“Who gives a shit,” I said aloud and thumbed the activation icon on the bracelet and morphed into the form of Paris.

I was still invisible, decked out in Hades Helmet, levitation harness, everything.

I took off the helmet and everything else except the morphing bracelet and the small QT medallion hanging around my neck, hiding the gear behind a tripod in the corner of the balcony. Now I was only Paris in his war gear. I took off the armor and left it on the balcony as well, appearing now only as Paris in his soft tunic. If the Muse swooped down on me now, I had no defense except to QT away.

I walked back through the balcony curtains into the bathing area. Helen looked up in surprise as I parted the curtains.

“My lord?” she said, and I saw first the defiance in her eyes and then the downward-cast gaze of what might have been apology and self-subordination for her earlier harsh words. “Leave us,” she snapped at the servants and the women left on wet feet.

Helen of Troy came slowly up the steps of the bath toward me, her hair dry except for the wet strands over her shoulder blades and breasts, her head still lowered but her eyes looking up at me now through her lashes. “What will you have of me, my husband?”

I had to try twice before my voice would work properly. Finally, in Paris’s voice, I said, “Come to bed.”

19

Golden Gate at Machu Picchu

They walked from green globule to green globule on the Golden Gate, down unmoving escalators and across green-glass-enclosed walkways connecting the giant cables that supported the roadway so far below. Odysseus walked with them.

“Are you really the Odysseus from the turin drama?” asked Hannah.

“I’ve never seen the turin drama,” said the man.

Ada noticed that the man who called himself Odysseus had not really confirmed or denied anything, just sidestepped the question.

“How did you get here?” asked Harman. “And where did you come from?”

“It is a complicated answer,” said Odysseus. “I have been traveling for some time now, trying to find my way home. This is only a stop on the way, a place to rest, and I shall be leaving in a few weeks. I would prefer to tell some of my story later, if you don’t mind. Perhaps when we dine this evening. Savi Uhr may be able to help me make sense of parts of my tale.”

Ada thought that it was very strange to hear someone speak Common English as if it were not his native tongue; she had never heard an accent before. There were not even regional dialects in Ada’s fax-based world, where everyone lived everywhere—and nowhere.

The six emerged on the top of the tower where Savi had landed the sonie earlier. They emerged just as the sun was touching the top of southernmost of the two sharp peaks that anchored the bridge. The wind from the west was strong and cold. They walked to the railing at the edge of the platform and looked down at the sloping, grassy saddle with its terraced ruins more than eight hundred feet below.

“The last time I came to the Golden Gate, three weeks ago,” said Savi, “Odysseus was in one of the cryotemporal sarcophagi where I usually sleep. His arrival—and what it means—is the reason I finally contacted you, why I left those directions on the rock in the Dry Valley.”

Ada, Harman, Hannah, and Daeman stared at the old woman, obviously not understanding the terms or real meaning of her statement. Savi did not explain. The four waited for Odysseus to say something that would enlighten them.

“What is for dinner?” asked Odysseus.

“More of the same,” said Savi.

The bearded man shook his head. “No.” He pointed a broad, blunt finger at Harman, then again at Daeman. “You two. There is an hour of twilight left. A good time of day for hunting. Do you want to come with me?”

“No!” said Daeman.

“Yes,” said Harman.

“I want to come,” said Ada, surprised at the urgency in her own voice. “Please.”

Odysseus stared at her a long moment. “Yes,” he said at last.

“I should join you,” said Savi. She sounded dubious.

“I know how to handle your machine,” said Odysseus, nodding toward the sonie.

“I know, but . . .” Savi touched the black weapon in her belt.

“No need,” said Odysseus. “It’s just food I’m seeking, not a war. There will be no voynix down there.”

Savi still hesitated.

Odysseus looked at Ada and Harman. “Wait here. I’ll be back as soon as I get my spear and shield.”

Harman laughed before he realized that the barrel-chested man in the pale tunic was not joking.

Odysseus did indeed know how to fly the sonie. They lifted off the tower top, circled the high saddle with its ruins throwing complicated shadows in the low sunlight, and swooped down a valley at high speed.

“I thought you meant you’d be hunting below the bridge,” said Harman over the wind hiss.

Odysseus shook his head. Ada noticed that the man’s silver hair fell down his neck like a curly mane. “Nothing there except jaguars and chipmunks and ghosts,” said Odysseus. “We have to get out on the plains to find game. And there’s one prey in particular that I have in mind.”

They flew out of the canyon mouth and mountains at high speed and soared over high grasslands sprinkled with towering cycads and fern-topped trees. The sun was setting but still above the mountains, and everything on the plain threw long shadows. A herd appeared below—large grazing animals that Ada could not identify, brown hides with white-striped butts. The hundreds of creatures were antelopelike in form but each was three times an antelope’s size, with long, strangely jointed legs, long flexible necks, and dangling snouts that looked like pink hoses. The sonie made no noise as it swooped over them and none of the grazing animals even looked up.

“What are they?” asked Harman.

“Edible,” said Odysseus. He circled lower and landed the sonie behind some high fern shrubs some thirty yards downwind of the grazing herd. The sun was setting.

In addition to two absurdly long spears—each was almost as long as the sonie and the butts and shafts of the spears had protruded well beyond the forcefield bubble and stern of the flying machine—Odysseus had brought a round shield made of intricately worked bronze and layers of ox-hide, as well as a short sword in a scabbard and a knife tucked into the belt of his tunic. To Ada—who had gone under the turin cloth more frequently than she had admitted to Harman—this juxtaposition of a man from the fantastical turin drama of Troy with her world, or this wild version of her world, made her somewhat dizzy. She rose and started to follow Odysseus and Harman away from the landed sonie.

“No,” snapped Odysseus. “You stay with the vehicle.”

“The hell I will,” said Ada.

Odysseus sighed and spoke to them in a whisper. “Both of you stand here, behind this bush. Don’t move. If anything approaches, get in the sonie and activate the forcefield.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” whispered Harman.

“I left the AI active,” said Odysseus. “Just lie down in it and say ‘forcefield on.’ “

Carrying both spears, Odysseus went out onto the grassy plain, walking slowly and silently toward the grazing beasts. Ada could hear the floppy-nosed animals grunting and munching, could hear the grass being snapped off by their teeth, and could smell their strong scent. They did not run in alarm when the man approached, and when the animals on the edge of the herd finally looked up, Odysseus was within forty feet. He stopped, set down one spear and his shield, and hefted the other long spear.

The grazing animals had quit chewing and were watching the strange biped carefully now, but they did not seem alarmed.

Odysseus’ powerful body coiled, arced, and released. The spear flew flat and straight, hitting the closest animal above the chest and almost passing through its long, thick neck. It whirled, made a strangled noise, and fell heavily.