Olympos

by Dan Simmons

  Things have certainly changed during the nine months I’ve been away from the turin, thinks Ada.

  “Hector has not come out of his apartments to lead the fight,” Helen whispers to Menelaus. Ada turns her attention back to the couple. They are huddled together over the tiniest of campfires up here on the broken, open-air platform, the red soldier’s cape shielding the embers from anyone’s view from below.

  “He’s a coward,” says Menelaus.

  “You know better than that. There has been no braver man in this mad war than Hector, son of Priam. He’s in mourning.”

  “For whom?” laughs Menelaus. “Himself? His life span can now be counted in hours.” He gestures out toward the hordes of Achaeans attacking Troy from all directions.

  Helen also looks. “Do you think this attack will succeed, my husband? It seems uncoordinated to me. And there are no siege engines.”

  Menelaus grunts. “Yes, perhaps my brother led them to the attack too quickly—there is too much confusion. But if tonight’s attack fails, tomorrow’s will succeed. Ilium is doomed.”

  “It seems so,” Helen says softly. “But it has always been, has it not? No, Hector is not grieving for himself, noble husband. He grieves for his murdered son, Scamandrius, and for the end of the war with the gods that might have avenged the baby.”

  “The war was pure folly,” grumbles Menelaus. “The gods would have destroyed us or banished us from the earth, just as they stole our families back home.”

  “You believe Agamemnon?” whispers Helen. “Everyone is gone?”

  “I believe what Poseidon and Hera and Athena told Agamemnon—that our families and friends and slaves and everyone else in the world will be returned by the gods when we Achaeans put Ilium to the torch.”

  “Could even the immortal gods do such a thing, my husband—remove all humans from our world?”

  “They must have,” says Menelaus. “My brother does not lie. The gods told him it had been their work and lo, our cities are empty! And I’ve talked to the others who sailed with him. All of the farms and homes in the Peloponnesus are…shhh, someone’s coming.” He kicks the embers apart, rises, thrusts Helen into the deepest shadows of the broken wall, and stands in the blind side of the opening to the circular staircase, his sword out and ready.

  Ada can hear the shuffle of sandals on the stairs.

  A man Ada has never seen before—dressed in Achaean infantry armor and cape but less fit, milder-looking than any soldier she’s ever noticed while under the turin—steps up onto the open area where the stairway abruptly ends.

  Menelaus springs, pins the man so he can’t raise his arms, and sets his blade across the startled intruder’s throat, ready to open his jugular with a single slash.

  “No!” cries Helen.

  Menelaus pauses.

  “It is my friend Hock-en-bear-eeee.”

  Menelaus waits a second, his expression set and forearm flexing as if still planning to cut the thinner man’s throat, but then he pulls the man’s sword out of its sheath and tosses it away. He shoves the thinner man down onto the floor and stands almost astride of him. “Hockenberry? The son of Duane?” growls Menelaus. “I’ve seen you with Achilles and Hector many times. You came with the machine-beings.”

  Hockenberry? thinks Ada. She’s never heard a name like that in the turin tale.

  “No,” says Hockenberry, rubbing both his throat and his bruised bare knee. “I’ve been here for years, but always observing until nine months ago when the war with the gods began.”

  “You’re a friend of that dog-fucker Achilles,” snarls Menelaus. “You’re a lackey of my enemy, Hector, whose doom is sealed this day. And so is yours…”

  “No!” Helen cries again and steps forward, grasping her husband’s arm. “Hock-en-bear-eeee is a favorite of the gods. And my friend. He is the one who told me of this tower platform. And you remember that he used to bear Achilles invisibly away, using the medallion at his throat to travel like the gods themselves.”

  “I remember,” says Menelaus. “But a friend of Achilles and Hector is no friend of mine. He’s found us out. He’ll tell the Trojans where we’re hiding. He must die.”

  “No,” says Helen a third time. Her white fingers look very small on Menelaus’ tanned and hairy forearm. “Hock-en-bear-eeee is the solution to our problem, my husband.”

  Menelaus glares at her, not understanding.

  Helen points to the battle going on out beyond the walls. The archers firing hundreds—thousands—of arrows in deadly volleys. The disorganized Achaeans first surging to the wall with ladders, then falling back as the archers’ crossfire thins their ranks. The last of the Trojan defenders outside the wall fighting valiantly on their side of the stakes and trenches—Achaean chariots crashing, wood splintering, horses screaming in the night as stakes pierce their lathered sides—and even the Achaean-loving goddesses and gods Athena, Hera, and Poseidon are falling back under the berserker counterassault of Troy’s principal defending gods, Ares and Apollo. The violet energy-arrows of the Lord of the Silver Bow are falling everywhere among the Achaeans and their immortal allies, dropping men and horses like saplings under the axe.

  “I don’t understand,” growls Menelaus. “What can this scrawny bastard do for us? His sword doesn’t even have an edge.”

  Still touching her husband’s forearm, Helen kneels gracefully and lifts the heavy gold medallion on its thick chain around Hockenberry’s neck. “He can carry us instantly to your brother’s side, my darling husband. He is our escape. Our only way out of Ilium.”

  Menelaus squints, obviously understanding. “Stand back, wife. I’ll cut his throat and we’ll use the magic medallion.”

  “It only works for me,” Hockenberry says softly. “Even the moravecs with their advanced engineering couldn’t duplicate it or make it work for them. The QT medallion is cued to my brainwaves and DNA.”

  “It’s true,” says Helen, almost whispering. “This is why Hector and Achilles always held Hock-en-bear-eeee’s arm when they used the god magic to travel with him.”

  “Stand up,” says Menelaus.

  Hockenberry stands. Menelaus is not a tall man like his brother, nor a barrel-chested ox of a man like Odysseus or Ajax, but he is almost godlike in his muscle and mass compared to this thin, potbellied Hockenberry.

  “Take us there now, son of Duane,” commands Menelaus. “To my brother’s tent on the sands.”

  Hockenberry shakes his head. “For months I’ve not used the QT medallion myself, son of Atreus. The moravecs explained that the gods could track me through something called Planck space in the Calabi-Yau matrix—follow me through the void that the gods use for travel. I betrayed the gods and they would kill me if I quantum teleport again.”

  Menelaus smiles. He lifts the sword, pokes it into Hockenberry’s belly until it draws blood through the tunic. “I’ll kill you now if you don’t, you pig’s arse. And draw your bowels out slow in the killing.”

  Helen sets her free hand on Hockenberry’s shoulder. “My friend, look at the warring there—there beyond the wall. The gods are all engaged in bloodletting this night. There, see Athena falling back with a host of her Furies? See mighty Apollo in his chariot, firing down death into the retreating Greek ranks. No one will notice you if you QT this night, Hock-en-bear-eeee.”

  The meek-looking man bites his lip, looks again at the battle—the Trojan defenders clearly have the upper hand now, with more soldiers flowing out of sally ports and man doors near the Scaean Gate—Ada can see Hector, come at last, leading his core of crack troops.

  “All right,” says Hockenberry. “But I can only QT one of you at a time.”

  “You will take us both at once,” growls Menelaus.

  Hockenberry shakes his head. “I can’t. I don’t know why, but the QT medallion allows me to teleport only one other person that I’m in contact with. If you remember me with Achilles and Hector, you remember that I never QT’d away with more than one of them, returning for
the other a few seconds later.”

  “It’s true, my husband,” says Helen. “I have seen this myself.”

  “Take Helen first then,” says Menelaus. “To Agamemnon’s tent on the beach, near where the black ships are drawn up on the sand.” There are shouts on the street below, and all three step back from the edge of the shattered platform.

  Helen laughs. “My husband, darling Menelaus, I can’t go first. I am the most hated woman in the memory of the Argives and Achaeans. Even in the few seconds it would take for my friend Hock-en-bear-eeee to come back here and return with you, Agamemnon’s guards or the other Greeks there—recognizing me as the bitch I am—would pierce me with a dozen lances. You must go first. You are my only protector.”

  Menelaus nods and seizes Hockenberry by the bare throat. “Use your medallion…now.”

  Before touching the gold circle, Hockenberry says, “Will you let me live if I do this? Will you let me go free?”

  “Of course,” growls Menelaus, but even Ada can see the glance he gives Helen.

  “You have my word that my husband Menelaus will not harm you,” says Helen. “Now go, QT quickly. I think I hear footsteps on the stairway below.”

  Hockenberry grasps the gold medallion, closes his eyes, twists something on its surface, and he and Menelaus disappear with a soft plop of inrushing air.

  For a minute, Ada is alone on the shattered platform with Helen of Troy. The wind rises, whistling softly through the broken masonry up here and bringing the shouts of the retreating Greeks and pursuing Trojans up from the torchlit plain below. People in the city are cheering.

  Suddenly Hockenberry reappears. “Your turn,” he says, touching Helen’s forearm. “You’re right that no god pursued me. There’s too much chaos tonight.” He nods toward the sky filled with swooping chariots and slashing bolts of energy.

  Hockenberry pauses before touching his medallion again. “You’re sure that Menelaus won’t hurt me when I bring you there, Helen?”

  “He will not hurt you,” whispers Helen. She seems almost distracted, as if listening for the footsteps on the stairs.

  Ada can hear only the wind and distant shouts.

  “Hock-en-bear-eeee, wait a second,” says Helen. “I need to tell you that you were a good lover…a good friend. I am very fond of you.”

  Hockenberry visibly swallows. “I’m…fond…of you, Helen.”

  The black-haired woman smiles. “I’m not going to join Menelaus, Hocken-bear-eeee. I hate him. I fear him. I will never submit to him again.”

  Hockenberry blinks and looks out toward the now-distant Achaean lines. They are regrouping beyond their own staked trenches two miles away, near the endless line of tents and bonfires where the countless black ships are drawn up on the sand. “He’ll kill you if they take the city,” he says softly.

  “Yes.”

  “I can QT you away. Somewhere safe.”

  “Is it true, my darling Hock-en-bear-eeee, that all the world is empty now? The great cities? My Sparta? The stony farms? Odysseus’ isle of Ithaca? The golden Persian cities?”

  Hockenberry chews his lip. “Yes,” he says at last, “it’s true.”

  “Then where could I go, Hock-en-bear-eeee? Mount Olympos? Even the Hole has disappeared, and the Olympians have gone mad.”

  Hockenberry shows his palms. “Then we’ll just have to trust that Hector and his legions hold them off, Helen…my darling. I swear to you that whatever happens, I’ll never tell Menelaus that you chose to stay behind.”

  “I know,” says Helen. From her wide sleeve, a knife slips into her hand. She swings her arm, bringing the short but very sharp blade up under Hockenberry’s ribs, piercing to the hilt. She twists the blade to find the heart.

  Hockenberry opens his mouth as if to cry out but can only gasp. Grasping his bloody midsection, he collapses in a heap.

  Helen has pulled the knife free as he fell. “Goodbye, Hock-en-bear-eeee.” She goes quickly down the steps, her slippers making almost no noise on the stone.

  Ada looks down at the bleeding, dying man wishing she could do something, but she is, of course, invisible and intangible. On impulse, remembering how Harman had communicated with the sonie, she raises her hand to the turin cloth, feels the embroidery under her fingers, and visualizes three blue squares centered in three red circles.

  Suddenly Ada is there—standing on that shattered, exposed platform in the topless tower in Ilium. She’s not turin-viewing something from there, she is there. She can feel the cold wind tugging at her blouse and skirt. She can smell the alien cooking scents and smell of livestock floating up from the marketplace visible below in the night. She can hear the roar of the battle just beyond the wall and feel the vibration in the air from the great bells and gongs ringing along the Trojan walls. She looks down and can see her feet firmly planted on the cracked masonry.

  “Help…me…please,” whispers the bleeding, dying man. He has spoken in Common English. Eyes widening in horror, Ada realizes that he can see her…he is staring right at her. He uses the last of his strength to lift his left hand toward her, imploring, beseeching.

  Ada flung the turin cloth from her brow.

  She was in her bedroom at Ardis Hall. Panicked, her heart pounding, she called up the time function from her palm.

  Only ten minutes had passed since she first lay down with the turin cloth, forty-nine minutes since her beloved Harman had left in the sonie. Ada felt disoriented and slightly nauseated again, as if the morning sickness were returning. She tried to shake the feeling away and replace it with resolve, but only ended up with a resolvedly stronger conviction of nausea.

  Folding the turin cloth and hiding it in her underwear drawer, Ada hurried down to see what was happening in and around Ardis.

  30

  The sonie ride was even more exciting than Harman had imagined, and Harman knew that he had a damned good imagination. He was also the only one onboard the sonie who’d ridden a wooden chair up a cyclone of lightning all the way from the Mediterranean Basin to an asteroid on the equatorial ring, and he assumed that nothing could match the thrill and terror of that ride.

  This ride came in a close second.

  The sonie smashed through the sound barrier—Harman had learned about the sound barrier in a book he’d sigled just last month—before it reached two thousand feet of altitude above Ardis, and by the time the machine ripped out of the top layer of clouds into bright sunlight, it was traveling almost vertically and outrunning its own sonic booms, although the ride was far from silent. The hiss and rush of air roaring over the force-field was loud enough to drown out any attempts at conversation.

  There were no attempts at conversation. The same forcefield that saved them from the roaring wind kept the four of them pinned belly-down in their cushioned niches; Noman remained unconscious, Hannah had one arm thrown over him, and Petyr was staring wide-eyed back over his shoulder at the clouds receding fast so far below.

  Within minutes, the roaring lessened to a teakettle hiss and then faded away to a sigh. The blue sky grew black. The horizon arched like a white bow drawn to full pull and the sonie continued to shoot skyward—the silver tip of an invisible arrow. Then the stars suddenly became visible, not emerging gradually as they do at sunset, but all appearing in an instant, filling the black sky like silent fireworks. Directly above them, the slowly revolving e-and p-rings glowed frighteningly bright.

  For a terrible moment, Harman was sure that the sonie was taking them back up to the rings—this same machine had brought Daeman, the unconscious Hannah, and him down from Prospero’s orbital asteroid, after all—but then the sonie began to level off and he realized that they were still thousands of miles from the orbital rings, just barely above the atmosphere. The horizon was curved, but the Earth still filled the view beneath them. When he and Savi and Daeman had ridden the lightning vortex up to the e-ring nine months ago, the Earth had seemed much farther below.

  “Harman…” Hannah was calling from the rear
niche as the sonie pitched over until it was upside down, the blinding sweep of the cloud-white planet now above them. “Is everything all right? Is this the way it should be?”

  “Yes, this is normal,” called back Harman. Various forces, including fear, were trying to lift his prone body off the cushions, but the forcefield pressed him back down. His stomach and inner ears were reacting to the lack of gravity and horizon. In truth, he had no idea whether this was normal or whether the sonie had tried to perform some maneuver it wasn’t capable of and they were all seconds away from dying.

  Petyr caught his eye and Harman saw that the younger man knew he was lying.

  “I may throw up,” said Hannah. Her tone was completely matter-of-fact.

  The sonie surged forward and down, propelled by invisible thrusters and forces, and the Earth began to spin. “Close your eyes and hang on to Odysseus,” called Harman.

  The noise returned as they re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Harman found himself straining to look back up in the rings, wondering if much of Prospero’s orbital island had survived, wondering if Daeman was correct in his certainty that it was Caliban who had murdered the young man’s mother and slaughtered the others in Paris Crater.

  Minutes passed. It seemed to Harman that they were re-entering above the continent he knew had once been called South America. There were clouds in both hemispheres, swirling, crenellated, rippled, flattened and towering, but he also caught a glimpse through the gaps in the cloud cover of the broad, watery strait that Savi told them had once been a continuous isthmus connecting the two continents.

  Then fire surrounded them and the screech and roar grew louder even than during their ascent. The sonie spiraled into thicker atmosphere like a spinning flechette dart.

  “It’ll be all right!” Harman shouted to Hannah and Petyr. “I’ve been through this before. It’ll be all right.”