“That’s all! Now either leave us alone or join us as a father rather than a receiver of sacrifices. You have the choice of Abraham!”
Rachel stirred in his arms as a rumble grew out of the stone floor. Columns vibrated. The red gloom deepened and then winked out, leaving only darkness. From far away there came the boom of huge footsteps. Sol hugged Rachel to him as a violent wind roared past.
There was a glimmer of light as both he and Rachel awoke on the HS Intrepid outward bound for Parvati to transfer to the treeship Yggdrasill for the planet Hyperion. Sol smiled at his seven-week-old daughter. She smiled back.
It was her last or her first smile.
The main cabin of the windwagon was silent when the old scholar finished his story. Sol cleared his throat and took a drink of water from a crystal goblet. Rachel slept on in the makeshift cradle of the open drawer. The windwagon rocked gently on its way, the rumble of the great wheel and the hum of the main gyroscope a lulling background noise.
“My God,” Brawne Lamia said softly. She started to speak again and then merely shook her head.
Martin Silenus closed his eyes and said:
“Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heavens will;
She can, though every face will scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.”
Sol Weintraub asked, “William Butler Yeats?”
Silenus nodded. “ ‘A Prayer for My Daughter.’ ”
“I think I’m going up on deck for a breath of air before turning in,” said the Consul. “Would anyone care to join me?”
Everyone did. The breeze of their passage was refreshing as the group stood on the quarterdeck and watched the darkened Sea of Grass rumble by. The sky was a great, star-splashed bowl above them, scarred by meteor trails. The sails and rigging creaked with a sound as old as human travel.
“I think we should post guards tonight,” said Colonel Kassad. “One person on watch while the others sleep. Two-hour intervals.”
“I agree,” said the Consul. “I’ll take the first watch.”
“In the morning …” began Kassad.
“Look!” cried Father Hoyt.
They followed his pointing arm. Between the blaze of constellations, colored fireballs flared—green, violet, orange, green again—illuminating the great plain of grass around them like flashes of heat lightning. The stars and meteor trails paled to insignificance beside the sudden display.
“Explosions?” ventured the priest.
“Space battle,” said Kassad. “Cislunar. Fusion weapons.” He went below quickly.
“The Tree,” said Het Masteen, pointing to a speck of light which moved among the explosions like an ember floating through a fireworks display.
Kassad returned with his powered binoculars and handed them around.
“Ousters?” asked Lamia. “Is it the invasion?”
“Ousters, almost certainly,” said Kassad. “But almost as certainly just a scouting raid. See the clusters? Those are Hegemony missiles being exploded by the Ouster ramscouts’ countermeasures.”
The binoculars came to the Consul. The flashes were quite clear now, an expanding cumulus of flame. He could see the speck and long blue tail of at least two scoutships fleeing from the Hegemony pursuers.
“I don’t think …” began Kassad and then stopped as the ship and sails and Sea of Grass glowed bright orange in reflected glare.
“Dear Christ,” whispered Father Hoyt. “They’ve hit the treeship.”
The Consul swept the glasses left. The growing nimbus of flames could be seen with the naked eye but in the binoculars the kilometer-long trunk and branch array of the Yggdrasill was visible for an instant as it burned and flared, long tendrils of flame arcing away into space as the containment fields failed and the oxygen burned. The orange cloud pulsed, faded, and fell back on itself as the trunk became visible for a final second even as it glowed and broke up like the last long ember in a dying fire. Nothing could have survived. The treeship Yggdrasill with its crew and complement of clones and semisentient erg drivers was dead.
The Consul turned toward Het Masteen and belatedly held out the binoculars. “I’m so … sorry,” he whispered.
The tall Templar did not take the glasses. Slowly he lowered his gaze from the skies, pulled forward his cowl, and went below without a word.
The death of the treeship was the final explosion. When ten minutes had passed and no more flares had disturbed the night, Brawne Lamia spoke. “Do you think they got them?”
“The Ousters?” said Kassad. “Probably not. The scoutships are built for speed and defense. They’re light-minutes away by now.”
“Did they go after the treeship on purpose?” asked Silenus. The poet sounded very sober.
“I think not,” said Kassad. “Merely a target of opportunity.”
“Target of opportunity,” echoed Sol Weintraub. The scholar shook his head. “I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep before sunrise.”
One by one the others went below. When only Kassad and the Consul were left on deck, the Consul said, “Where should I stand watch?”
“Make a circuit,” said the Colonel. “From the main corridor at the base of the ladder you can see all of the stateroom doors and the entrance to the mess and galley. Come above and check the gangway and decks. Keep the lanterns lit. Do you have a weapon?”
The Consul shook his head.
Kassad handed over his deathwand. “It’s on tight beam—about half a meter at ten meters’ range. Don’t use it unless you’re sure that there’s an intruder. The rough plate that slides forward is the safety. It’s on.”
The Consul nodded, making sure that his finger stayed away from the firing stud.
“I’ll relieve you in two hours,” said Kassad. He checked his comlog. “It’ll be sunrise before my watch is over.” Kassad looked at the sky as if expecting the Yggdrasill to reappear and continue its firefly path across the sky. Only the stars glowed back. On the northeastern horizon a moving mass of black promised a storm.
Kassad shook his head. “A waste,” he said and went below.
The Consul stood there awhile and listened to the wind in the canvas, the creek of rigging, and the rumble of the wheel. After a while he went to the railing and stared at darkness while he thought.
Chapter 5
Sunrise over the Sea of Grass was a thing of beauty. The Consul watched from the highest point on the aft deck. After his watch he had tried to sleep, given it up, and come up onto deck to watch the night fade into day. The stormfront had covered the sky with low clouds and the rising sun lit the world with brilliant gold reflected from above and below. The windwagon’s sails and lines and weathered planks glowed in the brief benediction of light in the few minutes before the sun was blocked by the ceiling of clouds and color flowed out of the world once again. The wind which followed this curtain closing was chill, as if it had blown down from the snowy peaks of the Bridle Range just visible as a dark blur on the northeastern horizon.
Brawne Lamia and Martin Silenus joined the Consul on the aft deck, each nursing a cup of coffee from the galley. The wind whipped and tugged at the rigging. Brawne Lamia’s thick mass of curls fluttered around her face like a dark nimbus.