“No,” said Odysseus. “Both are men. Both were born. Both will die. It matters little if one still breathes and the other resides only in the impotent shades of Hades. One must be able to compare men—or women—and that is why we need to know our fathers. Our mothers. Our history. Our stories.”
“Well, that tree you’re sitting on is still dead, Teacher,” said Petyr. This time people up and down the hill did laugh.
Odysseus joined in the laughter. He pointed to a sparrow that had just landed on one of the few branches Odysseus hadn’t hacked away from the fallen tree. “It is not only still dead,” he said, “it is newly dead. But already the usefulness of the tree—in usefulness terms of the agon—have surpassed the agon usefulness of that living tree up the hill. For that bird. For the insects even now burrowing into the bark of this fallen giant. For the mice and voles and larger creatures who will soon come to inhabit this dead tree.”
“Who is to be the final judge of the agon then?” asked a serious, older man in the fifth row. “Birds, bugs, or men?”
“All,” answered Odysseus. “Each in his turn. But the only judge who counts is you.”
“Isn’t that arrogant?” demanded a woman Ada recognized as a friend of her mother’s. “Who elected us judge? Who gave us the right to be judgmental?”
“The universe elected you through fifteen billions years of evolution,” said Odysseus. “It gave you eyes with which to see. Hands with which to hold and weigh. A heart with which to feel. A mind to learn the rules of judgment. And an imagination with which to consider the bird’s and bug’s—and even other trees’—judgment in this matter. And you must approach this judgment with arete to guide you—trust me that the bugs and birds and trees already do. They have no time for mediocrity in their world. They do not worry about the arrogance of judging, whether it is in choosing a mate, an enemy—or a home.”
Odysseus pointed to where the sparrow had hopped into a hole in the fallen trunk, disappeared into the hollow there.
“Teacher,” said a young man far back in the crowd, “why do you ask us men to wrestle at least once a day?”
Ada had heard enough. She took the last of her cold drink and walked back up to the house, pausing on the porch to look down the long grassy yard to where dozens more of the visitors—disciples—walked and talked together. Silk on the tents stirred to the warm breeze. Servitors shuffled from one visitor to the other, but few accepted offers of food or drink. Odysseus had asked that anyone staying to hear him speak more than once not allow the servitors to work for them, or the voynix to serve them. That had initially driven many away, but more and more were staying.
Ada looked up at the blue sky, noted the pale circles of the two rings orbiting there, and thought about Harman. She’d been so angry at him when he’d talked about women choosing among men’s sperm months or years or decades after intercourse—it was simply not discussed, except between mothers and daughters, and then only once. And that nonsense about a moth’s genes being involved, as if human women had not chosen the fathers of their allowed babies like that since time immemorial. That had been so . . . obscene . . . of Harman to bring that up.
But it was her new lover’s statement that he wanted to be the father of Ada’s child . . . not only be the one whose seed was chosen at some future date, but be around, be known as the father . . . that had so nonplussed and infuriated Ada that she’d sent Harman away on his harmless adventure with Savi and Daeman without so much as a kind word. In fact, with hostile words and glances.
Ada touched her lower belly. The firmary had not notified her through servitors that her time for pregnancy had arrived, but then, she had not asked to be put on the list. She was glad that she didn’t soon have to choose between—what had Harman called them?—sperm packets. But she thought of Harman—his intelligent, loving eyes, his gentle and then firm touch, his old but eager body—and she touched her belly again.
“Aman,” she whispered to herself, “son of Harman and Ada.”
She shook her head. Odysseus’ prattle the last weeks was beginning to fill her head with nonsense. Yesterday, fed up, after dark, after the scores and scores of disciples had wandered off to the fax pavilion or sleeping tents—more to the tents than to the pavilion—she had bluntly asked Odysseus how much longer he planned to stay at Ardis Hall.
The old man had smiled at her almost sadly. “Not much longer, my dear.”
“A week?” pressed Ada. “A month? A year?”
“Not so long,” said Odysseus. “Just until the sky begins falling, Ada. Just until new worlds appear in your yard.”
Furious at his flippancy, tempted to order the servitors to evict the hairy barbarian at once, Ada had stalked up to her bedroom—her last place of privacy in this suddenly public Ardis Hall—where she had lain awake being angry at Harman, missing Harman, worrying about Harman, instead of ordering servitors to do anything about old Odysseus.
Now she turned to go into the house, but a strange motion caught at the edge of her vision made her turn back. At first she thought it was just the rings rotating, as always, but then she looked again and saw another streak—like a diamond scratching a line across the perfect blue glass of the sky. Then another scratch, broader, brighter. Then yet another, so bright and so clear that Ada could clearly see flames stretching behind the streak of light. A few seconds later, three dull booms echoed across the lawn, made strolling disciples pause and look up, and caused even the servitors and voynix to freeze in their duties.
Ada heard screams and shouts from the hill behind the house. People on the lawn were pointing skyward.
There were scores of lines marring the azure sky now—bright, flaming, roiling red lines slashing and crisscrossing, falling west to east, some with plumes of color, others with rumbles and terrifying booms.
The sky was falling.
48
Ilium and Olympos
The ultimate war begins here in a murdered child’s nursery.
The gods must have quantum teleported down to talk with mortals this way a thousand times before—Athena, arrogant in her divinity, Apollo, secure in his power, and my Muse, probably brought along to identify the rogue scholic, Hockenberry. But this day, instead of encountering deference and awe, instead of conversing with the foolish mortals eager to be cajoled into more interesting ways of slaughtering one another, they are attacked on sight.
Apollo lifts his bow in my direction, the Muse pointing and saying “There he is!” but before the god can nock one of his silver arrows, Hector leaps, swings his sword, hacks down the bow, steps closer, and thrusts his sword deep into Apollo’s belly.
“Stop!” shouts Athena, throwing up a forcefield, but too late. Fleet-footed Achilles has already stepped inside the circle of the forcefield and slashes the goddess from shoulder to hip with a single mighty swing.
Athena screams and the jet roar is so loud that most of the mortals in this room—myself included—go to one knee in pain with hands over our ears. Not Hector. Not Achilles. The two must be deaf to anything but the internal roar of their own rage.
Apollo shouts some amplified warning even as he raises his right arm—either to warn off Hector or to unleash some godly lightning—but Hector doesn’t wait to discover the god’s intentions. Swinging his heavy sword in a two-handed backhand that reminds me of Andre Agassiz in his prime, Hector slices off Apollo’s right arm in a spray of golden ichor.