Ilium

65 Indiana, 1200 b.c.

About three weeks after the start of the war to end all wars—no kidding—I use my gold medallion to QT to the opposite side of the world. I had promised Nightenhelser I’d come back for him and I like to keep my promises when I can.

I’d left in the middle of the night Ilium–Olympos time, stepping out of a conference in one of the new blastproof tents where Achilles now meets with his surviving captains, and then just QTing away on a whim—knowing that all such personal quantum teleportation will be a memory soon—and it’s a shock when I pop onto a grassy hillside on a sunny morning in prehistoric North America. There isn’t much grass growing around Ilium these days and none on the bloody plains of Mars.

I wander down the hill to the stream, then cross over into the woods, blinking at the sunlight and relative silence here. There are no explosions, no shouts of dying men, no gods teleporting in amid the violence of screaming men and horses. For a minute or so, I worry about any Indians that might be around, but then I laugh at myself. I don’t boast impact armor these days, nor do I have a magical Hades Helmet or a morphing bracelet, but the bronze and duraplast armor I’m wearing has been tested. And I know how to use the sword on my belt and the bow over my shoulder now. Of course, if I meet Patroclus, and if he’s managed to arm himself, and if he holds a grudge—and which of these Achaean heroes doesn’t?—I wouldn’t wager a lot of money on my chances.

Fuck it. As Achilles—or maybe it’s Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo—likes to say, “No guts, no glory.”

“Nightenhelser!” I shout into the forest. “Keith!”

For all my bellowing, it takes me an hour to find him, and I do so only by blundering into the Indian village in a clearing about half a mile from where I’d QT’d in. There are no tipis in this village, only rough huts made of bent branches, leaves, and what looks to be sod. A campfire is burning in the center of the six-wigwam village. Suddenly dogs are barking, women are shouting and scooping up kids, and six male Native Americans are drawing primitive bows and nocking arrows at me.

I draw my beautiful cedar bow, handcrafted by artisans in distant Argos, nock my beautiful handmade arrow in one fluid, well-practiced move, and aim at them, ready to bring them all down with my shafts in their livers while their silly sharpened sticks bounce off my armor. Unless they get me in the face or eye. Or throat. Or . . .

The ex-scholic Nightenhelser, dressed in the same animal skins as the leaner Indian warriors, rushes between us and shouts syllables at the men. The Indians look sullen but lower their bows. I lower mine.

Nightenhelser stalks up to me. “God damn it, Hockenberry, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Rescuing you?”

“Don’t move,” he orders. He barks more odd syllables at the men and then says to them in classic Greek, “And please wait for me before serving the roast dog. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He takes my elbow and walks me back toward the stream, out of sight of the village.

“Greek?” I say. “Roast dog?”

He answers only the first part of the question. “Their language is complex, hard for me to learn. I’m finding it easier to teach them all Greek.”

I laugh then, but mostly at the sudden image I have of archaeologists three or four or five thousand years from now, digging up this prehistoric Native American village in Indiana and finding potsherds with Greek images from the Trojan War etched on them.

“What?” says Nightenhelser.

“Nothing.”

We sit on some less-than-comfortable boulders on the far side of the stream and talk for a few minutes.

“How goes the war?” asks Nightenhelser. I notice that he’s lost some weight. He looks healthy and happy. I realize that I must look as tired and grimy as I feel.

“Which war?” I say. “We have a whole new one.”

Always a man of few words, Nightenhelser raises his eyebrows and waits.

I tell him a bit about the ultimate war, leaving out some of the worst things. I don’t want to cry or start shaking in front of my old fellow scholic.

Nightenhelser listens for a few minutes and then says, “Are you shitting me?”

“I shit thee not,” I say. “Would I make this up? Could I make this up?”

“No, you’re right,” says Nightenhelser. “You’ve never shown the imagination to make up something like this.”

I blink at that but stay quiet.

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

I shrug. “Rescue you?”

Nightenhelser chuckles. “It sounds like you need rescuing more than I do. Why would I go back to what you just described?”

“Professional curiosity?” I suggest.

“My specialty was the Iliad,” says Nightenhelser. “It sounds as if you’ve left all that far behind.” He shakes his head and rubs his cheeks. “How can anyone lay siege to Olympos?”

“Achilles and Hector found a way,” I say. “I need to get back. Are you coming with me? I can’t promise I’ll ever be able to QT this way again.”

The big scholic shakes his head. “I’ll stay here.”

“You realize,” I say slowly, shifting to Greek in case his English has gotten rusty, “that you’re not safe here. From the war, I mean. If things go badly, the entire Earth will . . .”

“I know. I was listening,” says Nightenhelser. “I’ll stay here.”

We both stand. I touch the QT medallion, then drop my hand. “You’ve got a woman here,” I say.

Nightenhelser shrugs. “I did a few tricks with my morphing bracelet, the taser, and other toys. It impressed the clan. Or at least they pretended to be impressed.” He smiles in his ironic way. “It’s a small group here and a big empty country, Thomas. No other bands for miles and miles. They need new DNA in their little gene pool here.”

“Well, go to it,” I say and clap him on the shoulder. I touch the medallion again but think of something else. “Where is your morphing bracelet? The taser baton?”

“Patroclus took all of that stuff,” says Nightenhelser.

I actually look over my shoulder and set my hand on the hilt of my sword.

“Don’t worry, he’s long gone,” says Nightenhelser.

“Gone where?”

“He said something about heading back to Ilium to join his friend Achilles,” says Nightenhelser. “Then he asked me which direction Ilium was. I pointed east. He walked off in that direction . . . and let me live.”

“Jesus,” I whisper. “He’s probably swimming the Atlantic as we speak.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Nightenhelser holds out his hand and I take it. It’s strange to shake hands palm to palm with a man, after these intense weeks of forearm grips. “Good-bye, Hockenberry. I don’t expect we’ll meet again.”

“Probably not,” I say. “Good-bye, Nightenhelser.”

My hand is on the QT medallion, ready to turn its dial, when the other scholic—ex-scholic—touches my shoulder.

“Hockenberry?” he says, pulling his hand away quickly so that he doesn’t accidentally teleport with me if I QT away. “Does Ilium still stand?”

“Oh, yes,” I say, “Ilium still stands.”

“We always knew what was going to happen,” says Nightenhelser. “Nine years and we always knew—within a small margin of error—what was going to happen next. Which man or god would do what. Who was going to die and when. Who was going to live.”

“I know.”

“It’s one of the reasons I have to stay here, with her,” says Nightenhelser, looking me in the eye. “Every hour, every day, every morning, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s wonderful.”

“I understand,” I say. And I do.

“Do you know what’s going to happen next there?” asks Hockenberry. “In your new world?”

“Not a clue,” I say. I realize that I’m grinning fiercely, joyously, and probably frighteningly, all signs of a civilized scholic or scholar in me gone now. “But it’s going to be damned interesting to find out what happens next.”

I twist the QT medallion and disappear.