Over the next several weeks, the objects had converged on Vo. One after another, they had streaked across the banded face of the great sphere before settling into wildly eccentric orbits. Events in the city seemed to mirror the sky in miniature, as scholars from every part of the Teal converged on Ange and fell into their own eccentric orbits of study and debate.
The silhouettes of the objects as they passed before the face of Vo had silenced the proponents of natural explanations. There were sixteen ships with four different shapes. One shape was a long cylinder encircled by sixteen rings which could be seen to be rotating in alternating directions. One shape was a short cylinder connected to a massive hexagonal prism by a long, hollow truss. The third shape was another short cylinder and truss trailing behind a sprawling, chaotic tangle of cylinders, spheres and other shapes. The last shape was the largest by far, but also the simplest -- a short cylinder and truss trailing behind a thin, flat disk of truly shocking dimensions. Each ship was roughly the size and bulk of the island of Ange, but the disks would nearly cover the sea between Ange and Taleb. Marikesh and the other scholars had pieced together observations from all over Teal and followed the trajectories of the ships backwards, finding that the three smaller ship types had sheltered in the wake of each of the great disks as they approached the sun.
Except for the great dark disks, the ships were mostly white. In the larger telescopes, it was possible to catch glimpses of other colors. Some scholars had begun to think of some of the colored shapes as writing, and the purpose of letters the width of cities was enthusiastically debated.
Marikesh let out a sigh of exhausted relief and flopped back in her chair at the little carrel in the Ange Imperial Library she'd been given to use as an office. She had just finished decoding a message from Taleb's Council of War. At last, the interdict on her research had been lifted. She had hated the twelve years she had worked in secrecy, but the freedom to talk about her discoveries filled her with a new kind of unease.
An hour later, she was huddled in a basket suspended above a valley carpeted with orchards. The ropeway was terrifying, but it was the fastest way to the observatory. Peering through the gaps in the basket, the seat of Imperial Ange was spread out before her.
Like all cities of the Teal, Ange was built to be evacuated in two directions -- uphill to escape the sea, downhill to escape the volcano. But Ange was very different from her home. Taleb was built well above the tsunami line, with its buildings arranged on ramps cut into the stone that ran into the harbor. Every building in Taleb was constructed on a massive foundation of pumice. In the event of a major eruption, the supports could be knocked away, and all the buildings of the city would slide into the sea, where they would float. Then, the entire city would be towed and anchored in deep water where a tsunami could pass safely. This had been done twice since Marikesh was born. The first time had been during the eruption that formed the secondary crater of Taleb-kral, when the city had spent nearly three years anchored on the ocean and ridden out eleven tsunamis. Marikesh had been a young child then, and she had fond memories of the experience. The second time had been for the decadal drill, which the Republic required to insure that every new generation would understand the systems and keep them in repair.
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Ange had struck a different bargain with the forces of nature, building itself right at the edge of, and sometimes into its harbor. The harbor was encrusted with boats, as every family was required to maintain and provision a vessel or to rent space on one. The vast city loomed over the harbor, its timber-framed towers built on a cluster of massive hexagonal basalt columnar megaliths, communicating to the harbor and to the upper fortress by ropeways. The towers swayed gracefully in the frequent earthquakes that rumbled beneath the city, disbursing the violence of the earth into the air with enormous booming sails and streaming pendants. Tsunamis simply crashed into Ange at its ankles, and the boats would be snatched up to safety on counterweighted windlasses.
Ange barely seemed to touch the land at all, crouched like a bird at the moment of taking flight. As much as she loved the home and heart of her nation, Marikesh was glad the scholars of the Teal had chosen to gather here, rather than in Taleb with its blocky buildings and sturdy connection to bedrock.
The basket was finally grasped by practiced paws and talons. It scraped gently onto the upper deck of the ropeway tower, and Marikesh scrambled out. Her assistants, or, rather, Captain Ieasu's lieutenants, were waiting with the crates she had sent up earlier. The captain herself was absent today. Marikesh wasn't sure what to do with the complicated feelings she was having about that. Those feelings were evidently written plainly on her face, and the lieutenants, two Vaalat just out of boyhood, elbowed each other and exchanged knowing grins.
"Don't worry, Scholar,'' one of them said. "The captain is proctoring examinations. She asked me to convey to you her invitation to dine at the Naval Academy this evening.''
The other piped up excitedly, "Lieutenant Ji-Suul is standing for her commander's epaulet today,'' explaining the other absence.
"That sounds important,'' Marikesh said, and the lieutenants nodded gravely.
"Scholar, the captain asks if you would wear this if you plan to accept her invitation to the Academy,'' the first lieutenant said, handing her a heavy parcel wrapped in wax paper. Marikesh accepted it warily, and found it to contain a formal scholar's robe and hood in the style of Taleb. The fabric was heavy silk, more suitable for the cooler climate of Ange. The hood was even hemmed in blue and gray, indicating her republic's recognition of her achievements in engineering and natural philosophy. Except, now that her research was no longer a state secret, her military rank was aslo no longer a state secret. She rummaged in her satchel and produced the decoded message from Taleb. The lieutenants read it with puzzled expressions, and then alarm.
"Scholar... Admiral?'' one of them said, uncertainly.
"That would be my rank if I were Angesetti. You can call me Ranger Marikesh,'' she said. "If this is the sort of occasion where formalities of rank must be observed, I'll need to find a naval order rekuu sash. That's our version of epaulets, I suppose. And," she sighed with irritation. "And, a stupid sword.''
"I will see to it once!'' they said in unison, and then blinked at each other.
"Rekku sashes are all the same," she said. "Different ranks just wear them differently. Ask any Taleb officer you can find for their spare. Anyway, I'll need at least one of you to help with this,'' she said, gesturing at the crates. After a rapid conversation, one of the young men took charge of the crates, and the other took charge of the parcel and returned to the city by the ropeway.