Ratnayaka opened his eye. In front of him his brothers stared raptly as the file played. The air filled with smoke and flames, the choking stench of burning chemicals. Tiny figures could be seen running from a series of domes, pursued by larger figures brandishing protonic weapons. Ratnayaka could hear the terrified screams of Tyrants as they were engulfed by flames. All around him, his brothers cheered.
Abruptly the scene changed, switched in a sickening whirl to another angle (the aardmen who ’filed the transmission were having difficulty mastering the equipment). Rows of Tyrants in yolk-yellow uniforms had been lined up along a pier thrust into the Lagoa dos Patos. Behind them the sky curdled into great clots of scarlet and purple as the sun set behind blazing skyscrapers. In the foreground aardmen crouched, some of them wearing the black star of the Asterine Alliance on bands around their necks. Cacodemons stood beside them, tall and ramrod straight and heavily armed, their faces marred by the bristling spikes of their feeding tubes. From the Tyrants came a faint, high wailing (the audio section of this ’file was also very poor). Then without warning the pier exploded. Liquid flame and burning bits of cloth and flesh rained down upon the ragged Asterine army. The aardmen howled triumphantly. The scene blinked into oblivion, and Ratnayaka’s brothers applauded.
There were other scenes on other ’files. An audio transmission from the Habilis Emirate colony Sepkur, where the energumens had kept their former masters alive. For nearly a month the Sihk general Aswan Turis had been forced to order his troops on Earth to carry out lunatic attacks upon their own military holdings. Despite his cooperation, the energumens finally killed him, beheading him as the Emirate executes delators, the most common spies and traitors. His body was sent to the Emirate capital in Tripoli, along with a hidden bomb that the energumens detonated from the HORUS station. The Emirate’s military was already weakened by its war with the Ascendants. No one imagined it could withstand this blow.
Thus it went across the globe. ’File after ’file showed the holocaust engulfing the planet: the rebuilt ruins of Paris once more in flames, its spires and blighted chestnut trees collapsing into ash; floating cities sinking because their hydrapithecenes and sirens had sabotaged them; other coastal cities devastated by energumen-seeded tidal waves and storms when their early-warning systems failed. Few enough of these technological outposts remained on Earth. Now one by one they fell, and the global maps of the HORUS colonies showed darkness like a stain spreading across the continents far below.
“There are too many of us for them to conquer!” gloated Kalaman, and his brothers clapped and laughed aloud. “Only twenty of us here on Helena Aulis; but a million, ten million, on the Element!”
The global maps that shimmered in the air before him suddenly blinked off. In their place a tiny orb appeared, pulsing viridian and violet. It grew, sending off showers of sparks and the piercing sound of a glass harmonium. Now the orb was the size of a fist, a skull; now it was the height of a man. Within it the darting shafts of green and purple took on human shape until the Oracle stood there before them, wrapped in heatless lightning.
“Greetings, brothers!” His voice was sweet and clear as a young boy’s. “You have seen what your sisters and brothers have done without you—are you ready now to join them?”
Kalaman and his brothers cheered, in a single voice so thunderous that the ceiling trembled and the hanging lanterns flickered.
“I am glad!” Metatron cried. “Because there is an elÿon coming for you—it will be here tomorrow, when your lights turn over to day.”
The glowing figure turned, extended one shining hand to where Kalaman watched it through slitted black eyes. “You have done well by your brothers, Kalaman. Your father will embrace you when you arrive—
“But first you must ready yourselves for him. Whatever weaponry there is on Helena Aulis you must find and bring to the docking area. Also whatever stores remain of food and medicines. From here the elÿon will proceed to Quirinus, to gather your sisters; and then to Earth!”
And Metatron bowed to Kalaman, more gracefully than any construct, more gracefully than any human man; and the gathered energumens shouted and raised their arms in salute to him and Kalaman. Only Ratnayaka did not shout. He regarded the fanfare coolly with his ebony eye, embracing his brother Kalaman; and with his delicate mouth he smiled. A perilous smile, any man would have realized: the smile of Judas as he kissed his beloved prophet, the smile Clytemnestra wore when she welcomed Agamemnon. But there were no longer any men on Helena Aulis, and the energumens had not read the classics.
8
Izanagi to Quirinus
INSIDE, THE IZANAGI RESEMBLED every elÿon freighter I had ever boarded: a vast gray space, the color of its pale carpeting lost beneath a layer of dust, its curved walls and ceiling hung with cobwebs that trapped more dust in patterns like limp feathers. The port authority was supposed to disinfect all personnel and freight to prevent intrusions by insects or other parasites. Still, the spiders got on board, somehow. I had never seen an elÿon that did not have them, rain-colored droplets sliding up and down the struts of the drunken webs they wove, unhinged by the craft’s strange gravity.
The Izanagi seemed cleaner than most vessels—the result of neglect more than fastidiousness. It had been traveling among the HORUS colonies for several months now, with only its adjutant living on board. I half-expected there to be energumen rebels hidden within its chambers, or some kind of automated weaponry; but I found no evidence of either. Perhaps the energumens had used it and cast it adrift until it returned to Cisneros; perhaps it had never come within the reach of the rebel Alliance. But I was impatient, and willing to risk the dangers in order to reach Quirinus.
As Valeska, Nefertity, and I stepped out into the main entryway, a bell chimed, a hollow, high-pitched tone alerting the crew to our arrival. A minute later doors opened in the misty walls, and several replicant servers appeared to escort us.
“Imperator Tast’annin,” one hissed. It was a fifth-generation Maio server, dating from the Third Ascension, tall and slender like some attenuated metal insect, with small glowing red eyes. “May I show you to your quarters?”
“No,” I said shortly, and turned to the server addressing Valeska, another Maio construct with that distinctive sibilant voice. “Captain Novus is the only one among us who will need formal quarters. Who is the adjutant aboard?”
The servers looked at each other and exchanged a round of clicking noises. Then the first one plucked Valeska’s sleeve and began to cross toward a wide round door.
“Imperator Tast’annin—” Valeska’s voice was pinched, a little desperate. I recalled that she had never been to HORUS, and so would not have been inside an elÿon before, except on inspection. I raised my hand and tried to sound reassuring.
“I will find you after we’ve embarked.” She nodded once, stumbling a little as her replicant guide escorted her through the door. Beside me Nefertity waited in silence, observing the remaining two Maio units with smoldering green eyes.
“They will not harm her?” she asked at last.
“Harm her?” I gestured dismissively at the replicants. They swiveled their silver heads and walked away, to disappear back down the long gray corridors that had disgorged them. “No. They’re standard escorts. Relatively speaking, few humans make the journeys on the elÿon. There will be no human crew on this one save its adjutant. And Captain Novus, of course.”
Nefertity turned to survey our chamber. Motes of crystal light danced in the air around her, white and blue and red; the only true colors in that room. “Is it all so dreary?”