“Is Helios still running dark?” I ask.
“That’s when he does his best work. Unencumbered by the monstrosity of command.” He nods to the display that shows the Rim fleet. Arranged in six spear-like spheres, with pickets thousands of kilometers out. It is far more fun for an experienced commander to shed the logistical weight of an armada, and strike out with a small task force returning home only to refuel, rearm, repair, and report. First a razor to cut the enemy, then the hammer to bash their brains in as they try to get up.
“Have you eaten?” Diomedes asks.
“Protein amino mush with the Praetorians, if you count that.”
He motions over his valet. “Tell the cooks to steam up some trout.”
I die a little inside. “Steamed trout. What a treat.”
* * *
—
With Diomedes master of the Dustmaker in Helios’s absence, he is required to use Helios’s office. That is where we take our meal. The rooms are circular and spartan, of course. Most are dedicated to functional purposes—a map room, a meditation chamber, a small personal niche with ambient sounds from Helios’s home of Callisto, a sparring sphere, and an eating area large enough to accommodate two dozen officers. The table there is as rare and priceless as a ghost raptor: a Mother Table. It is made from branches of the eight founding trees of Demeter’s Garter.
Diomedes and I eat alone and in quiet around its live edge. He masticates the last of his steamed trout as though it were as succulent as a calerian eel marinated in orange juice and brine, which it is most certainly not. The fish has the consistency of wet cardboard, and the flavor of old cashews. The vegetables and legumes, however, were a delight. Garter carrots thick as my wrist. Garter beans fat and oozing with nutty flavor. I mourn that only my trout remains. The Rim has never done meat well, and that we are eating it at all means the troops will be getting it soon. The Raa never like to eat better than the lows, especially not on campaign.
For Diomedes, trout is a special treat. He pauses for his last bite.
“How is the pain of the Lament?”
“Faded to little more than a dull ache,” I say. “Your saline pools and medici have helped. But really it’s the leech your mother gave me. What a godsend.” I touch the leech through my shirt. Its teeth are still buried into the skin over my lower spine. It collects toxins in the blood of its host and processes them like a second liver.
“You’ve kept it in then?” he asks.
“Don’t tell my Praetorians,” I say. “They’ll spout more Moonie conspiracy theories.”
Diomedes smiles and spears his last bite. He chews very slowly and swallows with reluctance.
“Helios drew first blood five days ago just inside the orbits of the outer moons,” he says as he wipes his lips. Finally, the update I requested. “He engaged and destroyed an Ascomanni scout group. Then he went dark to probe deeper into Ilium and harass Fá’s main fleet. Four days ago, he destroyed two Volk torchShips. They still bore their Republic insignia.”
“Do you think Virginia might have sent them? Or at least prodded them along?” I ask.
“The consuls debated that possibility. You know her better than I do. What do you think?”
“No. Not her style. From what I understand, Olympia and two other cities were sacked, and any Fá didn’t enslave, he sacrificed to his Allfather before moving on to attack their asteroid holdings. Fá, it seems, is an enemy of all.”
“A creature of Darrow’s, then? As I understand it, the Obsidians view him as a demigod, if not a god, and he’s still unaccounted for.”
I peek under the table. He laughs at the joke. “Honestly it would have been better to let him get back to Mars than constantly worry he’ll pop out of nowhere and maul us while we’re all eating our trout.”
“It is better for an enemy to be strong and visible than to be missing and capable,” he agrees.
“From what I understand, Sefi was like a sister to Darrow. If Fá mutilated her, as our intelligence suspects…” I shake my head. “Not to mention had the Volk braves not deserted Darrow on Mercury, it would have been a very different battle,” I say. “So, no. It’s not Darrow. Though it is his fault the Volk have a modern navy. That we can blame him for.”
Diomedes mulls that over. “How are your Praetorians enjoying their trip?”
“Like dogs in a land of cats their own size,” I say. “They’re eager to return to the Core.”
“I imagine they are.” Diomedes picks his teeth with the bones of his trout. “Many of their friends must have died at the Battle of Ilium. Died perhaps by my father’s hand, or by the hands of my veterans. Before Darrow sailed to Luna, and the Society crumbled.”
“Twelve years ago. You think they hold a grudge?” I ask.
“We both know they do.”
“It’s true that Rhone has a long memory, but he’s no fool, or zealot. ‘Realist’ is the word. A realist and loyal to me,” I say as the servants clear the dishes. “He was my shooting instructor and has known me since I was born. He knows Atalantia and the Republic are my enemies.” I consider. Diomedes sips a rare glass of plum liquor. Mine is already gone. I’ll have to get a case of the stuff from the Garter for Apollonius.
“I admit Rhone does seem more on edge the closer we draw to Ilium, but that is to be expected,” I say. “As are you. You’ve run forty drills in two weeks.”
“I am wary, but this is not a subject for the dining table. Come.” He thanks the stewards who collect the plates and has me join him in Helios’s personal niche. He sits in a European-style chair made of inky leviathan leather. I peruse a wall of Helios’s trophies. Like many Rim Knights he collects weapons that have either killed his friends or wounded him personally. Amidst them are his own hasta and kitari collection. His daughter’s kitari with her House Dionysus Institute ring melted into the pommel hangs with twenty other blades. The iron grapes make me think of Thessalonica and Apollonius’s vineyards for some reason.
Diomedes clears his throat and I take a seat on a Titan-style camp chair.
Diomedes sets his hands on his belly and leans back. “I drill the crew because I am on edge. What did they tell you as a child? About the Ascomanni, I mean. That they lurk out there in the far dark like demons in their asteroid nests? That they come to our worlds to eat naughty children and take them back to slave away in their diamond mines? Yes?”
I shrug. “More or less. But my grandmother exposed me to several warrior specimens at a young age to ‘inoculate me from fear.’ She’d put them on a collar in my room, until I could fall asleep at the drop of a pin. Little did she know it’d be a goblin who would haunt my nightmares.”
Diomedes looks dubious. “Really? Do tell.”
“Once, when I was a boy, Sevro au Barca dragged me from my window and stuffed me in a bag. I was presented to Darrow as a hostage.”
“The Reaper was not the more nightmarish of the pair?”
“No. Unlike Darrow, Sevro has no qualms about murdering children,” I say.
“I have not met the Goblin of Mars yet.” He sounds disappointed.