Ilium

by Dan Simmons

  “Not a clue,” said Mahnmut. He left his friend behind and began running on all fours across the plains of Ilium toward the Achaean camp, receiving a few curious stares from the milling Greeks in the process.

  He didn’t have to search the beach for Achilles and Hector. The two heroes had just crossed the trench bridge and were leading their captains and two or three thousand fighters with them toward the middle of the old battlefield. Mahnmut decided to be formal and rose to his hind legs for the greetings.

  “Little machine,” said Achilles, “where is your master, the son of Duane?”

  It took Mahnmut a second to process this. “Hockenberry?” he said at last. “First of all, he’s not my master. No man is my master and I’m no man. Secondly, he’s gone to Olympos to see what the gods are up to. He said he’d be right back.”

  Achilles showed his white teeth in a grin. “Good. We need intelligence on the enemy.”

  Odysseus, standing between Hector and Achilles, said, “It didn’t work too well for Dolon.” Diomedes, behind the heroes, laughed. Hector scowled.

  Dolon was Hector’s scout last night when things looked so bad for the Greeks, sent Orphu. Even though Mahnmut understood Greek now and could speak it after the download from Orphu, he was still sending the whole dialogue to his friend via subvocals. Orphu’s message wasn’t finished—Diomedes and Odysseus captured Dolon when they were going out on a night raid, and after promising the Trojan that they wouldn’t hurt him, they got all the information they could from him and then Diomedes cut off his head. I think that Diomedes mentioned it because he still doesn’t really trust Hector as an ally and . . .

  “Shelve it,” said Mahnmut, forgetting to subvocalize. He switched frequencies. I need to concentrate here. Mahnmut thought he was capable of multitasking as well as any other moravec, but Orphu’s history lesson was interfering with his real-time concentration.

  “What did you just say?” demanded Hector. The Trojan hero was not happy. Mahnmut remembered that the man’s mother and half-sister had just been killed in the aerial bombardment, although he wasn’t sure that Hector knew that yet. Perhaps Hector was just in a bad mood.

  “Just a brief prayer to my own gods,” said Mahnmut.

  Odysseus had dropped to one knee and was feeling Mahnmut’s arms, torso, head, and protective shell. “Ingenious,” said the son of Laertes. “Whichever god crafted you, it was a fine job.”

  “Thank you,” said Mahnmut.

  I think you’ve stepped into a Samuel Beckett play, sent Orphu.

  “Shut up,” Mahnmut said and sent in English. “Damn it, I keep forgetting to set the tightbeam for subvocal only.”

  “He prays still,” said Odysseus, getting to his feet. “But I like the part where he said that his name was No Man. I’ll remember that.”

  “Fleet-footed Achilles,” said Mahnmut in the proper Greek, “may I ask your intentions now?”

  “We go to challenge the gods to come down for single combat,” said Achilles. “Or their army of immortals against our army of men—whichever they prefer.”

  Mahnmut looked at the few thousand Greeks—many of them bloodied—who’d followed Achilles out from the camp. He turned his head and saw a thousand or fewer Trojans coming over the ridge to join Hector. “This is your army?” asked Mahnmut.

  “The others will join us,” said Achilles. “Little machine, if you see Hockenberry, son of Duane, tell him to come to me at the center of the field.”

  Achilles, Hector, and the Achaean captains strode off. The moravec had to dodge quickly or be trampled by the men and shields following.

  “WAIT!” called Mahnmut. He’d used more amplification than he’d planned.

  Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Diomedes, Nestor, and the others turned. The men between Mahnmut and the heroes made a space.

  “In thirty seconds,” said Mahnmut, “something’s going to happen.”

  “What?” demanded Hector.

  I don’t know, thought Mahnmut. I don’t even know if we’ll feel the effects here. Hell, I don’t even know if my timer-trigger is going to work at that depth in the Caldera Lake.

  You’re subvocalizing, you know, sent Orphu.

  Sorry, sent Mahnmut. Aloud, he said in Greek, “Wait and see. Eighteen seconds now.” The Greeks didn’t use minutes and seconds, of course, but Mahnmut thought he’d got the units translation right.

  Even if the device blows Mars to bits, said Orphu, I don’t think this Earth is in that time or universe. But then again, the so-called gods have connected this place—wherever it is—to Olympos Mons via a thousand quantum tunnels.

  “Nine seconds,” said Mahnmut.

  What would an exploding Mars look like, in daylight, from this point in Asia Minor? sent Orphu. I could do a quick simulation.

  “Four seconds,” said Mahnmut.

  Or I could just wait to see. Of course, you’ll have to see for me.

  “One second,” said Mahnmut.

  57

  Olympos

  I don’t remember Ares or Hephaestus QTing as they dragged me out of the Great Hall, but obviously they did. The room they’ve thrown me into—my holding cell—is on the upper floor of an impossibly tall building on the east side of Olympos. The door was sealed behind them and there are no windows as such, but another door opens onto a balcony that hangs hundreds of feet above nothing except the slopes of Olympos right where they drop down to the vertical cliffs of Olympos. To the north is the ocean, a burnished bronze in this afternoon light, and far, far to the east are the three volcanoes I realize now are Martian volcanoes.

  Mars. All these years. Mother of Mercy . . . Mars.

  I shiver in the cold air. I see the goose bumps on my naked arms and thighs and can imagine them on my bare butt. The soles of my feet are ice cold against the chilly marble. My scalp hurts from being dragged and my pride hurts from being caught and stripped naked so easily.

  Who did I think I was? I’ve been watching gods and superheroes so long that I forgot I was just an ordinary guy when I was real. Less now.

  The toys went to my head, I think—the levitation harness and impact armor and morphing bracelet and QT medallion and shotgun mike and zoom lenses and taser baton and Hades Helmet. All that nifty Sharper Image crap. It allowed me to play superhero for a few days.

  No longer. Daddy took my toys away. And Daddy’s angry.

  I remember Mahnmut’s bomb and, out of old habit, lift my bare wrist to check the time. Shit. I don’t even have my watch. But it has to be only a few minutes until the robot’s Device is supposed to detonate. I lean out from the balcony, but this side of the building looks away from the caldera lake, so I guess I won’t see the flash. Will the shock wave knock this building off the top of Olympos, or merely set it afire? A new memory swims up—TV images of doomed men and women jumping from burning towers in New York—and I close my eyes and squeeze my temples in a vain attempt to get rid of these unbidden visions. It only makes them more vivid. Hell, I think, if they’d let me live another few weeks—if I’d let me live just by not screwing around with my toys and the fates of so many—I might have remembered all of my previous life. Maybe even my death.

  The door crashes open behind me and Zeus strides in alone. I turn to face him, walking back into the bare room.

  Do you want a recipe for losing all self-esteem? Try being naked and barefoot, facing the God of All Gods who’s dressed in high boots, golden greaves, and full battle armor. Besides that obvious disparity, there’s the height thing. I mean, I’m five feet nine inches tall—not short, I used to remind people, including my wife Susan, but “average height”—and Zeus has to be fifteen feet tall this afternoon. The damned door was made for NBA stars carrying other NBA stars standing on their shoulders, and Zeus had to duck when he came in. Now he slams the door behind him. I see that he’s still carrying my QT medallion in his massive hand.

  “Scholic Hockenberry,” he says in English, “do you know what trouble you’ve caused?”

&nb
sp; I try to make my stare defiant, but I settle on not allowing my bare legs to shake uncontrollably. I can feel my penis and scrotum contracting toward baby-carrot and marble size from cold and fear.

  As if noticing, Zeus looks me up and down. “My God, you old-style humans were ugly to look upon,” he rumbles. “How can you be so scrawny your ribs are showing and still have a paunch?”

  I remember that Susan used to say that I had a butt like two BB’s, but she used to say it with affection.

  “How do you know English?” I ask, voice quavering.

  “SHUT UP!” roars the Father of the Gods.

  Zeus brusquely gestures me onto the balcony and follows me out. He’s so huge that there’s barely room enough for me out here beside him. I back into a corner, trying not to look down. All this angered god of gods has to do now is lift me in one hand and fling me over the railing to get his revenge. I’d be flapping and screaming for five minutes on the way down.

  “You harmed my daughter,” growls Zeus.

  Which one? I think desperately. I’m guilty of conspiring to kill Aphrodite and Athena, although I suspect it’s Athena he’s talking about. He’s always been fond of Athena. I suspect it doesn’t matter. Conspiring to harm any god—much less to overthrow the gods in general—has to be a capital offense. I peer over the railing again. I see the crystal escalator snaking down into the mists at sea level directly below, although my old scholic barracks, burned to the ground as it is, is too small to see with regular vision. Good Christ, that’s a long way down.

  “Do you know what’s going to happen today, Hockenberry?” asks Zeus, although I assume the question is rhetorical. He extends his arms straight down and sets his fingers—each half as long as my forearm—on the stone railing.

  “No,” I say.

  He turns to look down at me. “That must be disturbing after all these years of scholic-wisdom,” he rumbles. “Always knowing what’s going to happen next even when the gods do not. You must have felt like Fate himself.”

  “I felt like an asshole,” I say.

  Zeus nods. Then he points toward chariots rising off the summit of Olympos one after the other. There are hundreds of them. “This afternoon,” says Zeus, “we are going to destroy mankind. Not just those posturing fools at Troy, but all human beings, everywhere.”

  What can you say to that? “That seems a bit excessive,” I manage at last. My bravado would be more satisfying if my voice weren’t still shaking like a nervous boy’s.

  Zeus looks out at the rising chariots and at the mass of golden-armored gods and goddesses still waiting to mount their cars. “Poseidon and Ares and others have been after me for centuries to eliminate humankind like the virus it is,” says Zeus, rumbling more to himself than to me, I think. “We all have concerns—this Age of Man Heroic you see at Ilium would concern any race of gods, too much inbreeding between their race and ours—you must know the amount of DNA nano-engineering that we’ve passed down to freaks like Heracles and Achilles through our libidinous fucking with mortals. And I mean that literally.”

  “Why are you talking to me about this?” I ask.

  Zeus really looks down at me now. He shrugs, those huge shoulders eight feet above my head. “Because you’re going to be dead in a few seconds, so I can talk freely. On Olympos, Scholic Hockenberry, there are no permanent friends or trustworthy allies or loyal mates . . . only permanent interests. My interest is in remaining Lord of the Gods and Ruler of the Universe.”

  “It must be a full-time job,” I say sarcastically.

  “It is,” says Zeus. “It is. Just ask Setebos or Prospero or the Quiet if you doubt me. Now, do you have any last questions before you go, Hockenberry?”

  “I do actually,” I say. To my amazement, the quaver is gone from my voice, the quiver gone from my knees. “I want to know who you gods really are. Where are you from? I know you’re not the real Greek gods.”

  “We’re not?” says Zeus. His smile, sharp white teeth glinting from his gray-silver beard, is not paternal.

  “Who are you?” I ask again.

  Almighty Zeus sighs. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for the story right now. Good-bye, Scholic Hockenberry.” He takes his hands off the railing and turns toward me.

  As it turns out, he’s right—we don’t have time for the story or for anything else. Suddenly the tall building shakes, cracks, moans. The very air above the summit of Olympos seems to thicken and ripple. Golden chariots stagger in flight and I can hear the shouts and screams from gods and goddesses on the ground far below.

  Zeus staggers back against the rail, drops the QT medallion on the marble floor, and reaches out a huge hand to steady himself against the building even as the tall tower shakes on its foundations, vibrating back and forth in a ten-degree arc.

  He looks up.

  Suddenly the sky is full of streaks. I can hear sonic booms as line after line of fire slashes across the Martian sky. Above Olympos, above our heads, several huge, spinning spheres of space-black and magma-red are opening against the blue. They are like holes punched into the sky itself and they’re spinning lower.

  Lower down, much farther down, I see more of these jagged circles, each one with the radius of a football field at least, spinning at the base of Olympos. More appear out above the ocean to the north, some slicing into the sea itself.

  Ants are coming through the land-based circles by the thousands, and then I realize that the ants are men. Human men?

  The sky is filled now not only with golden chariots, but with sharp-edged black machines, some larger than the chariots, some smaller, all carrying the lethal, inhuman look of military design. More fiery streaks fill the upper atmosphere, lashing down toward Olympos like ICBMs.

  Zeus raises both fists toward the sky and bellows at the little god-figures far below. “RAISE THE AEGIS!” he roars. “ACTIVATE THE AEGIS!”

  I’d love to stay around and see what he’s talking about and what happens next, but I have other priorities. I throw myself headfirst between Zeus’s mighty arch of legs, slide on my belly across the bouncing marble floor, grab the QT medallion in one hand and twist its dial with the other.

  58

  The Equatorial Ring

  At first they couldn’t get Hannah out of the tank. The heavy piece of pipe wouldn’t dent the plastic glass. Daeman fired off three rounds from Savi’s gun, but the flechettes barely knicked the tank’s surface before ricocheting around the firmary, smashing fragile things, ripping into already decommissioned servitors, and barely missing both men. Finally Harman found a way to clamber to the top of the tank and they used the pipe as a lever to first lift and then rip off the complicated lid. Then Harman pulled his thermskin visor lower, tugged on the osmosis mask, and leaped down into the draining fluids to pull Hannah out. With the main power out, lights off, and tank glow fading to nothing, they worked mostly by the light of the single flashlight.

  Naked, wet, hairless, her skin looking raw and new, their young friend looked as vulnerable as a baby bird as she lay on the wet firmary floor. The good news was that she was breathing—gaspingly, shallowly, alarmingly rapidly—but definitely breathing on her own. The bad news was that they couldn’t wake her.

  “Is she going to live?” demanded Daeman. The other twenty-three men and women in the tank were obviously dead or dying and there was no way to get to them in time.

  “How do I know?” gasped Harman.

  Daeman looked around. “Temperature’s dropping in here without the power to heat things. Another few minutes, it’ll be below zero, just like outside in the main city. We have to find something to cover her with.”

  Still carrying the gun but mostly heedless, not looking for Caliban, Daeman ran through the darkening firmary. There were human bones, haunches of decaying flesh, motionless servitors, bits and pieces of beakers and tubes and pipes, but not so much as a blanket. Daeman ripped a square sheet of clear plastic from the covering they’d already torn to seal the semipermeable entrance and return
ed.

  Hannah was still unconscious but shivering uncontrollably. Harman had his arms around her and was rubbing her flesh with his bare hands, but it didn’t seem to be helping. The plastic folded awkwardly around her thin, white body, but neither man thought it was holding in any body heat.

  “She’s going to die unless we do something,” whispered Daeman. From the shadows of the now-dark healing tanks, there came a sliding sound. Daeman didn’t even bother to raise his gun. Steam from the liquid oxygen and other spilled fluids was filling the firmary.

  “We’re all going to die soon anyway,” said Harman. He pointed toward the clear panels above them.

  Daeman looked up. The white star that was the two-mile-long linear accelerator was closer—much closer. “How much time left?” he asked.

  Harman shook his head. “The chronometers disappeared with the power and Prospero.”

  “We had about twenty minutes to go when the problems began.”

  “Yes,” said Harman. “But how long ago was that? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Nineteen?”

  Daeman looked up. The Earth was gone and only stars—including the bright shape rushing at them—burned cold in the clear panels. “The Earth was still visible when this crap started,” he said. “Can’t be much more than twenty minutes ago. When the earth reappears . . .”

  The blue and white limb of the planet moved into sight among the lower panes. “We have to go,” said Daeman. There were more crashes and slidings in the dark behind them. Daeman whirled with the gun high, but Caliban did not emerge. The firmary gravity was failing now as well; pooled fluids were lifting themselves from the floor and trying to float, accreting themselves into amoeba shapes, seeking to become spheres. Savi’s flashlight reflected back from slick surfaces everywhere.

  “How do we go?” asked Harman. “Leave her behind?” Hannah’s eyelids were not quite closed, but they could see only the whites of her eyes. Her shaking was lessening, but this seemed ominous to Daeman.