Vengeance of Orion by Ben Bova Page A

them to complain.
    "You grow bolder," said the one who had spoken first. He was dark of hair and eye, as solemn as a high craggy mountain. I thought of him as Zeus, even though there were no lightning bolts in his grip and his beard was neatly trimmed and barely touched with gray.
    The Golden One laughed carelessly.
    Around that circle of vast unsmiling faces I searched, looking for one that would be familiar, the goddess I had loved, or even the dark Ahriman whom I had hunted. I saw neither.
    One of the women spoke. "You still intend to allow the Trojans to win their war?"
    The Golden One smiled at her. "Yes, even though that displeases you."
    "The Greeks have much to offer your creatures," she said.
    "Pah! Barbarians."
    "They will not always be so. In time they will build a beautiful civilization . . . if you let them."
    With a shake of his golden mane, "The civilization of Troy will be even more beautiful, I promise you."
    "I have studied the time-tracks," said one of the males. "The Greeks should be allowed to win."
    "No!" shouted the Golden One. "Damn the time-tracks! I am creating a new track here, one that will please all of us, if you'd only stop interfering with my plans."
    "We have as much right to manipulate these creatures as you do," said the woman. "I really have very little confidence in your plans."
    "Because you don't understand," the Golden One insisted. "I want Troy to win because Troy will then become the most important nexus in this phase of human history. The city will grow into a mighty empire that spans Europe and Asia. Think of it! The energy and vigor of the Europeans combined with the wisdom and patience of the East. The wealth of both worlds will be commingled into a single, unified Ilian empire that will span from the British Isles to the Indian subcontinent!"
    "What good will that do?" asked one of the other men. Like the others, he was as handsome as a human face can be, flawless in every detail. "Your creatures will still have to face the ultimate crisis. Unity among them may be less desirable than a healthy amount of competition."
    "Yes," said the woman. "Remember the Neanderthal-dominated track that you sent this creature to destroy. You ended it by nearly destroying all of us ."
    The Golden One glared down at me. "That was a mistake that will not be repeated."
    "No, not with Ahriman and his tribes safely in their own continuum now."
    "That is done and we survived the crisis," said the one I called Zeus. "The question at hand is what to do about the particular nexus at Troy."
    "Troy must win," insisted the Golden One.
    "No, the Greeks should . . ."
    "The Trojans will win," the Golden One stated flatly. "They will win because I will make them win."
    "So that you can create this Ilian empire that appears to be so dear to your heart," said Zeus.
    "Exactly."
    "Why is that so important?" asked the woman.
    "It will unify all of Europe and much of Asia," he replied. "There will be no separation of East and West, no dichotomy of the human spirit. No Alexander of Macedon with his semibarbaric lusts, no Roman Empire, no Constantinople to act as a barrier between Asia and Europe. No Christianity and no Islam to fight their twenty-century-long war against each other."
    They listened and began to nod. All but the skeptical woman and the one I called Zeus.
    It is a game to them, I realized. They are manipulating human history the way a chess player moves pieces across his board. And if a civilization is utterly destroyed, it means as little to them as if a pawn or a rook is captured and removed from the board.
    "Does it really make that much difference?" asked one of the dark-haired men.
    "Of course it does!" the Golden One replied. "I seek to unite the human race, to bring all the many facets of my creatures into harmony and unity . . ."
    "So that they can help us to face the ultimate crisis," said Zeus, almost in a mutter.
    The Golden One nodded. "That is my goal. We need all the help we can get."
    "I am