“Preparation,” said Noman.
“For what?” laughed Sycorax. “You don’t believe those two races of the human species will ever meet, do you? You can’t be serious. The Greeks and Trojans and their ilk would eat your naïve little old-style humans here for breakfast.”
Noman shrugged. “Call off this war with Prospero and let’s see what happens.”
Sycorax slammed down the wine goblet onto a nearby table. “Leave the field while that bastard Prospero remains on it?” she snapped. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” said Noman. “The old entity called Prospero is quite mad. His days are over. But you can leave before the same madness claims you. Let’s leave this place, Circe, you and I.”
“Leave?” The witch’s voice was very low, incredulous.
“I know this rock has fusion-drive engines and Brane Hole generators that could send us to the stars, beyond the stars. If we get bored, we step through the Calabi-Yau door and make love across the whole, rich universe of history—we could meet at different ages, wear our different bodies at different ages as easily as changing clothes, travel in time to join ourselves making love, freeze time itself so that we can take part in our own lovemaking. You have enough food and air here to keep us comfortable for a thousand years—ten thousand if you please.”
“You forget,” said Sycorax, rising and pacing again. “You’re a mortal man. In twenty years I’ll be changing your soiled underwear and feeding you by hand. In forty years you’ll be dead.”
“You offered me immortality once. The rejuvenation tanks are still here on your isle.”
“You rejected immortality!” screamed Sycorax. She picked up the heavy mug and threw it at him. Noman ducked but did not move his feet from where they were planted. “You rejected it again and again!” she screamed, tearing at her hair and cheeks with her nails. “You threw it in my face to return to your precious… Penelope … over and over again. You actually laughed at me.”
“I’m not laughing now. Come away with me.”
Her expression was wild with fury. “I should have Caliban kill you and eat you right here in front of me. I’ll laugh while he sucks the marrow from your cracked bones.”
“Come away with me, Circe,” said Noman. “Reactivate the faxes and functions, drop the old Hands of Hercules and other useless toys, and come away with me. Be my lover again.”
“You’re old,” she sneered. “Old and scarred and gray-haired. Why should I choose an old man over a vital younger one?” She stroked the thigh and flaccid penis of the seemingly hypnotized and motionless younger Odysseus.
“Because this Odysseus will not be leaving through the Calabi-Yau door in a week or month or eight years as that young one will,” said Noman. “And because this Odysseus loves you.”
Sycorax made a choked noise that sounded like a snarl. Caliban echoed her snarl.
Noman reached under his tunic and took a heavy pistol from where he had hidden it under his broad belt in the back.
The witch stopped pacing and stared. “You can’t possibly think that thing can hurt me.”
“I didn’t bring it to hurt you,” said Noman.
She flicked her violet gaze to the frozen younger Odysseus. “Are you mad? Do you know what mischief that would do on the quantum level of things? You’re courting kaos by even contemplating such a thing. It would destroy a cycle that has been going on in a thousand strands for a thousand…”
“Going on for too long,” said Noman. He fired six times, each explosion seemingly louder than the last. The six heavy bullets tore into the naked Odysseus, tearing his rib cage apart, pulping his heart, striking him in the middle of the forehead.
The younger man’s body jerked to the impacts and slid to the floor, leaving red streaks on the silk cushions and a growing pool of blood on the marble tiles.
“Decide,” said Noman.
83
I don’t know if I teleported here via my own, medallion-less ability, or just came along with Hephaestus because I was touching his sleeve when he QT’d. It doesn’t matter. I’m here.
Here is Odysseus’ home. A dog barks madly at us as Hephaestus, Achilles, and I pop into existence, but one glance from bloody-helmeted Achilles sends the mutt whining back out to the courtyard with its tail between its legs.
We’re in an anteroom looking into the great dining hall of Odysseus’ home on the isle of Ithaca. Some sort of forcefield hums over the house and courtyard. There are no impudent suitors lounging in the long room at the long table, no Penelope dithering, no impotent young Telemachus plotting, no servants hustling to and fro dispensing the absent Odysseus’ food and wine to indolent ne’er-do-wells. But the room looks as if the Slaughter of the Suitors has already taken place—chairs are overturned, a huge tapestry has been ripped off the wall and now lies thrown over table and floor, soaking up spilled wine, and even Odysseus’ greatest bow—the one that only he alone could pull, according to legend, a bow so wonderful and rare that he decided not to take it to Troy with him—now lies on the stone floor, amidst a clutter of Odysseus’ famous barbed and poisoned hunting arrows.
Zeus whirls. The giant wears the same soft garments he had been wearing on the Throne of Olympos, but he is not so gigantic now. Yet even shrunken to fit this space, he is still twice as tall as Achilles.
Beckoning us to stand back, the fleet-footed mankiller raises his shield, readies his sword, and steps into the dining hall.
“My son,” booms the God of Thunder, “spare me your childlike anger. Would you commit deicide, tyrannicide, and patricide in one terrible stroke?”
Achilles advances until he is across the span of the broad table from Zeus. “Fight, old man.”
Zeus continues smiling, apparently not the least bit alarmed. “Think, fleet-footed Achilles. Use your brain for once rather than your muscles or your dick. Would you have that useless cripple sit on the golden throne of Olympos?” He nods toward where Hephaestus stands silent in the doorway next to me.
Achilles does not turn his head.
“Just think for once,” repeats Zeus, his deep voice causing crockery to vibrate in the nearby kitchen. “Join with me, Achilles, my son. Become one with the penetrating presence that is Zeus, Father of All Gods. Thus joined, father and son, immortal and immortal, two mighty spirits, mingling, shall make a third, mightier than either alone—triune together, Father and Son and holy will, we shall reign over heaven and Troy and send the Titans back down to their pit forever.”
“Fight,” said Achilles. “You old pigfucker.”
Zeus’s broad face turns several shades of red. “Detested prodigy! Even thus, deprived of my control of all elements, I trample thee!”
Zeus grabs the long table by its edge and flips it into the air. Fifty feet of heavy wood planks and posts flies tumbling through the air toward Achilles’ head. The human ducks low and the table smashes into the wall behind him, destroying a fresco and sending splinters flying everywhere.
Achilles takes two steps closer.
Zeus opens his arms, opens his hands to show his palms. “Would you kill me as I am, oh man? Unarmed? Or shall we grapple barehanded like heroes in the arena until one fails to rise and the other takes the prize?”
Achilles hesitates only a second. Then he pulls off his golden helmet and sets it aside. He removes the circular shield from his forearm, lays the sword in its cusp, adds his bronze chest armor and greaves, and kicks all that to our doorway. Now he is clad only in his shirt, short skirt, sandals, and broad leather belt.