On the Oceans of Eternity Read online

  Being chief of police was a lot simpler than being Chief Executive Officer of the Republic of Nantucket, he thought, something that had occurred to him just about every day since the Event landed him with the latter position.

  The meeting room had a fireplace with brass andirons and screen; he took a section of split oak from the basket and flipped it onto the coals. For the rest, it sported the usual decor that antique-happy Nantucket had had back when it was a tourist town: oval mahogany table and chairs, sideboy and armoire, mirrors, flowered Victorian wallpaper, pictures of whaling ships. He felt a small glow of pride at the thought that by now anything here could be replaced from the Island's own workshops, at need; and there were souvenirs dropped off by Marian and a dozen other Islander skippers. A wooden sword edged with shark teeth, a three-legged Iberian idol, a boar's-tusk helmet plumed with a horse's mane dyed scarlet…

  One of the paintings was post-Event, of him signing the Treaty of Alliance with Stonehenge in the background.

  Not Stonehenge. The Great Wisdom. That was a better name, for a temple still whole and living. And O 'Hallahan left out the rain halfway through the ceremony, and all the umbrellas. And the Grandmothers looked a lot more scruffy than that-opinionated old biddies-and the Sun People war chiefs were scowling, not smiling-God-damned gang of thugs-and a lot of them looked pretty beaten-up, still bandaged from the Battle of the Downs. And Marian would eat kittens before she'd look that self-consciously Stern amp; Noble. Oh, well… Washington probably didn't stand up when he crossed the Delaware, either.

  People needed legends. Nations were built on them, as much as on plowland and factories, or gunpowder and ships.

  The oil lanterns over the mantelpiece were quite functional now, too, and he lit one with a pine splinter from the fire before joining the others at the table. Martha came in with a tray bearing cookies, a silver pot of hot chocolate, and cups. She set it down and sat, opening her files; she was General Secretary of the Executive Council, and one of the Oceanic University directors, as well as his wife since the Year 1. She'd been a librarian at the Athenaeum before the Event, back when he was police chief-Navy swabby and fisherman before that, to her Wellesley and amateur archaeologist.

  Odd, he thought happily. Beer-and-hamburger vs. wine-and-quiche. It had turned out to be a good match. She was still rail-thin despite bearing two children and helping raise four, a few more wrinkles and more gray in the seal-brown hair, a long slightly horselike face on the same model as his own. And we make a good team.

  The necessary greetings went around, few and spare as local custom dictated. "Ayup, business," Cofflin said.

  God-damn all political wheedling, he thought, with a touch of anger he kept strictly off his own features. You'd think with a war on and good men and women dying, everyone would pull together.

  He knew how Martha would react to that; a snort, and a sharp word or two on the subject of his being too smart-and too old-to think anything of the sort.

  "Well, they're not wasting time," Patrick O'Rourke said.

  He watched the impact footprints of the mortar shells walk up the broad valley toward his position, each a brief airborne sculpture the shape of an Italian cypress made from pulverized dirt and rock. It hadn't been more than half an hour since he'd arrived to give Captain Barnes the bad news and gotten caught in it himself.

  Whoever was on the other end of that mortar wasn't very good at it, but they'd get the shells here eventually…

  His staff gave him an occasional glance, as if to wonder when he was going to notice the approaching explosions. Time to take pity on them, he thought, and went on aloud:

  "Take cover!"

  The base's garrison were already in their slit trenches. Everyone else dived for a hole once he'd given the signal, and he hopped into his after them, with a whistling in the sky above to speed him on his way.

  Whonk!

  The explosion was close enough to drive dirt into his clenched teeth. He sneezed at the dusty-musty smell and taste of it and grinned. There's one thing to be said for a war; it teaches you things about yourself, it does. One thing he'd learned was that physical danger didn't disturb him much; some, yes, but not nearly with the gut-wrenching anxiety that, say, being afraid of screwing up and giving the wrong commands could do.

  In fact, sometimes it was exciting, like rock-climbing or a steeplechase on a wet raw day. Whether that said something good or bad about his own character he didn't know.

  Or much care, he thought. Horses screamed in terror in the pen beyond the field hospital. That was one thing he did regret about being back here; the poor beasts were still caught up in the quarrels of men. There were human screams, too, fear mostly-he'd become unpleasantly familiar with the sounds of agony-from the throats of locals.

  One of those shells could land in here with me, he thought. Of course, if we're to be playing that game, I could have stayed in Ireland the year of the Event.

  A safe, sane year in the last decade of the twentieth century. PCs, parties, Guinness on tap, girls, cars, trips to England or Italy, himself an up-and-coming young prospective law student in an affluent family. Nothing to bother him but boredom and a nagging doubt he really wanted to follow the law for the rest of his life.

  One more year I'll work the summer on Nantucket, said I.

  He'd done it the first year for the money and travel, and the second for fun; it was a wild young crowd on the island during the summer back then, one long party. When you were nineteen, working three jobs and sleeping in a garage could be classified as fun.

  Just for old time's sake, to be sure. Then I'll stay in bloody Dublin and study for the final exams. One more year can't hurt, though, and the next thing I know I'm back in the fookin' Bronze Age with no prospects except farming potatoes, the which my grandfather moved to Dublin to avoid.

  "Or goin' fer a soldier, which ye've doon, at that, ye ujit," he muttered under his breath, mimicking his grandfather's brogue before dropping back into his natural mid-Atlantic-with-a-lilt. "Maybe the English are right, and we're so stupid we don't even know how to fuck without arrows sayin' this way tattooed on the girl's thighs…"

  On the other hand, not even the English ever claimed that the Irish weren't hell in a fight. It was just a bit of irony that nearly half the soldiers under his command were some sort of Alban proto-Celts from the dawn of time, who'd been in the process of conquering England when the Nantucketers arrived. Ireland itself was still populated by tattooed Moon-worshiping gits not yet up to the chariot-and-tomahawk stage. Even the Fiernan Bohulugi who made up most of the rest of the First Marine Regiment thought they were backward.

  "Oh, well, at least Newgrange is there in the now," he muttered, shivering a little inwardly. The great tomb-temple by the Boyne River was already millennia old in this predawn age, as old now as Caesar's Rome had been to the time in which he was born.

  He levered himself back up and looked about, shaking clods off his cloth-covered coal-scuttle helmet-what the Yanks called a Fritz. No real damage and it didn't look as if there had been any casualties. Except among the Hittite auxiliaries; some of them had been caught in the open, and all two hundred hale enough to run were taking to their sandaled heels, except for their officer. He was trying to stop them, poor soul, striking at fleeing men with his whip. At least they were so terrified they were just dodging rather than stabbing or clubbing the man. Discarded spears and bows marked their passage back up the valley toward the high plateau and at least momentary safety.

  "No surprise there," one of his aides said sourly. "Here we are, outnumbered twenty to one and our allies are running like hell."

  "It's a typical Marine Corps situation, to be sure. Sally," he answered, replacing the helmet and dusting off his uniform instead. "Don't be too hard on the locals, though; it's a bit alarming, the first time under fire." Probably they wouldn't stop this side of Hattusas.

  O'Rourke unsnapped the case at his waist and leveled the binoculars westward; clouds piled high in the sky
there, hiding a sun just past noon. There had been rain a few days ago, and might be more soon.

  He heard a sergeant's familiar rasp: "Nobody said stop working^

  The khaki-clad Marines went back to building the wall the company commander had laid out, using mud brick and stones from a livestock enclosure nearby, and sacks of grain and boxes of supplies. More manned the parapet, but the enemy were just beyond effective rifle range.

  The mortar stayed silent; probably the crew had just noticed that it could only reach the Islanders at extreme range, which was wasteful. He watched the men who crewed it lifting it bodily, baseplate and all, into a chariot fitted with floor-clamps to receive it. These weren't Walker's uniformed troops; instead they wore plaid-check trousers and wraparound upper garments, their hair and mustaches long, and some of them were blond or red-thatched. Auxiliaries, then, that migrant horde from the Hungarian plains Walker had enlisted, the Ringapi they were called. He scanned back and forth. Five or six hundred of them. A few firearms, amid more spears and bows, axes and swords and gaudily painted shields. Flintlock shotguns, and some rifles. Impossible to be sure at this distance, but he thought that the rifles were muzzle-loaders, probably kept in store after the Achaeans learned to make better and then handed out to allies…

  "We'll risk it," he said.

  "Sir?" Cecilie Barnes said.

  "Can't let them set that mortar up just as they please, Captain," he said. Because never a piece of artillery have we here, yet. "Let them get into range, position it in a nice piece of dead ground, and they'd hammer us to flinders with it. Sergeant! Saddle up the Gatling. And someone get my horse from the pen."

  "Ah, sir, I should-

  "Stay here and hold the fort, Captain."

  He swung easily into the saddle; Fancy sidled restlessly under him and tossed its head, still nervous from the explosions. The Gatling-gun crew were mounted as well, on the horses that drew it or the ammunition limber. As machine guns went the six-barreled weapon was big and heavy, but it had the supreme virtues of simplicity and ruggedness.

  O'Rourke drew his revolver, and checked that the katana over his shoulder was loose in the scabbard. He was playing platoon commander, but he was young yet, not thirty years, and willfulness was a perogative of command.

  Besides, it's my fault they're in this trouble here. Or my responsibility, or whatever.

  He'd sent them here. He had to plug the exits from the coast inland toward the Hittite heartlands, and he didn't have enough troops to do it-too many valleys led down to the coastal plain.

  What would happen if Troy fell and freed up most of Walker's army, God only knew; they couldn't plug every hole. He who defends everything, defends nothing, as old Fred said. It had been his decision to strip this valley nearly bare, and to visit at this precise hour, and now…

  "Let's go!" he shouted, and gave the horse some leg. "Come on, Fancy."

  Bouncing and rattling on its field-gun carriage, the machine gun and its crew followed. The boiling knot of Ringapi tribesmen grew closer with frightening speed. A couple of them fired their shotguns at him; he could hear the flat thump, see the double spurt of smoke from firing pan and barrel, but they might as well have been firing at the moon that hung pale over the peaks to the east. A few knelt and took careful aim with long weapons… yes, the distinctive crack of rifled arms, and the nasty whickering ptwissssk! of bullets overhead. Firing high-not estimating the range right or adjusting their sights, the idle bastards. There they went, biting open cartridges, priming the pans, pouring the rest down the barrel and ramming the bullet on top; muzzle-loaders for sure. Minie rifles, much like those of the American Civil War, except that they were flintlocks. That would make the extreme range about a thousand yards, which meant they were just getting into dangerous territory. There was a clump of olives at just the right distance.

  "There!" he cried, pointing. Then: "Halt!"

  His mount reared and thrashed the air with its forehooves. The Gatling crew reined to a stop as well, wheeling as they did to bring the business end of their weapon around to face the enemy, leaping down and unfastening the hitch that connected trail to draught-pole, catching hold and running the weapon forward to the edge of the olive grove. One private held the team; the sergeant stepped into the bicycle-style seat on the trail, bending to look through the sights.

  More of the tribesmen were firing, and more of the big lead slugs kicked up spurts of dirt around O'Rourke's horse. His stomach tightened, breath coming a little quicker as cut twigs from the twisted olive trees fell on his helmet and the shoulders of his uniform. The odd drab-green olives joined the twigs, brought down a little unripe.

  "Got it," the sergeant in charge of the Gatling said. His hand worked the crank on its right side, back half a turn and then forward…

  Braaaaaapp.

  Smoke poured from the muzzles as each rotated up to the six o'clock position and fired, a dirty gray-white cloud pouring backward with the light afternoon breeze. Glittering brass dropped out of the slot at the bottom as each passed the extractor, like the metallic excrement of death. O'Rourke raised his binoculars again. Men were down, scythed off their feet by the heavy.40 caliber bullets, some screaming and writhing like broken-backed snakes.

  Brave enough, he thought: the Ringapi were clustering, coming together for the comfort of a comrade's shoulder, clashing weapons on their shields and shouting defiance. Doing exactly the wrong thing, poor fools. Perfectly sensible with the muscle-powered weapons they'd grown up with, sure death now.

  "Whatever modern training they've had is pretty sketchy, then," he murmured to himself. One of their bullets went ptank-whirrrr off the gun-shield of the Gatling and wickered past him, a lethal Frisbee of flattened lead.

  "On the mortar and the other chariot, the one with the ammunition," he said aloud.

  "Yessir," the sergeant on the Gatling said tightly, his hands adjusting the elevating screw. "Here goes-

  Braaaaaappp. This time horses went down, kicking and screaming, louder and more piteously than the wounded men. O'Rourke winced slightly; The beasts had no idea of the point of politics they'd been killed over. Braaaaaaap. Hits on the other chariot, the one with the ammunition. Sparks flew as rounds slammed off metal, the barrel and baseplate of the mortar, the iron bands around a box of finned bombs.

  Some of the Ringapi knew enough to run, because any second now…

  BADDAMP. A globe of red fire for an instant, dirt gouting up, with bits of men and horses and chariot mixed in, raining down for scores of yards around. O'Rourke whooped with glee as he controlled his mount's plunging alarm.

  "See 'em off!" he shouted, and the sergeant swung the muzzle of the Gatling back and forth, stopping only for his crew lo slap another drum-shaped magazine onto the top of the weapon.

  More Ringapi fell, the armored chiefs in their gaudy trappings and the bare-chested madmen sworn to the death-gods in the front row. The rest were farmers in drab wool, and took to their heels… except for a few with rifles who settled behind rocks or trees, and sent unpleasant reminders cracking overhead. The Gatling-gun crew waited for the shots, then sent a burst at each puff of smoke. O'Rourke let them have their fun for a few moments, then waved a hand.

  "Cease fire." We're not that well supplied with ammunition, he thought but did not add. "Back to base."

  The crew ran the Gatling back, clipped the trail to the harness of the four-horse team and mounted up. O'Rourke backed his horse a few paces and looked around. His breath went out in an ooof, as if he'd been punched in the gut. More of the Ringapi were swarming out from the stone walls and brush-tangles all about, running down the hillsides… many of them east of him, between here and the fortlet. The westering sun flashed off their metal, and the hillsides echoed with their wolf howls.

  Either they're smarter than I thought, and set this as an ambush, or more stubborn, and just hid until the Gatling stopped instead of running away. Bad news either way.

  "Too many!" he shouted, as the Gatling squad
went for their rifles. "Get moving-go!"

  They heeled their horses into a gallop. The Islander officer felt his lips skin back from his teeth; this was going to be too God-damned close for comfort. He went after them, keeping Fancy in hand and well below its best pace; horses in harness pulling loads could never equal a rider's pace. Instead he turned a little aside at an easy trot. He felt an odd calmness, somehow hot rather than cool. His eyes darted about, methodical and quick.

  "You first, boyo!" he snarled.

  A man hurdled a stone wall, screeching. His body was naked except for the glittering ring of twisted gold about his neck, and he carried a big round-cornered shield painted with a black raven on red; a long leaf-shaped bronze sword swung in his other hand, blurring as he loped forward. His face was twisted into a gorgon mask of fury, a white rim of foam around his lips, penis erect and waggling as he leaped, lime-dyed hair standing out in waving spikes around his head.

  O'Rourke waited until he could see the mad blue eyes, white showing all around them, before he brought the pistol down. Kerack, and a jolt at his wrist. A puff of smell and the stink of rotten eggs that came with burned sulfur. The Ringapi had enough experience of firearms to bring the shield up as O'Rourke aimed at him. The barbarian was close enough for the Islander to see a tiny dark fleck appear on the red leather of the shield and the man went down, screaming what might be curses or possibly incoherent bellows of rage as he clutched at a broken thighbone; even a berserker couldn't move with a major bone gone to flinders. Blood jetted from around the clutching fingers.

  Something went through the air far too close to O'Rourke's head with an unpleasant swissssh. He turned in the saddle, fired three times, saw another Ringapi double over and fall as the egg-shaped basalt stone in his sling flew wild. Damn. A good slinger had almost as much range as a pistol, and more accuracy when the pistoleer was on a horse's moving back. Two more shots sent another ducking behind a wall.

  "Faster!" he shouted to the Gatling crew.