The Argonaut Affair

by Simon Hawke

  "Wait!" cried Jason. "Who are you, that I might know whom to thank for-" but the dark figure had already melted away into the darkness. Steiger quickly moved off after the stranger. "Fabius, where is Creon going?" Jason said. "I think he's going to follow our benefactor," said Delaney. "You know what they say, beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

  Jason frowned. "Who says that?" Delaney shrugged. "Creon's people say it. They're not a very trusting lot."

  "They would do well to trust the wisdom of the gods," said Jason. "You see? It all comes to pass. The gods have willed it and now we shall have the funds to build the Argo and the means to assemble its crew. It is a good omen, Fabius. Our fate now lies before us."

  "Perhaps," said Delaney. "I would still prefer to know who's helping fate along."

  Steiger had no difficulty closing the distance between himself and the stranger who had come calling at their camp. The man was far from an experienced woodsman. In the darkness, he crashed through the underbrush and stumbled in the mud, making more than enough noise to cover any sounds Steiger might have made in his pursuit. Steiger kept thinking about the man's voice. It sounded muffled, as if he had been speaking through a piece of cloth. Why bother to disguise his voice? They knew no one in Iolchos. And why had he been afraid to show himself?

  There was something very suspicious about the recent progression of events, thought Steiger. Andre Cross seemed inclined to keep an open mind about possible differences in physical laws in this new universe, but perhaps that was because she had come from a superstitious time. When she had first seen 27th century technology, it would indeed have seemed like magic to her. Finn Delaney had not yet indicated where he stood on that question, but as for himself, Steiger preferred to look for rational explanations. Perhaps, in this universe, magic in the supernatural sense was possible, but he would reverse his judgment until he saw something that could not be explained away as anything but supernatural phenomena. He had yet to see anything like that.

  The centaur had been real, there was no doubt about that, but was it supernatural, a being created by immortal gods? Steiger did not believe it for a moment. In his younger days, when he had been an interstellar mercenary, he had seen much stranger creatures that had been the result of natural evolution in their own respective environments-and this was a different universe, after all. He had also seen bizarre genetic manipulations and surgical creations. On one colony world, a youth fad had resulted in a subculture known as Cyberpunks, where young people voluntarily submitted to outrageous surgical and cybernetic procedures which turned them into creatures far more exotic and surreal-looking than the centaur had been- boys with snakeskin and forked tongues, girls with cat's eyes and downy fur. And these were human children. No, he wasn't ready to buy the concept of a "real" mythology just yet.

  The flames on the altar of the Oracle could easily have been produced in a number of ways that were perfectly mundane. The flames themselves would have provided enough cover for the Oracle to have "appeared" and "disappeared." The fact that they had not found a hidden doorway in the wall around the Speaking Oak did not mean that there wasn't one.

  The Oracle's "prophecy" could be even more easily explained. It was, after all, at the suggestion of the high priest that they had traveled to the shrine at Delphi. The high priest could easily have arrived there before them and set the whole thing up. The question was, why? Was it merely the result of Pelias wanting to be rid of Jason? If such were the case, why hadn't he had Jason killed? It would have been the simplest solution, unless he had a specific reason for not doing so. Or was there something more to it? Could it be that the reason the stranger's voice was muffled was because they might have recognized it as the voice of the high priest? That was something Steiger was determined to find out before the night was over.

  The stranger was not far ahead of him, blundering through the woods on a roundabout way back to Iolchos. The way he was moving, Steiger would almost have to try to lose him. As they approached the city, Steiger smiled. Something told him he was going to follow the stranger right back to the Temple of Poseidon.

  Suddenly, instincts born of years of fighting sounded an alarm inside his head and he knew he had done something drastically wrong. He started to spin around, but he never saw the blow coming. The next moment, he was on his back, unconscious, stretched out in the mud and the wet leaves.

  "You're lucky you have a hard head," said Delaney.

  Steiger opened his eyes to daylight and quickly shut them once again, wincing. Delaney slowly helped him to a sitting position.

  "Take it easy, Creed. You've had a nasty crack."

  "I've had worse," said Steiger. He groaned. "That doesn't make me feel any better about this one, though."

  "What happened?"

  "I was following our friend and thinking how easy it was, trailing a tenderfoot like that through the woods, when somebody came up behind me and bashed my head in. No wonder it was so easy. They expected to be followed and planned an ambush. And like an idiot, I walked right into it. Where's Andre?"

  "Back at the camp with Jason. We got worried when you didn't come back, so I thought I'd trail you and see if anything went wrong. Obviously, something did."

  "Yes, with me," said Steiger. "I deserve having my skull fractured for letting them come up on me like that. The sponsors of this voyage seem determined not to have their identities revealed. There's something funny going on. Someone's hatching plots, but against whom? Pelias or Jason?"

  "I've been thinking about that, too," Delaney said. "The story told by Apollonius didn't have a great deal of internal consistency. But then it was only a story. It didn't happen in our time line."

  "We don't know that for sure," Steiger said. "For all we know, an event similar to this could actually have occurred sometime in ancient Greece in our own timeline. Perhaps, over the years, embellishments were added to it until it became mythologized. There's no way of reliably dating a myth. Without knowing exactly at what point in time it was supposed to have taken place, there's no way to check it out. And this universe has already proven to have a different chronological timeline."

  Delaney nodded. "True. Just because it's happening here doesn't mean it happened in our universe or that the dates even correspond. Or the events, for that matter. Too bad we can't clock ahead in time and check."

  "How would we know which temporal coordinates to clock to? "Steiger said.

  "There is that," said Delaney. "The way I see it, we've got two separate problems here. One is the possibility that the opposition might become alerted to our presence by means of tracking us through our warp discs. There's not much that can be done about that if it happens. All we can do is minimize the risk by not making any temporal transitions unless it's unavoidable. But then there's the second problem, which is that we don't know for certain just what the historical scenario is here. All we're working from is a bunch of theories and assumptions. I'm not sure I buy the theory that our mythology, or certain aspects of it, might have been the result of some sort of psychic feedback across the congruency, people in our timeline somehow tuning in on events in this universe."

  Steiger grunted. "That does sound pretty wild, but if it's true, it could account for a lot of things, such as various unexplained psychic phenomena in our own universe. But suppose there isn't anything like psychic feedback taking place across the timelines. Then we're confronting an entirely different situation. In that case, we can't depend on any information from our own timeline, such as The Argonautica of Apollonius, because what we're faced with then is an alternate universe in which events appear to be a mirror image of events in our own universe, but they're not the same events. They're only similar."

  "Which raises the possibility that in this universe, Jason might not have succeeded in his quest," said Delaney.

  "Exactly. So far, we're acting on the assumption that the events concerning Jason will more or less follow the progression of our myth. They have so far, but we can't afford to follow through
on that assumption without more information."

  Delaney shook his head. "No, we can't. There's far too much at stake. The problem is there's no way to check it out without clocking ahead. And without proper coordinates, we'd be clocking ahead blind. We'd have no idea what sort of an environment we might be clocking into or even where to go. If we luck out and experience no problems with transition, we'd risk alerting the opposition by using our warp discs. If they didn't get a direct fix on us and hit us with everything they've got, they'd still know we were conducting a hostile mission in this time period and they'd initiate a search for the confluence point. We can't afford to let them find it. It's our only way back home."

  "I'm thinking that we have a more immediate problem," said Steiger.

  "I know," said Delaney. "If what our friend from last night said is true and Pelias does have spies everywhere, then it would explain why he and his friends in Iolchos are anxious to keep their identities a secret. On the other hand, what if the man you followed was sent by Pelias and you were knocked out to prevent you from discovering that? That high priest seemed unusually solicitous, don't you think?"

  "For someone who thinks T.I.A. agents are paranoid, you've got a very suspicious nature," Steiger said.

  "Being careful isn't quite the same thing as being paranoid," Delaney said. "I won't argue the point, though. I'm more concerned about what it might indicate if the high priest wasn't involved."

  "Meaning?"

  "What about what happened at the Shrine of Delphi?"

  "What about it?" Steiger said. "You didn't buy that cheap display, did you? Or do you really think supernatural events are natural here?"

  "I don't know," Delaney said. "If they are, then we've bought into a lot more trouble than we bargained for. How do you fight magic? And if the high priest didn't arrange that little demonstration, then who did?"

  Whoever had arranged for Argus to be paid did so in a clandestine manner. The payment was made in the middle of the night, by a man wrapped in a dark hooded cloak, and the instructions were given to the sleepy shipwright in a muffled voice. Not that Argus seemed to care much, one way or the other. He had been given a commission and the payment had been made in full, that was all that mattered to him. The next day, he hired laborers and began work on the galley.

  Exhibiting a rare pragmatic streak, Jason signed himself and his first three Argonauts on as boat builders. In this manner, they were paid the same wages as the other workers out of the funds collected by their mysterious sponsors. This enabled them to secure more comfortable quarters on the waterfront. The lean-to was abandoned without regret.

  The galley was the most ambitious project Argus had ever undertaken and he regarded it as a challenge. He was especially pleased that Jason did not get underfoot when it came to the design work, for no craftsman likes to take up a commission and then suffer the instructions of the client when the client clearly doesn't know the first thing about the craft.

  The design Argus came up with for the galley was based upon that of a flat-bottomed Egyptian trader's boat he had once seen, only he modified it with a deep keel and a larger mast, as well as increased dimensions. The galley would be constructed out of pegged cedarwood, caulked and lapstraked so that the boards overlapped each other, giving the hull greater rigidity and strength. It would be sixty-five feet long and twelve feet in the beam, with one mast for a large lateen sail set slightly forward of amidships and a small wooden deckhouse aft, atop which would be the steersman's station at the massive oaken tiller. It was to be a ship meant for speed and sea-kindliness, not creature comforts. Its design was somewhat similar to that of later Viking boats.

  As the keel was laid, volunteers for Jason's voyage started to arrive. The twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, were among the first to sign on for the adventure. Then came Telamon and Oileus, the fathers of the two Ajaxes who fought upon the plains of Troy. Tiphys, who had made many sea voyages, would be the steersman, and after him came Butes, said by many to be the fairest of all men. Andre shrugged and said she found him perhaps a bit too fair. Ancaios, who could read the stars, would be their navigator and Meleager, slayer of the Caledonian Boar, came in search of greater challenges. There were Mopsus the astrologer and Idmon the soothsayer; Caeneus the fighter; Theseus, who killed the Minotaur; and Orpheus the harpist and singer who, the others said, had actually been to Hades and returned to tell the tale-or sing the song, depending on the preferences of the audience.

  Last, but far from least, came Hercules and his young squire, Hylas, a slight blond boy who strained under the weight of his master's weapons while Hercules himself marched unencumbered, dressed in a lion's skin and leather sandals with silver greaves. He walked with huge strides, swinging his massive twenty-four-inch arms, moving like a juggernaut. His hair was black and curly and his beard was thick and full. His eyes had the look of a man who would not back down from anyone or anything. His voice was deep, but he was soft-spoken, when he spoke at all, which was seldom because he had a frightful stutter. He let Hylas do most of his talking for him, since he could not even get his own name out without a great deal of effort. The man who was said to be half a god and invincible in battle was easily defeated by hard consonants.

  The shipwright, seeing the flamboyant adventurers who had assembled for the voyage, became infected by their spirit and let it be known that though he might be the oldest among them, he would not be denied a place among the crew, especially since the ship would bear his name. As the Argo neared completion, Argus set about carving the figurehead, a helmeted blonde woman with a shield on her left arm. Her right arm was extended and pointing outward. Argus proclaimed it to be the likeness of Hera, Queen of the Immortals. Her face was beautiful, yet grave and she looked as if she were about to speak. With the help of the Argonauts, the galley was completed, then painted a bright red. Following a sacrifice to Poseidon, they raised the mast and pushed the galley over log rollers into the bay. From a promontory over Iolchos, King Pelias watched with his high priest as the Argo embarked upon her voyage.

  "I never dreamed that Jason would gather such a crew of heroes to his side," said Pelias. "It worries me. Men such as Meleager, Theseus and Hercules, with such as these, how can he fail in his quest?"

  "Never fear," said the high priest. "The quest will fail, Pelias. Not all aboard the Argo wish for Jason to succeed."

  4

  The Argo sailed out of the bay of Iolchos on a course heading toward the Isle of Sciathos, passing the Cape of Sepius and then turning north toward Mount Pelion. They followed the coastline, keeping the open sea on their right. With Tiphys at the helm, the ship moved smoothly through the water under the power of the Argonauts, rowing to the drumbeat cadence set by Argus. The sea was dead calm and there was little wind.

  Rowing was hard work and Orpheus led them in a song to the rhythm of the cadence, so the task would seem a little easier. It wasn't long before the Argonauts were glistening with sweat from their exertions. All had stripped off their chitons and they rowed dressed only in their loincloths. Andre was unclothed from the waist up, as well. Her naked breasts were no cause for excitement, since it was not unusual in this time for women to have one or both breasts bared. The only comments resulting from her nakedness were those having to do with the degree of her muscularity.

  The cult of the body was a passion with the ancient Greeks, among whom sport took on spiritual overtones. All of the Argonauts were in excellent physical condition. The temporal agents, however, were a product of a time when physical training was far more developed and augmented scientifically. Among the Argonauts, only Hercules boasted a more impressive physique. He shared his oar with Hylas, but this soon proved to be an impractical arrangement. Hylas could not reach forward far enough to make the complete rowing motion and he kept being dragged off his seat by his powerful master's strokes. It was decided to spare Hylas from the task, as Hercules proved quite capable of handling the oar all by himself, and thereafter the youth performed the duties of a
cabin boy, fetching water or preparing food, tasks for which he seemed much more suited.

  They stopped at Mount Pelion so Chiron's old pupils could Ash with him before they continued on their voyage. Dropping anchor just offshore, they waded in with Hercules carrying the slight Hylas on his shoulders, for the water was over the boy's head and he could not swim. The centaur, having seen the Argo from the heights, came down to greet them and escort them to his cave on Pelion. The delighted Hylas was treated to a ride upon the centaur's back as they made the climb.

  At the centaur's cave, which was large and appointed comfortably with crude wooden furniture Chiron had built himself, they made a fire and sat down to a feast of venison, pork, fruits and vegetables and wine. Orpheus told the story of his descent down into Hell, which apparently many of the Argonauts had heard before, but they all listened attentively just the same.

  He stood and walked into the center of the chamber, standing in the exact spot where his mellifluent tenor voice would echo best off the rock walls of Chiron's cavern. He stared down at the ground for a long moment and waited until absolute silence was achieved, then he jerked his head up abruptly, tossing his long dark curls, and his eyes seemed to glaze as he stared off into the infinite distance.

  "Her name was Eurydice," he said, pronouncing the name as if it were a holy word, "and I loved her with all the mad young passion of a boy first struck by Cupid's arrow. One day, while she was running along a riverbank, a snake reared up and bit her. Her death was more than I could bear. All Thrace mourned her passing, but none mourned more than I. I alone could not accept her death. I refused to believe that she was lost to me forever. I thought a love so great as mine could reach out even into Hades and somehow bring her back to me. Night and day, I prayed to all the gods and sacrificed in all the temples until, at last, Cyrene, the goddess of the sea, heard my lament and took pity on me.