Firstborn

taking on the Atlantic. But Josh was on the first boat.”

“I was his wife,” Emeline said.

“Ah,” Bisesa said. “ ‘Was’?”

And Emeline told her something of Josh’s life, and how he died, and the legacy he left behind, his sons.

Bisesa listened gravely. “I don’t know if you’d want to hear this,” she said. “Back home, I looked up Josh. I asked Aristotle — I mean, I consulted the archives. And I found Josh’s place in history.”

The “copy” of Josh left behind on Earth had lived on past 1885.

That Josh had fallen in love: aged thirty-five he married a Boston Catholic, who gave him two sons — just as Emeline gave him sons on Mir. But Josh was cut down in his fifties, dying in the blood-sodden mud of Passchendaele, a correspondent covering yet another war, a great world war Emeline had never heard of.

Emeline listened to this reluctantly. It was somehow a diminishing of her Josh to hear this tale of an alternate version of him.

They talked on for a while, of disrupted histories, of the deteriorating climate of Mir, of a new Troy and a global empire. Grove asked Bisesa if she had found Myra, her daughter. Bisesa said she had, and in fact she now had a granddaughter too. But her mood seemed wistful, complicated. It seemed not much of this had made her happy.

Emeline had little to say. She tried to gauge the mood of the people around her as they talked, adjusting to this new strangeness.

Abdi and Ben, born after the Discontinuity, were curious, wide-eyed with wonder. But Grove and Emeline herself, and perhaps Bisesa, were fundamentally fearful. The youngsters didn’t understand, as did the older folk who had lived through the Discontinuity, that nothing in the world was permanent, not if time could be torn apart and knitted back together again at a whim. If you lived through such an event you never got over it.

There was a commotion at the door.

Abdikadir, attuned to life at Alexander’s court, got to his feet quickly.

A man walked briskly into the room, accompanied by two lesser-looking attendants. Abdikadir prostrated himself before this man; he threw himself to the floor, arms outstretched, head down.

Wearing a flowing robe of some expensive purple-dyed fabric the newcomer was shorter than anybody else in the room, but he had a manner of command. He was bald save for a frosting of silver hair. He might have been seventy, Emeline thought, but his lined skin glistened, well treated with oils.

Bisesa’s eyes widened. “Secretary Eumenes.”

The man smiled, his expression cold, calculated. “My title is now ‘chiliarch,’ and has been for twenty years or more.” His English was fluent but stilted, and tinged with a British accent.

Bisesa said, “Chiliarch. Which was Hephaistion’s position, once. You have risen higher than any man save the King, Eumenes of Cardia.”

“Not bad for a foreigner.”

“I suppose I should have expected you,” Bisesa said. “You of all people.”

“As I have always expected you.”

From his prone position on the floor, Abdikadir stammered,

“Lord Chiliarch. I summoned you, I sent runners the moment it happened — the Eye — the return of Bisesa Dutt — it was just as you ordered — if there were delays I apologize, and—”

“Oh, be quiet, boy. And stand up. I came when I was ready. Believe it or not there are matters in this worldwide empire of ours even more pressing than enigmatic spheres and mysterious reve-nants. Now. Why are you here, Bisesa Dutt?”

It was a direct question none of the others had asked her. Bisesa said, “Because of a new Firstborn threat.”

In a few words she sketched a storm on the sun, and how mankind in a future century had labored to survive it. And she spoke of a new weapon, called the “Q-bomb,” which was gliding through space toward Earth — Bisesa’s Earth.

“I myself traveled between planets, in search of answers to this challenge. And then I was brought — here.”

“Why? Who by?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps the same agency who took me home in the first place. The Firstborn, or not the Firstborn. Perhaps some agency who defies them.”

“The King knows of your return.”

Grove asked, “How do you know that?”

Eumenes smiled. “Alexander knows everything I know — and generally before me. At least, that is the safest assumption to make.

I will speak to you later, Bisesa Dutt, in the palace. The King may attend.”

“It’s a date.”

Eumenes grimaced. “I had forgotten your irreverence. It is interesting to have you back, Bisesa Dutt.” He turned on his heel and walked out, to more bowing and scraping from Abdikadir.

Bisesa glanced at Emeline and Grove. “So you know why I’m here. A bomb in the solar system, an Eye on Mars. Why are you here?”

“Because,” Abdikadir said, “I summoned them when your telephone rang.”

Bisesa stared at him. “My phone?”

They hurried back to the Eye chamber.

Abdikadir extracted the phone from its shrine, and handed it to Bisesa reverently.

It lay in her palm, scuffed, familiar. She couldn’t believe it; her eyes misted over. She tried to explain to Abdikadir. “It’s just a phone. I was given it when I was twelve years old. Every child on Earth got a phone at that age. A communications and education program by the old United Nations. Well, it came here with me through the Discontinuity, and it was a great help — a true companion. But then its power failed.”

Abdikadir listened to this rambling, his face expressionless. “It rang. Chirp, chirp.”

“It will respond to an incoming call, but that’s all. When the power went I had no way of recharging it. Still haven’t, in fact.

Wait—”

She turned to her spacesuit, which still lay splayed open on the floor. Nobody had dared touch it. “Suit Five?”

Its voice, from the helmet speakers, was very small. “I have always strived to serve your needs during your extravehicular activity.”

“Can you give me one of your power packs?”

It seemed to think that over. Then a compartment on the suit’s belt flipped open to reveal a compact slab of plastic, bright green like the rest of the suit. Bisesa pulled this out of its socket.

“Is there anything else I can do for you today, Bisesa?”

“No. Thank you.”

“I will need refurbishment before I can serve you again.”

“I’ll see you get it.” She feared that was a lie. “Rest now.”

The suit fell silent with a kind of sigh.

She took the battery pack, flipped open the phone’s interface panel, and jammed the phone onto the cell’s docking port. Male and female connectors joined smoothly. “What was it Alexei said?

Thank Sol for universal docking protocols.”

The phone lit up and spoke hesitantly. “Bisesa?”

“It’s me.”

“You took your time.”

31: Operation Order