Bruce Balfour - Prometheus Road

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Prometheus Road

Bruce Balfour

The path comes into existence only when we observe it.

—Werner Heisenberg, 1927

I am Prometheus, giver of fire to mortals.

—Aeschylus,Prometheus Unbound

WITHthe dying of the light comes the birth of darkness. The shattered dreams of the day are

welcomed into the flowing embrace of the night, re-formed at the violet hour to face a new dawn.

Memory is mixed with desire, reducing fear to a handful of dust.

He welcomes the darkness.

HISbody floated twenty feet above the bottom, facedown in the clear water, his arms angled out from

his sides in a relaxed pose beneath a blanket of predawn darkness. The temperature of the water was

almost the same as that of his body, minimizing his sense of gravity. The skintight kept his torso dry and

regulated his core temperature, while the marsh grass that stuck to his back helped to disguise his human

shape. The high salt content of the water made him bob on the surface like a cork, his long hair drifting

around his skull like a halo of brown seaweed. His fingertips wrinkled into what his mother called “finger

raisins.” His eyes saw nothing, his ears heard nothing, his tongue tasted only the tang of metal from the

mouthpiece that supplied his oxygen. His body drifted with the currents, heading southwest, while his

mind drifted elsewhere, heading deeper into his inner sea.

During the first thirty minutes, as usual, his mind rejected the black silence, tossing images and thoughts

around in his head, the flotsam and jetsam of his overactive neurons jostling for attention. His body

twitched randomly as his muscles relaxed. Excessive movement could attract the wards on the shore, so

he had to be careful. Odd fears pecked at his mind: What if he drifted too far out? What if he fell asleep

and drowned? What if some horrible sea creature was searching for a bite to eat? His eyelids flickered,

ready for a reassuring peek at his surroundings, but the contact patches kept them closed. His heart beat

faster, then slowed again when he took a deep breath. The warm water melted his fears. There were no

threats here. He had done this many times, sneaking away from his village to float, drifting far from the

sensors onshore but fully aware that the watchers could track him from the sky—or so it was said. No

matter how far he drifted, his body would not be lost. The key to this liquid journey was his absence of

directed motion, relaxation, and his intent not to look like a swimming human trying to escape.

In the external world, there was no escape, but his internal world was another matter.

His five-year-old sister, Weed, had spotted him sneaking out into the light pipe with their little dog in the

middle of the night. The glass-walled light pipe provided secondary access to their underground home,

with a narrow metal ladder clinging to its side. A precocious little girl, Weed had sensed that silence was

appropriate, possibly motivated by the fact that she was also supposed to be in bed instead of watching

the bright full moon casting its silver beams into the middle rooms of the house. Helix nuzzled her hand

and she scratched the short brown fur between the perky ears that looked so enormous on his small

Chihuahua/terrier head. To reward Weed’s silence, Tom paused to fetch her a mug of warm milk,

knowing she wanted it because he had enjoyed the same thing when he was her age—up in the middle of

the night watching the moon’s passage overhead. Tom had thought he was getting away with something

for many years until he began to suspect that his mother, Luna, tolerated this little eccentricity. After all,

Luna’s parents had named her after the same celestial object that fascinated her children. Perhaps she

was still humoring Tom, pretending not to notice his nightly excursions. His younger brother, Zeke, was

the only deep sleeper among his siblings, unaffected by the magnetic pull of the orb that ruled the night

sky. Tom thought that Zeke had no imagination, but he could also see the practical benefit of being a

good sleeper. Everyone had their special talents.

Of course, the moon and the sea weren’t the only reasons Tom went out at night. On rare occasions,

Tempest would also be out there waiting for him, his dark companion, her eyes glowing with a soft

radiance whenever she saw him. Helix growled softly whenever Tom and Tempest entered each other’s

arms, but not because he didn’t trust her—he simply didn’t want to be left out. They’d known each other

since they were tots, playing together whenever they could, growing together and enjoying each other’s

lives. Then, just over a year ago, Tempest had whispered to Tom that he was her chosen one, hoping

they would someday find a way to make their relationship public, hoping the rules could be broken just

this once so they could be together forever. Tom liked the idea, and the thought of her kept him warm on

cold nights.

The current shifted around his body, spinning him in a lazy circle, much as the rest of his life spun around

in a gentle dance going nowhere. Twenty years old, with another eighty years or so ahead of him, Tom

had no idea of how he wanted to spend that time; all he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to be a

farmer. He honored his responsibilities on the farm where he lived—digging ditches, tending the crops,

and all the other boring minutiae of a daily life nurturing the land—but he had to force himself to do it. He

didn’t have the natural affinity for farming that was so evident in his father and his brother. Where they

saw dark, rich soil waiting to be plowed and planted, Tom saw only dirt, and lots of it. There was too

much of a world outside the confines of their patch of land, and he had seen very little of its secrets. Tom

saw the same discontent with farm life in Weed’s young eyes as she waited in the silvery light for the

moon to take her away. Perhaps one day they would both leave on a moonbeam, but where would they

go?

In any case, it was pointless to think about leaving, because the gods wanted Tom Eliot to remain near

thevillageofMarinwood , plowing his life into the ground on the family farm. And their choice was final.

“ELDERUkiah! Good morn!”

Ukiah looked up from his digging in the irrigation ditch and nodded his mud-spattered face at the tall

man in the long black coat and flat-brimmed hat. “ElderMemphis . Good morn to you.” Ukiah glanced at

the back of his fourteen-year-old son, knee deep in the mud, oblivious to his surroundings as he

continued to dig. “Zeke?”

Zeke jumped when he heard his name. He turned and touched his hand to his forehead, dripping brown

water on his face. “Sorry, Father. I was concentrating.” When he sawMemphis looming over them like a

specter on the embankment, his eyes widened, and he touched his forehead again. “ElderMemphis . I am

not worthy.”

“Youth,”Memphis said, “is a blight we all grow out of eventually. Continue your work, young Ezekiel.”

Zeke returned to his digging, relieved that he wouldn’t have to participate in the rest of the conversation.

Ukiah studied the elder above him, whose wiry white hair looked like it was trying to escape from under

the black hat. “What brings you to our home, elder?”

Memphisgave him a disapproving stare. “Your offspring, of course. Why else do I ever walk all the way

out to your farm? Do you know where your son is now?”

Ukiah glanced at Zeke, butMemphis shook his head. “The other one.”

Ukiah shrugged. “I’m sure Tom is around somewhere. He has his chores, and he is dutiful about them.”

“Is that truth?”Memphis crossed his arms. “I think not. Young Tom is out taunting the gods once again.

He was spotted on his way to the shore.”

“Odd. May I ask who reported this?”

“A reliable source. My own good son, Humboldt.”

Ukiah sighed. He’d warned Tom about the ocean many times, but the boy was hard to correct once he

got an idea into his head. Ukiah would not question Humboldt’s report in front ofMemphis , but he knew

the lad was overly protective about his sister. Tom and Tempest were fond of each other, and that made

him Humboldt’s sworn enemy. “Hard to refute, elder. I will speak with my son.”

Memphisshook his head. “You need do more than speak to him, Ukiah. If you are unable to change his

miscreant ways, he’ll end up rooting for grubs in the desert like crazy old Magnus—or worse. Have you

communed with the Oracle in recent days?”

“I can correct my own,” Ukiah said, gritting his teeth. “And the Oracle has not mentioned my son. There

is no need to worry yourself.”

“I must worry for us all. That is my sacred duty as Elder Councilman. The deeds of your offspring must

not bring down the wrath of the gods on this community. Their tolerance is limited. If necessary, I will

send word to Telemachus.”

“Thank you for your concern, elder. Telemachus is wise, but we need not disturb him with petty issues. I

will deal with this in a harsh manner.”

“See that you do. If the gods are offended, they will strike with swift certainty. Good day,

elder,”Memphis said, turning on his heel to stride across the field.

“Good day, elder,” Ukiah mumbled. He climbed up the embankment so that he could scan the horizon,

but Tom was nowhere in sight. A light fog hugged the fields. The boy was old enough to face the

consequences of his own actions, but Ukiah wanted to warn him and give him another chance. He

considered himself one of the open-minded elders, but he could not stand alone against extreme

conservatives such asMemphis when the community might be endangered. Tom was bright enough to

understand the hazards of the situation, so he would simply have to listen to reason and stop venturing

into the sea. Ukiah had no idea how the lad avoided the wards on the shoreline, and he secretly admired

Tom’s cleverness, but the laws were clear—the ocean, the bay, and the mountain of the gods were

forbidden zones.

Ukiah leaned on his shovel and filled his lungs with the clean, salty air. His eyes caressed the gently

rolling hills of rich earth that belied the violence lurking below. They never had to worry about frost or

snow here because the ground was too warm. Even now, the soles of his boots subtly vibrated in

sympathy with the harmonics transmitted through thousands of feet of rock and soil, reminding Ukiah that

he was not the complete master of his domain. A great power slept beneath his feet. The fog only

enhanced the sense of waiting and suffocation that wafted up out of the ground through the occasional

steam vents that dotted his fields, mere shadows of the howling cracks that had suddenly appeared over

sixty years ago. It had been as if the planet would no longer tolerate the presence of humans, sending

massive columns of smoke into the sky, raining down later in clouds of choking ash as his family stumbled

through sudden lakes of bubbling mud between glowing rivers of red fire. Clutching his mother’s leg while

his older brother stood behind him, Ukiah watched the death of the great city as it slid into the sea,

shoved aside by a sudden upward thrust of the vast shelf of rock known as Nova Olympus—the defiant

fist of the gods. Ukiah had witnessed the dawn of a new age, born in fire to destroy the evils of men and

scour the human plague from the surface of the world.

When the fires subsided, the wasteland became the mother once more, its fertile soil nourishing the crops

so that the humans who remained could survive. Such was the price of prosperity under the watchful eyes

of the gods who protected and governed them.

THEfog shrouding thevillageofMarinwood had broken by midmorning to reveal a crystal blue sky like

the inside of a child’s marble. The usual damp and musty smell of the narrow cobblestone streets was

swept up in the weekly parade of commerce spread on broad tables and tilted carts strewn haphazardly

outside the shops and humble homes. Reeking cheeses vied with ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon, and

other spices for supremacy of the air. Garlic and onions fought with cooked tomatoes and cornfruit to

grab the attention of potential customers strolling past. The rickety stalls of the merchants, islands of

commerce breaking the tide of humanity, groaned under mounds of garish fabrics imported from the east,

the glitter of shiny objects found among the ruins and polished for display, the gleam of hand-rubbed

wood worked by local artisans. A tumult of voices rose and fell in waves as hucksters shouted,

onlookers hooted, sellers whined, and buyers argued. Arms and hands bobbed above the mercantile sea:

Fists clenched, fingers beckoned, and open palms chopped the air. Children hurtled beneath tables and

dodged around adult legs as they played games of spot-the-bot or dodge-the-nanoborg. The noise and

color of the bazaar splashed across the village like a spilled can of paint, bringing life to the normally

dignified surroundings. By sunset, the stalls would vanish, the tables would withdraw under leafy

canopies, the carts would depart for their return to the fields. The human tide would recede along the

winding paths, leaving only the golden glow from the occasional window as evidence that anyone

remained behind. The low earthen fronts of the subterranean houses and shops, their sloping roofs

covered in the sod that made Marinwood blend in with the surrounding terrain, would face empty streets

as the moon passed overhead.

Only the tiny nanoforms ventured out in the darkness, cleaning, rebuilding, and maintaining the village.

The curfew wasn’t formally enforced by the gods; but the last person to remain outside after sunset had

been Old Newt, facedown in a gutter after swilling too much homebrew, who was disassembled and

reconstituted as part of a bench in front of the library. It was often said that Newt made more of a

contribution to the community as a library bench than he had as a shoemaker, and that his bench was

more comfortable than the shoes that he had made. The gods were wise.

For now, awash in brilliant daylight, the streets were full of life. And part of that life was five-year-old

Weed, being towed in her mother’s wake as she plowed through the crowded streets. As usual, Luna

had tied a short length of rope around both of their waists so that Weed wouldn’t get lost among all the

distractions of the marketplace. This tether seemed to have a life of its own, tugging at her whenever she

stopped long enough to admire a shiny toy or a colorful bottle on one of the tables. But Weed didn’t

mind; she enjoyed the activity, the noise, and the feeling of adventure that accompanied their weekly

outing to the village. She followed Luna without complaint as her mother darted from place to place,

squeezing anoog fruit here, tapping a watermelon there, and ignoring the mysterious pieces of broken

machinery arrayed on tables attended by dusty young men with shifty eyes. Weed remembered that Tom

had told her about the scavengers who sneaked into the ruins to pick up old things and sell them at the

market, but she didn’t really understand what he meant by scavengers or ruins. She had an unusually

good vocabulary for her age, and she liked the sound of those words, so she had filed them away in her

head until she could learn their definitions. Perhaps when Tom got home. Tom was always willing to

teach her things. Luna was already teaching her how to read, but she still liked it best when Tom told her

stories about distant places, magical kingdoms, and beautiful young princesses named Weed who always

lived happily ever after. Luna preferred to tell her stories about women doing good for their communities,

working on farms, and raising families; but they just didn’t hold her interest the way Tom’s stories did.

She felt guilty about that, especially because her mother tried so hard to make her stories interesting.

Weed noticed that all the buildings in town looked like they grew out of the ground, just like her own

house, and she was wondering if anyone had ever thought of building them on the surface so the sunlight

could come in through windows all the way around, when Luna abruptly turned and they started back

toward the farm. The roaring noise of all the voices, and the smells of all the strange foods, began to

recede. Weed’s tummy grumbled. Luna would usually buy her something to eat before they left the

market, but for some reason today had been different, and she hadn’t received a treat. Perhaps Weed

had done something wrong, and Luna would tell her about it later.

Then Weed’s eyes grew large and her mouth watered as Luna handed her some roasted cornfruit on a

stick. Weed loved cornfruit. And she was happy that she hadn’t done anything wrong. It would have

been hard to wait another week for her treat.

Life was good.

THEbreathing mask over Tom’s face made his nose itch. That was unusual, as the old relic from the

ruins, which he had cleverly purchased at the bazaar from a man who knew nothing of its purpose, had

never been uncomfortable before. Relaxed and drifting on the gentle currents, he suddenly realized that

he had been floating a long time, much farther than he usually did. His back felt warm, so it had to be well

after sunrise.

Then Tom sensed icy fingers reaching up through the shallow waters of the bay to stroke his skin. He

was over one of the few deep channels that had not been completely filled in by The Uplift. He squinted

to activate the contact patches, which pulled back from his eyes to let him see through the clear face

shield, on down through shafts of twinkling sunlight into the greenish depths, and his eyes widened. A few

feet beneath him, the pointed tower of a broken building reached for the sky, doomed to remain beneath

the surface until gradual erosion made it an intimate part of the silt on the bay floor. Sheets of algae clung

to the walls around the dark windows, fluttering like torn curtains in the gentle current. He rarely saw fish

in the bay, perhaps because they feared the ghostly presences in the underwater tombs. Tom felt goose

bumps on his skin: He had no idea if the stories about the ghosts were true, or if they were just tales

made up by parents to keep their kids in line, but the aura of death was unmistakable.

He knew the history of his people. Although he wasn’t old enough to have witnessed The Uplift event as

his father had, Tom knew that almost three million people had died within a few minutes of each other,

most from drowning, and that their pale corpses had drifted in the bay for days, washing up on

breakwaters and drifting in estuaries, where they rotted in the sun for weeks. He knew there had been

early attempts to search for survivors, but none had ever been found, and the gods quickly decreed the

entire bay to be a forbidden zone. Tom suspected that the restriction now remained only out of tradition

and not for any practical reason, but his punishment would be just as severe if the elders of Marinwood

discovered his secret pastime.

A winged gargoyle, frozen in gray stone on the side of a building, glared at Tom with evil in its eyes as he

passed a few feet over its head. Tom could imagine it perched high above a city street, willing itself to

break free of its masonry prison and descend on the innocent pedestrians far below. Now that it was

underwater, Tom assumed it must be thoroughly confused by the strange turn of events.

Fate. Tom’s thoughts drifted back to his fateful meeting with the Oracle so many years before. His

entrance into puberty had heralded the time when his life path would be chosen during a personal visit

from the Oracle. As the Oracle rarely left her rocky underground vault in the foothills outside of

Marinwood, the visitation was an event that unsettled his entire family, breaking the routine of the farm.

They all quit work early, and there was a lot of pacing and nervous chatter that evening after dinner.

Ukiah and Luna made regular treks to the Oracle twice a year, so they were accustomed to her spooky

presence; but Tom’s first glimpse of the figure that appeared in his bedroom doorway had nearly made

him yelp in alarm, even though he was pretending to be asleep. When the door creaked open around

midnight, the Oracle’s white robes were bathed in a bluish glow from a shaft of moonlight in the core of

the house. Her white eyes glittered with an unnatural light, looking straight at him in the darkness as if

she’d been in his room many times before. Cascades of thick white hair framed a face that was always

young, even though she was the same Oracle that had chosen Ukiah’s life path when he was a boy.

Although she spoke in a whisper, her sharp voice could clearly be heard from across a room, as if she

were able to direct and focus the sound waves when they left her mouth.

“Tom Eliot,” the Oracle whispered, “I know your secret.”

Startled, Tom quickly ran through a mental list of all the possible secrets the Oracle might have plucked

from his mind, but it was a very short list, and he had no idea why she would be interested in such trivia

from the daily routine of his life. He saw his mother standing a short distance behind the Oracle, and he

wondered if this might be some sort of parental trick to see if Tom would confess to valid reasons for

some of his admittedly bizarre behavior. Then it occurred to Tom that the old woman might just be

playing with his head to see how he would react.

“Yes,” she said. “I do know what you’re thinking. In fact, I know more about you than you do, little

man-thing.”

“He’s not all that little,” Luna said.

The Oracle turned her gaze on Luna for a few seconds, then Luna bowed her head and backed away

from the doorway. That simple motion demonstrated the Oracle’s authority, and Tom felt the seriousness

of the occasion. He licked his lips, breathing faster than usual as the Oracle turned her gaze on him once

more.

“Your eyes smell like the sound of rain,” the Oracle said, gliding across the floor toward his bed. He

couldn’t see her feet, and her robes billowed behind her as she moved, giving Tom the impression that

she was floating. “As the trees dream of light, you dream of futures past, tumbling in time, seeking your

reflection in smoky mirrors. In this quest, you will fail.”

Tom didn’t know what she was talking about, but he felt as if he were being punished for bad thoughts.

“Why? What have I done?”

She stopped beside his bed, looming over him. “What will you not do? Time is a gift and a curse, little

man-thing. I can only guide and foresee, while you must live your death with each passing day.”

Tom wished his mother would come back into the room.

The Oracle’s white eyes bored into his skull. “You have a greatness in you, Tom Eliot, but this will also

be your downfall. To be something, you must be nothing first, and your parents can prepare you for this.

Your life stretches out before me, a turbulent time stream, among which I can only select the currents and

help you avoid the submerged rocks. But I am certain of one thing—the path you must seek is the path of

nothing: being nothing, becoming nothing, remaining nothing. You must join your community as your

community joins you, plowing the fields as you would plow your mind.”

Tom inched his head farther back on the pillow as she reached for his face, finally touching his forehead

with her cold fingers, then covering his eyes with her palm. “Your path is here among the soil: working in

it, growing in it, and finally resting in it.”

She had chosen his life path. Could he ask for a second choice?

“No,” the Oracle said, gliding toward the exit. The prophet had spoken. Some were chosen to serve the

gods, others were chosen for dangerous exploration tasks or to work in occupations that supported the

village, but lives such as those were apparently not suited to Tom’s skills. No, the Oracle had looked into

his head, past his hopes and fears and dreams, seeking the truth of his inner being, and she had found

only dirt. Tom was doomed to spend his life on his family’s farm, striving to be nothing.

And so he floated, feeling the freedom of the water supporting his body, living in the present so he could

ignore the future.

THEalert from the Alcatraz ward on the Inner Barrier flashed through the network faster than a human

synapse could respond. The information was indexed, correlated, and analyzed, then joined with a

solution matrix. After evaluation and forecasting, a response array was generated almost faster than the

incoming alert had arrived at its destination. Triangulating with their extended eyes in orbit, distributed

processors fixed the position of the interloper, identified it with pattern recognition algorithms, tracked its

heat trail through the water far enough to extrapolate its origin, and relayed the data to the terminal

execution nodes for final disposition.

Inner guardian release 37°48' 28" West Latitude 122°26' 30" North Longitude.

TOMhad to get back, and it would have to be by a quicker route than usual. Helix was faithfully waiting

for him where the river emptied into the bay, so Tom would have to circle back on land, avoiding the

wards and the roving watchers, to pick up Helix and head for home. It was market day, so most of their

neighbors would be in town and less likely to spot Tom on his return. Across the bay to the south and the

east, he saw the twisted spikes where huge towers had reached for the sky in the great cities, reduced

now to the few ruins clinging to mountainsides that had formerly been flat terrain. He shook his head,

annoyed that he had allowed himself to drift this far; it was the sort of mistake that could get him into big

trouble.

Tom felt an odd vibration moving through his body, similar to what he felt on land before the earth

shifted beneath his feet. A bubbling sound reached his ears, coming from somewhere behind him. He

lifted his head from the water and looked back. Blinking as if he might clear the rivulets streaming down

across his mask from his wet hair, he saw the fast-moving wake of some narrow object, like a huge fish,

racing in his direction just below the surface. Tom lowered his face into the water to see if he could get a

better view from below, and he was startled to see two large eyes with a brilliant orange glow. He

stiffened when he realized that the creature was moving much faster than any fish he’d ever seen, and it

didn’t move like a living thing.

A guardian. The shoreline wards must have spotted him.

He’d never actually seen one before, but he’d get a close look soon enough. It would be on him in

seconds. There was no way he could swim faster or deeper than the guardian, and he didn’t think he

could fool it by remaining motionless.

The guardian turned. A quicksilver flank glittered in the sunlight as it dove a few feet deeper and

reoriented itself toward its target. Tom had never been a target before, and he didn’t enjoy thinking of

himself as prey. But there was no place he could hide, no place he could run. The pounding of his heart

shook his body in a steady rhythm, waiting for the inevitable, until an older part of his brain took over and

he turned away from the oncoming threat, swimming like a madman in his futile attempt to get away.

Then it had him. A heavy claw wrapped around his ankle and yanked him below the surface, dragging

him down as he flailed and struggled to break free and swim back to the surface. The unyielding claw

remained in place, tearing at the skin of his ankle, foreshadowing the pain he would soon feel when his

mask tore away and his lungs filled with water after his last breath burst from his screaming mouth.

His body slammed into something hard, causing a hollow boom in the water, and a dense cloud of

bubbles billowed past him. His last thought was of his family, and how he had failed them by defying the

law, and how the gods would seek retribution on them for Tom’s disgrace.

UKIAHstopped chopping carrots to glance at the kitchen clock, then his shoulders slumped. “Where is

he?” Distracted, he nicked his thumb with the sharp blade. A spot of blood appeared on one of the

carrots. “It’snoon , and the lad is normally back at his chores by midmorn.”

Luna stopped shredding lettuce and reached for Ukiah’s hand. “Better give me that knife before you cut

your fingers off, old man.” She gently took the knife from him and set it on the table, then put her hand on

his shoulder and looked into his dark blue eyes. “We need to encourage Tom’s independence. He needs

to get away to think.”

Ukiah licked his wound, then put a finger over it to stop the bleeding. “Thinking is a bad habit. It leads to

unhappiness. I should have hidden those old books in a better place.”

“What old books?” She raised an eyebrow, wondering if there really might be forbidden books on their

farm.

“Tom found my library hidden in the cellar beneath the barn. Most of it was my father’s collection, but I

collected more from the ruins before the zones were established. Tom’s been reading those books for

years. He doesn’t know that I know about it, of course. I didn’t think it would do any harm for him to

know a few things about the old ways, and he’s more motivated to learn when he can sneak around to

do it.”

Luna’s eyes were wide. “You never told me.”

Ukiah shrugged. “Better that you didn’t know. IfMemphis found out about it and told Hermes, they’d

burn me at the stake.”

“Then why are you telling me now?”

“In case something happens to me, I guess. There’s fuel in the cellar, so that you can torch the whole

thing if someone decides to raid the farm. Destroying the evidence might help keep the rest of the children

safe.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Did you try looking for Tom in the barn cellar?”

“Of course. That’s part of my concern. I haven’t seen him at all this morning.”

Then it was Luna’s turn to sigh. “Don’t worry. He’ll get his chores done. And he’ll come running when

he smells the cornfruit I’ve got roasting.”

“I’m not worried about his chores, Luna. He’s got bigger problems.”

“Memphisis an old fool,” Luna said, turning to pour herself some spice tea from the steaming pot on the

stove.

“Fool or not, he runs the council.”

The spicy aroma of the tea filled the air as it burbled into Luna’s cup. “Without Hermes,Memphis would

be nothing. And Hermes would be nothing without the power of Telemachus behind him.”

“You don’t seem to understand. Tom is at risk here.We are at risk.”

Holding the warm teacup between her hands, Luna glanced up with a frown. “Did the Oracle tell you

this?”

“No, but you know how it works. If Telemachus thinks Tom is a renegade element, they’ll come for him.

They’ll take him away.”

“It’s been years since anyone was removed. Why would they single out Tom?”

“Because he’s too different. Because he doesn’t follow the rules, and he rubs their noses in it. Not

overtly, mind you, but just enough to imply that he’s above the law. They don’t like what he represents.”

Luna gripped his forearm. “You need to speak to the Oracle. If there’s real trouble coming, she’ll

know.”

“She already summoned me. I’m supposed to visit her this afternoon.”

“By yourself?”

Ukiah nodded.

Luna released her grip on Ukiah’s arm and took a deep breath. “This could be a good thing. The Oracle

might tell you thatMemphis will be gone soon, and you’re to replace him.”

“Not much chance of that, I’m afraid.Memphis is perfectly healthy for his age, and he would never

recommend me to be his successor.”

“The rest of the council would vote for you,” she said, sipping her tea.

Ukiah shrugged. “They might have once. But I think they’re just as nervous about Tom’s behavior

asMemphis is. They don’t wish to anger the gods.”

“Ukiah, this is ridiculous. Once or twice a year, some family does something to attract the attention of

Telemachus, then Hermes pays them a visit or the village power grid gets shut off for a week. Nobody

gets removed anymore.”

Ukiah sat down heavily on the edge of the dining table and rubbed his face in his hands. “Okay, maybe I

worry too much, but the boy is in danger. Why does he have to go out of his way to draw attention after

all our efforts to make him fit in? I only want what’s best for him.”

Luna set her cup down, then put her arms around him and rested his head on her chest. “I know what

bothers you. Tom isn’t so different from you when you were his age. Yet you chose to be a responsible

member of the community and join the council whenMedoc died. You became a leader when the people

needed you.”

“That was different. I never openly defied the law.”

“Perhaps they need Tom to lead them, too, but in a different way. Times have changed. You look at

Tom, and you see how he’s like you, so you worry for him. Instead, you should look at Tom and see

how he’s like you, then recognize thegreatness in him.”

Ukiah shook his head. “I don’t want him to be great. I want him to be happy. And I want him to be safe.

We’ve gone to great lengths to hide his unique qualities from Telemachus.”

“Safety is an illusion, my love.”

Ukiah looked up into her twinkling sapphire eyes. “And happiness?”

“That’s real,” she said, hugging him closer.

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摘要：

PrometheusRoadBruceBalfour Thepathcomesintoexistenceonlywhenweobserveit.—WernerHeisenberg,1927IamPrometheus,giveroffiretomortals.—Aeschylus,PrometheusUnbound 1WITHthedyingofthelightcomesthebirthofdarkness.Theshattereddreamsofthedayarewelcomedintotheflowingembraceofthenight,re-formedattheviolethourt...

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Bruce Balfour - Prometheus Road

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