I was jolted out of my thoughts by Marsilia asking me something. “I’m going to sing,” I said. “I think this whole thing is a Mystery. But I want to sing about what happened out there. I want you to know.”

So I sang it again, to Athene and Jathery and my children and all the assembled Golds of Plato. It was necessary.

Afterwards, we all headed off to the spaceport to see the space human ship land. Arete flew. The rest of us walked through the city to take the train. It was a typical autumn day on Plato, overcast and with a chill wind off the water, but fortunately we were between rainshowers.

Everyone else was dressed for The School of Athens. Jathery had picked the right painter but the wrong painting, and came wearing a Renaissance woman’s elaborate coiffure, over a Renaissance man’s outfit in pale green and black, with huge sleeves, on a human female-shaped body. I understood now why Ikaros had said “she.” I caught Ikaros looking at the clothes, a little enviously, I thought. “Do you want to be wearing that?” I asked.

“No. But they are the clothes of the time and place where I grew up. And it would be nice to have the option of looking flamboyant sometimes.” He shifted the books he was carrying from one arm to the other.

“Nobody else agrees,” I said, looking at the kitons on the crowd around us. There were a handful of people in dark green or burgundy Amarathi waterproof jerkins and trousers, providing the only variation.

“Well, really I do agree with Plato about all of that. Only—” He looked at Jathery again. “It looks good, and it’s good to look at. Men’s clothes on a women’s body.”

“Most of the people here have never seen gendered clothes,” I said. “They wouldn’t realize it was odd. I wonder if Jathery does?”

“Oh, they might have seen them in paintings, if they were paying attention. And I’m sure Jathery knows exactly what she’s doing,” Ikaros said.

Some things fit together with that pronoun, so I dropped back to speak to Athene as we came into the station. “Did Ikaros—I mean, is Ikaros Hilfa’s human parent?”

“Yes,” she said, as we got onto the train. “It was voluntary, except that he didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know about Hilfa, or didn’t know what Jathery was?”

“He didn’t know either of those things.” We sat down together on a double seat.

“There’s more than one kind of rape,” I said, quietly.

“You would know about that,” she said.

“That’s unfair. I’ve been working on equal significance and volition for a long time now. I think I understand something about them.”

“I know all about the theory,” she said. She was looking at Ikaros, who was talking to Porphyry but still casting glances at Jathery. “I’m going to lose him. Father will give him powers, and he’ll make a good Olympian. We’ll work together sometimes, I know, but it won’t be the same.”

“If he’d stayed human he would have died and you’d have lost him that way,” I said, thinking of Simmea, and Hyakinthos, and other friends. “Children grow up. You have to let them go. Lovers—” I thought about her, as Septima, saying that there was a perfectly good bit of Catullus and corrected myself. “People you love, it’s the same. At least you’ll see him sometimes and be able to talk to him.”

“I didn’t meet you in the Laurentian Library,” she said.

“I was there.” I had thought I’d stopped being angry with her. The train sped through the tunnel with nothing to see through the window but walls of dark green rock. “When you arranged to meet me, I thought you were making a friendly offer, but you were only taking steps for setting up your rescue scheme. I didn’t want to believe that, but I know it’s true. You used me. You used Ikaros. You used all of us, and risked the whole of history so that you could learn something, as if that’s more important than anything and everything else. I know Father wants new understanding, and so he always forgives you, but that means there are things about consequences you never learn. You could learn something new and real about equal significance if you’d think about how unfair and unjust you’ve been to other people all the way through this project. You claim we intervene because we’re concerned, or because we have an inexplicable purpose, and yes, it’s mostly true, but we do need to have some thought for the people we’re using. I know I’ve been as bad about this as anyone in the past, worse maybe. But I have learned this, and you need to.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you in the Laurentian Library,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you about Sokrates. The rest of it is none of your business. But I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

The train burst out of the tunnel into the light. The sun came out (my race car) as the train slowed down for the little spaceport station. Athene smiled, pulled herself lightly to her feet and went over to Ikaros, who was talking to Sokrates now. I followed.

“Do you still think this is a Just City?” Sokrates asked Athene.

“Ask them,” Athene said, waving at the people making their way out of the car. “Go into the streets and ask the Irons and Bronzes. Go to Sokratea or Marissa or Psyche. And then go to your own Athens, to Athens in any year you like from its foundations until now, and ask the same thing of the people who do that work.”

“It’s not perfectly just,” I said. “But nothing is. And we’re trying. Even having justice and excellence as unattainable goals makes things better.”

Sokrates stayed at my side as we got off the train. “Are you going to stay here?”

He was one of the few people entitled to an answer to that. “To see the space humans land? Yes. After that, I’m not sure. I’ll be around, keeping an eye on things, but I have places to be and work to do and things to learn. I’ve learned so much from this. There are new projects I want to initiate now.” It was an exciting thought.

“And Athene will go back to Olympos?” We started walking, following the crowd.

“I expect so. But she’ll probably be around from time to time as well. I can ask her if you like.”

“And Jathery?” Sokrates asked.

“Jathery is going to spend time in service to Hermes and to Father. I’ll definitely stay around as long as Jathery does, or if gla comes back. I’ll keep a close eye on everything gla does here,” I said. “I’d have protected Hilfa last night if he’d said something to me instead of hiding in the bathroom. I’m fairly sure Athene would have taken his side too.”

Sokrates ran his fingers through his hair, which already looked like a lamb that had pushed through a thorn hedge. “What do I do if Jathery causes a problem we can’t deal with and you aren’t there?”

“Pray to me,” I said. “I’ll hear a prayer from you and come to that instant. But I don’t think Jathery will be a problem. Gla knows that I know about gla now, and this is my planet. I think with freeing the Saeli and setting up the pod, gla probably has what gla wants.”

“This pod will be very interesting, all these young people. An entirely new experience. Zeus should be happy!”

I laughed. I loved Sokrates so much. He could always surprise me. “I’m glad you’re pleased.”

“I liked the way Marsilia dealt with the problem. She’s really smart, and decisive, but also very down-to-earth and political. She doesn’t have Simmea’s talent for thinking things through.”

“No,” I agreed. “Thetis has some of Simmea’s social abilities. She’s wonderful at setting people at ease. But she also gets easily upset, you saw her wailing the other night.”

“Yes,” he said. I caught sight of Thetis, Jason and Hilfa, who were standing together, all holding hands, pressed against the glass of the big lounge where you can watch the shuttles land. “Crocus told me Simmea was killed in an art raid.”

“I have missed her every day since,” I said. Marsilia and Diotima, with Arete and Crocus, were getting ready to go out and greet the space humans. “She wouldn’t let me save her. I was going to kill myself so I could come back in my proper form and heal her, but she told me not to be an idiot and pulled the arrow out.”