CHILDREN OF TIME (2025 Edition) by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 7 – A CHILD LOST IN TIME

13:03 (Auckland Time)

Friday, May 25, 2999 B.C.E.

Main Time Patrol base, future site of Auckland

New Zealand

Farah Tolkonen waited for Nancy to take a seat before looking at the other members of the Time Patrol present for this command meeting.

“May I have your attention, ladies and gentlemen? As you all know already from the information brought back from 3387 ‘B’ by Nancy, we are now faced with another rival organization which is capable of time travel. While the World Council’s Agency for Archaeological Field Research does not have the combat punch of the Imperium, it can be about as dangerous for history, if not more. Apart from having psionic powers which will make the job of countering them vastly more difficult, they have already proven that they won’t hesitate to fiddle with history, as was the case with Yeshua. Now, we know that they have introduced clandestine agents in timeline ‘C’ as early as 1938, with the long-term goal of preventing the future formation of an Imperium ‘C’. Their plans seem to be well thought of and actually have a good chance of success if nobody else intervenes to counter them. We cannot of course let them proceed and will have to oppose them. As for their ‘Olympus’ project, the scoutship WIKING has already conducted a discreet reconnaissance of Mount Olympus, in the Greece of 555 B.C.E., and what Sven, Susanna and Frank found was shocking, to say the least.” A series of aerial photographs then started showing on the large wall display screen behind Farah, who commented them to her assembled command and mission staff.

“As you can see on these pictures, well camouflaged installations have been put in place by the World Council at the bottom of the inner slopes of Mount Olympus. These installations probably were meant to support a team of agents who would have stayed in Greece for long duration missions. What their exact mission was supposed to have been, we don’t know for sure at this time but we certainly won’t let the World Council conduct that mission or relocate those installations to another spot in the Antiquity. They have just proven themselves too irresponsible with history for us not to react. We will however have our hands full trying to counter both their operations ‘Trojan

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Horse’ and ‘Olympus’. Thus, we will concentrate on countering their project ‘Olympus’ first, the one most dangerous to the integrity of history since it touches at timeline ‘A’. Even then we are starting with a problem that has proven already to be a difficult one indeed: to find a time shuttle supposedly stolen from the World Council by a couple with a young son. The scoutship ANGEL OF MERCY waited near the predicted emergence point in 555 B.C.E. near Mount Olympus that had been provided by the World Council, but to no avail. Our time surveillance network did not detect the reemergence of that shuttle within a hundred years plus or minus of the indicated date. It did detect one unidentified possible reemergence in 420 B.C.E., but that one was over the western Mediterranean and nothing was detected flying around at that point and time by the ANGEL OF MERCY when it investigated that report.”

Farah then smiled wryly at Nancy.

“What didn’t help in that case was something we can thank you for, Nancy.” Pushing a button on her computer, she made a map of the Mediterranean Sea and of the surrounding countries appear. Hundreds if not thousands of red dots, each indicating a spacetime distortion detected by the Time Patrol network of surveillance satellites over the centuries, covered the land areas, with Greece, Italy, Palestine and Egypt being particularly covered with dots. The dot indicating the point investigated in 420 B.C.E. by the ANGEL OF MERCY was now all but lost in a sea of dots.

“Those are the spacetime distortions that you either left or will leave behind you around the Mediterranean between the 15th century B.C.E. and the 7th century C.E., Nancy. The least I can say is that you are one prolific time traveler. It took the scoutship BRITANNIA a full three weeks of their relative time to confirm that you were in fact the source of those distortions.”

A bit embarrassed, Nancy made an apologetic smile at Douglas Wilson, the pilot of the scoutship BRITANNIA, who was eyeing her and making a face.

“Uh, sorry about that, Doug. I hope you at least saw a few nice sights in the process.”

“Oh, I sure did! You at least have good tastes when it comes to men…and women. I won’t mention a few visits you did to the island of Lesbos.” There were a few laughs and giggles around the office at those words, while Mike Crawford smiled and winked once at Nancy. The latter looked back at the screen showing the dots, studying it. Something then occurred to her.

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“Farah, could you trace a straight line from Boston, where the shuttle came from, to the suspected point of emergence in 420 B.C.E. and then extend it eastward?”

“Sure! Give me a second.”

A moment of stunned silence fell on the room when the line traced by Farah passed directly over Mount Olympus. Nancy sighed quietly.

“I knew it! The World Council shuttles must be equipped with very efficient cloaking devices. That one must thus have emerged at the point spotted by our satellite, then flew for an unknown distance under cloak. It however didn’t arrive in Mount Olympus, as we were right there and waiting under cloak.”

“But why emerge over the Mediterranean so far west of Greece and why in 420 B.C.E.?” asked Peter Stilwell, the captain of the time cruiser KRONOS. Nancy shook slowly her head.

“I don’t know, Peter. Maybe that shuttle had mechanical problems. What I saw and heard in the London of 3387 ‘B’ indicated that the World Council was becoming critically short of qualified technicians, engineers and scientists because of the steady exodus to the Edon. That shortage in turn was causing major maintenance headaches in the World Council. Still, this is the best and only trail we have to find those three World Council citizens…if they are still alive.”

“That search could take a hell of a long time, Nancy.” replied Stilwell. “A course deviation of a few degrees by that shuttle on emergence would mean a search footprint hundreds of kilometers wide. We are searching for three persons who may or may not be alive, something a lot less conspicuous than a ship or even a scooter. As I see it, we would need to comb an area of sea and land covering the northern half of Sardinia, the southern half of Italy and about the whole of Greece, plus about ten percent of the Mediterranean Sea. This is nearly hopeless.”

“Not so hopeless, Peter.” disagreed Nancy. “We know that those three persons, if still alive, will most probably try to get by any means to their original intended destination: Mount Olympus. Only there will they get technical support and a safe refuge. We will have to concentrate our efforts on the roads and transport links leading to Mount Olympus. I intend anyway to do most of the searching myself. I have already a plan shaping in my head. Farah?”

“Go ahead, Nancy: nobody here will dispute your mastery of planning.”

“Thank you!”

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Getting up from her sofa, she then went to the map of the Mediterranean world of the 5th century B.C.E. appearing on the wall viewing screen behind Farah Tolkonen and pointed at various points as she mentioned them.

“First of, our top priority now is to deny the use of the Mount Olympus installations to the World Council and to prevent them from being moved to another location. I propose that the transport GILGAMESH go there at night, physically root out the installations and remove them as soon as possible. I would only leave in place that single, separate pavilion that seems to be self-sufficient, so that our three lost World Council citizens could find shelter if they ever show up in Mount Olympus. Combat robots will be waiting in force there, ready to report back any visit by the World Council. They are mostly immune to the mental powers of World Council agents and have infinite patience, so they will be perfect for that role. We will also put in place a radio warning beacon that will emit continuously on multiple frequencies a short message warning the World Council that Mount Olympus is now out of bounds for them. One scoutship should be in long-term orbital watch as well over the site, to provide an armed response if needed.”

“And what will prevent World Council agents from taking control of the minds of that scoutship’s crew, Nancy?” asked Carmen Sanchez, the senior scoutship pilot. Nancy in turn looked at Farah.

“Farah, this is more your domain than mine. I know that the Imperium ‘B’ had an emitter which neutralized psionic powers. It in fact used it against me while I was conducting a diplomatic mission to gain the safe release of Princess Margaret and of Group Captain Townsend and I can certify to you that it was damn effective. Could we use something like it to fashion some protection against psionic waves for our people?”

“It should actually be fairly simple, in theory. We already use extensively remote control systems which receive commands via mental waves. We also found that Imperium anti-psionic emitter inside the royal escape pod of the battleship ROYAL SOVEREIGN. I or my timeline ‘B’ counterpart could probably develop quite quickly an individual protective device against psionic waves.”

“Then we should make that a priority, Farah. Just make sure that it won’t give me a headache every time I go near a member or ship of the Time Patrol.”

“Point taken, Nancy. What else?”

“Well, those measures should take care of Mount Olympus. As for our three stray time travelers, we can start by posting an extensive network of spy probes which

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will cover every port on the coasts of Central and Southern Italy and of Greece. Those probes will have in their computers a facial recognition program with the faces of young Heracles and of his parents in their data banks. If any of those three show up to take a ship for Greece or arrive there by ship, we will know nearly immediately and will then be able to pick them up. To supplement these probes, I intend to implement a ground search along the most probable land routes in Italy which a traveler trying to head towards Greece would take. The agents assigned to that search should however not depart before we devise an anti-psionic waves protective device. I envision four pairs of agents to assist me in the ground search in Italy, all on robotic horses and all of them assault specialists. That ground search job will be a risky one for all involved in it; I won’t hide that from you. Those four pairs of agents will sweep northwards along the four main North-South roads and land routes in Italy, while I will travel southwards down the western coastal road of Italy. Since I have very little to fear from World Council psionics, I intend to leave tomorrow, alone. Nauca the Sarmatian warrior will ride again.”

15:57 (Italy Time)

Monday, September 12, 420 B.C.E.

Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Latium

Western coast, Central Italy

Heracles broke through the surface of the sea and avidly gulped air, having nearly drowned while escaping from the sinking time shuttle. Melina’s last act of blowing off the escape hatch by firing its explosive bolts had saved him from dying with the two adults who had stayed trapped in the flooded craft. Now bobbing up and down the waves, the boy quickly became cold, with his sole clothes being a pair of leather sandals and a short Greek tunic called a chiton. Thankfully, Heracles had learned how to swim and he could stay on the surface without problems. He looked around him for a few minutes, hoping still that Glen and Melina could have somehow escaped from the doomed shuttle, but nobody came to the surface after him. Tears and sobs came to him as he realized that he was lost, alone in a distant past. He couldn’t even tell where he was now, as Glen had shouted something after reemergence about their shuttle being completely off course. Spotting land in the distance, Heracles, still despondent about the loss of his surrogate parents, started swimming towards it. He was unfortunately still too young and insufficiently trained to use his mental powers to fly on anything but very

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short distances without growing excessively tired and had to keep swimming old-fashioned style.

Thankfully the sea was fairly calm and he was able to make good time. The coast was however a good two kilometers away and he had to slow down a number of times to recuperate despite his uncommon muscular strength and good physical shape. He was still more than half a kilometer away from the coast and was nearly ready to give up, chilled and exhausted, when a human shout made him snap his head to the right. The next wave that raised him allowed him to spot a tiny boat with two men on board who were waving at him. Hope coming back, he used the last of his strength to swim to the boat, which was also approaching him. A few minutes later he was pulled out of the water and into a small wooden boat by a man with a graying beard and a young man in his early twenties. From the net and the dead fish resting in the bottom of the boat, Heracles understood that he had been rescued by fishermen. The two men, who were naked save for loincloths, were looking down at him with interest while chatting in a language unknown to Heracles. Whatever it was, it was not Greek. The older man tried a few times to communicate with him but his responses in Greek drew a blank. Heracles finally pointed at himself, using the simplest form of communication he knew of.

“Heracles.”

Both fishermen nodded their heads in comprehension and pointed at themselves as well, pronouncing a single word each. The older man turned out to be named Ilius and the younger one Sardus. Giving up on further attempts at communicating, the fishermen grabbed short oars and started rowing towards the shore. Left alone at the bottom of the boat, Heracles was able to recuperate somewhat and to warm up under the rays of the sun, which was already going down towards the horizon.

The boat reached the shore about forty minutes later on a small, sandy beach in a cove which sheltered a tiny, primitive village. There were fourteen small houses and huts made of wood and mud along the beach and about fifty men, women and children were visible around, busy at various tasks. Heracles jumped out of the boat and into the low water and helped his two saviors drag the boat out of the water, pulling it besides six similar boats. Curious villagers quickly surrounded Heracles as Ilius spoke to them, probably telling them about how they had found him. One man who seemed to have some authority in the village examined carefully Heracles, touching his muscular arms

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and legs and looking at his teeth. Surprised at first and not knowing what this could mean apart from simple curiosity, Heracles let him do his inspection but reddened in embarrassment when the man raised the front of his tunic, exposing his genitals, and said something that made the women and girls around giggle. Heracles found himself to be nearly as tall as the men of the village and was much taller and bigger than the generally scrawny boys who seemed to be his age. Most of the young children of the village were naked, with only the adult women being fully clothed in long tunics made of very rough wool. The men, many of whom had knives at their belts, mostly wore either short tunics or loincloths. Ilius soon led Heracles to one of the houses, a primitive wooden building with only two small rooms in it. There was an open hearth with a smoldering fire in it in the middle of the main room, where an old woman and a young woman were kneeling and preparing some kind of stew in a clay pot. The women eyed Heracles with curiosity as Ilius spoke to them before leaving. The boy was then made to sit in a corner, Ilius using sign language for this. The young woman soon brought him a wooden cup full of water and put a piece of dried fish in his right hand. She frowned in reprobation when Heracles cautiously sniffed the smelly fish, being accustomed to modern food. That brought the whole reality of his situation to the boy, who quickly took a bite off his piece of fish and chewed on it with apparent content to placate his host. In reality he was tempted to spit out the rancid fish but he now understood that this was about the best he would get in this impoverished village. He secretly hoped that the rest of this world would include some places less primitive than this as he ate in his corner, discreetly watched from time to time by the young woman.

Ilius and Sardus soon entered the house through its narrow door and sat around the fire, with Sardus exchanging kisses with the young woman. The four villagers then served themselves some stew and started eating supper, mostly ignoring Heracles while discussing in their local language. That let the boy plenty of time to reflect on his grim situation. Instead of the life of honors and adulation Glen and Melina had told him repeatedly about, he was now lost in a primitive time period, alone and without any resources save his own wits. The worst part was that this had never been his own choice: he had been conceived artificially and raised by surrogate parents with dreams of grandeur for something he still didn’t clearly understand. With the time shuttle now at the bottom of the sea, he was trapped for good in the past. The only hope left to him was if he could somehow find his way to Mount Olympus in Greece, where there was a

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hidden base according to Glen and Melina. Still tired by his long swimming session and with no artificial light used by the villagers except for their fire, Heracles soon fell asleep on the dirt floor as darkness fell.

He was roughly awakened at dawn by Sardus, who led him outside and made him understand by sign language that he was to collect dead wood around the village and bring it back to fuel their fire. Sardus then left him to his task, with another boy assigned to follow Heracles around. There was a distinct lack of warmth from the villagers as Heracles proceeded with his work during the day and food and water was brought to him nearly as an afterthought. Heracles got a bad feeling from all this but, at the age of eight, his limited experience of life had ill-prepared him for such a situation and he basically did as he was indicated to do. Another task he was given was to go with three women collect water in clay jars from a small spring a few hundred meters from the village. The ease with which he carried on his shoulders two heavy jars filled to the brim seemed to astound the women, who chatted animatedly with the village chief on their return, pointing repeatedly at Heracles. The village chief simply nodded in apparent satisfaction and then let the women use the boy for more physical tasks around the village. Heracles was dead tired and not a little hungry when he was finally allowed to go to sleep in Ilius’ house shortly before sunset.

Heracles was brutally awakened at dawn by two men who jumped on him and tied his hands in his back with a rough rope despite his surprised protests. He looked at the old woman of the house, pleading with his eyes for help as he was being led outside, but she averted his eyes and turned her head away. Both bitter and frightened, Heracles was pushed towards a group of three men standing on the beach and who were not from the village. They were armed with knives and swords and there was no pity or sympathy in their eyes as one of them inspected Heracles roughly before discussing with the village chief, who was standing nearby with Ilius. After what sounded like a harsh banter, the man who had inspected Heracles handed some small silver and gold objects to the village chief, then stripped the boy of his short chiton and leather sandals, leaving him completely naked. The clothes were thrown to Ilius, who greedily grabbed them, along with a few of the silver pieces given to the village chief. The two villagers then turned around and left Heracles in the hands of the three armed men, who roughly pushed him along a trail that led away from the village. Heracles

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understood with disgust and horror that he had just been sold like a vulgar object by the villagers to the armed men. He had learned about that revolting concept called slavery, which was supposedly common in the dark ages of humanity, but living it was a lot worse than simply reading about it. The trail eventually crossed what could nearly be called a dirt road. A small, four-wheeled chariot pulled by two mules and watched over by another armed man waited by the entrance of the trail. The chariot had a wooden cage in its back. As the men pushed Heracles towards the back of the chariot, the boy saw with horror that there were already two persons in the cage, a young girl and a woman, both totally naked. The door of the cage was unlocked with a primitive key and Heracles was pushed inside. Feeling more desperate than ever, the boy eyed his two companions of misfortune as the cage was locked again and the men sat in the chariot before urging their two mules southward along the dirt road. The young girl was approximately twelve years old and had black hair and the same kind of brown skin as he had. She was skinny and her body bore the marks of a recent beating but her pretty face still showed grim resolve. The woman was around twenty years old and was very pretty and feminine, with large and firm breasts, but her face reflected only helpless despair. The young girl spoke to him first in the local language, her broken and hesitant words showing that this was not her native language. When Heracles shrugged in incomprehension she switched to Greek, to the boy’s delight.

“Do you speak Greek, by chance?”

“Yes, I do! Are you Greek?”

“I am a Spartan.” answered proudly the girl, her tone defiant as she glanced at her captors. “Nobody will ever break me. And you, where are you from?” That made Heracles hesitate: he could not simply tell her that he was from the future, as she would probably laugh at him in disbelief.

“Uh, I’m from Olympus. My name is Heracles.”

“And I’m Tera. How did they catch you?”

Heracles lowered his head as bad souvenirs came back to his mind.

“My ship sank near the coast and my parents drowned. I was saved by fishermen but they just sold me off as if I was a mere object.” Tera nodded once, sympathy showing on her face.

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“My own ship also sank after being attacked by pirates as we were heading

towards Massilia10, where we were hoping to start a new life. My own parents were killed and me and Lydia, who is an Illyrian, were the only ones spared and then sold to these slavers.”

“And what will happen to us next, Tera?” asked Heracles, dread in his voice. Some despair then showed up through the façade of defiance of the girl.

“We are heading towards Rome, where we will be sold to the highest bidder. From then on, our future will be in the hands of others and we will be treated like mere possessions.”

Touched by her despair and himself fearful of what was to come, Heracles moved to sit beside the girl and passed one arm around her shoulders. Tera was a good fifteen centimeters shorter than him and she felt tiny to Heracles. He did appreciate her warmth in the early autumn morning air. She in turn hugged him and looked up at him.

“We have more chances to face this together than alone, Heracles. What do you think?”

“You are right, I believe. But what can we do?”

“We could try to escape when we have a chance. Maybe we could then find a ship which could take us back to Greece.”

“If we could do that, where in Greece would you like to go? Sparta?” Bitterness showed on her face as she shook her head twice.

“I can’t! My parents had to flee Sparta because of bad debts. If I go back there, I will be sold into slavery again in order to help pay my parents’ debts.” Heracles closed his eyes, crushed by the cruelty of this world. Tears were next and he cried shamelessly, watched by Tera. She searched for his hand and grabbed it.

“You are big and strong, Heracles, like your hero namesake. You shouldn’t lose courage so easily. How old are you?”

“Eight!”

His subdued answer made Tera open her mouth in surprise.

“Only eight? And I thought that you were at least twelve.”

“And you?” said Heracles, strangling out his sobs.

“I am twelve. Heracles, we should try to escape before we arrive in Rome. Once there, it will become much more difficult to do so and we could also be separated.”

10 Massilia: Name of Greek city-colony which became modern day Marseilles

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The chariot suddenly came to a halt and three of the armed men jumped out of it, going to the back of the cage. The door of the cage was then unlocked and a man entered it, grabbing roughly Tera by an arm and pulling her out. The door was locked again before Heracles could react and Tera was dragged screaming and kicking towards the trees. One of the men made a mean smile at Heracles as the boy came out of his paralyzing fear and threw himself at the door, trying to shake it open.

“You thought that we couldn’t speak Greek, hey? Your girlfriend will now get a good lesson that will teach her how to behave and obey.”

“LET HER GO, YOU COWARDLY BASTARD!” raged Heracles, putting all his strength in trying to break the door of the cage open. The cage was however a sturdy one, reinforced with iron loops, and it resisted his efforts, even though some of the wooden bars started to break. The slaver didn’t notice that, being already on his way to join his two comrades. Heracles could only watch and listen with helpless rage as the three men gang-raped and beat up Tera. The girl was thrown back in the cage, soiled and bloodied, fifteen minutes later. Heracles immediately hugged protectively the crying girl and shot a murderous look at the chief slaver.

“You will pay for this!”

The man suddenly held his head with both hands and grimaced with intense pain. Heracles however shifted his attention to Tera and the man was left wondering what had happened as his headache disappeared as quickly as it had come. Putting it on the account of the intense sun beating on his head, he joined the other men on the chariot, which resumed its slow trip towards Rome.

They made a brief stop at noon for lunch by the side of the road. The three prisoners were put into leg irons chained together and were permitted to get out of their cage in order to relieve themselves in the woods. They were then given some water but no food but could at least benefit from the shade of the trees for a short while. Lydia, who spoke no Greek, stayed silent all the while, the image of resigned prostration. Tera, whom Heracles comforted as well as he could without showing off his mental powers, had by now regained some of her initial combativeness, showing a resilience Heracles could only admire. The slavers, who kept food only for themselves, ate a frugal meal of cheese and bread and forced their prisoners back in the cage after twenty minutes. The chariot then rolled until sunset, crossing at increasing frequency other travelers and chariots as they got closer to Rome. The road also got progressively better and larger

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and became paved as they arrived in view of Rome. When they stopped again, this time for the night, Heracles debated if he should take that opportunity to try to escape with Tera but thought better of it. He could maybe dispose of one or two of the men but he and Tera would then probably be killed by the surviving slavers. They were also still chained together and, as strong as he knew he was, he still wasn’t strong enough to break their chain, which had been wrapped around a tree so that they couldn’t run away during the night. At least they were given some bread to eat for supper, which helped calm some of Heracles’ hunger pains. While the slavers slept rolled into wool blankets besides their campfire, Heracles, Tera and Lydia had to huddle close together on the long grass, still naked. The night became quite fresh and they quickly started shivering, making the three of them press together to share body heat, with Tera in the middle. Heracles couldn’t help caress her hair while looking into her eyes and smiling, to which she responded by a smile and by putting an arm around him. Next, Heracles applied gently his hands in succession on the spots where she sported bruises, slowly healing them through his mind the way he had been taught to do like all the children of the World Council and of Edon. With the sources of her pain soothing down one after the other, Tera sighed with relief and glued herself even closer to Heracles, who soon experienced an involuntary erection that pressed against Tera’s belly. She looked down and then smiled to him.

“You’ve got a big one…for a big boy.”

She then giggled and hugged him tight. They stayed as quiet as they could in order not to attract the attention of the slavers but that didn’t save Lydia from a late night visit by one of the men, who raped her right beside the two children. Tera and Heracles could only close their eyes and try to ignore the muffled sobs of Lydia, who did her best not to traumatize the children by screaming or crying loudly while the man was on top of her. Thankfully, none of the slavers decided to have fun with Tera that night, probably deciding that she should be kept in the best shape possible in order to draw the best price.

08:46 (Italy Time)

Thursday, September 15, 420 B.C.E.

Slave market, Rome

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The fat trader had the woman and two children lined up, still naked and dirty from their trip, in front of him and then inspected them one by one. His trained eyes had however already caught on Heracles as a particularly worthy prize but he kept an impassive face so that the four brutes who had brought the new merchandise would not know how interested he was by the boy. The woman was first of the lot to be inspected by him. He checked her teeth, then fondled her breasts.

“Firm chest, nice shapes: she will make a fine nurse or party girl for a few years.” Tera was next, her face a mask of defiance. The trader grabbed her jaw and forced her to look up at him, something that made the boy next to her tense up as if to jump on the trader, who made a mean grin.

“Oh oh! A couple of young lovers, or are they brother and sister?”

“They were caught separately, sir.” answered the head brute. “The boy grew protective of her. Both are Greek and don’t speak Latin. The boy is very strong and…”

“I will be the judge of that.” cut firmly the trader, who then looked back down at the girl. “She looks like a real troublemaker to me. She’s also skinny. I suppose that you already had your fun with her?”

The silence from the brutes was enough of an answer for the trader, who stepped in front of Heracles and touched the muscles in his arms and legs, then checked his teeth. The trader had to secretly admit that this boy was about the healthiest slave he had ever seen and was powerfully built for a mere child. He looked coldly at the head brute, dropping his price in a take-it-or-leave-it tone.

“I will give you 110 bronze As for the lot: thirty for the woman; ten for the girl and seventy for the boy. The girl would have brought an additional twenty As if she would have been still a virgin.”

“Only 110 As?” exploded the head brute, prompting the four huge men standing behind the trader in giving him mean, warning looks. “The boy alone is worth more than that.”

The trader’s answer was to turn around and walk away, followed by his bodyguards. The head slaver panicked at possibly losing the chance to sell to the best-known trader of slaves in Rome and shouted at him.

“Wait! How about 150 As? Uh, 140 As!”

The trader slowed down and looked briefly behind him.

“I’ll give 120 and not an As more!”

“Deal!”

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The trader turned around again and went to the head slaver while taking a heavy leather bag from one of his bodyguards. He then counted 120 big bronze coins in the hands of the slaver, who quickly left with the money and his three partners. The trader next called his head foreman and pointed his three new slaves to him.

“Rufus, have these three cleaned up and fed and prepare them for tomorrow’s auction. Keep the boy and girl together for the moment. By the way, they speak Greek.”

“It will be done, sir.” replied the tall, thin man, who then had an assistant take away the woman. The head foreman led himself the two children to one of the baths of the establishment, where a middle-aged woman was officiating.

“Clara, give a good scrub to those two. I will pick them up afterwards. They speak Greek.”

Clara eyed with interest Heracles while smiling.

“Now that’s what I call a nice-looking boy.” she said in Greek. “It’s a good thing that you are not in Athens: one of those buggers would have slammed you in the ass pretty quick.”

She then laughed loudly and signaled Heracles to approach her. Taking a wet sponge from a basin full of water, she then started scrubbing down the boy, working quickly and efficiently. Clara next had Heracles dunk his head in a barrel full of water and scrubbed vigorously his hair with her fingers. Sending him to soak in a large stone bath full of warm water, the cleaning lady next washed up Tera, showing gentleness with her: Clara was after all a slave herself and had gone through the same ordeal as Tera when she was young. The fact that Caius the slave trader had enough good commercial sense to treat his merchandise with care had allowed Clara to have a tolerable life up to now. Washing the girl’s hair took a while, though, as Clara had to undo her braids, which were full of dirt and dried salt from seawater. Tera finally ended up in the bath with Heracles, dipping herself up to the neck in the warm water with a sigh of relief.

“At least this part is not too bad.”

“Yeah, until we are sold to some man who will abuse you at will.” replied Heracles in a bitter tone. Clara, who was changing the water in her basin, pointed a warning finger at him.

“Boy, you should be careful about what you say and on what tone you say it from now on. Whoever will own you will have the power of life or death over you and could flog you at will. A slave has no rights in Rome. You can just hope for a kind master.”

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“I was not born to be someone’s object!” raged Heracles. He then realized with bitterness that his own people of the World Council had done just that to him: he had been conceived via In Vitro fertilization and from carefully selected and manipulated DNA with the specific goal of preparing him to go to the past as the Greek hero Hercules. That the project had been hastily cancelled two years ago did little to lessen the fact that his people had used him from the very start of his life. Heracles then retreated in a brooding silence. Tera swam to him and hugged him, looking gravely into his eyes.

“Heracles, I’m scared.”

“Me too!” said Heracles, a lump forming in his throat. “But I will do my best to protect you, Tera.”

The Spartan girl pressed her head against his chest, a tear appearing at the corner of one eye.

“If we can stay together, then we will be alright.”

Clara, despite being hardened by years of slavery, couldn’t help shed a tear too on hearing that.

10:53 (Italy Time)

Friday, September 16, 420 B.C.E.

Slave market, Rome

Flavius Aurelius Quintus never let his majordomo or other servant choose a slave for him when he needed to buy one. The servants of a house, down to the lowest slave, reflected on that house and Flavius Aurelius was too conscious of his rank to let anything detract on his name or that of his family. That was also one of the reasons why he treated his slaves well by local standards: happy slaves made for a better atmosphere in the house. It also made them more productive and they lived longer, something not negligible in view of the prices slaves went for these days. Another factor that Flavius was not about to admit about why he treated his slaves well was that his wife Milvia wouldn’t let anyone treat them badly. Years ago, as Flavius was leading an army in the field against the Etruscans, his wife and her suite had been ambushed by raiders while on the way to join him, with Milvia being captured by the Etruscans. Promised to slavery, she had been saved in extremis by a detachment of Roman cavalry as she was being led away naked and in chains. Milvia had built an empathy with her slaves ever since, even making a habit of enfranchising her slaves after a few years of

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good services. That was a potentially expensive habit but, to Milvia’s credit, the enfranchised slaves tended to stay on in the service of the family and to serve well until old age. Flavius’ two bodyguards were in fact enfranchised slaves in which he had total confidence.

There was quite a crowd this morning in the slave market of the Forum, the main market area of Rome situated near the Capitol and the Palatinus. Most of the people were just onlookers who would enjoy the often juicy exchanges between the traders and the prospective customers and also have a peek at the naked girls and women being sold off. There would even be some old widows too poor to buy slaves who would come admire the young men on sale. While obviously not an old widow or a voyeur, Flavius was after a young and strong male slave who could provide a solid ten or twenty years of work and also produce many strong slaves in the future. That last goal of course implied having lots of young, pretty and healthy girls to help produce those slaves, so Flavius was also in the market for a few girls as well. One of his bodyguards had slung across his torso a leather pouch with enough gold ingots and bronze coins to buy such slaves.

Flavius approached the selling platform as a young woman was just being given away to a customer who had disbursed the fair sum of sixty bronze As for her. Looking at the naked slave, Flavius judged that, while beautiful and in her early twenties, she was already getting too old for what he wanted: slaves tended to live short lives and child rearing was hard on female slaves. What he wanted were girls in their early teens, who would have the most years available to have many babies. Really young ones would also have the benefit of being unable yet to become pregnant from the morons who had captured them and, most likely, raped them. Flavius certainly didn’t want to get an unwanted surprise of low bloodline in a few months. His attention was then drawn as the slave trader who was currently monopolizing the platform announced that it was time for the sale of teenagers and children. A teenage girl was then brought on the platform. She was maybe fourteen years old, was extremely pretty and had long blond hair. The trader started shouting his arguments as the naked girl was made to slowly turn around to show herself to the crowd.

“We have here a prime slave girl from Celtic stock, tall, strong and beautiful. The bidding will start at fifty bronze As.”

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“Sixty!” immediately shouted a man wearing a rich toga. Another man then raised the ante to 65, with the first replying by going to 70 As. Flavius then got in the game and bid 80 As, something that made the two other bidders hesitate. It was already a lot of money but that Celtic girl was truly of prime stock and would be about perfect for Flavius’ needs.

“I give 85 As!” said the man in the toga.

“I raise to 95!” replied Flavius, making it sound clearly that he was ready to go much higher yet if need be. The other man gave up in disgust and the pleased trader conceded the sale to Flavius, bringing down the girl along with an assistant who collected the money from Flavius and quickly recorded the sale with him. The patrician took a short, sleeveless tunic, or stola, from a bag carried by one of his bodyguards and put it on the Celtic girl, who was actually as tall as him despite her young age. A rope was then passed around the girl’s waist, its end held by a bodyguard: it was a much less humiliating way to secure a slave in public than chaining them by the neck, as was the normal custom.

A second young girl was then brought up on the platform but it quickly became apparent to Flavius and the others in the crowd that something was happening behind the platform: the girl was being forcibly dragged up the stairs while she kept looking down and behind the platform, where there seemed to be some kind of disturbance. Flavius, who spoke Greek like many Roman nobles, heard a boy shout with despair in his voice.

“LET ME GO! I MUST STAY WITH HER! LET ME GO, I TELL YOU!” There was a noise of metal clanking on the pavement behind the platform and a naked boy then ran up the stairs, closely pursued by two of the trader’s henchmen. The man who had dragged the girl up on the platform let go his hold on her and faced the boy rushing him, his club held high. That proved to be a mistake for him, as the girl then kicked him in the testicles from behind, making him collapse to his knees with a grunt of pain. The boy then pushed him out of the way with apparent ease and posted himself resolutely in front of the girl, facing the two incoming goons. Flavius, as a veteran of many military battles, couldn’t help admire the courage of the big boy and his fidelity to the girl, who was also proving to be quite a feisty type and who had grabbed the club from the man she had downed. Because of the narrowness of the stairs of the platform, the goons had to attack one behind the other, rushing at the boy with their big, bare

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hands. The boy then astounded everybody present by delivering a single, lightning-quick right hook that connected with the first goon’s jaw with a sharp crack and knocked the man out cold. The second goon watched with disbelief his comrade crumple down in a heap and earned an uppercut under the jaw for his hesitation. The impact actually made his feet lift from the platform and he fell backward down the stairs, also knocked out. The boy then grabbed quickly the club presented to him by the girl. Backing to a corner of the platform and shielding the girl with his body, the boy held the club high and looked at the trader with fierce eyes.

“NOBODY WILL TAKE TERA AWAY FROM ME!”

“CALL THE GUARDS!” shouted the trader, near panic. That was when Flavius decided to intervene and shouted as loudly as he could.

“NOBODY TOUCHES THAT BOY AND GIRL! I WILL TAKE BOTH FOR 250 BRONZE AS!”

His shout brought silence around the platform and both the children and the slave trader looked down at Flavius. To his credit, the trader recovered his composure quickly and shouted around him.

“I HAVE 250 AS FOR THIS SPECIAL PAIR! WHO WILL RAISE THIS BID?”

“MAKE IT 280 AS!” quickly shouted the man in the toga, who now wanted badly that incredibly strong boy, like many in the crowd. Flavius Aurelius eventually nailed the deal with a bid of 340 As, to the satisfaction of the trader, who had not hoped for so much at first from the separate sale of the boy and girl. Going in person with one bodyguard on the platform, Flavius paid the trader and got his certificate, then cautiously approached the boy, who was still shielding the girl but had lowered his club. Flavius’ own bodyguard had drawn his short sword and stood ready to protect him in case the boy attacked again. The patrician presented his empty hands to the boy and spoke calmly to him in Greek.

“Calm down boy and drop the club. You won’t be separated from your friend, I swear: I bought both of you. I am Flavius Aurelius Quintus, a senator of Rome.” The boy eyed him carefully, creating a funny feeling inside Flavius’ head for a moment, then put down the club and spoke back.

“I’m Heracles, from Olympus, and my friend is Tera, from Sparta. What will happen to us now?”

“I will bring you to my house, where you will be fed and well-treated. In exchange, I will expect good, honest work from you.”

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The boy and the girl exchanged a brief look before the boy nodded to Flavius.

“We will follow you peacefully, sir.”

“That’s good. Otherwise, the city’s archers would have been obliged to shoot you, which would have been a true pity.”

The two children snapped their heads around and only then saw the dozen Roman archers standing ready around the market.

“You are a brave boy and, as a soldier, I admire that. You however have to accept your present fate. Come with me.”

To Flavius’ relief the boy followed him quietly. The senator inspected quickly the man who had been knocked out first by Heracles: a big bruise on his chin was already turning blue and his jaw seemed to have been broken. That a mere boy of maybe twelve could do this was incredible. The two men and two children climbed down from the platform and joined up with Flavius’ second bodyguard and the Celtic girl. Short tunics were then given to the two Greek children. Tying up at the waist his new acquisitions with the same rope as the Celtic girl, Flavius and his bodyguards then proceeded in single file back to the palatial house of the Aurelius family.

Once inside the central court of the house and with the gates closed and under guard, the rope tying together the three slaves was removed and the teenagers brought to the servants’ quarters while Flavius went to see his wife to tell her about his new acquisitions. Heracles, somehow expecting that they would be chained or put in isolated cells, was greatly relieved to see that the head servant, a Greek slave with apparently good education, simply made them sit on a stone bench in the servants’ kitchen and had them served bread and cheese. Armed with a tablet and a piece of chalk the head slave, who was actually the majordomo of the house and was named Praxis, took a stool and sat facing Heracles.

“Alright, boy, tell me your name, place of birth, your age, the name of your parents and how you ended up in Rome.”

Heracles had to think for a second about that, as he could obviously not tell the simple truth, nor could he pretend to be THE hero Heracles without starting something he could not control afterwards. His young mind, while extremely well educated by the time period’s standards, didn’t have however the experience and deviousness an adult would have. He thus made it up the best he could.

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“My name is Heracles and I’m from Olympus, in Northern Greece. I am eight years old and…”

“Wait!” Cut off the stunned majordomo. “You are only eight? But you are big enough to be twelve or more.”

Heracles smiled and shrugged.

“That’s the way I am, I guess. My parents drowned when our ship sank two days ago off the coast. Fishermen picked me up but sold me the day later to slavers.” Praxis nodded, passing over the fact that Heracles had not given the names of his parents: it wasn’t really important now since they were dead.

“Did you get an education? Do you know how to read, write or count?”

“I can read and write Greek and I know basic mathematics, geography, history and physics.”

Praxis looked up sharply from his tablet: this was a lot more than what he expected. The word ‘physics’ was however unfamiliar to him.

“Physics? What’s that?”

Caught short, Heracles just blurted out the simplest explanation he could think of.

“Uh, that’s the science that explain the laws of nature, how things are made, how they behave and so on.”

“Oh, I see: cosmology. Did you study the great historian Herodotus?”

“Uh, yes, a little bit.” answered Heracles, who had followed mnemotronic sessions on Greek history, sociology, arts and mythology while being educated by the World Council. He however did not tell Praxis that his World Council teacher on Greek history had declared to him that Herodotus was basically full of shit. Praxis then handed him the chalkboard and chalk.

“Here! Write down your name in Greek, then add five and nine together.” Heracles did so quickly and without mistakes, making Praxis smile with satisfaction.

“Excellent! You are indeed a well-educated boy and you seem to be in perfect health. Let’s see how your girlfriend fares.”

Letting Heracles continue to eat, Praxis shifted his stool to be in front of Tera, who eyed him with suspicion.

“Are you Athenian?”

“No, I am from Megara. Let me guess: you are from Sparta. You are arrogant enough to be a Spartan.”

Tera grinned with malice and bit on her bread, then spoke while chewing.

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“Yes, I am Spartan and proud to be. My name is Tera; I’m twelve years old and my parents were killed two weeks ago when our ship was attacked by pirates while on its way to Massilia. I can’t read, write or count but I can catch hares with my bare hands and shoot a bow.”

Sighing with exasperation, Praxis pointed a warning index at Tera.

“Listen to me well, young girl! What you are now is a slave, no more. The master is to be called ‘Dominus’ inside this house and his wife is to be called ‘Lady Milvia’ or ‘Domina’. You are to show the proper respect to the master, his family and his guests at all times. You are especially to be careful not to be disrespectful to him in front of guests or you will earn a flogging, a few days in a cell without food or both. Count yourself lucky that your master is Flavius Aurelius Quintus, as he is one of the kindest masters you could find in Rome, but don’t push his patience.”

He then shifted position again, sitting in front of the Celtic girl, who had not said a word yet. He tried questioning her in Latin, Greek and Thracian but couldn’t get through to her. Heracles then spoke up after looking at the Celt.

“The trader said that she was Celtic, Praxis. I also think that her name is Boecia.”

“Thanks, boy! Damn, we don’t have anybody in the house who speaks Celtic.”

“They have hundreds of various dialects anyway, Praxis. I guess that she will have to learn Latin, like me and Tera.”

Praxis looked keenly at Heracles.

“You are decidedly quite bright, boy. Using you solely for physical tasks will be a waste. Talking of tasks, you will now start earning the money the master spent on you. Follow me!”

Heracles had to take Boecia’s hand and make signs to her while reading her mind to make her understand that they were needed to work. The tall blonde, who stood at 165 centimeters like Heracles, gave him a resigned smile and followed. Praxis led the three of them to a kind of large, empty stone tub sitting in a corner of the kitchen. He then pointed at the house’s water well, situated in the central courtyard.

“This tub is used to wash the kitchen’s pots and utensils. Servants already drained away the old, dirty water. You will use the buckets here and fill them at the well, then transfer the water into that tub. Get to work!”

The three youngsters each grabbed two wooden buckets and went to the water well, which had a hand crank to lower a rope with a hook to the water below. The three of

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them quickly decided on a routine, with Boecia and Tera filling and winching up the buckets of water and with Heracles carrying the full buckets to the tub in the kitchen and emptying them. The heavy buckets, weighing each about twenty kilos when full, proved no big burden for Heracles, who could easily carry four times that load. He was on his third round trip when he noticed a richly dressed Roman woman in her late thirties who was watching him from one corner of the courtyard. He however went on with his work and didn’t stare at her. She was gone out of sight by the time he was on his fifth trip.

Praxis put them successively through a variety of jobs during the afternoon, gradually shifting Tera, then Boecia to kitchen or laundry duties while keeping Heracles for the truly physical work. The other slaves of the household quickly marveled at his strength, with one Greek man joking that he must be the actual hero Heracles. The boy gave him a funny look but didn’t say a word then. The three children were finally reunited for supper, when they sat in the servants’ kitchen to eat with the other slaves of the household. The two girls looked quite tired when Heracles sat beside them at one of the two tables after getting his bowl of stew and cup of water. Tera looked up and down at her friend, frowning and making Heracles look back at her.

“What?”

“How come you don’t look tired? Did you take a break or what?”

“Did I take a break? Tera! Didn’t you see me hauling those ceramic roof tiles up the stairs?”

Tera touched his chest, checking for sweat, and then sniffed his shoulder.

“But you hardly sweat at all! Are you sure that you are only eight years old? Let me see!”

She then playfully pulled up the bottom of his tunic and looked at his groin.

“I see your first body hairs starting to come out. You must be at least eleven.”

“No! I’m eight! That’s because the way I was made.”

Heracles then realized too late that he had said too much: those who could understand Greek in the room now were looking questioningly at him. Tera then pursued him on the subject.

“What do you mean, the way you were made? I may be only twelve but I know how babies are made. Do they have another way to do them in Olympus?”

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“Hey,” cut in a man from Thracia, on the northeast border of Greece, “isn’t Olympus near Mount Olympus? Maybe a god came down from his mountain and played with his mother.”

The Greeks in the room then looked with wide eyes at Heracles: in his ignorance, the Thracian’s joke had actually depicted the mythological story of the birth of the hero Heracles, who had been conceived when the almighty god Zeus had taken human shape for one night to make love to a mortal woman. Young Heracles knew that fable well, as it had been part of his mnemotronic lessons on ancient Greece. For a moment he was tempted to say that he was the legendary hero, something that could probably help him greatly in getting back to Greece and Mount Olympus. He then realized that placing the hero Heracles in Republican Rome would be wrong and could change history in ways he couldn’t even imagine. He thus lowered his head, unable to face Tera.

“Alright, I give up: I’m twelve years old.”

“I knew it!” said Tera triumphantly. The Thracian was not satisfied with that explanation, however.

“Wait a minute! Being twelve doesn’t explain your strength, boy.”

“Hey, my father was twice your size, mister.” replied Heracles. In this he was not far from the truth, as he had been told that parts of his genes had come from the strongest and biggest man in the World Council, an anomaly of a man who stood close to two meters tall and weighed well past 150 kilos, with no fat. That man would actually have easily passed on as the hero Heracles but the scientists of the World Council wanted someone even stronger. So they took this man’s genes and had enhanced them further, apart from splicing them with the genes from one of the women of the World Council with the strongest psionic abilities. One of the Greek slaves then came unknowingly to his help.

“If his father was anything like the famed Milon of Crotone11, then I could see why he could be so big and strong for his age.”

Approving comments went around the kitchen and Heracles was finally able to eat his stew in peace. He didn’t take notice when Praxis, who had been eating at the other table, got up and left the kitchen. Seeing his big appetite, the graying woman who was the servants’ cook poured what was left of the pot of stew in Heracles’ bowl as he was spooning the last of his initial portion. Heracles returned her smiled and attacked his

11 Milon of Crotone: Greek athlete of the Sixth century B.C.E. famous for his immense strength and size.

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stew with gusto. He suddenly realized that Boecia was looking with envy at his bowl and was obviously still hungry. Her problem was that the cook had given her a woman’s portion but Boecia was actually taller than half of the men present. Without hesitation Heracles poured half of his stew in her bowl, then put two spoonsful in Tera’s bowl. His generosity drew a pleased nod from the cook and big smiles from the two girls, plus a kiss on the cheek from Tera that made him redden in embarrassment. That in turn made the adult slaves laugh.

After the supper, Praxis had the three young new slaves brought to a quiet storeroom where an old slave in his late forties was waiting with small terracotta figures, chalkboards and pieces of chalk. The old man then spent over an hour until sunset to start teaching them the rudiments of Latin. By the end of the lesson, servants around the big house were lighting torches around the building. One female Greek servant showed up to pick up the three youngsters and brought them down to a small room used by female slaves to wash. Heracles had to take off his tunic, like the two girls, but was then surprised to see the female servant inspect his groin closely, then doing the same with the girls but also making those two open their legs so she could look from up close. The intrigued boy was then told to wash, using a sponge and a basin of water. To his surprise a third young girl joined them and stripped before also washing herself. She was an exotic beauty of about thirteen with still tiny breasts, curly black hair and light brown skin. While the newcomer was still washing, the female servant led by the hand both Heracles and Boecia, still naked and with their tunics over one arm, to a small room poorly illuminated by a single torch and where four large sheepskins had been laid side by side on the tile floor. There was also a low table in a corner with a washbasin, a jar of water and a pile of towels. The servant made signs to Boecia that Heracles thought to be obscene, then faced the boy.

“Please listen to me carefully, Heracles. You may be still quite young for this and probably never slept with a girl before but one of the reasons the master bought you was to have a strong young man who would help produce many strong slaves for his household. You are just old enough now to start coupling with girls and the master wants you to start now, to maximize the chances that the girls you sleep with will become pregnant quickly.”

Heracles was left speechless for a moment, stunned and scandalized.

“But, but I’m just a boy and forcing those girls to sleep with me isn’t fair.”

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A sad smile came to the servant’s face.

“Young Heracles, there is nothing fair in the life of a slave. One can only live it with as little pain and discomfort as possible. Besides, you and the girls have no choice: you either do as told or you will be punished. If you need help to know how to do such things, I am ready to explain to you the basics.”

Heracles looked down sadly at Boecia, who had laid down on one of the sheepskins and was waiting for him.

“Will they also be punished if I refuse to do this?”

“Possibly.”

“If I do it tonight, what after that?”

“This will actually become your room and that of the three girls you will keep around you. You are expected to couple with each of them every night, until they become pregnant. Then, other girls will be provided.”

The sheer inhumanity of it all then overwhelmed Heracles, who couldn’t help his eyes from filling with tears. The servant, moved by his reaction, kissed him gently on his forehead.

“You have a heart of gold, young Heracles. Many men would simply think of this as a great favor and not hesitate to use those girls for their pleasure, without a single thought for them.”

Heracles had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could speak.

“Then I ask one favor from you: teach me how to do it in a way that will please my friends the most. I don’t want to make this a selfish act.” The servant gave him a big smile, her eyes sparkling, and caressed his hair.

“Heracles, know that I was a courtesan before being enslaved. I’m going to make an expert lover out of you.”

09:48 (Italy Time)

Wednesday, September 21, 420 B.C.E.

Fregenae, Roman coastal outpost

Nineteen kilometers west of Rome

“Now, what is this, by Jupiter?” exclaimed one of the two Roman soldiers standing guard on the road leading to Rome, making the rest of their squad get up from their hiding place in the woods and come to their side to see. The armies of the Roman

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Republic were still a far cry from what the legions of Imperial Rome would look like and they appeared more than anything else like Greek hoplites, with round or oval shields, bronze helmets and breastplates. What they were now seeing approaching their border post near the Roman town of Fregenae was something the soldiers had never seen before: a female warrior on horseback. One thing was certain, though: she was no Etruscan. She wore blue trousers with brightly colored geometrical patterns, a pair of soft leather shoes, a red long-sleeved tunic, an iron scale-mail coat of armor, scale-mail leg protectors and a conical bronze helmet with cheek and neck guards which only partially hid her black shoulder-length hair. An oval shield covered with iron scales and a lance were hooked to the left side of her horse, a big and powerful brown beast, while the woman wore a sword across her back, a quiver filled with a bow and dozens of arrows, at least two daggers and, finally, a war axe. The horse itself wore pectoral and head iron scale armor.

“Look at all that equipment! She must be rich.” exclaimed one of the soldiers.

“Or she won a lot of loot.” replied the commander of the squad. “I am surprised that those Etruscans let her pass without stripping her of her equipment.”

“Maybe they tried and she killed them all.” suggested happily one soldier, making the squad commander smile.

“That would be just fine with me. Deploy across the road but don’t threaten her yet: I want to speak to her.”

The nine soldiers formed a line across the narrow road, with the squad leader in the center, as the woman approached at a trot. Apparently not intimidated one bit by the Roman soldiers, the stranger kept her horse at a trot until she stopped it ten paces short of them. She looked at them impassively for a moment, letting them realize how tall she was, then raised one hand in salute and spoke in excellent Latin.

“I come in peace, Romans. There is no need for you to be afraid.” The Romans looked at each other in surprise and then burst out in laughter.

“Us, afraid of you? You must be joking, woman.” replied the squad leader. “You do have a lot of gall; I will give you that. Who are you and what is your business?”

“I am Nauca of Sarmatia. I am on a personal quest.”

“What kind of quest?”

“Greek friends of mine were due two months ago by ship in Massilia, but their ship never made it to port. I am looking for them, in case they were shipwrecked along

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this coast. You wouldn’t have seen a Greek family of three, all very tall, including a young but strong boy, by chance?”

“We have not seen such a family, woman. Shipwrecks are however frequent along these coasts. You would be better to ask the fishermen who live in the various villages of the coast.”

“A sensible proposition, Roman. Now, I suppose that there is a toll to pay to enter Roman territory?”

The squad leader nodded his head once: collecting entry taxes was effectively one of his duties. The female warrior may have looked fierce but she was also quick on the uptake and apparently reasonable.

“The toll is one bronze coin per person, plus another one per horse or work animal.”

The woman searched for a moment in a belt purse, extracting two coins from it, then threw them at the squad leader, who caught them quickly.

“Thank you, stranger. You may pass. Uh, could you tell me where Sarmatia is?” The woman smiled and looked at him while spurring her horse past the Roman soldiers.

“Sarmatia is east of Scythia, Roman. Ask the Persians about us: we showed them the way out the last and only time they tried invading us.”

“East of Scythia?” said to himself the squad leader as the woman rode away towards Rome. “That’s a long way from here.”

Nancy was satisfied that the Romans had proved manageable…this time. She already had to bash the heads of three Etruscans soldiers bent on having fun with her since she had started on her land search mission three days ago. She was of course not alone on this trek down the west coast of Italy: the research ship BABYLON was flying high above her under cloak, controlling the many reconnaissance probes accompanying her and the eight other Time Patrol field agents sweeping northward in pairs under various disguises. Two reconnaissance probes actually flanked her, flying too high to be seen but able to sweep and scan in detail a path five kilometers wide on each side of the road she was following. The pictures from the probes were in turn relayed to the BABYLON and processed. If anything worthwhile showed up, a sensor operator on the research ship would warn her by radio.

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Nancy got such a call half an hour later, shortly after she had stopped for a minute at a poor family’s hut near the road to ask them if they had seen the three persons she was looking for.

“Nancy, this is Xinia. There is a small fishermen’s village 800 meters further ahead. You will see a small trail connect with the right side of the road. The village is 500 meters down the trail, on a sandy beach.”

“Thanks, Xinia. It will be my next stop.”

Nancy then urged Pegasus to a gallop, since there was nothing and nobody else along the road in the interval. The robotic horse could have made it all the way to Rome at a gallop without slowing down once but thoroughness was important in this mission, not speed. Once at the opening of the trail, Nancy made Pegasus follow it at a trot while she bent forward to avoid the trees’ low branches. She soon emerged in the open just behind a tiny village of poor huts lined along a sandy beach. The few women and children outside the huts froze on seeing her, then ran to their huts to hide. Nancy could perfectly understand their reaction: the appearance of a heavily armed warrior in such a place normally meant big trouble for the villagers. Dismounting from her horse, Nancy then walked to the biggest house of the lot, which still wasn’t much by any standards.

“HELLO IN THERE! I COME IN PEACE: THERE IS NO NEED FOR YOU TO BE AFRAID.” she shouted in Latin. A woman’s voice answered her from the inside of the house.

“What do you want, stranger?”

Nancy then concentrated, scanning telepathically the minds inside the house as she spoke up.

“I am looking for three friends of mine who may have been shipwrecked along this coast. They were a man, a woman and a boy. All of them were tall and the boy was very strong. Did you see them?”

A mental wave of panic then came from inside the house and the woman’s voice turned decidedly nervous.

“They were not here! We saw no strangers here lately.”

Nancy’s expression hardened: it was clear to her that the woman was lying. She had panicked especially when Nancy had mentioned a strong boy. Picking up the wooden panel which acted as a door and putting it to one side of the entrance, Nancy stormed inside the house and angrily faced the woman in her thirties who had answered her.

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“You just lied to me, woman. Speak the truth or you will regret it. Where are the boy and his parents?”

The fisherman’s wife fell to her knees and tried her best to shield two small children crouched in a corner.

“Please, don’t hurt us! Two of our men picked up a big, strong boy floating on the surface of the sea over a week ago. The boy was alone and didn’t speak Latin. We sheltered him for a day, then the village chief decided to sell him to slavers the day after that.”

Fury and rage made Nancy’s blood boil.

“You sold into slavery a shipwrecked boy who had just lost his parents? Where were these slavers headed to and how long ago did they leave with the boy?”

“They were going to Rome, I believe. They left seven days ago. Please, spare us!”

Feeling telepathically that the woman had told her all that she knew, Nancy stomped out of the house and returned to her horse. Once back up on Pegasus, she called the BABYLON via her implanted radio.

“BABYLON, this is Nancy. I have important news: Heracles was picked up from the sea by fishermen from this village but was then sold to slave merchants seven days ago. Those slavers supposedly were heading for Rome. Heracles’ parents apparently did not make it out of the crash. I want an underwater search made off this village in a zone fifteen kilometers to the side. The time shuttle we were after is probably at the bottom just off the coast. Also, I want our four land search teams to converge on Rome at once and be ready by noon today to start combing the city for young Heracles. Acknowledge, over!”

“This is BABYLON, we acknowledge. How are you going to proceed yourself, over?”

“I’m going to ride to Rome. Reprogram our probes for a sweep of Rome based on a facial recognition scan of young Heracles.”

Nancy then turned Pegasus around and spurred it back along the trail towards the road. Once of the dirt road, she launched her mount on a furious gallop, not slowing down once until arriving in Rome near noon hour.

Nancy had Pegasus slow down to a trot just one kilometer short of the main western gate of Rome, which was still decades away from being called the Aurelia Gate.

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There, she was challenged at the western gate by a Roman officer commanding six soldiers. Nancy served him basically the same story than she had given the soldiers at the border, only adding that the boy she was looking for had taken a ride to Rome in a passing wagon after being saved by fishermen from drowning. She telepathically influenced the Roman officer, as he was at first quite suspicious about her and was ready to call her a spy for a possible invasion army of barbarians. Finally admitted through the city gate, Nancy asked for directions to the slave market from passersby and then rode along the busy streets towards the Forum Romanum, the main market area of Rome. She had just crossed the Tiber River over the Aemilius Bridge and was still 400 meters away from the market when she got a discreet radio call from her implanted radio.

“Nancy, this is the BABYLON. One of our spy probes has just located young Heracles: he is accompanying a Roman woman, a young girl and a man who is possibly a bodyguard on what is probably a routine shopping trip. The group is in the Forum Romanum area. We will guide you to their location. Land teams Alpha and Charlie are already inside the city and are also being guided towards Heracles. What are your orders, over?”

Nancy mentally replied, not wanting the Romans around her, who were already intensively curious about her, to have more reasons to watch her.

“Nobody tries to get closer to Heracles than twenty meters for the moment, unless he walks directly towards one of the teams. Tell the teams to activate their anti-psionic skullcaps and to avoid detection. We will follow Heracles and find where he is kept at night before doing anything else. I myself will stay at a distance, since Heracles could distinguish my unusual aura even in a crowd. Nancy out!” She then kept riding cautiously towards the Forum Romanum, trying to spot Heracles from as far as possible. Finally emerging in the wide open spaces of the Forum Romanum, Nancy stopped besides the corner of a building and scanned the market area, which was quite crowded with shoppers and passersby walking through the sea of small shops and vending stalls. One could easily hide in such a place. She then got an updated location report from the BABYLON which permitted her to spot one aura that was distinctly stronger than the others around it. Dismounting and grabbing the reins of her horse by the left hand, Nancy started following that aura from a respectable distance. What she could not possibly appreciate, as she couldn’t see it herself, was how intense her own personal aura truly was.

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Heracles was actually enjoying his outing with Tera, Lady Milvia and Felix the bodyguard to the city market, as it finally made him venture out of the big Aurelius residence. His job for this shopping trip was simple and consisted in carrying whatever Lady Milvia bought, while Tera’s job was to carry a cup and a small sac of wine for their mistress, so she could drink from it if she got thirsty. Their group was stopped in front of a small shop while Lady Milvia was looking through an assortment of fine cloth when Heracles spotted an impossibly strong aura some distance away in the crowd. His heart skipped a beat when he saw it: even the aura of a citizen of the World Council or of the Edon wouldn’t be this intense. A truly powerful psionic was close by. Focusing his young eyes, he could distinguish part of the owner of the aura: it was a very tall woman with dark hair who was wearing a helmet and who was holding the reins of a big horse. She was maybe a hundred meters away and didn’t seem to look in any particular direction, apparently browsing around the shops of the market square while advancing slowly in his direction. Feeling real hope for the first time since his time shuttle had crashed, Heracles couldn’t restrain himself and concentrated on the woman’s head, sending a telepathic message.

“Who are you?”

He saw the woman stop abruptly and snap her head around towards him: she had heard him. The strong female voice that next echoed in his mind was the proof that she was a true psionic. It also transported him with joy.

“I am The Creator, Heracles. I will come tonight to save you.” Tera saw the way Heracles’ face lit up with joy and how he was looking in the distance. Intrigued, she looked in the same direction and only saw a dense crowd of people. She got closer to Heracles and spoke in a low voice to him.

“What’s the matter, Heracles?”

“Wait! Let me concentrate for a moment.” he replied urgently in a near whisper before resuming his telepathic conversation.

“Will you save also my three girlfriends? I love them very much.” There was a distinctive pause before he got a reply.

“Did you sleep with your girlfriends, Heracles?”

“Yes, every night. My master, Flavius Aurelius Quintus, wants me to help produce many strong future slaves.”

“Then we will take them as well. I will use diplomacy, not force, so just behave as usual until I come to get you and don’t tell anything to your…girlfriends.”

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“I will do that, Creator. Thank you for coming to save me.”

“It is the least I could do, Heracles. I will see you tonight.” An insistent shake from Tera then returned Heracles to his immediate surroundings.

“Heracles, what are you looking at?”

Felix, who was no dummy and was a very perceptive man, had also noticed the way Heracles was staring in the distance and also questioned the boy.

“Heracles, what did you just see?”

“Uh, I thought that I saw a woman wearing armor, that’s all.” Those words made Tera open her mouth wide in wonder.

“An Amazon, here?”

Felix’ curiosity was also raised by those words and he and Tera peered in the direction Heracles had been looking. Being taller than the children, Felix soon spotted something and grinned.

“You are right, boy: I see a very tall woman with armor, helmet and weapons and holding a horse. I will be damned if she is not effectively one of those legendary Amazons.”

Lady Milvia, who had completed her inspection of the cloth shop, returned to her servants and saw the way they were all looking in one direction with excitement.

“What is happening, Felix?”

“Nothing really, Lady Milvia. Heracles spotted an Amazon in the crowd. She’s about a hundred paces away and has a horse with her.”

“An Amazon?” said Milvia, suddenly excited. “I must see her from up close. Lead me to her, Felix.”

Heracles bit his lip as their group waded through the crowd towards the so-called Amazon: The Creator was not going to be pleased with him. He didn’t actually know more about her than what was taught to every child of the World Council. She was in essence a figure of legend and the most powerful psionic ever known to history. She was of course also known as a time traveler and a soldier of great prowess who had changed early history and permitted the emergence of the society of the World Council and of the Edon, thus her title of ‘The Creator’. She was reputed as well for her kindness and compassion as the ultimate protector of the remnants of non-psionic humanity, a role that had supposedly cost her her life in 2997.

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It took them a good five minutes to get to the Amazon, due to the dense crowd of shoppers. There was however a small hollow in the crowd around the woman, so intimidating was her appearance. Both Milvia and Tera looked up and down in awe at the Amazon, who was towering over all of them, including Felix. Clad in scale armor and armed to the teeth, she was truly formidable-looking. As a Spartan, a people which revered military prowess over everything else, Tera was particularly fascinated by the Amazon, who was now staring back calmly at them. On his part, Heracles couldn’t get his eyes off his potential savior. The Amazon then spoke to Milvia in excellent Latin.

“May I do something for you, noble lady?”

“Uh, I was simply curious about you, stranger. Are you one of those female warriors the Greeks call amazons?”

“My people are properly called the Sarmatians and we are the eastern neighbors of the Scythians, but we are effectively called, improperly, Amazons by the Greeks. The latter keep saying that their warriors defeated us but the reality is somewhat different.” Her mean grin made Milvia smile nervously.

“And what would a, uh, Sarmatian be doing so far west of her country?”

“We are in essence nomads, noble lady: home is where we happen to be at the time. I left my tribe years ago to wander the World and learn more while traveling. I am only passing through Rome and visiting it for a few days.”

“That is most fascinating. You would please me much if you would accept the hospitality of my house so that we could listen to the stories of your travels at suppertime.”

The Amazon thought that over for a second or two, then nodded her head.

“I accept your generous offer, noble lady. My name is Nauca.”

“And I am Milvia, wife of Senator Flavius Aurelius Quintus. We will now go back to my house.”

“Then, would you like to ride on my horse for your return trip?” Milvia looked at the big, armored beast, a bit intimidated by it, then smiled to Nauca.

“I would like that very much, Nauca. Could you help me up?”

“Certainly, Lady Milvia.”

Forming her hands into a cup and bending forward, Nauca let Milvia put one foot in it and then lifted her up until she could sit Amazon-style on the wide padded saddle. With Heracles holding Milvia’s left foot in order to secure her balance and with Felix leading

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the way while Nauca held the reins, the group proceeded out of the Forum Romanum towards the Aurelius residence.

The arrival of the group at the residence created quite a commotion, with the Greek servants in particular rushing to the central courtyard to see the Amazon. Forming nearly one-third of the household, the Greeks were also the ones most knowledgeable about the Amazons, who were their legendary enemies. Praxis kept an impassive face as he met his mistress in the courtyard, ignoring the Amazon. Milvia was helped down from the horse by Nauca and then faced her majordomo.

“Ah, Praxis, you are just in time. Have a guest room ready for Nauca and have someone take care of her horse. She will stay for the night and will entertain us at suppertime with the stories of her travels.”

“It will be done, Lady Milvia.” replied Praxis, bowing to her. He then called up a stable boy to take care of the horse and faced the tall female warrior. “Please follow me, Nauca.”

Before leaving the courtyard, Praxis glanced at Tera and Heracles, speaking to them in Greek.

“Go to the kitchens and help Artemisia prepare lunch. Tell her that there is a new guest to feed as well.”

As the two children ran to the kitchens, Praxis led Nauca, who had grabbed a pair of saddlebags from her horse, upstairs to the first floor, finally introducing her into a fair-sized room with a bed, a low table and a big wooden footlocker.

“This will be your room during your stay, Nauca. Do you have any immediate needs?”

“Yes: I would like to quickly wash in order to get rid of the dust from my travel. By the way, I do speak Greek as well as Latin.”

Praxis bowed, hiding his hostility.

“Point taken. I will send you a young servant who will guide you to the washroom and will help you scrub.”

“Thank you, Praxis.”

Quietly sighing in relief, Praxis left her and went down to the kitchens, where he pointed at Tera.

“Tera, go upstairs and lead the Amazon to the washroom. You will help her scrub and will serve her needs until suppertime.”

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“What about me?” Asked Heracles, hopeful. Praxis shook his head.

“You stay on kitchen duty.”

Tera ran upstairs, happy at having a chance to talk to a real Amazon. As she was about to enter the guestroom, she suddenly realized that maybe Nauca didn’t speak Greek. Her fear was lifted when the Amazon greeted her in perfect Greek.

“Come in, young girl: I will be ready to follow you in a minute.”

“Yes, Nauca.”

Tera stayed besides the bed while the Amazon finished removing her pieces of armor and her weapons, which she stored inside the footlocker. She stripped down to a loincloth and grabbed a change of clothes from her saddlebags before smiling to Tera.

“I’m ready, if you would be so kind to lead the way to the washroom.”

“Come with me then. By the way, I’m Tera.”

“And where are you from, Tera?” asked the Amazon while following the girl out of the room.

“Sparta! My parents and I were on our way to Massilia when pirates attacked our ship. My parents were killed and I was sold as a slave. Flavius Aurelius bought me and the boy you saw in the market, Heracles, five days ago, along with a Celtic girl named Boecia.”

“That boy, you like him?”

Tera stopped in the middle of the stairs leading down to the ground floor and looked up gravely at Nauca.

“Very much, Nauca. He is like a hero to me and he is very kind. He protected me ever since we were caged together by the slavers who brought us to Rome.”

“I see! He is in fact a very handsome young boy, big and strong.”

“That he is.” replied proudly Tera. “Diana has showed him how to properly care for the pleasure of girls, which only makes him a nicer boy.” The Amazon frowned at those words.

“Isn’t he a bit young for that kind of pleasure?”

Tera resumed her walk while answering her.

“Yes, but the master wants us to produce big, strong babies with him. Better do it with Heracles than with some big brute.”

“Us? How many girls is he sleeping with?”

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“Regularly? Three: Boecia, Namet and me. I suspect that a few more girls secretly visited him, since he is now reputed to be a really good lover.” Nancy secretly swore to herself: apart from this being nothing better than child abuse of the worst kind, she would be forced to pick up as well all the girls who had made love with Heracles, who was turning out involuntarily to be quite a promiscuous boy. She could not allow any modified genes from the future to circulate in the past, as History could not afford multiple repeats of what had happened with Yeshua, who had been the fruit of future genes mixed with a woman of the past.

“Do me a favor, will you: point to me Boecia and Namet if we meet them. I would also like to know that Diana.”

“Why?” asked Tera, suddenly suspicious. Nancy put an index in front of her lips, speaking again only once they were inside the female servants’ washroom and had closed the door to it.

“Tera, I suppose that you wouldn’t mind escaping from this life of slavery.”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind.” said bitterly the Spartan girl. “I prize my freedom too much to accept meekly to be a slave all my life. I however have nowhere to go now, with my parents dead and with Sparta being off limits for me because of my parents’ past debts, which they were fleeing from. My best hope up to now was to be able to escape with Heracles and to live with him. We love each other a lot in fact. He likes Boecia and Namet as well but I am still his favorite girl.”

Tera then grabbed a wet sponge and started washing Nauca’s back once the Amazon had removed her loincloth. Nauca spoke after a short pause.

“Tera, I plan to buy you, Heracles and the other girls back from your master and to take you out of Rome.”

“Why would you do that?” said the shocked girl. “You don’t know us.”

“Tera, I may not know you girls yet but the truth is that I am in Rome in order to retrieve Heracles and return him to his proper place. You and the other girls will accompany him as well.”

Tera stepped back from Nauca, stunned by her revelations.

“Heracles’ proper place? You don’t mean that…”

Nancy nodded her head, then silently floated one meter off the floor before answering the girl telepathically.

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“Yes! Your friend Heracles was slated to be the hero Heracles. Someone however played a dirty trick on him. I have a special interest in him and have vowed to protect him.”

Tera immediately put one knee on the floor and bowed her head.

“Athena! You must be the great goddess of war and wisdom Athena. I will do whatever you wish.”

17:08 (Italy Time)

The Aurelius residence, Rome

Flavius Aurelius Quintus was truly happy to be back home this afternoon: the debates at the Senate today had sunk to a near record low in stupidity and naked greed. His accumulated frustration changed to agreeable surprise when he saw his fifteen year-old son, Markus, engaged in a furious sword practice session with a tall female stranger in the central courtyard, watched by most of the household and by Milvia. Both combatants were of course using wooden swords and shields but the combat was most vigorous nonetheless, with the woman showing an expertise with the short sword that Flavius could only admire and envy. She was visibly holding out on Markus, while his son was having a hard time stopping even half of her blows despite the counsels she kept giving. Flavius watched the practice as well and applauded with the others when it ended, with his exhausted son avidly drinking down a cup of water offered by a servant. Flavius first went to his son, slapping him in the back.

“It seems that you finally found a worthy sword instructor, Markus. Your technique has visibly improved.”

The teenager, still breathing hard, took a few gulps of air before replying to him.

“You…you should try a practice with that Amazon, father. She is the best sword fighter I ever saw.”

“An Amazon?” exclaimed Flavius, turning around and facing the woman, who was wearing a colorful set of baggy trousers and caftan vest, plus a wide leather belt which supported a dagger and a pouch. Taller than Flavius by more than half a head and broad-shouldered, she was also beautiful and had a very feminine body, with large, firm breasts. She smiled to him and bowed.

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“My name is Nauca, Senator Aurelius. I am a Sarmatian and I come from east of Scythia. Your wife saw me at the main market and invited me so that I could tell the tales of my travels.”

“I would say that my wife had a brilliant idea.” replied Flavius as Milvia came to him to welcome him with a kiss. He smiled to Milvia after kissing her back.

“Before you ask, my day was quite rotten. How was yours?”

“A lot better than yours, fortunately. Nauca has already proved herself to be a very interesting guest. Come, have a hot bath before supper: it will relax you.”

“That will be nice, by Jupiter and Mars! You wouldn’t believe the ineptitudes I had to listen to today.”

While Flavius and Milvia disappeared in their private apartments and Markus went to wash himself, Nancy went to Heracles, who had watched the sword practice like everyone else, and sat beside him and Tera on a stone bench. Doing as if she was resting after the practice, she started a silent telepathic conversation with him.

“Heracles, please be honest: did you make love to other girls than Tera, Boecia and Namet? This is important, as those girls will have to come with us to the future, so that no baby from you could possibly be born in this time period.” Heracles reddened in embarrassment. While making love to girls at first had disturbed him, he had quickly grown fond of sex. What he couldn’t know was that his manipulated genes, apart from increasing his muscle mass to a stunning ratio, also boosted his hormonal production and, as a direct result, his libido.

“I once did it with Diana and with a Persian girl called Yisha.”

“I know Diana already. Is Yisha around the courtyard right now?”

“Yes! She is presently standing in front of the water well and is wearing a pink robe.”

Nancy glanced briefly towards the water well and saw the girl in question. She was truly beautiful and was maybe fourteen years old. Heracles was decidedly building up quite a harem.

“Heracles, I intend to speak in private with Flavius and Milvia later tonight about buying you back. If offering gold or precious gems is not enough, I will then have to pass off as the goddess Athena. Tera already believes that I am Athena, as I showed her some of my powers. Tonight, if you are sent to your room with your girlfriends, try to invite Yisha and Diana as well and do as you would normally do, then ask them all to

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stay and sleep with you in that room. It will be simpler for me that way if I have to come to extract you out of Rome.”

“I understand, Creator.”

“Please, just call me Nauca for the moment.”

Nancy then left the two children alone to go back to her room and wash and change for supper.

22:07 (Italy Time)

Banquet room, Aurelius residence

Nancy silently sighed in relief when Markus, yawning repeatedly, left for his room: she had been afraid that Milvia would have retired to her apartments before Markus. Nancy however wanted both Flavius and Milvia to be present when she finally touched on the real reason of her presence in Rome. Most of the household had gone to sleep by now, leaving the three of them plus two bodyguards and two young female servants alone in the banquet room. She had seen Heracles and his ‘girlfriends’ been sent to their room over two hours ago and had felt telepathically their sexual exertions before they had fallen asleep. The way was now free for her to do her move. She put down her cup of wine, of which she had drunk with moderation, and looked gravely at the Roman couple slouched like her on a couch, with a low table set in front of them which supported their cups and food trays.

“Senator Flavius, Lady Milvia, I have a confession to make. Please don’t get angry right away and listen carefully to what I have to say. First off, I would wish to speak privately with both of you.”

Flavius, whose face had hardened somewhat, made a sign to the two female servants to leave, then looked back at Nancy.

“You will understand if I keep my bodyguards nearby, especially if you have not been forthcoming with me in the first place.”

“As you wish, Senator Flavius. Do these two men have your complete

confidence?”

“I trust them with my life, Sarmatian.”

“Alright then, this is what I want to say: the reason I am here in Rome is to bring back young Heracles to his proper place. I am prepared to more than reimburse you for

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all your expenses concerning him and the girls he slept with. Those girls must go with him as well, as none of his blood can stay in Rome.”

Flavius sat up abruptly on his couch, visibly angry.

“Who are you really? Why are you so interested in that slave boy?” Nancy stayed down on her couch in order to reassure the two bodyguards, who were now tense and had taken hold of their swords’ handles.

“What I am could disturb the whole of Rome if it becomes public knowledge, Senator. The reason I am interested in Heracles is that he wasn’t meant to be a slave. Let’s say that a dispute at a very high level resulted in someone playing a very nasty trick on that poor boy. If you still don’t understand, just consider that Heracles is not simply from Olympus in Greece, but from Mount Olympus.” Milvia became livid and put a hand on Flavius’ arm.

“Flavius, I think that she means that Heracles is actually the Greek hero Heracles. It would explain his incredible strength and size for his age.” Milvia then looked at Nancy with awe on her face.

“Then, you must be a messenger of the gods of Olympus.” Nancy shook her head and slowly got up on her feet.

“I am no mere messenger, Lady Milvia. I am an Olympian.” For a moment Flavius could not speak, thunderstruck like his wife and bodyguards. He then pointed an accusing index at Nancy.

“This would indeed be a clever ploy to grab that boy and my other slaves…if you could prove it. I have nothing but words from you up to now.” Nancy’s answer to that was to float up and glide silently towards Flavius, attracting a strangled exclamation from Milvia. Flavius and his two bodyguards quickly knelt as Nancy stopped in midair in front of the senator.

“I will not hold your incredulity against you, Senator Flavius, as it was an understandable reaction. I am still ready to reimburse you for your slaves and for Heracles. By the way, with the boy’s libido being what it is, I am afraid that you will lose the services of four girls and one woman on top of him. Tera, Boecia, Namet, Yisha and Diana will have to accompany Heracles back to Mount Olympus. I believe that this should more than reimburse you for their loss, though.”

Flavius took with a shaking hand the fist-sized leather bag given by Nancy and emptied its content in his other hand. Twenty large, splendid rubies rolled out, making his eyes pop out.

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“This is more than enough, powerful one. How shall I call you properly?” The answer boomed inside the heads of the Romans and of the bodyguards.

“You may call me Athena while in private. In public you will keep calling me Nauca. I will now go change and then will leave with Heracles and the five female slaves. Do not bother waking up your majordomo or anyone else to gather the girls: I will do it myself.”

“Yes, great Athena.”

Nancy then levitated down to the floor and bowed to Milvia.

“I was pleased by the wise way you treat all the members of your household, Lady Milvia. Your kindness will be paid back in the afterlife.” Nancy then walked out of the banquet and went back to her room to change. Once inside the room she took her things out of the footlocker and then went into phase shift. That allowed her to put back on her armor and weapons in what would have seemed to an observer a mere fraction of a second. Reverting to normal time, she walked back down to the ground level and went to Heracles’ room. She found the boy sleeping naked, surrounded by four equally naked girls and a woman. Nancy contemplated that scene for a moment, somber: this was no way to treat children…or anyone, as a matter of fact. However, what would constitute a despicable crime in modern times was normal and perfectly legal here in the Antiquity. In this time period, slaves were not considered as human beings but rather as mere possessions, with little or no rights. That such an abomination had been practiced as late as the mid-19th Century in supposedly civilized countries was nothing less than a dark stain on Humanity. Chasing away her bitter thoughts, she mentally called by radio her eight field agents, who were waiting in side streets with their robotic horses.

“Nancy to land search teams. A deal has been reached to get Heracles and the slaves. I will need five agents to discreetly land on horseback in the central courtyard of the Aurelius residence in five minutes. Jack, Ken, Mike, Jeffrey and Heinrik, you are it! Look Olympian!”

Nancy then gently shook Heracles awake and smiled to him.

“You and your friends are leaving Rome now. Get dressed but be quiet.” Diana was next to be awakened by Nancy, followed by the four teenage girls. It didn’t take long for them to put on their simple clothes. Stopping the avalanche of questions from them was another matter. Nancy nearly had to get angry to quiet them down.

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“Be quiet and just do as I tell you if you want to be free. Five of my warriors will soon arrive to fly you out. Heracles, you ride with me. Now, follow me in silence.”

Flavius Aurelius and Milvia were in the central courtyard of their residence, still traumatized by what had happened earlier on, when Nancy came out with their six ex-slaves. Acting on an impulse, Heracles went to Milvia and kissed her hand.

“Thank you for your kindness, Lady Milvia. I will always think well of you.” The boy then faced Flavius Aurelius and looked gravely at him.

“You may have used me as a slave, Senator Flavius, but you did it without cruelty. May you live long.”

He then shook the senator’s hand vigorously and returned to the side of Nancy, who had called her horse Pegasus to her. A few seconds later five horsemen wearing shiny armor breastplates and helmets descended silently from the night sky and landed side by side in the courtyard, attracting awed comments from the Romans and ex-slaves alike. The horsemen, all big, powerful men, then dismounted and went each to one of the female ex-slaves, taking them gently by one hand and leading them back to their horses. The ex-slaves were then lifted onto the second seats attached to the back of the saddles and had safety belts fixed around them. Activating their hidden directed gravity drives, the agents seemingly floated up instead of jumping up to sit in their saddles. Nancy, who had secured Heracles behind her own saddle and had mounted up herself, then waved one arm upward and shouted in Greek.

“TO MOUNT OLYMPUS!”

She then had Pegasus fly off at a steep climb angle, followed one by one by the horsemen while watched by the petrified Flavius Aurelius and Milvia. The ex-slaves screamed in terror at first when they started flying but quickly grew quiet, frantically holding to the horsemen as the six flying horses formed up in echelon, Nancy in the lead. Back on the ground, Flavius and Milvia could only look up and follow the flying horsemen with their eyes until they were out of sight, then looked at each other with haggard expressions.

‘’A goddess visited us, while we were holding a hero demi-god as a slave.’’ said Flavius to his wife. ‘’I can hardly believe my own eyes.’’

The senator then looked at the leather purse containing the twenty big, magnificent rubies.

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‘’Well, the great Athena was quite generous with us, I must say. These gems will nearly double our family fortune.’’

‘’And young Heracles will be able to live his true destiny as a hero.’’ added Milvia in a subdued voice, still deeply shaken by what she had just seen.

The formation of flying horses flew westward while steadily picking up altitude, crossing the western coastline of Italy after six minutes. By then the ex-slaves were starting to enjoy their fantastic ride and could even shout at each other over the relative wind.

“HEY, HERACLES,” shouted Tera, “HOW WILL BE LIFE ON MOUNT OLYMPUS?”

“WE ARE NOT GOING TO MOUNT OLYMPUS, TERA. WE ARE GOING TO THE FUTURE!”

“TO THE FUTURE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”

“YOU WILL SOON SEE. IT WILL BE EVEN BETTER THAN MOUNT OLYMPUS. LOOK AHEAD OF YOU!”

Doing so, Tera and the others saw a huge dark mass flying ahead of them and approaching rapidly. Something which looked like a big door then opened in the mass, revealing a cavernous hold lit by red lights. The horses soon flew inside the hold, landing at a trot on a metallic deck. The door of the hangar then closed and the lights turned from red to white, making them blink their eyes. Heracles then saw a metallic mass in the middle of the hold which made him undo frantically his safety belt.

“GLEN! MELINA!”

Nancy put a hand on his left shoulder to hold him quiet.

“I’m sorry, Heracles: they were dead when we found the shuttle. If you want, I could show you their bodies later on.”

Heracles started sobbing quietly as Nancy jumped down and then helped him down. Once on the deck, the boy glued himself to Nancy.

“What will happen to me now, Creator? I have no surrogate parents left and never had a real family. I don’t want to go back to the World Council either: they did nothing but use me all along.”

Nancy crouched down and hugged him, feeling a lump in her throat.

“Don’t worry, my brave Heracles: you will not be abandoned or used again.” Tera then joined the two of them at a run, kissing Heracles repeatedly.

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“WE ARE FREE, HERACLES! FREE!”

“I know, Tera.” said the boy, then pointing at Nancy. “This is not Athena, Tera, but someone even more powerful: The Creator. She is the greatest woman to have ever lived.”

“The greatest woman will pinch your butt if you don’t call her by her real name. I am Nancy Laplante, Nancy for you and my other friends. I will now bring you to a quiet lounge where we will be able to talk in private.”

Nancy had Mike Crawford round up the ex-slaves and help her lead them out of the hangar of the BABYLON. A four-minute walk brought them to a small briefing room where they all sat in padded armchairs around an oval table. Nancy looked around at the ex-slaves, whose faces reflected a mix of awe, incomprehension and worry. She then spoke first in Greek.

“I will translate for the others in Egyptian, Persian and Celtic later on.” She repeated that sentence in those three languages and then reverted to Greek.

“I realize that you just lived through a series of traumatizing events and that you are tired, so I will not say much before giving you rooms so that you could rest for the night. First off, the ship you are now riding in was built in the far future, nearly four millenniums from now. This ship can travel through time, like me, and you will probably end up living as free persons in the future. To the exception of Diana, you are all orphaned children and will need to find new families to live and grow up with. Tomorrow, you will be given the options opened for your future lives and we will also start finding new parents acceptable to you. For the moment, I will want you to rest and recuperate. I will now translate this for the non-Greeks present.”

As Nancy did so, Tera grabbed Heracles’ arm and looked in his eyes.

“Heracles, I want to stay with you, wherever you decide to go.” The boy hugged her tight, unable to answer with mere words.

15:55 (GMT)

Thursday, May 24, 3387 ‘B’

Old Trafalgar Square, London

British Isles, World Council

High Administrator Lara Bowen, accompanied by her Deputy City Assistant Administrator, Dick Pond, had been anxiously waiting outside of the London City Hall for

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over ten minutes when a shuttlecraft painted in a dark gray scheme appeared over the nearby Thames River. It silently flew down to land on the landing pad in front of the City Hall, around which a sizeable crowd, including quite a few news crews, had also been waiting. As the rear access ramp of the shuttlecraft went down, a huge, saucer-shaped ship also appeared in a flash of white light over the Thames and then positioned itself over the landing pad. A spider-like flying crane flew out of one cargo hold of the ship with what looked like a black-painted shuttlecraft in its holding claws, then gently deposited it besides the gray shuttlecraft before returning inside the big ship, which disappeared in a flash of light. A woman and two children left the gray shuttlecraft and went to Lara Bowen as the latter was examining from a distance the black shuttlecraft, which appeared badly damaged. Bowen sighed with relief and content when she recognized one of the children as being Heracles Sirtis, one of the eight citizens of the World Council declared missing in the past. The teenage girl holding Heracles’ hand was however unknown to Bowen. Four giant men and women then exited the gray shuttlecraft, carrying two body bags, and respectfully laid down the bags besides the black shuttlecraft. Bowen and his assistant, now tense, didn’t miss the fact that the giants had six fingers per hand and appeared to be bald under their soft gray caps, features they knew the people of the Imperium had possessed. The four giants saluted the body bags and then returned inside the gray shuttlecraft as Nancy Laplante, wearing the same gray uniform as the giants, stopped with the two children in front of Bowen and bowed to her.

“Good day, Lady Bowen. I am back, as promised.”

“And I am pleased to greet you back, Miss Laplante. Some in the office of the Grand Administrator had voiced doubts about you ever returning. I however told them what I thought of their doubts.”

Nancy smiled, not a little pleased. From what she knew now of the World Council it was apparently a very loose confederation of national entities where the local governments kept much independence from the central government and in which political wrangling and disputes were far from rare. Lara Bowen seemed to be quite far from being a simple political stooge for Grand Administrator Den Roklan.

“I thank you for your confidence in me, Lady Bowen. I however have a few tragic news to pass on to you as a result of my search in time for your fellow citizens. Mainly, I established that the craft sent to 1st century Palestine was actually destroyed while on its way back, with the loss of its crew of five. I linked up with The One and learned from

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him that he had decided to destroy them for grossly endangering the whole of Humanity’s history. I profoundly regret the death of these five persons but The One acted in the interest of the humanity of all three timelines. The one truly to blame for the death of those five persons is Doctor Sheryl Ekart, of the Agency for Archaeological Field Research, who sent them on their ill-advised mission.” Bowen nodded her head once, glancing briefly at the wrecked shuttlecraft.

“I had a long discussion with Grand Administrator Roklan about the supposed non-existence of a World Council time travel program. He still was insisting as late as an hour ago that there was no such program still running. It seems now that he will have a few explanations to give to the Council of Administrators.” Nancy took out a data chip from one pocket of her Time Patrol uniform and presented it to Bowen.

“Then you may want to review the video files on this data chip, which is compatible with your chip readers. Apart from sending a team to 1st century Palestine, Doctor Ekart also had a complex built on ancient Earth, more precisely in the 6th century B.C.E., on top of Mount Olympus, in Greece. The Time Patrol discovered it while searching for young Heracles and his surrogate parents. We have now dismantled that installation, which was quite extensive and could have endangered the whole established history of Humanity if it would have been discovered prior to the 21st century.”

Bowen looked intensively annoyed at those words and put the chip in one pocket of her robe.

“The idiots! Their arrogance is only equaled by their irresponsibility. You can be sure that this subject will also be raised at the Council of Administrators.” She then looked down at Heracles and at the teenage girl, her expression softening.

“I am happy to see you in good health and safe, Heracles. I hope that your ordeal was not too traumatic. Who is your young friend?”

“Her name is Tera and she is my girlfriend, Lady Bowen.” replied the boy in a timid tone. “She is from 5th century B.C.E. Sparta, in Greece, and was a slave, like me.” Looks of horror appeared on the faces of Bowen and Pond at those words, with Bowen nearly shouting.

“You were made a slave?”

Heracles nodded once his head, his face grave.

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“Yes, Lady Bowen. After my shuttlecraft crashed in the sea near the Italian coast, fishermen picked me up but sold me to slave traders two days later. I was then brought to Rome, where Tera and I were sold to a rich Roman. Thankfully, Senator Flavius Aurelius and his wife were kind to us and we didn’t really suffer during the week we served them before Nancy showed up.”

“My poor children.” said softly Bowen, caressing the heads of Heracles and Tera before looking back at Nancy.

“Were you able to establish what happened to Heracles’ shuttlecraft and to his surrogate parents?”

“We were able to find it after I traced back Heracles in time. Instead of going to Mount Olympus in the year 555 B.C.E., as told to me by Grand Administrator Roklan, their shuttlecraft malfunctioned and reappeared instead near Italy in the year 420 B.C.E. Since it was under cloak when it arrived in the past, we had quite a hard time finding back Heracles’ trail and recuperated the shuttlecraft from the bottom of the sea only nine days after it crashed down. The bodies of Glen and Melina Sirtis, who had drowned as their shuttlecraft sank to the bottom, where still inside when we lifted the craft from the sea bottom. You can inspect their bodies if you wish to.”

“It will not be necessary, Miss Laplante.” said Bowen before looking briefly at her assistant. “Dick, please have the two bodies transported to the city morgue. Have an autopsy done as a routine procedure.”

“Right away, Administrator.” said Pond, who then went to see two city security officers standing nearby, speaking briefly to them. Four more security officers quickly appeared at a run and the two body bags lying by the wrecked shuttlecraft were picked up and brought to an air car which flew down a minute later. Bowen, Nancy and the children watched in respectful silence during the whole process, with Bowen speaking only once the air car had departed with the bodies.

“Since Heracles is now an orphan, we will have to think about finding a new family for him, one that will truly care about him.”

“I have already decided to stay with Nancy, who will also take care of Tera.” said firmly Heracles. That didn’t surprise much Lara Bowen, who smiled gently to the two children.

“With the Creator’s track record, I am sure that you will be well taken care of. Where will you live?”

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“Wherever Nancy happens to live.” answered the little girl in good but accented Neo-English while firming up her grip on Heracles’ hand. “As she said in Rome, home is where we happen to be.”

Nancy suddenly tensed up and snapped her head around and up, looking at the southern sky.

“Heracles, Tera, go to the shuttlecraft now! Armed ships are coming this way.”

“But, who…” started to say Bowen as the two children started running towards the Time Patrol shuttlecraft. Three mean-looking craft about 25 meters in length each and painted mate black then flew down, coming to a stop over the Thames River while pointing their weapons’ snouts towards the landing pad and the Time Patrol shuttlecraft. An amplified voice then boomed down from the attack craft.

“TIME PATROL SHUTTLECRAFT, STAY WHERE YOU ARE: YOU HAVE VIOLATED WORLD COUNCIL AIRSPACE. NANCY LAPLANTE IS TO BE ARRESTED AS WELL FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF A WORLD COUNCIL CRAFT AND THE MURDER OF ITS CREW AND FOR SPYING ON GOVERNMENT FACILITIES.”

“What the hell is happening here?” said angrily Lara Bowen before activating her wrist videophone. “City Security Central, this is High Administrator Bowen. Contact immediately the Grand Administrator’s office and tell him that I want him to recall at once his attack craft threatening me and my guests.”

Bowen was about to say something to Nancy when the latter emitted a telepathic message so strong it nearly knocked her back.

“WORLD COUNCIL CRAFT, YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO LEAVE PEACEFULLY BEFORE I DESTROY YOU!”

The only answer she got was when squads of armed men jumped out of two of the three craft and started flying down towards the landing pad, their guns at the ready. The crowd surrounding the landing pad then dispersed in panic, with many screaming in fear. The city security officers present however ran to Lara Bowen and formed a protective wall in front of her, their own guns drawn. Having now no other choice left, Nancy decided to strike, hard. She stared at the attack craft, concentrating on one craft at a time. An internal explosion suddenly wrecked the nearest craft, sending it falling down in flames in the Thames River, followed at three-second intervals by the two other craft. The squads of armed men, now on the ground and running towards the Time Patrol shuttlecraft, looked on in stunned horror before their officer in charge gave the order to fire. A rain of explosive shells however enveloped them before they could fire a single

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shot, shredding them to pieces. Lara Bowen saw two dark gray ships appear out of nowhere at the same time as twenty machines a bit larger than big men materialized on the landing pad and immediately rushed on their rubberized tracks towards the bodies of the World Council soldiers. The few soldiers who were still moving were hit by stun beams within seconds and surrounded by the combat machines. While the machines stayed in place, the two gray ships disappeared from sight as suddenly as they had appeared, leaving a stunned Lara Bowen and the two news crews which had not fled to stare at the scene of carnage.

“What…what the hell just happened?”

“Doctor Ekart grossly overstepped her authority and overreacted. The Time Patrol and I then responded with appropriate force.” answered Nancy, her face hard, as she stared at the soldiers’ bodies lying on the now shredded lawn near the landing pad. “Her agency has now proven that it is a clear menace to the integrity of History and will be taken out of business.”

“Taken out of business? You don’t mean…”

“Destroyed? Yes, Lady Bowen. Ekart was ready to endanger you and your citizens in order to arrest me. Her arrogance and sense of superiority made her miscalculate very badly indeed. I am truly sorry that it had to come to this but I didn’t erase a whole civilization only to let a new one endanger time again. This world is best to stay out of the time travel business altogether.”

Bowen stared at the Canadian for a moment, having her first glimpse of the fighter’s aspect of her personality. Her wrist videophone then beeped, making her look at its screen while she pushed the ‘talk’ button. The face of Grand Administrator Roklan appeared on the screen, making Lara grimace in anger at him.

“What the hell were you trying to do, Grand Administrator? I and many London citizens were nearly killed when three World Council craft and a number of soldiers attacked me while I was talking with Miss Laplante, who was returning one of our lost time shuttlecrafts.”

“But I didn’t order such an attack.” protested Roklan, looking nervous and edgy. “Where are those three craft now? Our air traffic control system doesn’t even show them in your airspace.”

“That’s because they are now lying at the bottom of the Thames River: Miss Laplante destroyed them, while two ships of the Time Patrol killed the soldiers charging

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us and the Time Patrol shuttlecraft. Miss Laplante just told me that Doctor Ekart’s agency will be destroyed by the Time Patrol for repeatedly endangering history.”

“But that’s an act of war, pure and simple! Is Miss Laplante still with you?” Nancy moved into the field of view of the wrist videophone, looking coldly back at Roklan.

“Grand Administrator, you already lied to me once. You won’t do it twice. If you consider our termination of your irresponsible program to interfere with the past as an act of war on our part, then tough! You should have known better than give the responsibility of your so-called time exploration program to a megalomaniac like Sheryl Ekart. For your information, your installations on Mount Olympus in ancient Greece have been dismantled and removed and your sleeper agents in timeline ‘C’ will soon follow. I will now let your own Council of Administrators deal with you. In the meantime, have fun.”

Nancy then pushed the ‘deactivate’ button. Lara Bowen nearly had a haggard look as she stared at her.

“What is this business about sleeper agents in the 20th century?”

“Another so-called program of Ekart’s agency, of which Roklan was fully aware of. In the data chip I gave you, you will find that one of the files is an intercept of a conversation between Ekart and Roklan on that subject. Nine agents working for Ekart were placed in American and British government positions in the 20th Century of Timeline ‘C’, with the mission to use their psionic powers to influence the policies of top politicians.”

“But what would be the goal of all this? That’s not even our timeline.”

“Damn right it isn’t!” replied Nancy. “That World Council program was trying to prevent by all means the appearance in the future of timeline ‘C’ of a second Imperium. Well, even if another Imperium sees the day in timeline ‘C’, I have no intention to have it harmed unless they prove to be a real threat to History or to the other timelines. As for those nine covert agents, the Time Patrol is going to flush them out of Timeline ‘C’.” Bowen lowered her head, ashamed that someone from the World Council could do all this.

“I believe that you acted in the correct manner, Miss Laplante. It is time that the Council of Administrators makes the Grand Administrator and his Doctor Ekart account for their actions.”

“You may deal with Roklan, Lady Bowen. I will deal personally with Sheryl Ekart.”

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The way Nancy said that nearly made Bowen feel sorry for Ekart.

09:49 (South Pacific Time)

April 18, 159,993 B.C.E.

Bora Bora Island, South Pacific

The scoutship’s aft ramp opened up as soon as it had landed on the sand of the beach. Nancy Laplante then went down the ramp, followed closely by two of her assault troopers firmly holding a manacled Sheryl Ekart. Once they were all on the beach, Nancy gave a nod to her two troopers, ex-members of the IMPERIUM ‘B’, who then proceeded in brutally ripping away all the clothes Ekart wore, soon leaving her completely naked. Her handcuffs were then removed as a robot deposited a small crate at the line of the first trees along the beach. As the robot then picked up the pieces of Ekart’s clothes, Nancy stared hard at the scientist.

‘’You wanted to manipulate time and History to your advantage, Ekart?

Well, you will now be punished by being left here, marooned in the distant past, where you will eventually die. You will now have ample time to reflect on the errors of your ways. The crate by the trees contains a first aid kit, some water and a few supplies and nothing else. Nothing of it will survive long enough to leave behind traces of your passage on this island. You will thus vanish in the distant past of Humanity.’’

“I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS, LAPLANTE!” shouted Sheryl Ekart, earning a resounding slap in the face from the giant woman who had helped strip her. The bitch was sent waltzing down, ending up spitting both sand and blood as the giant looked down at her with hatred and contempt.

“So, you wanted to erase the Imperium a second time, hey? Well, now you will end up eating bananas for the next few hundred years.”

Nancy looked down coldly at Ekart before looking at her two troopers.

‘’Come, let’s board our ship and leave this bitch alone with her conscience, if she has one.”