Ada accepted a cold drink from one of the permanent volunteers—a young man named Reman who was growing a beard, as so many of the disciples were—and she wandered back to the field where Odysseus spoke and answered questions four or five times a day, for ever larger crowds. Ada had half a mind to interrupt the arrogant barbarian’s useless lectures to ask him—in front of everyone—why he, Odysseus, hadn’t bothered to say good-bye to the young woman who worshiped him.

Last night, at Hannah’s First Twenty party—the celebrations were always thrown the day before the actual birthday, the day before someone actually faxed to the firmary—Odysseus had barely made an appearance at the dinner. Ada knew that Hannah had been hurt. The young woman still thought she was in love with Odysseus, even though the man seemed indifferent to Hannah’s feelings. After returning from their trip, Hannah had been Odysseus’ shadow, but he barely seemed to notice. When he had eschewed Ada’s hospitality and chosen to build a camp for himself in the forest, Hannah had tried to accompany him there, but Odysseus had insisted that she sleep in the big house. During the course of each day, as Odysseus ran, exercised, and, later, wrestled with his male disciples, Hannah was always nearby—running, climbing on the obstacle course ropes, even volunteering to wrestle. Odysseus never agreed to wrestle the beautiful young girl.

At the First Twenty party, each of the dozen or so guests around the table set under the giant oak had made the traditional speeches—congratulations to Hannah for her first visit to the firmary, wishes for lifelong good health and happiness—but when it came to Odysseus’ turn, the old man had said simply, “Don’t go.” Hannah had wept later in Ada’s bedroom—had even considered not going, of somehow hiding from the servitors who even then were embroidering her ceremonial Twenty gown—but of course she had to go. Everyone went. Ada had gone. Harman had gone four times. Even the absent Daeman had been to the firmary twice—once on his First Twenty and again after the accident with the allosaurus. Everyone went.

So this morning, when Hannah had come down from her room dressed in only the ceremonial cotton robe, ornamented by just the small, traditional embroidered image of the caduceus—two blue snakes of healing twined around a staff—Odysseus had not been there to say good-bye to his young friend.

Ada had been furious as the two rode in one of Ardis’s droshkies to the fax pavilion. Hannah had wept a bit, turning her face away so that Ada wouldn’t see. Hannah had always been the toughest young woman Ada’d known—the artist and athlete, the risk-taker and sculptor—but this morning she’d seemed a lost little girl.

“Maybe he’ll pay attention to me after I return from the firmary,” Hannah had said. “Maybe I’ll seem like more of a woman to him tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” said Ada, but she was thinking that all men seemed to be self-serving, selfish, insensitive pigs, just waiting for an opportunity to act like greater self-serving, selfish, insensitive pigs.

Hannah had looked so fragile as the two servitors floated out of the fax pavilion, each taking one of Hannah’s arms, and led her to the faxportal. It was a beautiful day, clear blue sky, soft winds from the west, but it might as well have been raining so far as Ada’s mood would have dictated. She had no idea why she had this sense of doom—she’d seen scores of friends off to their various Twenty trips to the firmary and had gone herself, remembering only hazy images of floating in a warm liquid—but Ada had wept when Hannah had raised her hand and waved in that second before the faxportal whisked her away and out of sight. The ride back to Ardis Hall alone had simply deepened Ada’s anger at Odysseus, at Harman, and at men in general.

So Ada felt like anything but a loving disciple as she wandered up the hill behind Ardis Hall to listen to Odysseus’ lecture to the faithful and the curious.

The short, bearded man was dressed in his tunic and sandals, sword by his side, sitting against a fallen dead tree that Odysseus had cut down himself, while all around him and stretching down the hill toward the house sat and stood several hundred men and women. Several of the men were wearing tunics similar to Odysseus now, belted by the same kind of broad leather belt. Most seemed to be growing beards, which had not been in style in Ada’s lifetime.

Odysseus was answering questions at the moment. Ada knew that his usual schedule was to speak for about ninety minutes one hour after sunrise, then to go off by himself for hours, answer questions in the hour before lunch, speak again without interruption in the mid-afternoon, and entertain questions in the long twilight hour after the sun set. This was the pre-lunch gathering.

“Teacher, why must we find out who our fathers are? It’s never been important before.” It was a new young man who had held up his hand.

When Odysseus spoke, Ada had noticed over the past month, he usually held his hands straight out, thrusting his short, strong fingers at the air as if driving home the points of what he said. His arms and legs were tanned and powerful. For the first time, Ada noticed that some of the bearded men in the audience were also getting tanned and muscled. Odysseus had set up an obstacle course—all ropes and logs and muddy pits—in the forest up the hill, and demanded that anyone who listened to him more than twice must exercise at least an hour a day on the course. Many of the men—and some of the female disciples—had laughed at the idea the first time they tried it, but now they were spending long hours on the course, or running, each day. It made Ada wonder.

“If you don’t know your father,” Odysseus was answering in that low, calm, but fiercely firm voice of his that always seemed to carry as far as it had to, “how can you know yourself? I am Odysseus, son of Laertes. My father is a king, but also a man of the soil. When I saw him last, the old man was down on his knees in the dirt, planting a tree where an old giant of a tree had fallen—cut down by his hand finally—after being struck by lightning. If I do not know my father, and his father before him, and what these men were worth, what they lived for and were willing to die for, how can I know myself?”

“Tell us again about arete” came a voice from the front row. Ada recognized the man speaking as Petyr, one of the earliest visitors. Petyr was no boy—Ada thought he was in his fourth Twenty—but his beard was already almost as full as Odysseus’. Ada didn’t think the man had left Ardis since he’d first heard Odysseus speak that second or third day, when the visitors could be counted on two hands.

“Arete is simply excellence and the striving for excellence in all things,” said Odysseus. “Arete simply means the act of offering all actions as a sort of sacrament to excellence, of devoting one’s life to finding excellence, identifying it when it offers itself, and achieving it in your own life.”

A newcomer ten rows up the hill, a heavyset man who reminded Ada a bit of Daeman, laughed and said, “How can you achieve excellence in all things, Teacher? Why would you want to? It sounds terribly tiring.” The heavy man looked around, sure of laughter, but the others on the hill looked at him silently and then turned back to Odysseus.

The Greek smiled easily—strong white teeth flashing against his tanned cheeks and short, gray beard—and said, “You can’t achieve excellence in all things, my friend, but you have to try. And how could you not want to?”

“But there are so many things to do,” laughed the heavy man. “One can’t practice for them all. One has to make choices and concentrate on the important things.” The man squeezed the young woman next to him, obviously his companion, and she laughed loudly, but she was the only one to laugh.