstances, it is necessary for the sake of your survival for me to regard you as having the full rights and responsibilities of an adult."
"Well, then let's go ahead and damp my memories. Now, I'm not saying I want to forget. I just don't want to feel so much right now. And I don't want to fade the technical-details stuff, just the high emotional-impact memories. And it's reversible, right?"
"Yes, but again, extensive tampering with organically stored memories can be hazardous to the psychological health of the host."
"We're not going to do extensive tampering with memories. We're just going to tone them down this one time. What I want is to still have the memories, but like I'm seeing them through a tinted glass, or through a telescope from far away. I just want to be kind of numb right now, that's all. So . . . let's do it."
Ivan did as requested. Matt blinked.
"I'm still thinking a lot of home. More, in fact."
"Your recent memory of having requested your memory to be damped is causing you to recall the memories in question even more so than before."
"Hmm . . . so I need to forget about asking to forget. You can clear my short term memory too, can't you?"
"Yes. As short term memories are stored in a separate region
of the brain, that procedure is relatively safe."
"All right, then we'll do that too. Wait – first thing I'll do after you delete my memory is ask you what we were doing. Tell me that I was going to see if there was anything to eat around here." He reviewed a transcript time line of Ivan's recording of their recent conversation and determined a hack point. "All right, now go ahead and clear my short term memory . . . now."
Ivan cleared Matt's short term memory. Matt blinked. Then he yawned.
"Huh. Funny. I forgot what we were talking about. What were we talking about?"
"You were going to see if there was anything to eat around here."
Mindful of his crippled arm, Matt slipped out of the hatchway and plopped into the water.
I've just set foot on a new planet, he thought. It didn't seem as special as that trip with Mom and Dad to the Moon when he was eight . . . or was he nine? He was surprised at the fuzziness of his recall. Usually, his memories of outings when they were still together as a family were so vivid. Well, he had a lot on his mind at the moment . . . .
He emerged from the water and walked toward a cluster of trees and brush and touched the leaves and berries. Ivan conducted a biochemical analysis on the data provided by the sensor arrays embedded in Matt's skin.
"This edible?"
"No."
"This?"
"The plant appears to be sufficiently similar to species on Earth that I can manufacture enzymes to enable you to digest its cellulose."
Matt bit off a fragment of the leaf and chewed. "Yum," he said in monotone. "How about the water? Do you think you can sanitize the pond scum?"
"Matt, someone is approaching from behind you."
A human was walking across the meadow. He was only slightly above what Matt would have considered average height. His complexion and arrangement and size of features were such that his face and bodily shape would have gone unnoticed on the streets of Seattle. His hand-made clothing included baggy trousers and a loose shawl. He wore sandals. His head was topped by a small round hat, and he had a hoe balanced on his shoulder.
The man halted at a non-threatening distance. He bowed deeply, then stood straight.
Then, with the slightest trace of an accent, he asked, "Do you speak Standard?"
That's my line, Matt thought.
". . . Yes."
The man looked at the vehicle, then at the parachute, then at Matt's optic-blue jumpsuit.
"Are you the Wizard from Aereoth?"
11.
Londa Bay had been filling with ships of war all morning and afternoon and into the evening. They were anchored and lashed to one another in rows, and still room was tight. Merchant vessels were crowded toward the banks and slipped circumspectly around the galleys, only to encounter still more vessels of the Imperial Navy pouring in from the eastern sea.
In the center of the fleet rested the flagship, a trireme whose hull was gilded with gold, whose sails were speckled rosy from sunset, whose decks bristled with soldiers in polished armor and crossbow mountings that held arrows longer than a man was tall. From the center mast, above the eagle-standard of imperial Rome, flickered a pennant of blue with a circle and star of white.
A skiff larger than even some of the seagoing merchant vessels was lowered from the flagship and oared across the bay. It landed at the main dock, where it was moored under heavy guard.
To the blaring of horns and stiff imperial salutes from the gathered occupation troops, Mardu Valarion disembarked the skiff and spared a downward glance at the balding man twice his age who greeted him with a profuse bow.
"Good to see you back again, General," said Hyant, Governor of the Roman province of Britan.
"It is a pleasure of extraordinary degree to be here once more at this pinnacle of civilization," Valarion replied blandly. "I see that your propensity for corruption has been moderated sufficiently for the city to remain intact in my absence."
Hyant started to speak, but obviously was having trouble formulating a reply. He bobbed his head and left it at that. Then, his eyes darted warily over the entourage behind Valarion's shoulder, and a look of puzzlement crossed his face.
"She flew on ahead," Valarion said.
Hyant gaped, but regained his composure and faced to the bay. "That's quite a fleet you have there. Transports enough for a legion, at least."
"And you shall do your best to keep that a secret."
"This is the same Londonium you left, General. The barbarians have a thousand ears and eyes."
"That's why I want you to block the gates. No one is allowed out of the city until we march."
It was indeed the same Londonium – or Londa, as the locals called it. Its white walls and roofs of red tile had glistened pristinely when Valarion had first entered the bay, but close up the streets were filled with squawking chickens and ox dung. Valarion reflected that he was only centimeters away from the Emperorship, and yet was forced to detour around potholes and patties of manure. Hyant had hours to prepare the streets for Valarion's arrival, but their ramshackle condition was probably less a slight than yet another manifestation of the man's incompetence. Well, when Hadron was no longer emperor, his in-laws would lose their job security.
Still, after a week of tossing waves, Valarion was grateful for stable ground. And that Inoldia wasn't near this particular patch.
At the imperial residence, more soldiers provided more salutes and horns. Valarion's casual inspection saw too many soft bellies but without comment he climbed the stairs to his quarters in the main house and ordered supper and wine while Colonel Bivera, vice commander of the occupation forces, lit lanterns and unrolled the strategy map.
Valarion glared at Hyant.
Hyant stammered, "I – I must have affairs to attend," and exited.
Bivera anchored the corners of the map, which he treated reverently, as it was a product of a quarter-century's labor and blood by the Imperial Survey Corps. He placed markers to indicate the deployment of the Eighth Legion and the known locations of the barbarians.
Bivera pointed and spoke, "Our scouts report that the main force is concentrated here in the Midlands, encamped in pastures between the mountains and the Pola Road. Their total number varies from day to day, but is at least several thousand. General, I wouldn't say the situation is critical, but they are less than three days' march on the city, and as you know our walls are built to keep out smugglers, not withstand siege."
Valarion smiled at the use of the word 'city' in reference to Londa. Bivera had been away from the capitol for too long.
"You don't seriously believe," Valarion said, "that a rabble is any match for a disciplined legion?"
"In strategy and tactics, no. In skill, no. In entrenched warfare, no. But if we march across open field, they'll come at us like a storm of locusts. And they are brave. Moreover, they do have advantages in mobility and logistics. They could easily circumvent an attacking legion, appear at our rear, and be at our gates and burn the city down before we can rush back to its defense. Our pacification and romanization efforts are restricted to the Lowlands until we deal with the threat."
"Yes, well, our plans have changed. We will no longer just sit passively and wait for the Plague to run its course."
"From the size of your fleet," Bivera said, "I take it you've brought an additional legion, and as the city cannot support another legion for much length of time, I take it we're about to move."
"Yes, I brought the Eleventh with me. And this is what we're going to do with it."
He took a legion marker from the tray and maneuvered pieces. "A contingent of the Eighth consisting of the First, Second, and Third Cohorts will lure the combined barbarian armies south along the Pola Road into this valley in the Lowlands." He squinted at the legend. "By a place called 'Winchester.' Stars, where do they get these odd names?"
Bivera shrugged. "From the mentors, I suppose."
"Don't tell me you believe in mentors."
"If there ever were any, I'm sure the
y're extinct now," Bivera replied, ever the diplomat. "Please go on, General."
Valarion moved about the markers with swift strokes. "As soon as the rebels enter the Valley of Winchester, the rest of the Eighth will come from the east and seal the pass at the north end of the valley. The rebels will then be trapped within the valley."
"With the Eighth divided like that, it won't take long for the rebels to overrun the barricades at either end and break out again."
"Yes, but here is the surprise. The catapults of the Eleventh will have been placed along the ridges of the valley in waiting. Once the rebels are sealed below, bombardment will commence. We have brought incendiaries of a type that clings to bodily parts and belches a thick, choking smoke. The barbarians will be incapacitated while we continue to pelt them. Our catapult positions, meanwhile, will be safely above the smoke on cliffs too steep for the rebels to climb and too high for their arrows to reach. The Eighth's cohorts in the valley will take cover in entrenchments that we will prepare beforehand and so they will avoid harm from the bombardment while serving to contain the rebels from climbing to escape in the south. And so the result will be bloodless for us and a slaughter upon them."
"This incendiary. I have never heard of such a thing. Is it an invention of Archimedes?"
"Ha, that old tinkerer has become quite cantankerous in his dotage and these days refuses anything to do with offensive engines of war. No, the incendiary is an ancient formula provided by the Sisters of Wisdom. Called 'Fosforia,' as I recall. It's quite unstable. In fact, on the way here, one of our ships was carrying several kegs that must have somehow ignited and the explosion was quite horrific."
Bivera gazed at the map in silence. Finally he shook his head slowly and said, "I don't see Boudica falling for such a simple trap. She's always been a step ahead."
"Yes." Valarion grinned. "And that's always been part of our plan."