"Yes," said Prospero. "Even my erstwhile goblin would grind his joints with dry convulsions and shorten up his sinews with aged cramps should he try hard vacuum without a suit or thermskin. But he forgot, and bit through poor Savi's."

"There were two more suits he could have had the last month," said Daeman, his voice so low it fell below the whisper of ventilation. The room left the curve-slice of Earth above and rotated into starlight. There was a half-moon rising above Prospero.

"And he would have, but Caliban is no god," said the magus. "Savi did not kill the beast with her full salvo of flechettes to its chest, but she hurt it sore. Caliban has been bleeding and recovering, gone deep sometimes to his deepest grotto where he packs the wounds with mud muck and drinks lizard blood for strength."

"We've been drinking and eating the same," said Daeman.

"Yes," said Prospero, showing an old man's yellow smile. "But you don't enjoy enjoy it." it."

"How do we get to the sonie?" asked Harman. "And do you have food in here?"

"No, to your second question," said Prospero. "No one but Caliban has eaten here on this stony isle for the last five hundred years. But yes to your first. There is a membrane on the tower glass high up that will let you pass out to the launch terrace. Your suits may ... may ... protect you long enough to charge up the sonie and activate its guidance program. Do you remember how to fly the thing?"

"I think ... I watched Savi ... I mean ..." stammered Harman. He shook his head as if brushing away cobwebs. His eyes looked as weary as Daeman felt. "We'll have to. We will."

"You'll have to pass the firmary and Caliban again to reach the far tower," said Prospero. The old man's little eyes moved from Harman to Daeman and the gaze was judicial. "Do you have anything else you must do before you flee this place?"

"No," said Harman.

"Yes," said Daeman. He managed to stand and stagger over to the curved window-wall. The reflection there was thin, gaunt, and bearded, but there was something new in its eyes. "We have to destroy the firmary," he said. "We have to destroy this whole damned place."

52.

Ilium and Olympos For some reason, I flee with the Trojans on Thicket Ridge toward and through the smaller man-gates of the Scaean Gates, main entrance to Ilium. The wind still howls and we're all partially deaf from the nuclear explosion to the south. My last glimpse of the mushroom cloud before entering the city with the shoving mob of Trojan soldiers shows me that the column of smoke and ash is already beginning to bend southeast with the prevailing wind. There's still a hint of Zeus's face in the coiled cloud at the top, but the wind and the cloud's own infolding is breaking up that visage as well.

Scores are crushed at the man-gates, so Hector orders the guards to throw wide the central Scaean Gates, something that hasn't been done for more than nine years. The thousands flock inside.

The Argives have run for their ships. Just as Hector is trying to rally his panicked troops here, I catch a glimpse of Achilles trying to hold back the fleeing Greeks. In the Iliad, Iliad, in Achilles' rampage after Patroclus' death, Homer tells of the man-god fighting a flooding river-and winning, damming it with the bodies of his Trojan enemies-but now Achilles can't stop this tsunami of fleeing Achaeans without killing hundreds, and this he will not do. in Achilles' rampage after Patroclus' death, Homer tells of the man-god fighting a flooding river-and winning, damming it with the bodies of his Trojan enemies-but now Achilles can't stop this tsunami of fleeing Achaeans without killing hundreds, and this he will not do.

I'm swept into the city, already sorry that I ran. I realize that I should have fought my way through the milling mob on the ridge to where I saw the little robot, Mahnmut, sheltering behind the boulders atop the Amazon Myrine's mounded tomb. Does the robot-what did he call his type? moravec?-does the moravec know that Zeus's weapon was nuclear, possibly thermonuclear? Suddenly a memory emerges from my other life, as so many have in the past week or so-Susan trying to drag me to a talk at IU's science hall during some multidisciplinary week at the university. A scientist named Moravec was speaking about his autonomous artificial intelligence theories. Fritz? Hans? I hadn't gone, of course-of what interest would some scientist's theories be to a classical scholar?

Well, it doesn't matter now.

As if to underline this point, five chariots appear from the north-I know the QT point they translated in through up there-and begin circling the city at an altitude of three or four thousand feet. Even with optical amplification, I can't make out the little figures in the gleaming machines, but it looks as if there are both gods and goddesses up there.

Then the bombardment begins.

The shafts scream down into the city like slender, silver, ballistic missiles, and where each one strikes, there is an explosion, dust and smoke rising, screams. Ilium is a large city by ancient standards, but the arrows come fast-from Apollo's bow, I realize, although I think I can make out Ares doing the shooting when the chariot swoops low to assess the damage-and soon the explosions and screams are coming from every quarter of the walled metropolis.

I realize that I've not only lost control of everything, I've lost sight of everyone I should be talking to, helping, conferring with. Achilles is probably three miles away down the hill already, back with his men, trying to keep them from sailing away in panic. Hearing more explosions-conventional, not nuclear-coming from the direction of the Achaean camp, I don't see how Achilles can succeed in rallying his men. I've also lost sight of Hector, and see that the huge Achaean Gates have been swung shut again-as if that can keep out the gods. Poor Mahnmut and his silent pal, Orphu, are probably destroyed out there on the ridge already. I don't see how anything can survive this bombardment.

More explosions from the central marketplace. Red-crested Trojan soldiers rush to reinforce the walls, but the danger's not outside the walls. The golden chariot swings above again, outside of even archer shot, and five silver arrows rain down like Scud missiles, exploding near the south wall, near the central well, and apparently right on Priam's Palace. This is beginning to remind me of CNN images from the second war with Iraq right before I became ill with cancer.

Hector. The hero is probably rallying his men, but since there's nothing to rally them for except to duck and cover, it's possible that Hector has gone to his home to check on Andromache. I think of that empty, bloodstained nursery and grimace even here in the smoke and noise of the bombed city street. The royal couple hasn't had time to bury their baby yet.

Jesus, God, is all this my doing?

A flying chariot swoops low. An explosion breaches the ramparts along the main wall and throws a dozen red-caped figures into the air. Body parts rain into the streets and patter on rooftops like fleshy hail. Suddenly another memory returns, a similar horror, three thousand two hundred years in this world's future, two thousand and one bloody years after the birth of Christ. In my mind's eye, I see bodies hurling down into the street and a wall of dust and pumice chasing the fleeing thousands, just as I see down Ilium's main street this moment. Only the buildings and modes of dress are different.

We'll never learn. Things will never change.

I run for Hector's home. More missiles rain down, blasting the plaza just inside the gate from where I've just come. I see a small child staggering into the street from rubble that was a two-story home just minutes before. I can't tell if the toddler's a little boy or girl, but the child's face is bloody, its curly hair covered with plaster dust. I stop running and go to one knee to gather the child in-where can I take it? There's no hospital in Ilium!-but a woman with a red scarf over her head runs to the infant and scoops it up. I wipe rivulets of sweat out of my eyes and stagger on toward Hector's house.

It's gone. The whole of Hector's palace is missing-just rubble and a series of holes in the ground. I have to keep mopping sweat out of my eyes to see, and even when I see I can't believe. This whole block has been pounded by the missiles raining down. Already, Trojan soldiers are digging through the rubble with their spears and makeshift shovels, their proud red-crests turned gray by the dust in the air. They create a human chain to hand bodies and body parts back to the waiting crowds in the street.

"Hock-en-bear-eeee," says a voice. I realize that someone's been saying my name over and over, but now has begun tugging at my arm. "Hock-en-bear-eeee!"

I turn stupidly, blink away sweat again, and look down at Helen. She's dirty, her gown is bloodied, and her hair is unkempt. I've never seen anyone or anything so beautiful. She hugs me and I gather her in with both arms.

She pulls apart. "Are you badly hurt, Hock-en-bear-eeee?"

"What?"

"Are your injuries severe?"

"I'm not hurt," I say. She touches my face then and her hand comes away red with blood. I raise my hand to my temple-a deep cut there, another in my hairline-see the bloody fingers on both of my hands, and realize that I've been wiping blood away, not sweat. "I'm fine," I say. I point to the smoking rubble. "Hector? Andromache?"

"They weren't there, Hock-en-bear-eeee," Helen shouts over the screams and babble. "Hector sent his family to Athena's temple. The basement is safe there."

I look through the smoke and see the tall roof of the temple standing. Of course, Of course, I think. I think. The gods aren't going to bomb their own temples. Too much fucking ego. The gods aren't going to bomb their own temples. Too much fucking ego.

"Theano is dead," says Helen. "And Hecuba. And Laodice."

I repeat the names stupidly. Athena's priestess, the woman with the cold blade at my balls just hours ago. And Priam's wife and daughter. Three of my Trojan Women dead already. And the bombardment's just begun.

Suddenly I whirl around in panic. The noise is wrong. The blasts have stopped.

Men and women in the streets are pointing skyward and shouting. Four of the five chariots have already disappeared and now the fifth, Ares' bombardment chariot, I think, flies north and winks out of existence, obviously QTing back to Olympos. All this damage-I look around at the tumbled buildings, smoking craters, bloodied bodies in the streets-from just one god's attack with one bow and a few of Apollo's arrows. What next? Biological attack? The Shining Archer-probably recovering up there in the healing tanks right now-is famous for firing plague into the people below.

I grab the medallion at my neck. "Where's Hector?" I ask Helen. "I have to find Hector."

"He went back out through the Scaean Gate with Paris, Aeneas, and his brother Deiphobus," says Helen. "He said he has to find Achilles before all hearts flag."

"I have to find him," I repeat. I turn toward the main gate, but Helen pulls me back and around.

"Hock-en-bear-eeee," she says, and pulls my face down to hers and kisses me there in the shoving, screaming street. When her lips leave mine, I can only blink stupidly, still bent to her kiss. "Hock-en-bear-eeee," she says again. "If you must die, die well."

Then she turns and strides back up the street without once looking back.

53.

The Equatorial Ring Daeman was only a little surprised to see that the Prospero hologram can stand and walk. The magus picked up his staff and walked slowly to the dome-window of the room. When he lifted his face to watch the stars march by, the pale light emphasized the wrinkles on his throat and cheeks. All this onslaught of old age in recent days made Daeman queasy-and even queasier considering what they're discussing at that moment. He tried to imagine a world in which his friends and he-his mother!-grew old like Savi, like this mottled and wattled hologram. The horror of it made him shudder.

Then he remembered the horror of the tanks, the blue worms, and Caliban's dining table.

Wouldn't it be easier just to kill the monster? Leave the firmary intact?

No, Daeman realized through his hunger and fatigue. This place was an obscenity any way one looked at it. The entire belief system of the Five Twenties was based on the conviction that people went to the rings after one hundred years, joining the post-humans up here in comfort and immortality. Daeman thought of the gray, half-eaten corpses floating out there in the thin, stale air, and could only snort a laugh.

"What is it?" asked Prospero, half turning from the view.

"Nothing," said Daeman. He felt like weeping or breaking something. Preferably the latter.

"How can we destroy the firmary?" asked Harman. The taller, older man was shivering from his illness. His face was even paler than Daeman's and sheened slick with sweat.

"How indeed?" asked Prospero. He leaned on his staff and looked at them. "Did you bring explosives, weapons-other than Savi's silly little pistol-or tools?"

"No," said Harman.

"There are none up here," said Prospero. "The post-humans had evolved themselves far beyond wars and conflicts. Or tools. The servitors did all work up here."

"They're still working," said Daeman.

"Only in the firmary," said the magus. He crossed slowly back to the center console. "Have you given thought to the hundreds of human beings floating helpless in the firmary tanks?"

"My God," whispered Harman.

Daeman rubbed his cheek, feeling the beard there. It was an oddly satisfying sensation. "We can't use the faxnodes in the healing tanks to get back to Earth," he said, "but presumably those people already in the tanks could be faxed back to the portals from which they came."

"Yes," said Prospero. "If you can convince the servitors to do so. Or if you were to take over the fax controls yourselves. But there's a problem with that."

"What?" said Daeman, but even as he asked the question he saw the problem clearly.

Prospero smiled grimly and nodded. "For those who've just been faxed up to the tanks, or those finished with their blue-worm healing process, fax return is possible. But for those hundreds midway in the healing process ..." His silence said everything.

"What can we do?" asked Harman. "There will be new people faxing in and healed ones faxing out, hundreds in the process."

"If Prospero's right and we can take over the fax controls," said Daeman, "we could shut off the incoming, then continue to fax down the healed as the process is finished, until all the tanks are empty. We've both been in the tanks. How long does the Twenty healing usually take-twenty-four hours? Forty-eight for serious injuries like being eaten by an allosaurus?"

"You weren't being 'healed' for that," said Prospero. "They were rebuilding you from scratch, using your updated memory codes from the fax grid banks, stored DNA, and organic spare parts. But you are correct, even the slowest healing cases require no more than forty-eight hours."

Daeman opened his hands and looked at Harman. "Two days from the time we take over the firmary."

"If we can can take over the firmary and control the fax process," Harman said doubtfully. take over the firmary and control the fax process," Harman said doubtfully.

The magus leaned on the back of his chair. "I can do do nothing, but I can give information," said the old man. "I can tell you how the fax controls work." nothing, but I can give information," said the old man. "I can tell you how the fax controls work."

"But we won't be able to fax down ourselves?" Harman asked again. Obviously the thought of using the sonie worried him.

"No," said Prospero.

"Can we reprogram the servitors to handle the faxing?" asked Daeman.

"No," said the magus. "You will have to destroy or disable them. But they are not programmed for conflict."

"Neither are we," laughed Harman.

Prospero stepped around his chair. "Yes," he whispered. "You are are. With human beings, no matter how civilized civilized you may appear, it is just a matter of reawakening old programming." you may appear, it is just a matter of reawakening old programming."

Daeman and Harman looked at one another. Harman shivered again in his blue thermskin suit.

"Your genes remember how to kill," said Prospero. "Come, let me show you the instrument of destruction."

Prospero's hologram couldn't manipulate the virtual controls in the center console himself, but he showed Daeman and Harman how to use their hands on and in the complex glowing toggles, shunts, slides, switches, and manipulators.

An image misted into solidity above the console, then rotated in three dimensions for their inspection.

"It's one of those big e-ring devices we saw on the way in," said Daeman.

"A linear accelerator with its wormhole collection ring," said Prospero. "The post-humans were so so proud of these things. As you saw, they made thousands." proud of these things. As you saw, they made thousands."

"So?" said Harman. "Are you saying that the fax system on Earth is controlled by these things?"

Prospero shook his brow-heavy head. "Your fax system is terrestrial. It doesn't move bodies through space and time, only data. But these wormhole collectors are the spiders in the center of the post-humans quantum teleportation web."

"So?" said Harman again. "We just want to go back to Earth."

"Grip that green controller and squeeze the red circle twice," said Prospero.

Daeman did so. On the holographic display of the orbital linear accelerator, a small quad of engine thrusters pulsed twice, sending a tiny silver cone of crystallized exhaust into space. The long array of girders, tanks, columns, and rings began to rotate ever so slowly. Counter-thrusters fired just as briefly, and the long accelerator stabilized. The fifty-meter-wide shimmering wormhole at its end, centered within the huge and gleaming collection ring, had not turned with the accelerator. Daeman leaned close to the holographic image of the accelerator and saw that the collection ring was on gimbals. He reached a finger into the image, touched different elements, and saw the vid image shift into diagrams and descriptive lettering-return line, injector, quad thrusters. He removed his hand and the real-time image reappeared. The words had, of course, meant nothing to him. He removed his hand and the real-time image reappeared. The words had, of course, meant nothing to him.

"Attitude control, orbital translation thrusters," said Prospero. "This asteroid is in stable orbit-it would be a possible species-extinction event if it fell onto the Earth-but the wormhole collecting accelerators and the Casimir mirrors were constantly being moved around."

"From here," said Daeman.

Prospero nodded. "And from the other asteroid cities."

Harman and Daeman looked at each other again. "There are more post-human cities?" asked Harman.

"Three more," said the magus. "One other on this equatorial ring. Two on the polar ring."

"Are there living post-humans there?" asked Daeman. He suddenly saw an alternative to all this destruction and the end of the Five Twenties way of life.

"No." Prospero sat in his high-backed chair. "And there are no other firmaries, either. This city was the only one that bothered itself with the affairs of you modified old-styles down there." He waved a mottled hand toward the Earth rising on the right curve of the dome. The room was suddenly brightened again by Earthlight.

"All the posts are dead," repeated Daeman.