He shut his eyes and recited. “45 degrees, 45′ 45 North, 50 degrees 50′ 50 West, 15.10, 15th October, 151,151,151 ante urbe condita.”
I was genuinely startled. “What? Where’s that? Somewhere in the Jurassic? In the middle of the Atlantic—no, that’s long enough ago that the continents aren’t even in the same places! What’s there?”
“A jungle, she told me. She didn’t take me with her. I was in time for the Last Debate.”
“So was I—but you mean she didn’t change him back? He’s still a gadfly?”
“I think so. She gave me an extremely precise time and place.”
“She’d have to, for a fly! Why didn’t she change him back?” I was aghast.
“I think she didn’t want to face him. There aren’t many people who can make Athene feel ashamed.”
“Has spending more time with her stopped you thinking she’s perfect?” I asked.
Pico smiled. “No. She’s perfect. But I do understand her better. She’s the perfect Athene, and that includes a certain amount of pride and vanity and temper.”
“But surely—you know I’m not perfect!”
“But you are,” he said, picking out the books and piling them on the bed. “You are the perfect Apollo. You’re the light. And both of you grow and change and become more excellent, while remaining perfect as you are. Perfection isn’t static. It’s a dynamic form.”
“Is this your new theory?” I asked warily.
“That part was in the New Concordance,” he said, smiling reminiscently. “Klio and I came up with it long ago.”
“So you think Athene is perfect in her imperfections? Including turning Sokrates into a fly and dropping him off in some swamp millions of years ago? Why didn’t she simply take him to Athens where he could have bitten some of his friends?” He had bitten me, after his transformation, and then flown away. She must have caught him as soon as he was out of sight, and taken him to this location.
“I don’t know. I told her you’d take me with you anyway, but she wanted to be sure.” He looked guiltily down at the books. Then he picked them up and tucked them under his arm. “Let’s go.”
Taking him with me, I stepped out of time, and back in at Athene’s precise coordinates of time and place. Red rocks stuck out of dense green swampland vegetation. It was warm and humid, and there were many flies. Pico, still clutching his books, looked around delightedly. For an instant I thought I could never identify Sokrates among the other flies, and that this must be an impossible test Athene had set me for reasons of her own. But he was my votary and my friend. He flew to me at once, and as soon as I saw him I knew his soul, even as a fly, as he had recognized me incarnate. Tears sprang to my eyes. At once I changed him back to his proper form, and there he was, exactly the same as he had been when I had last seen him in the Last Debate, in the same plain white kiton that was slightly frayed at the hem.
“Apollo!” he said, smiling at me. It was always his joke, to name me and pretend he was swearing. He looked around. “Ikaros!”
“Sokrates, I am so glad to see you!” We hugged each other, and then he hugged Ikaros.
“I’m very glad to see you too. Speaking of seeing, did you know that vision is entirely different when you’re a fly? Where in the world are we?” He looked around at the lush bushes and ferns all around us.
“Unless you know different, where we are doesn’t matter. It’s some remote spot where Athene thought you’d enjoy being a fly for a little while.” If you liked nature in the Romantic mode, it was beautiful. As we looked around, I heard a sound that reminded me of charging elephants, and a huge pink-and-green allosaur dashed past us, easily twice the length of an elephant but shorter and much less bulky, with small arms, an enormous head, and serrated teeth as long as my arm.
“Look, a big scary lizard!” Sokrates said, peering after it cheerfully. “What was it?”
“Maybe a wyvern?” Ikaros suggested.
“It’s not a lizard at all,” I said.
“Is it one of the creatures Lucretius talks about that wasn’t fitted for survival?” Ikaros asked, taking a step in the direction in which it had disappeared. “Or were they all hunted down in the age of heroes?”
“The former,” I said. “And they used to hunt in packs. Let’s go.”
Sokrates nodded after it thoughtfully, then turned back to me. “Where is Athene?” he asked. “We have unfinished business.”
I understood then what Pico had meant about why she hadn’t changed him back. Sokrates wanted to continue the Last Debate, even in a Jurassic swamp full of rampaging dinosaurs. Of course he did. If anyone was a perfect example of themselves, he was. And the reason Athene had changed him into a fly in the first place was because she had lost her temper and couldn’t bear to be defeated in a logical argument.
“She’s lost,” I said. Before he had time to respond, I went on. “Now I’m going to France in the Enlightenment to collect part of the message she sent about how we can rescue her. Do you two want to come, or should I take you to the Just City first?”
“Is that where we’ll be going afterwards?” Sokrates asked.
“Yes. Or rather, it’s where I’ll be going. If you want me to leave you somewhere else, I can do that. With some restrictions. And not here.” I was suddenly unsure. Volition really did mean letting them choose, whether I wanted to or not, and however terrible their choices might be. “Where do you want to be?”
“I asked Krito what I’d do in Thessaly, but he didn’t listen,” Sokrates said, still looking around him at the swamp. “I don’t know what France or the Enlightenment are, so let’s illuminate my ignorance a little by exploring them. And after that, the Just City by all means. I can do my work there.”
“You’ll love the Enlightenment,” Pico said enthusiastically, waving his hand to shoo away flies.
“Has Apollo been taking you on a tour of human history?”
“No, I’ve been working with Athene, and she has taken me to places,” Pico explained.
I took them out of time, and back in to the front lawn of the Chateau Cirey in May of 1750. My sun was pleasantly warm, the trees were in spring blossom, the birds were singing, and best of all they were all that remained of dinosaurs. I had never been here before. The Enlightenment was Athene’s territory, it had never been mine. “Cirey!” said Pico happily.
“Both influenced by Greek originals and influential on buildings in the City, I think,” Sokrates said, looking at the chateau with his head on its side.
“You’re absolutely right,” I said.
“So why did Athene bring you here?” he asked Pico.
I gave our clothes the illusion of eighteenth-century finery. It was one of the most gorgeous eras for men’s clothing. It amused me to dress Sokrates in peacock colors and put a huge curled and powdered wig on him. The same costume suited Pico ridiculously well, much better than the monk’s habit or even his kiton, as if this were the era where he should have lived. The books he still clutched under his arm didn’t even look incongruous.
“To talk to Voltaire and Emilie. Voltaire is very like you,” Pico said to Sokrates. “Another marvelous gadfly. He wrote a play about you. Athene and I spent two wonderful days here. There was theater, there was science, there was debate, and they’re thinking such wonderful things—what time is it here, Pytheas? Can we get hold of a copy of the Encyclopédie while we’re here?”
“The first volume doesn’t come out until next year,” I said. “Besides, it’s in French.”
“I can speak French, though it’s changed a bit, and we sometimes needed to use Latin to be clear. But I can certainly read it reasonably well.”
Sokrates was examining his clothes. “This is the future?” he asked.
“Your future, yes, more than two thousand years after you were born.”
“And after your time too?” he asked Ikaros.