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On Ice Pythia Chapter Five |
It was shortly after that that the second worrying incident occurred. Someone actually broke into the Institute and tried to get into the bio-dome. The someone turned out to be a research scientist and her team, working for a major off-world corporation who were willing to pay enormous sums of money for samples of pre-nuclear age human DNA. There is some evidence to suggest that certain of the colony worlds are suffering from high mutation rates among their populations – so much so, that they can no longer be certain of breeding true – and genuinely uncontaminated genetic material would command a high price in such market. I found out that other museum’s have been raided in recent years; thefts have ranged from well preserved Egyptian mummies to samples from Victorian specimen jars. Priceless artifacts have been damaged, with I suspect, very little to show for the result. No doubt someone had realised that there could be no purer source of the human genotype than cells taken from a man verified to be over two and a half thousand years old and had targeted the Institute accordingly.
The would be thieves were apprehended in the act – challenged by the Guardian keeping watch at the castle gate, so to speak. Iolaus never even knew he was in danger, although I amused myself for a few days afterwards picturing what might have happened had they succeeded in breaching the habitat’s walls. They’d been armed with nothing more than low power tassticks, intending to overpower their victim, sedate him with a sleep pack and help themselves to whatever they wanted.
It would have been like trying to tie down a tornado with parcel string.
I’ve seen our hero dance rings around Martyn – who holds a black belt or two in a number of the traditional fighting arts – and I’ve seen him working in the forge, handling unwieldy strips of metal with a nonchalance and ease that made them look like warm taffy. He’s more bounce and bobcat than poised panther, but his speed and his reflexes are utterly breathtaking. Josephine Adams is probably right to label him ‘dangerous’, although not in the way she imagines him to be; those burglars wouldn’t have known what had hit them.
Of course, had that happened, it would only have served to reinforce the Councilor’s fantasy. She already considered Iolaus a savage; had he demonstrated his ability to defend himself she would have only seen it as conformation of the violence she was waiting for him to display. So perhaps it was just as well that the Guardian did his work well and constrained the thieves until security arrived to whisk them away. I didn’t give much thought to what happened to them after that.
Maybe I should have done.
The incident created a flurry of revived interest from the Board, who insisted on a review of security and the posting of a second Guardian to support the first. Many of the Board members who’d previously been unimpressed by my project now began to pay much closer attention; the unauthorised invasion of the Institute had also served to identify that Iolaus was not just an invaluable witness of the past – he was also a potentially inestimable resource for the future. I found the extra interest disconcerting – and surreptitiously checked all my security arrangements in case anyone decided to take an even closer look. Everything seemed pretty secure – the ‘cordings were all routed and stored under my personal code, and I added the precaution of making my voice the one the Guardians were programmed to accept without question. Even so, I felt uneasy about the whole situation; I seemed to be descending deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of deception, following the thread of events without any idea of where it was leading me. On the one hand I had the Board to deal with, wanting results that would generate funding for the Institute while arguing about the risks and the rewards – while on the other I had the growing dilemma of a man becoming more and more impatient with the confines of his prison, needing his freedom and rapidly becoming knowledgeable enough to be able to ask me for it.
I was dreading that moment. I’d tried very hard not to deceive him – but by answering his demand for knowledge I’d given him hope that, one day, he might be his own master again. The Board would never contemplate such an idea – and there would be no place for him on Earth, among the ordered society we had chosen to create for ourselves. I began to wonder if I had woken him, only to destroy him; I could see no way out of the maze which I had raised around us both.
Around the three of us, I should say. Martyn was just as much a part of the conspiracy as I was – and as deeply embroiled. While I fretted about the Board and the dangers that the outside world represented, he began to have grave concerns over the sanity of the man we were both seeking to protect. With reason, as it turned out. I came back from a particularly tortuous Board meeting one day to find him pacing the length of my office, his body tense and his expression twisted into an unhappy frown. I asked what the problem was – and he told me.
It appeared that Iolaus had overheard us discussing our concerns about the Board and his future. That wouldn’t have been too bad – I knew I couldn’t keep the truth of his situation from him forever – but it seemed he’d decided it was time he did something about it. He was well aware that trying to leave the dome on his own would be a fruitless endeavor and had calmly announced it was about time he swallowed a little of his pride and asked for help.
From his gods.
Well, from one god - or rather goddess – that is. He’d rambled through one of those conversations – the ones where he explains himself without managing to explain anything at all, since he uses references and observations that make utterly no sense – discarding the possibility of calling on Zeus (he might answer, but probably won’t), Hermes (he’s never forgiven me for stealing his sandals), Hades (I’d give him a fit after all this time), Apollo (not a good idea to owe anything to that jerk), and Ares (he’d come if I yelled hard enough, then probably toast me for old times sake …) before settling on Aphrodite as the most likely candidate. After that he’d set about purposefully dedicating the mock shrine in the name of the goddess of Love, raiding the villa for pillows and cushions, strewing the place with rose petals, and generally behaving as if he’d gone completely over the edge.
Martyn had left him sitting cross legged in the middle of the whole display, praying and pleading with a decidedly disturbing intensity, and had come in search of me, hoping I might talk a little sense into him. It wasn’t that the man wanted to pray to his gods – we’d been rather surprised that he’d never shown any intention of doing so up until then – but the way he’d gone about it; almost as if he was attempting to make the weirdest long distance call to a real person - one he clearly expected to send a reply.
I was already angry – among other things, the Board had been discussing another pet project of mine and questioning its value – and I was also committed to a lecture visit which had been arranged several months before. I’m afraid I snapped at Martyn, telling him he was more than capable of dealing with the situation and stormed off to catch my shuttle, quietly cursing the intricacies of politics, the demands of the world and the stubbornness of men. I knew that Iolaus’ gods had been nothing more than masks and rituals – but he’d gone on insisting they’d been much more than that, and now all he was going to achieve was bitter disappointment. He already nursed a deep wound – the loss of his friend - and this was simply going to cut him deeper still. No gods would answer him. And since he believed in them, he’d read that absence as final abandonment, and I might lose that bright spirit altogether.
I was away for three days. I fretted through all of them, ashamed at the way I’d pushed my anger at Martyn and worried sick about what Iolaus might do when his prayers went unanswered. The lecture went well, although I was distracted during the question and answer session. When someone asked a serious and highly complex question concerning the soci-economic drivers of the seventeenth century and how they impacted on the expansion into the new world, I must have been centuries away. "Pirates," I found myself answering, unconsciously echoing the man towards whom my thoughts were constantly being turned, "can happen to anyone." It raised a ripple of polite laughter – which gave me time to refocus my attention and give the question a serious response – but I was glad when the discussion came to an end and I was able to make my escape.
Escape. That was the issue my mind kept skirting around, seeing nothing but dead ends looming in the labyrinth into which I had been drawn. Sooner or later someone would find out that I had been deceiving and defying the Board – and while I might be able to emerge from the resultant investigation with a level of my integrity intact, what would become of the two men I loved and had risked so much for? There would be scandal, and Martyn would probably be sent away – and as for Iolaus … I refused to consider those possibilities too closely. With or without me, he faced a future that held nothing but imprisonment and isolation – or worse, being studied and experimented upon; as if he were no more than any other piece of archeological evidence, unearthed to satisfy the endless curiosities of mankind.
And that was my fault, and a guilt I might well carry to my grave.
When I returned to the institute, it was to find Martyn waiting impatiently in my office, almost as if he’d been there since I left. I silenced anything he was about to say and delivered a deep and heartfelt apology for the way I’d treated him before I left. I told him that, if these precious moments I had found were doomed not to last, then I wanted to savor every one I could before they were lost to me forever. I remember how he laughed and gathered me up into his arms, making promises he couldn’t possibly keep. "This is forever," he insisted, fixing me with those steel gray eyes. "You’ll see."
I didn’t. Not then. But I understand what he meant now. What ever happens to us, I have his love and he has mine – and we will be together. Forever. That’s all that really matters.
Three days is a long time to sit and pray, even among the religiously pious and the fanatically devout. Iolaus had never struck me as the kind of man to belong to either category. Far from it in fact; his attitude towards his gods had always seemed decidedly irreverent. But he’d been deadly serious in his intent to appeal to higher powers and had set about it with the kind of dedication that Martyn had found impossible to argue against.
Three days. He hadn’t slept or eaten in all that time, although he had been particularly attentive to other matters. I guess you don’t attract the goddess of love by neglecting personal hygiene, so he’d bathed and shaved twice a day and been meticulous in keeping the other offerings he was making both fresh and presentable. Martyn had tried talking to him, arguing with him, then ignoring him and finally had succumbed to helping him, supplying candles and incense along with the treasures to hold them in. He’d provided reproductions of silver and gold candle sticks, bowls of crystal and vessels of delicate porcelain; the wonders of two millennia – and all to appease a non-existent deity, the incarnation of a myth.
At least it was Aphrodite Iolaus was trying to conjure. I hate to think what he might have done to attract Ares’ attention.
I sent Martyn to get some sleep of his own and went to visit our hero, wondering how best to deal with him. I found him sitting cross legged in the middle of the shrine, surrounded by flickering candles and an overabundance of rose petals. He was dressed only in his pants and his gauntlets, his vest and his boots having been abandoned in the villa. This was somewhat of a relief, since a little part of me had expected him to follow recorded practice and to have stripped completely. Not that I wasn’t familiar with every inch of his naked body, but there’s a big difference to dealing with a limp corpse and facing a living, breathing man. He made an oddly ascetic figure in the midst of all that luxury. More rose petals floated on the surface of the ritual pool and the stone floor of the shrine was draped with practically every throw and pillow that we’d been able to find to make him feel at home. The central altar was piled with Martyn’s gifts and Iolaus was sitting with his back to it, his face a little haggard from lack of sleep. There was a goblet of grape juice and an offering of fruit in front of him – and he was talking to himself in his native Greek, softly, almost as if conducting a one-sided conversation.
"Iolaus," I said reproachfully, sitting myself down opposite him and heaving a quiet sigh. "What’s this all about? I thought you told me it wasn’t a good idea to be beholden to the gods."
He was looking at a spot slightly to my left, but his eyes flicked in my direction and he flashed me a wry grin. "It’s not," he agreed. "But sometimes there isn’t any other choice. ~Yeah,I know,~" he added, talking to that empty place beside me. "~She’s the spitting image … Oh. I see. Well, that would explain it.~"
I wondered if Martyn was right. Had he gone completely mad – or had he always been, and we so taken with his warmth and his smile that we hadn’t realised the fact? "What good do you think this is going to do?" I asked softly. "If your gods ever did exist, they’re long gone from this world."
He laughed softly. "Well, yeah, that’s kinda what I figured, but – you never know until you try, right? Besides – Dite’s never been able to resist temple dedications. Not if they’re being dedicated to her, that is. ~Don’t look at me like that,~" he added, his eyes flicking back to that empty spot. "~You know it’s true.~"
I glanced in the relevant direction, despite a determination not to. There was nobody there.
"So - why would the Goddess of Love want to answer you?" I’d decided to try reasoned argument, although I wasn’t hopeful of getting anywhere with it. "You’re one man, not an entire congregation. And you’re not a priest either. Not initiated into the mysteries." I’d asked him about that months before and he’d giggled for days afterwards.
He giggled now. "Ellen," he said warmly, "I was initiated into her mysteries a long time ago. Believe me. But that’s not why she came." He hesitated, throwing a sudden wary glance at his non-existent company. "~That wasn’t why, was it? Uhuh. No. Didn’t think so. Heph would kill me, right? Right.~ No," he went on, returning to addressing me as if this was the most natural conversation in the world, "that wasn’t the reason. Dite’s always had this – personal interest where I’m concerned. I’ve done her a few favours, got her out of trouble once or twice – had her ~get me into trouble from time to time. ~Apples,~" he threw sideways with a pointed look. "Gold ones. Remember?~ Anyway, Herc’s her favourite brother and I’m his best friend, so I figured – she hears me calling after all this time, she’d come look me up. Which she did," he concluded with a grin, sharing it with that empty space. The consistency of his delusion was remarkable. Had you only seen hisside of the exchange, you’d have sworn there was someone sitting there.
"She did." I echoed the conclusion doubtfully, wondering how to deal with this turn of events. Praying to his gods was one thing. Holding conversations with them was another matter entirely.
"Yeah." He leaned back, unfolding his legs and stretching out with a weary sigh. Sleep deprivation. That was it. He’d been so long without sleep that he was starting to hear voices. "Faster than I expected her to. Apparently, she’s been listening out for me all this time." There was a note of wonder in his voice, along with something else I couldn’t quite fathom. "Hercules made it," he breathed, a prayer of thanks all its own. "And guess what? He went on making it. He’s still around." As he spoke, he was considering me with a look that expected challenge. He got it.
"Don’t be ridiculous," I snapped. This was going way too far. "Iolaus – it’s been two and half thousand years. Nobody lives that long. You’re only here because of – because of – " Because of what? The look in his eyes held quiet triumph; I’d been denying his gods and yet I couldn’t – in all honesty – deny the miracle which had preserved his body and allowed us to return his life. "Anyway, that’s not the point," I went on hastily, unwilling to be sidetracked. "You were preserved in the ice. It took a great deal of skill and technology to bring you back. And you’re telling me that your friend has simply lived all this time? That he’s out there, somewhere – a man twenty five centuries old? What did he do? Forget to die?"
Somewhere to my left I heard the faintest of giggles – an echo of an echo, soft laughter that might have been a whisper of wind or the rustling of olive leaves. I dismissed it with a frown, thinking that I was starting to hear things. Iolaus could do that. Convince you of the impossible, simply because he believed it to be true.
"Of course not." His own chuckle was almost as soft as the phantom one. "Hercules is the son of Zeus, remember? He’s half god. Guess that means he’s immortal. I always had my suspicions you know. We both grew up and then he stopped getting any older. I didn’t." He frowned briefly as he considered that, a little worried about what it implied. Not as worried as I was. His fantasy of gods and monsters had been acceptable when it lay firmly in the past – but this … I could believe that lack of sleep and breathing too much incense might well generate a delusion in which a goddess appeared and spoke to him – but the message his subconscious had created for her to deliver was a dangerous one. He nursed a great grief for his friend. I knew that. But he couldn’t possibly believe that the man had survived all this time. I feared that his confinement had begun to affect his mind. That, in seeking escape from the prison that the Institute had become for him, he had found refuge in the reverie of the past. I knew what he was thinking. If Hercules was out there, then it would only be a matter of time before he came to his partner’s rescue. I had to nip this in the bud, and fast.
"Well, maybe he is still alive," I allowed, trying to sound matter of fact about it. "But if that’s the case – why did he leave you in the ice all this time? Why didn’t he come back for you – back then?"
It was a cruel thing to say, but he needed to face reality. I needed him to face it. His expression folded down into anxious doubt and he looked – not at me, but at the goddess he believed to be sitting beside me. After a long moment, the doubt became a look of distress. "~What do you mean, you don’t know…~"
"Iolaus – " I shifted round and caught up his hand, cradling it gently. "Let go of it. It was a long time ago. Even if Hercules – " It was hard to say the words, to both reinforce and to strike at his delusion, but I had to, if I was going to reach him. "Why would he remember you, after all this time?"
He’d been staring at the empty space, listening to that inner conversation, but my words jerked his head round almost as if I’d slapped him. I found myself looking at the face of a lost child, floundering in sudden doubt. He half opened his mouth to speak, then looked back at his non-existent goddess, who clearly had something pithy to say on the matter.
"~Stop it,~" he demanded testily. "~Both of you.~ Ellen, I know you mean well, but you’re not helping any. ~And Dite …~" His sigh was heartfelt. "~I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m sure you’re right and yeah – I’ll ask him when I see him. That’s if I ever get out of here,~" he added, half under his breath. I squeezed his hand with sympathy. He’d put himself through all of this for nothing – just a brief false hope and an end to options. I wished I had another to offer him.
Iolaus squeezed back, then sat up, considering the emptiness with sudden attentiveness. "~You can? You will? Dite – you’re wonderful. When? That long?~" His frown was echoed by my own. Now what was he up to? "~Okay. I guess that makes sense. You’ll let me know, though? Thanks. I appreciate it. I really do.~"
The momentary dip in his mood had been replaced by an almost childlike delight. He turned and grinned at me, suppressing his excitement with difficulty. My heart sank, thinking that I was going to have a hard time talking him out of whatever he’d talked himself into – at which point he proceeded to tell me something I knew he couldn’t possibly know.
And I no longer knew quite what to believe anymore.
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