I’m telling you it’s going to collapse any minute, sent Orphu. We’ve ordered the moravecs and rockvecs around Ilium and along the coast there to get the hell out. We think they have time to load up their gear, but the hornets and shuttles should be coming out of there within the next ten minutes at about Mach 3. Be prepared for sonic booms.
That’ll leave Ilium open to air attack and QT invasion from Olympos, sent Mahnmut. He was horrified at the thought. They were abandoning their Trojan and Greek allies.
That’s not our problem anymore, rumbled Orphu of Io. Asteague/Che and the other prime integrators have ordered the evacuation. If that Brane Hole closes—and it will, Mahnmut, trust me on that—we lose all eight hundred of the technicians, missile battery vecs, and others stationed on the Earth side. They’ve already been ordered out. They’re risking their lives even taking the time to pack up their missiles, energy projectors, and other heavy weapons, but the integrators don’t want those things left behind, even if disabled.
Can I help? Mahnmut looked out the open hatch to where Hockenberry was jogging toward Achilles and his men. He felt useless—if he left Hockenberry behind, the scholic might die in the fight here. If he didn’t get the hornet airborne and through the Hole immediately, other moravecs might be sealed away from their real universe forever.
Stand by, I’ll check with the integrators and General Beh bin Adee, sent Orphu. A few seconds later the tightbeam channel crackled again. Stay where you are right now. You’re the best camera angle we have on the Brane at the moment. Can you hook all your feeds to Phobos and get outside the ship to add your own imaging to the link?
Yes, I can do that, sent Mahnmut. He de-stealthed the hornet—he didn’t want the approaching mob of Achaeans and rockvecs to bump into it—and hurried down the ramp to join Hockenberry.
Walking up to the cluster of Achaeans, Hockenberry felt a growing sense of unreality tinged with guilt. This is my doing. If I hadn’t morphed myself into Athena’s form and kidnapped Patroclus eight months ago, Achilles wouldn’t have declared war on the gods and none of this would have happened. If anyone dies here today, it’s all my fault.
It was Achilles who turned his back on the approaching cavalry and greeted him. “Welcome, Hockenberry, son of Duane.”
There were about fifty of the Achaean leaders and their captains and spearmen standing there waiting for the women on horseback to arrive—from the rapidly closing distance, Hockenberry could see that they were indeed women decked out in resplendent armor—and among the top men here he recognized Diomedes, Big and Little Ajax, Idomeneus, Odysseus, Podarces, and his younger friend Menippus, Sthenelus, Euryalus, and Stichius. The former scholic was surprised to see the leering camp-lawyer Thersites standing by Achilles’ side—normally, Hockenberry knew, the fleet-footed mankiller would not have allowed the corpse-robber within a mile of his person.
“What’s going on?” he asked Achilles.
The tall, blond god-man shrugged. “It’s been a bizarre day, son of Duane. First the gods refused to come down to fight. Then a motley group of Trojan women attacked us, killing Philoctetes with a lucky spearcast. Now these Amazons approach after killing more of our men, or so this rat by my side tells us.”
Amazons.
Mahnmut came hurrying up. Most of the Achaeans were used to the little moravec now and gave the metal-plastic creature only a passing glance before returning their gazes to the fast-approaching Amazons.
“What’s happening?” Mahnmut had spoken to Hockenberry in English.
Rather than answer in the same language, Hockenberry recited—
“Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis
Penthesilea furens, mediisque in milibus ardet, aurea sunectens exwerta cingula mammae bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo.”
“Don’t make me download Latin,” said Mahnmut. He nodded toward the huge horses being reined to a stop not five yards in front of them all, throwing up a cloud of dust that rolled over the Achaean captains.
“Furious, Penthesilea leads a battleline of Amazons,” translated Hockenberry. “With crescent shields, and she glows in the middle of thousands, fastening golden belts around the exposed breast, female warrior, and the maiden dares run with men.”
“That’s just great,” the little moravec said sarcastically. “But the Latin… it’s not Homer, I presume?”
“Virgil,” whispered Hockenberry in the sudden silence in which the paw of a horse’s hoof sounded crashingly loud. “Somehow we’re in the Aeneid here.”
“That’s just great,” repeated Mahnmut.
The rockvec techs are almost loaded and will be ready to lift off from the Earth side in five minutes or less, sent Orphu. And there’s something else you have to know. We’re pushing up the launch time for the Queen Mab.
How soon? sent Mahnmut, his mostly organic heart sinking. We promised Hockenberry forty-eight hours to make up his mind and try to talk Odysseus into going with us.
Well, he has less than an hour now, sent Orphu of Io. Maybe forty minutes if we can get these damned rockvecs tranked and shelved and their weapons stored. You’ll have to get back up here by then or stay behind.
But The Dark Lady, sent Mahnmut, thinking of his submersible. He’d not even run the last checks on the sub’s many systems.
They’re stowing her in the hold right now, sent Orphu from the Mab. I can feel the bumps. You can do your checklist when we’re in flight. Don’t dally down there, old friend. The tightbeam went from crackle to hiss as Orphu signed off.
Only one row back from the thin front line here, Hockenberry saw that the Amazons’ horses were huge… as big as Percherons or those Budweiser horses. There were thirteen of them and Virgil, bless his heart, had been right—the Amazon women’s armor left each of their left breasts bare. The effect was… distracting.
Achilles took three steps in front of the other men. He was so close to the blonde Amazon’s horse that he could have stroked its nose. He didn’t.
“What do you want, woman?” he asked. For such a huge, heavily muscled man, Achilles’ voice was very soft.
“I am Penthesilea, daughter of the war god Ares and the Amazon queen Otrere,” said the beautiful woman from high on her armored horse. “And I want you dead, Achilles, son of Peleus.”
Achilles threw back his head and laughed. It was an easy, relaxed laugh, and all the more chilling to Hockenberry because of that. “Tell me woman,” Achilles said softly, “how do you find the courage to challenge us, the most powerful heroes of this age, fighters who have laid siege to Olympos itself? Most of us are sprung from the blood of the Son of Kronos himself, Lord Zeus. Would you really do battle with us, woman?”
“The others can go if they want to live,” called down Penthesilea, her voice as calm as Achilles’ but louder. “I have no fight with Ajax, son of Telamon, or with the son of Tydeus or the son of Deucalion or the son of Laertes or the others gathered here. Only with you, son of Peleus.”
The men listed—Big Ajax, Diomedes, Idomeneus, and Odysseus—looked startled for a second, glanced at Achilles, and then laughed in unison. The other Achaeans joined in the laughter. Fifty or sixty more Argive fighters were coming up from the rear, the rockvec Mep Ahoo in their ranks.
Hockenberry didn’t notice as Mahnmut’s black-visored head swiveled smoothly around, and Hockenberry had no idea that Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo was tightbeaming the smaller moravec about the imminent collapse of the Brane Hole.