I was amazed. “And I like talking to you too,” I said. Then I looked at Marsilia, who was biting her lip. “I like talking to you, too, Marsi, and if my pulse doesn’t speed up, well, I still feel really warm towards you.”

“I like you too. And I have been to the Festivals of Hera, and always enjoyed it,” Marsilia said, and I thought she was blushing.

“And I think you’re all three almost irresistible,” Sokrates said.

“And I think you are all four my podmates, and that makes me very happy,” Hilfa said.

If this were a space human kind of story, one of the “classic” works of fiction from their culture they traded us in return for copies of all the things Ficino rescued from the Library of Alexandria, the end would be that I, the virtuous hero, had to choose between the two sisters, who would represent ugly wisdom and beautiful vice. How I chose would determine my fate, whether happy or unhappy. No wonder their culture is so strange and twisted. We think of romantic love as a primarily negative force, one we would do better to resist. They elevate it to being the most significant thing humans do, apart from making money—which, as far as I can make out, is a numeric quantifier of prosperity. I can’t understand how anyone reads such twaddle.

If this were a Greek tragedy, I’d be destroyed by my hubris for going against the gods. That’s what Sokrates says happened to him in the Last Debate. He’s usually laughing when he says it, and he’s here to say it, which people destroyed by Nemesis usually are not.

If this were a Platonic dialogue, I’d wander away enlightened or infuriated by a conversation with Sokrates. That happens to me on a regular basis, so perhaps that’s what it is.

But no, this is practical Platonism, and real life, where we muddle through and try to pursue excellence while ensuring the latrine fountains work and there’s fish in the pot, as we bring up babies to pursue excellence in their turn. I tell all our kids that they’re beautiful and smart, and they have all kinds of talents. Alkippe may be the only one with a heroic soul, but they’re all wonderful. But the Saeli ones grow up too fast.

If this were a Homeric epic, I’d stop right here, because that’s the entirety of the story of how Athene was lost and I came to be part of a pod. Like Hilfa, it makes me very happy.

IV. Hilfa

Like most Saeli, I have five parents, and four podmates. If both my parents and podmates are a little unusual, that merely makes it better.