Diomedes halts his attack and cringes back, his bloodlust temporarily blunted by the cyclone’s fury.
Then Ares is gone, QTing away with his bowels held in only by his own ichor-bloodied hands, and the battlefield remains almost as frozen as if the gods have stopped time again. But no—the birds still fly, dust still settles, the air still moves. This motionlessness now is awe; nothing more, nothing less.
“Have you ever seen anything like that, Hockenberry?” Nightenhelser’s voice startles me. I’d forgotten he was there.
“No,” I say. We stand in silence a moment until the mortal battle begins anew, until Athena’s cloaked form disappears from Diomedes’ charging chariot, and then I begin to walk away from the other scholic. “I’m going to morph and see how the royal family on the walls of Ilium is taking this,” I tell Nightenhelser before disappearing from his sight.
I morph all right, but it is only a ruse to cover my real disappearance. Hidden by dust and confusion in the Trojan ranks, I lift Death’s Helmet over my head and, activating the medallion, QT after the wounded Ares, following his quantum trail through twisted space to Olympos.
I emerge from quantum shift not on the grassy swards of Olympos nor in the Hall of the Gods, but in some vast space that looks more like the control room of a late Twentieth Century medical clinic than any structure or interior space I’ve seen on Olympos. There are clusters of gods and other creatures visible in the sterile-looking space, and for half a minute after phase-shifting I hold my breath—yet again—heart pounding as I wait to see if these gods and their minions are able to detect my presence.
Evidently not.
Ares is on some sort of medical examination table with three humanoid but not-quite-human entities or constructs hovering around him and offering care. The creatures may be robots—although sleeker and more organic-looking and alien in appearance than any robots dreamt of in my day—and I see that one has started an IV drip while another is passing a glowing ultraviolet ray over Ares’ torn belly.
The god of war is still holding his guts in with his bloodied hands. Ares looks pained and frightened and angry. He looks, in other words, human.
Along the long white wall, giant vats rise twenty feet or more and are filled with a bubbling violet fluid, various umbilicals and filaments, and . . . gods: tall, tanned, perfect human forms in various stages of what could be either reconstruction or decomposition. I see open organ cavities, white bone, striated red flesh, the sickening flash of bare skull. I don’t recognize the other god-forms, but in the next-to-closest tank floats Aphrodite, naked, eyes closed, hair floating, body perfect except for her perfect wrist and hand almost severed from her perfect arm. A roiling cluster of green worms is spiraling around the ligaments and tendons and bones there, either devouring or suturing or both. I look away.
Zeus enters the long room and sweeps across the space between medical monitors with no dials, past robots wrapped in what looks to be synthetic flesh, between gods who bow their heads and stand back to honor him. For an instant, the great god’s head swivels my way, the startling eyes under gray brows look directly into me, and I know I have been discovered.
I wait for the Zeus-boom and lightning blast. None comes. Zeus turns away—is he smiling?—and stops in front of Ares, who still sits hunched on the examination table between hovering machines and flesh-tending robotic things.
Zeus stands in front of the wounded god with his arms crossed, toga draped, head lowered, all trimmed gray beard and untrimmed gray brows, his bare chest radiating bronze light and strength, his expression fierce—more irritated school principal than concerned father, I would say.
Ares speaks first. “Father Zeus, doesn’t it infuriate you to see such human violence, such bloody work? We’re the everlasting, immortal gods, but god damn, we suffer injuries and insults—thanks to our own divine arguments and conflicting wills—every time we show these stinking mortals a bit of kindness. And it’s bad enough we have to fight these nano-crazed mortal sons of bitches, Lord Zeus, but we also have to fight you.”
Ares takes a breath, grimaces in pain, and waits. Zeus says nothing, but continues to glower as if pondering the war god’s words.
“And Athena,” gasps the injured god. “You’ve let that girl go too far, O Son of Kronos. Ever since you gave birth to her from your own head—that child of chaos and destruction—you’ve always let her have her way, never blocked her reckless will. And now she’s turned the mortal Diomedes into one of her weapons, spurred him on to ravage against us gods.”
Ares is excited and furious now. Spittle flies. I can still see the blue-gray coils of his intestines in what appears to be golden blood.
“First she incited that . . . that . . . mortal to lunge at Aphrodite, stabbing her wrist, spilling her divine blood. The Healer’s attendants tell me that she’ll be in the vat for a full day, recovering. Then Athena spurs on Diomedes to charge me—me, the god of war—and his nano-augmented body was fast enough that he would have had me in the vats myself for days or weeks, perhaps even to need resurrection, if I hadn’t been faster still. If he had taken my heart on his spear point, I’d still be writhing among the human corpses down there, feeling more pain than I do, trying to soldier on but being beaten down by mere mortal bronze, weak as some breathless ghost from our old Earth days and . . .”
“ENOUGH!!” bellows Zeus and not only stops Ares’ diatribe, but freezes every god and robot in the place. “I’ll hear no more whining prattle from you, Ares, you lying, two-faced, treacherous sparrowfart, you miserable excuse for a man, much less for a god.”
Ares blinks at this, opens his mouth, but—wisely, I think—does not choose to interrupt.
“Listen to you whining and wimpering here from your little cut,” sneers Zeus, unfolding his mighty arms and holding one giant hand out as if preparing to will the war god out of existence with a command. “You—I hate you most of all the maggots chosen to become gods when it came time for our Change, you miserable hypocrite. You coward-hearted lover of death and grim battles and the bloody grist-mill of war. You have your mother’s meanness, Ares, and her rage—I confess that I can barely keep Hera in her place, especially when she decides on some little pet project close to her heart, such as slaughtering the Achaeans to a man.”
Ares doubles over as if Zeus’s words are hurting him, but I suspect the cause of pain is really the hovering spherical robot-thing stitching the lining of his abdomen shut with what looks to be an industrial-strength portable sewing machine.
Zeus ignores the ministrations of the medics and paces back and forth, coming within two yards of me before turning and walking back to stand in front of the hunched and grimacing Ares.
“I hope it’s your mother’s promptings, Hera’s urgings, that have made you suffer like this, O God of War . . .” I can hear the godly sarcasm in Zeus’s voice. “I’d just as soon have you die . . .”
Ares looks up in real shock and terror now.
Zeus laughs at the war god’s expression. “You didn’t know that we can die? Die beyond vat reconstruction or recom resurrection? We can, my son, we can.”
Ares looks down in confusion. The machine is almost finished tucking the divine bowels back in and stitching up the last of the muscle and flesh.
“Healer!” booms Zeus and something tall and very not-human emerges from behind the bubbling vats. The thing is more centipede than machine, with multiple arms, each with multiple joints, and fly-like red eyes set fifteen feet high on its segmented body. Straps and devices and odd organic bits hang from harnesses strung around the Healer’s giant bug-body.
“You are still my son,” Zeus says to the grimacing war god. The Lord of Thunder’s voice is softer now. “You are my son as I am Kronos’s son. To me your mother bore you.”
Ares reaches up his bloodied hand as if to grasp Zeus’s forearm, but the older god ignores the gesture. “But trust me, Ares. If you had sprung from the seed of another god and still grown into such a shit-eating disappoi
ntment, believe me when I say that I’d long since have dropped you into that deep, dark pit below where the Titans writhe to this day.”
Zeus waves the Healer forward and then turns and strides out of the hall.
I step back—so do the other gods in attendance—as the giant Healer lifts Ares in five of its arms, carries him to the empty tank, attaches various fibers and tentacles and umbilicals, and drops him into the bubbling violet liquid. As soon as his face is under the surface, Ares closes his eyes and the green worms flock out of apertures in the glass and go to work on the war god’s ravaged gut.
I decide it’s time to leave.
I am learning the rhythm of quantum teleportation with this medallion device. Clearly picture the place you want to go, and the device QT’s you there. I clearly picture my college campus in Indiana in the last years of the Twentieth Century. The device does nothing. Sighing once, I picture the scholic dormitory at the base of Olympos.
The medallion phase-shifts me there at once. I blink into existence—although not visibility because of the Hades Helmet—just outside the red steps in front of the green doors of the red-stone barracks building.
It’s been a damned long day and all I want to do is find my bunk, get out of all this gear, and take a nap. Let Nightenhelser report to the Muse.
As if my thought had summoned her, I see the Muse flick into existence just two yards from me and swing aside the barracks’ doors. I’m amazed. The Muse has never come to the barracks before; we always ride the crystal elevator to her.
Secure in whatever Hades-technology conceals me, I follow her into the common room.
“Hockenberry!” she yells in her powerful goddess voice.
A younger scholic named Blix, some Homer scholar from the Twenty-second Century who has been assigned the night shift at Ilium, comes from his first-floor room, knuckling his eyes and looking stunned.
“Where is Hockenberry?” demands my Muse.
Blix shakes his head, his mouth sagging open. He sleeps in boxer shorts and a stained undershirt.
“Hockenberry!” demands the impatient Muse. “Nightenhelser says that he went to Ilium, but he’s not there. He hasn’t reported to me. Have you seen any of the day-shift scholics come through here?”
“No, Goddess,” says poor Blix, bowing his head in some sort of approximation of deference.
“Go back to bed,” the Muse says disgustedly. She strides outside, looks downhill toward the shore where the green men strain hauling their stone heads from the quarry, and then she QT’s away with a soft clap of inrushing air.
I could follow her trail through phase-shift space, but . . . why? She obviously wants the helmet and the medallion back. With Aphrodite in the vat, I’m a loose cannon to her—it is my bet that besides Aphrodite, only the Muse knows that I’ve been outfitted as a spy with these gadgets.
And perhaps even the Muse does not know how Aphrodite plans to use me—
To spy on Athena and then to kill her.
Why? Even if Zeus’s harsh words to his son, Ares, are true—that gods can die the True Death—is it possible for a mere mortal to do them in? Diomedes had done his best this day to kill two gods.
And did manage to put two of the gods out of action, floating in vats with green worms working on them.
I shake my head. Suddenly I’m very tired and very confused. My effort to defy the gods, only twenty-fours old now, has all but ended. Aphrodite will have me terminated by this time tomorrow.
Where to go?
I can’t hide from the gods for very long, and if it becomes obvious that I’m trying, Aphrodite will have my guts for garters that much sooner. As soon as the Goddess of Love is back in action tomorrow, she’ll see me—find me.
I can QT back to the battlefield below Ilium and allow myself to be found by the Muse. It may be my best chance. Even if she appropriates my gear, she will probably allow me to live until Aphrodite is devatted. What do I have to lose?
One day. Aphrodite will be in the vat for one day, and none of the other gods can see me or find me until she’s back. One day.
Effectively, I have one day left to live.
With that in mind, I finally decide where I am going.
16
South Polar Sea
The four travelers decided to eat after all.
Savi disappeared into one of her lighted tunnels for a few minutes and returned with warmer dishes—chicken, heated rice, curried peppers, and strips of grilled lamb. The four had munched on their food in Ulanbat hours earlier, but now they ate with enthusiasm.
“If you’re weary,” said Savi, “you can sleep here tonight before we head off. There are comfortable sleeping areas in some of the nearby rooms.”
Each said he or she was not that tired—it was only late afternoon Paris Crater time. Daeman looked around, swallowed some of the grilled lamb he was chewing, and said, “Why do you live in a . . .” He turned to Harman. “What did you call it?”
“An iceberg,” said Harman.
Daeman nodded and chewed and turned back to Savi. “Why do you live in an iceberg?”
The woman smiled. “This particular home of mine might be the result of . . . let’s say . . . an old woman’s nostalgia.” When she saw Harman looking at her intently, she added, “I was on a sort of sabbatical in a ‘berg much like this when the final fax went on without me fourteen of your allotted life spans ago.”
“I thought that everyone was stored during the final fax,” said Ada. She wiped her fingers on a beautiful tan linen napkin. “All the millions of old-style humans.”
Savi shook her head. “Not millions, my dear. There were just a few more than nine thousand of us when the posts carried out their final fax. As far as I can tell, none of those people—many of them my friends—were reconstituted after the Hiatus. All of us survivors of the pandemic were Jews, you know, because of our resistance to the rubicon virus.”
“What are Jews?” asked Hannah. “Or what were Jews?”
“Mostly a theoretical race construct,” said Savi. “A semidistinct genetic group brought about by cultural and religious isolation over several thousand years.” She paused and looked at her four guests. Only Harman’s expression suggested that he might have the slightest clue to what she was talking about.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Savi said softly. “But it’s why you heard of me referred to as ‘the Wandering Jew,’ Harman. I became a myth. A legend. The phrase ‘Wandering Jew’ survived after the meaning was lost.” She smiled again, but with no visible humor.
“How did you miss the final fax?” asked Harman. “Why did the post-humans leave you behind?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that question for centuries. Perhaps so that I could serve as . . . witness.”
“Witness?” said Ada. “To what?”
“There were many strange changes in heaven and Earth in the centuries before and after the final fax, my dear. Perhaps the posts felt that someone—even if just one old-style human being—should bear witness to all these changes.”
“Many changes?” said Hannah. “I don’t really understand.”
“No, my dear, you wouldn’t, would you? You and your parents and your parents’ parents’ parents have known a world that does not seem to change at all, except for some of the individuals—and there only at a steady pace of a century per person. No, the changes I’m talking about were not all visible, to be sure. But this is not the Earth that the original old-styles or the early posts once knew.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Daeman, his tone showing everyone how little the answer might interest him.
Savi trained her clear gray-blue eyes on him. “For one thing—a small thing to be sure, certainly small when compared to all the others, but important to me, nonetheless—there are no other Jews.”
She showed them the way to private toilet areas and suggested that they remove their thermskins for the voyage.
“Won’t we need them?” asked Daeman.
“It’ll be cold getting to the sonie,” said Savi. “But we’ll manage. And you won’t need them after that.”
Ada changed out of her thermskin and was back in the main room on the couch, looking at the ice walls and thinking about all this, when Savi came out of a different side chamber. The older woman was wearing thicker trousers than before, stronger and higher boots, a lined cape, and a cap pulled low, her hair pulled back in a gray ponytail. She was carrying a faded khaki backpack that looked heavy. Ada had never seen a woman dress quite like this and was fascinated by the old woman’s style. She realized that she was fascinated by Savi in general.
Harman was also fascinated, it seemed, but with the weapon still visible in Savi’s belt. “You’re still considering shooting one of us?” he asked.
“No,” said Savi. “At least not right now. But there are other things that may need shooting from time to time.”
The walk up and out of the interior and across the surface to the sonie was cold—the wind was still howling and the snow was still pelting—but the machine was warm under its bubble forcefield. Savi took the front spot that Harman had occupied during the flight out and Ada settled into her place on the right, noticing that when Savi passed her hand over the black cowl under the handgrip, a holographic control panel appeared.
“Where did that come from?” asked Harman from his spot to the left of the old woman. One occupant indentation was still empty between Daeman and Hannah.
“It wouldn’t have been a good idea for you to try to fly the sonie on your way here,” said Savi. She checked to make sure that everyone was settled in and secure in their prone positions; then she tweaked the handgrip, the machine hummed deeply, and they rose vertically seven or eight hundred feet above the ice, did a full inverted loop—the forcefield kept them pressed in their places but it felt as if there was nothing but air standing between them and a terrible death falling to the blue ice and black sea so far below—and then the machine righted itself, banked left, and climbed steeply toward the stars.