What we are about to do will certainly be construed as treason by someone, and there is a 67% probability that we will not succeed. Therefore, I am consigning these words to the public eye, because somebody must know.
There is a conspiracy by the Diadochoi to dethrone or kill the Megas Basileus.
As yet, we have no proof which are responsible and which are merely being opportunists. I and my cadre are attempting to find proof, and if possible, prevent this disaster from becoming a catastrophe. I will set down the facts as they are known at this time. Should we not succeed, another may be able to use these notes to continue our work. Bear with me: my thought processes require I be as detailed as possible when recalling this information.
We were all summoned before Lysimachos early in the afternoon, four days ago. He looked even more solemn than usual.
"I am afraid to say that you were right, Biblia," he began. "And I am even more afraid to say that you were also wrong."
"A conundrum," I replied in my usually flippant way, though I was aware it would not be received well. "Please elaborate."
To my amazement, he made no comment. "I will," was all he said. He waited until myself, Aeolus and Hermetios had been seated and then rose, walking around his desk and then leaning on it with his hands clasped pensively in front of his nose. I noticed a splotch of red at the corner of his eye - a symptom he suffers when receiving telepathic messages across astral distances.
"There have been further developments since I called you," he said. "As I told Hermetios, Biblia's surmise that the first step would be to seize Babylon was correct. What we all missed was who would do the seizing." He turned to me and shook his head apologetically. "No blame attaches to you. I failed to give you the parameters necessary to correctly divine the situation, since at the time I could not even begin to surmise how big this thing would be."
He turned back to the desk and turned on the holoprojector. "As near as I can tell, this represents the movements of ships into and out of the satrapy of Babylon in the past week. As you can see, the buildup of currents of sufficient size to indicate an invasion fleet is not coming through the Helios Gate, as we predicted, but through the Bucephalus Gate. That suggests that it is not Ptolemaios attempting to seize the crossroads and Alexandros' heir."
I peered at the holograph. "With this concentration, that can only mean that..."
"Yes," he said. "The Philos, Perdiccas, is our traitor."
He waited a few moments for the realization to sink in, and then continued. "The gates have now gone dark. Before that, there were reports that the Philos was moving his forces in to 'protect' Alexandros IV - and we all know what that means. Whether Ptolemaios is in league with him, we won't know until his lordship of Memphis makes his move. This is not the only setback, however. I just received a communication from Solon, on Athens." (Solon is our cadre's telepath). "There has been a revolt, which has forced the diadoche of Arcadia to leave his throneworld and retreat to Lamia. The revolt coincided precisely with the time that the gates of Babylon were shut."
"The chances against that being a coincidence are astronomical," muttered Hermetios.
"Hardly," I said automatically. "Merely 1,287,954 to one."
"Merely over a million to one," scoffed Aeolus. "Why, that's practically a certainty."
"Considering the size of the known cosmos, it is well below the odds for the scientific threshold of a miracle," I countered. "It is, however, sufficiently unlikely to suggest a 96.4% chance of collusion."
"But collusion with whom?" asked Hermetios. "Obviously it is not Antipater, if it was he who was unseated." He suddenly gasped and clutched at his head. "We... have more trouble coming," he said through gritted teeth. "I can feel the current buildup, even from here."
"Herm? What's going on?" asked Aeolus, as ever being the last to cotton on to any new development.
Lysimachos leapt forward and grasped Hermetios' shoulders as the scholar fell to his knees. "How big? How many?" he demanded.
"At least... fifteen ships," Hermetios said slowly. "Maybe twenty. At least four tetremes."
"We're being invaded?" said Aeolus. "What? Why? Who?"
"Biblia?" Lysimachos asked me, not looking up from Hermetios. I quickly ran through the known naval rosters of the Diadochoi and compared it to the known movements from the holograph.
"Antigonus," I concluded. "Anyone else would have to pass through Babylon to reach us."
"Then we haven't a moment to lose," Lysimachos said. He strode back to his desk and started going hurriedly through the drawers. "Get yourselves packed as quickly as possible. We have to get out of this system before they can shut down the gate. Hermetios, will you be all right?"
"The pain will pass," the teleporter said. "I may not be able to use my talent for a few hours, however, so traveling directly to the ship will not be possible."
"Damnation. All right," said Lysimachos. "Aeolus, give Biblia your room key and go steal us a shuttle, the fastest one you can find. Bring it to the roof in thirty minutes."
"But what--" Aeolus began.
"Go!" Lysimachos shouted, and Aeolus left hurriedly, tossing me his keycard. "Make sure to grab my gym bag!" he yelled over his shoulder.
The next few minutes were filled with frantic preparations. Fortunately, we are all prepared for travel at a moment's notice, and so the greatest difficulty was finding sufficient room for all my tablets. Forty minutes later, we met Aeolus at the roof. He had managed to obtain a flashy sport shuttle, a hornet-colored Hydra skimmer, probably appropriated from one of the few aristoi students who had not yet left the planet.
"You didn't forget, right?" he demanded as we approached. I tossed his overloaded and unpleasantly fragrant bag at his head and pushed my way into the shuttle. Lysimachos was already strapping himself into the copilot's seat.
"Biblia, calculate our approach vector to my ship," he ordered, passing me back his personal tablet. "And then clean out my account and transfer the funds through enough dummies to hide our trail. We may need to bribe our way out. And forge us some exit authorizations. There've been enough students leaving the satrapy in the past few days that nobody should notice a few more."
It took three days to complete the authorizations on Lysimachos' yacht. We are now ready to try our fortune getting past Antigonus' blockade. If we succeed, we will make our way to Thrace, where we pray that Lysimachos' brother, the diadoch Lysimachos who was once the bodyguard of Alexandros, will have remained loyal. From there, we must find some way of reaching Babylon before a calamity can befall the younger Alexandros.
In the event that we do not succeed, I have posted a complete log of all information we currently possess, along with my analysis, within a hidden folder in the Lyceum news registry, which will automatically unhide on the final day of the month: access 'biblia,' password 'aikaterine.' Someone must carry on our work and unmask the traitors, or else there will be a war unlike any the cosmos has ever seen.
May the gods, if they exist, look upon us with favor.
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