Phoenix: “We’ve known Homer a lot longer, and from Homer we know how much you hate war.” Old Phoenix choked up saying it. “You don’t want to rule, you want to live. You wouldn’t fight for selfish reasons, only when there’s no other choice. Most of us believe you are what Mycroft claims, Achilles. You may be the greatest soldier who ever lived, or didn’t live, but even you need an army at your back to win a war. You need us. Why are you trying to convince us not to fight for you?”

The hero paused, and I wondered briefly whether he was listening once more to the Senate. Now our law’s great scales were weighing two fates for the Humanists: give them a second chance to defend their actions and revise their ways? Or issue an immediate demand that the Humanists dissolve and become Graylaws, or else be expelled en masse from the Alliance, and made in one stroke all Earth’s enemies. The problem and its banter were enough to distract me—child of this era as I am—but I doubt the son of sea-nymph Thetis heard a word of it; when Achilles’s mind strays, it strays far.

“How many of you are there?” he asked at last.

The assembled captains reviewed each other. “You mean Servicers total, or just those that want to follow you?”

“Both.”

Old Phoenix answered. “There are just under two million Servicers in the world right now. Last tally about a hundred thousand are ready to take up arms for you. Another five hundred thousand definitely don’t want to. The rest are undecided, but I suspect a lot will join up once there’s something more formal to join.”

“A hundred thousand already.” Achilles’s hands shook. That frightened me. His shock was natural enough—the fifty ships Achilles brought to Troy from Phthia, with fifty men in each, had been a mighty force in the days when all Greek states together could not boast a million souls. The thousand ships that Helen launched brought fifty thousand men to Agamemnon’s call, and now I handed Achilles twice that force, all scavenged from the criminal caste our law had thrown away. The King of the Myrmidons, Homer’s Achilles, should indeed have trembled at a number with six digits, but not my Major. He should have memories of the World Wars, of fleets of iron massing vast as cities, of soldiers in their millions bloodying Europe’s shores. He should have memories of space ships, and of billions. Had those versions of the Major faded so much already? Was the script which Bridger’s dying fantasy set for this world so fixed on Troy?

“This world’s too big,” Achilles said at last, looking to me as if it were my fault. Perhaps it was. “A hundred… five hundred… divided by…” He counted on his fingers. “A hundred a day will take about a month.”

I smiled. “To meet them all?”