The two of them went on, in half-sentences, following each other’s thought, interrupting each other, citing authorities, and the rest of us stood there listening. Even Sokrates stayed quiet. It wasn’t like a debate, because they finished each other’s thoughts so much that they grasped each other’s points before they were even made, and the rest of us couldn’t do that. I hadn’t heard of half the people they mentioned. It was like listening to a truly brilliant person thinking, except that they were thinking too fast for us to follow and that it was both of them, their minds meshing. You could tell they’d been working together for a long time. It was like warp and weft when a shuttle is flying across the loom as fast as a Worker can send it, the colors dancing through each other and the pattern emerging into clear sight as it changes from threads of color to a length of cloth.

“Like Love’s Labour’s Lost,” Athene said.

“And that gets us back to Plato—”

Sokrates laughed at that, and they stopped and became aware that the rest of us were still there. Grandfather was smiling. The rest of us were staring at Athene and Ikaros.

“We were wondering whether it would be possible to have a city where everyone was a philosopher,” Ikaros explained.

“But who would fix the latrine fountains?” Crocus asked.

“Maybe the philosophers would do it as their recreation, the way Marsi fishes,” Jason suggested.

Marsilia really grinned at him when he used her childhood name. It was lovely to see. I was coming to like this pod idea. If I was going to be married, I was glad it was going to be with a group of people, all of them kind, and that Marsilia would be there.

“Things aren’t as divided up as Plato would have them,” Sokrates said. “I have learned much wisdom from craftspeople, and heard much windy bombast from supposedly wise men.”

“I don’t want to be a philosopher king and have to make political decisions I don’t know anything about,” I said, quickly. “I know I’m an Iron. I love my work. But anyone would want to know what the gods want of us. I might not understand. But I would like to hear it.”

Beside me Jason was nodding.