'Wow! you ain't 'arf stirred 'em up!' remarked Pannie, from his front seat position on the railway line. 'You can't just make it work like that, boychik, you gotta be clearer'n that, less aggressive like. See, when yer sends an open message wivout no 'andle, any ole'b.u.g.g.e.r can reply, 'n 'cos they ain't got much else to do, lots of 'em just cruises around lookin' fer a bit of a giggle. Well you just give 'em an easy question what they've all got their own opinions on like an' they all came back at yer all at once and blasted yer 'ead. It can drive yer daft if yer does that too much. Some of you mortals what got on it by accident 'cos they was susceptible an' that, well, they was stark, starin' whatsit, they was, in no time 'Who was it you was after? Pr'aps I can 'elp yer technique a bit eh?'

'Well I was aiming my thoughts at you and Laki here, I thought you could give me some answers.'

'I'm sorry', said Laki. 'I don't keep answers to that sort of question, they're for the Names really, we just do our jobs, eh Pannie? Like they're management, that's why you couldn't aim your questions at us.'

'Yeah, boychik, she's right, mind you, it don't stop some of them other silly b.u.g.g.e.rs from 'avin' a go, and nearly deafenin' yer, but they don't know nuffin' really.

'Look, Sonny, I'll have to go soon - really I do, do you want to see your Life-strip or not? I can't stay here all day waiting for you to decide.' Laki stood arms akimbo.

'I don't know!' exclaimed Alexander grossly perturbed. 'I want to know what's going on, I mean properly, I don't just want to know things, I want to know what it's about. Will your Life-strip highlights tell me that or does it just show events without explanations?'

'It's not my Life-strip, Sonny Boy, it's yours!' with which retort she disengaged the strip from the machine on her knee, stood, s.n.a.t.c.hed up her rod and set off the way her sisters had gone.

'Hey!' exclaimed Alexander. 'What about my Life-strip!'

'You're not ready!' she shouted over her shoulder without turning back. 'I don't ever give previews to people who can't make decisions - too risky!' She concluded with something else which Alexander could not hear for she was turning into the exit tunnel as she spoke.

'You made a right hash of that, boychik' Pannie had leaped alongside him 'You should of seen the pi'tcher, then you'd've knowed. Save a lotta muckin' about later,' he sighed knowingly.

'Knowed what!' Alexander yelled in utter exasperation into the grin dancing about in front of him.

'What wus in the pi'tcher! Blimey O'Reilly - thick as short planks or what!'

'Don't...don't...you dare start that again, I've had enough!.

'Well yer don't listen does yer? There was them Fates gonna do yer a favour what most people 'ud give their eye-teeth for and you 'don't know'. But yer do know boychik, yer jus' don't want ter do nuffin' about it. An' that's why you wouldn't look. Yer not a scaredy cat, like I thought at first, you're a lazy 'ound, that's what. I've been watchin' yer. Yer like all this G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses stuff, you ain't scared on 'em like most mortals I seen 'oo goes bananas when they sees 'em, you likes 'em an' appreciates 'em. An' they likes you, they does, an' they wants yer to 'elp 'em save Gaia from you mortals an' you're too blinkin' idle t' gerr'off yer b.u.m 'n do sumfink'. You ain't got long yer knows that don'cha! It ain't no joke, 2012, old Zeus he don't mess about when he's made up 'is mind he don't.'

'That's just the point,' Alexander paced up and down the platform, agitated. 'What can I do? Me! I can't decide if this G.o.ds stuff is real or in my head. If it's real, everyone'll think I'm a nut case and they'll put me away. If it's not real I really do deserve to be put away. I don't have too strong a reputation for sanity at the moment anyway. I'm a n.o.body in JNO and I've only got the good will of my mum to thank for that. How can I do anything?'

At this the little man started running all over the platform, up the walls and down the other side over the tracks and back onto the platform. He was throwing his arms about and shrieking.

'By all the bleedin' G.o.ds, Zeus an' all on yer, is this bloke fer real? Stupid or what? 'Ow come yer chose this idle t.w.a.t?'

He grabbed Alexander by the arms and using considerable force, sat him down on the edge of the platform so that his legs dangled over the tracks. Jumping down so his head was on a level with Alexander's knees, he gritted his misshapen goat-like teeth and forced his brain onto level two all the while holding for dear life onto Alexander's wrists with a painful vice-like grip. Together their minds soared, Alexander felt Pannie absorb his thoughts entirely into his own and wrap them as if for safekeeping while he probed the Chronosphere with his own. He was searching for other thought patterns on the 'sphere which gave way to the urgency of his thrust until he met another mind bank with which he engaged. Alexander's mind felt Pannie release it into the safekeeping of the new, while maintaining a hold on one corner so it would maintain contact. The new mind bank had a familiar sensation. It had to belong to Hera.

Although this time doubt was present, it was less strong. Pannie was right. Doubt was giving way to curiosity, idleness to a strong interest in possibility. As the communication deepened, layer upon layer of possibilities built up strongly, supple yet forceful. In the bowels of London directly under the green turf of Lords Cricket Ground where a bright dawn washed gold over the perfect sward, a small, hairy goat-like little man in a scruffy morning coat and spats, lay with his feet dangling in the dust and sweet wrappers, out to the world, his head resting in the lap of a youth. Alexander had to act fast to yank the inert body up onto the platform, before the first train of the day rocked its noisy way into the station.

Chapter 11.

Alexander, rose the next morning as if coming home from far away. He woke in a fog of impressions which gradually cleared into a growing awareness that today's world into which he was entering had irrecoverably changed since yesterday morning when he had got up to go to work at JNO It was a little while before he realised the voice in his head came from outside himself and was that of his mother, Penny.

'We're off in half an hour!' she was shouting up the stairs which let to his flat. 'If you want to come to Markham with me and Hep, you'll have to get a move on!'

Around him were the familiar objects of his bedroom. The poster of the chromium plated Harley on the wall, his skis propped up in the corner. His ice-pick hanging on the wall. As his mind falteringly grasped the real world, his mind struggled with what had happened to him in the last twelve hours. He had seemed to have existed in an equally tangible world, but on a different plane. He wondered if he'd been dreaming. But the experience was too real, too vividly remembered for that to be an adequate explanation. The structure of the world he lived in had expanded to include the world of Lucina which now ran alongside his old world. His connection with that had split at the point when he met Lucina at the lift at JNO and was now aware his life was separated into parallel lines. At this thought he half expected Pannie to appear and confirm this as reality. But he didn't.

He wondered how it was possible that Penny could treat the new day as if nothing had happened. Penny's matter of factness about getting up and going out, he realised with a jolt, confirmed her absence from this other reality. He wanted to tell her what had happened, but he knew already he couldn't begin to explain so as to make any sense of it. And if he could, he'd only raise unanswerable questions to add to the perplexities that already existed between them. Wow! In Lucina's world he was on his own with 'Them'.

Penny had no insight into the 'sphere. He also amazed himself at his use of the term as if it was quite normal. It was with a sense of uncertainty and disbelief he recalled bundling himself and a dishevelled Pannie Ljeschi first into the Tube and eventually getting into a taxi. Pannie had nipped out at a set of lights muttering something about feeling better now and Alexander got home and to bed like the wrecked partygoer the driver had thought he was.

He threw on his clothes, wearing the same jacket he wore the evening before, and noticed the neatly folded mesh of the mantle of Zeus still in his pocket. He did a double take, as the crowding reality of the coming day and the voice of his mother, urging him to get up again, made it increasingly difficult to believe in this object from this other, parallel world.

Unfolding the garment, he threw it across his shoulders and observed himself in the full length mirror of the wardrobe door. It was so fine as to be virtually invisible. It seemed to change into the colour and texture of his clothes. The moment he had it on, he sensed the vibrations of the Chronosphere, and felt he could easily thrust a thought feeler into it if he was so minded. What stopped him was a need to get downstairs and join his mother's day.

'Alexander, hurry up, get a move on, coffee's made, we haven't got all day!' The insistent tone drew him downstairs.

'There's time for coffee and there are bagel's warm in the oven,'said Penny as he blundered sleepily into the kitchen. 'Hep'll be here soon, we want to get off before the traffic builds up.'

Thank the G.o.ds, he thought, for warm bagels and cream cheese at least. He grinned at Penny and set onto his breakfast ravenously. Suddenly he felt better than he had for years, cosy and warm in his family kitchen with his mother rushing about with papers and brief-case as she had all through his childhood, ready for the big world, into which he now had a place of his own. He was acutely aware of the invisible mantle giving him access to the 'sphere, and found to his surprise that he missed the presence of Pannie, but sensed a comforting presence at the back of his mind along with other intangible thought-feelings that might be from Thea. His mood was bright and high, as when he had woken from sleeping on Nemmi's lap as a child. He slit the bagels and piled cream cheese high. Every time Penny came into his field of vision he grinned cheesily at her and at the brilliant day streaming through the picture-window of the kitchen.

'You're pretty cheerful considering the time you got in this morning. I didn't think you'd be coming. Thea was home ages before you when I got back...said you wouldn't be long, said something about you wanting to think some things out. I was... thought...you might have...you know, got in with some of your old colleagues, especially when you weren't home after I'd gone to bed.'

'I'm fine,' he muttered through a mouthful of bagel and cheese. Washing it down with a great gulp of coffee he continued breathless with excitement.

'Great day, eh? Ma, I'm really looking forward to Markham and meeting Hep. I feel I really want to get into JNO and do something. I feel like I've wasted loads of time worrying about things that don't matter.' He was quite boyish.

'Well I was worried, 'Penny observed. 'After our talk yesterday, and the way Lucina seemed to get to you, and...well...the way you seemed when I left you, and what Thea said about you getting out of the taxi and well...I supposed I was a bit edgy too, Lucina meeting you like that and everything.'

She seemed ready to say more, but his bright cheerfulness made her stop, there was no point going into those things now, no doubt they would crop up again. Hep was due any minute and she needed to get all her things together. They both heard the front door open and Alexander felt the mesh round his shoulders quiver with minute but tangible vibrations. It was as if the material itself became excited. It transmitted itself to his own mounting sense of high expectations, made even more stimulating by the shining day outside.

When Hep Mulciber entered the room, he filled the s.p.a.ce in which he stood as if it were made to measure by some divine tailoring of cosmic materials. The very molecules of the air recognised his presence and rearranged themselves to accommodate him. Other people took up s.p.a.ce, shouldered it away to make room. Hep Mulciber commanded the s.p.a.ce around him. It seemed to accommodate itself to his presence and mould to his person, as if he had ultimate power over all material things. He a.s.similated the molecular arrangement of everything and imposed his will upon it. All this came to Alexander through the net around his shoulders which seemed to greet Hep with quivering delight. Alexander knew through the connection that Hep recognised the mantle of Zeus and was surprised at the reverence he received as the wearer.

'Hi Hep,' said Penny. 'Bang on time. I don't think you've met Alexander, Thea's twin. I thought we would bring him with us, show him a thing or two about what's going on in our bit of JNO I was going to do it later when he'd got to know more about the basics of the Firm, but Lucina seems to think he's ready now, and in any case we can use all the help we can get. I hope that's okay with you, I know how touchy you can be about revealing what we're up to at Markham but this is different so I didn't.........'

'Is your boy!' Hep boomed, casting a friendly glance at Alexander. Almost as square as he was tall, Alexander's first impression of him, chest up, was of an international prop-forward, ma.s.sively shouldered with forearms powerful enough to squeeze the life from an above average bear. He must weigh twenty-five stone, he thought, but without an ounce of superfluous flesh. His large head was topped by black scrubby hair cropped short making his large ears prominent. His face was a craggy mountain weathered by centuries of winter tempests, overtopped by the thickets of his eyebrows. The eyes bright and searching, wanted to know everything going on around him, their glint checked everything in the room. The hand he proffered was as large as a garden spade hard, calloused and scarred, the finger ends splayed as from much toil. From the waist down it was another story altogether. He was made in two halves. The top part powerful enough to put a bull to shame, the lower, weak and feeble, the legs supported by a strange gold coloured contraption of irons which gave him his only support. He was thus only half as tall as you might expect.

Despite his physical disabilities, he had come into the kitchen from the front door as silently as a cat. With unexpected agility he approached Alexander to envelop his hand in his great, powerful paw. The expression on Alexander's face made him laugh to a brazen echo which made the Venetian blinds rattle. His voice on Level One matched his physique, large and enveloping. He was not given much to talking and seemed slightly uncomfortable communicating.

'Don't be surprised by me, son of Penelope, I was there when you were displayed by Zeus. There is much to learn about things you do not know. Watch, learn, keep control of your surprises. We go forward, with much to do, always making new from what is already.'

Through the web covering his shoulders he felt the big presence communicate itself to him. 'I see you wear my net as his symbol, so I will be your friend. But I would like to know how he got it, since it has been lost these many aeons. But we will talk again other times - now we go.'

Penny, who was not privy to this thought-meeting, gathered her things and walked out to the waiting car. Hep gave Alexander an unmistakable wink, and was out to the car fast enough to open the door open for his mother, whose hands were too full to do it for herself. She smiled her thanks, Hep was nothing if not the perfect gentleman. She was a little in love with him, as many women were. There was something irresistibly fascinating about him. Alexander followed and was about to get in the back of the Firm's grey-liveried Mercedes, when Hep motioned him into the front seat. 'Your mother works and spreads herself out. You will be comfortable here.'

Hep put the limousine into drive and they set off into the London traffic. It was some eighty miles to Markham. Alexander calculated it would take about two and a half hours, given the heavy traffic. No sooner were they out on to the North Circular than they were straight into a log jam made worse by the all too evident road-widening scheme that had had North West London snarled up for the last three months. Hep snorted to himself as they ground to what promised to be a long halt.

Then he did something which set Alexander's mind boggling. Penny was absorbed in the back tapping an email into her lap-top. Hep turned to him.

'Regard, son of Penelope.'

He grinned and touched a b.u.t.ton on the steering wheel, which Alexander had thought was the cruise control. For a while nothing happened, Alexander watched Hep who continued grinning. For all his size and craggy visage his eyes held all the delight of a small boy with a new toy.

'You observe, son of Penelope....it works.'

Alexander peered through the windscreen at the line of traffic ahead which suddenly seemed to give way to the thrusting nose of the limousine. Soon the car was gathering speed and the stalled traffic ahead appeared to move over to the left like water displaced by an invisible bow-wave. A new, clear lane appeared before them and the large car slid past the other traffic.

'Refraction, kind of,' said Hep simply and with triumph, still grinning broadly. 'Been working on it long time, light waves and atoms, they bend.'

Alexander's exhilaration was enhanced by this new marvel. He had just about got used to the impossible happening in the Chronosphere, and was unprepared for miracles in ordinary life.

'Applied physics my boy - good eh?' said Hep his grin still splitting his face. 'Many thousand years to get right. It needs a lot of energy, the car's electric's can't do it for more than ten miles, too weak, burns out. But is great for jams, I work on it. Is only stop gap, can't be marketed, of course many people would want it. Real solution is different means of physical transport and communication; reduce need for many journeys by car. This is a good introduction to kind of work we do at Markham. Top secret. Hera knows we do things, but not what. Only Penny, me and Ric, know details - now you will learn. Our staff knows parts of it but not the big picture. Of course Zeus knows but he leaves it to us...no energy himself...he trust me but he don't like me very much.'

'What are you doing at Markham?' said Alexander thinking on level one. Hep's reply surprised him.

'I don't operate on L.1 while on project,' he said out loud. 'You, neither. That's whole point.'

Alexander was confused again and his mood shifted down a gear, more mystery, he thought.

Hep ignored the thought pattern though Alexander was sure he had picked it up on the 'sphere, attested to by the quivering of the net round his shoulders.

'Listen, son of Penelope, you must not wear net from Zeus at Markham. Too dangerous, might fry you alive. Take off now and put it away.' His tone left no room for argument and he slipped out of the net, folding it neatly into his pocket.

'Take care of it, you will soon have need of it, but not now. Listen, son of Penelope, Markham is off the 'sphere altogether. I have invented blocking device which even Old Man Himself can't get through without an effort that put him to sleep for a month. Remember, whole idea of Markham is your mother's before Zeus made his announcement. You surprised eh? She is remarkable woman, Hera take to her very much, is first mortal woman she really take to so much. I suppose is because this time she make deal with Zeus. Penny she know nothing of this. Penny is ahead of game without knowing. She persuaded Hera to back up her plan. You know she's not able to use 'sphere for communication, so Zeus agrees for me to work on a mortal network that will mimic Chronosphere. I better tell you now, son of Penelope, we work close together she and I. I work for her alone, you understand, not Hera, what I do is for Penny's vision of future for mortals. I promise Prometheus to help mortals all I could when Zeus made me fix Prometheus' chain to the rock so he could punish him for giving away fire.'

Alexander turned his head to Penny, who was preoccupied on her mobile 'phone and had raised the gla.s.s dividing screen to give her privacy. By now the traffic had thinned enough for Hep to have switched off the refraction device and they were soon bowling along the middle lane of the M40 at exactly the speed limit.

'She cannot hear us,' said Hep. 'Or I would not talk. She is suspicious of me, you too because of Thea and Lucina. Zeus say 'No' very seriously to putting her on the 'sphere, though Hera shout at him. Big row, lot of making up and more row, also big row about you being connected to it. Zeus dead against it, he say you not up to it, not the stuff of heroes - sorry, he say it, not me. Me I don't care, Penny and me can do what's needed without it, but Zeus change goalpost, he's cut mortal time-line and now it very tough for us. Once he give Lucina long time, open ended, to make good for Gaia, but he decide to speed things up, for devilment. I think generation or two more not have hurt too much, but he like idea of Mayan Indians who stop calculating at 2012, was far enough for him. Prometheus is in a big rage and Athena very unhappy. Hera nearly start new rebellion but she change her mind. She don't think either that what happen to mortals important enough for enormous battle again like last time. I am relieved. That was very bad time for us. Zeus has other reasons, I know him, he never do anything for nothing even when he is as raging bull. He too upset about Gaia, all of us upset, she is our Mother, we owe her everything, even more than you, so she must not be weakened too much. Shortening time-line without warning makes it difficult for us now. Chronos, he stirs. We thought we had many generations to do the work, now we have only one or two. This where you come in son of Penelope. Hera forced Zeus to put you on 'sphere, because he change goal-posts so sudden. She has more faith in you than he has. She believes that you will manage Hades and Chronos and so give us a fighting chance by deadline.' Hep stopped as a new thought surfaced in his mind. 'You know what?' He continued, slightly puzzled. 'All the usual oracles say nothing - that is strange. I think Old Thunderer has put block on them, the Fates, the Horae sisters tell me nothing. Not even he can make them silent, so they got to be in league. There is big buzz in halls of Zeus. People take sides. I think Zeus will hold off a new insurrection of G.o.ds. But Hades and his father Chronos, have different agenda and like last time, long time ago, they feel again their strength. I don't know for Prometheus or Athena, but I have belly-full last time and will not fight again. I draw line, but will give all help through Penny. Hephaestos keeps his promise to Prometheus.' He nodded a.s.sent to himself.

'I'm not altogether following you. I'd get it on L2,' said Alexander. 'If you'd get on with me, wait while I put on the net.'

'Outside work of JNO you can use net how you like - but not while we work on project. That point of it, we work on alternative. It no use if everyone all on 'sphere, they'd all have to be immortal and that's no good, they'd not be human; is contradiction, we need another way.'

Hep stopped speaking, he had said enough, he was not usually so talkative, for him action was more important than reflection. He was however, very worried about the lad. From what he had already heard on the 'sphere, Hera and Zeus had not resolved their argument about him. The weather though seemed to indicate a truce for the time being. Knowing the Old Thunderer's ability to be forgiving only until the next time, he thought it was as well to take advantage of the peace and take an interest in the boy, to use the time to teach him something before he was required to act. After all, his lineage was good and any child of Penny had to have something going for this fifth and definitely last race of mortals. Zeus's son had a potential edge on others, but not all his sons had turned out useful in the past where humans were concerned. He was aware the race could use some heroics at this crucial time, he had hoped Penny was to be the one, but she was too behind the scenes and he was sure these days heroes were not enough, it had to be a team effort. Also Hep was not certain there were enough Olympians ready for the task of saving the human race. Alliances might well have changed too much since the last challenge. Tempers were up now, Zeus had shortened the timeline. The old Thunderer was also tired - anything might happen.

As they drove through the Oxfordshire countryside Alexander couldn't help thinking this bit of Gaia didn't seem too bad in the spring sunshine. The rolling hills and vales of North Oxford, were well cared for by the occupants of the nestling villages they were pa.s.sing as they left the highroad and plunged into the lanes leading to Markham. Maybe there was more time than he was being led to believe. He knew most if not all of the pretty cottages were really part of Oxford's commuter belt. The rolling slopes of yellow rape and spring corn masked an agribusiness that squeezed family farmers from debt to heart attack and suicide and so was another form of pressure on Gaia. Still, on the surface, the land was as neatly turned out as Demeter herself might have wished.

Markham introduced itself to the visitor by a quaint gate-house. An automated ironwork gate, wrought with infinite detail, swept itself majestically open as they approached. They rattled noisily over the cattle grid, for there were sheep grazing on the slopes which curved away pleasantly from the metalled track which wound restfully round the contours of the park. They pa.s.sed the arched folly, crossed thunder bridge spanning the artificial lake, until making the sharp right turn to the main approach they skirted the slender mock-Egyptian obelisk and cruised down the slope to the main house.

Its frontage was embellished by a tall railing of more fantastic ironwork which enclosed a large gravelled courtyard, where the car slid to a halt alongside at least twenty other grey JNO liveried cars of different makes, none of them cheap. Alexander always liked this entrance. The house was not particularly special architecturally, but it was set beautifully and was perfectly hidden from prying eyes.

'Seems a few of us had the same idea this weekend,' said Penny, getting down first. 'You two seem to have been getting on pretty well. That's nice, I thought you would.'

Contemplating them together in these surroundings, she was so full of pride in Alexander that the dread Hep carried permanently and silently for her almost forced itself into speech, he so much did not want her to be let down by events.

Hep returned a hollow smile. For a start he wasn't so sure the lad was going to match up to the promise she held for him. He liked this son of his grandfather and protege of his mother; he deserved his chance to prove himself. For Penny's sake he made a silent vow to give him all the help he could and persuade any other of the Olympians to a.s.sist from the background if that was the only way. His greatest fear, apart from Alexander not matching up, were the non-aligned forces. He could no longer gauge if they had thought the p.r.o.nouncement of Zeus' last will and testament was a weakness brought on by years of neglect, to launch a new offensive and thereby unleash a new war of the G.o.ds. There was also the new phenomenon of Yahweh to put into the balance. All of which might lead to catastrophe for the Olympians - whatever it might do to humans.

In the overthrow of Chronos, Gaia had entrusted her well being to The Olympian brothers by lot. This time should Zeus' ultimate victory prove to be premature through humankind's failure of her proper guardianship; there would be unleashed such a fury in Tartarus that he feared Chronos would take his terrible and final revenge. Gaia would naturally want any of her other offspring, including Hades, to deliver her from such a failure of Zeus', despite him being her favourite. In his opinion and that of many others, Zeus was running a monumental risk from his last will and testament. Hephaestos carried no torch for this race apart from his debt to Prometheus and his respect for Hera, but the gauntlet was down and he would have no choice but to side with the Twelve major G.o.ds, against all comers despite his reservations.

Alexander noted Hep's concern as his connection with the 'sphere seemed to have given him an increased sensitivity. Thinking to enhance the feeling and learn more, obscured from view by the car, he slipped on the golden net in an attempt to contact Hep's thoughts. Finding no response he cursed himself for forgetting Hep's warning and he quickly slipped it off again before Hep could notice this act of misbehaviour. Hep's abilities seemed even greater as he supposed it needed real power to blank off the 'sphere, and, real courage too as it was probably against the will of Zeus.

He was glad Hep seemed prepared to be his friend and was shaken deeply that he was with someone who both could and did contradict the Old Thunderer himself and so he followed his mother and the swift and silent Hep.

Hep was right. Zeus' last will and testament had not only set Olympus in turmoil. Old wounds from elsewhere, physical and psychological, although long healed were never forgotten and still ached. Gaia herself, less blameless than she would have it bruited, shrewdly let her own doubt be known and thereby a.s.sisted the commotion, after all she did not know who would win and needed to stimulate all the alternatives to ensure her survival.

Slowly with an infinitesimal stir, rumour, questions, old plots, old hurts were added to the rumble of excitement, and the murmur grew inexorably into a hubbub. It rippled insidiously along the timelines, and slid through the Chronosphere. No one on the network failed to register the subtle shift of mood.

Few showed much notice at first which said a good deal about the neglect of the system in recent aeons. But many great events, have insignificant beginnings. Things have their proper occasion, as Lachesis would say, they are woven in the strands of time not to be plucked out. The timelines of the future vibrate with potential, ready, for action and counter action to bring them to fruition. The potential of experience is laid down in the ebb and flow of time-past and causes will have their effects as the present travels onwards.

Memories, long buried, but not forgotten, stirred in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of sleeping giants and monsters of the deep. Scaly tails of great beasts thrashed as they dreamed of revenge in age long slumbers in dark, far places. Hydra heads twisted in their sleep. Single eyes roved beneath leathern lids.

The Chronosphere reaches through the realms of the Olympians, but it scarcely penetrates the divide of Earth and Tartarus, in the Underworld, where time does not pa.s.s but acc.u.mulates. Hades, the absent brother of Zeus has only twice visited the upper air. He holds tight to his own world, Emperor of the spirits of the ma.s.sive throngs of the endless past. Centred at the eye of the Id, holding thought from the beginnings of consciousness, he harboured dreams of ultimate power and he knew well how even the strongest power would in the long run show weakness which could unravel all their accomplishments. Waiting was no problem for him. He had no need of journeying on the Chronosphere, no use for time, for all creatures eventually came his way. Time-past was his realm and he grew larger, inevitably. Persephone, his wife, alone, on her bi-annual wandering above, carried news of the world back to the halls of Hades, deep in the underworld. Now she had brought doubt and doubt was a c.h.i.n.k in the wall between his Tartarus and the realm of Zeus. Doubt was weakness, uncertainty was like a virus in the psyche of a G.o.d. In the realms of Hades there was no such thing as doubt. The past was always certain, giving it the advantage when wavering occurs.

Hades was not yet ready for action. Zeus had surprised everyone. Despite the breach of doubt, Hades still needed allies, had systems to set up. Even Gaia herself was a potential ally. So many souls had humankind condemned to Tartarus, especially in recent centuries, so many were the souls that had flowed into the pools of Lethe and walked the paths and orchards of the cities of Erebus and Elysium that even Chronos, released from his chains by Hades and holding court in defeat and malcontent, felt anew possibilities he had never thought would come again.

Chapter 12.

When Penny and Lucina moved the JNO operation from Ios to England and they opened Markham as a hidden base, they had their only real row. Walking around the grounds and pointing things out to each other they were discussing alterations that needed to be made and Lucina was full of queenly zeal. She stalked around the perimeter pointing out the changes she saw happening. 'See there, Penelope. Here will be a new communications block, here, you see it, what views it will have over the lake! Now just look at the conservatory. Ugh! What a mess they have allowed it to become!' she strode down a low bank which led to a dilapidated rose garden beyond which the orangery had fallen into ruin. With a sweep of her arm she exclaimed, 'we'll clear all that. Ne? I see a new swimming pool there, for relaxation from all the hard work. Isn't it so Penelope? Oh yes, it's not h.e.l.las, but this is a beautiful land too. I tell Zarian, he doesn't believe in this land having beauty you know. Well I tell him it is so different.' She turned abruptly and stalked on imperiously as only she could towards the lake. 'Here, it's such a good lake. Beautiful. Ahh! Smell the air, so relaxing. We'll stock it with fish, and there you see, in middle we'll make an island with a pretty bower. Good work needs good surroundings, isn't it so? Yes Penelope?'

Penny felt like a head girl following her headmistress around. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

'Ah, yes, there you see will be the golf. People like golf, yes? More deals done in golf game than anywhere, is so? Ne? And there, will be the centre for horses. Close to nature and the animal world, horses. People take on right perspectives with horses and riding, we'll make riding tracks through the woods over there.'

Breathlessly, she strode off towards the area where she had indicated the communications block was to go. 'Now here Penelope, we'll build the communications block. Two floors I think. Bottom floor for the technical stuff and top floor for the office I think. But Hep will decide that. Ne? I think so. Communications we agree is key to Markham centre. We agree this? Yes? I think is so.Good. Now then over there...'

'Who is Hep?' Penny asked, he ears p.r.i.c.king up.

'What did you say dear? said Lucina in full flow.

'I said who is Hep?'

'Don't you worry about Hep he'll take care of communication business, he brilliant at all that sort of thing. Now then, you will need to organise a good security system.'

As Lucina went on ever more animatedly, Penny sat on a low, lichen spotted bal.u.s.trade, fronting onto the distant woods which were reflected perfectly in the mirror of the lake. She felt her attention drifting away and was falling into the beauty of the place. She was having another of her out of body experiences she often had with Lucina, feeling distracted and out of things while being present. She pulled herself together with a jolt. Enough was enough.

'Lucina, please answer me. I asked you who Hep was?'

'And I said to you. He's going to be the communications engineer. There's no one better believe me. He's my boy. Brilliant. I'm sending him from New York.'

'No, Lucina, I don't care who he is, or how brilliant he is. You're not sending him from New York. This is my operation. We agreed. So if I want Hep, whoever, I send to New York for him. Is that clear.'

'Yes yes, I send Hep it's agreed. Now then what I propose for.....' She hesitated and turned to Penny. 'What did you say? You don't want Hep to come? Of course you do, he the best. Silly girl!'