Dan Simmons - Ilium

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Ilium

ILIUM

title

DANSIMMONS

logo

This novel is dedicated to Wabash College—

its men, its faculty, and its legacy

Mean while the Mind, from pleasure less,

Withdraws into its happiness:

The Mind, that Ocean where each kind

Does straight its resemblance find;

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other Worlds, and other Seas;

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green Thought in a green Shade.

—Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden”

Of possessions

cattle and fat sheep are things to be had for the lifting,

and tripods can be won, and the tawny high heads of horses,

but a man’s life cannot come back again, it cannot be lifted

nor captured again by force, once it has crossed the teeth’s barrier.

—Achilles in Homer’sThe Iliad ,

Book IX, 405–409

A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

—Caliban in Robert Browning’s

“Caliban upon Setebos”

Contents

Dedication

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Ilium
Epigraphs
Author’s Note
Chapters
 The Plains of Ilium
 Ardis Hills, Ardis Hall
 The Plains of Ilium
 Near Conamara Chaos
 Ardis Hall
 Olympos
 Conamara Chaos Central
 Ardis
 Ilium and Olympos
 Paris Crater
 The Plains of Ilium
 Above the Asteroid Belt
 The Dry Valley
 Low Mars Orbit
 The Plains of Ilium
 South Polar Sea
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Ilium
 Mars
 Ilium
 Golden Gate at Machu Picchu
 The Tethys Sea on Mars
 Ilium
 The Coast of Chryse Planitia
 Texas Redwood Forest
 Ilium, Indiana, and Olympos
 Texas Redwood Forest
 Between Eos Chasma and Coprates Chasma in East-Central Valles Marineres
 The Plains of Ilium
 The Mediterranean Basin
 Candor Chasma
 Achaean Compound, Coast of Ilium
 Jerusalem
 Achilles’ Tent
 Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Basin
 The Coast of Ilium, Indiana
 12,000 Meters Above the Tharsis Plateau
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Ilium
 The Mediterranean Basin
 Ilium and Olympos
 Atlantis and Earth Orbit
 Olympos, Ilium and Olympos
 Equatorial Ring
 Olympus Mons
 Olympos and Ilium
 Equatorial Ring
 Olympus Mons
 The Plains of Ilium, Ilium
 The Equatorial Ring
 Ardis Hall
 Ilium and Olympos
 The Equatorial Ring
 Ilium
 The Equatorial Ring
 Ilium and Olympos
 The Equatorial Ring
 The Plains of Ilium and Olympos
 The Equatorial Ring
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Ilium
56   The Plains of Ilium
57   Olympos
58   The Equatorial Ring
59   The Plains of Ilium
60   The Equatorial Ring
61   The Plains of Ilium
62   Ardis
63   Olympos
64   Ardis Hall
65   Indiana, 1200 B.C.
Dramatis Personae for Ilium
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Other Books by Dan Simmons
Copyright
About the Publisher
Acknowledgments
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Ilium

While many translations of theIliad were referred to in preparation for the writing of this novel, I would

specifically like to acknowledge the following translators—Robert Fagles, Richmond Lattimore,

Alexander Pope, George Chapman, Robert Fitzgerald, and Allen Mandelbaum. The beauty of their

translations is manifold and their talent is beyond this writer’s comprehension.

For ancillary poetry or imaginativeIliad -related prose which helped shape this volume, I would especially

like to acknowledge the work of W. H. Auden, Robert Browning, Robert Graves, Christopher Logue,

Robert Lowell, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

For research and commentary on theIliad and Homer, I would like to acknowledge the work of Bernard

Knox, Richmond Lattimore, Malcolm M. Willcock, A.J.B. Wace, F. H. Stubbings, C. Kerenyi, and

members of the Homericscholia too numerous to mention.

For insightful commentary on Shakespeare and Browning’s “Caliban upon Setebos,” I gratefully

acknowledge the writings of Harold Bloom, W. H. Auden, and the editors of theNorton Anthology of

English Literature. For an insight into Auden’s interpretation of “Caliban upon Setebos” and other aspects

of Caliban, I refer readers to Edward Mendelson’sLater Auden.

“Mahnmut’s” insights into the sonnets of Shakespeare were largely guided by Helen Vendler’s

wonderfulThe Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets .

Many of “Orphu of Io’s” comments on the work of Marcel Proust were inspired by Roger

Shattuck’sProust’s Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time.

To readers interested in emulating Mahnmut’s Bardolotous love of Shakespeare, I would recommend

Harold Bloom’sShakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Herman Gollob’sMe and Shakespeare:

Adventures with the Bard, andShakespeare: A Life by Park Honan.

For detailed maps of Mars (before the terraforming), I owe a great debt of gratitude to NASA, the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory, andUncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet, published by the National

Geographic Society, edited by Paul Raeburn, with forward and commentary by Matt

Golombeck.Scientific American has been a rich source of detail, and acknowledgment should go to such

articles as “The Hidden Ocean of Europa,” by Robert T. Pappalardo, James W. Head, and Ronald Greeley

(October 1999), “Quantum Teleportation” by Anton Zeilinger (April 2000), and “How to Build a Time

Machine” by Paul Davies (September 2002).

Finally, my thanks to Clee Richeson for details on how to build a homemade casting furnace with a

wooden cupola.

Author’s Note

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Ilium

When my kid brother and I used to take our toy soldiers out of the box, we had no problem playing with

our blue and gray Civil War soldiers alongside our green World War II guys. I prefer to think of this as a

precocious example of what John Keats called “Negative Capability.” (We also had a Viking, a cowboy,

an Indian, and a Roman Centurion flinging grenades, but they were in our Time Commando Platoon.

Some anomalies demand what the Hollywood people insist on calling a backstory.)

WithIlium, however, I thought a certain consistency was required. Those readers who teethed, as I did, on

Richmond Lattimore’s wonderful 1951 translation of theIliad will notice that Hektor, Achilleus, and Aias

have become Hector, Achilles, and Ajax (Big and Little). In this I agree with Robert Fagles in his 1990

translation that while these more latinized versions are farther from the Greek—Hektor versus Akhilleus

and the Akhaians and the Argeioi—the more faithful version sometimes sounds like a cat coughing up a

hairball. As Fagles points out, no one can claim perfect consistency, and it tends to read more smoothly

when we return to the traditional practice of the English poets by using Latinate spellings and even

modern English forms for the heroes and their gods.

The exception to this, again as per Fagles, is when we would have Ulysses instead of Odysseus or, say,

Minerva replacing Athena. Alexander Pope in his incredibly beautiful translation of theIliad into heroic

couplets had no problem with “Jupiter” or “Jove” ripping Ares (not Mars) a new one, but my Negative

Capability falters here. Sometimes, it seems, you have to play with just the green guys.

Note: For those readers who, like me, have problems in an epic tale telling the gods, goddesses, heroes,

and other characters apart without a scorecard, I would refer you to ourdramatis personaebeginning on

page 573.

ding

The Plains of Ilium

Rage.

Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, of Peleus’ son, murderous, man-killer, fated to die, sing of the rage

that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House

of Death. And while you’re at it, O Muse, sing of the rage of the gods themselves, so petulant and so

powerful here on their new Olympos, and of the rage of the post-humans, dead and gone though they

might be, and of the rage of those few true humans left, self-absorbed and useless though they may have

become. While you are singing, O Muse, sing also of the rage of those thoughtful, sentient, serious but not-

so-close-to-human beings out there dreaming under the ice of Europa, dying in the sulfur-ash of Io, and

being born in the cold folds of Ganymede.

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Ilium

Oh, and sing of me, O Muse, poor born-again-against-his-will Hockenberry—poor dead Thomas

Hockenberry, Ph.D., Hockenbush to his friends, to friends long since turned to dust on a world long since

left behind. Sing ofmy rage, yes, of myrage, O Muse, small and insignificant though that rage may be

when measured against the anger of the immortal gods, or when compared to the wrath of the god-killer,

Achilles.

On second thought, O Muse, sing of nothing to me. I know you. I have been bound and servant toyou, O

Muse, you incomparable bitch. And I do not trust you, O Muse. Not one little bit.

If I am to be the unwilling Chorus of this tale, then I can start the story anywhere I choose. I choose to

start it here.

It is a day like every other day in the more than nine years since my rebirth. I awaken at the Scholia

barracks, that place of red sand and blue sky and great stone faces, am summoned by the Muse, get

sniffed and passed by the murderous cerberids, am duly carried the seventeen vertical miles to the grassy

summits of Olympos via the high-speed east-slope crystal escalator and—once reported in at the Muse’s

empty villa—receive my briefing from the scholic going off-shift, don my morphing gear and impact

armor, slide the taser baton into my belt, and then QT to the evening plains of Ilium.

If you’ve ever imagined the siege of Ilium, as I did professionally for more than twenty years, I have to

tell you that your imagination almost certainly was not up to the task. Mine wasn’t. The reality is far more

wonderful and terrible than even the blind poet would have us see.

First of all there there is the city, Ilium, Troy, one of the great armed poleis of the ancient world—more

than two miles away from the beach where I stand now but still visible and beautiful and domineering on

its high ground, its tall walls lighted by thousands of torches and bonfires, its towers not quite as topless

as Marlowe would have us believe, but still amazing—tall, rounded, alien, imposing.

Then there are the Achaeans and Danaans and other invaders—technically not yet “Greeks” since that

nation will not come into being for more than two thousand years, but I will call them Greeks

anyway—stretched mile after mile here along the shoreline. When I taught theIliad, I told my students

that the Trojan War, for all its Homeric glory, had probably been a small affair in reality—some few

thousands of Greek warriors against a few thousand Trojans. Even the best informed members of

thescholia —that group ofIliad scholars going back almost two millennia—estimated from the poem that

there could not possibly be more than 50,000 Achaeans and other Greek warriors drawn up in their black

ships along the shore.

They were wrong. Estimates now show that there are more than 250,000 attacking Greeks and about half

that number of defending Trojans and their allies. Evidently every warrior hero in the Greek Isles came

running to this battle—for battle meant plunder—and brought his soldiers and allies and retainers and

slaves and concubines with him.

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Ilium

The visual impact is stunning: mile upon mile of lighted tents, campfires, sharpened-stake defenses, miles

of trenches dug in the hard ground above the beaches—not for hiding and hunkering in, but as a deterrent

to Trojan cavalry—and, illuminating all those miles of tents and men and shining on polished spears and

bright shields, thousands of bonfires and cooking fires and corpse fires burning bright.

Corpse fires.

For the past few weeks, pestilence has been creeping through the Greek ranks, first killing donkeys and

dogs, then dropping a soldier here, a servant there, until suddenly in the past ten days it has become an

epidemic, slaying more Achaean and Danaan heroes than the defenders of Ilium have in months. I suspect

it is typhus. The Greeks are sure it is the anger of Apollo.

I’ve seen Apollo from a distance—both on Olympos and here—and he’s a very nasty fellow. Apollo is the

archer god, lord of the silver bow, “he who strikes from afar,” and while he’s the god of healing, he’s also

the god of disease. More than that, he’s the principle divine ally of the Trojans in this battle, and if Apollo

were to have his way, the Achaeans would be wiped out. Whether this typhoid came from the corpse-

fouled rivers and other polluted water here or from Apollo’s silver bow, the Greeks are right to think that

he wishes them ill.

At this moment the Achaean “lords and kings”—and every one of these Greek heroes is a sort of king or

lord in his own province and in his own eyes—are gathering in a public assembly near Agamemnon’s tent

to decide on a course of action to end this plague. I walk that way slowly, almost reluctantly, although

after more than nine years of biding my time, tonight should be the most exciting moment of my long

observation of this war. Tonight, Homer’sIliad begins in reality.

Oh, I’ve witnessed many elements from Homer’s poem that had been poetically misplaced in time, such

as the so-called Catalogue of Ships, the assembly and listing of all the Greek forces, which is in Book

Two of theIliad but which I saw take place more than nine years ago during the assembly of this military

expedition at Aulis, the strait between Euboea and the Greek mainland. Or theEpipolesis, the review of

the army by Agamemnon, which occurs in Book Four of Homer’s epic but which I saw take place shortly

after the armies landed here near Ilium. That actual event was followed by what I used to teach as

theTeichoskopia, or “View from the Wall,” in which Helen identifies the various Achaean heroes for

Priam and the other Trojan leaders. TheTeichoskopia appears in Book Three of the poem, but happened

shortly after the landing andEpipolesis in the actual unfolding of events.

If thereis an actual unfolding of events here.

At any rate, tonight is the assembly at Agamemnon’s tent and the confrontation between Agamemnon and

Achilles. This is where theIliad begins, and it should be the focus of all my energies and professional

skills, but the truth is that I don’t really give a shit. Let them posture. Let them bluster. Let Achilles reach

for his sword—well, I confess that I’m interested in observing that. Will Athena actually appear to stop

him, or was she just a metaphor for Achilles’ common sense kicking in? I’ve waited my entire life to

answer such a question and the answer is only minutes away, but, strangely, irrevocably . . . I . . . don’t

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. . . give . . . a . . . shit.

The nine years of painful rebirth and slow memory return and constant warfare and constant heroic

posturing, not to mention my own enslavement by the gods and the Muse, have taken their toll. I’d be just

as happy right now if a B-52 appeared and dropped an atomic bomb on both the Greeks and the Trojans.

Fuck all these heroes and the wooden chariots they rode in on.

But I trudge toward Agamemnon’s tent. This is my job. If I don’t observe this and make my report to the

Muse, it won’t mean loss of tenure for me. The gods will reduce me to the bone splinters and dusty DNA

they re-created me from and that, as they say, will be that.

ding

Ardis Hills, Ardis Hall

Daeman faxed into solidity near Ada’s home and blinked stupidly at the red sun on the horizon. The sky

was cloudless and the sunset burned between the tall trees on the ridgeline and set both the p-ring and the

e-ring glowing as they rotated in the cobalt sky. Daeman was disoriented because it was evening here and

it had been morning only a second before when he faxed away from Tobi’s Second Twenty party in

Ulanbat. It had been years since he visited Ada’s home, and except for those friends whom he visited

most regularly—Sedman in Paris, Ono in Bellinbad, Risir in her home on the cliffs of Chom, a few

others—he never had a clue as to what continent or time zone he would find himself in. But then, Daeman

did not know the names or positions of the continents, much less the concepts of geography or time zones,

so his very lack of knowledge meant nothing to him.

It was still disorienting. He had lost a day. Or had he gained it? At any rate, the air smelled different

here—wetter, richer, wilder.

Daeman looked around. He stood in the center of a generic faxnode pad—that usual circle of permcrete

and fancy iron posts topped with a yellow crystal pergola, and near the center of the circle the post

holding the inevitable coded sign that he could not read. There was no other structure visible in the valley,

only grass, trees, a stream in the distance, the slow revolution of both rings crossing above like the

armatures of some great, slow gyroscope.

It was a warm evening, more humid than Ulanbat, and the faxpad was centered in a grassy meadow

surrounded by low hills. Twenty feet beyond the pad circle stood an ancient two-person, one-wheeled,

open carriole, with an equally ancient servitor floating above the driver’s nook and a single voynix

standing between the wooden tongues. It had been more than a decade since Daeman had visited Ardis

Hall, but now he remembered the barbaric inconvenience of all this. Absurd, not having one’s home on a

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摘要：

IliumILIUMtitleDANSIMMONSlogoThisnovelisdedicatedtoWabashCollege—itsmen,itsfaculty,anditslegacyMeanwhiletheMind,frompleasureless,Withdrawsintoitshappiness:TheMind,thatOceanwhereeachkindDoesstraightitsresemblancefind;Yetitcreates,transcendingthese,FarotherWorlds,andotherSeas;Annihilatingallthat’smade...

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Dan Simmons - Ilium

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