Ilium

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.

The other grazers snorted, bleated, and ran hard—each animal zigging and zagging in a way Ada had never seen before, the grazers’ oddly jointed legs allowing almost instant changes of direction—until the entire herd thundered out of sight down a draw a mile or so to the north.

Odysseus dropped to one knee next to the dead animal and pulled the short, curved knife from his belt. With a few quick strokes he opened the abdominal cavity, pulled out organs and entrails—tossing them onto the grass except for what looked to be the liver, which he set on a small plastic tarp he had laid out next to him—and then sliced the hide back from one haunch, cutting a thick slice of red meat free and setting it on the tarp as well. Then he cut the dead animal’s throat, draining more blood onto the grass, and tugged his spear free, taking care not to break it. He carefully wiped the shaft and bronze point on the grass.

Still standing near the bush, Ada felt a wave of dizziness pass over her and decided to sit down on the grass rather than run the risk of fainting. Ada had never seen an animal killed by a human being, much less butchered and partially skinned so expertly. It was terribly . . . efficient. Ashamed of her reaction but not wanting to faint, she lowered her head toward her knees until black spots quit dancing around the circle of her vision.

Harman touched her back in concern, but when she waved him away, he began walking out toward the carcass.

“Stay there,” called Odysseus.

Harman paused, confused. “They’re gone. Do you need help carrying . . .”

Odysseus held up one palm to keep Harman where he was. “This isn’t what I’m hunting for. This is . . . Don’t move .”

Harman and Ada turned their faces to the west. Two white-and-black-and-red bipedal forms were approaching at very high speed, faster even than the grazers had fled. Ada felt her breath catch in her throat and saw Harman freeze.

The creatures ran toward the bloody grazer carcass and the kneeling Odysseus at more than sixty miles per hour, then skidded to a stop in a small cloud of dust. Ada saw that they were the birds they’d seen from the sonie—Terror Birds, Savi had called them—but what had been strangely amusing from high in the air, ostrichlike creatures strutting like awkward chicks—turned out to be, in truth, terrifying.

The two Terror Birds had stopped five paces from the carcass, their eyes on Odysseus now. Each bird was more than nine feet tall, with short white feathers on their muscular bodies, black feathers on their vestigial wings, and powerful legs as thick as Ada’s torso. The birds’ beaks had to be at least four feet long, wickedly curved, red around the mouth—as if dipped in blood—and controlled by powerful jaw muscles that bulged below the half-dozen long red feathers that protruded from the back of each Terror Bird’s skull. Their eyes were a terrible, malevolent yellow ringed by blue circles and set under saurian brows. In addition to their rending predator beaks, the birds had powerful footclaws—each as long as Ada’s forearm—and an even more wicked-looking claw at the bend of each vestigial wing.

Ada knew at once that this monster was no mere scavenger, but a terrible predator.

Odysseus rose, a long spear in his left hand and his bloodied spear in his right hand. The Terror Birds’ heads snapped back in unison, yellow eyes blinked at yellow eyes, and the hunting pair moved apart like well-choreographed dancers, preparing to attack Odysseus from either side. Ada could smell the carrion reek of the monsters. She had no doubt that those powerful, naked legs could propel each Terror Bird twenty feet or more at its prey—Odysseus—in a single hop, claws extended and ripping as the one-ton monsters landed. It was also obvious that the pair worked perfectly as a killing team.

Odysseus did not wait for them to get into position or attack. With lethal grace he cast his first spear—flat and straight and hard—into the muscled breast of the Terror Bird on his left, then wheeled to face the second bird. The first bird let out a terrible screech that froze Ada’s lungs, but it was matched a second later by a roar and howl from Odysseus as he sprang across the grazer carcass, tossed the second killing spear from his left hand to his right, and thrust the bronze point at the second Terror Bird’s right eye.

The first bird staggered backward, clawing at the spear protruding from its chest, snapping off the thick oak shaft. The second bird dodged Odysseus’ thrust by whipping its head back like a cobra’s. Obviously taken by surprise by being attacked by this small featherless biped, the bird hopped twice—carrying it ten feet backward—and clawed at the parrying spear.

Odysseus had to whip the unwieldy spear back quickly after each thrust to keep from having it torn out of his hands. Still shouting, the man stepped backward and seemed to trip over the bloody grazer carcass, rolling on his side.

The uninjured Terror Bird saw its chance and took it, leaping six feet into the air and coming down on Odysseus with talons and killing claws extended.

Still rolling, Odysseus came to one knee in a single fluid movement and planted the butt of the spear in the ground an instant before the Terror Bird came down on it with the full weight of its body driving the bronze point home, up through its muscled chest, into its awful heart. Odysseus had to roll again to get out of its way as the huge creature crashed lifeless where he had been kneeling.

“Look out!” cried Harman and began running toward the fray.

The first Terror Bird—pouring blood from the spear wound and broken shaft still embedded in his chest—was rushing at Odysseus’ back. The bird’s head snapped forward on six feet of feathered-snake neck and the huge beak snapped where Odysseus’ head would have to be if he retreated. But the warrior had thrown himself forward rather than back, rolling again, but with empty hands this time as the Terror Bird ran past him and then wheeled, twisting and turning almost as impossibly fast as had the oddly jointed grazers.

“Hey!” shouted Harman and threw a rock at the giant bird.

The Terror Bird’s head snapped high, the yellow eyes blinked at the impertinence, and the huge predator kicked forward toward Harman, who skidded in the dirt, said “Shit!” in a high voice, and scrambled back the way he had come. Suddenly Harman realized that he couldn’t outrun the monster, and he turned, legs apart, fists raised, ready to meet the Terror Bird’s charge with his bare hands.

Ada looked around for a rock, a stick, a weapon of any sort. There was none in reach. She leaped to her feet.

Odysseus swept up his shield and—using the grazer’s carcass as a springboard—jumped aboard the Terror Bird’s back, pulling his short sword from its scabbard as he did so.

The bird kept running in Harman and Ada’s direction, but now its neck was twisted around, head snapping, giant red beak clacking against Odysseus’ circular shield. Every time the massive jaws struck, Odysseus was knocked backward, but his legs were tight around the bird’s body six feet above the ground, and though he bent far back, like a trick horseback rider in the turin drama, he never fell off. Then, as the Terror Bird’s head swiveled around, finding Harman with its yellow eyes, Odysseus leaned forward and pulled the sword low across the giant bird’s white-feathered neck, severing the jugular.

He jumped off, landed on his feet, and ran to Harman’s side as the Terror Bird crashed to the ground and lay still not ten feet in front of them. Blood spurted five feet in the air and then the red fountain diminished and disappeared as the huge heart stopped beating.

Panting, covered with grazer gore and Terror Bird blood and grass and mud, his bloody sword and shield still held high, Odysseus grinned through his beard and said, “I only wanted one for dinner, but we’ll carve up the second one for leftovers.”

Ada came up to Harman and touched his arm. He never looked around. His eyes were wide.

Odysseus walked to the nearest bird, cut off its huge head, and ran his skinning knife down the length of its chest, peeling flesh and skin and feathers back as easily as someone would help remove a thick coat. “I’ll need more plastic bags,” he said to Harman and Ada. “There are some in a storage locker near the aft end of the sonie. Just say ‘Open locker’ to the machine and it will open. But hurry.”

Harman had turned to walk back to the sonie but paused. “Hurry? Why?”

Odysseus wiped blood from his beard with the back of his hand and grinned whitely at them. “These birds smell blood up to ten leagues away . . . and there are hundreds of hunting pairs of Terror Birds out here on the plains at twilight.”

Harman turned and ran hard toward the sonie to get the bags.

Ada noticed that Savi and Daeman were both drunk before dinner began.

The meal was served in a glass room attached to the side of the south tower’s higher support. Savi was heating pre-prepared meals in a regular microwave bubble, but Ada was fascinated—she had never seen a meal prepared exclusively by a human being before. The absence of servitors in the Golden Gate residence areas was even more noticeable during a meal.

Odysseus was outside on the bridge’s broad support strut and had erected a clumsy stone-and-metal structure in which he was burning wood he’d brought back from the plains. It had begun to rain and Odysseus had to build the fire high to keep it burning. Flames lighted the rust and faded orange paint on the side of the tower.

Looking out through the translucent green wall, sipping from his glass of gin, Harman said, “Is that some sort of altar to his pagan gods?”

“Not quite,” said Savi. “It’s how he cooks his food.” She carried bowls and plates to the round table where the others were waiting. “Call him inside, would you?” she said to Harman. “Our food is getting cold while he’s cremating his, and there’s a lightning storm coming over the mountains. It’s not a great idea to be out on the bridge superstructure during a lightning storm.”

When they were finally seated, Odysseus setting the wooden plates of steaming meat on a nearby counter so that no one would have to stare at the fire-blackened stuff, Savi passed around a pitcher of wine. She poured her own glass last and Ada overheard the old woman whisper, “Baruch atah adonai, eloheno melech ha olam, borai pri hagafen.”

“What is that?” Ada asked softly. Everyone else was laughing at something Daeman had said and had not seemed to notice Savi’s muttering. The only time Ada had every heard another language was in the turin drama; there the battling men spoke in gibberish, but somehow the turin translated every word so that anyone under the cloth understood the meaning without actually listening.

Savi shook her head, although whether to say that she did not know the meaning of the odd words, or that she was not disposed to tell them, Ada could not tell.

“I explored all the levels of the bridge and bubbles around the bridge,” Hannah was saying excitedly. “The metal of the bridge itself is old and rusty but . . . amazing. And there are strange shapes of metal in some of the rooms below. Just freestanding, not part of any structure. Some are in the shape of men and women.”

Savi barked a laugh. She was already refilling her glass with wine. No strange words accompanied this pouring.

“Those are statues,” said Odysseus. “Sculptures. Have you never seen such things?”

Hannah shook her head slowly. Even though the girl had spent years learning how to heat and pour metal, Ada knew, the idea of making things in the shape of human beings or other living things was shocking. Ada also found it strange.

“They have no art,” Savi said brusquely to Odysseus. “No sculpture, no painting, no crafts, no photography, no holography, not even genetic manipulation. No music, no dance, no ballet, no sports, and no singing. No theater, no architecture, no Kabuki, no No plays, no nothing. They’re as creative as . . . newborn birds. No, I take that back . . . even birds know how to sing and build a nest. These latter day eloi are silent cuckoos, inhabiting other birds’ nests without so much as a song for payment.” Savi was beginning to slur her words slightly.

Odysseus looked at Hannah, Ada, Daeman, and Harman, and his expression was unreadable. Meanwhile, the four guests stared at Savi, wondering why her tone was so angry.

“But then,” continued Savi, looking only Odysseus in the eye, “they have no literature, either. And neither do you.”

Odysseus smiled at the woman. Ada recognized the smile from when the man was carving flesh out of the flank of the grazing animal. Odysseus had bathed before dinner, even his gray curly hair was freshly shampooed, but Ada still imagined his arms and hands and beard as they had been—streaked with blood, clotted with gore. It wasn’t any of her business, but she thought it probably unwise for Savi to goad him so.

“The preliterate, meet the postliterate,” continued Savi, opening her hand as if introducing Odysseus to the other four. Then she held up one finger. “Oh, I forgot our friend Harman here. He is the Balzac and the Shakespeare of the current litter of old-style humanity. He reads at about the level of a six-year-old from the Lost Age, don’t you, Harman Uhr ? Lips move when you sound out the words, eh?”

“Yes,” said Harman, smiling slightly. “My lips do move when I read. I didn’t know there was any other way to do it. And it took me more than four Twenties to reach that level of proficiency.” To Ada, it appeared as if the ninety-nine-year-old knew he was being insulted, but did not care, showing only interest in what Savi would say next.

Ada cleared her throat. “What was that animal you . . . killed . . . today?” she asked Odysseus, her voice bright and brittle. “Not the Terror Birds, the other one?”

“I just think of it as the floppy-nosed grazer,” said Odysseus. “Want to try some?” He reached back to the counter and lifted the platter of fire-darkened meat, holding it in front of Ada.

Wanting to be polite, Ada took the smallest cut on the platter, handling it gingerly with utensils.

“I’ll also take some,” said Harman. The platter went around. Hannah and Daeman scowled at the meat, sniffed it, smiled politely, but didn’t take any. When the platter came to Savi, she passed it on to Odysseus without a word.

Ada nibbled the smallest bit she could slice. It was delicious—like steak, only stronger and richer. The wood smoke gave it a flavor different than any microwaved thing she had ever tasted. She cut a larger piece.

Odysseus was eating with just a short, sharp knife he had brought to the table with him, slicing thin strips and chewing them from the end of the knife. Ada tried not to stare.

“Macrauchenia,” said Savi between forkfuls of her salad and microwaved rice.

Ada looked up, wondering if this was more of the woman’s strange language ritual.

“Pardon me?” said Daeman.

“Macrauchenia . That’s the name of the animal that our Greek friend killed and our two other friends are eating like there’s no second course. They covered these South American plains a couple of million years ago but went extinct before humankind showed up in South America. They were brought back by the ARNists during the crazy years after the rubicon, before the post-humans put a stop to reintroducing extinct species helter skelter. Once they had the Macrauchenia back, though, some ARNist thought it would be clever to bring back Phorusrhacos .”

“For-us-what?” said Daeman.

“Phorusrhacos . The Terror Birds. The ARNist geniuses forgot that those birds were the primary predator in South America for millions of years. At least until the Smilodonts wandered down from North America when the water level fell and the land bridge between the continents emerged. Did you know that the Panamanian Isthmus is underwater again? The continents separate again?” She looked around, obviously intoxicated, belligerent, and secure in the knowledge that none of them had any idea what she was talking about.

Harman sipped his wine. “Do we want to know what a Smilodont is?”

Savi shrugged. “Just a big fucking cat with big fucking sabertooth teeth. They’d eat Terror Birds for lunch and pick their sabers with the leftover claws. The idiot ARNists did bring sabertooths back, but not here. India. Anyone here know where that is . . . was? Should be? The post-humans ripped it free of Asia and broke it into a goddamned archipelago.”

The five looked at her.

“Thank you for reminding me,” said Odysseus with his stilted accent, and stood and went to the counter. “Next course, Terror Bird.” He carried the big platter back to the table. “I’ve been waiting to taste this delicacy for quite a while, but never had the time to hunt one until today. Who will join me?”

Everyone but Daeman and Savi volunteered to try a slice. They all poured more wine for themselves. Outside, the thunderstorm had arrived with a vengeance and flashes of lightning streaked around the bridge structure, illuminating the saddle and ruins far below as well as the clouds and jagged peaks on either side.

Ada, Harman, and Hannah each tried a bite of the pale meat and then drank copious water and wine. Odysseus bit off slice after slice from the point of his knife.

“It reminds me of . . . chicken,” Ada said into the silence.

“Yes,” said Hannah, “definitely chicken.”

“Chicken with a strange, strong, bitter taste,” said Harman.

“Vulture,” said Odysseus. “It reminds me of vulture.” He took another large bite, swallowed, and grinned. “If I cook Terror Bird again, I’ll use lots of sauce.”

Five of them ate their microwaved rice in silence while Odysseus enjoyed more helpings of his Terror Bird and Macrauchenia, washed down with huge draughts of wine. The conversational silence might have been uncomfortable if it had not been for the storm. The wind had come up, lightning was almost continuous—illuminating the softly lit dining bubble in blasts of white light—and the thunder would have drowned out most conversation anyway. The green dining bubble seemed to sway ever so slightly when the wind howled and the four guests glanced at each other with barely concealed anxiety.

“It’s all right,” said Savi, no longer sounding angry or all that intoxicated, as if her earlier harsh words had vented some of the pressure from her bitterness. “The pariglas does not conduct electricity and we’re firmly attached—as long as the bridge stands, we won’t fall.” Savi sipped the last of her wine and smiled without humor. “Of course, the bridge is older than God’s teeth, so I can’t guarantee it will remain standing.”

When the worst of the storm passed and Savi was offering coffee and chai heated in odd-looking glass containers, Hannah said, “You promised to tell us how you got here, Odysseus Uhr .”

“You want me to sing to you of all my twists and turns, driven time and again off course, in the days since my comrades and I plundered the hallowed heights of Pergamus?” he replied, voice soft.

“Yes,” said Hannah.

“I shall,” said Odysseus. “But first, I think, Savi Uhr has some business to discuss with all of you.”

They looked at the old woman and waited.

“I need your help,” said Savi. “For centuries I’ve avoided exposure to your world—-to the voynix and the other watchers who wish me ill—but Odysseus is here for a reason, and his ends serve my own. I ask if you would take him back—to one of your homes, where others can visit him—and allow him to meet and speak with your friends.”

Ada, Harman, Daeman, and Hannah exchanged glances.

“Why doesn’t he just fax wherever he wants?” asked Daeman.

Savi shook her head. “Odysseus can no more fax than I can.”

“That’s silly,” said Daeman. “Anyone can fax.”

Savi sighed and poured the last of the wine into her glass. “Boy,” she said, “do you know what faxing is?”

Daeman laughed. “Of course. It’s how you go from where you are to where you want to be.”

“But how does it work?” asked Savi.

Daeman shook his head at the old woman’s obtuseness. “What do you mean, ‘How does it work?’ It just works. Like servitors or running water. You use a fax portal to go from one place to another, one faxnode to the next.”

Harman held up his hand. “I think what Savi Uhr means is how does the machinery work that allows us to fax, Daeman Uhr .”

“I wondered that myself a few times,” said Hannah. “I understand how to build a furnace hearth than can melt metal. But how does one build a fax portal that sends us from here to there without having to . . . go in between?”

Savi laughed. “It doesn’t, gentle children. Your fax portals don’t send you anywhere. They destroy you. Rip you atom from atom. They don’t even send the atoms anywhere, just store them until they’re needed by the next person faxing in. You don’t go anywhere when you’re faxed. You just die and allow another you to be built somewhere else.”

Odysseus drank his wine and watched the receding storm, apparently not interested in Savi’s explanations. The other four stared at her.

“Why,” said Ada, “that’s . . . that’s . . .”

“Insane,” said Daeman.

Savi smiled. “Yes.”

Harman cleared his throat and set down his coffee cup. “If we are destroyed every time we fax, Savi Uhr, how is it that we remember everything when we . . . arrive . . . somewhere else?” He held up his right arm. “And this small scar. I received it seven years ago, when I was ninety-two. Normally, these little problems are cleared up when we go the firmary every Twenty, but . . .” He stopped as if seeing the answer himself.

“Yes,” said Savi. “The machine-minds behind the faxportals remember your little imperfections, just as they do your memories and personality’s cell structure, sending the information—not you, but the information—from faxnode to faxnode, updating you and fixing your aging cells every twenty years—what you call your firmary visits—but why do you think you disappear on your hundredth birthday, Harman Uhr. Why do they quit renewing you when you reach a hundred? And where will you go on your next birthday?”

Harman said nothing but Daeman said, “To the rings, you foolish woman. On the Fifth Twenty, we all ascend to the rings.”

“To become post-humans,” said Savi, barely avoiding a sneer. “To ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of . . . someone.”

“Yes,” said Hannah, but she made it sound like a question.

“No,” said Savi. “I don’t know what happens to the memory patterns the logosphere keeps of you until you turn one hundred, but I know they don’t send the data to the rings. It may be stored, but I suspect it’s just destroyed. Scrambled.”

For the second time this long day, Ada felt as if she might faint. Still, she was the first to find her voice. “Why can’t you and Odysseus Uhr use the faxnodes, Savi Uhr ? Or do you just choose not to?” Choose not to be destroyed, to have the atoms of your body ripped apart like the bodies of the grazer and Terror Bird we were eating tonight. Ada dipped her fingers in her water glass and touched her fingertips to her cheek.

“Odysseus can’t fax because the logosphere has no record of him,” Savi said softly. “His first attempt to fax would be his last.”

“Logosphere?” repeated Harman.

Savi shook her head again. “That’s a complicated topic. Too complicated for an old woman who’s had too much to drink today.”

“But you will explain it soon?” pressed Harman.

“I’ll show you all tomorrow,” said Savi. “Before we go our different ways again.”

Ada caught Harman’s eye. He could barely contain his excitement.

“But this logosphere . . . whatever it is,” said Hannah, “has a record of you? For the faxnodes? So you could fax?”

Savi showed her unhappy smile. “Oh, yes. It remembers me from more than fourteen hundred years ago and when I faxed every day of my life. The logosphere is waiting for me like some invisible Terror Bird . . . it would recognize me instantly if I were to try one of your regular fax portals. But that would be my last attempt as well.”

“I don’t understand,” said Hannah.

“Let’s put all this technical double-talk aside for a while,” said Savi. “Accept that neither Odysseus here, nor I, can use your precious fax portals. And if I visited your wonderful society by flying there, it would be my life.”

“Why?” asked Harman. “There’s no violence in our world. Other than the turin drama. And none of us believe that is real.” He looked pointedly at Odysseus, but the gray-haired man did not respond in any way.

Savi sipped her wine. “Just believe me when I say that to show myself openly would be death. Also believe me that it is imperative that Odysseus be allowed to meet people, to speak to them, to be heard. If I were to fly you back, would one of you host him at your home for a few weeks? A month?”

“Three weeks,” interrupted Odysseus, sounding brusque, as if hearing himself spoken about as if he weren’t there had irritated him. “No more.”

“All right,” said Savi. “Three weeks. Will any of you offer three weeks of hospitality to this stranger in a strange land?”

“Wouldn’t Odysseus be in danger in the same way you are?” asked Daeman.

“Odysseus Uhr can take care of himself,” said Savi.

The four were silent a minute, trying to understand the request and the circumstances of the request. Finally Harman said, “I’d like to host Odysseus, but I also want to visit this place you said might have spacecraft, Savi Uhr. My goal is to get to the rings. And as you pointed out, I’m approaching my final Twenty—I don’t have any time to waste. I’d rather spend the time finding this drained sea where you say the post-humans kept something that can fly to the e- and p-rings. Perhaps if you showed me how to pilot your sonie . . .”

Savi rubbed her brow as if her head hurt. “The Mediterranean Basin? You can’t fly there, Harman Uhr .”

“You mean it’s forbidden?”

“No,” said Savi. “I mean you can’t fly there. The sonies and other flying machines won’t work over the Basin.” She paused and looked around the table. “But it’s possible to hike or drive into the Basin. I’ve tried and failed to go there over centuries, but I can lead you there. If one of your friends agrees to host Odysseus for three weeks.”

“I want to go with you and Harman,” said Ada.

“So do I,” said Daeman. “I want to see this Whatchamacallit Basin.”

Harman looked at the younger man in surprise.

“To hell with it,” said Daeman. “I’m no coward. I’ll wager that I’m the only one here who’s been eaten by an allosaurus.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Odysseus, and drained the last of his wine.

Savi looked at Hannah. “That leaves you, my dear.”

“I’d be happy to host Odysseus,” said the young woman. “But I don’t fax that much or go to parties. I live with my mother and she doesn’t host groups that often either.”

“No, that won’t work, I’m afraid,” said Savi. “Odysseus only has three weeks and we need to start with a place that is well known and where many can stay for weeks on end. Actually, Ardis Hall would have been perfect.” She looked at Ada.

“How do you know about Ardis Hall, Savi Uhr?” asked Ada. “For that matter, how do you know about Harman’s reading or anything about the world, if you cannot walk among us or use the faxnodes?”

“I do watch,” said the older woman. “I watch and wait and sometimes fly to places where I can mingle with you.”

“The Burning Man,” said Hannah.

“Yes, among other places,” said Savi. She looked around the table and said, “You all look exhausted. Why don’t I show you to your rooms so you can get a good night’s sleep? We’ll continue the conversation in the morning. Just leave the dishes, I’ll clear them and wash them later.”

The idea of picking up or washing dishes had never occurred to the guests. Once again, Ada looked around and felt the absence of servitors and voynix.

Ada wanted to protest this enforced bedtime—they’d not yet heard Odysseus tell his tale—but she looked at her friends—Hannah hollow-eyed with fatigue, Daeman drunk and barely able to keep his head up, Harman’s face showing his age—and felt the exhaustion working at her as well. It had been one hell of a day. It was time to sleep.

Odysseus stayed at the table as Savi led the other four from the dining room, down hallways lighted only by the diminishing lightning, up a glass-covered escalator that wound around the Golden Gate tower, and down a long corridor to a series of bubble-rooms at the highest point on the north tower. These sleeping rooms were not physically attached to the tower top, only to the glass corridor that had bridge steel as its south wall, and the sleeping cubbies themselves protruded precariously into space, like clusters of green grapes.

Savi was offering them all separate sleep-bubbles, and gestured Hannah into the first room along the corridor. The young woman hesitated at the entrance to the small space. Inside the sleeping cubbie, even the floor was transparent, so that Hannah took one step forward and then hopped quickly backward into the relative solidity of the carpeted access hall.

“It’s perfectly safe,” said Savi.

“All right,” said Hannah and tried again. The bed was set against the far wall and there was a privately partitioned toilet and sink space near the corridor wall, ensuring privacy from the viewpoint of the other sleep bubbles, but elsewhere the curving walls and floor were so clear that you could look down eight hundred feet to the lightning-illuminated stones and hillside directly below.

Hannah walked gingerly across the clear floor and settled gratefully onto the solid shape of the bed. The other three laughed and applauded. “If I have to go to the toilet in the night, I may not have the nerve to cross that floor again,” said Hannah.

“You’ll get used to it, Hannah Uhr,” said Savi. “You may close and open the door by voice command and it is keyed to your voice only.”

“Door, close,” said Hannah.

The door irised closed. Savi dropped them off one at a time in their cubbies—first Daeman, who staggered to his bed with no apparent fear of the empty space under his feet, then Harman, who wished them both good night before ordering his door closed, then Ada.

“Sleep well, my dear,” said Savi. “The sunrises here are rather beautiful and I hope you enjoy the view in the morning. I shall see you at breakfast.”

There were fresh silk sleeping clothes set out on her bed. Ada went into the toilet area, took a quick hot shower, dried her hair, left her clothes on the counter next to the sink, dressed in the silk sleeping gown, and returned to the bed. Once under the covers, she turned her face to the wall and looked out at the mountain peaks and cloud tops. The thunderstorm had passed on to the east now, the lightning illuminated the receding clouds from within, and now the nearby peaks and grassy saddle were illuminated by moonlight. Ada looked down at the roadway and stone ruins so far below. What had Odysseus said about that place? That it was inhabited only by jaguars, chipmunks, and ghosts? Looking at the ancient pale-gray stones in the moonlight, Ada almost believed in the ghosts.

There came a soft tapping at her door.

Ada slipped from the bed and tiptoed across the cold floor, setting her fingertips against the irised metal. “Who is it?”

“Harman.”

Ada’s heart thudded in her chest. She had been hoping, silently wishing, that Harman would join her tonight. “Door open,” she whispered, stepping back, noting in the wall’s reflection how milky her arms and thin gown looked in the moonlight.

Harman stepped just inside and paused as Ada whispered the door closed again. Harman was wearing only blue silk sleep garb. She waited for him to embrace her, to lift her in his arms and carry her to the soft bed against the clear, curved wall. What would it be like, she wondered, to make love as if one were floating above these clouds, these mountains?

“I needed to talk to you,” Harman said softly.

Ada nodded.

“I think it’s important that Odysseus be in the right place the next few weeks,” he said. “And I don’t think that Hannah’s mother’s cubbie is the right place.”

Feeling foolish, Ada folded her arms across her breasts. She imagined that she could feel the cold night air of the high mountains through the glass under her feet. “You don’t know what Odysseus wants to do or why,” she whispered.

“No, but if he’s really Odysseus, it may be very important. And Savi’s right . . . Ardis Hall is the perfect place for him to meet people.”

Ada felt anger coil in her. Who was this man to tell her what to do? “If you think it’s so important that he be hosted somewhere,” she said, “why don’t you invite him to your home as your guest?”

“I don’t have a home,” said Harman.

Ada blinked at this, trying to understand. She couldn’t. Everyone had a home.

“I’ve been traveling for many years,” said Harman. “I own only what I carry, except for the books I’ve collected, which I store in an empty cubby in Paris Crater.”

Ada opened her mouth to speak but could think of nothing to stay. Harman took a step closer, so close that Ada could smell the male and soap scent of him. He had also showered before coming to her room. Will we make love after this conversation? thought Ada, feeling her anger slip away as quickly as it came.

“I need to go to the Mediterranean Basin with Savi,” said Harman. “I’ve been hunting for a way to get to the e- and p-rings for more than sixty years, Ada. To be so close . . . well, I have to go.”

Ada felt the anger flare again. “But I want to go with you. I want to see this Basin . . . find a spaceship, go to the rings. It’s why I’ve helped you the last few weeks.”

“I know,” whispered Harman. He touched her arm. “And I want you to go with me. But this thing with Odysseus may be important.”

“I know, but . . .”

“And Hannah just doesn’t know that many people. Or have the space to host visitors.”

“I know, but . . .”

“And Ardis Hall would be perfect,” whispered Harman. He released his soft hold on Ada’s arm but still held her in the grip of his gaze. Ada was aware of the stars beyond the clear, curved ceiling above them.

“I know Ardis Hall would be perfect,” said Ada. She felt sad and torn between imperatives and people. “But we don’t even know what this Odysseus wants . . . or who he really is.”

“True,” whispered Harman. “But the best way to find out would be for you to host him while I hunt for a spaceship in the Mediterranean Basin. I promise you that if I find one that can get us to the rings, I’ll come get you before I go there.”

Ada hesitated before speaking again. Her face was raised slightly toward Harman’s, and she had the feeling that if they did not speak, he would kiss her.

Suddenly lightning flashed and thunder from the receding storm shook the green-glass structure. “All right,” Ada whispered. “I’ll host Odysseus and have Hannah as my helper at Ardis Hall for three weeks. But only if you promise to take me to the rings if you find a way to get there.”

“I promise,” said Harman. He did kiss her then, but only on the cheek, and only the way her father might have, Ada thought, if she had ever known her father.

Harman turned as if leaving, but before Ada could command the door to iris open, he turned back toward her. “What do you think of Odysseus?” he asked.

“What do you mean? You mean, do I think he’s really Odysseus?” Ada was confused by the question.

“No. I mean what do you think of him? Are you interested in the man?”

“Interested in his story, you mean?” said Ada. “He’s intriguing. But I’ll have to hear what he says before I decide whether he’s telling the truth about things.”

“No, I . . .” Harman stopped and rubbed his chin. He seemed embarrassed. “I mean, do you find him interesting ? Are you attracted to him?”

Ada had to laugh. Somewhere to the east, the receding thunder echoed the sound. “You idiot,” she said at last and, waiting no longer, walked to Harman, put her arms around him, and kissed him on the lips.

Harman responded passively for a few seconds and then embraced her and kissed her back. Through the thin silk that separated them, Ada could feel his excitement rise. Moonlight flowed over the skin of their faces and arms like spilled white milk. Suddenly a powerful gust of wind struck the bridge and the bubble of the sleeping cubbie swayed underfoot.

Harman lifted Ada and carried her to the bed.