It is hard to speak with no saliva in your mouth. “Yes, Goddess,” I manage, hearing the dry lisp.
“Your book ran to 935 pages and it was all about one word—Menin—do you remember now?”
“No, Go . . . I’m afraid I don’t recall that, Goddess Aphrodite, but I am sure that you are correct.”
I look up long enough to see that she is smiling, her chin propped on her left hand, her finger rising along her cheek to one perfect dark eyebrow. Her eyes are the color of a fine cognac.
“Rage,” she says softly. “Menin aeide thea . . . Do you know who will win this war, Hockenberry?”
I have to think fast here. I would be a pretty poor scholic if I don’t know how the poem turns out—although the Iliad ends with the funeral rites for Achilles’ friend Patroclus, not with the destruction of Troy, and there is no mention of a giant horse except in Odysseus’ comments and that from another epic . . . but if I pretend to know how this real war will turn out, and it is obvious from the argument I have just overheard that Zeus’s edict that the gods must not be informed of the future as predicted by the Iliad is still in effect—I mean, if the gods themselves do not know what will happen next, wouldn’t I be putting myself above the gods, including Fate by telling them? Hubris has never been an attribute gently rewarded by these gods. Besides, Zeus—who alone knows the full tale of the Iliad—has forbidden the other gods from asking and all of us scholics from discussing anything except events that have already occurred. Pissing off Zeus is never a good plan for survival on Olympos. Still, it seems I’m exempt from nanocyte disruption. On the other hand, I believe the Goddess of Love completely when she says that she will wear my guts for garters.
“What was the question, Goddess?” is all I can manage.
“You know how the poem the Iliad ends, but I would be defying Zeus’s command if I ask you what happens there,” says Aphrodite, her small smile disappearing and being replaced by something like a pout. “But I can ask you if that poem predicts this reality. Does it? In your opinion, Scholic Hockenberry, does Zeus rule the universe, or does Fate?”
Oh, shit, I think. Any answer here is going to end up with me being gutless and this beautiful woman—goddess—wearing slimy garters. I say, “It is my understanding, Goddess, that even though the universe bends to the will of Zeus and must obey the vagaries of the god-force called Fate, that kaos still has some say in the lives of both men and gods.”
Aphrodite makes a soft, amused sound. Everything about her is so soft, touchable, enticing . . . .
“We will not wait for chaos to decide this contest,” she says, her voice shedding all sound of amusement. “You saw Achilles withdraw from the fray this day?”
“Yes, Goddess.”
“You know that the man-killer has already prayed to Thetis to punish his fellow Achaeans for the shame that Agamemnon has heaped on him?”
“I have not witnessed this prayer, Goddess, but I know that it follows the path of the . . . the poem.” This is safe to say. The event is in the past. Besides, the sea goddess Thetis is Achilles’ mother and everyone on Olympos knows that he has called for her intervention.
“Indeed,” says Aphrodite. “That roundheeled bitch with the wet breasts has already been here to the Great Hall, throwing herself at Zeus’s knees as soon as the old fool returned from his debauching with the Aethiopians at the Ocean River. She begged him, for Achilles’ sake, to grant victory after victory to the Trojans, and the old sod agreed, thus putting him on a collision course with Hera, chief champion of the Argives. Thus the scene you just witnessed.”
I stand upright with my arms down, palms forward, head slightly bowed, all the while watching Aphrodite as if she were a cobra, but still knowing that if she chooses to strike me, the strike will come much faster and more lethally than any cobra’s.
“Do you know why you have survived longer than any other scholic?” snaps Aphrodite.
Unable to speak without condemning myself, I shake my head ever so slightly.
“You are still alive because I have foreseen that you can perform a service for me.”
Sweat trickles down my brow and stings my eyes. More sweat forms rivulets on my cheek and neck. As scholics, our sworn duty—my duty for the last nine years, two months, and eighteen days—is to observe the war on the plains of Ilium without ever intervening, observing without ever committing any act whatsoever that might change the outcome of the war or the behavior of its heroes in any way.
“Did you hear me, Hockenberry?”
“Yes, Goddess.”
“Are you interested in hearing what this service will be, scholic?”
“Yes, Goddess.”
Aphrodite rises from her couch and now I do bow my head, but I can hear the rustle of her silken gown, hear even the gentle friction of her smooth white thighs rubbing softly as she walks closer; I can smell the perfume-and-clean-female scent of her as she stands so close. I had forgotten for a moment how tall a goddess is, but I’m reminded of our respective heights as she towers over me, her breasts inches from my downturned face. For an instant I must fight the urge to bury my face in the perfumed valley between those breasts, and although I know well that this would by my last act before a violent death, I suspect at this moment that it might be worth it.
Aphrodite sets her hand on my tense shoulder, touches the rough leather embroidery of the Helmet of Death, and then moves her fingertips to my cheek. Despite my fear, I feel a powerful erection stirring, rising, standing firm.
The goddess’s whisper, when it comes, is soft, sensual, slightly amused, and I am sure that she knows the state I am in, expects it as her due. She lowers her face and leans so close that I can feel the heat of her cheek radiating against mine as she whispers two simple commands in my ear.
“You are going to spy on the other gods for me,” she says softly. And then, barely audible above the pounding of my heart, “And when the time is right, you are going to kill Athena.”
7
Conamara Chaos Central
Counting Mahnmut, there were five Galilean moravecs in the pressurized gathering chamber atop the slab zone. The Europan construct was familiar to him—Pwyll-based prime integrator Asteague/Che—but the other three were more alien than krakens to the provincial Mahnmut. The Ganymedan moravec was tall, elegant as all Ganymedans, atavistically humanoid, sheathed in black buckycarbon and staring through his fly’s eyes; the Callistan was more Mahnmut’s size and design—about a meter long, only vaguely humanoid, showing synskin and even some real flesh under clear polymide coating, massing only thirty or forty kilograms; the Ionian construct was . . . impressive. A heavy-use moravec of ancient design, built to withstand plasma torus and sulfur geysers, the Io-based entity was at least three meters tall and six meters long, shaped rather like a terrestrial horseshoe crab—heavily armored, with an untidy myriad of morphable appendages, thrusters, lenses, flagella, whip antennae, broad-spectrum sensors and facilitators. The thing was obviously used to hard vacuum; its surface was pitted and sanded and repolished, then repitted again so many times that it looked as pockmarked as Io itself. Here in the pressurized conference room it used powerful source-repellers to keep from gouging the floor. Mahnmut kept his distance from the Ionian, taking a place across the communion slab from it.
None of the others introduced themselves via either infrared or tightbeam, so Mahnmut followed suit. He connected to nutrient umbilicals at his slab niche, sipped, and waited.