Sunset of the Gods

by Steve White

  “Fine. Let’s get suited up.” Without allowing an opportunity for any reckless suggestions, Jason turned and walked toward the locker room, leaving Mondrago no option but to follow.

  They put on impact armor, flexible but with microscopic passive sensors that detected incoming blows and caused the electrically active nanotech fabric to go to steel-like rigidity at the instant of contact. The stuff was standard equipment for riot police and certain others . . . and regulation safety equipment for weapons practice. Then they returned to the exercise floor and went at it in earnest.

  Mondrago now altered his technique, using the falcata almost like a long knife, holding it low and emphasizing the point. Again, Jason had to adjust, parrying a dizzying series of thrusts. Then, abruptly, Mondrago shifted again, chopping down. As Jason raised his sword to parry, Mondrago brought his right foot around in a sweeping savate-like move, knocking Jason’s feet out from under him. He brought the falcata up and then down in another chop.

  But Jason brought his sword around and up. At the moment the falcata hit the instantly rigid fabric at Jason’s left shoulder in a blow that otherwise might well have severed his arm, Jason thrust upward into Mondrago’s crotch. There was no impact armor there. Jason stopped the thrust with his sword-point less than an inch short.

  For a moment their eyes met. Then, with a crooked smile, Mondrago extended a hand and helped Jason to his feet.

  “Very good, sir,” he said. “But then, I’ve heard stories about some of the stuff you did in the Bronze Age, on your last expedition.”

  “Probably exaggerated. You’re good, too. Very good. But I imagine a ranged weapon like that sling would be more useful than a sword if we should happen get into any trouble with the Teloi.”

  “Yes . . . the Teloi.” Mondrago’s eyes took on a look Jason thought he could interpret . . . and that he wasn’t sure he liked, in light of what he had learned of the Corsican’s background.

  “In that connection,” he began, “I’ve naturally studied your record. . . .”

  Mondrago went expressionless. “Yes, sir?”

  “Oh . . . never mind.” Jason decided not to pursue the matter, at least for now.

  And maybe not at all, he thought. There’s no point in making an issue of something that I’m hoping will never become an issue.

  In addition to clothing and weapons, something else produced with careful attention to period detail was the money they would be carrying. It was a great convenience that money existed in this target milieu, unlike the Bronze Age, where Jason and his companions had had to carry a load of high-value trade goods, well-concealed (but stolen anyway, to Jason’s still unabated annoyance). The coinage of the period was chaotic, with each city-state issuing its own, but all were widely accepted. They carried Athenian silver oboloi, six of which made a drachma, which would buy a tavern meal with wine, and four of which made a stater. Also, because it would be natural for people coming from Macedon, which had been under Persian influence for a couple of years, they carried Persian gold darics worth about twenty-five drachmai, showing the Great King drawing a bow.

  “The street name for these coins was ‘archers,’ for obvious reasons,” Landry told them. He chuckled. “In the next century, when the Persians finally learned that the way to neutralize the Greeks was to subsidize them to fight each other, one Great King quipped, ‘It would seem that my best soldiers are my archers.’”

  In addition to gear, they needed names. Jason could use his own given name. So could Mondrago; “Alexander” wasn’t uncommon enough to make his being a namesake of his former king remarkable. There was nothing in Greek even close to the other two’s names, so Rutherford let them choose from a list. Landry would go by Lydos, Chantal by Cleothera. In the relatively elementary society of Macedon, people generally had no second names, identifying themselves as “son/daughter of so-and-so” if necessary. Chantal would be a cousin of Jason’s, under his protection and that of his follower Alexander. Landry would be a part-Thracian family retainer, son of freed slaves, educated in Athens years earlier before returning to Macedon, who had been “Cleothera’s” tutor and was still in her service.

  Rutherford lectured them on the timing of their expedition. “Traditionally, it was believed that the Battle of Marathon took place on September 12. But for this to make sense the Persian fleet would have had to spend an inordinate amount of time getting across the Aegean. Furthermore, it is based on the Spartan calendar, which may have been a month ahead of the Athenian. And finally, it rests on unrealistic assumptions about logistics—specifically, the ability of the Persians to keep an army of such size fed. So the weight of scholarly opinion has shifted steadily in favor of a date in August. This is one of the questions you will be able to settle.

  “You will arrive in Attica on July 15, 490 b.c. This will give you time to establish yourselves in a position to observe events, and also to discover the answers to the various unsettled questions concerning the preliminaries to the battle. But this expedition does not involve the evaluation of long-term effects, so an extended stay will be unnecessary. You will only remain for sixty-five days, after which your TRDs will activate on September 18, almost a week after the battle’s latest possible date, although no one really takes the September 12 dating seriously anymore.”

  Landry’s disappointment at the brevity of their stay was palpable.

  “The experience of temporal displacement,” Rutherford continued, “is a profoundly unnatural one which can cause disorientation. We have learned that this effect is intensified—sometimes dangerously so—if it takes place in darkness. Therefore, despite our preference for minimizing the chances of local people witnessing the, ah, materialization, you will arrive not in the dead of night but just after daybreak. Commander Thanou, with his extensive experience, will recover first and will be able to assist the rest of you until the effect wears off.

  “You will arrive on the road—the Sacred Way, it was called—from Athens to Eleusis, a little to the east of the latter. There should be no one about at dawn there.”

  “Eleusis!” Landry’s eyes took on a dreamy look. “The central shrine of the Eleusinian Mysteries! The ancient Greeks believed that Hades, the God of the Dead, abducted Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the harvest-goddess, and the resulting compromise was how they explained the seasons. A cave at Eleusis was believed to be the actual site where Hades emerged from the underworld and returned Persephone to her mother.” He seemed to do a quick mental calculation, and his dreaminess turned to excitement. “Kyle, couldn’t we stay for just a little longer? The ceremonies—about which we have very few hard facts, as the initiates were forbidden to speak of what they had experienced—took place just slightly after your return date, with the procession from Athens the thirteen miles to Eleusis, where—”

  “—Where the initiates went through a series of purification rites for which they had been carefully and secretly prepared,” Rutherford reminded him gently. “What, exactly, would you plan to do?” Landry looked crestfallen. “No, Bryan. With only one displacer stage in existence, our schedules are, of necessity, inflexible, as Commander Thanou has long since explained. And we have to draw the line somewhere. There would always be just one more enigma you’d want to unravel.

  “You will proceed directly to Athens, where you should arrive in the afternoon. Commander Thanou, using the resources provided by his computer implant, will have no difficulty guiding you. He can neurally access a map showing all the main thoroughfares. I doubt very much if a complete map of ancient Athens ever existed, and if it had, it would have resembled a plate of spaghetti; most of the city was a maze of narrow pathways, lanes, and alleys. But you are going to be seeking hospitality from an individual whose area of residence is known. He is a prominent public figure, so once you are in that area, minimal inquiries should suffice to locate his house. And your politics should assure you a welcome there, as he is a leading advocate of resistance to Persian aggression.” Rutherford looked annoyed.
“Or rather, he was. Tenses are such a problem when discussing time travel!”

  The rest of their orientation passed rapidly, and toward its end Rutherford allowed them a day of relaxation. On the last evening before displacement, Jason found himself at the bar of the station’s lounge. As he ordered the last Scotch and soda he would have for two and a half months, he heard a familiar quiet voice behind him.

  “Commander Thanou? May I join you for a moment?”

  “Of course, Dr. Frey. But please call me ‘Jason.’ And may I call you ‘Chantal’?”

  “Certainly . . . Jason. We’re going to be working together closely for some time.”

  They found a table and he ordered Chablis for her. She took a couple of sips as though to fortify herself.

  “I’ve been hoping to speak to you privately,” she began, “but the opportunity never seems to have arisen. You see . . . I can’t help being fascinated by that neurally interfaced implant inside your head.”

  “Fascinated? Most people are repelled by the concept.”

  “I know. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say I was, just a little, at first. But at the same time there’s something exciting about it—the way it almost takes you beyond the ordinary human experience. I mean . . . what’s it like?”

  “There’s really nothing transcendent about it. It’s very utilitarian—just an extremely convenient way of accessing information in various forms and recording sensory impressions. That’s as far as exemptions from the Human Integrity Act ever go, even in cases like ours where there’s clearly a legitimate need.” Jason laughed grimly. “Anything more is altogether too reminiscent of the Transhuman movement for most people’s taste.”

  “Yes, I know. And of course they did many terrible things. And yet . . . I sometimes wonder if we’re right to automatically reject all their goals. Surely there must have been some power in their ideals, at least at first, before the movement took power and grew corrupt. Perhaps some of the things they sought could be made to benefit the human race without resorting to their extreme methods.”

  Jason gave her an appraising look and ran over in his mind what he knew of her people’s history.

  They had been among those who had left Earth on slower-than-light colony ships in the early days of the Transhuman movement’s rise to power, fleeing what they could see coming. The bulk of colonizers had gone to the nearer stars. The settlers of Arcadia, however, wishing to exile themselves even more irrevocably, had dared the thirty-five-light-year voyage to Zeta Draconis, most of that time spent in suspended animation. They had awakened to find that the second planet of that binary system’s Sol-like primary component was a hospitable world, fully deserving of the name they had bestowed on it. And there they had remained in the utter isolation they had sought.

  Meanwhile the near-Earth colonists had returned to Earth on the wings of the negative-mass drive they had invented, blowing in like a fresh wind that had begun the toppling of the Transhumanist regime. Only afterwards had the main body of the human race reestablished contact with Arcadia.

  Thus, Jason reflected, this woman came of a society that had opted out of history and avoided the entire titanic, blood-drenched drama. Now, of course, in this day of faster-than-light travel, the Arcadians had reentered the mainstream of human society and subscribed to its dominant ethos. But perhaps they—and she—could not be expected to feel exactly the same thing the rest of humanity felt at the sound of the word “Transhuman.”

  “You won’t find many people who’ll agree with you,” he said mildly.

  “I know,” she acknowledged. “And I’m not even sure I agree with it, if you know what I mean. It certainly isn’t something I feel strongly about. I just can’t help wondering.” She fell silent, and remained so for a few moments before speaking up again.

  “Com . . . Jason, I hope you won’t mind if I ask you another question.”

  “Go right ahead. As you pointed out, we’re going to be working together. We shouldn’t have any secrets.”

  She took another sip and laughed nervously. “One thing I almost wish you had kept a secret: what happened to Dr. Sadaka-Ramirez’s TRD.” She shivered.

  “Please don’t let that prey on your mind. Rutherford was telling the truth when he said it doesn’t generally happen, and that in fact it had never happened before. People of past eras have no way to detect implanted TRDs. It was her misfortune that the Teloi did.” Jason halted his hand almost before it began to stray.

  “And now we’re going in search of the Teloi. . . .”

  “The surviving Teloi, if any,” he corrected. “If we do encounter them, they’ll be in a far less powerful position than they were in the Bronze Age. Furthermore, this time their existence won’t take us by surprise.”

  “I keep telling myself that. But there’s something I’m puzzled about. Why couldn’t she have been rescued?”

  “Rescued?”

  “Yes. It seems as though it would be possible—at great expense, admittedly—to send a second expedition back to the time just after your departure, carrying a new TRD for her, timed the same as those of the expedition members.”

  “Temporal energy potential doesn’t work that way. You’re linked to the time from which you come. Such a TRD would have returned to the time from which we brought it—but she wouldn’t have, because she didn’t come from that time.” Jason took a long pull on his Scotch and soda. “And besides, you misunderstand. She didn’t remain because she had to. We succeeded in retrieving her TRD. The self-sacrifice of Dr. Nagel, our third member, made that possible. She could have held it in her hand and returned. But she chose to stay.”

  “Why?” Chantal’s question was barely audible.

  “Very simple: she fell in love.” Jason laughed shortly. “You know the old cliché about the hero getting the girl. Well, in this case the Hero did. Remember what I was telling you about the origin of demigods? She got herself a prime specimen: Perseus. Yes,” he added as Chantal’s eyes grew round, “that Perseus. One of the female skeletons Schliemann found in the shaft graves at Mycenae must have been her.”

  “I suppose he never knew what she had given up for him,” Chantal whispered.

  “You know, I never thought of it from that angle. But then, I’m not a woman.”

  “So,” Chantal said after a thoughtful silence, “when you came back, I suppose her TRD appeared on the displacer stage with you . . . as did Dr. Nagel’s corpse.”

  “Neither. Dr. Nagel’s remains, TRD and all, were taken inside the Teloi pocket universe just before its access portal was atomized. And as for Dr. Sadaka-Ramirez’s TRD. . . . Remember I mentioned that I spent time as a prisoner in the pocket universe? We all did—and she spent more time there than Dr. Nagel and I. And the Teloi kept the time-rate there slower than in the outside universe—it helped them seem immortal to their human worshipers. And the atomic timers of the TRDs. . . .” Jason saw that she had grasped it. He grimaced. “I was the first time traveler in the history of the Temporal Regulatory Authority to return behind schedule. I don’t mind telling you I was nervous about appearing on the displacer stage at an unforeseeable moment! Fortunately, Rutherford had gone to great lengths to keep the stage clear.”

  Chantal wore a look of intense concentration. “If, as you say, Dr. Sadaka-Ramirez was in the pocket universe longer than you—”

  “Precisely. At some completely unpredictable time, her TRD will be found on the floor of the displacer stage.”

  Chantal looked at him very thoughtfully. “I’ve noticed that whenever this subject comes up you have a habit of reaching for something in your pocket.”

  “You are extremely observant. Just before my displacement back to the present she burned her last bridges by giving me her TRD.” Jason brought out the little plastic case and opened it, revealing the tiny sphere. “Still there, I see.”

  “But sometime you’ll open the case and it won’t be. It will be on the displacer stage. And you’ll have a kind of closure.”
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br />   “You’re as perceptive as you are observant—uncomfortably perceptive, in fact. Not that I’m complaining. It will be a highly useful quality where we’re going.” He regarded her with new eyes. “This isn’t the most tactful thing to say, Chantal, but I think I may have underestimated you.”

  “People sometimes do.”

  “I’ve had my doubts about your ability to hold up under the conditions we’re going to be experiencing,” he told her bluntly. “I’ve also had doubts about your usefulness. But to some extent, that last has been wishful thinking on my part.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Then let me put it this way. I hope your specialized field of knowledge will turn out to be irrelevant to our mission. In other words, I hope we’ll find that by 490 b.c. every last Teloi on Earth is dead and only remembered in myth. You’d probably consider them fascinating. I consider them abominations.”

  “You’re very forthright. Actually, the same sort of doubts about what I can contribute have been worrying me. If you get your wish about the Teloi, I’ll try to make myself as useful as possible, and not be a burden.”

  “I can’t ask for more than that. And every member of an expedition is always needed. You can never foresee everything that’s going to come up, and you never know what talents and abilities are going to come in handy.”

  “Thank you for the reassurance.”

  “Not at all. Let’s have another round. By the way, have you ever tried any authentic Greek wine in the present day?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well, you’d better drink as much of that Chablis as you can while you’ve got the chance.”

  The day came, and they entered the vast dome that held the thirty-foot-diameter displacer stage, surrounded by concentric circles of control consoles and instrument panels. Rutherford gave each of them the handshake he always bestowed before withdrawing to the glassed-in mezzanine that held the control center. As he turned to go and the others climbed onto the stage, Jason spoke. “Uh, Kyle, I’d like you to keep something for me.”