“It will be so interesting to find out, and to talk to humans,” Crocus said, then stopped. “You are humans too. What should we call them?”

“Earth humans?” Klymene suggested.

“But we all come from Earth,” Crocus said. “Space humans?”

“Perhaps they’ll have space Workers,” I said.

“I would like that very much,” Crocus said.

“Maybe we can call them by the name of their ship, or their civilization, when we know it,” Dad said.

“I will come with you to the spaceport, Klymene,” Crocus said.

“Don’t you want to go to Thessaly too?” she asked. “We can manage. And I know you and Pytheas were close.”

“I have been there and paid my respects. And there’s bound to be a proper memorial later.”

“I don’t know,” Dad said. “It’s an odd circumstance. It’s not as if he’s dead the way anyone else would be. There could be a memorial for Pytheas, for his mortal life, but … he’s also and really Apollo, and Apollo’s still alive with all his memories. He’s an undying god. He could come to his own memorial. He might be at Thessaly now.”

“If he is, would he look like Grandfather, or like his statues?” I asked, simultaneously horrified and fascinated.

“I have no idea,” Dad said.

Klymene shuddered.

“Hey, he forgave you,” Dad said. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“And I forgave him,” Klymene said, shaking her ancient head. Then she saw my frown. “Old history, Marsilia. Don’t worry about it.”

“We will probably vote on the treaty tomorrow. Now I will go to talk to the ship,” Crocus said. “They may need me to translate, though I fear I will not understand the subtleties.”

“I thought you said you knew English?”

“What does it mean, to know?” Crocus asked, an extremely characteristic question from him. “I have not heard it spoken since I became myself. The occasional word from Lysias or Klio, yes, but we all preferred to speak Greek. Greek is the language of my soul. Greek has philosophical clarity. But English is stored in my memory. It is a command language.”

“I hope it’s not too painful to speak,” I said.

“That’s why it’s important that I go and relieve Sixty-One,” he said.

“We’ll come along and join you there in an hour or so,” Dad said.

“Joy to you both.”

“Joy to you, Crocus,” I said, and Dad echoed me. Klymene climbed up onto his back, and they trundled off towards the spaceport.

“He seems much like everyone else, only big and metallic, and then suddenly he comes out with something like that,” I said, when he had rolled out of earshot.

“Going off to share the work to spare Sixty-One the pain,” Dad said. “He’s the best of us all.”

We walked towards Thessaly. Dad had his cloak tightly wrapped against the chill, though I was snug enough in my fishing clothes. “I wonder if they’ll have any Workers on the space human ship, and what they’ll be like. The other Workers, the younger ones who came to consciousness here on Plato, are different from Crocus and Sixty-One,” I said.

“Well, we were expecting consciousness with them, educating them for it, like bringing up babies. As I understand from Father, what happened with the original Workers was completely unexpected—nobody but Sokrates imagined that they might be people rather than tools. That had to have had an effect on how they turned out.” Dad sighed. “Still, people are different from each other, but they also have a lot in common, whether they’re Workers or aliens or humans. What really matters is their souls.”

I couldn’t help saying it. “I sometimes feel I have more in common with Crocus than I do with Thee.”

“Well, metal can be stronger than blood,” Dad said. “That reminds me. I heard today that Selagus is appealing the decision.”

I blinked. “That’s the first time for ages.” Usually people who don’t agree with their classification flounce off to another city, often Sokratea, where they don’t have classes at all. Sometimes they come back later and accept it after all. Outright appeal against classification is allowed, but rarely happens.

“It could be messy, and it could come up for judgement on your watch,” Dad said.

“Thanks for warning me. I’ll look up the procedure and consult. I suppose there will have to be a committee?”

“Yes, and you should be really careful who you choose for it. There should be one Ikarian, so Selagus can’t claim religious prejudice, but no more. It’s so awkward. We’ve only ever had a handful of reclassifications. We should go through them together soon and consider precedents.” Dad was frowning.

“I can’t understand why he doesn’t want to be a Gold. He could still work at his embroidery.” I thought of my work on the boat.

Dad shook his head. “I suppose he doesn’t want the responsibility. If so, that might be a sign that he’s right, and he should have been a Bronze all along.”

We sighed simultaneously. Choosing classifications was the hardest part of political work. If we made a mistake, we’d lose a citizen, or worse, bind somebody where they’d be unhappy as well as unproductive. Every year we lost some people when they were classified, and while we often gained more than we lost as others joined us from other cities, it always felt like a failure. And when the newcomers chose to take our citizenship examinations, they were the hardest of all to classify, because we didn’t know them as well. I sometimes welcomed it when newcomers chose to live here as metics instead, though that had its own complications. Athenia still didn’t allow metics, but all the other cities did now.

As we came up to the Temple of Hestia, the doors opened and a crowd came out and went off down the street. “Is there a festival I didn’t know about?” I asked, surprised.

“I expect they went to pray for reassurance,” Dad said. “People do that sometimes, when things are uncertain. They want the gods to listen and help. I sometimes think they’d be less inclined towards that kind of thing if they knew more gods.”

“They do know them, though?” I protested.

“Not as well as we do, having them in the family.” He sighed. “If Father is in Thessaly tonight, and godlike, he’ll be different. Don’t be surprised.”

I didn’t ask how he’d be different. I’d met Athene once. “It’s such a strange thought, him dying and maybe being there anyway.”

“The only time he talked to me about it, before he went up against Kebes, he said he’d come back a heartbeat later and get revenge,” Dad said. “He didn’t say what he’d look like, and that’s the only time I remember him talking about it, when he knew his life was on the line. He didn’t imagine living out forty more years on a planet full of black rocks and volcanoes. None of us could have imagined it.”

“I love this planet,” I said. “I think it’s beautiful.” I was used to older people complaining about it.

“We all love Plato, whether we like it or not, but we still couldn’t have imagined it,” Dad said.

We were at Aroo’s house, and Dad scratched at the door. One of her podmembers answered it. Saeli live in pods of five adults, with assorted children. I’d never met any Saeli who didn’t live in a pod, except Hilfa, of course. The podmember wished us joy and called for Aroo, who came out at once to join us. “I have spoken briefly to the ship, and they are highly pleased with the news of better communication,” she said. “And I have found a technician who was already at the spaceport and who has reported to the communications room.”

“Excellent,” Dad said. The three of us walked on towards Thessaly.

4

CROCUS

I. Invocation to the Muses

This is too hard for me, dear Muses, on!

Come down to me, inspire me, leave your home,

Leave Mount Parnassus, leave Eternal Rome,

Leave the Castalian Spring, Mount Helikon,

Leave all your goddess-joy and hither fly

Here, where you’re needed, where my art is made,