Simeon the Red

Simeon's tomb is near Athten Var on Judecca.

Empire of Silence
Chapter 29: Less Wings to Fly
“Have you ever heard of Simeon the Red?” She shook her head. I forced myself not to blurt a panicked “What!” at her and said instead, “He was my greatest hero. Simeon was a scholiast. No court vizier, but a ship’s science officer and part of the Expeditionary Corps. This was . . . oh, thousands of years ago, back when the Empire was young. His was one of the first ships into Centaurus, surveying worlds for future colonies. Mostly they found freeholders, barbarian men who preferred the frontier to civilization, like the Normans today. These they let be or traded with or conquered in the name of the Emperor, striking ever outward into the Dark. There they found a strange new world, a freezing, craggy place ruled by giant birds and by a race of flying xenobites.”

“What were they like?” Cat asked. “The xenos?”

“Like birds themselves. A little smaller than us but with great wings for arms and short beaks.”

“And talons?” She leaned her weight against me.

“Oh yes,” I said, gesturing. “And claws at the end of their wings that they used to wield cutlasses tall as I am!” I raised a hand to indicate how tall those weapons were. “So Tor Simeon led missions to the surface, trading with the natives. The Irchtani, they called themselves. He learned to speak with them and to understand the sign language they used, and all was well between our people and theirs.

“But they had sailed too far for the crew. The men were sick at their guns and for want of home and human women. And while Simeon was on the ground with his guard and his science team, the crew mutinied, killed Simeon’s captain and the other officers, and were going to take their ship out to the freeholds and live like pirates. But they made a mistake.”

“They forgot Simeon?”

“Oh no, they didn’t forget him. They wanted him. Simeon could speak to the Irchtani, see? He could persuade their chieftains to sell their enemies to the mutineers as slaves. No one in the galaxy but them had seen an Irchtani before. Imagine the price one of them would fetch! For research at an athenaeum, or in Colosso, or sold to some old-blooded lord. They meant to be rich, you see, and they thought Simeon would help them. No, the mistake they made was thinking Simeon could be bought. He couldn’t. Simeon was a scholiast and renounced wealth when he donned the green robes of his order. Worse, Simeon had befriended the Irchtani princes and banded with them to fight the mutineers when they came in their shuttles to find him. Simeon had never been a soldier, but he led the xenobites against the human traitors all the same and helped organize their retreat to the temple at Athten Var, the holiest of holies to the Irchtani people.”

“What was it like?”

I waved a hand. “They said their gods built it all of black stone on the highest mountain on the world and that it could be defended. That was where they made their stand. Simeon and the Irchtani were victorious, the mutineers were thrown off the mountaintop, and Simeon retook his ship. And as a gift the Irchtani gave to Simeon a great cloak such as their princes wore. ‘It is like your robe!’ the Prince of the Birds said, but it wasn’t. The Irchtani do not see color like men do, and the cloak they had made was red, not green. And thereafter Simeon was called ‘The Red’ for the cloak of the Irchtani, and he called the planet Judecca for the treason that was suffered there. The Empire named him captain and furnished him with a new crew, and they traveled farther into the Arm of Centaurus and brought to many other worlds the light of the Imperial Sun.”

“And what happened to the xenos?” Cat asked. “When the Empire arrived? Are they gone now?”

“They’re still there,” I said. “I forget which house rules Judecca now. Calbren, maybe? Or Brannigan? There are actually Irchtani auxilia in the Imperial Legions, fighting the Cielcin. I once heard talk that the Emperor was considering citizenship for those who served the standard twenty-year period.”

“Really?”

“Really!” I said, squeezing her with one arm.