Olympos t-2

by Dan Simmons

  “Helen.”

  Menelaus was there not ten feet from her, his legs wide, sandals firmly planted on the dark marble floor. Even by only the flickering of the vestal votive candles, Helen could see his red beard, his glowering aspect, the sword in his right hand, and a boar-tusk helmet held loose in his left hand.

  “Helen.”

  It was as if this was all the cuckolded king and warrior could say now that his moment of vengeance was at hand.

  Helen considered running and knew it would do no good. She could never get past Menelaus to the street, and her husband had always been one of the fleetest runners in all Lacedaemon. They had always joked that when they had a son, he would be too fast for either of them to catch for a spanking. They had never had a son.

  “Helen.”

  Helen had thought she’d heard every sort of male groan—from orgasm to death and everything in between—but she’d never heard such a surrender to pain from a man before. Certainly not sobbed out in one familiar but totally alien word like this.

  “Helen.”

  Menelaus walked quickly forward, raising his sword as he came.

  Helen made no move to run. In the full light of the candles and the golden goddess glow, she went to her knees, looked up at her rightful husband, lowered her eyes, and pulled her gown down, baring her breasts, waiting for the blade.

  13

  “To answer your last question,” said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che, “we have to go to Earth because it appears that the center of all this quantum activity originates on or near the Earth.”

  “Mahnmut told me shortly after I met him that you’d sent him and Orphu to Mars precisely because Mars—Olympus Mons in particular—was the source of all this… quantum?… activity,” said Hockenberry.

  “That was what we believed when we tapped into the Olympians’ QT ability to transit these Holes, coming from the Belt and Jupiter space into Mars and the Earth of Ilium’s day. But our technology now suggests that Earth is the source and center of this activity, Mars the recipient… or target, perhaps would be the better word.”

  “Your technology has changed so much in eight months?” said Hockenberry.

  “We’ve easily tripled our knowledge of unified quantum theory since we piggybacked in on the Olympians’ quantum tunnels,” said Cho Li. The Callistan seemed to be the expert on technical things. “Most of what we know about quantum gravity, for instance, we’ve learned in the last eight standard months.”

  “And what have you learned?” asked Hockenberry. He didn’t expect to understand the science, but he was suspicious of the moravecs for the first time.

  Retrograde Sinopessen, the transformer with spider legs, answered in his incongruous rumble. “Everything we’ve learned is terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.”

  That word Hockenberry understood. “Because the quantum whatsis is unstable? Mahnmut and Orphu told me that you knew that before you sent them to Mars. Is it worse than you thought?”

  “Not just that factor,” said Asteague/Che, “but our growing understanding of how the force or forces behind the so-called gods are using this quantum-field energy.”

  Force or forces behind the gods. Hockenberry noted that but did not pursue it at that moment. “How are they using it?” he asked.

  “The Olympians actually use ripples—folds—in the quantum field to fly their chariots,” said the Ganymedan, Suma IV. The tall creature’s multifaceted eyes caught the light in a prism of reflections.

  “Is that bad?”

  “Only in the sense that it would be if you used a thermonuclear weapon to power a lightbulb in your home,” said Cho Li in his/her soft tones. “The energies being tapped into are almost immeasurable.”

  “Then why haven’t the gods won this war?” asked Hockenberry. “It seems that your technology has sort of stalemated them… even Zeus’s aegis.”

  Beh bin Adee, the rockvec commander, answered. “The gods use only the slightest fraction of the quantum energy in play on and around Mars and Ilium. We don’t believe they understand the technology behind their power. It’s been… loaned to them.”

  “By whom?” Hockenberry was suddenly very thirsty. He wondered if the moravecs had included any human-style food or drink in their pressurized bubble.

  “That’s what we’re going to Earth to find out,” said Asteague/Che.

  “Why use a spaceship?” said Hockenberry.

  “Pardon me?” asked Cho Li in soft tones. “How else could we travel between worlds?”

  “The same way you got to Mars in your invasion,” said Hockenberry. “Use one of the Holes.”

  Asteague/Che shook his head in a manner similar to Mahnmut’s. “There are no quantum-tunnel Brane Holes between Mars and Earth.”

  “But you created your own Holes to come from Jupiter space and the Belt, right?” said Hockenberry. His head hurt. “Why not do that again?”

  Cho Li answered. “Mahnmut succeeded in placing our transponder precisely at the quincunx locus of the quantum flux on Olympos. We have no one on Earth or in near-Earth orbit to do that for us now. That is one of the goals of our mission. We’ll be bringing a similar, although updated, transponder with us on the ship.”

  Hockenberry nodded, but wasn’t quite sure of what he was nodding in agreement to. He was trying to remember the definition of “quincunx.” Was it a rectangle with a fifth point in the middle? Or something to do with leaves or petals? He knew it had to do with the number five.

  Asteague/Che leaned closer over the table. “Dr. Hockenberry, may I give you a hint of why this frivolous use of quantum energy terrifies us?”

  “Please.” Such manners, thought Hockenberry, who had been around Trojan and Greek heroes too long.

  “Have you noticed anything about the gravity on Olympos and the rest of Mars during your more than nine years shuttling between there and Ilium, Doctor?”

  “Well… yeah, sure … I always felt a little lighter on Olympos. Even before I realized it was Mars, which was only after you guys showed up. So? That’s right, isn’t it? Doesn’t Mars have less gravity than Earth?”

  “Very much less,” piped in Cho Li… and her voice did sound a lot like pipes to Hockenberry’s ear. Pan’s pipes. “It’s approximately three seventy-two kilometers per second per second.”

  “Translate,” said Hockenberry.

  “It’s thirty-eight percent of Earth’s gravitational field,” said Retrograde Sinopessen. “And you were moving—quantum teleporting, actu-ally—between Earth’s full gravity and Olympos’ every day. Did you notice a sixty-two percent difference in gravity, Dr. Hockenberry.”

  “Please, everyone, call me Thomas,” Hockenberry said while distracted. Sixty-two percent difference? I’d almost be floating like a balloon on Mars… jumping twenty yards at a leap. Nonsense.

  “You didn’t observe this gravitational difference,” said Asteague/Che, not framing it as a question.

  “Not really,” agreed Hockenberry. It was always a little easier walking after the return to Olympos after a long day observing the Trojan War—and not just on the mountain, but in the scholics barracks at the base of the huge massif. A little easier—a little lighter in the walking and carrying loads—but sixty-two percent difference? No way in hell. “There was a difference,” he added, “but not such a profound one.”

  “You didn’t notice a profound difference, Dr. Hockenberry, because the gravity of the Mars you have been living on for the past ten years—and which we have been fighting on for the past eight Earth-standard months—is ninety-three point eight-two-one percent Earth normal.”

  Hockenberry thought about this for a moment. “So?” he said at last. “The gods tweaked the gravity while they were adding the air and oceans. They are, after all, gods.”

  “They’re something,” agreed Asteague/Che, “but not what they appear.”

  “Is changing the gravity of a planet such a big deal?” asked Hockenberry.

  There was a silence, and while Hockenberry did n
ot see any of the moravecs turn their heads or eyes or whatever to look at any of the other moravecs, he had the sense that they were all busy communing on some radio band or the other. How to explain to this idiot human?

  Finally Suma IV, the tall Ganymedan, said, “It is a very big deal.”

  “Bigger even than the terraforming of a world like the original Mars in less than a century and a half,” piped in Cho Li. “Which is impossible.”

  “Gravity equals mass,” said Retrograde Sinopessen.

  “It does?” said Hockenberry, hearing how stupid he sounded but not caring. “I always thought it was what held things down.”

  “Gravity is an effect of mass on space/time,” continued the silver spider. “The current Mars is three point nine-six times the density of water. The original Mars—the pre-terraformed world we observed not much more than a century ago—was three point nine-four times the density of water.”

  “That doesn’t sound like too much of a change,” said Hockenberry.

  “It is not,” agreed Asteague/Che. “It in no way accounts for an increase in gravitation attraction of almost fifty-six percent.”

  “Gravity is also an acceleration,” Cho Li said in her musical tones.

  Now they’d lost Hockenberry completely. He’d come here to learn about the upcoming visit to Earth and to hear why they wanted him to join them, not to be lectured like a particularly slow eighth grade science student.

  “So they—someone, not the gods—changed Mars’ gravity,” he said. “And you think it’s a very big deal.”

  “It is a very big deal, Dr. Hockenberry,” said Asteague/Che. “Whoever and whatever manipulated Mars’ gravity this way is a master of quantum gravity. The Holes… as they’ve come to be called… are quantum tunnels that also bend and manipulate gravity.”

  “Wormholes,” said Hockenberry. “I know about them.” From Star Trek, he thought but did not say. “Black holes,” he added. Then, “And white holes.” He’d just exhausted his entire vocabulary on this subject. Even nonscience types like old Dr. Hockenberry at the end of the Twentieth Century had known that the universe was full of wormholes connecting distant places in this galaxy and others, and that to go through a wormhole, you went through a black hole and came out a white hole. Or maybe vice versa.

  Asteague/Che shook his head in that Mahnmut way. “Not wormholes. Brane Holes … as in membrane. It looks like the post-humans in Earth orbit used black holes to create very temporary wormholes, but the Brane Holes—and there is only one left connecting Mars and Ilium, you must remember; the others have lost stability and decayed away—are not wormholes.”

  “You’d be dead if you tried to go through a wormhole or a black hole,” said Cho Li.

  “Spaghettified,” said General Beh bin Adee. The rockvec sounded as if he enjoyed the concept of spaghettification.

  “Being spaghettified …” began Retrograde Sinopessen.

  “I get the idea,” said Hockenberry. “So this use of quantum gravity and these quantum Brane Holes makes the adversary much scarier even than you’d feared.”

  “Yes,” said Asteague/Che.

  “And you’re taking this big spaceship to Earth to find out who or what created these Holes, terraformed Mars, and probably created the gods as well.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want me along.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” said Hockenberry. “What possible contribution could I make to …” He paused and touched the lump under his tunic, the heavy circle against his chest. “The QT medallion.”

  “Yes,” said Asteague/Che.

  “Back when you guys first arrived, I loaned the medallion to you for six days. I was afraid you’d never give it back. You did tests on me as well… blood, DNA, the whole nine yards. I would have guessed that you’d replicated a thousand QT medallions by now.”

  “If we were able to replicate a dozen… half a dozen… one more,” growled General Beh bin Adee, “the war with the gods would be over, Olympos occupied.”

  “It’s not possible for us to build a duplicate QT device,” said Cho Li.

  “Why?” Hockenberry’s headache was killing him.

  “The QT medallion was customized to your mind and body,” Asteague/Che said in his mellifluous James Mason way. “Your mind and body were… customized… to work with the QT medallion.”

  Hockenberry thought about this. Finally he shook his head and touched the heavy medallion under his tunic again. “That doesn’t make any sense. This thing wasn’t standard issue, you know. We scholics had to go to prearranged places to get back to Olympos—the gods QT’d us back. It was sort of a beam-me-up-Scotty thing, if you understand what I mean, which you can’t.”

  “Yes, we understand perfectly,” said the Lionel transformer box on its millimeter-thin silver-spider legs. “I love that program. I have all the episodes recorded. Especially the first series… I’ve always wondered if there was some sort of hidden physical-romantic liaison between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.”

  Hockenberry started to reply, stopped. “Look,” he said at last, “the goddess Aphrodite gave me this QT medallion so that I could spy on Athena, whom she wanted to kill. But that was more than nine years after I started work as a scholic, shuttling between Olympos and Ilium. How could my body have been ‘customized’ to work with the medallion when nobody could have known that …” He stopped. A hint of nausea was creeping in under the headache. He wondered if the air was good in this blue bubble.

  “You were originally… reconstructed… to work with the QT medallion,” said Asteague/Che. “Just as the gods were designed to QT on their own. Of this we are sure. Perhaps the answer to why lies back on Earth or in Earth orbit in one of the hundreds of thousands of post-human orbital devices and cities there.”

  Hockenberry sat back in his chair. He’d noticed when they sat down at the table that his stool had been the only one with a back on it. The moravecs were very considerate that way.

  “You want me along on the expedition,” he said, “so that I could QT back here if things go wrong. I’m like one of those emergency buoys that nuclear submarines used to carry in my time on Earth. They only launched it when they knew they were screwed.”

  “Yes,” said Asteague/Che. “This is precisely the reason we want you along on the voyage.”

  Hockenberry blinked. “Well, you’re honest… I’ll give you that. What are the goals of this expedition?”

  “Goal One—to find the source of the quantum energy,” said Cho Li. “And to shut it off if possible. It threatens the entire solar system.”

  “Goal Two—to make contact with any surviving humans or post-humans on or around the planet to interrogate them as to the motives behind this gods-Ilium connection and the dangerous quantum manipulation surrounding it,” said the gray-oily Ganymedan, Suma IV.

  “Goal Three—to map the existing and any additional hidden quantum tunnels—Brane Holes—and to see if they can be harnessed for interplanetary or interstellar travel,” said Retrograde Sinopessen.

  “Goal Four—to find the alien entities who entered our solar system fourteen hundred years ago, the real gods behind these midget Olympian gods, as it were, and to reason with them,” said General Beh bin Abee. “And if reason fails, to destroy them.”

  “Goal Five,” Asteague/Che said softly in his slow British drawl, “to return all of our moravec and human crewmen to Mars… alive and functioning.”

  “I like that goal, at least,” said Hockenberry. His heart was pounding and the headache had become the kind of migraine he’d had when in graduate school, during the unhappiest period of his previous life. He stood.

  The five moravecs quickly stood.

  “How long do I have to decide?” asked Hockenberry. “Because if you’re leaving in the next hour, I’m not going. I want to think about this.”

  “The ship won’t be ready and provisioned for forty-eight hours,” said Asteague/Che. “Would you like to wait here while you think it o
ver? We’ve prepared a suitable habitation for you in a quiet part of the…”

  “I want to go back to Ilium,” said Hockenberry. “I’ll be able to think better there.”

  Asteague/Che said, “We’ll prepare your hornet for immediate departure. But I’m afraid it’s getting rather hectic there today according to the updates I’m receiving from our various monitors.”

  “Isn’t that the way?” said Hockenberry. “I leave for a few hours and miss all the good stuff.”

  “You may find evolving events at Ilium and on Olympos too interesting to leave behind, Dr. Hockenberry,” said Retrograde Sinopessen. “I would certainly undersand an Iliad scholar’s commitment to remaining and observing.”

  Hockenberry sighed and shook his aching head. “Wherever we are in what’s going on at Ilium and Olympos,” he said, “it’s way the hell outside the Iliad. Most of the time, I’m at as much of a loss as that poor woman Cassandra.”

  A hornet came through the curving wall of the blue bubble, hovered over them, and set down silently. The ramp curled down. Mahnmut stood in the doorway.

  Hockenberry nodded formally toward the moravec delegation, said, “I’ll let you know before the forty-eight hours are up,” and walked toward the ramp.

  “Dr. Hockenberry?” said the James Mason voice behind him.

  Hockenberry turned.

  “We want to take one Greek or Trojan with us on this expedition,” said Asteague/Che. “Your recommendation would be appreciated.”

  “Why?” said Hockenberry. “I mean, why take along someone from the Bronze Age. Someone who lived and died six thousand years before the time of the Earth you’re visiting?”

  “We have our reasons,” said the Prime Integrator. “Just off the top of your mind, who would you nominate for the trip?”

  Helen of Troy, thought Hockenberry. Give us the honeymoon suite on the trip to Earth and this could be one hell of an enjoyable expedition. He tried to imagine sex with Helen in zero-g. His headache stopped him from succeeding.

  “Do you want a warrior?” asked Hockenberry. “A hero?”