Alys giggled. “I can take the whole thing off,” she whispered.

As she did so, Sam realized that they needed more room. He opened his driver’s side rear door—the light blinded them—

“Sam!”

He reached up and switched off the overhead light. For a minute neither of them moved, two deer blinded in headlights, but when he could hear the wind through the late-autumn leaves over the pounding of his heart, he leaned over her again.

The distraction had kept him from coming too soon. He tasted her lips, lowered his face to her breasts, and licked softly. She pulled his head closer. Her hand went lower, expertly undid his belt, unsnapped the top snap, and tugged the zipper down too quickly for his piece of mind.

He emerged unscathed and throbbing.

“Sam?” she whispered as he levitated into position above her. Her stockings and underpants were in a bunch under his knee. He almost panted as he shoved her skirt higher.

“What?”

“Did you bring… you know… a thing?”

“Oh, fuck that,” he snapped through the boy’s voice, not even pretending to be in character.

She giggled but he stopped that noise with an openmouthed kiss. His heart threatened to break through his ribs as he shifted his weight and she opened her legs to him. He caught a glimpse of her dark skirt riding up almost to her bare breasts, of her pale thighs, of the vertical rather than triangular floss of darkness there between her thighs…

“Easy,” whispered Alys as she reached down and found him. She cupped his scrotum expertly, ran her fingers up the length of his penis, captured the glans with her fingertips. “Easy, Odysseus,” she purred.

“I am… Noman,” he whispered between pants. She was positioning him. The preseminal fluid at the tip of his penis was dampening her thighs as she maneuvered him to the best angle. He could feel the heat flow out of her.

She squeezed him—hard enough to make him gasp but not hard enough to make the sixteen-year-old him come. “How can you say that,” she whispered into his mouth, “when this proves otherwise?”

Alys set the swollen head of his penis against her moist and tight labia, then moved her hand up against his cheek. Sam caught the scent of her excitement on her own fingers and that alone almost made him come. He hesitated this perfect second before continuing.

The flash came from directly ahead of the car, beyond the drive-in movie screen, and it was not brighter than a thousand suns, it was brighter than ten thousand suns. It turned everything in the musky darkness into a photographic negative—all black-blacks and pure whites. There was no noise, not yet.

“You have to be kidding,” he said, poised above Alys as if he was doing push-ups, with only the tip of his erection touching her right now.

“The city’s forty miles away,” whispered Alys, pulling him down, trying to pull him. “We have a long time until the shock wave gets here. A long time.” She gave him her mouth and set her hands solidly on his back and butt, pulling him closer.

He considered resisting. To what purpose? This boy-Sam was so excited that two or three thrusts in his beloved’s perfect, virginal cunt would probably be all he could take before he exploded anyway. The incinerating shock wave and their youthful orgasms would probably arrive at the same instant. Which, he realized, was almost certainly just as his ageless beloved had planned it.

The light was fading some, still bright, bright enough to illuminate sixteen-year-old Alys’s slight dusting of purple eye shadow, and seeing that made him lower his face to hers for a final hot kiss as he began thrusting forward and in.

92

One year after the Fall of Ilium:

Helen of Troy awoke just after dawn to a dream-memory of the sound of air raid sirens. She felt along the cushions of her bed, but her lover Hockenberry was gone—had been gone for more than a month now—and it was only the memory of his warmth that made her hunt for him each morning. She had yet to take another lover, although half the Trojans and Argives left here in New Ilium wanted her.

She had her slave-women, Hypsipyle included, bathe and perfume her. Helen took her time. These apartments in the rebuilt section near the Pillar House near the fallen Scaean Gate were no comparison to her former palace, but the amenities of life were beginning to return. She used the last of her well-rationed scented soap in the bath. Today was a special day. The Joint Council would be deciding on the expedition to Delphi. She had the slave girls dress her in her finest green silk gown and gold necklaces for the morning Council meeting.

It was still strange to see the Argives, Achaeans, Myrmidons, and other invaders in the Trojan council house. Both the Temple of Athena and the larger Temple of Apollo had crumbled that day of the Fall, but the Trojan and Greek masons had erected a new palace where the rubble of Athena’s temple had once been, just north of the main avenue and not far from where Priam’s palace had stood with its proud porches and pillars before the gods had bombed it into oblivion.

This new palace—they had no other name for their central civic building—still smelled of fresh wood, cold stone, and paint, but it was bright and sunny this early spring day. Helen slipped in and took her place near the royal family, next to Andromache, who gave her a brief smile and then turned her attention back to her husband.

Hector was getting some gray in his dark-brown curly hair and beard. Everyone had noticed it. Most of the women, Helen knew, thought it made him look even more distinguished, if such a thing were possible. It was Hector’s place to open the meeting and he did so now, welcoming all the Trojan dignitaries and Achaean guests by name.

Agamemnon was here, still strange, occasionally giving everyone that long, unfocused gaze he had worn for so many months after the Fall, but he was lucid enough now to be heeded in the Joint Council discussions. And his tents were still full of treasure.

Nestor was here, but he had to be carried to the city—carried up from the tent-city of the Achaeans, undefended now on the beach—on a portable chair toted by four slaves. Wise old Nestor had never recovered the use of his legs after that final day of terrible battle on the beach. Also here from the Achaean camp—sixty thousand Greek warriors still lived, enough to demand a vote—were Little Ajax, Idomeneus, Polyxinus, Teucer, and the acknowledged, if not yet publicly acclaimed, leader of the Greeks—handsome Thrasymedes, Nestor’s son. With the Greeks were several men whom Helen did not recognize, including a tall, gangly young man with curly hair and beard.

At his introduction and welcome by Nestor, Thrasymedes glanced in the direction of Helen and Helen lowered her eyes in modesty while allowing herself to blush slightly. Some habits died hard, even here on a different world and in a different time.

Finally Nestor introduced their emissary from Ardis—not Hockenberry, who had not yet returned from his trip west, but a tall, thin, quiet man named Boman. No moravecs were present this morning.

Having finished the welcomings, unnecessary introductions, and ritual words of assembly, Hector established the reasons for this council and what needed to be decided before they could adjourn.

“So today we must decide whether to launch the expedition to Delphi,” concluded noble Hector, “and, if we do so, who shall go and who shall stay. We also have to decide what to do if it is possible to interdict the blue beam there and bring so many of the Argives’ relatives back. Thrasymedes, your people were in charge of building the long ships. Would you tell the Council what progress has been made?”

Thrasmymedes bowed, his knee raised slightly on a step and his golden helmet on his leg. He said, “As you know, our best surviving shipbuilder, Harmonides—literally ‘Son of the Fitter’—has been in charge of the construction. I shall let him report.”