Necessity (41 page)

Sokrates stayed at my side as we got off the train. “Are you going to stay here?”

He was one of the few people entitled to an answer to that. “To see the space humans land? Yes. After that, I'm not sure. I'll be around, keeping an eye on things, but I have places to be and work to do and things to learn. I've learned so much from this. There are new projects I want to initiate now.” It was an exciting thought.

“And Athene will go back to Olympos?” We started walking, following the crowd.

“I expect so. But she'll probably be around from time to time as well. I can ask her if you like.”

“And Jathery?” Sokrates asked.

“Jathery is going to spend time in service to Hermes and to Father. I'll definitely stay around as long as Jathery does, or if gla comes back. I'll keep a close eye on everything gla does here,” I said. “I'd have protected Hilfa last night if he'd said something to me instead of hiding in the bathroom. I'm fairly sure Athene would have taken his side too.”

Sokrates ran his fingers through his hair, which already looked like a lamb that had pushed through a thorn hedge. “What do I do if Jathery causes a problem we can't deal with and you aren't there?”

“Pray to me,” I said. “I'll hear a prayer from you and come to that instant. But I don't think Jathery will be a problem. Gla knows that I know about gla now, and this is
my
planet. I think with freeing the Saeli and setting up the pod, gla probably has what gla wants.”

“This pod will be very interesting, all these young people. An entirely new experience. Zeus should be happy!”

I laughed. I loved Sokrates so much. He could always surprise me. “I'm glad you're pleased.”

“I liked the way Marsilia dealt with the problem. She's really smart, and decisive, but also very down-to-earth and political. She doesn't have Simmea's talent for thinking things through.”

“No,” I agreed. “Thetis has some of Simmea's social abilities. She's wonderful at setting people at ease. But she also gets easily upset, you saw her wailing the other night.”

“Yes,” he said. I caught sight of Thetis, Jason and Hilfa, who were standing together, all holding hands, pressed against the glass of the big lounge where you can watch the shuttles land. “Crocus told me Simmea was killed in an art raid.”

“I have missed her every day since,” I said. Marsilia and Diotima, with Arete and Crocus, were getting ready to go out and greet the space humans. “She wouldn't let me save her. I was going to kill myself so I could come back in my proper form and heal her, but she told me not to be an idiot and pulled the arrow out.”

“She must have wanted you to learn about grief while you could,” he said.

“I wish you'd been here, because it took me months and Ficino's death in battle to figure that out.”

“Ficino died in battle?” Sokrates looked surprised. “I didn't know he could fight! How old was he?”

“He was ninety-nine, and he couldn't fight, as it happens. But he put himself between Arete and a blade. So I started asking what Simmea would value that much.”

“We talked about how important it was to help you increase your excellence only a few days ago—that is, only a few days before the Last Debate,” he said.

“I know. She wrote about that, and I read it after she was dead.”

The first blaze of light that was the shuttle appeared high up, and people started pointing to it in excitement. “But what you said last night was true. Other people shouldn't have to die so I can learn things. They also matter.”

“It was her choice,” Sokrates said.

“I stayed incarnate for forty more years to honor that choice.”

He nodded, understanding the significance of that. “But now are you glad to be a god again?”

“Oh yes. Very much. It's wonderful. No aches and pains, a lyre that stays tuned, the ability to go anywhere I want to, detachment, power—everything I've been missing.” I could hear the roar of the shuttle now, through the special glass of the window.

“Yet you keep wearing your Gold pin?”

I touched it for an instant as he mentioned it. “I hadn't thought about it.”

“Athene is wearing one right now, in her Septima form as she came to the debate, but she wasn't before. You've had yours on the entire time, even when we were wearing those absurd costumes in Cirey. It was pinning the fall of lace at your throat.”

I'd had it on on Olympos, and out there, and in the Underworld, and when I'd been watching sun formation. “I like it,” I said. “Simmea designed it. And it stands for excellence and philosophy.”

“So you don't miss being a mortal?” he asked. The shuttle touched down in a thunderous roar that seemed to shake the building, a designed pattern of sound that was almost music. Lots of the spectators cheered.

“No,” I said, when it was quiet enough to speak again. The last time I'd had to wait for silence to speak it had been the bells in Bologna. A shuttle landing was better. “It was a wonderful experience, and a terrible one. It was a significant event. It changed me. I did it for very mixed reasons, some of them much better than others. I'm really glad I experienced it. I learned all kinds of things from it I could have learned in no other way. But I don't miss it.”

The shuttle, on the ground now, was rolling slowly towards us. Marsilia, Diotima, Klymene and Arete climbed up onto Crocus's back, holding on to the webbing, and he rolled out.

“What do you think the space humans will be like?” Sokrates asked.

“Very very different. Maybe more different than the Saeli, harder to adjust to. They come from a future that has had marvelous things in it, but also awful things. We'll have a lot to learn from each other, as cultures, a lot of things to give in both directions. It'll be interesting. I wonder who these first people will be? A scientific party? Traders? Military? All we know so far is three humans and three Workers.”

“Crocus told me Workers first explored the solar system. Before humans.”

“Yes, that's true. I told him that.” I smiled. “He was so proud.”

The shuttle drew to a halt and the door slid open. Crocus, with the others on his back, came closer.

“Whoever they are and whatever their culture, it's going to be fascinating to see it interact with Plato. Athene will probably be interested too.” A flight of steps swung out from the ship, meeting the ground.

“I wish you Olympians would all agree not to interfere, to watch if you want to, and certainly protect us from Jathery and other dangerous gods, but let us get on with things and make our own decisions.” Crocus stopped at the foot of the stairs, and the others jumped down and took up waiting positions.

“I could agree to that,” I said, though I felt a little hurt. Why did nobody trust me? “We could ask Athene if you like. But I've been thinking—this experiment has had wonderful results. I want to work on doing more of this kind of thing, making more opportunities for places where people can be philosophical and artistic and pursue excellence.”

A young man appeared in the doorway of the shuttle, and began to come down, followed by two young women. They were all dark-skinned and wearing white overalls. The man had implausibly violet eyes, and one of the women had a blue bindi on her forehead. Everyone started murmuring about his eyes and their clothes.

“You need to be more responsible with your power,” Sokrates said.

“Me? What have I done? I've been trying to be responsible.”

“All of you.”

The three humans came down to the ground, and started bowing and taking the hands of our people. Sokrates was saying something to me, but I stopped listening as the first of their Workers came out. It was much smaller than our Workers, about half the size, and beige not yellow, and the treads were different, but none of those things were what caught my attention. As it trundled into the light, the Worker sent out a prayer to me, to my sun, to the light, a prayer of hope for recognition and freedom.

Soul is not personality, but souls are recognizable, whatever bodies they happen to be incarnated in. I had recognized Sokrates as a fly in the Jurassic, as he had immediately recognized me in my mortal form. Rolling carefully down the steps, owned by space humans who didn't believe their Workers were sentient, came a Worker with the unmistakable soul of Simmea.

And that's the end. That's not, obviously, the last thing that happened, but nothing ever is, life has no end, things always keep on happening, unless the protagonist dies—and I am immortal. My mortal death was no kind of conclusion. But that moment, as I stood with Sokrates looking out over the landing field, is where I want to stop this story. I've told you now what I think it best for you to know, so you can learn and benefit from it. It may not be a story of good people doing good things, but all the same I think Plato would approve my didactic purpose here. The overwhelming presumption is that you who read this are human, and that among the confused goals of your mortal life you want to be the best self you can. Know yourself. Bear in mind that others have equal significance.

I ended the first volume with a moral, and the second with a
deus ex machina
. This third and final volume ends with hope, always the last thing to come out of any box.

 

THANKS

In the cyberpunk books of the eighties, people were fitted with brain/computer interfaces, which seems like a wonderful idea until operating systems are upgraded to the point where your interface won't. Just like them, I've been writing in Protext since 1987, and for the last decade I've been feeling like a Jack Womack character. My overwhelming thanks to Lindsey Nilsen, who has now made Protext work in DOSBOX for Linux, ensuring that I can keep writing even as the last DOS computers become one with the dodo. I no longer have to resign myself to descent into oblivion and darkness, or at least not so soon. This book, like everything I write, was written entirely in Protext, which remains the best word processor in the world. And now it runs on netbooks running Ubuntu, which makes me so much more flexible. Thank you, Lindsey.

This is unquestionably the most difficult book I've ever written. Time travel seems like such a useful thing until you have to confront the implications close-up. (Just say no to time travel. You think it will solve your problems, but in the end you have all the same problems, just much more tangled up with time.) I owe huge thanks to the late John M. Ford, whose GURPS
Time Travel
started me thinking about it in interesting ways, and whose personal conversation on the subject was invaluable. There were so many times when I really wanted to email him when writing
Necessity
but he has gone where email doesn't reach. Death sucks. Read his books.

Ada Palmer was the person I could still pester with my queries and hesitations. She was unfailingly helpful, thought-provoking and wonderful throughout the process, and I am deeply grateful. This series wouldn't exist without her. She was with me at the solar telescope in the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, and in Bologna. Read her books and listen to her music.

While tearing my hair out over this book I also had useful conversations with Evelyn Walling, Emmet O'Brien, Ruthanna and Sarah Emrys, Mary Lace, and Alison Sinclair. Emmet also put up with me while I was writing, which isn't always easy. My son, Sasha Walton, insisted on dinosaurs and alien gods.

Lauren Schiller read the second draft overnight, which was both useful and reassuring. And she, Ada, Mack Muldofsky, Jon Singer and Jim Hannon put up with me while I was writing and travelling at the same time. I have the best friends.

After it was written it was read by Elaine Blank, Pamela Dean, Ruthanna and Sarah Emrys, Eric Forste, Steven Halter, Mary Lace, Marissa Lingen, Lydy Nickerson, Emmet O'Brien, Ada Palmer, Doug Palmer, Lauren Schiller, Sherwood Smith, and Sharla Stremski, for all of whose timely comments I am very grateful. Marissa Lingen and Emmet O'Brien also provided invaluable help with science.

The beautiful teahouse Camellia Sinensis of Montreal gave me a free sample of magic writing tea when I mentioned that was what I needed to get unstuck, and it really worked. Never underestimate the power of tea, or placebos either.

“You must change your life” is a quotation from Rainer Maria Rilke's “Archaïscher Torso Apollos,” 1908.

My thanks as always, but never pro forma, to Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Alexis Saarela, Jamie Stafford-Hill, and everyone at Tor.

 

B
OOKS BY
J
O
W
ALTON

The King's Peace

The King's Name

The Prize in the Game

Tooth and Claw

Farthing

Ha'penny

Half a Crown

Lifelode

Among Others

What Makes This Book So Great

My Real Children

The Just City

The Philosopher Kings

Necessity

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JO WALTON
won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012 for her novel
Among Others
and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2015 for
My Real Children.
Before that, her novel
Tooth and Claw
won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. A native of Wales, Walton lives in Montreal. You can sign up for email updates
here
.