Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (57 page)

“Secrets?”

“I have heard rumours that Agamemnon has invited a surprise guest.”

“A surprise guest?”

“A Trojan,” Achilles said.

~ * ~

His real name was Bernal, but AlterEgo insisted on calling him Paris.

“Get used to it. Our hosts insist on you adopting the name for this occasion.”

“If they explained why, it would be easier,” Bernal complained. Strapped into the gravity couch of the small ship in which he was travelling, he had little else to do except complain. AlterEgo took care of all the ship’s functions; Bernal was nothing but baggage.

“Presumably, it has something to do with the fact that all the messages we’ve received from our visitors come in the name of Agamemnon.”

“Over-captain of the Achaean fleet, for pity’s sake.”

“You can snort all you want, Paris, but we know very little else about them, and it will probably be in your best interests to take them seriously.”

“Not to mention the best interests of the whole of Cirrus.”

Bernal used his one free hand to align the external telescope, the only instrument the ship carried that used visible light, and installed specifically for Bernal’s use. He could not see his planet-now more than forty billion kilometres away-but the system’s yellow-dwarf sun, Anatole, was the brightest object in the sky, and Cirrus was somewhere within a few arc-seconds of it.

“Home-sick?” AlterEgo asked.

“Scared, more like,” Bernal answered. “When was the last time one of my people travelled this far from home?”

Bernal was sure he heard AlterEgo’s brain hum, even though he knew the AI didn’t have any parts that hummed as such. He had been in the AI’s company for too long. “Two-hundred and twenty-seven years ago. Explorer and miner named Groenig. Last message came when her ship was forty-three billion kilometres from home. Never heard from since.”

“No one went after her?”

“What good would that have done? Even back then, when intrasystem shipping was much more active than now, there would not have been more than two or three ships that could have reached her last known position within six months, far too late to do anything to help her if she was in trouble. Most likely there was some onboard disaster, or maybe the loneliness got to her and she committed suicide.”

The answer irritated Bernal. “What the hell did you wake me for, anyway?”

“I did have the telescope aligned on something I thought you’d be interested in seeing.”

“Don’t whinge. What was it?”

“Fortunately, I took the precaution of storing some images over a three day period, which was just enough time to create some very interesting holographic-”

“If you’ve got something to show me, get on with it,” Bernal commanded.

Several small laser beams intersected about half a metre in front of Bernal’s face. At first they formed nothing but a white shell, but a second later a 3D-image appeared. It looked like a crown of thorns. “How big is it?”

“Some of my sensor readings indicate the object’s mass is close to 7,000,000 tonnes.”

Bernal was surprised. Without a reference point, he had assumed the object was quite small. Then he remembered AlterEgo saying it had taken three days to get a workable 3D image, which was a lot of time to work with for a computer of AlterEgo’s capability.

“What did you say its dimensions were?”

“I didn’t, but I estimate a radius of eighty or so kilometres.”

“My God! Is this one of the Achaean ships?”

“I should think that if this was just one of their ships, a fleet of them would have been detected from Cirrus several years ago. I surmise, therefore, that this is the fleet, its individual components joined in some way.”

Bernal peered at the holograph. “Can you make out any repetitions of shape? Anything we could identify as a single unit?”

“Ah, I was hoping you would ask that.” Bernal was sure he heard smugness in that voice. “Indeed, this is why I woke you.”

The holographic image changed, metamorphosed into something more like a ship. Bernal peered at it. Well,
vaguely
more like a ship.

“It reminds me of something I’ve seen before, but for the life of me I can’t figure what.”

“Using some deductive logic, a little dash of intuition and a thorough search of the Cirrus Archives, I think I’ve discovered something,” AlterEgo said. “Watch what happens when I remove from the Achaean ship the youngest hull material, connective grids and certain extraneous energy dispersion vanes.”

The image altered instantaneously into something barely a tenth the size of the original. Bernal studied the new shape for a moment before a memory clicked in his brain.

“I don’t believe it!”

AlterEgo just hummed.

“A Von Neumann probe . . . “ Bernal’s voice faded as he realised the implications.

“Precisely my deduction,” AlterEgo agreed, superimposing a second holograph over the first, a blue outline that almost perfectly matched the image of the Achaean artefact. “This diagram is from Cirrus’s most ancient library stores. It is, of course, one of the original plans for a Von Neumann probe, circa 0.02090 CE.”

Bernal whistled. “But that was nearly 500,000 years ago. They were the first human-made ships to reach the stars.”

“And in their seedbanks they carried the ancestors of all human life in this part of the spiral arm . . . “ There was the slightest of pauses. “ . . . including your own kind.”

~ * ~

The bulkheads forming
Mycenae
’s cavernous, square reception hall were decorated with depictions of a Cyclopean city: grey walls made from unworked boulders and dressed stone, a corbel arch gateway topped by a heavy, triangular sculpture of two lions and a Minoan column, and a massive beehive tomb made from the same stone as the city.

Mingling in the hall were dozens of ship captains and their wives or mistresses, all dressed in elaborate costumes, the men in shining breast plates and tall helmets sprouting horse-hair crests or eagle feathers, the women in long tunics bordered in gold and beads of amber and lapis lazuli.

Agamemnon moved among his captains, greeting each individually with generous words, baulking only when he met the two he knew were Achilles and Patroclus, but was unable to tell them apart in their silver helmets. He smiled, pretending to enjoy their private joke, and moved on to deliver more glib welcomings. Clytemnestra circulated as well, talking to the women, flattering them about their clothing and hair.

In a short while, smaller groups coalesced from the throng, centred on the fleet’s major captains. The largest group circled Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus; a second group almost as large gathered around Achilles and Patroclus; other heroes to have their own audience included Diomedes, the huge Ajax, Nestor and Idomeneus. Standing apart from them all, however, was one captain without any followers or even the companionship of his own woman.

Odysseus stood back from the assembly, looking on with a wry smile. He enjoyed observing the posturings of the major captains, the false camaraderie they shared and the whispered insults they passed; as well, he was entertained by the antics of the lesser captains, eager to please their patrons and desperate to raise their own status in the fleet.

His inspection was interrupted by a small owl that appeared on his shoulder.

“The guest has arrived,” the owl said. “His ship is about to dock. He brings a friend with him.”

“A friend?” Odysseus replied. “Troy was instructed to send only one of their own.”

“His friend is not human,” the owl continued. “It is some kind of AI. I only learned of this when it communicated with the navigation computer.”

“Have you told Agamemnon?”

“Not yet.”

“Then do so now. He should meet this Paris personally.”

~ * ~

Bernal cursed as AlterEgo made what it called “minor” adjustments to the ship’s attitude in its final approach to the docking site. The ship jerked to port, then performed a quarter-roll, jerked back in the other direction, and finally decelerated rapidly as all the lateral thrusters fired simultaneously. Bernal’s journey to the Achaean fleet, which had begun with a smooth acceleration away from orbit around Cirrus and then continued on just as smoothly for another three weeks through intrasystem space, was now ending with a violent jagging that did nothing to ease his roiling stomach.

Bernal was about to ask AlterEgo when all the manoeuvring would finish, when suddenly there was a thump and he felt himself flung forward before the gravity webbing caught him and flung him back again.

And then a new sensation.

Weight
, Bernal realised after a moment.
The Achaean fleet is not only locked together; it’s also rotating
.

“We are here,” AlterEgo announced calmly.

“I think I have a headache coming on.”

“It is just the tension, Paris. You will be fine once you get moving.”

“Do I have to suit up?”

“No need. We have docked adjacent to an airlock. You will be able to stroll through and meet our hosts as soon as the airlock is pressurised.”

“Can you take a sample of their air?”

“Already done. Breathable. Nitrogen-oxygen mix, a little heavy on the oxygen side, but nothing extraordinary. Very few trace gasses . . . now, that’s interesting; there’s no carbon dioxide.”

“Maybe they pump into the airlock straight from a filter or recycling unit,” Bernal suggested.

“Possibly,” AlterEgo agreed. “The airlock has pressurised. Do you want me to open the hatch?”

“Is there anyone waiting for me?”

“Not in the airlock itself. Wait, I’ll communicate with the Achaean command system.”

Bernal unstrapped himself from the webbing, then carefully climbed out of the life support suit that had kept him fed, removed his body waste, injected him with regular doses of calcium and vitamins, and electrically stimulated his muscles for the duration of the journey. By the time he had finished, AlterEgo was able to report that a welcoming committee would be waiting for him on the other side of the airlock.

“Did you think to ask who’s in the committee?”

There was a sound like a sigh. “Agamemnon, Over-captain of the Achaean Fleet, his wife Clytemnestra, his brother Menelaus, Captain of
Sparta
, and his wife Helen, and Odysseus, Captain of
Ithaca
.”

Bernal closed his eyes, slowly shook his head. “That ache is getting worse.”

“Paris, they’re waiting.”

Bernal nodded, climbed into a one-piece shipsuit. He clipped onto his chest a small metal badge displaying the Grand Seal of Cirrus; to a nipple on the pin showing through on the reverse of the suit he attached a thin filament that was in turn connected to a jack built into his fifth vertebrate. He tapped the badge gently. “You there, old friend?”

In spirit, if not body
, AlterEgo said in his mind.

Bernal sealed the suit and went to the hatch. “Open Sesame,” he said, trying to sound braver than he felt.

~ * ~

As the airlock cycled open, Agamemnon could barely contain his excitement. Clytemnestra laid a calming hand on his shoulder, ready to hold back her husband in case he leapt forward to greet their Trojan guest with one of his bear hugs. Clytemnestra admired the spontaneous bouts of affection Agamemnon was prone to inflict on visitors, but understood it might startle Paris out of his wits.

There was a hiss as the final hatch retracted, and a slim, short figure appeared. The stranger smiled nervously and held out a hand.

“Greetings, Achaeans. I am Paris of . . . umm . . . Troy.”

The first thought that crossed Clytemnestra’s mind was that Paris was absolutely sexless. She glanced at Helen to judge her reaction, and saw that she was as intrigued as her.

Agamemnon strode forward suddenly to take the proffered hand in both of his, and shook it vigorously.

“Welcome to
Mycenae
, friend!” the Over-captain boomed. “I am Agamemnon!” He pulled Paris forward and quickly introduced the others. Paris shook hands with each of them.

Not sexless, Clytemnestra decided. Male, but underdeveloped. Hardly a man at all, really.

Agamemnon curled one arm around Paris’s slim shoulders and led him away. “My captains are looking forward to meeting you,” he said. “They are all gathered in the
Mycenae
’s reception hall.” He turned to Clytemnestra, who handed him a mask, which he in turn gave to Paris. “For the ball,” Agamemnon explained.

The Trojan studied the mask, made in the shape of an apple pierced by an arrow, before putting it on. Agamemnon slipped into an arrangement of beaten gold and indicated that the others should do the same.

Disguised as a swan, Clytemnestra fell in behind the pair, followed by Menelaus, looking stoic beneath bull’s horns, and Odysseus, faintly amused in a mask of stars. She was surprised when Helen-her mask a predictable and entirely appropriate cat-overtook her to draw level with Paris.

“Was your journey long and uncomfortable?” Helen inquired.

Paris offered his nervous smile. “I was asleep for most of the time, my lady, and never uncomfortable.”