‘You’re an army brat, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Well, I’m glad you’re here, Clodia, you’ve been a comfort to me … What of the future, though? Even your father can’t last in the legion for ever. What will you do? I can’t imagine you being satisfied to be some soldier’s wife.’
‘I don’t remember my mother, but I saw the women in camp, at Romulus. Having babies and baking bread and washing clothes, day after day?’ She pulled her face. ‘That’s not for me.’
‘Then what? They don’t allow women in the Roman army, do they?’
‘Not into the legions, no. Not in the fighting infantry. But there are masses of other jobs you can do. In administration, in training, in logistics. A lot of that is based in the cities, the big central military establishments. And there are jobs in the front line women can take, even in the fighting units, some kinds of auxiliary. Or I might become a weapons specialist. Go into training.’
‘Or be a medicus. There are plenty of front-line jobs there. You ought to talk to Michael about that.’
Again, a self-deprecating face-pull. ‘Maybe I could be a nurse. I’m not sure I’m clever enough otherwise. I can strip down field artillery pieces, but an injured legionary … I’ll find something.’
‘I’m sure you will—’
That was when the warning trumpet sounded, filling the hull with its shrill note.
Clodia said, ‘Just lie still, until it’s over.’
And Penny, lying in her couch, felt the cessation of the kernel engines, a deep shudder transmitted through the ship’s fabric. That chorus of creaks and alarming bangs ceased immediately too, as the strain of three gravities was removed. And only then, it seemed, did the sense of heavy acceleration lift from her body.
‘Ah,’ she murmured. ‘It’s as if your father has been sitting on my chest for two days, and now he’s got off.’
Clodia impatiently unbuckled the restraints that held her in her chair, pushed aside her exoskeletal aids, and let herself drift up into the air, whooping. ‘I always love this bit!’
‘How long were we—’
‘Fifty hours. Twenty-five accelerating at three weights, and then the turnover, and twenty-five decelerating. And here we are at Mars, just like that. We couldn’t have got here any quicker. Roman ships are the best performing in the world, and the trierarchus will have pushed us as hard as she could.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt it, child. But we might be too late even so.’ She struggled to emerge from her cocoon of blankets and cushions, an aged butterfly. ‘Oh, help me out of this thing.’
Clodia hovered dubiously. ‘If I don’t keep you here until the medicus has checked you over, I’m going to be walking back to Terra …’
It was another hour before Penny, fuming with frustration, was at last allowed onto the bridge of the Malleus.
And beyond the observation windows, before her eyes, once more Mars loomed huge, like a plasterwork in oranges and browns, scarred by craters and dry canyons, the silver bands of the canals glowing softly in the sunlight.
When she arrived a kind of council of war was already underway, involving Quintus, his second in command Gnaeus and his ship’s trierarchus Movena, as well as Stef, Beth, Mardina, Ari Guthfrithson, Kerys, and the ColU borne on the shoulders of Chu Yuen. Stef barely glanced at her sister. All of them looked beat up to Penny, their skin blotchy, their eyes puffy. There was a faint smell of body odour in the crowded room – but then probably none of them had washed for days, Penny reflected; they hadn’t all had the comprehensive medical support she’d enjoyed.
And Jiang was here. He too looked wrung out. But he held onto a rail, supporting himself in the air, and took her hand in his. ‘Mars again,’ he said. ‘Where we first met.’
‘Yes. All those years ago, at the UN-China conference at Obelisk.’
‘No matter what we go through, Mars, it seems, endures.’
Quintus Fabius faced her. ‘Maybe Mars has not yet changed very much, Academician. But it will shortly. Look up there.’ He pointed to a slice of dark sky, beyond Mars’s western limb.
Where hung a single brilliant star.
‘Ceres,’ Penny whispered.
‘Höd, yes.’
‘How close is it? That thing looks almost large enough to show a disc.’
Stef said, ‘Penny, we haven’t been troubling you with updates during the voyage. We hoped you’d sleep through it—’
‘Oh, shut up, you fusspot.’
Quintus said, ‘Höd is larger than the width of Venus, as seen from Earth. So the Arab observers assure me.’
Penny tried to work that out. ‘Then it must be – what, a few million kilometres out?’
‘Rather less,’ Stef said. ‘The asteroid has undergone episodes of immense thrust. We suspect Earthshine has ordered the use of significant chunks of the body’s own material to use as reaction mass. The observers on the Malleus have computed the new trajectory.’
Penny could see the conclusion of all that in her sister’s expression. ‘My God.’
Stef took a deep breath. ‘Ceres is going to impact Mars. That’s finally confirmed. It’s probably what Earthshine intended all along.’
Quintus looked furious, as if this was some personal betrayal. ‘But why?’
‘We’ve no idea,’ Stef said. ‘Not yet.’
Penny looked at Stef. ‘How long?’
‘The Arabs estimate twelve hours. No more.’
‘As little as that? Very well. That’s the time we have remaining to stop Earthshine.’
Quintus nodded grimly. ‘Of course we must. This great act, this hurling of cosmic masses, can be intended to do nothing but harm. It may even start a war. We have to stop him. But we will face resistance.’
‘Then,’ Penny said drily, ‘I’m glad I’m on a ship full of Roman legionaries. Let’s work out our plan.’
But as the soldiers began to discuss tactics and fallbacks, a clock in Penny’s head began a dreadful countdown.
Twelve hours, and counting.
CHAPTER 27
To Stef’s relief, Penny submitted to Michael’s insistence that she needed rest.
‘And make sure she straps down again,’ the centurion called as she was led from the bridge. ‘We may have some more hard acceleration to undergo before the day is done.’
‘As you wish, Centurion.’
The rest of them inspected Quintus’s images of the layout of Earthshine’s latest base on the ground, at Terra Cimmeria. They were large-scale photographs, grainy wet-chemistry productions like all Roman or Brikanti imagery, but good enough, Stef thought, to get a sense of the layout. She saw three broad clusters of facilities, grouped close together. Further out the ground was marked by swathes of scorching, places where the ground had melted altogether: the relics of multiple landings of kernel-drive rockets.
‘So, Colonel Kalinski,’ Quintus said. ‘We have been scouting this area for some time – for years, as Earthshine has developed his operation. But I welcome your input now. This is the location where you say that the Xin had their Martian capital in your world.’
‘Slap in the heart of the highland we called the Terra Cimmeria, yes.’
‘Which was no doubt why Earthshine chose it,’ the ColU said from Chu’s backpack, ‘because of that resonance. Everything Earthshine does will be shaped by an awareness of competing realities. And it is also, no doubt, why the site of a city that was called Obelisk for its greatest single building should be marked here by – point for me, Chu Yuen, left and down – that.’ The slave seemed to work well with the master he carried; his finger stabbed down on the image of one of the three clusters of domed buildings.
Stef peered down. ‘I see a sharp stripe on the ground. Wait – where is the sun? That’s a shadow, of something very tall—’
‘A tree,’ the ColU said. ‘Not an obelisk. A tree. Encouraged to grow to some four hundred metres, which is three times the maximum theoretical height on Terra. A tree’s height is limited by the need to lift water to its uppermost leaves—’