“Sit down,” said Lamia in a dead even tone.
“No, he’s right,” said Hoyt. “Even the presence of Father Duré in cruciform must affect the prime-number superstition somehow. I say that we press on in the morning in the belief that …”
“Look!” cried Brawne Lamia, pointing to the balcony doorway where the fading twilight had been replaced with pulses of strong light.
The group went out into the cool evening air, shielding their eyes from the staggering display of silent explosions which filled the sky: pure white fusion bursts expanding like explosive ripples across a lapis pond; smaller, brighter plasma implosions in blue and yellow and brightest red, curling inward like flowers folding for the night: the lightning dance of gigantic hellwhip displays, beams the size of small worlds cutting their swath across light-hours and being contorted by the riptides of defensive singularities: the aurora shimmer of defense fields leaping and dying under the assault of terrible energies only to be reborn nanoseconds later. Amid it all, the blue-white fusion tails of torchships and larger warships slicing perfectly true lines across the sky like diamond scratches on blue glass.
“The Ousters,” breathed Brawne Lamia.
“The war’s begun,” said Kassad. There was no elation in his voice, no emotion of any kind.
The Consul was shocked to discover that he was weeping silently. He turned his face from the group.
“Are we in danger here?” asked Martin Silenus. He sheltered under the stone archway of the door, squinting at the brilliant display.
“Not at this distance,” said Kassad. He raised his combat binoculars, made an adjustment, and consulted his tactical comlog. “Most of the engagements are at least three AU away. The Ousters are testing the FORCE:space defenses.” He lowered the glasses. “It’s just begun.”
“Has the farcaster been activated yet?” asked Brawne Lamia. “Are the people being evacuated from Keats and the other cities?”
Kassad shook his head. “I don’t believe so. Not yet. The fleet will be fighting a holding action until the cislunar sphere is completed. Then the evacuation portals will be opened to the Web while FORCE units come through by the hundreds.” He raised the binoculars again. “It’ll be a hell of a show.”
“Look!” It was Father Hoyt pointing this time, not at the fireworks display in the sky but out across the low dunes of the northern moors. Several kilometers toward the unseen Tombs, a single figure was just visible as a speck of a form throwing multiple shadows under the fractured sky.
Kassad trained his glasses on the figure.
“The Shrike?” asked Lamia.
“No, I don’t think so … I think it’s … a Templar by the looks of the robe.”
“Het Masteen!” cried Father Hoyt.
Kassad shrugged and handed the glasses around. The Consul walked back to the group and leaned on the balcony. There was no sound but the whisper of wind, but that made the violence of explosions above them more ominous somehow.
The Consul took his turn looking when the glasses came to him. The figure was tall and robed, its back to the Keep, and strode across the flashing vermilion sands with purposeful intent.
“Is he headed toward us or the Tombs?” asked Lamia.
“The Tombs,” said the Consul.
Father Hoyt leaned elbows on the ledge and raised his gaunt face to the exploding sky. “If it is Masteen, then we’re back to seven, aren’t we?”
“He’ll arrive hours before us,” said the Consul. “Half a day if we sleep here tonight as we proposed.”
Hoyt shrugged. “That can’t matter too much. Seven set out on the pilgrimage. Seven will arrive. The Shrike will be satisfied.”
“If it is Masteen,” said Colonel Kassad, “why the charade on the windwagon? And how did he get here before us? There were no other tramcars running and he couldn’t have walked over the Bridle Range passes.”
“We’ll ask him when we arrive at the Tombs tomorrow,” Father Hoyt said tiredly.
Brawne Lamia had been trying to raise someone on her comlog’s general comm frequencies. Nothing emerged but the hiss of static and the occasional growl of distant EMPs. She looked at Colonel Kassad. “When do they start bombing?”
“I don’t know. It depends upon the strength of the FORCE fleet defenses.”
“The defenses weren’t very good the other day when the Ouster scouts got through and destroyed the Yggdrasill,” said Lamia.
Kassad nodded.
“Hey,” said Martin Silenus, “are we sitting on a fucking target?”
“Of course,” said the Consul. “If the Ousters are attacking Hyperion to prevent the opening of the Time Tombs, as M. Lamia’s tale suggests, then the Tombs and this entire area would be a primary target.”
“For nukes?” asked Silenus, his voice strained.
“Almost certainly,” answered Kassad.
“I thought something about the anti-entropic fields kept ships away from here,” said Father Hoyt.
“Crewed ships,” said the Consul without looking back at the others from where he leaned on the railing. “The anti-entropic fields won’t bother guided missiles, smart bombs, or hellwhip beams. It won’t bother mech infantry, for that matter. The Ousters could land a few attack skimmers or automated tanks and watch on remote while they destroy the valley.”
“But they won’t,” said Brawne Lamia. “They want to control Hyperion, not destroy it.”
“I wouldn’t wager my life on that supposition,” said Kassad.
Lamia smiled at him. “But we are, aren’t we, Colonel?”
Above them, a single spark separated itself from the continuous patchwork of explosions, grew into a bright orange ember, and streaked across the sky. The group on the terrace could see the flames, hear the tortured shriek of atmospheric penetration. The fireball disappeared beyond the mountains behind the Keep.
Almost a minute later, the Consul realized that he had been holding his breath, his hands rigid on the stone railing. He let out air in a gasp. The others seemed to be taking a breath at the same moment. There had been no explosion, no shock wave rumbling through the rock.
“A dud?” asked Father Hoyt.
“Probably an injured FORCE skirmisher trying to reach the orbital perimeter or the spaceport at Keats,” said Colonel Kassad.
“He didn’t make it, did he?” asked Lamia. Kassad did not respond.
Martin Silenus lifted the field glasses and searched the darkening moors for the Templar. “Out of sight,” said Silenus. “The good Captain either rounded that hill just this side of the Time Tombs valley or he pulled his disappearing act again.”
“It’s a pity that we’ll never hear his story,” said Father Hoyt. He turned toward the Consul. “But we’ll hear yours, won’t we?”
The Consul rubbed his palms against his pant legs. His heart was racing. “Yes,” he said, realizing even as he spoke that he had finally made up his mind. “I’ll tell mine.”
The wind roared down the east slopes of the mountains and whistled along the escarpment of Chronos Keep. The explosions above them seemed to have diminished ever so slightly, but the coming of darkness made each one look even more violent than the last.