TW07 The Argonaut Affair NEW (7 page)

The shrine of the Oracle of Delphi was a small marble altar set before an ancient oak tree that grew at the summit of a hill. A semicircular wall of white brick was built around the giant oak, closing it off at the back and sides, so that its base and trunk were visible only from the front, where the altar had been placed.

"The Speaking Oak," said Jason, reverently. "I have heard tell of it from my teacher, Chiron. We must place an offering of food upon the altar and see if the Oracle will speak."

"You mean the offering itself is not a guarantee?" said Steiger, smiling.

"It is said that the Oracle speaks only to those who are deemed worthy," Jason replied. "My cause is just and so I must be worthy. She will speak to us."

Jason placed an offering of fruits and sweetmeats on the altar, then kneeled before it with his head bowed and his arms held out in supplication. "Oh, wise, all-knowing Oracle!" he said reverently. "Jason, son of Aeson, King of Iolchos, humbly comes seeking guidance from the gods. I am commanded to seek the golden fleece to prove my worthiness to rule in Iolchos. How may I best fulfill my task?"

For a moment, nothing happened, then flames suddenly blazed up from the altar. In the glow of the firelight, a shape seemed to come out of the oak, a figure draped in dark robes with a hood covering its head and hiding its face.

"Your petition has been heard, Jason of Iolchos," said the Oracle. She spoke with a strong and resonant voice. "The gods have deemed you worthy of the task now set before you. Hear now their words. Seek out Argus, the shipwright, and bid him build a galley with fifty oars. Look not among the people of Iolchos for your crew, for they are plain folk and not suited to the undertaking. Send out a call throughout the land for heroes to go with you on your quest. When you have done so, cut down the stoutest branch of the Speaking Oak and bid Argus carve it into a figurehead for your ship, which you shall call the
Argo.

When you have gathered your crew of Argonauts, set sail across the Aegean Sea. Follow a course through the Hellespont to the Sea of Marmora. Pass through the Bosporous to the Euxine Sea and set course along the coastline of Mysia, Bithynia and Pontus for the land of Colchis. You will find that which you seek in the Sacred Grove of Ares in the kingdom of Aietes."

The flames abruptly disappeared and in the moment it took their eyes to become reaccustomed to the darkness, the figure behind the altar vanished. Delaney ran to the altar and looked around, but there was no sign of the woman. With the wall surrounding the Speaking Oak on all sides except the front, there was no way she could have gone except past them and there was no break in the wall. Steiger examined the altar and found nothing to indicate where the flames had come from. The heat must have been intense.

The offering was completely crisped.

"The gods have spoken through the Oracle," said Jason. "My course is clear."

Delaney frowned. "I wish to hell ours was," he mumbled.

Andre examined the tree, but it seemed solid, with no hollow space where the woman could have hidden.

She glanced at Steiger. "Technology?" she said softly. "Or magic?"

Jason was faced with the same problem following the Oracle's advice as he had with coming to Iolchos and confronting Pelias in the first place, namely, lack of forethought. It apparently had not occurred to him that Pelias might have had grave reservations about giving up the throne and could easily have ordered him killed. In the same manner, it did not occur to him that he did not possess the means to spread the word throughout the countryside that there was a need for heroes to complete his crew, just as it did not occur to him that Argus, the shipwright, might expect to be compensated for his efforts in constructing a galley. Argus took the position that asking for payment for such an ambitious undertaking was not an unreasonable request. The only problem was that Jason had no money.

The brawny, graying, barrel-chested shipwright stood with folded arms, regarding Jason with amused tolerance as the youth protested that the ship
had
to be built. He promised Argus that he would be compensated for his labors after they returned with the golden fleece and he was on the throne. When the shipwright seemed unmoved by such promises, Jason invoked the gods, saying it was their will that Argus build the galley that would bear his name. This appeal to vanity did not avail, either.

"I must secure the materials with which to build your ship and I must pay the laborers who will do the work," said Argus. "Among them are faithless men who are not moved by the wishes of Immortals or the promises of kings. They are moved by more practical considerations, such as wages. I will gladly build your ship and carve your figurehead. I will even whittle you a flute if you like, but first I must be paid. If it is the will of the gods that I should build this ship, then doubtless the gods will provide you with the means to pay for it."

There was an inescapable logic to this that not even Jason could dispute, but he remained undaunted.

What Argus said made perfect sense to him. If it was the will of the gods that the ship be built, then the gods would obviously provide the means for him to pay for its construction. That it was their will was clear, so it was equally clear that the funds would be forthcoming. In the meantime, he sold his knife to buy another pair of sandals and made camp on the outskirts of the city in a crude lean-to constructed by the first three members of his crew.

"A somewhat shabby palace for a king," Delaney said of their lean-to as they huddled in its shelter during a rainstorm.

"Nevertheless, Fabius, it is a good beginning," Jason said, with no sign of discouragement. "Because of this, when I am in the palace, none will be able to claim that the king is ignorant of how his subjects live, for he has lived even as the poorest of them."

Steiger glanced at Andre. "He does tend to look on the bright side, doesn't he?"

"Somehow I had the feeling this would all be a great deal more dramatic," Andre said, then swore and shifted position as a stream of water broke through the thatch roof and cascaded down her back.

"The gods work in their own way and in their own time," said Jason, staring off into the distance. "If they mean for us to wait, then wait we must. It is my fate to rule in Iolchos, come what may. Pelias will learn that once I have set my mind upon a task, I always see it through. Never fear, my friends. When I am king, I shall remember that you were the first to join me in my quest and I shall not be ungrateful."

"In other words," Delaney mumbled softly, "don't hold your breath 'til payday."

It rained hard until shortly before midnight and then the storm moved on, leaving them in a dripping shelter crawling with bugs and earthworms. They did their best to rearrange the straw they had piled in the lean-to, putting the bottom layers on top so their beds would not be so damp. Just as they were settling down for the night, they heard the sounds of approaching footsteps squelching in the mud outside.

Jason grabbed his spear. "Take care, my friends," he said in a low voice. "It may be that Pelias means treachery, setting his soldiers upon us while we sleep. If so, then he shall not find us taken easily."

Someone came out of the darkness and paused just at the edge of the clearing where they had erected their shelter. In the moonlight, they could see no more than a tall, dark figure in a hooded cloak.

"Jason!" a muffled voice cried out. "Who calls?" Jason yelled back. "A friend."

"Then come closer so we may see you, friend," said Jason. "Better that I not be seen," the dark figure said, without moving any closer. "Better also that I do not remain here long. Pelias has spies everywhere.

Know that there are those in Iolchos who remember good King Aeson and bear Pelias no love. Word of your trouble has reached us. Among us, we have collected the necessary funds to pay Argus the shipwright for the building of your galley. We have also sent word abroad that a crew of heroes is needed to embark upon a dangerous adventure with a kingdom at stake. We have done our part, Jason, son of Aeson. Go now and do yours."

"Wait!" cried Jason. "Who are you, that I might know whom to thank for-" but the dark figure had already melted away into the darkness. Steiger quickly moved off after the stranger. "Fabius, where is Creon going?" Jason said. "I think he's going to follow our benefactor," said Delaney. "You know what they say, beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

Jason frowned. "Who says that?" Delaney shrugged. "Creon's people say it. They're not a very trusting lot."

"They would do well to trust the wisdom of the gods," said Jason. "You see? It all comes to pass. The gods have willed it and now we shall have the funds to build the
Argo
and the means to assemble its crew. It is a good omen, Fabius. Our fate now lies before us."

"Perhaps," said Delaney. "I would still prefer to know who's helping fate along."

Steiger had no difficulty closing the distance between himself and the stranger who had come calling at their camp. The man was far from an experienced woodsman. In the darkness, he crashed through the underbrush and stumbled in the mud, making more than enough noise to cover any sounds Steiger might have made in his pursuit. Steiger kept thinking about the man's voice. It sounded muffled, as if he had been speaking through a piece of cloth. Why bother to disguise his voice? They knew no one in Iolchos.

And why had he been afraid to show himself?

There was something very suspicious about the recent progression of events, thought Steiger. Andre Cross seemed inclined to keep an open mind about possible differences in physical laws in this new universe, but perhaps that was because she had come from a superstitious time. When she had first seen 27th century technology, it would indeed have seemed like magic to her. Finn Delaney had not yet indicated where he stood on that question, but as for himself, Steiger preferred to look for rational explanations. Perhaps, in this universe, magic in the supernatural sense was possible, but he would reverse his judgment until he saw something that could not be explained away as anything
but
supernatural phenomena. He had yet to see anything like that.

The centaur had been real, there was no doubt about that, but was it supernatural, a being created by immortal gods? Steiger did not believe it for a moment. In his younger days, when he had been an interstellar mercenary, he had seen much stranger creatures that had been the result of natural evolution in their own respective environments-and this was a different universe, after all. He had also seen bizarre genetic manipulations and surgical creations. On one colony world, a youth fad had resulted in a subculture known as Cyberpunks, where young people voluntarily submitted to outrageous surgical and cybernetic procedures which turned them into creatures far more exotic and surreal-looking than the centaur had been- boys with snakeskin and forked tongues, girls with cat's eyes and downy fur. And these were human children. No, he wasn't ready to buy the concept of a "real" mythology just yet.

The flames on the altar of the Oracle could easily have been produced in a number of ways that were perfectly mundane. The flames themselves would have provided enough cover for the Oracle to have

"appeared" and "disappeared." The fact that they had not found a hidden doorway in the wall around the Speaking Oak did not mean that there wasn't one.

The Oracle's "prophecy" could be even more easily explained. It was, after all, at the suggestion of the high priest that they had traveled to the shrine at Delphi. The high priest could easily have arrived there before them and set the whole thing up. The question was, why? Was it merely the result of Pelias wanting to be rid of Jason? If such were the case, why hadn't he had Jason killed? It would have been the simplest solution, unless he had a specific reason for not doing so. Or was there something more to it?

Could it be that the reason the stranger's voice was muffled was because they might have recognized it as the voice of the high priest? That was something Steiger was determined to find out before the night was over.

The stranger was not far ahead of him, blundering through the woods on a roundabout way back to Iolchos. The way he was moving, Steiger would almost have to try to lose him. As they approached the city, Steiger smiled. Something told him he was going to follow the stranger right back to the Temple of Poseidon.

Suddenly, instincts born of years of fighting sounded an alarm inside his head and he knew he had done something drastically wrong. He started to spin around, but he never saw the blow coming. The next moment, he was on his back, unconscious, stretched out in the mud and the wet leaves.

"You're lucky you have a hard head," said Delaney.

Steiger opened his eyes to daylight and quickly shut them once again, wincing. Delaney slowly helped him to a sitting position.

"Take it easy, Creed. You've had a nasty crack."

"I've had worse," said Steiger. He groaned. "That doesn't make me feel any better about this one, though."

"What happened?"

"I was following our friend and thinking how easy it was, trailing a tenderfoot like that through the woods, when somebody came up behind me and bashed my head in. No wonder it was so easy. They expected to be followed and planned an ambush. And like an idiot, I walked right into it. Where's Andre?"

"Back at the camp with Jason. We got worried when you didn't come back, so I thought I'd trail you and see if anything went wrong. Obviously, something did."

"Yes, with me," said Steiger. "I deserve having my skull fractured for letting them come up on me like that. The sponsors of this voyage seem determined not to have their identities revealed. There's something funny going on. Someone's hatching plots, but against whom? Pelias or Jason?"

"I've been thinking about that, too," Delaney said. "The story told by Apollonius didn't have a great deal of internal consistency. But then it was only a story. It didn't happen in our time line."