“What does that have to do with the calibani?” persisted Harman, obviously still shaking the images from the allnet out of his head.
Savi smiled. “The Prospero noosphere entity either has an advanced set of irony or none at all. The sentient biosphere, he christened it Ariel—a sort of Earth spirit—and together, Ariel and Prospero created the calibani. They evolved a strain of humanity—not old-style, not post, not eloi—into that monster you saw on the cross tonight.”
“Why?” asked Daeman. He barely choked the single syllable out.
Savi shrugged. “Enforcers. Prospero is a peaceful entity, or so it likes to think. But its calibani are monsters. Killers.”
“Why?” This time it was Harman asking the question.
“To stop the voynix,” said the old woman. “To chase the post-humans off the Earth before they could do more harm. To enforce whatever whim the Prospero and Ariel points of the noosphere trinity wish enforced.”
Daeman tried to understand this. He failed. Finally he said, “Why was the thing on a cross?”
“It wasn’t on the cross,” said Savi. “It was in the cross. Recharging cradle.”
Harman looked so pale that Daeman thought the other man might be ill. “Why did the posts create the voynix?”
“Oh, they didn’t create the voynix,” said Savi. “The voynix came from somewhere else, serving someone else, with their own agenda.”
“I always thought they were machines,” said Daeman. “Like the other servitors.”
“No,” said Savi.
Harman looked out into the night. The rain had stopped and the lightning and thunder had moved over the horizon. A few stars were appearing between cloud tatters. “The calibani keep the voynix out of the Basin here,” he said.
“They’re one of the things that keeps the voynix away,” agreed Savi. She sounded pleased, her voice holding a teacher’s tone, as if one of her students had turned out not to be a total moron.
“But why haven’t the calibani killed us?” asked Harman.
“Our DNA,” said Savi.
“Our what?” said Daeman.
“Never mind, my darlings. Suffice it to say that I borrowed a snippet of each of your hair and that, along with a lock of my own, has saved us all. I made a deal with Ariel, you see. Allow us to pass this once, and I promised to save the soul of the Earth.”
“You’ve met the Ariel Earth-entity?” asked Harman.
“Well, not met him exactly,” said Savi. “But I’ve chatted with him across the noosphere-biosphere interface. We made a deal.”
Daeman knew then that the old woman was truly mad. He caught Harman’s eye and saw the same conclusion there.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Savi. She plumped her pack like a pillow and lay back and closed her eyes. “Get some sleep, my young darlings. You need to be rested tomorrow. Tomorrow, with any luck, we fly up, up, up to the orbitside layer.”
She was asleep and snoring before Harman and Daeman could exchange another worried glance.
37
Ilium and Olympos
As it turns out, I can’t do it. I don’t have the guts or balls or ruthlessness or—perhaps—courage. I can’t kidnap Hector’s child, even to save Ilium. Even to save the child himself. Even to save my own life.
It isn’t dawn yet when I QT to Hector’s huge home in Ilium. I was here just two evenings before when—morphed then as the now-decapitated spearman Dolon—I followed Hector home in search of his wife and son. Since I know the layout from that visit, I QT directly to the nursery, not far from Andromache’s sleeping chamber. Hector’s son, less than a year old, is in a wonderfully carved cradle with mosquito netting draped over it. Nearby sleeps the same nurse who was on the battlements of Troy with Andromache that evening when Hector accidentally frightened his son with the reflection in his polished war helmet. She’s also fast asleep, reclining on a nearby couch, wearing a thin, diaphanous gown draped with all the complexity of an Aubrey Beardsley print. Even this sleeping gown is sashed under her breasts in the Greek and Trojan manner, showing how large and white the nurse’s bosom is, visible in the reflected light from the guardsmen’s fire tripods on the terrace beyond. I’d guessed earlier that she’s a wet nurse for the baby. This is relevant, actually, because my plot hinges on being able to kidnap the baby with the nurse, leaving Andromache behind—after “Aphrodite” appears to her and tells her that the child is being kidnapped by the gods, as punishment for unnamed failings on the part of the Trojans, and that if Hector wants the child, he can damned well come to Olympos to get him, blah, blah, blah.
First I have to gather up the baby and then grab the nurse—I suspect that she might be stronger than me, and almost certainly more adept at fighting, so I’ll taser her if I have to, although I don’t want to—and then QT the two of them to that rapidly populating hill in ancient Indiana, find Nightenhelser—I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with Patroclus—and convince the scholic to watch over the infant and his nurse until I come back for them.
Will Nightenhelser be up to the task of riding herd on this Trojan nurse for the days, weeks, or months until all this is over? Given the matchup of a Twentieth Century male classics professor versus a Trojan wet nurse circa 1200 b.c., I’d put my money on the nurse. And give my opponents good odds. Well, that’s Nightenhelser’s problem. My job is to find leverage against Hector, a way to convince him that he has to fight the gods—just as Patroclus’ “death” was my best shot to enroll Achilles into this suicidal crusade—and that leverage is sleeping in front of me right now.
Little Scamandrius, whom the people of Ilium lovingly call “Astyanax, Lord of the City,” mewls slightly in his sleep and rubs tiny fists against his reddened cheeks. Even though invisible under the Hades Helmet, I freeze and watch the nurse. She sleeps on, although I know that an actual cry from the baby will almost certainly wake her.
I don’t know why I pull off the cowl of the Hades Helmet, but I do, becoming visible to myself. There’s no one else here except my two victims, and they’ll be 10,000 miles away from here in a few seconds, unable to give my description to any Trojan police sketch artist.
I tiptoe closer and remove the mosquito netting from above the infant. A breeze blows in from the distant sea and flutters both the terrace curtains and the gauzier material around the crib. Without a sound, the baby opens his blue eyes and looks right at me. Then he smiles at me, his kidnapper, although I thought little pre-toddlers were afraid of strangers, much less of strangers in their bedroom in the middle of the night. But what do I know about kids? My wife and I never had any, and all the students I taught over the years were actually partially or poorly formed adults, all gangly and bumpy and hairy and socially awkward and goofy looking. I couldn’t even have told you that babies less than a year old could smile.
But Scamandrius is smiling at me. In a second he’s going to start making noise and I’ll have to grab him, grab the nurse, QT us the hell out of here—can I QT two other people along with me? We’ll find out in a second. Then I have to come back and use my last three minutes of morphing time to steal Aphrodite’s form and give my ultimatum to Andromache.
Will Hector’s wife be hysterical? Will she weep and scream? I doubt it. After all, in recent years she’s seen Achilles kill her father and her seven brothers, she’s watched her mother become Achilles’ plunder and then die trying to give birth to her rapist’s bastard, she’s watched her home occupied and defiled, and still she’s borne up—not only borne up, but bore a healthy son to her husband, Hector. And now she has to watch Hector go out to battle every day, knowing in her heart that her beloved’s fate has already been sealed by the cruel will of the gods. No, this is no weak woman. Even morphed as Aphrodite, I’d better keep a keen eye on Andromache’s sleeves to make sure she doesn’t have any daggers with which to greet the goddess’s news of the kidnapping.