The rockvec did as he was told, explaining as quickly as he could while more hornet fliers buzzed overhead and hundreds of Trojan warriors came out of the city and slowly advanced up the ridge toward the landing party, shields raised, spears poised. At the same moment, hundreds more Achaeans and Trojans were flowing through the circular portal a few hundred meters to the south, all of them running toward the icy slopes of Olympos visible through the slice taken out of the sky and ground.
Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo was succinct. He confirmed Orphu’s earlier statement to Mahnmut—from their discussion when they’d been passing over the Asteroid Belt on their way to Mars—that sixty e-years ago the Ganymedan Koros III had been sent to the Belt by the Pwyll-based moravec Asteague/Che and the Five Moons Consortium. But Koros’s mission had been as a diplomat, not as a spy. Spending more than five years in the Belt, hopping from rock to rock and losing most of his Jovian-moravec support team in the process, Koros had negotiated with the belligerent rockvec clan leaders, sharing the Jovian-space moravec scientists’ concerns about the rapid terraforming of Mars and the early signs of quantum tunneling activity just detected there. The rockvecs wanted to know who was doing this dangerous QT tunneling—post-humans from Earth? Koros III and the Belt moravecs agreed on the acronym UME’s—Unknown Martian Entities.
The rockvecs were already concerned, although more about the visible—and impossible—rapid terraforming of Mars than about the quantum activity, which their technology could not easily detect. Confrontational and bold by nature, the Belt moravecs had already dispatched six expeditionary fleets of spacecraft on the relatively short hop to Mars. None of their ships had returned or survived translation to Mars orbit. Something on the Red Planet, or on what had been the Red Planet until recently—the rockvecs had no idea what—was destroying their fleets before arrival.
Through diplomacy, guile, courage, and some single combat, Koros III had earned the rockvec clan leaders’ trust. The Ganeymedan explained the Five Moons Consortium’s plan—first, the rockvecs would design and biofacture dedicated warrior-vecs over the next fifty years or so, using their already tough rockvec DNA as a breeding base. The rockvecs would also be responsible for designing and constructing advanced space and atmospheric fighting vehicles. Meanwhile, the more advanced Five Moons moravec scientists and engineers would divert cutting-edge technology from their interstellar program to the building of a quantum-tunneler and wormhole stabilizer of their own. Second, when the time was right and the quantum activity on Mars reached alarming levels, Koros himself would lead a small contingent of moravecs from Jupiter space, its goal to arrive undetected on the Red Planet. Third, once on Mars, Koros III would place the quantum-tunneler at the vertex of the current QT activity, stabilizing not only those quantum tunnels already in use by the UME’s, but opening new tunnels to the Asteroid Belt, where other Five Moons’-designed tunneling devices would be waiting for his maser signal before activating.
Fourth, finally, the rockvecs would send their fleets and fighting men through these quantum tunnels to Mars, where they would confront, identify, overpower, subdue, and interrogate the Unidentified Martian Entities and eliminate the threat to the solar system from the excessive quantum activity.
“It sounds simple,” said Mahnmut. “Confront, identify, overpower, subdue, and interrogate. But in reality, your group didn’t even make it to the right planet.”
“Navigating the quantum tunnels was more complicated than expected,” said Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo. “Our groups obviously connected to one of the UME’s existing tunnels and overshot Mars, arriving . . . here.” The chitinous onyx figure looked around. His troopers were raising their heavy weapons as a hundred or so Trojans came onto the crest of the ridge.
“Don’t shoot at them,” said Mahnmut. “They’re our allies.”
“Allies?” said the rockvec soldier, his shiny visor turned toward the advancing wall of shields and spears. But in the end he nodded, tightbeamed his troopers, and the complex weapons were lowered.
The Trojans did not lower their weapons.
Luckily, Mahnmut recognized the Trojan commander from the long introductions of captains earlier in the day. In Greek, Mahnmut called out, “Perimus, son of Megas, do not attack. These black fellows are our friends and allies.”
The spears and shields stayed high. Archers in the second row had their bows lowered but arrows nocked and the bows at half-pull, ready to lift and fire on command. The rockvecs might feel secure from meter-long barbed arrows dipped in poison, but Mahnmut didn’t want to test the strength of his own integument that way.
“ ‘Friends and allies,’ “ mocked Perimus. The man’s polished bronze helmet—noseguard, cheek flaps, round eyeholes, and low ridge in the back—showed only Perimus’ angry gaze, narrow lips, and strong chin. “How can they be ‘friends and allies,’ little machine, when they aren’t even men? For that matter, little toy, how can you?”
Mahnmut didn’t have a good answer for that. He said, “You saw me with Hector this morning, son of Megas.”
“I saw you with man-killing Achilles as well,” called the Trojan. The archers had raised their bows now and there were at least thirty arrows aimed at Mahnmut and the rockvecs.
How do I win this guy’s trust? Mahnmut tightbeamed Orphu.
Perimus, son of Megas, mused the Ionian. If we’d let things go the way the Iliad said they should, Perimus would be dead in two days—killed by Patroclus along with Autonous, Echeclus, Adrestus, Elasus, Mulius, and Plyartes in one wild melee.
Well, sent Mahnmut, we don’t have two days, most of the Trojans you mentioned—Autonous, Mulius, and the rest—are standing there right now with shields raised and spears poised, and I don’t think Patroclus is going to help us out here, according to Hockenberry, unless Achilles’ friend has been swimming back from Indiana. Any ideas on what we can do now?
Tell them that the rockvecs are attendants, forged by Hephaestus and summoned by Achilles to help win the war against the gods.
“Attendants,” Mahnmut said, repeating the word in Greek. I don’t know that particular form of the noun—it doesn’t mean “servant” or “slave” and . . .
Just say it, growled Orphu, before Perimus has them put a shaft through your liver.
Mahnmut didn’t have a liver, but he understood the thrust of Orphu’s suggestion.
“Perimus, noble son of Megas,” called Mahnmut, “these dark forms are attendants, forged by Hephaestus but brought here by Achilles to help us win this war against the gods.”
Perimus glowered. “Are you then also an attendant?” he demanded.
Say yes, sent Orphu.
“Yes.”
Perimus barked at his men and the bows were lowered, the arrows unnocked.
According to Homer, sent Orphu, “Attendants” are sort of androids created in Hephaestus’ forge from human parts and used like robots by the gods and some mortals.
Are you telling me that the Iliad has androids and moravecs in it? demanded Mahnmut.
The Iliad has everything in it, said Orphu. To the rockvec leader, Orphu barked, “Centurion Leader Ahoo, did you bring forcefield projectors with you in that ship?”