After this performance, I collapse. All through the dialogue, my morphing bracelet was beeping in my ear with its AI voice—“Ten minutes of power left before shutdown. Six minutes of power left before . . .” and so forth.
The morphing gear is almost out of charge and I have no idea how to recharge it. I have just under three minutes of morphing time left, but I’ll need that to visit Hector’s family.
You can’t kidnap a child, comes the ever smaller voice that is all that’s left of my conscience. I have to, comes the only response I have.
I have to.
I’m in this now. I’ve thought it through. Patroclus was the secret to Achilles. Scamandrius and Andromache—Hector’s son and wife—are the secret to turning Hector. The only way.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Earlier, when I’d QT’d into existence on the sunny-afternoon hill of what I still hoped to be Indiana, the unconscious Patroclus in my arms, there had been no sign of Nightenhelser. I dropped Patroclus quickly into the grass—I’m not homophobic, but dragging a naked man makes me feel odd—and I’d called toward the river and forest for Keith Nightenhelser, but no response. Perhaps the ancient Native Americans had scalped him by now, or adopted him into their tribe. Or perhaps he was just across the river and into the woods, gathering nuts and berries.
Patroclus groaned and stirred.
What are the ethics of leaving a groggy, naked man as a stranger in a strange land like this? Would a bear kill him? Not likely. It was more likely that Patroclus would find and kill poor Nightenhelser, although the Greek was naked and unarmed and Keith was still decked out in impact armor, taser baton, and prop sword. Yes, I’d put my money on Patroclus. What are the ethics of leaving a pissed-off Patroclus in the same berry-gathering acre of land where I’d left a peace-loving academic?
I didn’t have time to worry about it. I’d checked the morphing bracelet’s power—found it waning—and QT’d back to the coast of Ilium. I’d learned a little about becoming a goddess from the Athena experience and Thetis wouldn’t require as much energy to morph into as had Zeus’s daughter. With a bit of luck, I thought, the morphing gear would work long enough to allow me my scene with Achilles and leave a bit left over for Hector’s family.
And it did. And I do have a bit left over. I can morph a final time.
Hector’s family . What have I become?
A man on the run, I think, as I pull the Hades Helmet over my head and walk along the sand. A desperate man.
Will the QT medallion run out of power soon as well? Does the taser hold another charge if I need it in Ilium ?
I’ll find out soon. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I succeeded in turning both Achilles and Hector to my cause but then didn’t have the quantum teleportation power to get them or me to Olympos?
I’ll worry about that later. I’ll worry about all this crap later.
Right now I have a 4 a.m. appointment with Hector’s wife and baby boy.
35
12,000 Meters Above the Tharsis Plateau
“What does Proust have to say about balloons?”
“Not much,” said Orphu of Io. “He wasn’t big on traveling in general. What does Shakespeare say about balloons?”
Mahnmut let that go. “I wish you could see this.”
“I wish I could see it, too,” said Orphu. “Describe everything to me.”
Mahnmut looked up. “We’re high enough here that the sky overhead is almost black, fading to dark blue, then to a lighter blue by the horizon, which is definitely curved. I can see the band of haze of atmosphere in both directions. Beneath us, it’s still cloudy—the early morning light makes the clouds glow gold and pink. Behind us, the cloud cover is broken and I can see the blue water and red cliffs of Valles Marineris stretching back to the eastern horizon. To the west, the direction we’re traveling, the clouds cover most of the Tharsis Plateau—they seem to be hugging the ground along the rising terrain—but the three closer volcanoes are poking up through the gold clouds. Arsia Mons is furthest to the left, then Pavonis Mons, then Ascraeus Mons farther over to the right, to the north. They’re all a bright white, snow and ice, gleaming in the morning light.”
“Can you see Olympus yet?” asked Orphu.
“Oh, yes. Even though it’s the farthest away, Olympus Mons is the tallest thing in sight, rising over the western curve of the planet. It’s between Pavonis and Ascraeus, but obviously further away. It’s also white with ice and snowfields, but the summit is free of snow and red in the sunrise.”
“Can you see Noctis Labyrinthus where we left the zeks?”
Mahnmut leaned over the edge of the gondola he’d built and looked below and behind them. “No, still cloud cover there. But when we were rising toward the overcast, I could see all of the quarry, the docks, and the whole tumble of Noctis. Beyond the seaport and quarry there, the jumble of canyons and cliff-collapses runs hundreds of kilometers west and scores of klicks north and south.”
It had been raining the last days of their felucca voyage, raining when they put into the crowded docks at the LGM quarry site in Noctis Labyrinthus, and raining harder when Mahnmut had finally assembled the jury-rigged gondola, inflated the balloon from its own tanks, and set out above what could only be called a city of the little green men. One of the LGM—or zeks, as they called themselves—had obviously offered his heart for communication, but Mahnmut had shaken his head no. Perhaps they didn’t die as individuals, as Orphu argued, but the sensation of using up another little green man was more than Mahnmut could handle. Instead, the gathered zeks had immediately understood what Mahnmut was doing with his homemade gondola, and they’d moved quickly to help connect tether cables, spread the fabric of the single-chamber, high-pressure balloon while it slowly inflated, and secure ground cables against the wind, all the while working as efficiently as a highly trained ground crew.
“What does the balloon look like?” asked Orphu. The deep-space moravec was tethered in the center of the enlarged gondola, strapped down by many meters of line and set into a frame Mahnmut had hammered together. Nearby, shielded and secured, were the transmitter and the smaller Device.
“It’s like a giant pumpkin above us,” said Mahnmut.
Orphu rumbled over the tightbeam. “Have you ever seen a pumpkin in real life?”
“Of course not, but we’ve both seen images. The balloon’s an orange ovoid, wider than it is tall, about sixty-five meters across and about fifty meters tall. It has vertical ridges like a pumpkin . . . and it’s orange.”
“I thought it was sheathed in stealth material,” said Orphu, sounding surprised.
“It is. Orange stealth material. I guess our moravec designers didn’t consider the fact that the people we’d be sneaking up on might have eyes as well as radar.”
This time Orphu’s rumble sounded like deep thunder. “Typical,” said the Ionaian. “Typical.”
“Our cluster of buckycarbon cables is rigged from the bottom of the balloon,” said Mahnmut. “Our gondola’s hanging about forty meters beneath the fabric.”
“Securely, I hope,” said Orphu.
“As secure as I could make it, although maybe I forgot to tie a couple of knots.”
Orphu rumbled again and went silent. Mahnmut watched the view for a while.
When Orphu made contact again, it was night. The stars burned coldly, but Mahnmut was still aware of more atmospheric twinkle than he’d ever seen in his life. The moon Phobos was hurtling low across the sky and Deimos had just risen. The clouds and volcanoes reflected the starlight. To the north, the ocean glimmered.
“Are we there yet?” asked Orphu.