Nick Gevers - Other Earths

And, of course, they had been drawn here, to the Viracocha , the most spectacular sight of all.

Beside the Inca ship’s dazzling lines, even the domes, spires and pylons of the Festival, erected to mark the anniversary of the Frankish Conquest in this year of Our Lord Christus Ra 1966, looked shabby indeed. Her towering hull was made entirely of metal, clinkered in some seamless way that gave it flexibility, and the sails were llama wool, colored as brilliantly as the Inca clothes that had been the talk of the Paris fashion houses this season.

Jenny Cook was from a family of shipowners, and the very sight excited her. “Looking at her, you can believe she has sailed from the other side of the world, even from the south—”

“That’s blasphemy,” Alphonse snapped. But he remembered himself and shrugged. What had been blasphemy a year ago, before the first Inca ships had come sailing north around the west coast of Africa, was common knowledge now, and the old reflexes did not apply.

Jenny said, “Surely on such a craft those sails are only for show, or for trim. There must be some mighty engine buried in her guts—but where are the smoke stacks?”

The prince said gloomily, “Well, you and I are going to have months to find that out, Jenny. And where you see a pretty ship,” he said darkly, “I see a statement of power.” Jenny was to be among the party of friends and tutors who would accompany sixteen-year-old Prince Alphonse during his years-long stay in Cuzco, capital of the Inca. Alphonse had a sense of adventure, even of fun. But as the second son of the Emperor Charlemagne XXXII, he saw the world differently from Jenny.

She protested, “Oh, you’re too suspicious, Alphonse. Why, they say there are whole continents out there we know nothing about! Why should the Inca care about the Frankish empire?”

“Perhaps they have conceived an ambition to own us as we own you Anglais.”

Jenny prickled. However, she had learned some diplomacy in her time at court. “Well, I can’t agree with you, and that’s that,” she said.

Suddenly a flight of Inca air machines swept over like soaring silver birds, following the line of the river, their lights blazing against the darkling night. The crowds ducked and gasped, some of them crossing themselves in awe. After all, the Viracocha was only a ship, and the empires of Europe had ships. But none of them, not even the Ottomans, had machines that could fly.

“You see?” Alphonse muttered. “What is that but a naked demonstration of Inca might? And I’ll tell you something, those metal birds don’t scare me half as much as other tools I’ve seen. Such as a box that can talk to other boxes a world away—they call it a farspeaker—I don’t pretend to understand how it works. They gave one to my father’s office so I can talk to him from Cuzco. What else have they got that they haven’t shown us? …Well, come on,” he said, plucking her arm. “We’re going to be late for Atahualpa’s ceremony.”

Jenny followed reluctantly.

She watched the flying machines until they had passed out of sight, heading west up the river. When their lights had gone the night sky was revealed, cloudless and moonless, utterly dark, with no planets visible, an infinite emptiness. As if in response, the gas lanterns of Londres burned brighter, defiant.

The Inca caravan was drawn up before the face of Saint Paul’s. As grandees passed into the building, attendants fed the llamas that had borne the colorful litters. You never saw the Inca use a wheel; they relied entirely on these haughty, exotic beasts.

Inside the cathedral, Jenny and Alphonse found their places hurriedly.

The procession passed grandly through the cramped candlelit aisles, led by servants who carried the Orb of the Unblinking Eye. These were followed by George Darwin, archbishop of Londres, who chattered nervously to Atahualpa, commander of the Viracocha and emissary of Huayna Capac XIII, Emperor of the Inca. In the long tail of the procession were representatives from all the great empires of Europe: the Danes, the Germans, the Muscovites, even the Ottomans, grandly bejeweled Muslims in this Christian church. They marched to the gentle playing of Galilean lutes, an ensemble supplied by the Germans. It was remarkable to think, Jenny reflected, that if the Inca had come sailing out of the south three hundred years ago, they would have been met by ambassadors from much the same combination of powers. Though there had always been border disputes and even wars, the political map of Europe had changed little since the Ottoman capture of Vienna had marked the westernmost march of Islam.

But the Inca towered over the European nobility. They wore woollen suits dyed scarlet and electric blue, colors brighter than the cathedral’s stained glass. And they all wore facemasks as defense against the “herd diseases” they insultingly claimed infested Europe. The effect was to make these imposing figures even more enigmatic, for the only expression you could see was in their black eyes.

Jenny, at Alphonse’s side and mixed in with some of the Inca party, was only a few rows back from Atahualpa and Darwin, and she could clearly hear every word they said.

“My own family has a long association with this old church,” the bishop said. “My ancestor Charles Darwin was a country parson who, dedicated to his theology, rose to become dean here. The Anglais built the first Christian church on this site in the year of Christus Ra 604. After the Conquest the emperors were most generous in endowing this magnificent building in our humble, remote city …”

As the interpreter translated this, Atahualpa murmured some reply in Quechua, and the two of them laughed softly.

One of the Inca party walking beside Jenny was a boy about her age. He wore an Inca costume like the rest but without a face mask. He whispered in passable Frankish, “The emissary’s being a bit rude about your church. He says it’s a sandstone heap he wouldn’t use to stable his llamas.”

“Charming,” Jenny whispered back.

“Well, you haven’t seen his llamas.”

Jenny had to cover her face to keep from giggling. She got a glare from Alphonse and recovered her composure.

“Sorry,” said the boy. He was dark skinned, with a mop of short-cut, tightly curled black hair. The spiral tattoo on his left cheek made him look a little severe, until he smiled, showing bright teeth. “My name’s—well, it’s complicated, and the Inca never get it right. You can call me Dreamer.”

“Hello, Dreamer,” she whispered. “I’m Jenny Cook.”

“Pretty name.”

Jenny raised her eyebrows. “Oh, is it really? You’re not Inca, are you?”

“No, I just travel with them. They like to move us around, their subject peoples. I’m from the South Land …”

But she didn’t know where that was, and the party had paused before the great altar where the emissary and the archbishop were talking again, and Jenny and Dreamer fell silent.

Atahualpa said to Darwin, “I am intrigued by the god of this church. Christus Ra? He is a god who is two gods.”

“In a sense.” Darwin spoke rapidly of the career of Christ. The Romans had conquered Egypt but had suffered a sort of reverse religious takeover; their pantheon had seemed flimsy before the power and sheer logic of the Egyptians’ faith in their sun god. The sun was the only point of stability in a sky populated by chaotic planets, mankind’s only defense against the infinite dark. Who could argue against its worship? Centuries after Christ’s execution His cult was adopted as the empire’s official religion, and the bishops and theologians had made a formal identification of Christ with Ra, a unity that had outlasted the empire itself.