Ben Bova - Orion and the Conqueror

To Michael, Michelle, Michael, Lindsey and Hayley

In the timeless city beneath the golden energy dome, Anya healed me of my wounds, both physical and spiritual. The other Creators left us alone in that empty mausoleum of a city, alone among the temples and monuments that the Creators had built for themselves.

My burns healed quickly. The gulf between us caused by her seeming betrayal, less so. I realized that Anya had had to make me think she had abandoned me; otherwise Set would have seen her trap when he probed my mind. Yet the pain was still there, the awful memory of feeling deserted. As the days quietly passed and the nights, the love we felt for each other slowly began to bridge even that gap.

Anya and I stood on the outskirts of the city before the massive bulk of the enormous Pyramid of Khufu, its dazzling white coat of polished limestone gleaming gloriously in the morning light, the great Eye of Amon just starting to form as the sun moved across the sky toward the position that created the shadow-sculpture.

I felt restless. Even though we had the entire empty city to ourselves I could not overcome the uncomfortable feeling that we were not truly alone. The other Creators might be scattered across the universes, striving to maintain the spacetime continuum that they themselves had unwittingly unravelled, yet I had the prickly sensation in the back of my neck that told me we were being watched.

“You are not happy here,” Anya said as we walked unhurriedly around the base of the huge, massive pyramid. I had to admit she was right.

“It was better when we were back in the forest of Paradise.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I liked it there, too, even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”

“We could go back there.”

She smiled at me. “Is that what you wish?”

Before I could answer a shimmering sphere of glowing gold appeared before us, hovering a few inches above the polished stone slabs that made up the walkway around the pyramid’s base. The globe touched lightly on the paving, then contracted to form the human shape of Aten, dressed in a splendid military tunic of metallic gold with a high choker collar and epaulets bearing a sunburst insignia.

“Surely you’re not thinking of retiring, Orion,” he said, his tone just a shade less mocking than usual, his smile radiating more scorn than warmth.

Turning to Anya, he added, “And you, dearest companion, have responsibilities that cannot be avoided.”

Anya moved closer to me. “I am not your ‘dearest companion,’ Aten. And if Orion and I want to spend some time alone in a different era, what is that to you?”

“There is work to be done,” he said, the smile fading, his tone more serious.

He was jealous of me, I realized. Jealous of the love that Anya and I shared.

Then the old smug cynicism came back into his face. He cocked a golden eyebrow at me. “Jealous?” He read my thoughts. “How can a god be jealous of a creature? Don’t be ridiculous, Orion.”

“Haven’t I done enough for you?” I growled. “Haven’t I earned a rest?”

“No. And no. My fellow Creators tell me that you have grown much like us in your powers and wisdom. They congratulate me on producing such a useful… creature.”

He was going to say “toy” until he noticed my fists clenching.

“Well, Orion,” he went on, “if you are going to assume godlike powers then you must be prepared to shoulder godlike responsibilities, just like the rest of us.”

“You told me that I was your creature, a tool to be used as you see fit.”

He shrugged, glancing at Anya. “It comes out to the same thing. Either you bear responsibilities like the rest of us or you obey my commands. Take your choice.”

Anya put her hand on my shoulder. “You have the right to refuse him, my love. You have earned that right.”

Smirking, Aten replied, “Perhaps so. But you , goddess, cannot evade your responsibilities. No more than I can.”

“The continuum can struggle along without me for a while,” she said, almost as haughty as Aten himself.

“No, it can’t.” Suddenly he was utterly serious. “The crisis is real and urgent. The conflict has spread across the stars and threatens the entire galaxy now.”

Anya paled. She turned her fathomless silver-gray eyes to me, and I saw real pain in them.

I knew that we could escape to Paradise if we wanted to. To those who can control time, what matter days or years or even centuries spent in one era or another? We could always return to this exact point in spacetime, this individual nexus in the continuum. The crisis that Aten feared would still be waiting for us.

Yet how could we be happy, knowing that our time in Paradise was limited? Even if we remained there for a thousand years, the task awaiting us would loom in our minds like the edge of a cliff, like a sword hanging over our heads.

Before Anya could reply I said, “Paradise will have to wait, won’t it?”

She nodded sadly. “Yes, my love. Paradise will have to wait.”

Their tread was like the pacing of a giant, some ten thousand men marching in perfect unison, making the air quiver and the ground shake with the weight of each booted step.

They were coming straight toward us, the heavy long sarissas of their front ranks pointed at our eyes, those in the rear still held upright. It looked like a forest of spears advancing upon us.

“Steady,” yelled our phalanx commander. “Let them tire themselves out marching toward us. Hold your places.”

We stood at the crest of a modest rise in the stony, bare ground. Hardly a blade of grass was growing here. The morning sun was already hot, the sky so bright it almost hurt to look at it. On the other side of the rocky hills before us stood the besieged city of Perinthos ; we were here to lift the siege.

I was in the tenth rank of our twelve-deep phalanx, on the right end of the row, with no man’s shield to protect my right side. The officers were up front, of course, except for the quarter-file and end-file commanders, who had stationed themselves on the left ends of their ranks. I was bigger than most of the other hoplites and could handle a twelve-foot spear easily. But the army we faced had those sixteen-foot-long sarissas and a reputation for winning their battles.

Their right wing was the heavy one, as usual. At least sixteen ranks deep; it was hard to tell because they were kicking up a fair amount of dust as they advanced across the open ground toward us. Behind them and to our left, off by the scrawny trees that dotted the hillside, I could see their cavalry shuffling nervously, waiting for the order to strike. We had no cavalry, and I feared that once the fighting began the Perinthians’ own hoplites would quickly turn tail, leaving us to be butchered. They were civilians, after all, citizens of the city we had been hired to help protect. I doubted that they could stand up before the professional army advancing upon us.

“Steady,” our commander repeated. He was a tough old vulture, his bronze breastplate and shield dulled and dented from many a battle, his arms covered with white puckered scars. Diopeithes, the leader of our mercenary band, was mounted on a lovely white steed well to the rear, ready to run all the way back to Athens if the going got bad. He was more of an opportunist than a soldier; I doubted that he had ever led his men against trained professional troops.