Free Ilium by Dan Simmons

Olympos knows that he has called for her intervention.
    “Indeed,” says Aphrodite. “That roundheeled bitch with the wet breasts has already been here to the Great Hall, throwing herself at Zeus’s knees as soon as the old fool returned from his debauching with the Aethiopians at the Ocean River. She begged him, for Achilles’ sake, to grant victory after victory to the Trojans, and the old sod agreed, thus putting him on a collision course with Hera, chief champion of the Argives. Thus the scene you just witnessed.”
    I stand upright with my arms down, palms forward, head slightly bowed, all the while watching Aphrodite as if she were a cobra, but still knowing that if she chooses to strike me, the strike will come much faster and more lethally than any cobra’s.
    “Do you know why you have survived longer than any other scholic?” snaps Aphrodite.
    Unable to speak without condeming myself, I shake my head ever so slightly.
    “You are still alive because I have foreseen that you can perform a service for me.”
    Sweat trickles down my brow and stings my eyes. More sweat forms rivulets on my cheek and neck. As scholics, our sworn duty—my duty for the last nine years, two months, and eighteen days—is to observe the war on the plains of Ilium without ever intervening, observing without ever committing any act whatsoever that might change the outcome of the war or the behavior of its heroes in any way.
    “Did you hear me, Hockenberry?”
    “Yes, Goddess.”
    “Are you interested in hearing what this service will be, scholic?”
    “Yes, Goddess.”
    Aphrodite rises from her couch and now I do bow my head, but I can hear the rustle of her silken gown, hear even the gentle friction of her smooth white thighs rubbing softly as she walks closer; I can smell the perfume-and-clean-female scent of her as she stands so close. I had forgotten for a moment how tall a goddess is, but I’m reminded of our respective heights as she towers over me, her breasts inches from my downturned face. For an instant I must fight the urge to bury my face in the perfumed valley between those breasts, and although I know well that this would by my last act before a violent death, I suspect at this moment that it might be worth it.
    Aphrodite sets her hand on my tense shoulder, touches the rough leather embroidery of the Helmet of Death, and then moves her fingertips to my cheek. Despite my fear, I feel a powerful erection stirring, rising, standing firm.
    The goddess’s whisper, when it comes, is soft, sensual, slightly amused, and I am sure that she knows the state I am in, expects it as her due. She lowers her face and leans so close that I can feel the heat of her cheek radiating against mine as she whispers two simple commands in my ear.
    “You are going to spy on the other gods for me,” she says softly. And then, barely audible above the pounding of my heart, “And when the time is right, you are going to kill Athena.”

7
Conamara Chaos Central
    Counting Mahnmut, there were five Galilean moravecs in the pressurized gathering chamber atop the slab zone. The Europan construct was familiar to him—Pwyll-based prime integrator Asteague/Che—but the other three were more alien than krakens to the provincial Mahnmut. The Ganymedan moravec was tall, elegant as all Ganymedans, atavistically humanoid, sheathed in black buckycarbon and staring through his fly’s eyes; the Callistan was more Mahnmut’s size and design—about a meter long, only vaguely humanoid, showing synskin and even some real flesh under clear polymide coating, massing only thirty or forty kilograms; the Ionian construct was . . . impressive. A heavy-use moravec of ancient design, built to withstand plasma torus and sulfur geysers, the Io-based entity was at least three meters tall and six meters long, shaped rather like a terrestrial horseshoe crab—heavily armored, with an untidy myriad of morphable appendages, thrusters, lenses, flagella, whip antennae,