Ilium

61 The Plains of Ilium

Mahnmut arrived on the Thicket Ridge just as nine tall black figures stepped out of the spacecraft that had landed amidst the hornet fliers, all nine striding down the ramp into the swirling dust storm created by their landing. The figures were humanoid by way of insectoid, each about two meters tall, each covered with shiny, chitinous duraplast armor and a helmet that reflected the world around them like polished onyx. The individuals’ arms and hands reminded Mahnmut of images he’d seen of a dung beetle’s appendages—painfully curved, hooked, barbed, and blackly thorned. Each carried a complex, multibarreled weapon of some sort that looked to weigh at least fifteen kilograms. The figure in the lead paused in the swirling dust and pointed directly at Mahnmut.

“You there, little moravec, is this Mars?” The amplified voice spoke in inter-moon Basic English and arrived via both sound and tightbeam.

“No,” said Mahnmut.

“It’s not? It’s supposed to be Mars.”

“It’s not,” said Mahnmut, sending all this to Orphu. “It’s Earth. I think.”

The tall soldierly form shook its helmeted head as if this was an unacceptable answer. “What kind of moravec are you? Callistan?”

Mahnmut drew himself up to his full bipedal height. “I’m Mahnmut from Europa, formerly of the exploration submersible The Dark Lady. This is Orphu of Io.”

“Isn’t that a hard-vac moravec?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to his eyes, sensors, manipulators and legs? Who cracked his shell like that?”

“Orphu is a war veteran,” said Mahnmut.

“We’re supposed to report to a Ganymedan named Koros III,” said the armored form. “Take us to him.”

“He was destroyed,” said Mahnmut. “In the line of duty.”

The tall black figure hesitated. It looked at the other eight onyx warriors and Mahnmut had the idea they were conferring via tightbeam. The first soldier turned back. “Take us to the Callistan Ri Po then,” he ordered.

“Also destroyed,” said Mahnmut. “And before we go any further, who are you?”

They’re rockvecs, sent Orphu on his private tightbeam channel. “Aren’t you rockvecs?” the Ionian asked on the common tightbeam wavelength. It had been so long since Orphu had communicated with anyone except Mahnmut that the smaller moravec was shocked to hear his voice on the common band.

“We prefer to be called Belt moravecs,” said the leader, turning to address Orphu’s shell. “We should medevac you to a combat repair center, Old Timer.” He gestured to some of the other combat moravecs and they began moving toward the Ionian.

“Stop,” commanded Orphu, and his voice held enough authority to freeze the tall forms in their booted tracks. “I’ll decide when to leave the field. And don’t call me Old Timer, or I’ll have your gears for garters. Koros III was in charge of this mission. He’s dead. Ri Po was second in command. He’s dead. That leaves Mahnmut of Europa and me, Orphu of Io, in command. What’s your rank, rockvec?”

“Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo, sir.”

Mep Ahoo? thought Mahnmut.

“I’m a commander,” snapped Orphu. “Is the chain of command clear here, trooper?”

“Yes, sir,” said the rockvec.

“Brief us on why you’re here and why you think this is Mars,” said Orphu in the same tone of absolute command. Mahnmut thought his friend’s voice on tightbeam was dipping into the subsonic the bass was cranked so deep. “Immediately, Centurion Leader Ahoo.”

The rockvec did as he was told, explaining as quickly as he could while more hornet fliers buzzed overhead and hundreds of Trojan warriors came out of the city and slowly advanced up the ridge toward the landing party, shields raised, spears poised. At the same moment, hundreds more Achaeans and Trojans were flowing through the circular portal a few hundred meters to the south, all of them running toward the icy slopes of Olympos visible through the slice taken out of the sky and ground.

Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo was succinct. He confirmed Orphu’s earlier statement to Mahnmut—from their discussion when they’d been passing over the Asteroid Belt on their way to Mars—that sixty e-years ago the Ganymedan Koros III had been sent to the Belt by the Pwyll-based moravec Asteague/Che and the Five Moons Consortium. But Koros’s mission had been as a diplomat, not as a spy. Spending more than five years in the Belt, hopping from rock to rock and losing most of his Jovian-moravec support team in the process, Koros had negotiated with the belligerent rockvec clan leaders, sharing the Jovian-space moravec scientists’ concerns about the rapid terraforming of Mars and the early signs of quantum tunneling activity just detected there. The rockvecs wanted to know who was doing this dangerous QT tunneling—post-humans from Earth? Koros III and the Belt moravecs agreed on the acronym UME’s—Unknown Martian Entities.

The rockvecs were already concerned, although more about the visible—and impossible—rapid terraforming of Mars than about the quantum activity, which their technology could not easily detect. Confrontational and bold by nature, the Belt moravecs had already dispatched six expeditionary fleets of spacecraft on the relatively short hop to Mars. None of their ships had returned or survived translation to Mars orbit. Something on the Red Planet, or on what had been the Red Planet until recently—the rockvecs had no idea what—was destroying their fleets before arrival.

Through diplomacy, guile, courage, and some single combat, Koros III had earned the rockvec clan leaders’ trust. The Ganeymedan explained the Five Moons Consortium’s plan—first, the rockvecs would design and biofacture dedicated warrior-vecs over the next fifty years or so, using their already tough rockvec DNA as a breeding base. The rockvecs would also be responsible for designing and constructing advanced space and atmospheric fighting vehicles. Meanwhile, the more advanced Five Moons moravec scientists and engineers would divert cutting-edge technology from their interstellar program to the building of a quantum-tunneler and wormhole stabilizer of their own. Second, when the time was right and the quantum activity on Mars reached alarming levels, Koros himself would lead a small contingent of moravecs from Jupiter space, its goal to arrive undetected on the Red Planet. Third, once on Mars, Koros III would place the quantum-tunneler at the vertex of the current QT activity, stabilizing not only those quantum tunnels already in use by the UME’s, but opening new tunnels to the Asteroid Belt, where other Five Moons’-designed tunneling devices would be waiting for his maser signal before activating.

Fourth, finally, the rockvecs would send their fleets and fighting men through these quantum tunnels to Mars, where they would confront, identify, overpower, subdue, and interrogate the Unidentified Martian Entities and eliminate the threat to the solar system from the excessive quantum activity.

“It sounds simple,” said Mahnmut. “Confront, identify, overpower, subdue, and interrogate. But in reality, your group didn’t even make it to the right planet.”

“Navigating the quantum tunnels was more complicated than expected,” said Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo. “Our groups obviously connected to one of the UME’s existing tunnels and overshot Mars, arriving . . . here.” The chitinous onyx figure looked around. His troopers were raising their heavy weapons as a hundred or so Trojans came onto the crest of the ridge.

“Don’t shoot at them,” said Mahnmut. “They’re our allies.”

“Allies?” said the rockvec soldier, his shiny visor turned toward the advancing wall of shields and spears. But in the end he nodded, tightbeamed his troopers, and the complex weapons were lowered.

The Trojans did not lower their weapons.

Luckily, Mahnmut recognized the Trojan commander from the long introductions of captains earlier in the day. In Greek, Mahnmut called out, “Perimus, son of Megas, do not attack. These black fellows are our friends and allies.”

The spears and shields stayed high. Archers in the second row had their bows lowered but arrows nocked and the bows at half-pull, ready to lift and fire on command. The rockvecs might feel secure from meter-long barbed arrows dipped in poison, but Mahnmut didn’t want to test the strength of his own integument that way.

“ ‘Friends and allies,’ “ mocked Perimus. The man’s polished bronze helmet—noseguard, cheek flaps, round eyeholes, and low ridge in the back—showed only Perimus’ angry gaze, narrow lips, and strong chin. “How can they be ‘friends and allies,’ little machine, when they aren’t even men? For that matter, little toy, how can you?”

Mahnmut didn’t have a good answer for that. He said, “You saw me with Hector this morning, son of Megas.”

“I saw you with man-killing Achilles as well,” called the Trojan. The archers had raised their bows now and there were at least thirty arrows aimed at Mahnmut and the rockvecs.

How do I win this guy’s trust? Mahnmut tightbeamed Orphu.

Perimus, son of Megas, mused the Ionian. If we’d let things go the way the Iliad said they should, Perimus would be dead in two days—killed by Patroclus along with Autonous, Echeclus, Adrestus, Elasus, Mulius, and Plyartes in one wild melee.

Well, sent Mahnmut, we don’t have two days, most of the Trojans you mentioned—Autonous, Mulius, and the rest—are standing there right now with shields raised and spears poised, and I don’t think Patroclus is going to help us out here, according to Hockenberry, unless Achilles’ friend has been swimming back from Indiana. Any ideas on what we can do now?

Tell them that the rockvecs are attendants, forged by Hephaestus and summoned by Achilles to help win the war against the gods.

“Attendants,” Mahnmut said, repeating the word in Greek. I don’t know that particular form of the noun—it doesn’t mean “servant” or “slave” and . . .

Just say it, growled Orphu, before Perimus has them put a shaft through your liver.

Mahnmut didn’t have a liver, but he understood the thrust of Orphu’s suggestion.

“Perimus, noble son of Megas,” called Mahnmut, “these dark forms are attendants, forged by Hephaestus but brought here by Achilles to help us win this war against the gods.”

Perimus glowered. “Are you then also an attendant?” he demanded.

Say yes, sent Orphu.

“Yes.”

Perimus barked at his men and the bows were lowered, the arrows unnocked.

According to Homer, sent Orphu, “Attendants” are sort of androids created in Hephaestus’ forge from human parts and used like robots by the gods and some mortals.

Are you telling me that the Iliad has androids and moravecs in it? demanded Mahnmut.

The Iliad has everything in it, said Orphu. To the rockvec leader, Orphu barked, “Centurion Leader Ahoo, did you bring forcefield projectors with you in that ship?”

The tall onyx rockvec clicked to its full height. “Yes, Commander.”

“Send a squad into the city—that city, Ilium—and set up a full-strength forcefield to protect it,” ordered Orphu. “Set up another to protect the Achaean encampment you see along the coast.”

“Full-strength field, sir?” asked the centurion leader. Mahnmut knew that it would probably take the spacecraft’s entire fusion reactor’s output to power such a field.

“Full-strength,” said Orphu. “Able to repel lance, laser, maser, ballistic, cruise, nuclear, thermonuclear, neutron, plasma, antimatter, and arrow attack. These are our allies, Centurion Leader.”

“Yes, sir.” The onyx figure turned and tightbeamed. A dozen more troopers descended the ramp carrying massive projectors. The dark troopers jogged double-time in both directions from the ridge until only Centurion Leader Ahoo remained there next to Mahnmut and Orphu. The landed hornet fliers buzzed into the air and circled, weapons still swiveling.

Perimus walked closer. The crest on the man’s polished but battered helmet barely came up to Centurion Leader Ahoo’s chiseled chest. Perimus lifted his fist and rapped on the rockvec’s duraplast breastplate with his knuckles. “Interesting armor,” said the Trojan. He turned back to Mahnmut. “Little attendant, we’re going to go join Hector in the fight. Do you want to join us?” He pointed to the huge circle bitten out of the sky and ground to the south. More Trojan and Achaean units were marching—not running, but marching in orderly fashion, chariots and shields gleaming, banners flying—through the quantum portal, their speartips catching Earth’s sunlight on this side of the slice, Martian light on the other.

“Yes,” said Mahnmut, “I want to join you.” To Orphu he tightbeamed, You going to be okay here, Old Timer?

I have Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo to protect me, sent the Ionian.

Mahnmut marched next to Perimus down the slope—the thickets there trampled almost flat now by nine years of the ebb and flow of battle—leading the small contingent of Trojans to join Hector. At the bottom of the hill, they paused as an odd figure staggered toward them—a naked, beardless man with mussed hair and slightly wild eyes. He was walking gingerly, picking his way over the stones on bloody feet, and wore only a medallion.

“Hockenberry?” said Mahnmut in English. He doubted his own visual-recognition circuits.

“Present and accounted for,” grinned the scholic. “Howdy, Mahnmut.” In Greek, he said, “Good afternoon, Perimus, son of Megas. I’m Hockenberry, son of Duane, friend of Hector and Achilles. We met this morning, remember?”

Mahnmut had never seen a live human being naked before this minute, and he hoped it would be a long, long time until he saw a second one. “What happened to you? To your clothes?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” said Hockenberry, “but I bet I could condense it and finish it before we march through that hole in the sky over there.” To Perimus, he said, “Son of Megas, is there any chance I could get some clothes from your group?”

Perimus obviously recognized Hockenberry now and remembered how both Achilles and Hector had deferred to him earlier at their interrupted captains’ conference on Thicket Ridge. He turned and snarled at his men, “Clothes for this lord! The best cape, the newest sandals, the best armor, the most polished greaves, and the cleanest underwear!”

Autonous stepped forward. “We don’t have any extra clothes or armor or sandals, noble Perimus.”

“Strip and give him your own immediately!” bellowed the Trojan commander. “But kill the lice first. That’s an order.”