He also remembered what Alston had asked him in the high school gymnasium, back right after the Event, when he and his younger sister had volunteered for the battalion.
"There's a job needs doing, ma'am."
She gave a small cool nod of approval, and he felt oddly heartened… and now I have to provide that to my people. Christ.
" 'dapa," she said, "let's see it."
Her aide opened a satchel at her side and spread a map on the desk. All three of them leaned forward. "This is our latest appraisal," she said. Only the slightest trace of the singsong lilt of Fiernan was left in her voice. "Including what we've gotten from our Babylonian, Shamash-nasir-kudduru."
She managed to roll the guttural Akkadian syllables off her tongue readily enough-Hollard was supposed to learn it himself, in his plentiful spare time. He'd made a fair start, but-
Well, she did have an advantage on me, he thought. He'd learned a good deal about Fiernans himself in the course of the past couple of years. The priestesses of Moon Woman had to memorize enough information to rupture a mainframe, starting when they were toddlers. Doing astronomy and fairly complex mathematics without written symbols absolutely required a science of memory.
Hollard examined the map carefully; it showed the Mediterranean basin and the lands beyond as far as the Persian Gulf. The outlines of coast and mountain were much the same as the maps he'd seen in high school-but the names of the countries were utterly different.
Swindapa's finger touched southern Iberia, just west of Gibraltar. "Tartessos holds the Straits, the Tartessos is no friend of ours-King Isketerol has an alliance with Walker."
"He also has fairly up-to-date sailing craft with cannon," Alston said. "Not as good as our ships, or our cannon, but there are a lot of them. We can't get steamers that far in any numbers, either." Her finger made a circle on the map. "He controls the whole of southern Iberia and northern Morrocco now. But the real problem is further east."
Her finger slid over the blue Mediterranean, past Italy.
"From what we've been able to gather-some of the Tartessians visiting here talk, and the Arnsteins have agents in place at our embassy in Tartessos-Walker arrived in Greece about six months after the end of the Alban War. Since then, he's been hard at work, taken over here and here and here. We have to stop him. If he gets control of much of this area"-her pink-palmed hand spread long, slender fingers to cover Greece, the Aegean Sea, and much of western Anatolia-"we're in deep trouble. Half the population of the world in this era lives between Greece and western Persia, countin' Egypt-and he's got an embassy in Egypt, too."
"So we can't leave him be, and we can't get at him," Hollard said.
"Not directly," Swindapa cut in. "But there's a back entrance to that compound."
She set out another map, ranging it below the first. It was a world map; again, the physical characteristics were much the same, but whole continents were blank, or had only a coastal entry or two where an Islander ship had visited.
"Not through here," she said, tapping the Red Sea. "Egypt is too close to Walker these days, and it's bad sailing, anyway. Here." The finger veered eastward, up the Persian Gulf to the point where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers joined and flowed into the sea.
Hollard whistled soundlessly. "Iraq…" he said.
His own finger moved on the first map, up the rivers and over the mountains to Anatolia; a vague area marked "Hittite Empire," centered on the city of Hattusas, not far east of where Ankara would have stood, in a future that included a nation called Turkey. As far as anyone knew, the remote ancestors of the Turks were living somewhere in southeastern Siberia at this moment.
"Even with firearms and cannon, that would be a long way to march and fight," he said neutrally.
"Granted," she said dryly. "However, what we've got in mind is a diplomatic mission with heavy military escort. Land here"-she tapped the head of the Gulf again-"make arrangements with the authorities, move north to the Hittite area, and organize resistance to Walker. Hopefully, keep him busy, keep him off-balance, and limit the amount of territory he controls, until the Republic's in a position to open the Mediterranean and deal with him directly."
Hollard kept his face expressionless. Well, the Council isn't thinking small, he decided after a long moment's silence.
"Ma'am, that's not within my area of expertise," he said carefully.
Alston nodded. Swindapa suddenly broke into an urchin grin; he felt his own lips tug upward involuntarily.
"Glad you see that," the commodore said. "Actually, our diplomatic experts will handle that-the Arnsteins. You'll be along to provide an escort, to exert force to accomplish the political objectives that the Arnsteins-and the Council, we'll be in radio touch, of course-set, and to help organize local forces."
"Oh." A wave of relief made his knees feel weak. "Thank you, ma'am. I think… well, I can at least give that a good try."
"Excellent." At the black woman's nod, Swindapa set a heavy stack of files in front of him, all marked "Confidential."
"Start studying these and set up Camp Grant to operate under your successor-make your recommendation as to that. We want to get goin' as soon as possible, in order that you don't get there too much behind the news of your coming."
CHAPTER FIVE
(June, Year 4A.E.)
October, Year 8 A.E.
"Steady!"
The mass of Siceliot warriors was three hundred yards away, coming at a dead run. Sunlight blinked off their metal, although for most of them that was only a spearhead or a knife. The sound of their feet and screaming war cries drummed in his ears. Four chariots came ahead of the pack, with chieftains dressed in armor much like the Mycenaeans.
"Speaking of which," Walker murmured to himself. Most of the Achaean host was still down by the ships; he glanced back over his shoulder and made a small tsk sound.
Getting their precious gee-gees and dogcarts out, he thought.
Odikweos was beside him, leaning on an old-fashioned figure-eight cowhide shield nearly as tall as he was, with his Ithakans behind him. The tall horsehair plume of his helmet bobbed over his head; the protection was rows of bone sawn from boar's tusks, sewn onto a thick boiled-leather backing. He was wearing a chain-mail shirt under that, though, not the cumbersome affair of bronze plates that was the native equivalent. The Greek hawked dust from his throat, squinted, and spat.
"I hope your savior God inspires you," he said calmly. His arms-men were shifting in place, wiping their palms on their tunics for a better grip on their spearshafts. "There are about four thousand of them… and only six hundred here ready to fight."
"Let me show you," Walker said. Bright boy, this one. Steady nerves, too.
He turned to his own men, four hundred of them, spaced in blocks two ranks deep between the six field guns.
"Ready," he said, his voice clear but carrying.
The front rank knelt. The second leveled their muskets and thumbed back the hammers, a ripple of motion like the spines of a hedgehog bristling.
"Aim. Gunners, ready. Fire on the word of command."
The gunners skipped aside, holding the lanyards of their weapons. He judged the distance to the charging locals. Two hundred yards, over ground as near flat as no matter-the heights of Epipolai, that later would be the core of Syracuse, were ragged behind them. He drew his sword and raised it.
"F ire."
The steel flashed downward. The noise that followed was stunning, a blow felt through the gut and chest as much as through the ears. The cannon leaped backward, their trails plowing furrows in the dusty earth. The crash of four hundred rifle-muskets was almost as loud. A huge cloud of dirty-white smoke billowed out, smelling of burnt sulfur. It drifted away rapidly, and there was a murmur and shifting among his men as they saw the results. His own eyebrows went up a little. The guns had cut wedges through the native war-host, as neat as if God had stamped them out with cookie cutters. Within the cleared spaces lay body parts and ground that looked as if it had been splashed with red goo. Further away, shapes twitched and moaned. A horse screamed high and shrill, dragging itself along by its forelimbs, then collapsed.