Sunset of the Gods

by Steve White

  “We will proceed around behind them and kill all Transhumanists present. I want to emphasize that Pan must not be killed or even stunned, for he is essential to the next phase of the operation. He knows how to pilot the Teloi aircar—I ascertained that before making an agreement with him. In exchange for the pharmaceutical supplies we are bringing, he will take us to Athens in the aircar, which must be a model capable of carrying several passengers, given the use the Transhumanists were making of it. There we will make our way to the cavern under the Acropolis, where more Transhumanists—probably including their leader—and the members of the cult of which you learned in your orientation will be awaiting Pan. Here we will have to play it by ear: the Transhumanists must be neutralized with as few manifestations of out-of-period technology as possible. And Pan will tell the cultists that he’s not really a god and that the Transhumanists are evil supernatural beings who have been deceiving them.”

  “That might not be easy, sir,” said Logan slowly. “The ancient Greeks didn’t have ‘devils’ or ‘demons’, and none of their gods were either purely good or purely evil. They were just a kind of super-powerful immortal humans.”

  “Very astute,” said Jason with a sharp look. Evidently there was more to Logan than met the eye, or the ear. Rutherford had raised the same objection. “That’s why I told Pan to use his imagination. But while awaiting retrieval on Crete I had time to think about it some more. In particular, I thought about a line of theological propaganda that the Persian commander Datis used on the Greek island of Delos on his way to Athens. There’s no point in going into the details at this time, as it would sound like mumbo-jumbo to you. As a matter of fact, it is mumbo-jumbo. But since my return, after consultation with Rutherford and various experts on the period, I think it may work. It doesn’t really fit into the conventional Greek version of metaphysics, but maybe Pan’s word will carry weight anyway. As always, flexibility and adaptability are going to have to be our watchwords.

  “At any rate, afterwards we will use the small gravitically focused explosive charge we’re taking with us to seal the tunnel without doing any damage to the buildings above. The cavern will be gone, but the historically attested grotto sacred to Pan on the north slope of the Acropolis will remain. The Athenians will continue to offer annual sacrifices to Pan there, as history says they did, but the Transhumanists’ twisted cult will be aborted.

  “Now, there’s one other matter—the second of the two ‘exceptions’ I mentioned in connection with weapon settings. At some point in this operation, it is highly probable that we will encounter Dr. Chantal Frey, a member of my prior expedition to this milieu. As you know from your orientation, she had her TRD surgically removed and may have defected to the Transhumanists.” Jason said this in a very even tone of voice, and he noted his listeners’ carefully neutral expressions at his choice of words. “She must not, under any circumstances, be killed. It is permissible, if the situation seems to warrant it, to stun her. I intend to bring her back with us, willingly or otherwise, by actual physical carriage just as we have always brought various items back. It is a method that has never been tried before with a human or any other living organism. In fact, the idea of doing so has never occurred to anyone before, doubtless because we’re so accustomed to thinking exclusively in terms of our standard procedures. But I am advised that it is within the bounds of theoretical possibility.

  “Now, as to your TRDs. You’re probably wondering why they haven’t been implanted yet. The reason is that they’ve only just become available. They are a new model, hastily developed and rushed into production for this mission. They are somewhat larger than the standard models, but the implantation will still be a minor operation. Unlike all TRDs up until now, these are not set to activate at a pre-set moment. Instead, they are designed to activate on command. The command is transmitted through my brain implant. I will decide when we are to be retrieved.”

  Da Cunha and Logan stared, for this was beyond unprecedented. “But how will anyone here know when to expect us?” Da Cunha asked.

  “They won’t.” Jason permitted himself a wintery smile. “This, as we all know, would normally be out of the question due to ‘traffic control’ considerations on the displacer stage. Which, of course, is why TRDs like these have never been developed before; no one could imagine a use for them. But that issue won’t arise this time, because the stage will be kept clear until we return. Which, in turn, won’t be much of a problem because this is going to be the briefest extratemporal expedition in the entire history of the Authority. A couple of hours, if that, ought to be long enough for us to accomplish this mission, if it can be accomplished at all. And every additional minute we spend in the fifth century b.c. is just one additional chance for some kind of screw-up.

  “Finally, Alexandre here is my second in command. This is due to his familiarity with the target milieu, despite his junior status in the Service. If either of you has a problem with this, now’s the time to get it off your chest.” Total silence answered him. “Very well. If there are no further questions, you are dismissed. We’ll have further briefings, and opportunities to practice with these rather unique versions of the Takashima, at a later time.”

  As they filed out of the room, Mondrago lingered. “Sir, may I have a word?”

  “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

  “Well, sir, about the ‘all you can conveniently carry’ rule on which you’re basing your plan to bring Dr. Frey back to our time in the linear present. . . .” Mondrago trailed to a halt, looking uncharacteristically abashed.

  “Yes?” Jason prompted. “What’s the matter? You don’t think it will work?”

  “I’m sure I’m not qualified to say, sir,” replied Mondrago, armoring himself in military formality. “If the experts say it will, I believe them. It just occurs to me that at the same time you’re doing it . . . well, Pan is a fairly small being, and if it works at all I ought to be able to do the same with him.”

  Jason stared. “Are you saying you’ve decided you want to rescue Pan?”

  “No, sir!” said Mondrago, a little too emphatically. “I’m just thinking that he might be a useful intelligence source, if we could bring him back for debriefing.”

  “I see.” Jason carefully kept his face expressionless. “You know, you may have a point. I hadn’t thought my idea out to its logical conclusion. I was thinking exclusively in terms of using it for Dr. Frey, because this is her proper time. But on reflection, that shouldn’t matter; we’re always bringing inanimate objects with us from their own periods in the past this way, and they stay here. Otherwise Rutherford wouldn’t be able to keep that sword and the other souvenirs in his display case! And the experts keep telling me that whether the object is living or nonliving shouldn’t matter. I’ll tell you what: if the opportunity presents itself, without jeopardizing the success of the mission, I’ll let you make the attempt. Good enough?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The time came, and the four of them filed onto the displacer stage with their “walking sticks.” They also carried in-period daggers. Logan and Mondrago also carried the kind of satchels that ancient Greeks normally carried when going on lengthy walking journeys. The former contained the explosive charge; the latter the medical supplies for Pan, just in case Mondrago’s idea didn’t work. All of them carried, in the usual sort of waist-tied wallets, a supply of the energy cells for which they were strictly accountable.

  Rutherford met them at the edge of the stage for the traditional handshake. On this occasion it seemed overlaid with a new grimness. In the past there had sometimes been a possibility that Rutherford was sending time travelers into battle; this time it was a certainty. As mission leader, Jason was the last to shake hands. But at the last moment he paused.

  “Ah, Kyle . . . what with one thing and another, I haven’t gotten around to asking you. But . . .?”

  Rutherford’s eyes met his. “Yes. It’s still there.”

  Jason nodded. No more needed to be
said. He mounted the stage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They were all experienced, so the disorientation didn’t hit them too hard when the dome surrounding the displacer stage faded into oblivion as though it had never been and they stood on a ledge in Mount Kotroni’s shadow.

  Still, there was a moment when they would have been helpless had there been any hostiles present—assuming, of course, that those hostiles hadn’t been stunned into immobility by their appearance out of thin air. It was why Jason had chosen the side of the hill opposite the side from which the Transhumanists would be overlooking the plain of Marathon, their attention riveted on the battle below and to the east.

  That fixation couldn’t be counted on, though, and the all-important element of surprise had to be preserved. Using the Service’s standard hand signals, Jason motioned the others to follow him to the right. They silently worked their way around the hill’s southern slopes, emerging into the morning sun. Jason spared an instant for a glance to the south, where the taller Mount Agrliki loomed beyond the Greek camp, defining the southeast end of the plain. Mere minutes ago, he thought with a sudden chill, his own three-months-younger self had left those slopes and was now flying his invisible aircar toward Athens. He couldn’t let himself dwell on it, lest the sense of strangeness immobilize him.

  They rounded the hill and the plain lay spread out before them. To the southeast the ground was choked with corpses, the detritus of the initial clash, where the inward-pivoting Greek flanks had crushed the Persian center a lesser trail of carnage extended northeast of that, following the path of the re-formed, grimly advancing phalanx that was now nearing the improvised Persian line defending the ships, almost directly to the east. Beyond that, the narrow beach was a scene out of hell, with the ships putting out to sea and the shallows choked with frantic men trying to find a ship, any ship, that would take them. On the Persian right, the Greek light troops were hunting scattered Persian stragglers into the great marsh.

  The noise from the plain, compounded of the screams of the wounded, the panicked cries of the Persian fugitives, the shouted command, and the tramp of the phalanx’s twenty thousand feet, was horrifying. But Jason knew it was about to rise to a truly hellish crescendo, for this was a lull in the battle, before the final clash.

  Jason tried to imagine the exhaustion of the dust- and gore-encrusted hoplites of the phalanx, moving toward what by some accounts was to be the fiercest fighting of the day, where Callimachus and many others would fall. He knew that their exhaustion would allow the Persians to hold out long enough for all but seven of their ships to escape. He also knew—although it almost defied belief—that these same men would turn around later that same morning and march twenty-six miles in armor to Phalerum, where the Persian fleet would find them drawn up on the shore. Jason had to wonder how much of a fight they would really have been able to put up at that point, had it come to that. But after what the Persians had just experienced, they would have no appetite to put it to the test. They would sail away.

  Then Jason turned the final corner of the goat-trail they were following. There, on a ledge beyond a boulder, were three Transhumanists—none of whom was Franco—and Pan. He motioned his followers to a halt and crept forward to peer over the boulder.

  The Transhumanists, who had a good view of the Persian line that Datis had somehow managed to improvise, were aiming a subsonic projector of the kind he had imagined they would use. It was a small model, with barely enough range. But all that would be required of it would be to induce emotional turmoil in just a few men, here and there in a hastily organized formation of men already badly shaken. That would be enough to dissolve that formation. Off to the side was the Teloi aircar, an open-topped model large enough to carry four passengers besides the pilot, not quite as overdecorated as the “chariots” Jason remembered.

  Only three of them, Jason thought. No doubt there had originally been a fourth, but that one—the murderer of Bryan Landry and would-be murderer of Mondrago and himself—now lay near the Greek camp with Mondrago’s sling-pellet in his brain. And they’re preoccupied. This ought to be easy. He signaled the others to slide forward and join him behind the boulder. They noiselessly took up their positions and he prepared to give the signal.

  At that instant, at the far end of the ledge beyond the Transhumanist group, an inhumanly tall figure appeared.

  One of the Transhumanists cried out. They all whirled to face the new apparition. Pan cowered. Jason, his tactical calculations thrown off, motioned Mondrago and the others to lay quietly as he tried to evaluate the situation’s new dynamics. Da Cunha and Logan stared over the top of the boulder wide-eyed, for this was their first sight of Teloi in the flesh.

  Zeus stalked forward. Three other Teloi followed him: a male who somewhat resembled him, another male who seemed more powerfully built than the Teloi norm, and a female who, like Zeus, exhibited the Teloi indicia of aging. Jason didn’t recognize any of the three, but certain hard-to-define qualities about them made him wonder if he was looking at Poseidon, Ares and Hera.

  One thing was certain: none of them looked happy, Zeus least of all. And all wore, on the belts of their tunics, laser pistols of the kind that had killed Sidney Nagel on the island of Kalliste shortly before it had exploded, leaving the remnants that would one day be known as the Santorini group.

  The Transhumanist who seemed to be the leader—he looked to be one of the varieties gengineered for intelligence and initiative, at the expense of some of the physical attributes—bowed and addressed Zeus in the tone of patently bogus servility Jason had heard Franco use. “Why, greetings, Lord. This is most unexpected.” He looked around in vain for an aircar. “How did you—?”

  “The sky-chariot that brought us has departed,” said Zeus, his voice thick with an emotion that made it even more disturbing than Teloi voices normally were. “Aphrodite took it away, for we will not be needing it. We mean to reclaim this one, which we unwisely let you use before we learned of your impious betrayal of us, your gods.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Lord?” The Transhumanist’s reverential tone was getting a little frayed around the edges. As a member of one of the upper Transhumanist castes, he was struggling to suppress a heritage of arrogance. “As our leader Franco has repeatedly told you, we wish only to serve you.”

  “You lie, as Franco has lied to us from the beginning. He promised to enable the Persians to restore Hippias to power in Athens so he could complete his great work: the raising of a temple almost worthy of me. But now I see your true aim. You mean to give the victory to the Athenians!”

  “A minor change in plans, Lord—a mere tactical adjustment.” The Transhumanist’s struggle to maintain his pose of obsequiousness was now comically obvious—or at least it would have been comical under any other circumstances. “Rest assured that our long-term goal is unchanged: leading Athens back into its proper reverence for you.”

  “More lies! It is all clear to me now! Your only concern is to establish a cult of this grotesque artificial being Pan which we enabled you to create but which is now under your control. And you intend to commit the ultimate blasphemy by establishing him as a god, for your own selfish purposes!”

  Pan looked like he wanted to burrow into the stony soil of the hillside.

  Zeus was raving now, his features working convulsively. “You are no better than all other humans—the original stock, and the Heroes we created in an effort to guide the others back to their proper role. You ‘Transhumanists’ claim to be a superior strain, but you are like all the rest: treacherous and disloyal and, above all, ungrateful to us, your creators and your gods! We should never have summoned your species up from apedom!”

  A strong shudder convulsed the Transhumanist and his façade of worshipfulness seemed to fall from him and shatter, revealing what lay beneath. Not just his face but his entire body was one great sneer of loathing and contempt.

  “Our gods? You senile, decayed, demented fool! You are inferior even
to the lesser breeds of humans. You have long since outlived your time—and you have now outlived your usefulness to us, your supplanters—the new gods!” And with motion of almost insect-like quickness, possible only to genetically upgraded reflexes, the Transhumanist reached inside his chiton, pulled out an extremely compact laser pistol, and shot Zeus in the upper chest.

  In the late twentieth century, after the invention of the laser but when weapon-grade applications of it had been only a theoretical possibility, people had had peculiar ideas about them. The vision of a blinding but silent beam of light was wrong in every particular; it was invisible in vacuum, and in atmosphere there was only a sparkling trail of ionized air, accompanied by a sharp but not very loud crack as air rushed in to fill the tube of vacuum that had been drilled through it. And a continuous laser beam swinging back and forth and reducing its target to sizzling salami slices was out of the question; even aside from the impossible energy demands, any attempt to do it in atmosphere would have come to grief on the hard facts of thermal bloom. Instead, a pulse of directed energy burned a hole in the victim, with a burst of superheated pinkish steam—the human or Teloi body is, after all, seventy percent water—whose knockback effect now sent Zeus’ body toppling over backwards.

  The other two Teloi drew their weapons, as did the two subordinate Transhumanists. There was an intense instant of crisscrossing, crackling beams. One of the Transhumanists went down, as did all the Teloi.