Captain Grove smiled. Oh, its not so unusual. Many of my men have fallen in love with their guns.

And in my time, Bisesa said, many of our machines are sentient, like the phone. As conscious as you or me. Its hard not to feel empathy for them.

Eumenes approached, a rather chill figure who scattered the flimsy courtiers, though he was as gaudily dressed as they were. You speak of astronomy. I hope the astronomy we perform here is of a quality to be useful to you, he said. The Babylonian priest-hood had a tradition of observing long before we came here. And the telescopes designed by the engineers of the Othic School are as fine as we could make them. But who knows what one may read in a sky that is presumably as manufactured as the earth we walk on?

Emeline said, We have astronomers back in Chicago. Telescopes too, that made it through the FreezeI mean, the Discontinuity. I know theyve been observing the planets. Which are all changed, they say, from what they were beforeyou know. Lights on Mars. Cities! I dont know much about it. Just what I read in the newspapers.

Bisesa and Grove stared at her.

Bisesa said, Cities on Mars?

And Captain Grove said, You have newspapers?

The chiliarch considered. There are other He hunted for the word. Scientists. Other scientists in Chicago?

Oh, all sorts, Emeline said brightly. Physicists, chemists, doctors, philosophers. The university kept working, after a fashion, and they are establishing a new campus in New Chicago, south of the ice, so they can keep working after we close down the old city.

Eumenes turned to Bisesa. It seems to me you must travel to this Chicago, a place of science and learning from an age more than twenty centuries removed from the days of Alexander. It is there, perhaps, that you will have the best chance of addressing the great question that has propelled you here.

Grove warned, It will take the devil of a time to get there. Months Nevertheless it is clearly necessary. I will arrange your transport.

Emeline raised an eyebrow. It looks as if well have plenty of time to get to know each other, Bisesa.

Bisesa felt bewildered by the suddenness of Eumeness decision-making. You always did understand, she said. More than any other of Alexanders people, you always saw that the key to this whole situation is the Firstborn, the Eyes. Everything else, empires and wars, is a distraction.

He grunted. If I had lacked perceptiveness I should not have survived long at Alexanders court, Bisesa. Youll see few others youll remember from those days three decades ago. All dispatched in the purges.

All save you, she said. Not least because I ensured that it was I who organized those purges... There was a peal of trumpets, and a great shouting.

A troop of soldiers entered the room, sarissae held high. Following them came a grotesque figure in a transparent toga, stick-thin, trembling a little, his brilliantly painted face twisted into a grin. Bisesa remembered: this was Bagoas, a Persian eunuch and favorite of Alexanders.

No longer so pretty as he was, Eumenes said sternly. And yet he survives, as I do. He raised his wine cup in mock salute.

And then came the King himself. He was surrounded by a group of tough-looking young men in expensive purple robes.

Waddling as if already drunk, he staggered and might have fallen if not for the way he leaned on a stocky little page who walked beside him. He wore lurid purple robes, and a headdress of rams horns rising from a circlet of gold. His face was a memory of the beauty that Bisesa remembered, with that full mouth, and a strong nose that rose straight to a slightly bulging forehead, from which his hair in ringlets had been swept back. His skin, always ruddy, was blotchy and scarred, his cheeks and jowls heavy, and his powerful frame swaddled in fat. Bisesa felt shocked at the change in him.

The courtiers threw themselves to the floor in obeisance. The soldiers and some of the senior figures stood their ground, gesturing elaborately. The little page who supported him was a Neanderthal boy, his brutish face shining with cream, the thick hair on his head twisted into tight curls. And as the King passed her, Bisesa smelled a stink of piss.

Thus the ruler of the world, Emeline whispered as he passed, sounding rather nineteenth-century frosty to Bisesa.

But so he is, Grove said.

He had no choice but to conquer the world again, Eumenes murmured. Alexander believes he is a godthe son of Zeus incarnated at Ammon, which is why he wears the robes of Ammon, and the horns. But he was born a man, and only achieved godhood by his conquests. After the Discontinuity all that was wiped away, and so what was Alexander then? It was not to be tolerated. So he began it all over again; he had to.

Bisesa said, But it isnt as it was before. You say there are steam trains here. Maybe this is a new start for civilization. A unified empire, under Alexander and his successors, fueled by technology.

Grove smiled, wistful. Do you remember poor old Ruddy Kipling used to say the same sort of thing?

I do not think Alexander shares your modern dreams, Eumenes said. Why should he? There are more of us than you, far more; perhaps our beliefs, overwhelming yours, will shape reality.

According to my history books, Emeline said a bit primly, in the old world Alexander died in his thirties. Its an un-Christian thing to say. But maybe it would have been better if he had died here, instead of living on and on.

Certainly his son thought so, Eumenes said dryly. And that is whylook out! He pulled Bisesa back.

A squad of soldiers came charging past, their long sarissae lowered. In the middle of the room there was a knot of commotion. Shouting began, and screaming.

And Alexander had fallen.

Alexander, isolated on the floor, cried out in his thick Macedonian Greek. His courtiers and even his guards were backing away from him, as if fearful of blame. A vivid red stain spread over his belly. Bisesa thought it was wine.

But then she saw the little Neanderthal page standing over him, his expression slack, a knife in his massive hand.

I was afraid of this, Eumenes snapped. It is the anniversary of the War with the Sonand you and your Eye have everybody stirred up, Bisesa Dutt. Captain Grove, get them out of here, and out of the city, as fast as you can. Either that or risk them getting swept up in the purges that will follow.

Understood, Grove said quietly. Come, ladies.

As Grove shepherded them away, Bisesa looked back over her shoulder. She saw the Neanderthal boy raise his blade again, and step toward Alexander. He moved dully, as if completing a chore. Alexander roared in rage and fear, but still none of the guards moved. In the end it was Eumenes, stiff old Eumenes, who charged through the crowd and barreled the little boy off his feet.

Outside the city was alight; smoke curled up from torched buildings as news of the assassination attempt spread.

33: FLIGHT.

In the pale dawn light of the next morning, Bisesa and the others left the city, accompanied by a unit of Eumenes personal troops assigned to travel with them all the way to Gibraltar. A scared-looking Abdikadir was assigned too, to go on to America with Bisesa.

So, only twelve hours after falling out of the Eye, Bisesa was on the move again. She couldnt even bring her spacesuit with her. All she had of the twenty-first century was her phone, and the power packs from the suit.

Surprisingly, Emeline comforted her. Wait until we get to Chicago, she soothed. Ill take you to Michigan Avenue and well go shopping.

Shopping!

Even the first leg of the journey was astonishing.

Bisesa found herself in an open cart drawn by four beefy Neanderthals, naked as the day they were born, while Macedonian troopers jogged alongside. These Stone Men were the property of a man called Ilicius Bloom, who called himself Chicagos consul at Babylon. He was a shifty type Bisesa immediately distrusted.

They came to a railway terminus at a place called the Midden, a strange heaped-up little town of houses and ladders and greasy smoke. The terminus itself was a confluence of narrow tracks, a place of huge sheds and brooding locomotives.

Their carriage was just a crude covered cart with wooden benches, and Emeline made a spiky comment about the contrast with Pullman class. But the locomotive was extraordinary. It looked like a huge animal, an immense black tank that sprawled over the narrow tracks and emitted belches of filthy smoke. Ben Batson said the locos ran on oil, which the trains hauled along in great tanker-cars; oil from Persia was more accessible to Alexander than coal, and Casey Othic had drawn up his designs that way.

In this unlikely train Bisesa was going to ride to the Atlantic coast. First they would head through Arabia to the great engine yards at Jerusalem, then south and west across the Nile delta where the King had reestablished Alexandria. And then they would journey all the way along the coast of North Africa, through what would have been Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, to the port of the small oceangoing fleet at the Pillars of Hercules.

Ilicius Bloom said the Midden was as far as he would go with them. He was nervous. Never known a night like it in Babylon in all these years, he said. Not since the War with the Son himself. Bloody Greeks. But I got my job to do; I got my contacts.

And you have a child, Emeline said sternly.

Not my responsibility, he said. The mothers, not mine. Anyhow Im sticking. Just dont let them forget Im here, back home. All right? Dont forget me!

Grove parted from them here too; he was catching a train back to New Troy. But he assigned Ben Batson to escort them to Gibraltar.

As the train pulled out, Bisesa thought she heard chanting coming from the loco.

The engineers are from the School of Othic, Abdikadir said. Casey Othic taught them well. He taught them that to do their work as perfectly as possible is to offer worship to the godsjust as a farmer offers a tithe of his crops. So as they work they worship; and as they worship they work.

So the train drivers a monk, Bisesa said. Oh, Casey, what have you done?

Ben Batson grinned. Actually its a way of keeping them focused on the job. You have to do your work exactly right, said Mr. Othic, for your homage to be acceptable to the gods. But the trouble is they do things by rote; they dont like change, which they fear is heretical.

So theres no innovation, Bisesa said. And as Caseys locos break down one by one Emeline said, It is just as in Alexanders court. Despite their exposure to modernity, these ancient Greeks are slipping back into superstition.

Abdi said, My father always said that you cannot graft a culture of science and engineering onto an Iron Age society. And so its proving.

Bisesa studied him. Youll have to tell me about your father. Emeline said dryly, Well, well certainly have time for that.

There was no pursuit from Babylon, a capital city in turmoil. But an hour out from Babylon they saw a pitched battle going on, somewhere in the middle of the Arabian desert, only a couple of kilometers from the rail track.

Bisesa had lived through Alexanders war with the Mongols, and she recognized the characteristic formations of the Macedonians. There were the phalanxes of infantry with their bristling sarissae, blocks of men trained to maneuver with such compactness and flexibility that they seemed to flow over the ground without a break in their ranks. The famous cavalry units, the Companions, were wedge-shaped formations driving into the field with their thrusting lances and shields. But this time Macedonian was fighting Macedonian.

Its a serious rebellion then, Ben Batson murmured. Of course somebody or other has been trying to bump off Alexander since even before the Discontinuity. Never saw it go this far before. And, look, can you see that stolid-looking bunch over there? Neanderthals. The Macedonians have been using them since their campaigns in Europe. Their handlers say they wont fight unless you force them. Good for shocking the enemy though.

The battle remained fortunately distant from the rail line, and the loco plowed on noisily into the gathering light, leaving the battle behind. But they hadnt traveled much further before another threat loomed.

My word, Emeline said, pointing. Man-apes. Look, Bisesa!

Looking ahead of the train, Bisesa saw hunched figures on a low dune, silhouetted against the morning sky.

Abdi said, Sometimes they attack the trains for food. But theyre getting bolder. Following the tracks toward the city.

Purposefully, steadily, the man-apes descended the dune. They walked with a squat gait, their human-like legs under heavy gorilla-like torsos. Their movements were imbued with determination and menace.

From the rattling, wheezing, slow-moving train, Bisesa watched uneasily. And then she thought she recognized the man-ape who led the advance. An animal with a memorable face, she was one of a pair, mother and infant, captured by Groves Tommies in the early days after the Discontinuity. Was this that same child? What had the men called herGrasper? Well, if it was her, she was older, and scarred, and changed. Bisesa remembered how the captive man-apes, left alone with an Eye, had been subject to a Firstborn interaction of their own. Perhaps this was the result.

Now Grasper raised her arms high in the air, and revealed the burden that had been concealed by her hirsute body. She carried a stout branch, and impaled upon it was the bloody head of a man. The mouth had been jammed open with a stick, and broken teeth gleamed white in the rays of the setting sun.

Bisesa felt fear stab her heart. I think I asked for that lead man-ape to be let loose, once I was gone into the Eye. What a mistake that was.

As the train came on them, the man-apes charged. They were met by a volley of arrows from the carriages, but the moving targets were hard to hit, and few man-apes fell. They hadnt got their timing quite right, however. As the locomotives whistle shrieked, hairy bodies hurled themselves at wooden carriages to be met by fists and clubs, and they couldnt get purchase. One by one the man-apes fell away, capering and hooting in their frustration.

Abdi said, Well, were seeing it all today...

As the train left the man-ape troop behind, Bisesas phone beeped gently. She took it from her pocket, watched curiously by the others.

Good morning, Bisesa.

So youre talking to me now.

I have some bad news, and good news.

She considered that. Bad news first.

I have been analyzing the astronomical data collected by Abdikadir and his predecessors at Babylon. Incidentally I would appreciate the chance to study the sky myself.

And?

This universe is dying.

She gazed out at the dusty plain, the rising sun, the capering man-apes by the rail track. And the good news?

I have a call. From Mars, Wells Station. Its for you, it added laconically.

34: ELLIE.

September 2069 At the Martian north pole, in the unending night of winter, time wore away slowly. Myra read, cooked, cleaned, worked her way through the stations library of virtuals, and downloaded movies from Earth.

And she explored Wells Station.

There were in fact seven pie-on-stilts modules. Each of them was a roomy space divided by a honeycomb floor, built around a central axial cylinder. They had all been landed by rocket and parachute, folding up around their cores, then towed into place by a rover and inflated, the internal honeycomb flooring folded down. All this was powered by a big nuclear reactor, cooled by Martian carbon dioxide and buried in the ice a kilometer away, its waste heat slowly digging out a cavern.

Shed been brought in through Can Six, the EVA unit, and Five, science and medical, through the disused Three, to Two, the galley cum sleeping area everybody just called the house. Can Four, the hub of the base, was a garden area, with trays of green plants growing under racks of fluorescents. Can Seven contained the central life-support system. Here Hanse proudly showed her his bioreactor, a big translucent tire-shaped tube containing a greenish, sludgy fluid, where blue-green algae, spirula plantensis, busily produced oxygen. And she was shown a water extraction plant; grimy Martian ice was melted and pumped through a series of filters to remove the dust that could comprise as much as forty percent of its volume.

Cans One and Three were sleeping quarters, roomy enough for a crew of ten. Both these modules had been abandoned by the crew, but there were some neat bits of equipment. Everything was inflatable, the bed, the chairs, with partition walls filled with Mars-ice water to provide some soundproofing. And there were bioluminescent light panels that you could just peel off the wall and fold up. Myra took some of these away, to brighten up her cave in the ice.

Under the panels the design schemes of the modules were exposed: where Two was a city landscape, Five mountains and Six the sea, Can One was a pine forest and Three a prairie. With a bit of experimentation she found you could animate these virtual landscapes. But these fancy features had evidently been quickly abandoned, as the crew had moved into the house, Can Two, where they lived together in the round.

Yuri grinned about this. They spent a lot of money on this place, he said. Various Earth governments and organizations, in the days after the sunstorm when money flowed into space. Some kind of spasm of guilt, I guess. They knew this is an extreme environment. So they tried to make it as much like Earth as possible. You can be an internal tourist. Thats what they told me in training. Ha!

It didnt work?

Look, you need a few pictures of your family, and some blue-green paintwork to soothe the eyesalthough remind me to show you Mars through a wavelength-shift filter sometime; there are colors here, deep reds, we dont even have names for. But all these pictures of places that Ive never been to, put up by city types whove probably never been there eithernah. You can keep it.

She thought there was a pattern emerging here, spanning Lowell and now Wells Station, expensive facilities misconceived on Earth, and now half-abandoned by the Spacer generations who had to use them.

But Myra suspected there was something deeper about the way the crew shared that partition-free space in Can Two, living in the round. A few brief queries to the stations AI brought up images of roundhouses, Iron Age structures that had once been common across Europe and Britain: big structures, cones of wood built around a central pole, with a bare circular floor and no internal walls. Here at the pole of Mars, all unconsciously, the inhabitants of Wells Station had abandoned the urban prejudices of the base architects and had reverted to much older ways of living. She found that somehow pleasing.

Of course that seven-module structure did serve one clear purpose, which was to do with the psychology of confinement. There were always at least two ways to get from any point in the station to any other. So if Ellie felt like strangling Yuri, say, there were ways for her to avoid bumping into him until shed got those feelings under control. People locked up together like this, kept in the dark for a full Earth year at a time and unable even to step out the door, were always going to turn on each other. All you could do was engineer the environment to defuse the tensions.

Gradually Myra found herself work to do.

There were always chores in the garden, in Can Four, tending the plants, the rice and spinach and potatoes and peas, and cleaning out the gear that supported the hydroponic beds. Grendel Speth happily accepted Myras untrained help. There was even a stand of bamboo. Previous crew members had found ways to eat the fast-growing stuff, and they had made things with it; a wind-chime mobile of scrimshaw-like carvings was suspended from one corner of the Can. The garden only provided a few percent of the bases food supply, and if you were strictly logical about it, it would have been better to use this space and power to store more dried food from Lowell. But Myra found tending these familiar living things profoundly satisfying, which of course was its true purpose.

No matter how she kept herself busy she was always drawn back to the Pit.

That, after all, was the center of the mystery here; that was the place she had lost her mother. The trouble was she needed specialist help to get down there, and the station crew were busy with their own projects.

It took weeks before she inveigled Hanse Critchfield into suiting her up and taking her down into the deep interior of the ice cap, and into the Pit once more.