“I didn’t mean to imply that we should abandon her out there, but rather to inquire why she is in need of our rescue, how can she be beyond her own resources,” Sokrates explained calmly. “And if she should be in such need, then what resources do we have that she does not, that we can help her if she has gone beyond them?”

As if on cue, Hermes and Marsilia reappeared at that moment. Hermes was grinning, and Marsilia was frowning. Marsilia seemed to have been frowning a lot since all this started, and it wasn’t characteristic. She’s a serious person, yes, but on a normal day on the boat her brows might not draw down at all. Now she looked as if she might never relax then again. She moved away from Hermes. I saw her eyes widen as she recognized Sokrates and Ikaros.

“Do you have Athene’s notes?” Pytheas asked Hermes.

“Marsilia has them,” Hermes said. He looked at her expectantly. She pulled three pieces of paper out of her inside pocket, put one of them back and held the others up.

“Here,” she said.

Hermes leaned against the wall, staring over at Pytheas. “Do you have yours?”

“Yes. But I can’t read them.”

“No more can I,” Hermes said. “They’re in some kind of code. Maybe with time I could figure it out.”

“It will be much faster if I get Arete,” Pytheas said, and vanished.

“This is my sister Marsilia,” Thetis said, moving around refilling winecups again. “Marsilia, Hermes, Ikaros and Sokrates.”

“You’re not a fly anymore,” Hermes said.

“Apollo was kind enough to turn me back,” Sokrates said, frowning at him. “Who’s Arete?”

“Pytheas and Simmea’s daughter,” Ikaros said. “She can fly. And detect falsehood. She’s wonderful. I expect she’s grown up by now. It’s hard to take in. Forty years.”

“Sixty years,” Sokrates said. “But it was thousands of years last time. At least it’s never boring being a plaything of the gods.”

“Why is Apollo taking so long?” Hermes asked.

“I expect he has to explain to Arete,” Thetis said. “What’s the hurry anyway?”

Marsilia, Ikaros and Hermes looked at her in astonishment.

“Thetis is right. Athene’s not even in the same time as us. Why does it matter how long it takes?” Sokrates asked.

“We don’t know whether there’s time where Athene is, or how time works there, so there may be time pressure on our need to find her,” Ikaros said.

“And I am bound by Necessity, which is becoming increasingly difficult as more time passes for me,” Hermes said.

“Also there’s a human spaceship up in orbit waiting for permission to land,” Marsilia said.

“A human spaceship?” Sokrates asked. “From where?”

“From Earth,” Marsilia said.

“We’re not on Earth?” Sokrates asked.