"Libiamo, libiamo ne' lieti calici, che la bellezza infiora;
e la fuggevo, fuggevo ora
s'inebriì a voluttà.
Libiamo ne' dolci fremiti
che suscita l'amore,
poichè quell'occhio al cuore onnipotente va…42"
It was not long after Fabricius started, that many of the crew members, those who understood Italian and knew the opera, joined in. Many of those who did not know opera, some who did not even know how to speak Italian, being already a bit tipsy, joined in the song anyway. The whole hall was filled with the sound of singing voices, and the chorus of the song caused a tremendous crescendo as more people joined in. The Contessa laughed and clapped her hands, evidently much cheered and away from her black mood. "A perfect choice in song," she cried.
At the end of the song, Fabricius yelled, "Viva l'Italia! Viva l'amore! Who will drink with me, for love and for Italy!"
"For love! For Italy!" yelled back the hall.
Several crew members reached for the instrument which hung on the wall, and delicately lifted them down. As the music began to strum, there was music and laughter and general joy.
"All of my people," the Contessa said, "they are here because they have been wronged by the Corporation. Most of them are refugees from my homeworld. They are not mere thieves, or common pirates, they are all good people, here for vengeance. We always prey on the Corp, or others who steal from those weaker than themselves."
"You have stout, disciplined and well-hearted warriors, Rhea Silvia, and they have a good and courageous leader," said Knight.
Some of those who had finished their meals had started to dance. Hanako looked on the merriment, but had an expression of sadness.
Intuiting the younger girl's feelings, Rhea put her hand on Hanako's shoulder. "Dear Hanako, you managed to get this far against the greatest of odds. Your mother would be happy to know you have got here, and are so close to the safe refuge of the Free Trade Zone."
Hanako smiled at the Contessa, and said, "Thank you."
The merriment continued long into night-shift, and the conversation and song flowed freely, a respite of peace for these exiles and fugitives from Corporate law. But despite the joy around her, Hanako's heart was not in it. Her thoughts were on those loved ones, now gone.
The only person who seemed to share her mood was Fabricius, who had sung so merrily earlier. At one point, he excused himself from the table and left the riotous dining hall. Hanako, following some instinct, also got up from the table and followed him.
Some of the corridors leading towards the dining hall were lined with window portals, through which one could see the outside starscapes. Fabricius stopped by a portal, and looked into it. He was unhappy with the constellations he saw and pressed a button to change it. These portals were not actually true windows, but actually screens that displayed various camera views, to make the intestines of the ship feel less claustrophobic. Fabricius cycled through various cameras. He settled on a particular star scene that appealed to him - although, to tell the truth, each one looked very much like any other.
Fabricius leaned his body on the sill of the portal, his body sagged as he let out a deep sigh. He didn't realise that Hanako had followed him. He suddenly recited a poem, mouthing the words loudly :
"What is this feeling in my heart? It feels like it has been torn apart. Why do I feel so alone?
Is it that my heart has turned to stone? Why do I still shed tears,
And still shake with these fears? Your death has in my heart sown The greatest pain I have ever known."
He turned to look at her, a blank expression on his face. He seemed neither pleased nor displeased at seeing her. He spoke, "Hanako, you have recently experienced loss. Do you also feel as if there is a hole within you?"
"Yes."
"I would like to share my story with you. May I?"
"Of course you may."
And so Fabricius told his story, of events ten years ago.
By then the Old Italians realised the battle had been lost. Those that had the means were preparing to get off the planet, to fight their way through the Corporate blockade and to get out of the solar system. Those who did not have the means, or were otherwise unable or unwilling to retreat : either death, or to become prisoner-slaves coughing in the dusts of the factory worlds.
What men had been left under the command of Captain Fabricius were loaded onto a smuggler ship which was now hurtling into the skies with several others. Fabricius himself, despite the pleas of those under his command, did not go - he was not going to leave without his family, not without his son, little Pallas43.
Fabricius had to find a way to get to Troy, where his home was. The last he heard, the city was under heavy attack from the forces of Commander Rumsfeld. The various Old Italian forces, including the one under the command of the Contessa Rhea Silvia, were struggling to hold on. Fabricius hoped that it was not too late. He found himself a cutter ship, which he could use to fly to Troy, directly to his estate.
While still far away from the city Fabricius saw the glow of the burning. As he drew closer to Troy he could see the bright-flaring bombardment weapons of the Corporation, streaking across the sky and to the city. Troy had defenses against such weapons but Fabricius saw, to his heart's sagging, that the white flares characteristic of defensive fire were very few - the majority had either been abandoned, or destroyed.
The closer he got to Troy the heavier the Corp presence - there no longer seemed to be any real Old Italian presence. He flew lower and lower to the ground, hoping that his cutter would not be detected. By now his heart was full of fear, for Troy was burning and now he could see that the devastation was far greater than he had thought. Fabricius prayed to the Goddess Mary for his family to still be safe.
Suddenly, nearby, a Corporate fighter speeded in. His heart leaping, Fabricius realised there was no time to hide, and since the cutter had no weapons, he was as good as gone.
But the fighter ignored the cutter and streaked past, towards the city. It came so close that the cutter picked up its Corp signature and pilot designation. The pilot had been Commander Rumsfeld, who for some unknown reason was in such a hurry that he did not even stop for a few minutes to take out a lonely cutter. A small hope came to Fabricius, that perhaps the commander was in a rush to get to his forces because the Old Italians had managed some sort of counter-attack.
He had to fly through the outskirts of the city. Artillery, both orbital and land based, was still shelling the city despite the fact that virtually all of Troy was now in flames. Fabricius used the radio to search the frequencies, hoping for some indication that the Old Italians were still battling in this area. But most of the frequencies only pick garbled Corp chatter, so distorted Fabricius could not make out whether the Corporation was still on the offensive. Only once, did Fabricius pick what sounded like the Italians; it was something about the Contessa Rhea Silvia, something about a retreat. Fabricius wondered if the city had been properly evacuated, or if there were still frightened civilians hiding in the bomb shelters under the city - the fierce pounding force of the Corp weapons above them must have been bellowed loudly into those shelters. Perhaps even destroying the bunkers.
The city was under a rain of bombardment. There were explosions all around the cutter, some came dangerously close. Structures would shatter from the shells and fling shrapnel pieces in random directions. But the cutter managed to get through unscathed, and Fabricius gave thanks to the Goddess.
He saw, to his relief, that parts of the outlying districts, were spared the devastation. His own estate was a small farm lying right on the outskirts of Troy. He flew next to a piece of desolate, scorched earth, seared into charcoal by a massive blast. He was going to fly over and past it, until he suddenly realised that the land, so devastated, was his own estate.
Fear. Fabricius soared past the burnt terrain and towards the soul of any farm, the homestead. Fear became truth. His house was fire-scorched to the ground. Fabricius landed the cutter near-by, jumped out of it. His hopes went against the evidence of his eyes. Fire was blazing within his home. Heat was still waving up from the blasted ground, and he could feel the warmth of the ground crawling up his legs.
His first thought was for his son. "Pallas!" he called, "Pallas!" then he said, "Oh Goddess Mary, let them be alive." As he ran towards his house, he could feel the various thermal currents around him, dancing out of the explosion places all around his devastated land, scalding.
His house was radiating heat; the temperature tingled with increasing intensity on the skin of his cheeks. "Pallas! Pallas!" he cried. The door of his home seemed like a gate into fiery hell - Fabricius almost touched it, then realised how hot it had become, warm enough to burn his hands. He looked around for something to break the door down with. There was nothing immediately available, and his fatherly instincts for his family were becoming too desperate. He kicked the door down. A cloud of heat escaped through, and, despite the burn pain in his foot, Fabricius shielded his face and leapt through it.
In the ovenlike anteroom, a peculiar sweet smell drifted about, it took a moment or two for Fabricius, already disoriented in his surroundings, to realise it was the smell of burnt flesh.
Illuminated by the flames, there were two figures. One was lying on the floor, a shape loosely resembling a woman, oozing blood through burnt muscle. Pieces of white cloth were stuck onto her, the parts of clothing that didn't burn had melted into her. She was dead.
Kneeling by her was a little boy. He was only half destroyed by fire. He turned his look away from his dead mother to look at Fabricius. On his half-burnt face was an expression of total calmness.
"Papa?" said the little boy. He stood up and stepped towards Fabricius. The little boy's arms stretched open to embrace his father.
"Pallas," said Fabricius, in a rather numb-like way. He picked up the child. The calmness that the child had suddenly dismissed itself. Cries of pain and suffering. The child wailed, "Papa!"
"I'm here my son." Fabricius made to escape the burning household, holding the child in his arms. The child was sobbing and crying uncontrollably, clinging his tiny hands to the man carrying him. Through his burnt skin blood was oozing through, sticky and warm on Fabricius' arms. It stank.
Fabricius took the child out of the house. He felt exhausted, both by the terrible heat, and by the terrible sights. A small patch of grass beneath a shattered fruit tree had not been destroyed, an island of green in black, and Fabricius let his knees sink onto the ground there. The tree, although hit hard, still had a few green branches and perhaps would survive the attack. The fruits of the tree, however, had all been destroyed, and the branches where now barren of them.
"Papa, it hurts," said the little boy, "please make the hurting stop..."
The father looked around, and realised there was no way to fulfil his son's dying wish. His son needed urgent medical attention. Fabricius looked towards the skyline of Troy he could see the far-off smoulderings of the destroyed hospital buildings.
"Papa." moaned the little boy.
"I'm here, my son."
"Papa…"
"Here I am," Fabricius said. There was nothing he could do. He was going to lose his son.
"Papa…" ... "..." Child died.
"Pallas," said Fabricius, "Pallas…" His arms trembled.
Afterwards, he could never recall how long he had been there, kneeling, with his dead child in his arms. It could have been for a few minutes, or even seconds, or perhaps he had been there for hours while Troy turned into ash on the horizon. His sense of time only normalised when he realised that the little boy he was holding in his arms was gone forever, a realisation not as obvious as might be supposed.
"Come back!" cried Fabricius.
"Oauw!" escaped from Fabricius' mouth, a moan of inarticulate pain. "Come back," he tried to say, but the words came distorted out of his mouth. Tears stung out of his eyes. He tried to say what he was feeling, but it came out inarticulate as "Oauw." He gently lay his son's corpse on the grass, then a violence overcame his body, and Fabricius rolled beside his dead son, convulsing, "Oauw! Oauw!"
From the depths of his memories, he suddenly remembered the lines of a poem he had read a long time ago, into which his despair coagulated. "Come back to me, you who mattered to me the most," he whispered, "return, even if only as a shadow, as a dream, or as a ghost..."
Just two lines of the poem kept drumming themselves in Fabricius' head, over and over, until he was desperate-voicing the words over his boy, as if they would bring his son back to life.
" 'Come back to me, you who mattered to me most,
Return, even if only as a shadow, as a dream, or as a ghost.' "
In this moment of pain the rhyme couplet was his only solace. He spoke it over and over until exhaustion of several kinds came back to him. Unable to do or say anything, he sat numb, for a while, until despair washed over him again.
Questions formed : why was he allowed to see this?
"Goddess Mary," Fabricius whispered, his thoughts and his words crashing into each other. "Why did you save my life so many times? I could have died today. You could have spared me this suffering - I would rather have died than lived to experience such pain. My son is dead - if I had fallen today, perhaps I would be with him now, in the afterlife. But you specifically kept me alive, to see the corpses of my wife and child, so that my heart may suffocate and my body may enter living-death. Goddess Mary, you bitch, what have you done to me? Do you enjoy this? This is worse than any death. You Bitch! You Bitch! You have put me in hell! I-Oauw!"
Two Italian soldiers, part of the fleeing remnants of the Trojan battle group, were crossing Fabricius' estate, in the hope that they could evade capture by the Corporation. They heard Fabricius' cries and decided to investigate. One of the soldiers recognised Captain Fabricius.
"How is it that the brave Captain Fabricius, who has slain so many of the enemy, who had so many comrades-in-arms die beside him, lies weeping like some little child?" asked the one soldier.
"Captain Fabricius! What are you doing? Your country needs you to fight, not to despair!" exclaimed the other soldier.
Fabricius looked at the two men; he was unable, and unwilling, to stop the tears that spat his eyes. "Soldiers of Old Italy," he spoke, "I have witnessed the death of many brother warriors today, and I myself was nearly killed many times since this battle started. If only I had been slain by the Corporate pigs! I was alive not long ago - now I am not dead, but I am certainly not living. This ruined land was my land; the corpse in my burnt house was my wife; and this body, here, was my son, Pallas."
"It may be good to mourn your family, but it would be far better to avenge them!" "The battle may be lost but the war is not over! Captain Fabricius, come with us, and you will have your chance for vengeance."
"What good will vengeance do me? My life was dedicated to my son, my life was dedicated to Pallas; his life was my life. With the passing of his life my life goes. Vengeance will not bring my son back to life; vengeance will not bring my body and soul out of its limbo state."
"The Goddess Mary did not keep you alive for nothing…"
"Didn't you hear what I said? I am not alive. The Goddess did not keep me alive. I am not alive anymore."
"So you say now, but we are all part of the divine plan. Draw comfort from Her love, Captain Fabricius. She will carry you through this travail just as She carried you before, because She loves you."
"How can this be part of some plan? If She loves me so much, then why was I not slain? She should have plucked me up and taken me to heaven, but instead She, in Her divine love, has utterly crushed my spirit, and delivered me into a hell-world." "How can you speak like that? You know that millions of people have faith in the Goddess; surely, what so many people believe must be true. And if it is true, then surely it is great wisdom, and you cannot brush wisdom aside just so!"
"Oh, Italian, your speech rings hollow, like an empty room that echoes the speaker's words, reflected and not heard. I once read a poem, which said :
'You think you have wisdom, as into oblivion you stare?
What is wisdom, but a type of falling, from a castle in the air?'
"The Truth is not some cloud-fantasy."
"It is all very well and good to say such a thing. But the religion is not Truth, for in misery Misery is its own truth, and in pain the only truth is Pain."
"Your suffering shall not be unaccounted for."
"In heaven each receives his due, and for every pain you feel on earth there will be joy for you in heaven."
"What kind of consolation is that? I don't want a heavenly reward for my suffering; I would rather never have experienced the suffering in the first place."
"It was not She who inflicted this suffering…"
"It was not you who wanted this suffering…"
"Because each of us has free will, She is powerless to restrain those who wish to harm us."
"Because each of us has free will, She grants us the power to fight those who would wish to harm us."
"That is why the Corp has inflicted suffering on you."
"That is why you must stand up and avenge what the Corp has done to you." " 'Come back from those lands of the forever-lost
Come to me, be a shadow, a dream, ghost.' "
"Our words do not comfort him."
"He is beyond comforting."
"We must go. We have to evacuate before it is too late to leave." "Shall we take him with?"
"Yes."
"But why should we? He is half-mad. And he blasphemed against the Holy Goddess."
"Whether or not he blasphemed is not for us to decide : the Goddess Herself will judge. It is more important for us to see to it that we obey Her teachings. Captain Fabricius is too mind-ill to escape the Corp, we must help him in his time of need. Help me carry him."
"What you said was right. I will help you carry him."
The two soldiers lifted up Captain Fabricius, and then they hurried off, aware of the little time available to them. Fabricius did not resist, and allowed himself to be carried.
After a while, Fabricius cried, "Goddess Mary, why have you forsaken me?" "Goddess Mary, we have not forsaken him."
"He has not been forsaken."
"Goddess Mary, why do you ignore my suffering?"
"Goddess Mary, we do not ignore his suffering."
"His suffering is not being ignored."
"Goddess Mary, why do you not help me?"
"Goddess Mary, we are helping him."
"He is being helped."
"Goddess Mary, I cannot walk, why do you not carry me?"
"Goddess Mary, we carry him."
"He is being carried."
"Goddess Mary, where are you, where are you?"
"Goddess Mary, we are here."
"He is with us."
"Pallas!" Fabricius wailed.
At this point Fabricius gave into his grief and his war-weary limbs - unwilling to stay awake, he fell into unconsciousness. The two soldiers continued to carry him. They all eventually made it off the planet.
Hanako was saddened by Fabricius' story, and felt sympathy for his loss, especially with her own loss so near ago. There was a silence that came about after Fabricius finished - he was unsure what to say, and began to feel a bit weak for having revealed so much to someone he do not know so well.
Hanako didn't say anything, but from her pocket took out the little house that Sparky had given her. She put it into Fabricius' hand, saying, "I suppose if one can't share one's humanity, then one doesn't really have anything to share in the first place. And as long as Czerwon doesn't take away your humanity, then what has he really taken?" She then turned and walked away, back to the dining hall. Fabricius stared after her, holding the gift, not knowing what to make of it.
They must not escape my graspMeanwhile, aboard the Red Claw, CEO Czerwon was slowly, with a deliberateness, pacing up and down in the viewing room. He was silhouetted by the star-scene behind the view-portals. He listened to Rumsfeld giving a status report on the fleet, but his mind was elsewhere, recalling when he had told Thalia that they were going to Forestglen. It seemed like centuries ago, and the task had seemed so simple then. By now it was obvious that the fugitives were heading for the Free Trade Zone. Czerwon's very life depended on Hanako being caught before crossing the border.
Brasidas, too, had been summoned, and stood uneasily in the one corner of the room. Czerwon gave a hard glance at Brasidas. The conferences between himself and Rumsfeld did not usually have an audience, but the captain's attitude of late was suspect. Although Czerwon could very well do away with Rumsfeld himself if the need arose, Brasidas was also armed, and the captain was not - Czerwon wondered if Rumsfeld would understand the hinting.
"The men are worried, Chief Executive Officer. They think that we are preparing to invade. I am even in doubt as to your intentions here, Chief Executive Officer."
"I am not about to sacrifice half my fleet in order to subjugate these rebels, captain. The Corporate empire is hard enough to hold as it is. These rebels, these 'Free Traders' as they call themselves, their turn will come in time. But not for the nearest future, no. So do not, captain, trouble your little head on such a matter," Czerwon turned and paced in the opposite direction, "But the keep the main prize in your sight. My geneling, she will not escape me again. You are dismissed, Captain Rumsfeld."
"Chief Executive Officer!" Rumsfeld gave the right-hand-out salute, then retreated out.
"If they slip through his hands again," Czerwon commented to no one in particular, "I will personally cut those hands off."
Czerwon turned to look at Brasidas with a steely-eyed stare. "Thank you, lieutenant." "Will that be all, Chief Executive Officer?"
"Not quite. I want you to prepare security arrangements to protect the Lady Thalia, in case of… something. In a dangerous eventuality, I want her safe."
"I will do that, Chief Executive Officer." Brasidas didn't mention that in his opinion, Thalia would be the only person aboard the whole of the Red Claw who was actually worth saving in a 'dangerous eventuality', besides his own men. He was surprised, thought, that the CEO would feel concern for someone other than himself.
"Dismissed, lieutenant."
"Chief Executive Officer." Brasidas gave the salute, turned, and marched resolutely out.
The lieutenant went to the barrack quarters, a thin corridor fitted with bunks, similar to submarine quarters. This was where the lieutenant and his men were billeted aboard the Claw. Brasidas had the choice of better quarters, but he chose rather to stay among his men.
Brasidas greeted his subordinates, entered a small and cramped side room, sat down on his customary chair. One of his men brought him a notepad and a pencil. Brasidas began to sketch diagrams and flow charts, the rough beginnings of the procedures that his men would follow if the need arose to protect Lady Thalia. When he had filled the space of the paper, he tore it off the pad, crumpled and dropped it on the floor.
Time later, the floor became strewn with the crumpled papers and littered thoughts. Brasidas was no fool - he knew that the threat was coming from the ship's captain, Rumsfeld. But the lieutenant could not understand why Czerwon did not simply do away with Rumsfeld - he had seen enough of the CEO's bloodthirst to know that there was certainly no moral force holding the CEO back.
But the more he pondered it, the more Brasidas was sure that the reason why Czerwon did not kill Rumsfeld outright, despite the threat from him, was because Captain Rumsfeld was the closest thing to a friend that the CEO ever had.
The next day, the Contessa summoned Knight for a discussion on the route he would have to take to the Free Trade Zone. Shaking off his heavy sleep, Knight joined Rhea and Fabricius in a room adjoining the battleship command center.
They stood around a large table in the middle of the room. In the table top was embedded a computer screen, and Rhea cycled through various starcharts by tapping keys on a keyboard that lay on the one side.
"The Corporate presence here has built up enormously, and there is news that further ships are streaming in. Until you came along, we had no idea why this was happening. In fact, I suspect that the huge shift in Corporate ship presence towards the Free Trade Zone may destabilise the political situation in areas where there will now be minimal Corp presence, if any. This is a substantial risk for the Corp to take; if you had any doubts how desperate Czerwon is to capture you, that fact alone should settle it." Rhea pressed a key, and the display revealed a three dimensional schematic of the frontier, thick lines representing the x, y and z axes, with coloured triangles here and there. "The blue triangles are Free Trade Zone ships. The red triangles, Corp ships. Notice how they seem to be forming a sheet of ships near the border. You'll recognise it; the formation was last used during the siege of Old Italy."
Knight agreed, noticing how few those blue triangles were in comparison to the red ones.
"As you can see, the Corp is dwarfing the Free Zone formations. It seems that those within the Zone are panicking – they are sure the Corp is preparing an all-out invasion. Normally, the Free Trader ships will gladly pick up and aid refugees, but they're so jittery at the moment I wouldn't be surprise if they're firing at anything that moves, so be wary around them, Smuggler.
"The 'sheet' that is building up is concentrating at the most used spacestreams into the Zone, but other areas are building up as fast as Corp ships can stream in. You'll have to try and slip past them by avoiding the main streams.
"Of course, this will be slower, and every smuggler knows, that the slower you go, the greater the time they have to detect you. But, in this case, the faster ways are impenetrable."
Here the Contessa paused to press a button, which changed the screen format. The triangles disappeared and were replaced by a matrix of white dots, splattered in irregular concentrations over the frontier, representing space-time densities. The higher the concentration of the dots in an area, the faster a ship would go through that area – where the dots were so many they would coalesce into a line, the so-called spacestream. "Here is the most recent space contour formation we have available for you to plan your route. Fabricius has already downloaded this information into your own ship's systems.
"The Venezia di Notte is a big ship and even this close to the border we are in danger of being spotted. We'll try to get as close as possible to the border before you leave, but only a smuggler ship is small enough to slip through the Corporate net to get past the border."
They continued talking for a while, Knight asking questions that were like probes, feeling the frontier border-areas for trouble. Rhea and Fabricius answered as well as they could. Once Knight was satisfied, the mini-council dissolved and Knight planned the route that he and Hanako were to take, while Fabricius oversaw the final repairs on the Poet's Whim.
The ship was finally repaired at about one in the morning, or at least what passed for morning aboard a spaceship. Knight decided to leave immediately. The Contessa ordered the Venezia di Notte to get as close to the border as possible without being detected by the Corp, but even so Knight knew it would take a few more days to reach the Free Trade Zone.
There was no ceremonious exit, for two reasons. The Venezia di Notte was on high alert due to the large Corp presence. The other reason, was that smugglers preferred to leave quietly anyway. Only the Contessa Rhea Silvia was present, as well as Fabricius, while the rest of the crew were scurrying about in their duties, ready in case of an emergency. Rhea stepped forward, and put her hand on Smuggler Knight's shoulder.
"Well, dear smuggler, once more I have to say goodbye, and it is no less easier than it was last time," she said.
"I'm sure that Fate will run our roads across each other again," Knight replied. He turned to Fabricius. "And I thank you, good companion, for having repaired my ship so well."
Fabricius gave a slight bow. "May your journey be safe, Smuggler Knight." He gave a slight bow to Hanako too, and said, "Farewell, Lady Hanako. Your presence upon this ship was like the breath of Spring's air."
"Thank you," Hanako said.
"Every second that passes counts against you, smuggler," Rhea remarked. "You must leave now, buon amico44, for your own