Orion

INTERLUDE

The gray-eyed goddess who called herself Anya took on her human form and stood at the crest of an ice cliff, her body encapsulated in an invisible bubble of energy that protected it from the frigid cold of this frozen world.

Far below her she could see an army of humans and their robots working furiously, scurrying like ants across the iron-hard plain, as they built the fragile towers that soared high into the inky sky.

Turning, she saw the mammoth bulk of Saturn hanging overhead, resplendent in its gaudy colors and impossibly beautiful rings. The sky was as clear as the pristine vacuum of space itself, and she could see three of Saturn’s smaller moons etched boldly against the star-strewn blackness of the heavens.

She felt the Golden One’s presence before his human form materialized beside her. She held her seething anger in check until he completed the transformation and stood on the ice cliff’s edge in solid flesh, clad in a radiant golden robe decorated with starbursts that shimmered with all the colors of the spectrum when the robe moved.

“You kept me separated from him,” Anya said, unable to hold back her temper any longer.

The Golden One did not look at her. Instead, he watched the work of the builders far below them.

“My creatures have learned how to build creatures of their own,” he murmured, almost as if talking to himself. “But how limited their robots are. How clumsy.”

Anya knew that she could not touch him, but she stepped in front of the Golden One, confronting him. “You forced me to stay apart from him. I lived a whole lifespan with those savages…”

“Did you enjoy it?”

She spat an exasperated sigh into the frigid night.

The Golden One smiled. “You said you loved those creatures. You were willing to live hundreds of lifespans among them.”

“With him! With Orion.”

“No,” said the Golden One. “You were becoming too attached to him. And he to you. I told you that you were weakening him. I cannot allow that.”

“It was cruel of you,” she said, her voice sinking lower. “To be so close to him and yet unable to truly love him. It was very cruel to treat him that way.”

“He has a mission to accomplish. I created Orion for that goal. I can’t have him sidetracked by the hormones that pump through the body I gave him.”

Anya began to reply, but hesitated and then fell silent. The Golden One turned back to watch the work proceeding on the plain below them.

“They call this world Titan. They think of it as a frigid wasteland, dark and dangerous. If they didn’t wear those ludicrous suits and helmets, they would die instantly.”

“But you are the one who forced them to come here, to build those towers.”

“Yes, and when they’re finished with that, I’ll get them to alter the atmosphere enough to make it opaque to their space probe instruments. They must not discover these towers too soon.”

Anya stared at him, puzzled.

“The creatures down there are from a period much closer to The End,” the Golden One explained. “They are the distant ancestors of the humans who will discover these towers and puzzle over their meaning.”

“What are the towers for? Why are they being built?”

“Why, to please me, of course.”

She gave him an angry glare. “Your ego grows larger and larger. You really think you are a god, don’t you, O mighty Ormazd?”

His smile faded only slightly. “The machinery in those towers will make subtle alterations in the climate of Earth. The planet will experience what my creatures will call an Ice Age. It’s all part of my plan. The Dark One can manipulate rivers and volcanoes? I will manipulate the output of the Sun and the climate of Earth for hundreds of thousands of years!”

“And you will keep that knowledge from your own creatures?” she asked.

“Yes. They are not prepared to understand.”

“You have not prepared them.”

“Look,” he said, pointing. “The tide is beginning to come in.”

Anya knew he was deliberately changing the subject, cutting short any chance of argument. But, despite herself, she stared out, fascinated, as the ammonia sea rose like a living beast and hurled itself up along the broad frozen plain. Driven by the immense gravitational pull of Saturn, the ammonia sea slithered halfway around Titan with each spin of the satellite around the ringed planet. Now it was sliding up, frothing, rushing toward the site where the humans and their robots worked frantically to build the towers.

The Golden One watched, fascinated, with Anya at his side as the ammonia sea hurled itself across the sloping plain and then stopped, as if exhausted, just short of the ringwall that protected the building site. The sea seemed to shudder within itself as its farthest tendrils lapped against the foot of the curving stone ringwall. Behind it, the humans and their robots worked ceaselessly.

“I’m going to him,” Anya said at last, breaking their silence. “You can’t keep me from him.”

“I cannot allow you to weaken him,” said the Golden One. “His mission is to kill Ahriman.”

“I will help him,” she promised.

“How? By luring him to some half-baked paradise where the two of you can frolic like primitives while the Dark One destroys us all?”

She stood up straighter in front of the Golden One, her fists clenched, her eyes blazing. “I will help him to find the Dark One and kill him. You have not made him strong enough to do that by himself. But the two of us together can achieve what you want.”

The Golden One gazed at her for long moments, pondering.

“I will go to him whether you wish me to or not,” Anya threatened.

“Even if you do, I can see to it that you remain apart.”

She weakened. “Let me help him. Let me be with him.”

“I don’t like the attachment for him that you’ve allowed yourself.”

“I’ll come back to you,” she said softly. “After we’ve killed the Dark One. I will return to you, if that’s what you want.”

“That is what I demand.”

“Then that is what I will have to do, isn’t it? I don’t really have a choice.”

“No, you don’t.”

Her voice so low that he heard it only as a whisper in his mind, Anya pleaded, “Let me be with him one more time. One more lifespan.”

“I will allow you to go only because you can help him to conquer the Dark One.”

“Yes. We will. Together.”

“And then you will return to me.”

She nodded.

The Golden One folded his arms across his chest. His robe swirled and the starbursts on it flared and glittered against the darkness. The two of them winked out of sight, like fireflies on a summer night. Down below, on the plain, the space-suited humans and their robots worked as blindly as ever, driven by needs they could not begin to understand.