Ilium

“I’m still game.” Daeman did not sound game to Ada; he sounded tired or hung over or both.

“Then let’s get our gear in bags and our asses in gear and go,” said the ancient woman.

They flew out on the same sonie they’d flown in on, even though Ha

They flew east over high mountains and then dropped lower and turned due north again, passing over thick jungle and a wide brown river that Savi said was called the Amazon. The jungle itself was solid rain forest canopy broken here and there only by a few blue glass pyramids whose apexes were a thousand feet high, parting low-moving rain clouds. Savi did not tell them what the pyramids might be and the others seemed too tired or preoccupied with their own thoughts to ask.

A half hour after the last of the pyramids had disappeared behind them, Savi banked the sonie hard left and they flew west by northwest across high mountains again. The air was so high and thin here that the forcefield bubble popped up even at their apparent low altitude of five hundred feet or so above the terrain, and the air in the bubble pressurized again to a higher oxygen content.

“Aren’t we going out of our way?” asked Harman after the long silence.

Savi nodded. “I had to give a wide berth to the Zorin Monoliths that run along the coastal shelf of what used to be Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia,” she said. “Some of them are still armed and automated.”

“What are the Zorin Monoliths?” asked Ha

“Nothing we have to worry about today,” said Savi.

“How fast are we traveling?” asked Ada.

“Slowly,” said Savi. She glanced at the virtual display surrounding her wrists and hands. “About three hundred miles per hour right now.”

Ada tried to imagine that speed. She couldn’t. She’d never traveled in anything faster than voynix-pulled droshky before their first trip in this sonie, and she had no idea how fast a droshky went. Probably not three hundred miles per hour, she thought. Certainly the mountains and ridges below were flicking past much faster than the familiar countryside had in the droshky or carriole ride between the fax portal and Ardis Hall.

They flew on another hour. At one point Ha

Savi had moved her hand through the virtual control panel and the solid sonie under them had simply disappeared. In the brief seconds before Ada closed her eyes tight, she looked around at the perfect illusion of the six humans, their luggage, and Odysseus’ spears flying along in midair, unsupported by anything other than empty air.

“Warn us if you’re going to do something like that again,” Harman said shakily to Savi.

The old woman muttered something.

Ada spent a full minute or two touching the cold metal of the cowl ahead of her, feeling the soft leatherlike solidity of the contour couch beneath her legs and belly and chest, before daring to open her eyes again. I’m not falling, I’m not falling, I’m not falling, she told herself. Yes, you ARE falling, her eyes and i

“I thought you might want to see this,” Savi said to Harman, as if the rest of them wouldn’t know what they were talking about.

Ahead of them, the ocean sliced through the isthmus, open water visible for a gap of at least a hundred miles. Savi gained altitude and turned them north across open seas.

“The maps I’ve seen show old the isthmus co

“The maps you’ve seen are useless,” said Savi. Her fingers moved and the sonie accelerated and gained more altitude.

It was past midday when another coastline came into sight. Savi dropped the sonie lower and they were soon flicking over swamps which quickly gave way to mile after mile of redwoods and sequoia—Savi named the trees—the tallest towering two or three hundred feet into the humid air.

“Anyone want to stretch their legs on solid ground while we stop for lunch?” asked Savi. “Or have some privacy in case nature is calling?”

Four of the five passengers loudly voted aye. Odysseus smiled slightly. He had been dozing.

They had lunch in a clearing on a small rise, surrounded by cathedral giants. The e- and p-rings moved palely through the bit of blue sky visible overhead.

“Are there dinosaurs around here?” Daeman asked, peering into the shadows beneath the trees.

“No,” said Savi. “They tend to prefer the middle and northern parts of the continent.”

Daeman relaxed against a fallen log and nibbled at his fruit, sliced beef, and bread, but sat straight up when Odysseus said, “Perhaps Savi Uhr is actually saying that there are more ferocious predators around here that keep the recombinant dinosaurs away.”

Savi frowned at Odysseus and shook her head, as if sighing over an incorrigible child. Daeman looked into the midday shadows under the trees again and moved closer to the sonie to finish his meal.

Ha

“No,” said the Greek. He tore off a strip of cold Terror Bird leftover with his white teeth and chewed slowly, then drank from the wineskin he’d brought with him.

“Zeus is angry and has tilted the balance toward the Trojans, led by Hector,” continued Ha

Odysseus grunted. “That garrulous old man. He stayed because his horse had been shot out from under him.”

Ha

“Do you remember that fight by the black ships?” prompted Ha

Odysseus grunted again. “I remember the feast the night before that miserable dog’s-ass day. Thirty ships arrived from the isle of Lemnos bringing wine—a thousand measures full, enough wine to drown the Trojan armies with, if we hadn’t had a better use for it. Euneus, Jason’s son, sent it as a gift for the Atrides—Agamemnon and Menelaus.” He squinted at Ha