“Jury?” said Mahnmut. “My friend Orphu of Io and I have committed no crime against you.”
“On the contrary,” said Zeus with a laugh. He switched to English. “You’ve come in from Jupiter space, little moravec, little robot, most probably with mischief in your heart. It was my daughter Athena and I who brought down your ship and I confess I thought you all destroyed. You’re tough little abominations. But let this be the end of you today.”
“You speak this creature’s language?” Ares demanded of Zeus. “You know this barbarian tongue?”
“Your Father speaks all languages, God of War,” snapped Zeus. “Be silent.”
The massive hall and many mezzanines were filling up quickly with gods and goddesses.
“Have this little dog-man-machine and the legless crab taken away to a sealed room in this hall,” said Zeus. “I will confer with Hera and others who have my ear, and we will decide shortly what to do with them. Take the other two objects to a nearby treasure room. We shall evaluate their worth by and by.”
The gods named Apollo and Nereus approached Mahnmut. The little moravec debated fight and flight—he had a low-voltage laser on his wrist that might surprise the gods for a second or two, and he could run quickly on all fours for short distances, perhaps scurry out of this Great Hall and dive into the caldera lake to hide in its depths—but then Mahnmut glanced over at Orphu, already being lifted effortlessly by four unnamed gods, and he allowed himself to be lifted and carried out of the hall like a big metal doll.
According to Mahnmut’s internal chronometer, they waited in the windowless storage room for thirty-six minutes before their executioner arrived. It was a big space, with walls of marble six feet thick and—Mahnmut’s instruments told him—embedded forcefields that could withstand a low-yield nuclear explosion.
It’s time to trigger the Device, tightbeamed Orphu. Whatever it does, it’s preferable to letting them destroy us without a fight.
I’d trigger it if I could, said Mahnmut. It didn’t have a remote control. And I was too busy building our gondola to jury-rig one.
Lost opportunities, sent Orphu with a rumble. To hell with it. We gave it a good try.
I’m not giving up yet, said Mahnmut. He paced back and forth, feeling around the edge of the metal door through which they’d come in. It was also sealed by forcefields. Perhaps if Orphu still had his arms, he could rip the door free. Perhaps.
What does Shakespeare say about the end of things like this? asked Orphu. Did “Will the Poet” ever bid adieu to the Youth?
Not really, said Mahnmut, feeling the walls with his organic fingers. They parted on pretty sour terms. The relationship sort of petered out when they found they were having sex with the same woman.
Was that a pun? asked Orphu, his voice severe.
Mahnmut was startled into motionless. What?
Never mind.
What does Proust say about all this? asked Mahnmut.
Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure, recited Orphu of Io.
Mahnmut didn’t like French—it always felt like a too-thick oil between his gears—but it was in his database and he could translate this. “A long time, I have laid me down to sleep at an early hour.”
After two minutes twenty-nine seconds, Mahnmut said over the tightbeam, The rest is silence.
The door opened and a goddess two meters tall stepped into the room, closing and sealing the door behind her. She carried a silver ovoid in both hands, its small black ports aimed at both of them. Mahnmut instinctively knew that rushing her would do no good. He backed up until he could reach out and touch Orphu’s shell, knowing full well that the Ionian couldn’t feel the contact.
In English, the goddess said, “My name is Hera and I’ve come to put you foolish, foolish moravecs out of your misery once and for all. I’ve never liked your kind.”
There was a flash and a jolt and an absolute blackness descended.
42
Olympos and Ilium
My impulse is to QT away from Olympos the second I see Thetis, Aphrodite, and my Muse enter the Great Hall, but I remember that Aphrodite must have the power she gave me of seeing and tracking pertubations in the quantum continuum. Any hasty quantum exit now may attract her attention. Besides, my business here is not quite finished.
Sliding sideways, putting tall gods and goddesses between me and the women entering, I tiptoe behind a broad column and then back out of the Great Hall. I can hear Ares’ angry shouts, still demanding to know what’s been happening on the Ilium battlefield in his absence, and then I hear Aphrodite say, “Lord Zeus, Father, still recovering from my terrible wounds as I am, I have asked to leave the healing vats and come here because it has been brought to my attention that there is a mortal man loose who has stolen a QT medallion and the Helmet of Death forged for invisibility by Lord Hades here himself. I fear that this mortal is doing great harm even as we speak.”
The crowd of gods bursts into an uproar of shouted questions and babble.
So much for any advantage I might have had. Still shielded by the Helmet’s field, I run down a long corridor, turn left at the first junction, swing right down another corridor. I have no idea where I’m headed, knowing that my only hope is to stumble onto Hera. Sliding to a stop in another junction, hearing the roar increase from the Great Hall, I close my eyes and pray—and not to these swinish gods. It’s the first time I’ve prayed since I was nine years old and my mother had cancer.
I open my eyes and see Hera crossing a junction of corridors a hundred yards to my left.
My sandals make slapping noises that actually echo in the long marble halls. Tall golden tripods throw flame-light on the walls and ceilings. I don’t care about making noise now—I have to catch up to her. More roars echo down the hallways from the agitated assembly in the Great Hall. I wonder for an instant how Aphrodite will hide her complicity in arming me and sending me out to spy on and kill Athena, but then realize that the Goddess of Love is a consummate liar. I’ll be dead before I get a chance to tell anyone the truth of the matter. Aphrodite will be the hero who warned the other gods of my treachery.
Walking quickly, Hera suddenly stops and looks over her shoulder. I’d paused anyway and now I teeter on tiptoe, trying not to give away my position. Zeus’s wife scowls, looks both ways, and slides her hand across a twenty-foot-high metal door. The metal hums, internal locks click open, and the door swings inward. I have to scurry to slide into the room before Hera gestures the door closed behind her. An even greater roar from the Great Hall covers the sound of my sandals on stone. Hera pulls a smooth gray weapon—rather like a seashell with deadly black apertures—from the folds of her robe.
The little robot and the crab-shell are the only other things in the room. The robot backs away from Hera, obviously expecting what is to come next, and sets an oddly human-looking hand on the huge, crack-shelled figure, and for the first time I realize that the other object must also be a robot. Whatever these machines are, they aren’t part of Olympos—I’m convinced of that.