“No,” said Orphu. “You know what you have to do.”

“I already described the faces to you when I saw them from the sea.”

“That was at night, through the periscope buoy,” said Orphu. “We need to look at one or two of them in the daylight.”

“The one at the base of the cliff is in pieces,” said Mahnmut, feeling like whining. “The next one is a full kilometer to the east. Way up on the cliffs.”

“You go ahead,” said Orphu. “I’ll stay in touch on comm while they trundle me off to the cave. You’ll be able to see how they handle The Lady during most of your walk.”

Mahnmut grudgingly complied, walking east, away from the crowd of LGM pulling his dead sub along the coast and rolling Orphu toward the cool shadow of the sea cave.

The fallen head was in too many pieces to make out its features. Mahnmut struggled up the steep trail that the little green men had descended with such apparent effortlessness. The path was narrow and frighteningly steep and wet-sandstone-slick.

At the top, Mahnmut paused a second to recharge his cells and to look around. The Tethys Sea stretched out as far as he could see to the north. To the south, inland, red stone gave way to low red hills and—several klicks further south—Mahnmut could make out the green of forests of shrubs on the foothills. There was some grass along the path he followed east along the edge of the cliff.

Mahnmut paused to look at the pad and prepared hole for the face the little green men had sacrificed in shoving off the cliff to pry open the hold-bay doors. It had been prepared carefully and Mahnmut could see how the stem at the base of the great stone heads’ necks slid down into the hole in the stone and then locked in place. These little green men were craftsmen and skilled stone workers.

Mahnmut walked east. He could see the next head along the eastern horizon. The moravec was not designed for walking—his role was mostly to sit in an exploration submersible, sometimes to swim—and when he grew tired of being a biped, he altered the workings of his joints and spine and padded along like a dog for a while.

When he reached the next stone head he paused by its broad base, seeing how the stone at the neck had been filled in with something like cement. He looked east at the path the rollers and thousands of LGM had created along the cliff top, and west to where the green mob had pulled the sub and pushed Orphu almost to the headland cave.

“There yet?” came Orphu’s voice.

“Yes. Leaning against the thing.”

“How about the face?”

“This is a bad angle from beneath,” said Mahnmut. “Mostly lips and chin and nostrils.”

“Get out on the beach again. These faces are meant to be seen from the sea for some reason.”

“But . . .” began Mahnmut, looking down at the steep cliff dropping at least a hundred meters away to the sand. There was a faint path on the greasy rock, just as at the other site. “If I break my neck getting down there,” he sent, “it’s your damned fault.”

“Understood,” said Orphu. “I can feel the vibration as they move me along here, but I have no idea how close we are to the cave. Can you see?”

Mahnmut magnified his vision as he looked to the west. “Just a couple of hundred meters from the overhang,” he said. “I’m going to climb down now. Are you sure you want me to check the next head as well? It’s another kilometer east and the heads looked all the same from orbit.”

“I think we should check it,” said Orphu.

“Sayeth the ‘vec with no legs,” muttered Mahnmut. He began the long, steep descent to the beach.

He stood as far away as he could, backing up until the low waves lapped at his legs. The face was distinct but not familiar. Saying nothing, lost in his own thoughts, he walked another kilometer east along the water’s edge. The next face was identical to the first: proud, imperious, commanding, its visage staring fiercely out to sea, the sculpted stone showing an old man’s face, mostly bald on top but with long hair flowing back on either side of the wrinkled face, small eyes under hard, downward slashes of eyebrows, wrinkles at the corner, high cheekbones gouged into stone, a small but firm chin, thin lips curving into a frown, and the same severe countenance.

“It’s an old man,” Mahnmut said on the comm. “Definitely an elderly human male, but I don’t recognize him from the history databanks.”

There was only static for a few seconds. “Fascinating,” said Orphu. “Why would an old man from Earth deserve thousands of these stone heads all along the Martian coastline?”

“I have no idea,” said Mahnmut.

“Is he one of the chariot people?” asked Orphu. “Does he look like a god?”

“Not a Greek god,” said Mahnmut. “More than anything else, he looks like a powerful but dyspeptic old man. Can I come back now? Before one of the toga-wearing graybeards in a chariot does come flying along and sees me standing out here gawking like a tourist?”

“Yes,” said Orphu. “I think you should come back.”

23

Texas Redwood Forest

Odysseus didn’t tell the story of his travels that morning during breakfast in the green bubble atop the Golden Gate at Machu Picchu. No one remembered to ask him. Ada thought that everyone seemed preoccupied, and she soon realized why.

Ada was preoccupied because she’d slept little, but spent the most wonderful night of her life with Harman. Ada’d “had sex” before—what woman her age had not?—but she realized that she’d never made love before. Harman had been exquisitely tender yet eagerly insistent, attentive to her needs and responses but not controlled by them, sensitive but forceful. They slept a little—coiled together on the narrow bed by the curving glass window—but woke often, their bodies renewing the lovemaking before their minds were fully engaged. When the sun rose over the spire to the east of Machu Picchu, Ada felt like a different person—no, that wasn’t right, she realized, she felt like a larger, fuller, more connected person.

Ada thought that Hannah was also acting strangely that morning—flushed, hyperalert, attentive to every comment the man who called himself Odysseus made, glancing at Ada occasionally and then looking away, almost blushing. My God, Ada realized just as breakfast was ending and they were ready to leave, to fly north together to Ardis Hall, Hannah slept with Odysseus.

For a minute, Ada couldn’t believe it, for never during their friendship had Hannah had ever commented on being with men or on sexual matters, but then she caught the glances Hannah was giving the bearded man, and the physical signs—the young woman sitting across from Odysseus but her body still reacting to every move the man made, hands nervous, leaning forward—and Ada realized it had been a busy night in the domis atop the Golden Gate.

Daeman and Savi were visibly the odd people out. The young man was in no better a mood than he’d been in the night before, barking questions about the Mediterranean Basin, eager to get going on his adventure with Harman and Savi, but obviously nervous about it. Savi seemed withdrawn, almost sorrowful, and in a hurry to leave.

Harman was quiet and—Ada thought—obviously still focused on Ada, although not obvious about it to the others. She caught his glance once or twice and something warm moved in her chest when he smiled at her. Once he put his hand on the outside of her leg under the table and patted twice.

“So what’s the plan?” Daeman asked as they were finishing their breakfast of hot croissants—Ada had watched in amazement as Savi had baked the bread earlier—and butter and berries and fresh-squeezed fruit juice and rich coffee.

“The plan is to fly Odysseus, Hannah, and Ada to Ardis Hall—we’re running late if we’re to get them there before dark—and then for you, Harman, and me to go on to the Mediterranean Basin,” said Savi. “Are you still game for that expedition, Daeman Uhr?”