Ilium (54 page)

“Yes,” said Savi. “I still think the answer to freeing my friends from the neutrino beam lies up there.” She flicked her head toward the e- and p-rings bright in the twilight sky above.

“But you didn’t succeed before,” said Harman. “Why?”

Savi swiveled in her chair and looked at him. “I’ll tell you why and how I failed, if you’ll tell me why you really want to go up there. Why you’ve spent years trying to find a way up to the rings.”

Harman returned her gaze for a minute and then looked away. “I’m curious,” he said.

“No,” said Savi. She waited.

He looked back at her and Daeman realized that the older man’s face showed the most emotion Daeman had seen from him. “You’re right,” snapped Harman. “It’s not some sort of idle curiosity. I want to find the firmary.”

“So you can live longer,” Savi said softly.

Harman balled his fists. “
Yes
. So I can live longer. So I can continue to exist beyond this fucking Final Twenty. Because I’m greedy for life. Because I want Ada to have my child and I want to be around to see it grow up, even though fathers don’t do things like that. Because I’m a greedy bastard—greedy for life. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes,” said Savi. She looked at Daeman. “And what are your reasons for coming on this trip, Daeman
Uhr
?”

Daeman shrugged. “I’d jump home in a second if there was a fax portal nearby.”

“There isn’t,” said Savi. “Sorry.”

He ignored the sarcasm and said, “Why did you bring us, old woman? You know the way here. You know how to find the crawler. Why bring us?”

“Fair question,” she said. “The last time I came to Atlantis, I came on foot. From the north. It was a century and a half ago, and I brought two
eloi
with me—I’m sorry, that’s an insulting term—I brought two young women with me. They
were
curious.”

“What happened?” said Harman.

“They died.”

“How?” asked Daeman. “The
calibani
?”

“No. The
calibani
killed and ate the man and woman who came with me the time before that, almost three centuries ago. I didn’t know how to contact the Ariel biosphere then, nor about the DNA.”

“Why do you always come in threes?” asked Harman. Daeman thought it an odd question. He was ready to ask for more details about all these dead traveling companions. Did she mean
permanently
dead? Or just firmary-repair dead?

Savi laughed. “You ask good questions, Harman
Uhr.
You’ll see soon. You’ll see why I’ve come with two others after that first solo visit of mine to Atlantis more than a millennium ago. And not just to Atlantis—but to some of their other stations. In the Himalayas. Easter Island. One actually at the south pole.
Those
were fun trips, since a sonie can’t get within three hundred miles of any of them.”

She’d lost Daeman. He wanted to hear more about the killing and eating.

“But you’ve never found a spaceship, a shuttle, to get you up there?” said Harman. “After all these tries?”

“There
are
no spaceships,” said Savi. She activated the virtual controls, slammed the crawler in gear, and guided them north by northwest as the sunset spilled red across the entire western sky.

The city of the post-humans spread for miles across the dry seabed, with glowing energy towers rising and falling a thousand feet high. The crawler trundled between energy obelisks, floating spheres, red energy stairways going nowhere, blue ramps that appeared and disappeared, blue pyramids folding into themselves, a giant green torus that moved back and forth along pulsing yellow rods, and countless colored cubes and cones.

When Savi stopped and slid the door slice open, even Harman seemed hesitant to get out. Savi had made sure they were wearing their thermskins and now she pulled three osmosis masks from the crawler’s tool locker.

It was almost dark now, the stars joining the rotating rings in the purple-black sky above them. The glow from the energy city illuminated seabed and farm fields for five miles in each direction. Savi led them to a red stairway and then up—the macromolecular steps holding their weight, although Daeman thought it felt like walking on giant sponges.

A hundred feet above the seabed floor, the staircase ended at a black platform made out of a dull, dark metal that reflected no light. In the center of the square platform were three ancient-looking wooden chairs with high backs and red seat cushions. The chairs were equidistantly spaced around a black hole in the black platform, about ten feet apart, facing outward.

“Sit,” said Savi.

“Is this a joke?” said Daeman.

Savi shook her head and sat in the chair facing west. Harman took his seat. Daeman walked around the black platform again, returned to the single empty chair. “What happens next?” he asked. “We have to wait here for something?” He looked at the tall yellow tower thrusting up hundreds of feet nearby, the energy-material rearranging itself like a rectangular yellow cloud.

“Sit and you’ll find out,” said Savi.

Daeman took his seat gingerly. The back of the chair and the thick arms were elaborately carved. There was a white circle on the left arm of the chair and a red circle on the right arm. He touched neither.

“When I count to three,” said Savi, “depress the white button. That’s the one on your left if you’re colorblind, Daeman.”

“I’m
not
colorblind, goddammit.”

“All right,” said the old woman. “One, two . . .”

“Wait, wait!” said Daeman. “What’s going to happen to me if I press the white circle?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Savi. “But we have to press it at the same time. I learned this when I came here alone. Ready? One, two, three.”

They all pressed their white circles.

Daeman leaped out of his chair and ran to the edge of the black platform and then the red platform thirty paces beyond that before turning to look back. The blast of energy behind his chair had been deafening.

“Holy crap,” he shouted, but the two still in their chairs could not hear him.

It was like lightning, he thought. A searing blast of jagged energy, just a yard or so across, emanating from the black hole in the middle of the chair-triangle and rising up into the dark sky. Rising higher, higher . . . then curving to the west like some impossible, white-hot thread, arching west until the end of it disappeared from sight above, but the thread visible and also moving, as if the lightning were connected to . . .

It
was
connected, Daeman realized with a flood of fear that almost made him void his bowels. Connected to the moving e-ring thousands of miles above. Connected to one of the stars, one of the moving lights, now crossing from west to east in that ring.

“Come back!” Savi was shouting above the crackle and roar of the lightning thread.

It took Daeman several minutes to come back—to walk to that empty wooden chair, shielding his eyes, his shadow and the chair’s shadow thrown out fifty feet across the black and red rooftop by the blinding, crackling light. He could never explain later, even to himself, how or why he returned to that chair, or why he did what he did next.

“On the count of three, depress the red circle,” shouted Savi. The old woman’s gray hair was standing on end, whipping around her head like short snakes. She had to scream above the energy roar to be heard. “One, two . . .”

I absolutely can’t do this
was Daeman’s litany to himself.
I absolutely won’t do this.

“Three!” shouted Savi. She pressed her red circle. Harman pressed his red circle.

No!
thought Daeman. But pressed down hard on his red circle.

The three wooden chairs shot skyward, rotating around the crackling, shifting, chord of lighting, shooting upward so quickly that a sonic boom echoed across the seabed floor, shaking the crawler on its springs. A second later, less than a second later, the three chairs were out of sight overhead as the thread of pure white energy twisted and writhed and arched to follow the hurtling points of light on the equatorial orbital ring.

39

The little robot fascinates me and I’m tempted to stay in the Great Hall of the Gods and find out what’s going on, but I’m leery of getting closer because the gods might hear me in this vast, hushed space. The dialogue between the gods and the robot has shifted to ancient Greek now—at least the gods, including Zeus, are speaking in the common language I’ve grown used to here—but I’m far enough way that I can catch only fragments of it.

“. . . little automatons . . . toys . . . from the Great Inland Sea . . . should be destroyed . . .”

Rather than try to creep closer, I remember why I’m here—Aphrodite’s comb—and the importance of my getting back to the Trojan women. The fate of hundreds of thousands of people below may depend on what I do next, so I tiptoe backward, away from the gods and the odd machines, and find my way down the long side corridor to the little suite of rooms where I first met the Goddess of Love just a few days ago. Can it just be a few days ago? Much has happened since then, to say the least.

There are voices—gods’ voices—echoing from elsewhere in the Great Hall, and I slip into Aphrodite’s pied-à-terre with my pulse pounding in my throat. The place is as I remember it from a few days ago—windowless, lighted by only a few tripod braziers, with only the couch and a few other pieces of furniture, including a softly glowing blue screen on the marble desk. I’d thought at the time that the screen was like a computer screen, and I cross to it now to look. It’s true—the glowing blue rectangle is separate from the desktop, hovering an inch or two above the marble surface, and while there’s no Microsoft Windows menu on it, a single white circle floats there as if inviting me to touch it and activate the screen.

I leave it alone.

Near the couch is where I remember some of Aphrodite’s personal items on a small round table, although I’m only hoping that there’s a comb among them. There’s not. I see a silver brooch and some silver cylinders—divine lipsticks?—and an elaborately carved silver mirror lying facedown, but no comb.

Damn it.
I have no idea where Aphrodite’s home is among the estates scattered around on the broad green summit of Olympos, and I certainly can’t ask one of the gods for directions. I’d gambled and lost on Helen’s challenge to bring back the comb. But the important thing was to show them that I have the ability to travel to Olympos and back, and speed is of the essence. I have no idea how long the Trojan women will wait.

I grab the mirror without looking at it carefully, envision the basement room in Ilium’s Temple of Athena, and twist the QT medallion.

There are seven women there when I flick into existence, not the five women I’d left in the basement room a few minutes before. All of the women take a step back when I arrive, but one of them shrieks wildly and throws her hands over her face. I still have time to see that face and I recognize it—this is Cassandra, King Priam’s loveliest daughter.

“Did you bring us the comb, Hock-en-bear-eeee, as proof of your ability to travel to and from Olympos as do the gods?” asks Hecuba.

“I didn’t have time to search for it,” I say. “I brought this instead.” I hand the mirror to the nearest woman, Laodice, Hecuba’s daughter.

Helen says, “The carving on the silver handle and the back of the mirror is similar to what I remember of the goddess’s comb, but . . .”

She stops speaking as Laodice gasps and almost drops the mirror. The mirror is picked up by the priestess, Theano, who looks into it, goes white, and hands it to Andromache. Hector’s wife looks into and blushes. Cassandra grabs it from Andromache, lifts it, stares into it, and screams again.

Hecuba grabs the mirror away and frowns at Cassandra. I can tell immediately that there is no love lost between these two women, and I remember why—Cassandra, given the power of prophecy by Apollo, had urged King Priam to have Hecuba’s baby, Paris, killed upon birth. From her childhood onward, Cassandra has foreseen the disaster resulting from Helen’s capture and the ensuing war. But, according to tradition, Apollo’s gift of prophecy to the girl was accompanied by the curse that no one would ever believe her.

Now Hecuba is staring into the mirror, mouth slack.

“What is it?” I ask. There must be something wrong with the mirror.

Helen takes the mirror from Hector’s mother and hands it to me. “Do you see, Hock-en-bear-eeee?”

I look into the glass. My reflection is . . . odd. I’m me there, but also not me. My chin is stronger, my nose smaller, my eyes bolder, my cheekbones higher, my teeth whiter . . .

“Is this what you’ve all seen?” I ask. “This idealized reflection of yourself?”

“Yes,” says Helen. “Aphrodite’s looking glass shows only beauty. We have looked upon ourselves as goddesses.”

I can’t imagine that Helen could be any more beautiful than she already is, but I nod and touch the surface of the mirror. It’s not glass. It feels soft, resilient, rather like an LCD screen on a laptop computer. Perhaps that’s what it is and inside the carved backing might be powerful microchips and video morphing programs running algorithms of symmetry, idealized proportions, and other elements of perceived human beauty.

“Hock-en-bear-eeee,” says Helen, “let me introduce two others we’ve brought here this morning to judge whether you speak the truth. This younger woman is Cassandra, daughter of Priam. This older woman is Herophile, ‘beloved of Hera,’ the oldest of the Sibyls and priestess of Apollo Smithneus. It was Herophile who interpreted Hecuba’s dream lo those many years ago.”

“What dream is that?” I ask.

Hecuba, who, it appears, will not look at Herophile or Cassandra, says, “When I was pregnant with my second child, Paris, I dreamed that I gave birth to a burning brand that spread its fire to all of Ilium, burning it to the ground. And that child became a rampaging Erinyes—a child of Kronos, some say, the daughter of Phorkys say others, the offspring of Hades and Persephone say still others—but, all acknowledge, most likely the daughter of deadly Night. This Erinyes of flame had no wings, but it resembled the Harpies. The smell of its breath was sulfurous. A poisonous slaver poured from its eyes. Its voice was like the lowing of terrified cattle. It bore in its belt a whip of brass-studded thongs. It carried a torch in one hand and a serpent in the other, and its home was in the Underworld, and it was born to avenge all and any slights against mothers. Its approach was heralded by all the dogs of Ilium barking as if in pain.”

“Wow,” I say. “That’s quite a dream.”

“I perceived the Erinyes to be the child later named Paris,” says the old hag named Herophile. “Cassandra also saw this, and recommended that the baby boy be killed the moment he emerged from the womb.” The old priestess gave Hecuba a scalding look. “Our advice was ignored.”

Helen literally steps between the women. “Everyone here, Hock-en-bear-eeee, has had visions of Troy being put to the torch. But we do not know which of our visions arise merely from anxiety for ourselves, our children, and our husbands, and which visions are gifts of true sight from the gods. So must we judge yours. Cassandra has questions for you.”

I turn to look at the younger woman. She is blonde and anorectic, but somehow still stunningly beautiful. Cassandra’s fingernails are bitten short and bloody, and her fingers are always twitching and intertwining. She can’t stand still. Her eyes are as red-rimmed as her nails. Looking at her reminds me of photos I’ve seen of gorgeous movie starlets in rehab for coke addiction.

“I have not dreamt of you, weak-looking man,” she says.

I ignore the insult and say nothing.

“But I ask you this,” she continues. “I once dreamt of King Agamemnon and his queen Clytaemnestra as a great royal bull and cow. What does this dream say to you, O Prophet?”

“I’m no prophet,” I say. “Your future is merely my past. But you see Agamemnon as a bull because he will be slaughtered like an ox upon his arrival home to Sparta.”

“In his own palace?”

“No,” I say. I feel like I’m in the crucible of oral exams at Hamilton College, my undergraduate alma mater. “Agamemnon will be killed in the house of Aigisthos.”

“By whose hand? At whose will?” presses Cassandra.

“Clytaemnestra’s.”

“For what reason, O Non-prophet?”

“Her anger at Agamemnon’s sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigeneia.”

Cassandra continues to stare at me, but she nods slightly to the other women. “And what do you dream of me and my future, O Seer?” she asks sarcastically.

“You will be savagely raped in this very temple,” I say.

None of the women appears to be breathing. I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Well, this witch wants the truth, I’ll
give
her the truth.”

Cassandra seems unfazed, even pleased. I realize that the young prophetess has been seeing this rape for most of her life. No one has listened to her warnings. It must be refreshing for her to hear someone else confirm her vision.

But her voice sounds anything but pleased when she speaks again. “
Who
will rape me in this temple?”

“Ajax.”

“Little Ajax or Big Ajax?” asks the woman. Cassandra looks neurotic and anxious, but also very lovely in a vulnerable way.

“Little Ajax,” I say. “Ajax of Locris.”

“And what will I be doing upstairs in this temple, Little Man, when Big Ajax of Locris ravages me?”

“Trying to save or hide the Palladion,” I answer. I nod toward the small statue just ten feet from me.

“And does Little Ajax go unpunished, O Man?”

“He’ll drown on his way home,” I say. “When his ship is wrecked on the Gyraean Rocks. Most scholars think this is a sign of Athena’s wrath.”

“Will she bring doom to Ajax of Locris out of anger at my rape or to avenge the desecration of her temple?” demands Cassandra.

“I don’t know. Probably the latter.”

“Who else will be in the temple upstairs when I am raped, O Man?”

I have to think a second here. “Odysseus,” I say at last, my voice rising at the end like a student’s hoping his answer is correct.

“Who else besides Odysseus, the son of Laertes, will be witness to my defilement that night?”

“Neoptolemus,” I say at last.

“Achilles’ son?” interrupts Theano with a sneer. “He’s nine years old back in Argos.”

“No,” I say. “He’s seventeen years old and a fierce warrior. They will call him here from Skyros after Achilles is killed, and Neoptolemus will be with Odysseus in the belly of the great wooden horse.”

“Wooden horse?” says Andromache.

But I can see from the dilated pupils in Helen, Herophile, and Cassandra that these women have had visions of the horse.

“Does this Neoptolemus have another name?” asks Cassandra. She has the tone and intensity of a dedicated public prosecutor.

“He will be known to future generations as Pyrrhos,” I say. I’m trying to remember minutiae from the BD scholia, from the Cyclic poets, from Proclus’
Cypria,
and from my Pindar. It’s been a long time since I read Pindar. “Neoptolemus will not sail back to Achilles’ old home on Skyros after the war,” I say, “but will land in Molossia on the western side of the island, where later kings will call him Pyrrhos and say they are descended from him.”

“Will he commit any other acts on the night the Greeks take Troy?” presses Cassandra.

I look at my jury of Trojan women—Priam’s wife, Priam’s daughter, Scamandrius’ mother, Athena’s priestess, a Sibyl with paranormal powers. Then this vision-accursed child-woman and Helen, wife of both Menelaus and Paris. On the whole, I would prefer OJ’s jurors.

“Pyrrhos, known now as Neoptolemus, will slaughter King Priam that night in Zeus’s temple,” I say. “He will throw Scamandrius down from the walls and dash the baby’s brains out on the rocks. He will personally drive Andromache to the slaveship. This I have told the others already.”

“And will this night come soon?” presses Cassandra.

“Yes.”

“In months and years or days and weeks?”

“Days and weeks,” I say. I try to estimate how many days it will be before Achilles will kill Hector and Troy will fall if and when the
Iliad
time-table reasserts itself. Not many.

“Now tell us—tell me, O Man—what my fate will be after the rape of Ilium and Cassandra,” snaps Cassandra.

Here I hesitate. My mouth goes dry. “Your fate?” I manage.

“My fate, O Man of the Future,” hisses the beautiful blond. “Surely, ravaged or not, I’ll not be left behind when Andromache is dragged off to slavery and noble Helen is claimed again by angry Menelaus. What is to become of Cassandra, O Man?”

I try to lick my lips.
Can she see her own fate?
I have no idea if Apollo’s gift of prophecy goes beyond the fall of Troy. Someone, I think it was the poet-scholar Robert Graves, translated Cassandra’s name as ‘she who entangles men.’ “ But she’s also someone who has been cursed by the gods always to tell the truth. I decide to do the same.

“Your beauty will result in Agamemnon claiming you as his concubine,” I say, my voice barely audible. “He’ll take you home with him, as his . . . concubine.”

“Will I bear him children before we arrive?”

“I think so,” I say, sounding preposterous even to myself. I keep getting my Homer mixed up with my Virgil, my Virgil mixed up with my Aeschylus, and all of the above mixed up with Euripides. Hell, even Shakespeare took a whack at this story. “Twin sons,” I say after a pause. “Teledamus and . . . uh . . . Pelops.”