“But we’re not sure how time out there relates to time here,” Ikaros said. “That was part of why Athene refused to take me. If you don’t come back, we should wait before going to Zeus with this.”

“Wait how long?” Arete asked.

“Ask Porphyry. The same way you have a connection with patterns of truth and language, he has a connection with the patterns of place and time. If we don’t reappear immediately, go to him tomorrow and ask him to go to Father when it feels right,” Pytheas said.

“All right,” Arete said, walking back to the table. “Look, nobody can go except the gods, and none of the rest of us can do anything to help now. I think everyone else should go to bed. There’s still a human spaceship up there that we’ll have to deal with tomorrow, and it’s getting late.”

“If tomorrow comes,” Jathery said, with another bone-chilling laugh.

All I’d have to deal with tomorrow, if it came, was the sea and the fish, but that was enough. “That sounds like good advice to me,” I said. “Sleep will help.”

“As if I’d be able to sleep with Alkippe in danger,” Thetis said, mopping her eyes.

“But we should try, Thee, because she’ll be awake and wanting breakfast, and your little ones will need you,” Marsilia said. I picked up Thetis’s cloak and wrapped it around her. She huddled into it.

“We’ll let you all catch up on sleep,” Pytheas said. “We’ll come back and let you know what’s happened tomorrow evening.”

“But you won’t want to wait … oh!” Arete said. They wouldn’t have to wait, of course, they could step back into time tomorrow evening as easily as today. It must be so incredibly strange to be a god.

“I’m not tired. If you’ll tell me where Crocus is, I think I’ll go and find him,” Sokrates said. “I know the City, unless it has changed very much in being moved here.”

“Crocus is out at the spaceport,” Marsilia said.

Sokrates laughed. “Then it has changed more than I imagined!”

“I’ll take you to the spaceport,” Arete said to Sokrates. “I want to go there anyway. I can be useful there. And it’ll be quicker for you to come with me than taking the train at this time of night.”

“You have trains here now?” Ikaros asked.

“What are trains?” Sokrates asked.

“Trains are moving rooms—electrical conveyances that run on rails moving at fixed times to fixed places,” Marsilia explained. “And Ikaros, you could take one to the City of Amazons and be there in less than an hour, though there isn’t one now until morning.”

“I know Rhadamantha would be pleased to see you,” Arete said. “She has children, your grandchildren.”

“Could I do that and be back by tomorrow evening?”