“There are?” Hockenberry hears how stunned and stupid his own voice sounds. He’d never thought to ask.
“Yes. Not many—most of the humans appear to have evolved into some sort of post-human status and moved off the planet into orbital ring cities more than fourteen hundred years ago—but our observations suggest that there are a few hundred thousand old-style human beings left.”
“Old-style human beings,” repeats Hockenberry, not even trying not to sound stunned. “Like me.”
“Exactly,” says Mahnmut. He stands, his vision plate barely coming up to Hockenberry’s belt. Never a tall man, Hockenberry suddenly realizes how the Olympian gods must feel around ordinary mortals. “We think you should come with us. You could be of tremendous help when we meet and talk to the humans on your future Earth.”
“Jesus Christ,” repeats Hockenberry. He walks to the edge again, realizes again how easy it would be to take one more step off this edge into the darkness. This time the gods wouldn’t resurrect him. “Jesus Christ,” he says yet again.
Hockenberry can see the shadowy figure of Hector at Paris’s funeral pyre, still pouring wine into the earth, still ordering men to pile more firewood into the flames.
I killed Paris, thinks Hockenberry. I’ve killed every man, woman, child, and god who’s died since I morphed into the form of Athena and kidnapped Patroclus—pretending to kill him—in order to provoke Achilles into attacking the gods. Hockenberry suddenly laughs bitterly, not embarrassed that the little machine-person behind him will think he’s lost his mind. I have lost my mind. This is nuts. Part of the reason I haven’t jumped off this fucking ledge before tonight is that it would feel like a dereliction of duty… like I need to keep observing, as if I’m still a scholic reporting to the Muse who reports to the gods.
I’ve absolutely lost my mind. He feels, not for the first or fiftieth time, like sobbing.
“Will you go with us to Earth, Dr. Hockenberry?” Mahnmut asks softly.
“Yeah, sure, shit, why not? When?”
“How about right now?” says the little moravec.
The hornet must have been hovering silently hundreds of feet above them but with its navigation lights off. Now the black and barbed machine swoops down out of the darkness with such suddenness that Hockenberry almost falls off the edge of the building.
An especially strong gust of wind helps him keep his balance and he steps back from the edge just as a staircase ramp hums down from the belly of the hornet and clunks on stone. Hockenberry can see a red glow from inside the ship.
“After you,” says Mahnmut.
6
It was just after sunrise and Zeus was alone in the Great Hall of the Gods when his wife, Hera, came in leading a dog on a golden leash.
“Is that the one?” asked the Lord of the Gods from where he sat brooding on his golden throne.
“It is,” said Hera. She slipped the leash off the dog. It sat.
“Call for your son,” said Zeus.
“Which son?”
“The great artificer. The one who lusts after Athena so much that he humped her thigh just as this dog would if the dog had no manners.”
Hera turned to go. The dog started to follow her.
“Leave the dog,” said Zeus.
Hera motioned the dog to stay and it stayed.
The dog was large, gray, short-haired, and sleek, with mild brown eyes that somehow managed to look both stupid and cunning. It began to pace and its claws made scraping sounds on the marble as it wandered back and forth around Zeus’s gold throne. It sniffed the sandals and bare toes of the Lord of Lightning, the Son of Kronos. Then it claw-clicked its way to the edge of the huge holovision pool, peered in, saw nothing that interested it in the dark videoswirl of the surface static, lost interest, and wandered toward a pillar many yards away.
“Come here!” ordered Zeus.
The dog looked back at Zeus, then looked away. It began to sniff at the base of the huge white pillar in a preparatory way.
Zeus whistled.
The dog’s head came up and around, its ears shifted, but it did not come.
Zeus whistled again and clapped his hands.
The gray dog came quickly then, running in a rocking motion, tongue lolling, eyes happy.
Zeus stepped down from his throne and petted the animal. Then he pulled a blade from his robes and cut off the dog’s head with a single swing of his massive arm. The dog’s head rolled almost to the edge of the vision pool while the body dropped straight to the marble, forelegs stretched ahead of it as if it had been ordered to lie down and was complying in hopes of getting a treat.
Hera and Hephaestus entered the Great Hall and approached across acres of marble.
“Playing with the pets again, My Lord?” asked Hera when she drew near.
Zeus waved his hand as if dismissing her, sheathed the blade in the sleeve of his robe, and returned to his throne.
Hephaestus was dwarfish and stocky as gods go, a little under six feet tall. He most resembled a great, hairy barrel. The god of fire was also lame and dragged his left leg along as if it were a dead thing, which it was. He had wild hair, an even wilder beard that seemed to merge with the hair on his chest, and red-rimmed eyes that were always darting to and fro. He seemed to be wearing armor, but closer inspection showed the armor to be a solid covering made up from hundreds of tiny boxes and pouches and tools and devices—some forged of precious metal, some shaped of base metal, some tooled of leather, some seemingly woven of hair—all hanging from straps and belts that crisscrossed his hairy body. The ultimate metalworker, Hephaestus was famous on Olympos for once having created women made of gold, young clockwork virgins, who could move and smile and give men pleasure almost as if they were alive. It was said that from his alchemic vats he had also fashioned the first woman—Pandora.
“Welcome, artificer,” boomed Zeus. “I would have summoned you sooner but we had no tin pots or toy shields to repair.”
Hephaestus knelt by the dog’s headless body. “You needn’t have done this,” he muttered. “No need. No need at all.”
“It irritated me.” Zeus raised a goblet from the arm of his golden throne and drank deeply.
Hephaestus rolled the headless body on its side, ran his blunt hand along its rib cage as if offering to scratch the dead dog’s belly, and pressed. A panel of flesh and hair popped open. The god of fire reached into the dog’s gut and removed a clear bag filled with scraps of meat and other things. Hephaestus pulled a sliver of wet, pink flesh from the gut-bag.
“Dionysos,” he said.
“My son,” said Zeus. He rubbed his temples as if weary of all this.
“Shall I deliver this scrap to the Healer and the vats, O Son of Kronos?” asked the god of fire.
“No. We shall have one of our kind eat it so that my son may be reborn according to his wishes. Such Communion is painful for the host, but perhaps that will teach the gods and goddesses here on Olympos to take better care when watching out for my children. “
Zeus looked down at Hera, who had come closer and was now sitting on the second stone step of his throne with her right arm laid affectionately along his leg, her white hand touching his knee.
“No, my husband,” she said softly. “Please.”
Zeus smiled. “You choose then, wife.”
Without hesitation, Hera said, “Aphrodite. She’s used to stuffing parts of men into her mouth.”
Zeus shook his head. “Not Aphrodite. She has done nothing since she herself was in the vats to incur my displeasure. Shouldn’t it be Pallas Athena, the immortal who brought this war with the mortals down on us with her intemperate murder of Achilles’ beloved Patroclus? And of the infant son of Hector?”