We are all Hellenes, he says in his introduction. Dellaconda and Rimway and Cormoral owe all that they are to the restless thinkers along the Aegean, who, in the most exquisite sense, took the first steps to the stars. Only the mind is sacred. That notion was a dazzling insight in its time. Wedded to the observation that nature is subject to laws, and that those laws can be understood, it was the key to the universe.
I read through the day, well into the late afternoon. Occasionally, Jacob fussed in the background, noisily grilling hamburgers or mixing drinks, or breaking in to suggest that I take advantage of the good weather for a stroll.
There were some surprises. Sim disapproves of Socrates, whose doctrines embody admirable values (he concedes): but which nevertheless disrupted Hellenic society. The unfortunate reality about the execution of Socrates, he writes, is not that it happened; but that it happened too late.
The early pages of Man and Olympian are filled with Xerxes' rage ("O Master, remember the Athenians"), Themistocles' statesmanship, and the valor of the troops who stood at Thermopylae. I was struck, not only by the clarity and force of the book, but also by its compassion. It was not what one would ordinarily expect from a military leader. But then, Sim had not begun as a military leader: he’d been a teacher when the trouble started.
The book is well named: Sim’s views are essentially Olympian. One cannot escape the impression that he speaks for History; and if his perspective is not always quite that of his colleagues, or those who have gone before, there is no doubt where the misperceptions lie. His is the final word.
The prose acquires a brooding quality during his account of the destruction of Athens, and the needless loss of life during the effort to defend the Parthenon. His most memorable passage blasts the Spartans for allowing Thermopylae to happen: They knew for years that the Persians were coming, and, in any case, had advance intelligence of the gathering of the invasion army; yet they prepared no league, and set no defenses, until the deluge was on them. Then they sent Leonidas and his men, and their handful of allies, to compensate with their lives for the neglect and stupidity of the politicians.
It was a grim coincidence: those words were written before the Ashiyyur launched their war, and, in a broad sense, it fell to Sim to play the role of Leonidas. He led the holding action for the frontier worlds, while Tarien sounded the alarm and began the immense task of forging an alliance that could stand against the invaders.
In the morning, while I ate, Jacob told me he had hold of something else that was strange. "The Corsarius seems to have got around pretty well. For example, if we can believe the accounts, two days after the raid on Hrinwhar, it was reported to have driven off an Ashiyyurean destroyer near Onikai IV. Onakai is eighty light years from the Spinners. Four days in hyper alone. It attacked a capital ship at Salinas on the same day that Sim was winning at Chapparal. Again, an impossible flight. There are numerous other instances." "What did the Ashiyyur have to say about all this?" "They aren’t very communicative, Alex. As nearly as I can make out, they’ve simply denied the stories. But their records have never been made available."
"Maybe," I said, "we should try talking to them."
"How do you plan to do that? There are no diplomatic contacts."
"There’s one," I said. "The Maracaibo Caucus."
Thirty-six standard years ago, a small group of senior military officers broke with long-standing custom, and invited a noted Ashiyyurean naval strategist to address the Maracaibo War Academy, on Earth. The speaker, whose name no one seemed to be able to pronounce, was the first of her species to be admitted legally onto a Confederate world in more than a century.
The invitation became traditional, and from the annual meetings an unusual special interest group developed: retired military officers, both human and Ashiyyurean, who were dedicated to establishing a permanent peace. The group, naturally, remained small. It was never a popular movement. Members—at least the human ones—absorbed political punishment and suspicion for their activities.
When I tried to link in, I got only an AI, who explained that officers of the Caucus did not accept unsolicited calls. What was my business?
I told it who I was, and explained that I was doing some historical research. I wondered if I could talk with someone who was reasonably knowledgeable about the Resistance in general, and details of the naval war in particular.
There was a delay, presumably while it sought instructions. Then: "It is not our policy to receive private visitors."
"I would be grateful for an exception." I explained that numerous questions remained unanswered, that an account of the war from the point of view of the Ashiyyur would contribute to mutual understanding. Needed to get information from the horse’s mouth. Etcetera.
It listened politely, excused itself, and let me wait about ten minutes. "Very good, Mr. Benedict," it said on returning. "One of our staff will be pleased to entertain your questions. But we request that you come personally."
"You mean physically?"
"Yes. If that is not too great an inconvenience."
That seemed curious. "You want me to actually come down here?" I was at the moment seated opposite the AI in what I supposed was one of the suites at Kostyev House, where the Maracaibo Caucus maintained its offices.
"Yes. If you wish."
"Why?"
"Personal contact is always best. The Ashiyyur are uncomfortable with headband technology."
I shrugged and made my appointment. Two hours later I arrived outside Kostyev House, a former embassy building near the capitol. It was, on the afternoon of my visit, ringed with demonstrators, who circled a holo depicting an alien with burning eyes. Demonstrations, I learned later, were almost constant outside the grounds. Their intensity and numbers fluctuated in proportion to the current level of mutual hostility. Things were bad just now, and I was roundly jeered as I hurried past, gave my name to security, and entered the ancient gray structure.
I rode a tube up to the third floor, and turned into a thickly carpeted, paneled corridor. Carved doors appeared irregularly; and long murals depicted men and women in sedate tableaus, contemplating storm-threatened landscapes, dallying at overladen picnic tables, or browsing through markets. There were no windows, and the only illumination was gloomily cast by occasional electric candles. The effect was that the far end of the passageway seemed to stretch into a guttering infinity.
There were doors on both sides of the hallway. Most were unmarked. I passed a legal firm, and a shipping company, and, in two or three cases, offices designated only by names.
Eventually I arrived in front of a pair of double doors, and a plate reading Maracaibo Caucus.
I knocked and stepped inside. I’m not sure what I was expecting: I’d been thinking about representatives of a civilization much older than my own; of telepaths; of a species intellectually our superiors, and yet whose technological accomplishments trailed our own. The cost of easy communication, some had theorized. Vertical information storage, writing, came quite late.
Anyhow, whatever exotic sort of chamber I’d been anticipating from the Maracaibo Caucus, I’d walked into something that might have been a shipping office. The furnishings were tasteful, but mundane: a square-cut uncomfortable-looking couch, a couple of carved chairs, and a low table on which a row of worn books were haphazardly piled. Large square windows admitted blocks of pale sunlight. The titles of the books were vaguely familiar, though I’d read none: An Urge to Empire, Green Grass and Silver Ships, Last Days. There were several biographies of persons, both human and Ashiyyurean, who had tried over the millennia to prevent the outbreak of mass violence.