Ilium (68 page)

59

Mahnmut may have been the first to notice what was happening in the sky, sea, and earth around Ilium, but that was because he was expecting it. He hadn’t known
what
he was expecting . . . but certainly not what he saw now.

What do you see?
asked Orphu on the tightbeam.

Ah . . .
gasped Mahnmut.

A rotating sphere some hundreds of meters across had appeared in the sky several thousand feet above Ilium. Then a second one rotated into view just above the battlefield, centered between the city and Thicket Ridge. Mahnmut turned quickly and saw a third sphere pop into existence above the Achaean encampments, then a fourth one suddenly appearing several miles out to sea immediately in front of the scores of fleeing Achaean ships. A fifth one appeared to the north of the city; a sixth one to the south.

What do you see?
demanded Orphu.

Uh . . .
said Mahnmut.

All of the spheres showed flashing colors but were suddenly filled with stabbing fractal designs; then all resolved themselves into multiple images of Olympus Mons, seen from different distances, viewed from different angles, and framed by different perspectives; now all showed the Martian volcano and the blue Martian sky. One of the spheres settled into the plains of Ilium ahead so that the Martian ground in the hundred-meter-wide circle extended smoothly from the Trojan soil. The huge sphere to the west flattened to a circle in the sky and then sank until the Martian ocean was level with the Mediterranean Sea. Water surged back and forth between the two worlds. The Achaean ships tried to drop their sails, men quit rowing, but the high-beaked ships could not stop in time and sailed through the circle of boiling turbulence into the Martian northern ocean, with white-sloped Olympus Mons looming in the background. No matter which direction Mahnmut looked, he could see the Martian volcano, even through the spheres now resolving themselves into circular portals high in the sky over Ilium.

What’s going on?
shouted Orphu over the tightbeam.

Ah . . .
said Mahnmut again.

Scores of black flying objects hurtled through the circular portals in the sky, out of the circle slicing into the sea behind Mahnmut, even through the ground-level portal—more arch now than circle, since its base was under Trojan soil—opening less than a hundred meters in front of Achilles and Hector and his men. The flying objects threw themselves through the sky like giant hornets and Mahnmut noticed that they were black, barbed, sharp-planed, not much larger than Orphu, and powered by visible pulse-engines in their bellies, sides, and sterns. The machines had bulbous, black-glassed cockpits and were festooned with whip comm antennae and what looked to be weapons—missiles, guns, bombs, ray projectors. If these were new-generation chariots from the gods, they’d gone high-tech industrial in a hurry.

Mahnmut!
bellowed Orphu.

Sorry,
said the little moravec. Almost stuttering, he hurried to describe the chaos in the skies, seas, and fields around them. He had trouble catching up to real time.

What are Achilles and Hector and all the other Greeks and Trojans doing?
asked Orphu.
Running?

Some are,
said Mahnmut.
But most of the Achaeans around me and the Trojans near your ridge are running into the closest circle-portal.

Running
into
it?
repeated Orphu of Io. Mahnmut had never heard his big friend sound flabbergasted before.

Yeah. Achilles and Hector started it—they shouted, bellowed something, held their spears and shields high, and just . . . well . . . rushed into it. I guess they see Olympus Mons and know what it is and just . . . attacked.

Attacked a Martian volcano?
repeated Orphu. He sounded even more thunderstruck.

Attacked Olympos, the home of the gods,
said Mahnmut, sounding pretty stupefied himself.
Oh, my!

What “Oh, My”?
demanded Orphu.

The circle-portal-thing behind us,
stammered Mahnmut.
Dozens of Greek ships went through it . . .

Yeah, you said that.

But there are
hundreds
of ships visible through the portal.

Greek ships?
asked the Ionian.

No,
said Mahnmut.
Most of them are LGM ships.

Little green men?
Orphu sounded like a poorly engineered voice-synthesis device, sounding each word out as if he’d never heard it before.

Thousands of LGM. On hundreds of ships.

Feluccas?
said Orphu.

Feluccas, those big barges they used to transport the stones for heads, larger sailing ships, smaller ships . . . they’re all sailing toward Olympus Mons, mixed in with the Achaean ships now.

Why?
asked Orphu.
Why are the zeks sailing toward Olympos?

Don’t ask
me! shouted Mahnmut.
I just work here . . . uh-oh.

Uh-oh?

The sky’s full of fiery streaks now, like meteors flaming down from space.

The gods resuming their bombardment?
asked Orphu.

I don’t
know.

Which direction?

What?
said Mahnmut. If he had been designed with a jaw, it would be dropping now. The sky was a latticework of fiery streaks, with the circular portals showing Olympus Mons in a dozen places around Ilium and the sky filled with black barbed machines jetting back and forth at increasingly lower altitudes. Thousands more Achaeans and Trojans had rushed into the first portal after Achilles and Hector, while tens of thousands more Trojans and their allies were taking up defensive positions on the walls of Ilium and on the plain just outside the Scaean Gates. Gongs rang out. Drums beat. The air sizzled with energy and echoed with roars. Achaeans ran to defensive positions on their trenches, sunlight glinting on polished armor. A thousand Trojan archers on the Ilium ramparts went to full pull on their bows, arrows aimed skyward. A score more of black ships put out to sea from the Achaean camp. Mahnmut couldn’t pivot fast enough to take it all in.

Which direction are the meteor trails going?
said Orphu.
West to east, east to west, north to south?

What the hell does it matter which direction?
snapped Mahnmut.
No, wait, sorry. They’re coming from all parts of the sky. Making cross-hatches against the blue.

Any of them heading for Ilium?
asked Orphu.

I don’t think so. Not directly. Wait, I can see something at the end of one of those trails now . . . I’m zooming in . . . good heavens, it’s a . . .

Spaceship?
said Orphu.

Yes!
breathed Mahnmut.
Fins, hull, roaring engine . . . it looks like a cartoon of a spaceship, Orphu. It’s hovering on a column of yellow energy. The other meteors are also ships . . . some hovering . . . one coming down. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh again?
said Orphu.

That hovering spaceship appears to be landing,
said Mahnmut.
So are four or five of the smaller black flying machines.

Yes?
said Orphu. The Ionian sounded calm, perhaps even amused.

They’re landing on the ridge near
you
! Almost right on top of you, Orphu! Stay put, I’m coming!
Mahnmut began running on all fours at top speed for the ridge where the yellow spacecraft exhaust was kicking dust and small rocks a hundred feet into the air. He couldn’t see Orphu through the dust as the various machines set down next to the amazon’s tomb. The barbed flying machines were extending a complicated tripod landing gear. The weapons on the landing hornet ships were swiveling, targeting Orphu. Mahnmut saw this just before he lost sight of everything as he galloped into the dust storm.

I’m not going anywhere,
sent Orphu.
But don’t sprain a servomechanism hurrying, old friend. I think I know who these guys are.

60

Rolling in the terrace darkness with Caliban, it felt to Daeman as if the monster were trying to tear his arm off. Indeed, the monster
was
trying to tear Daeman’s arm off. Only the metallic fibers in the thermskin and the suit’s automatic response to seal all rends kept Caliban’s teeth from ripping the meat off Daeman’s arm and then tearing the bones one from the other. But the suit wouldn’t save Daeman for much longer.

The man and man-beast crashed into tables, rolled among post-human corpses, bounced off a girder, and rebounded in microgravity from a glass wall. Caliban would not release his grip and hugged Daeman tightly to him with long fingers and prehensile webbed toes. Suddenly the creature relaxed its bite, pulled its slavering head back, and lunged for Daeman’s neck again. Daeman blocked the lunge with his right forearm again, was bitten to the bone again, and moaned aloud as they bounced back to the terrace railing. In spite of the suit’s automatic closing, blood jetted out in discrete spheres, bursting on impact with Daeman’s suit or Caliban’s scaly hide.

For a second they were wedged against the terrace railing and Daeman was staring into Caliban’s yellow eyes, only inches from his own. He knew that if his punctured forearm wasn’t in the way, Caliban would bite through his osmosis mask and rip his face off in a second, but what really passed through Daeman’s mind at this moment was a simple phrase and an astounding fact—
I’m not afraid.

There was no firmary standing by to fax his dead body away and fix it in forty-eight hours or less, no blue worms waiting for Daeman now—whatever happened next was forever.

I am not afraid.

Daeman saw the animal ears, the slavering muzzle, the scaly shoulders, and he thought again how physical and fleshy Caliban was. He remembered from the grotto the obscene pink of the animal-thing’s bare scrotum and penis.

As Caliban pulled his teeth free to lunge again—even while Daeman knew that he couldn’t block the lunge toward his jugular a third time—the man reached down with his free left hand, found yielding globes, and squeezed as hard as he’d ever squeezed anything in his life.

Instead of lunging, the monster jerked its head far back, roared so loudly into the thin air that the noise echoed in the almost airless space, and then the beast struggled to break away. Daeman ducked low, shifted both hands lower—his right arm bled, but the fingers on that hand still worked—and squeezed again, hanging on and being dragged behind as Caliban writhed and kicked to break free. Daeman imagined pulping tomatoes with his powerful hands, his human hands, he imagined squeezing the juice out of oranges, of bursting pulp, and he hung on—the world had receded to the will to hang on and squeeze—and Caliban roared again, swung his long arm, and struck Daeman hard enough to send him flying.

For several seconds, Daeman was not conscious enough to defend himself or even to know where he was. But the creature did not use those seconds—he was too busy flailing and howling and holding himself, his scaly knees flying high as Caliban tried to crouch and hunch in midair. Just as Daeman’s vision began to clear, he saw the monster flail his way back to the terrace, grab the railing, and fling himself the fifteen feet between him and Daeman. The long arms and claws were already halfway to him.

Daeman groped blindly amidst the chairs and tables around him, found his iron pipe where it had bounced, lifted it to his shoulder with both hands, and savagely swung the metal into the side of Caliban’s head. The sound was most satisfying. Caliban’s head snapped aside and his flailing arms and tumbling torso crashed into Daeman, but the man flung the beast to one side—feeling his own right arm going numb now—and he dropped the pipe, leaped for the terrace railing, and then kicked up toward the semipermeable exit thirty feet above.

Too slow.

More used to the low-gravity, powered by hate now beyond human measurement, Caliban used hands, feet, legs, and momentum to rebound off the terrace wall, catch the railing with his toes, crouch, spring, and beat Daeman through the air to the marked panel above them.

Seeing that he wouldn’t win the race to the glass, Daeman grabbed a girder protruding fifteen feet from below the marked panel and arrested his movement. Caliban landed on the ledge, arms out, blocking the approach to the white square. Daeman saw that there was no way that he could get around or past those wide arms, those raking claws. He suddenly felt the pain from his torn and punctured arm hitting his mind and torso like an electric shock, then felt the growing numbness there as warning of the weakness and shock that must soon follow.

Caliban threw his head back, roared again, showed his teeth, and chanted—“What I hate, He consecrates—what I ate, He celebrates! No mate for thee—more meat for me!” Caliban was ready to spring after Daeman as soon as the human turned to flee.

Seeing the raw scars on Caliban’s chest, Daeman found himself smiling grimly.
Savi hurt him with her shot. She didn’t die without a fight.

Neither will I.

Instead of turning to flee, Daeman pulled himself horizontal on the girder, squatted, gathered his remaining energy in his legs, put his head down, and launched himself straight at Caliban’s chest.

It took Daeman two or three seconds to cross the space between them, but for an instant the monster seemed too surprised to react. Food was not supposed to act in this impertinent manner—prey was not supposed to charge. Then the creature realized that his dinner was coming to him—wearing the thermskin he desired—and Caliban showed all of his teeth in a smile that became a snarl. The beast threw his arms and legs around the incoming human in a grip that Daeman knew the monster would not release until the man was dead and half-eaten.

They went through the membrane together, Daeman feeling the sensation of tearing through a curtain of sticky gauze, Caliban bellowing into thin air one second and into cold silence the next. Together, they tumbled into outer space, Daeman hugging Caliban as fiercely as the monster was clutching Daeman, the human’s left hand pressed up against the monster’s underjaw, trying to keep those teeth away for the eight or ten seconds he thought he needed.

The thermskin suit reacted immediately to vacuum—tightening fiercely into Daeman’s flesh, constricting until it acted as a pressure suit, sealing off even molecular gaps that would bleed air or blood or heat into space. The osmosis mask inflated the clear visor and switched the movement and purification of the man’s recycled breath to 100 percent. Cooling tubules in the thermskin let Daeman’s natural sweat flow quickly through channels, cooling his sunward side even as body heat was transferred to the part of his body in minus-two-hundred-degree shadow. All this happened in a fraction of a second and Daeman did not even notice. He was too busy thrusting Caliban’s jaw and muzzle upward, keeping those teeth away from his throat and shoulder.

Caliban was too strong. He shook his head, freed it from Daeman’s weakening pressure, and then threw open his mouth to bellow before ripping the man’s throat out.

Air rushed out of Caliban’s chest and mouth like water from a punctured gourd. Saliva froze even as it spewed into space. Caliban clapped his long-fingered hands over his ears, but not in time—blood globules spewed into space as the creature’s eardrums exploded. The blobs of blood began to boil in vacuum and, barely more than a second later, the blood in Caliban’s veins began to boil as well.

Caliban’s eyes started to swell and more blood spurted from his tear ducts. His muzzle moved up and down as his mouth worked like a fish’s, wheezing silently in vacuum, gasping for air, but no air came. The surface of Caliban’s bulging eyes began to freeze over and cloud white.

Daeman had wrenched himself free, tumbled across the outside terrace—almost floated helplessly off into space, but caught the metal-mesh railing—then hauled himself hand over hand to where the familiar sonie was tethered to the metal surface. He didn’t want to run. He didn’t want to turn his back on Caliban. He wanted to stay and kill the thrashing monster with his gloved hands.

But one of those hands wasn’t working now—his torn right arm now hung useless as he kicked the final ten feet to the low vehicle.
Harman. Hannah.

A human would be dead by now, unprotected in space—knowing so little about anything, Daeman instinctively knew that—but Caliban was not human. Spewing blood and frozen air like some horrible comet boiling away its own surface as it approached the sun, Caliban tumbled, flailed, found purchase on the gridded metal of the terrace, and kicked his way back through the semipermeable wall, back into air and relative warmth.

Daeman was too busy to watch. Pulling himself down prone into the driver’s cushions, he turned his gaze to the metal shelf where the virtual control panel should be. It was off.

How do I activate it? What do I do if I can? How did Savi start it up?

Daeman’s mind was blank. His vision narrowed as black dots danced in his field of view. He was hyperventilating and close to passing out as he worked frantically to recall the image of Savi flying the sonie, activating the controls. He couldn’t remember.

Calm down. Easy. Easy.
It was his voice, but not his—an older voice, steady, amused.
Take it easy.

He did, forcing first his breathing back to a sane rate, then willing his heartbeat to slow, then focusing his vision and his mind.

Didn’t she use some voice command?
That wouldn’t work here in space. No air, no sound—Savi had told them that. Or perhaps Harman had. Daeman was learning from everyone these days.
How then?
He forced himself to relax a step further, and then closed his eyes and tried to recall the image of Savi flying them all away from the iceberg that first night flight.

She passed one hand under this low cowl, near the handgrip, to activate things.

Daeman moved his left hand. A virtual control panel flashed into existence. Able to use only his left hand, closing his eyes when he had to remember more clearly, Daeman moved his fingers through control sequences on the multicolored virtual panel. The forcefield flicked on and pressed him down against the cushions. A second later, a roar startled Daeman into looking up, but it was only air flooding into the secured space, just as he’d commanded with his fingers. With the air, came a voice, “Manual or autopilot mode?”

Daeman tugged his osmosis mask up a bit, almost wept as he breathed in the first sweet air he’d tasted in a month, and said, “Manual.”

The control grip flicked into place, surrounded by a virtual aura. The stick felt solid in Daeman’s left hand.

Forgetting the tie-downs until he saw the elastic bands rip free and fly into space, Daeman lifted the sonie ten feet above the metal terrace, twitched the stick, fed power to the rear thrusters, went off course, quickly realigned before smashing into metal instead of window, and hit the semipermeable square doing thirty or forty miles per hour.

Caliban was waiting on the ledge inside. The monster leaped for Daeman’s head and his trajectory was perfect, but the forcefield was on. Caliban bounced off and tumbled into the empty air at the center of the tower.

Daeman made a wide turn, getting used to the steering, twisted the control stick to add more power. The sonie was doing sixty or seventy miles per hour when Caliban looked up, the beast’s bleeding eyes went wide, and the bow of the sonie plowed into the monster’s midsection, sending him flying across the open tower space and crashing into girders and glass on the far side.

Daeman would have loved to stay and play—the
want
of it ached more in him that the screaming pain from his right arm—but his friends were dying below. He banked the sonie and dived straight down toward the city floor more than ninety stories below.

He almost didn’t pull up in time—the sonie sheered turf, cut through kelp, and sent dead grass flying—but then Daeman got the thing flying level and cut back on the speed a bit. His twenty-minute flailing trip from the firmary took him three minutes on the flight back.

The entrance wall was not quite wide enough for the sonie. Daeman backed the hovering machine up, gave it more throttle, and made the semipermeable entrance permanently permeable. Shards of glass and metal and plastic followed the sonie as Daeman flew it between dark, empty healing tanks. He winced as he caught a glimpse in some of those tanks of the dead white bodies of those humans they hadn’t saved in time. Then he was stopping the sonie, killing the forcefield, and jumping out next to two more bodies on the floor.

Harman had left the blue thermskin suit on Hannah, keeping only the osmosis mask for himself in the final minutes. The man’s naked body looked bruised and pale in the reflected light from the sonie’s headlights. Hannah’s mouth was open wide, as if in a final, futile effort to force more air into her lungs. Daeman didn’t waste time to see if they were alive. Using only his left arm, he scooped each of them up and laid them in the two couches on either side of his own. He paused only to jump out again, throw Savi’s pack in the back couch, and to toss the gun onto the armrest of his own couch before he was back in place and activating the forcefield.