Ilium

by Dan Simmons

  The six emerged on the top of the tower where Savi had landed the sonie earlier. They emerged just as the sun was touching the top of southernmost of the two sharp peaks that anchored the bridge. The wind from the west was strong and cold. They walked to the railing at the edge of the platform and looked down at the sloping, grassy saddle with its terraced ruins more than eight hundred feet below.

  “The last time I came to the Golden Gate, three weeks ago,” said Savi, “Odysseus was in one of the cryotemporal sarcophagi where I usually sleep. His arrival—and what it means—is the reason I finally contacted you, why I left those directions on the rock in the Dry Valley.”

  Ada, Harman, Hannah, and Daeman stared at the old woman, obviously not understanding the terms or real meaning of her statement. Savi did not explain. The four waited for Odysseus to say something that would enlighten them.

  “What is for dinner?” asked Odysseus.

  “More of the same,” said Savi.

  The bearded man shook his head. “No.” He pointed a broad, blunt finger at Harman, then again at Daeman. “You two. There is an hour of twilight left. A good time of day for hunting. Do you want to come with me?”

  “No!” said Daeman.

  “Yes,” said Harman.

  “I want to come,” said Ada, surprised at the urgency in her own voice. “Please.”

  Odysseus stared at her a long moment. “Yes,” he said at last.

  “I should join you,” said Savi. She sounded dubious.

  “I know how to handle your machine,” said Odysseus, nodding toward the sonie.

  “I know, but . . .” Savi touched the black weapon in her belt.

  “No need,” said Odysseus. “It’s just food I’m seeking, not a war. There will be no voynix down there.”

  Savi still hesitated.

  Odysseus looked at Ada and Harman. “Wait here. I’ll be back as soon as I get my spear and shield.”

  Harman laughed before he realized that the barrel-chested man in the pale tunic was not joking.

  Odysseus did indeed know how to fly the sonie. They lifted off the tower top, circled the high saddle with its ruins throwing complicated shadows in the low sunlight, and swooped down a valley at high speed.

  “I thought you meant you’d be hunting below the bridge,” said Harman over the wind hiss.

  Odysseus shook his head. Ada noticed that the man’s silver hair fell down his neck like a curly mane. “Nothing there except jaguars and chipmunks and ghosts,” said Odysseus. “We have to get out on the plains to find game. And there’s one prey in particular that I have in mind.”

  They flew out of the canyon mouth and mountains at high speed and soared over high grasslands sprinkled with towering cycads and fern-topped trees. The sun was setting but still above the mountains, and everything on the plain threw long shadows. A herd appeared below—large grazing animals that Ada could not identify, brown hides with white-striped butts. The hundreds of creatures were antelopelike in form but each was three times an antelope’s size, with long, strangely jointed legs, long flexible necks, and dangling snouts that looked like pink hoses. The sonie made no noise as it swooped over them and none of the grazing animals even looked up.

  “What are they?” asked Harman.

  “Edible,” said Odysseus. He circled lower and landed the sonie behind some high fern shrubs some thirty yards downwind of the grazing herd. The sun was setting.

  In addition to two absurdly long spears—each was almost as long as the sonie and the butts and shafts of the spears had protruded well beyond the forcefield bubble and stern of the flying machine—Odysseus had brought a round shield made of intricately worked bronze and layers of ox-hide, as well as a short sword in a scabbard and a knife tucked into the belt of his tunic. To Ada—who had gone under the turin cloth more frequently than she had admitted to Harman—this juxtaposition of a man from the fantastical turin drama of Troy with her world, or this wild version of her world, made her somewhat dizzy. She rose and started to follow Odysseus and Harman away from the landed sonie.

  “No,” snapped Odysseus. “You stay with the vehicle.”

  “The hell I will,” said Ada.

  Odysseus sighed and spoke to them in a whisper. “Both of you stand here, behind this bush. Don’t move. If anything approaches, get in the sonie and activate the forcefield.”

  “I don’t know how to do that,” whispered Harman.

  “I left the AI active,” said Odysseus. “Just lie down in it and say ‘forcefield on.’ “

  Carrying both spears, Odysseus went out onto the grassy plain, walking slowly and silently toward the grazing beasts. Ada could hear the floppy-nosed animals grunting and munching, could hear the grass being snapped off by their teeth, and could smell their strong scent. They did not run in alarm when the man approached, and when the animals on the edge of the herd finally looked up, Odysseus was within forty feet. He stopped, set down one spear and his shield, and hefted the other long spear.

  The grazing animals had quit chewing and were watching the strange biped carefully now, but they did not seem alarmed.

  Odysseus’ powerful body coiled, arced, and released. The spear flew flat and straight, hitting the closest animal above the chest and almost passing through its long, thick neck. It whirled, made a strangled noise, and fell heavily.

  The other grazers snorted, bleated, and ran hard—each animal zigging and zagging in a way Ada had never seen before, the grazers’ oddly jointed legs allowing almost instant changes of direction—until the entire herd thundered out of sight down a draw a mile or so to the north.

  Odysseus dropped to one knee next to the dead animal and pulled the short, curved knife from his belt. With a few quick strokes he opened the abdominal cavity, pulled out organs and entrails—tossing them onto the grass except for what looked to be the liver, which he set on a small plastic tarp he had laid out next to him—and then sliced the hide back from one haunch, cutting a thick slice of red meat free and setting it on the tarp as well. Then he cut the dead animal’s throat, draining more blood onto the grass, and tugged his spear free, taking care not to break it. He carefully wiped the shaft and bronze point on the grass.

  Still standing near the bush, Ada felt a wave of dizziness pass over her and decided to sit down on the grass rather than run the risk of fainting. Ada had never seen an animal killed by a human being, much less butchered and partially skinned so expertly. It was terribly . . . efficient. Ashamed of her reaction but not wanting to faint, she lowered her head toward her knees until black spots quit dancing around the circle of her vision.

  Harman touched her back in concern, but when she waved him away, he began walking out toward the carcass.

  “Stay there,” called Odysseus.

  Harman paused, confused. “They’re gone. Do you need help carrying . . .”

  Odysseus held up one palm to keep Harman where he was. “This isn’t what I’m hunting for. This is . . . Don’t move.”

  Harman and Ada turned their faces to the west. Two white-and-black-and-red bipedal forms were approaching at very high speed, faster even than the grazers had fled. Ada felt her breath catch in her throat and saw Harman freeze.

  The creatures ran toward the bloody grazer carcass and the kneeling Odysseus at more than sixty miles per hour, then skidded to a stop in a small cloud of dust. Ada saw that they were the birds they’d seen from the sonie—Terror Birds, Savi had called them—but what had been strangely amusing from high in the air, ostrichlike creatures strutting like awkward chicks—turned out to be, in truth, terrifying.

  The two Terror Birds had stopped five paces from the carcass, their eyes on Odysseus now. Each bird was more than nine feet tall, with short white feathers on their muscular bodies, black feathers on their vestigial wings, and powerful legs as thick as Ada’s torso. The birds’ beaks had to be at least four feet long, wickedly curved, red around the mouth—as if dipped in blood—and controlled by powerful jaw muscles that bulged below the half-dozen l
ong red feathers that protruded from the back of each Terror Bird’s skull. Their eyes were a terrible, malevolent yellow ringed by blue circles and set under saurian brows. In addition to their rending predator beaks, the birds had powerful footclaws—each as long as Ada’s forearm—and an even more wicked-looking claw at the bend of each vestigial wing.

  Ada knew at once that this monster was no mere scavenger, but a terrible predator.

  Odysseus rose, a long spear in his left hand and his bloodied spear in his right hand. The Terror Birds’ heads snapped back in unison, yellow eyes blinked at yellow eyes, and the hunting pair moved apart like well-choreographed dancers, preparing to attack Odysseus from either side. Ada could smell the carrion reek of the monsters. She had no doubt that those powerful, naked legs could propel each Terror Bird twenty feet or more at its prey—Odysseus—in a single hop, claws extended and ripping as the one-ton monsters landed. It was also obvious that the pair worked perfectly as a killing team.

  Odysseus did not wait for them to get into position or attack. With lethal grace he cast his first spear—flat and straight and hard—into the muscled breast of the Terror Bird on his left, then wheeled to face the second bird. The first bird let out a terrible screech that froze Ada’s lungs, but it was matched a second later by a roar and howl from Odysseus as he sprang across the grazer carcass, tossed the second killing spear from his left hand to his right, and thrust the bronze point at the second Terror Bird’s right eye.

  The first bird staggered backward, clawing at the spear protruding from its chest, snapping off the thick oak shaft. The second bird dodged Odysseus’ thrust by whipping its head back like a cobra’s. Obviously taken by surprise by being attacked by this small featherless biped, the bird hopped twice—carrying it ten feet backward—and clawed at the parrying spear.

  Odysseus had to whip the unwieldy spear back quickly after each thrust to keep from having it torn out of his hands. Still shouting, the man stepped backward and seemed to trip over the bloody grazer carcass, rolling on his side.

  The uninjured Terror Bird saw its chance and took it, leaping six feet into the air and coming down on Odysseus with talons and killing claws extended.

  Still rolling, Odysseus came to one knee in a single fluid movement and planted the butt of the spear in the ground an instant before the Terror Bird came down on it with the full weight of its body driving the bronze point home, up through its muscled chest, into its awful heart. Odysseus had to roll again to get out of its way as the huge creature crashed lifeless where he had been kneeling.

  “Look out!” cried Harman and began running toward the fray.

  The first Terror Bird—pouring blood from the spear wound and broken shaft still embedded in his chest—was rushing at Odysseus’ back. The bird’s head snapped forward on six feet of feathered-snake neck and the huge beak snapped where Odysseus’ head would have to be if he retreated. But the warrior had thrown himself forward rather than back, rolling again, but with empty hands this time as the Terror Bird ran past him and then wheeled, twisting and turning almost as impossibly fast as had the oddly jointed grazers.

  “Hey!” shouted Harman and threw a rock at the giant bird.

  The Terror Bird’s head snapped high, the yellow eyes blinked at the impertinence, and the huge predator kicked forward toward Harman, who skidded in the dirt, said “Shit!” in a high voice, and scrambled back the way he had come. Suddenly Harman realized that he couldn’t outrun the monster, and he turned, legs apart, fists raised, ready to meet the Terror Bird’s charge with his bare hands.

  Ada looked around for a rock, a stick, a weapon of any sort. There was none in reach. She leaped to her feet.

  Odysseus swept up his shield and—using the grazer’s carcass as a springboard—jumped aboard the Terror Bird’s back, pulling his short sword from its scabbard as he did so.

  The bird kept running in Harman and Ada’s direction, but now its neck was twisted around, head snapping, giant red beak clacking against Odysseus’ circular shield. Every time the massive jaws struck, Odysseus was knocked backward, but his legs were tight around the bird’s body six feet above the ground, and though he bent far back, like a trick horseback rider in the turin drama, he never fell off. Then, as the Terror Bird’s head swiveled around, finding Harman with its yellow eyes, Odysseus leaned forward and pulled the sword low across the giant bird’s white-feathered neck, severing the jugular.

  He jumped off, landed on his feet, and ran to Harman’s side as the Terror Bird crashed to the ground and lay still not ten feet in front of them. Blood spurted five feet in the air and then the red fountain diminished and disappeared as the huge heart stopped beating.

  Panting, covered with grazer gore and Terror Bird blood and grass and mud, his bloody sword and shield still held high, Odysseus grinned through his beard and said, “I only wanted one for dinner, but we’ll carve up the second one for leftovers.”

  Ada came up to Harman and touched his arm. He never looked around. His eyes were wide.

  Odysseus walked to the nearest bird, cut off its huge head, and ran his skinning knife down the length of its chest, peeling flesh and skin and feathers back as easily as someone would help remove a thick coat. “I’ll need more plastic bags,” he said to Harman and Ada. “There are some in a storage locker near the aft end of the sonie. Just say ‘Open locker’ to the machine and it will open. But hurry.”

  Harman had turned to walk back to the sonie but paused. “Hurry? Why?”

  Odysseus wiped blood from his beard with the back of his hand and grinned whitely at them. “These birds smell blood up to ten leagues away . . . and there are hundreds of hunting pairs of Terror Birds out here on the plains at twilight.”

  Harman turned and ran hard toward the sonie to get the bags.

  Ada noticed that Savi and Daeman were both drunk before dinner began.

  The meal was served in a glass room attached to the side of the south tower’s higher support. Savi was heating pre-prepared meals in a regular microwave bubble, but Ada was fascinated—she had never seen a meal prepared exclusively by a human being before. The absence of servitors in the Golden Gate residence areas was even more noticeable during a meal.

  Odysseus was outside on the bridge’s broad support strut and had erected a clumsy stone-and-metal structure in which he was burning wood he’d brought back from the plains. It had begun to rain and Odysseus had to build the fire high to keep it burning. Flames lighted the rust and faded orange paint on the side of the tower.

  Looking out through the translucent green wall, sipping from his glass of gin, Harman said, “Is that some sort of altar to his pagan gods?”

  “Not quite,” said Savi. “It’s how he cooks his food.” She carried bowls and plates to the round table where the others were waiting. “Call him inside, would you?” she said to Harman. “Our food is getting cold while he’s cremating his, and there’s a lightning storm coming over the mountains. It’s not a great idea to be out on the bridge superstructure during a lightning storm.”

  When they were finally seated, Odysseus setting the wooden plates of steaming meat on a nearby counter so that no one would have to stare at the fire-blackened stuff, Savi passed around a pitcher of wine. She poured her own glass last and Ada overheard the old woman whisper, “Baruch atah adonai, eloheno melech ha olam, borai pri hagafen.”

  “What is that?” Ada asked softly. Everyone else was laughing at something Daeman had said and had not seemed to notice Savi’s muttering. The only time Ada had every heard another language was in the turin drama; there the battling men spoke in gibberish, but somehow the turin translated every word so that anyone under the cloth understood the meaning without actually listening.

  Savi shook her head, although whether to say that she did not know the meaning of the odd words, or that she was not disposed to tell them, Ada could not tell.

  “I explored all the levels of the bridge and bubbles around the bridge,” Hannah was saying excitedly. “The metal of
the bridge itself is old and rusty but . . . amazing. And there are strange shapes of metal in some of the rooms below. Just freestanding, not part of any structure. Some are in the shape of men and women.”

  Savi barked a laugh. She was already refilling her glass with wine. No strange words accompanied this pouring.

  “Those are statues,” said Odysseus. “Sculptures. Have you never seen such things?”

  Hannah shook her head slowly. Even though the girl had spent years learning how to heat and pour metal, Ada knew, the idea of making things in the shape of human beings or other living things was shocking. Ada also found it strange.

  “They have no art,” Savi said brusquely to Odysseus. “No sculpture, no painting, no crafts, no photography, no holography, not even genetic manipulation. No music, no dance, no ballet, no sports, and no singing. No theater, no architecture, no Kabuki, no No plays, no nothing. They’re as creative as . . . newborn birds. No, I take that back . . . even birds know how to sing and build a nest. These latter day eloi are silent cuckoos, inhabiting other birds’ nests without so much as a song for payment.” Savi was beginning to slur her words slightly.

  Odysseus looked at Hannah, Ada, Daeman, and Harman, and his expression was unreadable. Meanwhile, the four guests stared at Savi, wondering why her tone was so angry.

  “But then,” continued Savi, looking only Odysseus in the eye, “they have no literature, either. And neither do you.”

  Odysseus smiled at the woman. Ada recognized the smile from when the man was carving flesh out of the flank of the grazing animal. Odysseus had bathed before dinner, even his gray curly hair was freshly shampooed, but Ada still imagined his arms and hands and beard as they had been—streaked with blood, clotted with gore. It wasn’t any of her business, but she thought it probably unwise for Savi to goad him so.

  “The preliterate, meet the postliterate,” continued Savi, opening her hand as if introducing Odysseus to the other four. Then she held up one finger. “Oh, I forgot our friend Harman here. He is the Balzac and the Shakespeare of the current litter of old-style humanity. He reads at about the level of a six-year-old from the Lost Age, don’t you, Harman Uhr? Lips move when you sound out the words, eh?”