Outside all this, the wives and other camp followers made their own arrangements for the night, as best they could. The glow from the Inti windows faded, and the eerie night of the habitat drew in.
Quintus Fabius sought out Mardina, where she was helping Titus Valerius and his daughter with their meal. The centurion beckoned to draw her away.
Together they walked around the perimeter of the camp. The centurion growled, “Oh! What a relief to talk decent camp Latin again, without trying to curl one’s lips around runasimi, or to have Collius whispering in one’s ear… So what do you think of your first day on the march, my newest legionary?”
That title, casually used, thrilled her. “Impressive,” she said truthfully. “The discipline, despite all the grumbling.”
“Soldiers always grumble.”
“And the way they put together this camp—”
“Centuries of tradition and years of training. But the men like their camps. It’s the same every night, as if you aren’t traveling at all—as if you’re returning home each evening to the same miniature town. Soldiers like familiarity, above all. A place they know they’ll be able to sleep in safety.” He glanced at the engineered sky. “We made good progress today.”
“Yes. I spoke to the surveyors. It’s one advantage of having a sky that’s almost a mirror image of the ground. They say it’s fifteen or twenty days’ march to the ocean, if we do as well as we did today.”
“Well, that was pretty much the plan.”
They came to a stretch of the wall that was less satisfactory than the rest; he scuffed some loose earth with his sandaled foot, and glanced around; Mardina could see he was making a mental note regarding some later discipline. They walked on.
“To tell you the truth, I’m glad to have them on the march at last. Legionaries need to be legionaries; they’re not cut out to be farmers and taxpayers—not until they retire, anyhow. We have had some discipline problems—more than you were probably aware of. Bored men squabbling over gambling games, or women, or boys. As for the positive side, I ran out of excuses to issue phalera and other wooden medals for basic camp duties. Well, Mardina Eden Jones Guthfrithson, I’m glad you saw little of that, and I’m glad you see us at our best—doing what we do best, short of giving battle, that is.”
She plucked up her courage to speak frankly. “And you’re speaking to me like this, sir, because—”
He stopped and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Well, you know why. You have a duty of your own to fulfill, you and Clodia. Tomorrow you’ll be led out of the forest by a couple of antis, and you’ll meet the tocrico apu Ruminavi and other agents of the quipucamayoc, who will take you to a capac nan station and deliver you into the hands of the Sapa Inca’s tax collectors…”
“Tomorrow? I didn’t know it was as soon as that.”
“I thought it best not to tell you. To let you enjoy as much of this as possible.” He squeezed her shoulder harder. “You know the plan. Of all of us, yours is perhaps the most difficult duty to fulfill. Even more than poor Clodia Valeria, who I suspect understands little of this.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“You’ll do more than that, legionary,” he said gruffly, releasing her. “You’ll fulfill your orders and do what’s required of you, adhering to the oath you swore this morning.”
She stood up straight. “Of course, sir.”
“All right. Now go back and help Titus with his stew. Later I’ll stop by and make sure he remembers he has to say goodbye to his daughter in the morning…”
52
Hanan Cuzco was a great city.
Of course, Mardina had been here before, when she had first arrived at Yupanquisuyu. But so baffled had she been by the giant habitat that she had taken in little of the capital city itself.
And this was a city like no other. Mardina, who had seen Dumnona and Eboraki in Brikanti, and many of the cities of the Roman Empire, could attest to that, as she and Clodia Valeria, grimly holding hands, bewildered after a long rail journey, were led by Ruminavi through the last security cordon.
Hanan Cuzco nestled in the tremendous bowl of the western hub, a structure itself over four hundred miles across—seen from the edge, it was more like a crater on Luna, Mardina thought, than any structure on Earth. And, she saw, as they rode across the face of the hub in a comfortable seated carriage, nestling at the base of this bowl was the city, huge buildings of stone and glass, blocks and pyramids and domes set out like gigantic toys. Many of the roofs were plated with gold that shone in the light of the Inti windows. All of this was crowded around a huge central structure, that tremendous tower she remembered well, a supremely narrow pyramid that must reach a mile high.
Ruminavi, their guide, pointed out sights. “There is Qoricancha, the temple of the sun. There is Huacaypata, the main square, where the great roads cross. The big structure on the far side is Saqsaywaman, the fortress that guards the capital. All this is modeled on Old Cuzco, the Navel of the World, and yet wrought much larger…”
The great buildings, imported from Terra stone by stone, were of finely cut sandstone, huge blocks that fit together seamlessly, and without mortar. Lesser buildings had stone walls and thatched roofs, and wooden door frames in which colorfully dyed blankets hung. Here at the axis of the habitat there was no spin gravity, and she could see metal straps wrapped around the walls and roofs, to hold the buildings in place in the absence of the weight of the stones themselves. And in this city without weight, the wide streets were laced with guide ropes, many of which glittered silver, stretching across the avenues and between the upper stories of many of the buildings, as if the whole city had been draped in a shimmering spiderweb. People moved through that web, strange angular people, like spiders themselves.
Of course they were hundreds of miles above the layer of atmosphere that was plastered against the habitat’s outer wall. So the city was enclosed by a dome, barely visible, a shimmering bubble that swept up above the buildings. There were more buildings outside the air dome, squat, blockier, air-retaining structures: factories that maintained the air and water and other systems, and a number of military emplacements—no chances were taken with the security of the Sapa Inca. Mardina had taken in little of this during her first bewildered hours in the habitat. She hadn’t even noticed the dome.
And, when she stepped out of the glass-walled transport and looked around, over Mardina’s head the interior of the habitat itself stretched like a tremendous well shaft, walled with land and sea and air, a shaft thousands of miles tall.
Clodia tugged her hand. “Don’t look up. It makes you giddy.”
Mardina had looked up, and, yes, she felt briefly dizzy. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” A woman drifted before them, smiling. “It takes time to adjust if you’re used to the gravity of the suyus…”
Perhaps forty, with black hair tied back, she had an open, smiling face, though the colors of her cheeks and lips were exaggerated with power and cream. She wore a dress of some brilliantly patterned fabric, and a headband set with emeralds that offset her dark eyes. A beautiful face, beautiful clothing. But she was taller than any legionary, and spindly, as if stretched, her neck long, her bare arms like twigs, and her joints, wrists and elbows and shoulders, were knots of bone. An inhabitant of the axis, then.