“Nothing much we could do, unless you want me to swing in and alter the entire makeup of the planet,” the computer responded. “Besides, we are now dealing with the effective destruction of the entire Com and perhaps all reality. Let Olympus and its society go; what difference will it make?”
There really wasn’t a reply to that one, and Mavra let the matter drop. How long should I stay here? she wondered, more to herself than as a question to Obie.
The computer replied anyway. “An hour, give or take—give this fellow a memory of a happy liaison and put him to sleep. I’ll let you know when it’s time to go.”
She did it, being particularly suggestive in the hypnotic memories she was implanting. Soon he was happily snoozing, clutching a pillow like a teddy bear, and smiling.
She spent the time plotting new moves with Obie.
“Get to the Mother Temple,” he suggested. “We need to talk to the top of the political ladder, whoever that is. Indications are that someone’s in charge of everything. Find out who. Play it by ear. I’ll be riding with you just in case.”
The hour passed slowly.
Yua was positively radiant; she seemed to be in a daze for some time after they left the Temple of Birth. They caught a tram for the Mother Temple, whose spires could be seen in the distance.
“To whom do you report?” Mavra asked her.
“To the Priestess Superior,” the woman responded. “She is an Athene,” she added with some distaste. Athenes were the tailless.
“But who receives her report? I mean, who is in charge here?”
“The Holy Mother, eventually, I suppose,” Yua answered. “I have never seen her.”
“But she’s in the Mother Temple?”
Yua nodded. “So I’m told.”
The Mother Temple was imposing; although no higher than the surrounding buildings, it was designed like a medieval castle of gleaming metal, with towers and short spires abounding. At night it was bathed in colored lights, but even at midday it was very impressive.
One approached by an impossibly long flight of stone stairs; the building itself was anchored in and rested against the solid bedrock of the mountains encircling the city.
To the right Mavra and Yua could see the Pilgrimage Trail which lead to the site of the first settlement. It didn’t look like too long a walk and Mavra suggested they visit it before entering the Temple proper. The Olympians may have been Obie’s children, but the dominant First Mothers had been Mavra Chang’s grandparents.
The well-kept trail was littered with signs, exhibits, and displays telling the story of the founding of Olympus, of how the First Mothers had fallen under the spell of the Evil One while on the mystical Well World, which was pictured as a heavenly paradise, then spirited back to the Com by the machinations of this otherwise undefined Evil One who was then defeated in a great battle, leaving the First Mothers victorious but cut off from Heaven, and how they decided to build their own new world here, on Olympus.
The early huts were indeed primitive; Mavra guessed that they need not have been so basic, that the simplicity was a deliberate attempt to force the building of a new race and culture from the ground up, with as little contamination from the Com as possible. The First Mothers had recognized from the beginning that they merely wore the form of beautiful human women; that inside, biologically and otherwise, they were an alien race and would have been treated as freaks in the then totally human Com. They had been wrong in one thing, though; mentally they had risen above humanity and they carried that with them.
Above, carved in rock and gilded, were the names of the eleven First Mothers. Most of them were not familiar to Mavra, as they’d been refugees from New Pompeii, but there, too, was Kally “Wuju” Tonge, and Vistaru, her grandparents, as well as Dr. Zinder’s daughter, Nikki, and Nikki’s daughter Mavra. And, after the eleven names there was one more, off by itself and bordered in thick gold.
MAVRA CHANG TONGE, it read.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” breathed Mavra Chang softly. “Damn me if I’m not feeling foolishly emotional.” There was a sense of history here, and family, and continuity after all, which seemed suddenly to grab at her soul.
Yua looked surprised. “Why, that’s you, isn’t it?” she gasped. “Somehow I just never thought of it!”
Mavra broke the silence. Turning, she said, flatly, “Let’s get this over with.” She walked back down the pathway not looking back and Yua followed. Outwardly, Mavra Chang was all business again.
Obie? Where are you now?
“There’s a lot of debris in the system,” the computer responded instantly. “I am well disguised but within range.”
You have a fix on me? She was climbing the long steps to the doors of the Mother Temple.
“I’m locked on,” Obie assured her. “Just let me know when and if you need something.”
Olympians were walking up and down the stairs and in and out the massive Temple doors. Most were tailed Aphrodites but one or two were tailless Athenes garbed in Temple robes and intent on some business or the other. It was a busy place.
The interior of the Mother Temple looked more like a spaceport lounge than a religious center; an intricate model of the Well World hung from the center of a huge chamber and myriad creatures had been depicted in the mosaic tiles that covered the floor and the walls. Many doorways and corridors led from the chamber and before each was a reception desk staffed by a priestess. The place was well organized, Mavra had to admit that.
Yua walked almost the length of the chamber before approaching a particular desk to give a crossed-arm salute and bow to the Aphrodite sitting there.
“Yua of Mendat to see Her Holiness,” she reported quickly.
The receptionist nodded slightly and checked a list, then looked back up at Yua. “You are back early, High Priestess. We had no word you were coming.”
“I report on discussions with the Com government of concern only to Her Holiness,” Yua responded a little icily. “She will see me.”
The receptionist shrugged almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t her problem. “I’ll tell Her Holiness you’re here,” she said, then looked over at Mavra. “Yes?”
“The sister is with me,” Yua covered quickly, “and bears on the report. I will take full responsibility.”
Dark eyebrows rose slightly. The Priestess punched Yua’s code. After a few seconds, a small green light glowed. “You may enter now,” she told them. “Reception Room three, on the right.”
They walked past the desk and down the hall. It was disappointingly mundane after the Temple facade and the grand hall—it looked like office-building corridors everywhere. The door to Reception Room 3 slid open as they approached. Inside were two backless stone benches almost in the center of the room and a small chair of some plastic material sculpted to hold the human form, slightly raised and facing the benches. It’s construction would have prohibited an Aphrodite from sitting; clearly this was Athene territory. A small table alongside the chair was the room’s only other furnishing.
Mavra and Yua had barely sat when the door opened behind them. They rose and turned as an Olympian in a scarlet robe walked in, up to the chair, and sat down, thus proving she had no tail. She had some files under her arm and placed them on the table.
“Hello, Yua,” she opened, nodding toward the High Priestess. “And who is this with you?”
Yua started to answer but Mavra cut her off. “I’m a spy,” she replied casually. “I am Mavra Chang.”
The Athene looked a little startled. “What the hell is this all about?” she snapped. “Are you mad?”
Obie? You got her?