Your sentiments do you honor, friend Orion.It was the voice of the Old Ones speaking in my mind.
I sat in the command chair on the Apollo’s bridge, but my eyes saw the depths of the oceans in which the Old Ones lived. And I was there among them, swimming in their midst, safe and warm in the bubble of energy they had prepared for me.
“My sentiments won’t solve the problem we face,” I said.
“The problem you face, Orion, not we.”
“You are not willing to help?”
I felt a slight tremor of disappointment among them. “You must solve your own problems, my friend. Otherwise they are not solved, merely postponed.”
“Yet you threaten to wipe out any species that tries to use a star-weapon.”
A patient sigh. “Our ethical code demands that we leave younger species alone to work out their own destinies. But that same code cannot allow stars to be wantonly destroyed. A species willing to use such power is a danger not merely to itself, it is a danger to the entire continuum.”
“Meaning that it’s a danger to you.”
They fluttered their many tentacles, colors spiraling across the breadths of their huge, undulating bodies.
“Yes,” they admitted at last. “Such a species would be a danger to us and everything else in the continuum.”
“Does your ethical code allow you to help me to prevent this catastrophe?”
A long delay, while they swam about me and flashed colors at one another.
Finally, “Orion, you are laboring under a misapprehension. You apparently believe that if you could eliminate one of your species, this one you refer to as Aten, or the Golden One, that his demise would solve your problem.”
“Won’t it?”
“No. We fear not.”
“But—”
“Your species is very violent, Orion. It is part of your makeup. Even you, who are struggling to overcome this heritage of blood, can think of the solution to your problem only in terms of murder.”
“Aten must be stopped. He is killing his fellow Creators. He seeks—”
“We know. We have seen it in your mind. But suppose you succeed in murdering Aten. Do you believe that will end your war? Hundreds of billions of humans are struggling against one another. They use weapons of constantly increasing power and horror. Will the death of one of you stop the death desires in your entire species?”
I had to think about that for a while. The Old Ones respected my silence.
Choosing my words carefully, I said, “The first step is to stop the fighting, to put an end to this war. That by itself will not end the violence in the human psyche, but it will stop the killing. Then perhaps we can learn how to live in peace.”
“Do you think that is possible?”
“Do you see a better path?” I countered.
“No,” they answered. “Quite frankly, we do not.”
“Then help me to reach Loris.”
“The Skorpis will be waiting for you. There is nothing we can do to protect you from them.”
“Can you at least transport the cryosleep capsule my ship is carrying safely to the planet’s capitol building?”
They seemed to confer among themselves again, then replied, “Orion, that is a task you must accomplish for yourself.”
“You won’t help even that much? In the interests of peace?”
“You must accomplish peace by yourselves, Orion,” they answered. “It is your task, not ours.”
I would receive no help from the Old Ones. None at all.
“Your arrival in the Giotto system will set off a massive battle,” they warned.
“The last battle of the war,” I said, resignedly.
“Let us hope so.”
I said, “Thank you.” Bitterly.
“Farewell, friend Orion,” they replied. “Farewell forever.”
Before I could ask what that meant, I found myself back on the bridge of the Apollo, with Frede staring at me oddly.
“Don’t you want to eat?”
I saw that she was holding a tray of steaming food before me.
“No, thanks,” I mumbled. “I’m not hungry.”
How could be I hungry when I suspected the Old Ones had just bid me a final farewell because they knew I was going to be killed?
When I finally left the bridge and went to my quarters for a bit of sleep, I dreamed of ancient Byzantium, the triple-walled New Rome that stood against the barbarian hordes for a thousand years after darkness fell on western Europe.
I was a soldier, an officer, returning to the city after a long, hard campaign against the ravaging Seljuks who had swept out of the heartland of high Asia to conquer the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia and even Anatolia. Noble cities such as Antioch, Pergamum and Ephesus were all under the rule of the Moslems now.
My cohort had fought for months, always retreating before the remorseless horsemen from the steppes, fighting and dying as the tide of barbarism pushed us constantly back toward the Bosphorus. It saddened me to see villages, towns, whole cities put to the torch by the invaders; to know that churches and even great cathedrals were being turned into mosques by the heathen savages. Our retreat was marked by columns of black smoke, funeral pyres for our empire, that rose into the hot bright sky like accusing fingers.
At last we stopped them, our backs against the narrow sea that separates Asia from Europe. Not much of the old empire was saved, but mighty Byzantium stood still free—barely. The cost was thousands of good soldiers; of my cohort, hardly a full maniple remained able to stand and fight, and most of us bore many wounds. But we could tell ourselves and anyone who might listen that we had given more than we had taken. The Seljuks were just as exhausted as we, and their piles of dead rose higher than our own.
The fighting was stopped, at least for now, and I had returned to the mighty city. Weary, sick at heart, half crippled from an arrow in my thigh.
I passed through the triple gates on horseback, all my worldly goods tied behind my saddle. The guards hardly paid any attention to a returning soldier; they were busy haggling with a merchant who had a long string of highly laden mules. They wanted a good bribe for allowing the caravan to enter the city.
Through the twisting streets of the old city I rode slowly, deliberately, savoring the sights and sounds and smells of it. Vendors hawked their wares. Shopkeepers talked about the weather or the latest fashions with their customers. Men and women strolled along the thoroughfares or lolled in cafes in the city’s many open squares. The aroma of roasting lamb and onions and pungent spiced wine made me almost dizzy after months of dried strips of goat or worse.
Beyond the low roofs of the houses in the market quarter I could see the beautiful curved dome of Santa Sophia. I nosed my tired mount toward the cathedral. If I should offer a prayer of thanks for my survival, why not offer it in the grandest church in Christendom?
Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if this was real life or a dream. Am I truly living in this era, or is this merely a dream while I sleep somewhere, somewhen else? What does it matter, I thought. I am lucky to be alive and I owe it to God and His saints to offer a prayer of thanksgiving. At last I reached the broad, cobblestoned plaza in front of the cathedral.
“You can’t tie that nag here!”
The nasty, rasping voice startled me. I looked down at the hitching rail where several other horses were tethered and saw a mean, wizened, bent old man in filthy rags casting an angry, beady-eyed look at me.
“This rail is reserved for the wedding party,” he croaked. “Don’t you try to put that flea-bitten animal in among the quality.”
I saw that the horses already at the rail were sleek and groomed and well fed. My own poor mount showed each of its individual ribs.