The Argonaut Affair (TimeWars 7)

The Argo was riding at anchor in the harbor of Iolchos. "All right," said Steiger, "so we find out what happened and then we're out of here. The sooner we get back through that confluence, the better I'll like it. Our report's going to look bad enough as it is. If General Forrester finds out about this, he'll hand our asses to us."

"Look down there," said Andre, pointing to an area where the framework of a ship was being erected. "Isn't that Argus?"

"So it is," Delaney said. "Come on."

The shipwright was astonished to see them. "Fabius! Creon! Atalanta! By the gods, we thought you were dead!" He clapped his arms around each of them in turn.

"We came close enough to Hades, old friend," said Delaney. "We managed to escape the dead warriors of Colchis, but when the ship left without us, we had to make our way back over land. It was a long, hard journey, but we had to come back and find out what became of all of you."

"It has been a long time," Argus said. He shouted to one of his workmen. "Demetrios! Take over for me! I will return later." He turned to the temporal agents. "Come, we will sit down to dinner and we shall have some wine and I will tell you all about it."

Inside the modest house close to the wharves, they sat and listened as Argus told them what became of the Argonauts after they left Colchis.

"We thought we had made good our escape from Colchis," Argus said, "but Aietes sent his fleet to pursue us. For days we fled from them, but they kept on closing the distance between us until finally we saw that we could not escape and we would have to fight. But Medea tricked her brother, Apsyrtus, the commander of the Colchin fleet, into coming ashore with all his captains and sitting down to a parley. She made him promise to let us go if we gave up the golden fleece without a fight, but while she met with her brother and his captains, we had already come ashore. We fell upon them and killed every last one of them, just as Medea had planned. Then, before the Colchin fleet could recover from the loss of its commanders, we slipped away from them in the dead of night. When Jason saw Medea standing there, covered with her brother's blood, I tell you, such a look came upon his face that it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. His passion cooled somewhat after that.

"We sailed on until we came to the island of Circe, the sister of King Aietes. Medea insisted that we stop there and we could not see why, but it seemed a pleasant island and Jason wished to please her. We came ashore and supped at Circe's table. I tell you, such a woman I have never seen before and hope never to see again. All the gold and gemstones in the world, and she wore many, would never make up for such ugliness. A fat, pustulant old hag she was, and such a smell came off her! I tell you, one look at that woman could turn a man into a swine!

"Well, there we sat, trying to avoid gazing at her so that we could keep down our food, and Medea begins to rail at her, to shout about all the abuse that she had suffered at her hands- and I never did quite understand what this abuse was, unless it was that as Aietes' sister, she stood higher than Medea at the Colchin court-and to shout how she would be far greater now that she would be queen in Iolchos with the golden fleece. Well, not surprisingly, Circe did not take kindly to this loud display and she drove us from her table and her island, both. So, we set sail once more, Jason even more silent than before. But not Medea.

"She began to make plans for the palace we were to build for her in Iolchos and she had me design a pleasure barge upon which she would cruise between the islands. Well, then a storm came and kept us busy and her quiet for a time. Of course, when the storm had passed away, she blamed us for her discomfort and demanded that we provide smooth sailing from then on. Still, we all tried to be patient.

"Well, we did not encounter such adventures upon our return journey as we did when you were with us, only that there were other storms which we survived-thanks to the lessons you had taught me, Fabius, about sailing in a storm-but then when we were drawing close to home, we came upon an island where we found the fallen body of a giant made from bronze. The bronze was molten, as if this giant had been placed within some fantastic forge and then left out upon the ground to harden once again. His sword was raised, as if he had been fighting for his life, but the flames which had been cast at him overcame him. There was also a ruined palace on this island, a palace which had been razed to the ground by fire, and we learned from the people of the island that a powerful god had lived there once, and that this god had somehow offended the other gods so that they came and fought with him and there was a mighty war in which this god of the island was defeated.

"Jason took all this to be an omen and he turned to Idmon and asked him what it meant, if it was possible that these gods had fought over our voyage. He asked Idmon if he had any premonitions about what his future held in store for him. Idmon tried to look into the future, but as you know, Idmon does not always see things clearly. He looked disturbed and told Jason that he had an intuition that Jason would be happy, but he did not see him upon the throne of Iolchos. At this, Medea lost her temper and called him an old fool and other things more vile, insisting that of course Jason would be on the throne in Iolchos, how else could she live but as a queen. Jason said nothing. It was on this island, also, that Hercules and Hylas parted company with us. Hercules looked disturbed when he heard about this god who had once lived upon the island and he said that there was a strange feeling he had about the place, a sort of kinship to it, and he would stay there for a while, rest from the voyage, and then travel on with Hylas to seek his fate and fortunes elsewhere. We wished him luck and sailed on as he and Hylas waved to us from shore. I have not seen either of them since.

"We stopped once more at Pelion, but when we went ashore, we found no trace of Chiron. The cave was just as we remembered it, but the centaur was no longer there. It was deserted. Jason was saddened by this. We waited for a long time, but Chiron never returned and finally we continued on.

"And then, the night before we were to make safe harbor here in Iolchos-for I knew we were already in familiar waters -a most peculiar thing occurred. Medea had taken to sleeping with the golden fleece and while we were anchored offshore for the night, in a protected cove not far from Pelion, I was awakened with the others by a fearful noise. It seems that Pelias had placed a spy within our midst and that spy was none other than Orpheus, the last man I would have suspected, even had I thought there was a traitor among us. He had been promised a great reward and a post as the poet at the court of Pelias if he could contrive to sink the ship or to kill Jason or to somehow stop him from fulfilling the conditions of the quest. "Well, Orpheus did not have the stomach for committing murder, so he had waited to see what would occur that would give him an opportunity, yet he did not act because, he claimed, he had come to look upon us all as friends and, I think, although he did not admit it, because he was afraid. Yet now that the time had come when we would be sailing into Iolchos on the next day, he knew he had to act or else forfeit the reward. He did not believe that Pelias would honor the promise he had made to Jason and he believed that al

l of us would be set upon and killed if we came back to Iolchos with the golden fleece.

"While Medea slept, Orpheus had stolen into the cabin and taken the golden fleece. But it was heavy, as you know, and in dragging it out of the cabin, he made some noise and woke Medea. We found them both on deck, with the golden fleece between them, Medea screaming like as not to wake the dead and beating him about the head and shoulders with such fierceness that it was all poor Orpheus could do to cover his head and shield himself from her. Well, when we found them that way and Theseus pulled Medea off him, Orpheus cried and confessed everything to us. Medea demanded that we kill the traitor and Theseus looked to Jason to see if that was what he wished, but Jason said not a single word. Instead, he bent down, and with a great grunt of effort, picked up the golden fleece and threw it overboard.

"For a moment, we were all too stunned to move or speak, but then Medea let out a scream that was, if possible, even louder than before. She lost her head completely and demanded that Jason dive for it and bring it up, as if he was capable of such a thing. And to our amazement, Jason unbuckled his sword and stood upon the railing, ready, it seemed, to do exactly as she wanted. He leaped over the side, but instead of diving for the fleece, he struck out for the shore. At this, Medea went wild and sought to grab a bow, so that she could shoot an arrow after him, but Theseus, whose patience is not great, struck her a blow and felled her to the deck, telling her that if she wanted the golden fleece, she should dive for it herself. And then he, too, leaped over the side and struck out after Jason.

"And there it ended. A most peculiar conclusion to the story. We made port the next day and the Argonauts disbanded, each going their separate ways, yet no one complained that the journey was for nothing. I know a number of them stayed in Iolchos for a while, and several still remain here, telling stories of our journey in exchange for drinks and meals. I have heard some of those stories and, like the tales Orpheus had told, they grow better with each telling. Orpheus never received his reward from Pelias, who claimed to know nothing of any such arrangement. He left Iolchos and I doubt he will return again. Theseus, I have heard, returned to Athens and of Jason, I have heard nothing at all. Idmon lives nearby and still makes his living as a soothsayer. He comes to see me on occasion and he tells me that he feels his intuition was correct. Jason did not sit upon the throne in Iolchos, but wherever he has gone, he has found happiness."

"And what of Medea?" asked Delaney. "What became of her?"

"She found herself without a palace or a throne, without the golden fleece, and with no protector in a strange city where she knew no one. She was frightened at this prospect, so she found a man to take her in. This man was not a wealthy or a powerful man, but he knew how to handle a proud woman and was not so vulnerable to her beauty as younger men would be. In time, Medea became humbled and her nature grew much more agreeable." He turned. "Woman! Where is dinner? Our guests are being kept waiting!"

"Coming, Argus," said Medea, entering from the kitchen, carrying a tray.

The three agents sat in Forrester's den, surrounded by books and memorabilia from previous missions. On a low table before them was a bottle of Irish whiskey and a small tray holding glasses. Forrester sat across from them in his reading chair, smoking one of his antique Castello pipes and studying their report. When he finally put it down, he sat silent for a long while before speaking.

"Clocking back to Iolchos afterwards was risky," he said, staring down at the carpet, "but it did produce some useful intelligence." He nodded. "You were correct to do it and include it in your report."

He pursed his lips, thinking. "I don't know whether to call it a successful mission or not," he said at last. He sighed. "A disruption was created, though it was mostly not your doing, and the S.O.G. will have their hands full attempting to adjust for it, but Drakov and this professor have apparently escaped. Major Curtis reported that their bodies were not found in the ruins, though it's possible they were burned. Still, knowing my son ... I wish I'd killed him when I had the chance, God help me."

His face looked grim. "The S.O.G. will probably try to hunt down Hercules, as well as Jason."

"I hope they make it," said Andre.

Forrester frowned, then his face cleared as he understood her meaning. "Oh, the hominoids, you mean." He nodded. "Fascinating creatures. I see you've made a number of unsubstantiated statements here...."

"That's because there was no way to substantiate them, sir," Delaney said. "All we can do is guess. We figure the reason the Argonauts were drugged at Lemnos is because Drakov wanted to separate us from them there, or at least verify who was really who among the Argonauts. Maybe they were drugged because we broke out of that cell before he had a chance to get there. I'm inclined to think he meant to get us. During our fight with the harpies, one of them tried to carry Andre off. We're also guessing about the Dalion women who were carried off by the titans. It's possible they were required for Moreau's experiments. It's even possible they became the harpies. On the other hand, the hominoids were essentially human, or at least human-based life forms. The titans were extremely primitive, but I'm assuming they still had human urges. Now none of these things have any particular significance, except for our comments concerning the storage room on Lemnos where Creed discovered the inactive hominoids."

"And incorrectly assumed them to be androids?" Forrester said.