This is a sci/fi short story I wrote (under my pen name), and I wanted to share it with you. Joe Jan 31, 2017

Copyright Joseph S. Pecorella 2016

The Greeks Had a Word for It

By MJ Wise

    He was beautiful—Oh, when the crate was first torn open and the packing removed! But then the craziness started, the craziness and the weird dreams: for a while I was afraid to go to sleep at night. The statue is still there, in the basement with the regulated air quality and temperature, but it’s been spoiled for me, all spoiled. Except for one thing—and maybe, after all, the more important thing—what he said. “There were those of us who knew about the stars….”

    My name? I’m Fortunata Brindisi—and please don’t call me Toni! My boss Chet, with his Northern European manners—and PhD—can’t seem to get his tongue around either of my names. He understands Ancient Greek, Latin, Egyptian Hieroglyphics—you get the idea—but when it comes to saying “good morning” to me, all he does is mumble something like, “Oh, hi, For….”

    For? Who wants to be known as For? Is this why I bothered to chase after an MFA and pile up thousands of dollars in student loans? All right, I hear what you’re thinking: she’s ranting. I go off on rants, yes, and my friends are always calling me on that, but you would vent too if you’d had to work under the pressure I’ve been exposed to—

    But I’m getting ahead of myself, which is what I do all the time—and the editors won’t like that. The police told me that enough time had gone by and writing this article would no longer prejudice the case, and my employer—the museum—gave me permission also—as long as I did not mention the museum’s name, or even its city because then readers would know what museum, etc.

    He—or it—was a bronze statue of a hopliteand very old. Thehopliteswere the national guard in the ancient Greek city-states. They were volunteers, but they were serious volunteers; for one thing, the armor and weapons were expensive, and each man had to purchase his own. Each city-state—say Athens or Sparta—had its own compliment of hoplites, and unfortunately the cities spent most of their time fighting with each other. (Except during the Greco-Persian Wars of 499-448 BCE.)

    In art Hoplites are usually depicted in those awful helmets with cheek plates and visors which make them look like robots or “space invaders.” But my hoplite was gripping his helmet in the crook of his left arm; his shield, or aspis, was resting against his left shin and left knee, and he was holding his spear—all nine feet of it!—in a relaxed “overhand thrust” position.

    So his whole head was visible. He was beardless, with shoulder-length hair, and his face was not at all like a Greek god’s—no, it had a softness and a pensiveness that marked him as very human.

    “My beautiful man, where were you when I was in college, being hit on by all those creeps?”

    I blurted that out; I hadn’t meant to startle Chet; I hadn’t even realized he was standing behind me, until I heard:

    “Ahem! Yes, well, it will be beautiful when we clean it up….”

    “Oh, Chet! I didn’t realize you were standing behind me.” Especially since I don’t have eyes in the back of my head!“Yeah, he sure is a mess—I understand the patina, but what are those hard formations—?

    “Barnacles!”

    “Barnacles….”

    “This statue was found at the bottom of the Aegean Sea.”

    “But—Why would someone sculpt a statue and then drop it into the sea?”

    “Well—I’m sure the sculptors didn’t—You know, For’—History has some strange imperatives!”

    That was Chet’s default position for anything that even approached the mysterious—history and its strange imperatives. Inspite of myself, I fell to daydreaming about history—until I realized that Chet was asking me to do something.

    “…They’re professional, of course, but I want you to supervise them very carefully.”

    “Excuse me?”

    “The cleaning crew! You’re in charge.”

    “Oh. I’d be—“

    “When you meet with them, I want you to get a sense of how long it will take to finish—I don’t want the job hurried—this is very painstaking work, and it must be done right. As you know. But! I also don’t want you to be forever about it: there is an element of time sensitivity here….”

    “We’ve already waited over 2,000 years, what’s a few more—Just kidding, Chet!” So I’m supposed to hurry-but-not hurry. But he hadn’t even heard me; he seemed to be looking at something in the far, far distance.

    “What I am about to tell you is known only to four people: two board members, the original supplier, and myself. This information is so sensitive that nothing can be put in writing, but I must swear you to secrecy.” I felt a chill up and down my spine. I saw myself before a congressional committee two years hence, fighting for my life. Yes, yes, I did know, but I was sworn to secrecy!

    “You know…Chet…maybe I’d be more comfortable if you didn’t tell me….”

    “No, no, it’s something wonderful! For there is good reason to believe that this statue was sculpted by none other than—    Phidias!”

    Yes, that was wonderful—if not wondrous—news. The greatest sculptor of antiquity, none of whose work had survived. But could it be?

    “But could it be, Chet?”

    “That is what we must determine. We are not yet certain. But can you imagine what it would mean to this museum? The contributions would come pouring in!”

    Ah yes, the bottom line! But what I said was: “It is possible. We know that Phidias worked in bronze…though his two best known works, he did in ivory and gold…the Athena Parthenos and—“

    “The Temple of Zeus at Olympias! One of the wonders of the ancient world!” As if in a trance, Chet wandered off.

    I moved over to get a better view of our new acquisition. Chet and I had wandered a bit while talking, and the statue stood behind a part of the wall that jutted out into the main receiving bay, so we had lost sight of it. I positioned myselfface on, directly before the business end of the nine foot spear. A horrifying weapon! I imagined myself on the field, being confronted by a phalanx of hoplites, thrust back by their locked shields and menaced by the massed blades of their spears.

    And suddenly I was there.

    No longer a statue in a museum—my hoplite had taken on life. And this was no longer virtual, it was real! The confusion, the shouts, the curses, the tramping of thousands of sandals on a beach where the battle had been—was being—fought. I could smell the sea, feel the hot sun, and see the blood flowing.

    And then nothing. I have always had a lively imagination, but I had never experienced such a vivid waking dream. It was scary yet not disturbing either. Alone again with the statue, I could still feel it—him!—calling to me. And it did not feel weird; it felt good.

*    *    *

    Archilocus stood at the cliff’s edge above the dark Aegean. He enjoyed the wind as it slapped against him, burning his cheeks and throwing his hair about. He could hear the waves sloshing beneath him at the foot of the cliff, as they were roiled about by the same wind. He laughed to himself, then stepped back from the edge; it was so dark he couldn’t see “his hand in front of his face,” and a misstep could be fatal.

    It felt so good to be away from the hot, crowded city. He laughed again as he thought of Strabos’ inviting him out here to “pose for a sculpting job.” Why me? he thought. I am the most un-soldierly of hoplites. I came to Athens to teach. But with the Persians on the march, he supposed that patriotic symbols were in demand.

    “Stargazing?” Strabos’ voice sounded in the darkness behind him.

    “There are so many to gaze at, my friend.” Archilocus looked up and became breathless at the thousands of stars above him—and the Milky Way stretching across the deep, black dome of the night. “We don’t get a sight like this in the city.”

    “And every one another sun, Archilocus. Just like our Sun.”

    “So you’ve told me. An intriguing concept. I wish one of us could prove it—so I could share the thought with my students.”

    “Perhaps one day.”

    The two headed up a rise toward the large circle of flaring torches that Strabos had set up. The flames, lashed by wind, hissed at the two friends as they entered the circle. Archilocus took up his position on the foot-high wooden dais. He set about very deliberately situating the shield, the helmet and the spear as Strabos had instructed him.

    “Strabos? You must be very busy. To be working at night?”

    “I like to keep the light going—especially when it’s dark.”

    “There’s poetry!”

    “You never know how much time is left.”

    A chill went through Archilocus at that thought. Could it be a premonition?“What did you mean, Strabos?”

“The wolf is always at the door. The Persian Empire today, our own people tomorrow. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. You suddenly seem—”

“No, it’s—I—not upset.” Archilocus fumbled for words. He was upset, deeply. How much time is left? There will be a war, and there is a real possibility that I might die. He needed to keep that thought at bay, so he lashed out. “So you’re making a statue for Athens! What do you care? You not even Greek.”

“This statue will not stand in Athens.”

“No? Then where?” I’ve got to calm down.

“I will plant it—in the Aegean.”

The absurdity of that statement not only did not upset Archilocus, but had the opposite affect as he felt a sense of balance, even jocularity, return. “You must be joking! Nobody makes a statue and dumps it into the sea.”

“I didn’t say ‘dump:’ I said ‘plant.’”

“That distinction is lost on me. But, hey, as long as your fee helps pay for my armor….”

“You’re not even curious?”

“No. Because you’re not even serious!”

“But I am. You see, if I sculpt a statue, then put it in the Agora at Athens or Sparta, there will only be another war—and the statue will be vandalized or melted down to make weapons.”

“That’s optimistic!”

“Yes, it is: if I plant it carefully at the sea bottom, then in a thousand years or so, when it’s found by people who are looking for this sort of thing and know how to appreciate it—“

“Oho, that’s long range optimism!”

“It will be for the people who find it. This statue will be special. That’s why I picked you: to represent the good that is in Greece.”

At that, Archilocus stifled a sob. What a strange night this is growing to be! “Thank you. I’m…deeply touched.”

“So shall we begin working?”

“Yes. Please work your magic.”

“No magic. Just science!”

*    *    *

    Chet had sworn me to secrecy, and I abided by my promise to him. All right, so who then was responsible for the leaks? There were leaks, and they started immediately, the following evening as a matter of fact.

    Three of us—my two friends Caitlin and Brooke and I—were in, well, a favorite “watering hole,” sipping margaritas and dishing about work when it happened. Caitlin was an assistant curator like me, but Brooke worked in the controller’s office. Brooke was by the way Chet’s second cousin but distant enough to engage with us in the telling and retelling of “Chet” stories—of which there were many—and which were to prove more of a complicating factor than I could ever imagine. But more on that later.

    On this particular evening the three of us were crowded against the bar when a man in a very expensive suit brushed against me. He immediately apologized and offered to buy me a drink. This off-balanced me, but my friends were giving me the “go ahead” with their eyes, and I reluctantly turned towards him and squeezed into another few square millimeters of space at the crowded, noisy bar.

    “So what do you do?” he asked. I couldn’t tell his age, but his face definitely did not “go with” the suit he wore, and his eyes shone with a defiance, or even cruelty, that left me uneasy. Though, of course, I could have been projecting….

    “I’m a curator,” I replied and nodded toward the museum which dominated the street outside the window.

    “How fascinating!” He looked anything but “fascinated” and then immediately followed up with: “What’s your name?”

    I hesitated, again feeling off-balanced, before I told him.

    “Working on anything interesting?” That was it? Not “what a lovely name, etc.”

    “B-but, wait a minute: what’s yours? Your name?”

    “Oh, I’m John—You know, it must be fascinating to work in a museum!” Yes, you said that already. “So I ask again: working on anything interesting?”

    “Well, it’s…all interesting—to me. It’s my field—“

    By now he was totally violating my space. “Yes, but anything in particular?”

The ground fell out from under my feet; I tried to reach out to Caitlin for support, but we had been separated by a young man and woman, and both she and Brooke seemed to be involved in some heavy gossip and didn’t meet my eyes. So I grabbed my phone.

“There are rumors,” he insinuated.

“Oh! My boyfriend just texted me—He’s outside—“

“Does he work for the museum too?”

“No. I hafta go.”

“Is he as unprofessional as you are?”

‘Excuse me?”

He grabbed my arm. “I’m asking if the rumors I heard about a certain statue by a particular sculptor are true. If they are, it is the discovery of a lifetime and could represent the opportunity of a lifetime to—“

I didn’t realize that I had screamed, but the couple next to me moved out of the way very quickly, and I threw myself into the arms of a startled Caitlin and Brooke.

“Quick, guys! Bill’s outside—He’s picking me up,” I shouted (to make sure I was overheard). “I’d like you to meet him.”

“Who’s Bill?” Caitlin was completely perplexed.

“My boyfriend.”

“But you don’t have a—“

“Never mind that-Just—Go! Go!”

Somehow I managed to drag both of them out onto the street. The air felt good after the thick, roiling atmosphere inside.

“Just walk with me. ‘Cross the street. To the museum.”

“Whash going on, Fortunata?” Brooke tried to rise to the full stature allowed by her position in “society,” but she was a trifle tipsy and had to be satisfied with being dragged across the street—along with Caitlin—to the employee’s entrance.

“We don’t wanna go back to work!”

“Caitlin…Brooke…that guy—No, don’t look!” I desperately averted my eyes. “We’re being watched.”

“What?”

“Who—?”

“Brooke, you have any idea where Chet is?”

“You know what? Ever since the court order releasing him from my custody was issued, I haven’t—“

“All right! All right!”

By then Caitlin had started giggling and hiccupping uncontrollably, so I knew nothing would be accomplished until the following morning.

              *    *    *

    I didn’t get to speak to Chet right away, however, and when his office door finally swung open, two high ranking police officers came striding across the outer office, followed by three other official-looking guys in suits too expensive for rank-and-file detectives. I had assumed he had been meeting with a donor, so when I saw all the constabulary, it made my heart sink even lower. What was going on? It confused me to the extent that I could not formulate what to say to Chet, and then he was on me, protesting as to how busy he was, could I please make an appointment, blah-blah-blah.

    “But, Chet, the secret’s out!” A sudden and ghastly silence fell over the outer office staff members. Oops!

    “What are you talking about? Come here-come here!” He hustled me out of the area and into a stairwell. Why not his office? And why was he being so brusque with me? “Now, what is it?”

    “People know. About the statue! Our discuss—”

    “How could they?” Because you leaked it? I nearly said. When we had finally been able to talk seriously on the         previous evening, I had found out that even his cousin Brooke knew, but I didn’t bring her into my talk with Chet because I wanted to protect her. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t been so noble.

    “Chet…all I know is,” I tried to speak calmly, “Yesterday evening in [name of watering hole expunged], Brooke and Caitlin and I—“

    “Well no wonder if you’re blabbing about it in bars!”

    “Chet! No!” I could barely get the words out. “I was approached—He knew things about—“

    “Who approached you?”

    “A sleaze-ball—“

    “Well, you should have told the police—They were just here!”

    “But I didn’t know—Can you get them back?”

    “What—You don’t go chasing a police inspector down the steps.”

    “I didn’t mean—Chet, what’s wrong?” With you, I meant. He had never been strong on interpersonal skills, but this sudden anger toward me was alarming. When he simply stood there, shaking his head and sucking his teeth, I asked again, “What’s wrong? Why were the police here?”

    He blew through his teeth. “To warn me about an art theft ring. I’ll handle that. For your part, the team is already down there, working on the statue. It’s critical that you be there.”

    “Okay…but—“

    “And stay out of that skuzzy gin-joint.”

    What art theft ring? As I pulled on a clean set of coveralls in the locker room, I became more and more uncomfortable about the (non)conversation I had just participated in. Was I being paranoid? Or should I have been more forceful about getting Chet to listen? What did the police know? It must be serious if an inspector was involved. Should I insist on talking to the police?

    As I flashed my ID to the security guard and entered the area where the statue was, I started to feel nettled. Soon I was downright angry. He can’t talk to me like that, as if I were some loose-lipped bar-hopping floozy. And what was that “skuzzy gin-joint crack?”(Who even talks like that?) We all go there—and besides, this isn’t the 19th century; who is he to tell me what I can and cannot do after working hours?

    But then I stopped short—and realized that I in fact did not want to go to [name of watering hole expunged] anymore. It had been ruined for me: I was too afraid now.

    Gretta Heiser and her two assistants, Alan and Craig, were hard at work on the statue. Before I even saw them, I was greeted by a whiff of their acrid chemicals. And then I saw something else.

    Saw or felt or intuited, but…

    “Buon giorno, mia sorella!” Gretta’s greeting startled me out of my thoughts. “Fortunata mia, ma bella!” Gretta had been born in Germany, but she seemed to be able to speak almost any language known to man (and woman).

    “I don’t speak Italian, Gretta.”

    “Che peccato. You have Ben Jonson’s ‘small Latin and less Greek?’”

    “Hey, I know Greek—not the kind where I could order in a restaurant—but back in 325 B.C.E.? I could have been a real hipster.”

    “Excellent—when I see Thucydides, I’ll tell him!” Gretta thought for a moment, and then added: “Remember the old saying? ‘The Greeks had a word for it.’”

    “For what?”

    “It! It being the…nuance…that is often absent when putting thoughts into words.”

    “Thanks, Gretta. Maybe I should speak to Chet in Greek.”

    “Oops! Well, if you do, thank him for acquiring this beauty here. Salvaged from the bottom of the Aegean Sea, they tell me. Don’t know what it was doing there: it certainly isn’t Greek.”

    The ground fell out from under me. Had that been what I had seen a moment ago? “But, Gretta, there has been some speculation that—“

    “The Phidias rumors? Never!”

    “Does everybody know? It’s supposed to be a closely guarded—“

    “Secret? Ruhe, Ruhe, mein Kind! Certainly I would have a need to know. No, this isn’t the work of Phidias, nor is it even a Roman copy. It’s too kind.”

    “Now what is that supposed to mean?”

    “I don’t mean to suggest that Phidias was unkind. But he was taken up by the—Have you read Carl Jung?”

    “Duh…yeah! What does Jung have to do with it?”

    “The archetypes. From what I’ve seen of the copies of Phidias’ work, he was a man caught up by the archetypes of his world and time. The way he captured them was a little… frightening?”

    In Gretta’s view archetypes were electromagnetic forces that affected the human psyche in a way that was both emotional and collective. Since they were forces, archetypes lacked intentionality until they were internalized by the human psyche. It was then they became personified. In this way Pericles of Athens could be seen as a figure of All-Father Zeus or, on the negative end, Hitler as Wotan. Phidias knew this, and it would prove to be both his triumph and his downfall.

    “How he must have soared when he was fashioning his Athena for the Parthenon or his Zeus for the Temple at Olympias. But I tell you, Fortunata, he could not have lived a very happy life. One cannot love electromagnetism!”

    With my head spinning—after that conversation—I decided to spend some quiet time in my office—okay, in my cubicle, but Caitlin jumped me the moment I got back.

    “There’s a message for you. He says it’s important.”

    I hate it when people do that! Has someone died? Am I being indicted? My hand shook as I punched in the caller’s number on my office phone.

    “Yeah…?” Real professional phone manners!

    “Excuse me? Hello? This is Fortunata Brindisi, returning your call.”

    “Oh—OH! Hey! Wow!”

    “Who am I speaking to?”

    “Oh, yeah, this is Bill [Frbbstn]. I’m a reporter, and I wanna, um, eh, interview ya?”

    “Yes, sir, what newspaper or other med—?”

    “Huh? Oh, the, ah, [Scrbnhbn]International Courier. It’s a local paper.”

    “You know what? Bill, is it?”

    “No, Bob.”

    “I’m going to transfer you to our public affairs department.”

    “No, hey, don’t—“

    I disconnected him, and when ten seconds later the phone jangled, I ignored it. Instead, I asked Caitlin if she wanted to have lunch.

    “At ten o’clock in the morning?”

    “Been a rough morning.”

    “Cheer up, Fortunata. We have the end of summer picnic this Friday—which means a day off from work.”

    “I used to like to work here, Caitlin—“

    “Of course, it is sad: it means that summer’s ending.”

    “Yeah. It’s sad.”

*    *    *

        Chet could be most gracious when he wanted to. His family owned a large estate on—well, a body of water. (I can’t say which one or even if the water is fresh or salt because that might lead to inferences about the identity of the museum.) Every year on Labor Day weekend he hosted a huge picnic for the staff, at no cost to us.

    As I said, it was all very generous, but I was in no mood. Chet had been acting strangely toward me all week; the self-styled “newspaper reporter” had continued to telephone-stalk me (my email to Chet about this had gone unanswered); and Gretta’s smelly chemicals and loopy conversation were making me crazy. As Brooke, Caitlin, and I sat together on the beach at the edge of the lawn, I was desperate enough to broach it to Brooke: why had Chet suddenly “gone off” me. But every time I tried to bring it up, Caitlin cut me short—as if to imply that there was something I was just not getting. And Brooke for her part seemed to have gone off into some forbidden zone.

    So I lay back on my towel and dozed off. Then something woke me; a breeze had sprung up perhaps. I sat up with a start and saw that both of my companions had fallen into a stupor themselves. It was not proving to be a very happy day.

    And then I saw him.

    He was tall and thin, though athletically built. Instead of swim trunks, he wore a pair of tan basketball pants that hung loosely to his knees. But his most striking feature was his long, dark hair, which the breeze played with very curiously. He signaled to me to join him.

    Do I know him? I thought, as I pulled myself to my feet. As I approached him, I realized that his “basketball pants” were actually a set of kilts, and his sandals were not made for the beach: they were rawhide and made for long marches.

    Except for the fact that he was bare-chested, he was wearing the battle gear of an ancient Greek hoplite.

    “Am I dreaming?” I asked stupidly, then blurted out: “You’re the statue!”

    “Hello, Fortunata,” he chuckled good-naturedly, “Actually, I’m not the statue—I’m the one who posed for the statue.”

    “You know who I am?”

    “Yes, and I appreciate your…shall I say…aesthetic response to my likeness in bronze!”

    “But, wait—What’s your name?”

    “Archilocus.”

    I gasped. “Archilocus of Paros?”

    “Oh, no, no—He lived long before I did. I’m from Mytilene, and I am no poet. Though I have tried my hand at poetry: I taught mathematics and rhetoric in Athens, so I was expected to write some poetry: a stanza from a poem of mine is etched into the base of the statue. Gretta has yet to uncover it.”

    “So you know about Gretta too….”

    “Yes, and the reason I am a here is so you can know about certain things. First of all, Phidias did not make the statue because he had not yet been born. A friend of mine sculpted it, an older friend named Strabos.”

    “Gretta says the statue isn’t Greek….”

    “In that she is correct: Strabos was a foreigner.”

    “What else did you want to tell me? Is there danger? How are you here?”

    “I don’t what to answer first! But yes, you could be in danger. Please be careful.”

    That set off all sort of alarms. “How in danger? Of what?”

“Have nothing to do with the statue—“

“But that’s impossible—It’s my job.”

“I know about those kinds of obligations. They got me killed.”

“Okay—you know what—this is getting too weird—I don’t even know how you are here if you’re dead….“

“I’d be dead anyway! I lived 2500 years ago.”

“Oh, that clarifies things.”

“Stay away from the statue, Fortunata. The rumors about

Phidias are an ill omen. The very mention of his name

excites greed and…darker motives.”

    “Darker? Even darker than…talking to a 2500-year-old man?”

    “I can’t explain how I am here—or the way things are after death—You wouldn’t understand. Just stay away from the statue. Leave your work—whatever you have to do.”

    He turned around, deliberately and somewhat sadly, and walked slowly away from me, down the beach toward a bend where I knew he would disappear. Dream or not, I couldn’t let him leave like that.

    “Killed?” I called out, “You said you were killed?”

    He stopped and turned back toward me, tentatively at first. I hurried over to him and saw his posture relax again.

    “In the First Persian War, at the Battle of Marathon. For a time all the cities of Greece were united against a common foe, and I felt—I felt it was my duty—“

    “Yes, but what happened?”

    “I was only a rookie, as you would say, but through some confusion or ill will I was positioned on the right flank of the phalanx.”

    Which was a terrible error: the hoplites held their shields on the left and carried their spears with their right arms. The phalanx may have been a massive and powerful formation, but the right flank was the weaker side and was reserved only for veteran warriors. When the Persian archers launched their arrows on that day, the Greek armor and shields stopped them dead. But, Archilocus explained, while standing on the right flank, his right thigh was exposed, and it was struck by one of the arrows. He doubled over in pain and was dragged to the rear, but the wound became infected, and two days later he died.

    “So you see, I am no stranger to peril. And back then we did not have the medicines you have today.”

    “Archilocus, I am so sorry!” All he could do was shrug and hang his head. “How old were you?”

    “Twenty-seven.”

    Exactly my age now! I thought, had a dizzy spell, staggered forward and was steadied by a strong hand.

    “Fortunata, are you all right?” All I could do was to keep saying how sorry I was. He smiled briefly, then added: “Think kindly of us. We weren’t all barbarians, you know.”

    “Oh, I never thought that—“

    “Some of us—perhaps a very few,” he continued, “We may not have had a voice, but we knew. We knew that war was wrong; we knew that slavery was unjust; and we knew that women should not be subjugated.” He really caught my attention with that last one. “And when we looked up into the night sky, we knew what the stars were!”

    With that he was gone—that beautiful man. I walked back up to where my friends lay on the grass; I was feeling “out of it” and not a little afraid. I wanted to say something about what I had just experienced, but both of them were still asleep, though Caitlin did open her eyes for a moment and look at me before rolling over and drifting off again. So I lay down beside them and must have fallen asleep myself, because the next thing I remember Caitlin was shaking me awake. The air had a delightful hint of charcoal; it was time to eat.

*    *    *

    I hate the week after the annual picnic. Our work days are taken up by planning the Annual Fundraising Gala on Friday evening. “We are all fundraisers,” Chet pronounces regularly, as if to underscore the museum’s dependence on donors, but that’s not what I signed up for.

    Speaking of Chet, I found out during that week exactly why our relationship had recently, and so suddenly, but “put up on blocks.” His cousin Brooke had been regaling him with Caitlin’s and my Chet stories. That ended our threesome and left both Caitlin and I in foul moods—and not a little hurt.

    To make matters even worse, that wacko “reporter” phoned me twice on both Monday and Tuesday, and every time I tried to get hold of Ginny in public affairs, I was put off by her assistant who kept telling me that she (Ginny) was tied up with the fundraiser. By Wednesday morning I was totally bummed, and I couldn’t talk to Caitlin because she appeared to be in such a funk that she was about to “lose it” herself. So I stormed out at ten a.m. and spent some time on the steps with two or three smokers until they ducked backed in. But my thoughts were racing. My sleep was being disturbed by direful dreams, which seemed to culminate in that one on the beach at Chet’s, and maybe the dreams were sending a message: get off this project! I couldn’t make that request this week, but once the fundraiser was over, I would ask—no, I would insist—that Chet reassign me.

    And then I noticed him staring at me. At least he seemed to be staring at me: his head was turned in my direction, but his eyes were covered by heavy sunglasses. Tall. Sinister. The requisite tan baseball cap with a longish curved peak, pressed blue jeans, light blue shirt and a beige hunting vest?

    No, I thought, as I hurried back inside, this is getting too weird. My breath came heavily as I raced towards Chet’s office, but once I reached it, I knew I couldn’t talk to him. The preparations were in full swing, with all the attendant confusion of phones ringing and vendors scurrying in and out, and besides, Chet wouldn’t want to talk anyway—especially if I came on strong with emotion and conspiracy theories. Whatever goals Chet had this week, they certainly didn’t include hearing my feelings about the way things were going.

“Fortunata…how do you know he was staring at…you?” I hurried back inside and bothered Caitlin anyway, knowing full well that she was hurting just as badly as I was.

“Caitlin, there’s…stuff going on…I get calls, I’m having dreams—and now this guy hanging around outside….”

“All right, I hear you…” she heaved a sigh, closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, wide as can be, and issued the following pronouncement: “I have an idea.”

Caitlin’s idea involved programming our cell phones so that should one of us be in trouble, her phone would transmit a distress signal to the other. Caitlin’s idea was an elegant one, and I had no idea how she worked it, but all I had to remember was not to turn my phone off without taking two extra steps. If the phone were turned off abruptly, an alarm would register on Caitlin’s cell.

“Tall guy” was in evidence the next morning, and the morning after that.

*    *    *

    Friday dawned, a beautiful September day, but I came to work with a sense of dread. Of what, I thought, how bad will it be? We have the fundraiser, and then it’s over.

    As I approached the staff entrance, carrying my old blue cocktail dress under plastic, I ran into “tall guy” on the sidewalk. “Good morning!” I barked. He made no response.

    The day dragged by in a frantic last-minute haze; every five minutes my office phone or cell seemed to be sounding with another urgent request from Chet’s office. From Chet himself, we heard nothing.

Shortly after five p.m., I changed into my cocktail dress and made my way with dreary steps to the main reception area. The moment I walked in, I could not believe my eyes: Chet stood there talking with the sleaze who had accosted me in the bar. The man kept nodding at Chet, oozing his noisome charm and sneakily eying all the females while Chet droned on and on, about this-project, that-project.

    “Oh, For’? Have a minute? There’s someone I want you to meet. This is Mr. Deblin—“

The ghoul held out his slippery hand for me to shake. He was a finger-pincher too!

    “Dreblin. Actually.”

    “Oh. Dreblin—I thought it was Deblin—Um, and this is our very capable Ms. Brin—“

    “Oh, Fortunata and I have met.” His eyes fixed on me with a raptor’s leer.

    “Have you?” Chet’s eyes widened, as if taking me in for the first time. Then you must know that Mr. Greblin—“

    “Dreblin.” Still smirking and leering.

    “Eh, Dreblin, is an international collector who is very interested in making contacts in [our city]—so much so that he is thinking of making a sizeable pledge tonight.”

    “HOW EXCITING, CHET!” I knew I overdid that one by the look on Chet’s face.

    “Anyway, I want you to show him the new acquisition, the one that—oh, I may as well let the cat out of the bag—we think might be a Phidias. What’s the matter? For’? Are you sick?”

    “Oh, I think Ms. Brindisi does not like me at all.”

    “What? No! For’, come here a minute. Wanna talk to you.” I hate it when men lead me by the elbow!

    “Now listen, this is a potentially important donor—“

    “Oh, Chet, can’t you see that he’s a….”

    “A what?”

    “Nothing.”

    “Well…there’s something else bothering me. A reporter has been trying to reach you—“

    “Chet, that’s Ginny’s job!”

    “You are the point-person! And besides, you know I don’t want staff limiting themselves by job descriptions! Here he is—He’s been waiting.” Chet signaled to someone. “I want you to take both of them to see the statue—and, see here: let the reporter listen in on your conversation with Mr. Gerbel.”

    “Shoot, you are a hard woman to reach!”

    “Ms. Brindisi, this is Mr. Falewawega?” A gum chewer, yet; he wore a threadbare gray suit, so maybe he really was a reporter—at an event where he had to dress like the upper classes as the price of admission.

    “No, Falugi-Wega. It’s a hyphenated name. Just call me Leonard. Okay?” Crack-crack went the gum, and suddenly I was in the middle of a Marx Brothers movie.

    That is, until I was abruptly hurried forward by Dreblin the Eel.

    “Come, children, the night is wasting away,” he gurgled, as Leonard pulled up on the other side of me. Crack-crack.

    “Hey, am I being arrested here? What’s the big hurry anyway?”

    I heard chewy mouth-sounds as Leonard grabbed my other elbow.

    “Get your [deleted] hands off me!” I struggled, and they relented, but they kept close to me, too close.

    “That’s some mouth, young lady.” Leonard seemed genuinely upset. “You know, you’ve been very rude to me.” Oh, please!

    The ride down on the elevator was creepy enough, but when we alit, Dreblin acted like a man possessed. He demanded to know where the statue was and insisted that I take him there immediately—I thought I was doing exactly that—yet he became almost violent. All the lights had been left on in the work area, including Gretta’s work lights, which seemed a little strange. While two fawned and drooled over the statue, I reached inside my purse for my cell to call security—the hell with Chet and the hell with my job—but Leonard was too quick for me: he grabbed the phone and rudely slapped the purse out of my hand.

    “She was trying to call somebody on her cell—“

    “Yeah, my mother. What’s your problem?” I could hear my voice shaking.

    “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Leonard’s eyes were blazing.

    “Then take her phone away from her,” Dreblin cooed, absorbed by his admiration of the statue, “And turn it off.”

    Leonard stared at me hard for an instant, then at the phone, then back at me, then the phone. Oh, please let him turn it off, I begged.

    Finally, he did turn it off, after which, with a sneer of petty triumph, he smashed it against the floor. But too late: the signal had been sent. Even so, these two were so demented I had started to fear for my life.

    “Bring her over here,” Dreblin ordered.

    Leonard yanked me by the wrist, and before I knew it, there were hand cuffs on them, and the cuffs were secured through one of the open loops in the statue’s shield.

    “Well, my dear Leonard, the statue at last is ours,’ Dreblin beamed.

    “No thanks to this bitch,” snapped Leonard.

    “Hey!”                             

    “However crudely put by my associate, it is certainly true that you weren’t very cooperative, Fortunata.”

    “Why should I cooperate with a couple of crooks?”

    “Because we are very desperate desperados?” Dreblin was at the spear point, inspecting the filigree.

    “But it doesn’t make any sense? Phidias didn’t sculpt this.”

    “We know that!” They both answered.

    “Oh. But what’s so special about this guy Strabos?”

    Suddenly, I knew I had said something I shouldn’t have—for my own safety. I thought Leonard would have a stroke (too bad he didn’t), and Dreblin went ash white and for once didn’t offer a smart-alecky rejoinder.

    In the next moment, however, Leonard was at my throat with one hand while with the other he had jammed an automatic into my temple.

    “Who the hell are you?” he hissed, “Who are you?”

    “Leonard, Leonard, please! Back off!” He did so, but kept the gun leveled at me. “Fortunata—if that is indeed your name—who sent you? For whom are you working?”

    “The museum….” I could hardly get the words out. So this is it, I thought, my life is ending? Thought I’d have more time….

    “My dear Fortunata, I think not. Even their FBI couldn’t know about Strabos.” Their FBI? “This complicates things a little more than need be, which means we have to move even more quickly. Leonard: the truck?”

    “Should be here….”

    “Can you call?”

    “Truck? Truck! You can’t just walk out of here with a statue.”

    “You shut up!” Leonard moved toward me with the gun.

    “Leonard! Come here. Give me the Glok.” Leonard did so, and the two of them were now standing by the wall in front of the statue. “Call the people you hired who are bringing the truck. Tell them we need them here now!”

    “But, Mr. Dreblin, I don’t…have a phone.”

    “What? Well, then use hers—Oh, wait, you smashed it, didn’t you? Brilliant!”

    Speaking of my phone: where was Caitlin with the cavalry? I didn’t know how much longer I could last with these lunatics.

    “Fortunata….” Here it comes. Love ya, Mom! “Fortunata, since you probably know our plans anyway, we’ll have to take you with us to the sight where we stashed [unpronounceable]. Until we can launch and put some light years between Earth and the two of us.”

    “Light years?”

    “Yes, in the [unpronounceable] that Leonard stole.”

    “In the—what?”

    “Fortunata, either you are a very good actor or—You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

    “I don’t trust her, Dreblin.”

    “Leonard, I don’t trust anybody. Fortunata: we have a [unpronounceable] sequestered on some state-owned land in the pine barrens. That’s how we plan to make our getaway.”

    “He’s talking about a spaceship, you ditsy….”

    Okay. All right. I did not know how much time I had left to live—or what else these guys could possibly spring on me in the brief time I had remaining—but, in, addition to everything else, they were both absolutely and utterly insane!

    “You see, on our world, Fortunata, we have perfected a means of propulsion that can traverse space-time in very brief intervals and also negate the effects of what you call relativity. Yes, another world! If you look out into the night sky, you’ll see our star—“

    “No, don’t tell her.”

    What, were they afraid I would transmit the coordinates to Starfleet Command?

    “Quite right, Leonard. Anyway, we have the capability of building small ships that explore other star systems. We’ve been doing it for years, and sometimes Earth people even catch sight of us. We are the UFO’s.”

    “Well—If this is true—then why not contact us?”

“We think you’re a bunch of idiots,” Leonard snarled.

    Of course.

    “You see, Fortunata, we are afraid of you. Not you personally—I mean, if you are actually an Earth person and not an agent for the [unpronounceable]. Your wars, your greed, your violence—you’ve despoiled your own planet! Who would want to even come here--“

    “Except for Strabos?” Leonard offered.

    “Except for Strabos…” Dreblin’s voice trailed off; he suddenly seemed tired.

    “So…We’re violent? We’re greedy?” I couldn’t help myself. “May I remind you that you are pointing an automatic weapon at me, that you’ve conspired to steal a priceless work of art….”

“But we’re criminals!” Dreblin was almost pleading. What am I doing arguing with these fruitcakes? Caitlin, where are you?

    But they were insistent: on their planet—or whatever planet of the mind they fantasized—war had been outlawed. Disputes were settled by litigation and trade agreements mostly and—when all else failed—by fist fights between the principles. No armies, no young men and women in harm’s way. And their ships did make contact: on planets not deemed unsafe, those whose populations and politics seemed “mature.” 

    Dreblin went on to tell me that interstellar exploration was very expensive and therefore that Earth people’s fears of invasion from outer space were nonsense—pure projection on our part because we were always invading each others’ countries. It would be financially prohibitive to “invade” another planet. And why bother in the first place when there were so many “mature” planets to trade with?

    He also volunteered that because of the great expense of space travel, he and his friend had committed a great crime in stealing a space ship and bringing it to Earth.

    “Then why do it?” I snapped, jangling the cuffs.

    “Because,” Dreblin oozed, “Strabos, you see, was our Phidias. Except that Strabos travelled back and forth in time, from planet to planet in order to find subjects for his art. His taste in venues was not always the most discriminating, hence his liking for Earth. This--” he indicated the statue, “Was his final work. He completed it just before he died—“

    “And it’s not just a statue! Tell her, Dreblin!”

“Leonard, you’re so excitable! Though in this case I can’t blame you—You see, Fortunata, a statue on our world is not like a statue on your world. How do I explain this? A work like this is a statue with benefits. It must be treated with the greatest delicacy lest the benefits run out—“

“So to speak.”

“Yes, so to speak. A work like this one—that of a dead artist with-benefits-remaining will make Leonard and I unbelievably and unconscionably wealthy. With this new-found wealth we will be able to purchase our own country—and thus render ourselves free from the threat of prosecution”

    “Yeah,” muttered Leonard, “As long as we don’t negotiate an extradition treaty.”

    “No—That is, yes. Leonard? Why even bring that up?”   

    “Can I bring something up?” My heart was pounding. “Why not just let me go? Take the statue and…?”

    “Fortunata, it’s not that simple—“

Just then the security alarm sounded, and was it loud!

Caitlin had come through for me. But I saw the effect it had on Dreblin, and I knew what he had intended all along. His face distorted with rage, he aimed the pistol at me. I know it’s a cliché, but everything did seem to be happening in a dream—

Especially when the statue’s spear arm lunged forward, pinned Dreblin’s arm to the wall, and caused him to drop the gun.

    “AHHHHHHHH!” he shrieked like a wounded animal.

    “Boss—what the hell—are you hurt?”

    “No! But my sleeve is pinned, and it’s very tight. Help me get loose.”

    Leonard tugged frantically. “The cops will be here any minute!”

    “I know that!” Then with a maniacal vehemence, he shook his fist at the statue and roared, “Strabos! You…!”

    Suddenly, with a clinking sound, the loop holding my handcuffs popped open. I kicked my shoes off and, still handcuffed, I ran—and ran.

    “Don’t let her get away!”

    I zigged and zagged through rows of crates, with insects buzzing and whining around my ears—then I realized what I was hearing were not insects—but the tiny bullets from the automatic pistol. Panicked, I stumbled and came down hard on my knees.—against the concrete floor. Just then, the electric gate over the loading dock started clanging open.

    Leonard stopped, distracted. “Boss, the drivers are here!”

    “What difference does that make now—the benefits have run out! Get her before she blabs to the police.”

    The drivers had indeed arrived, but they lay face down with their hands cuffed behind them. About twenty uniformed and plain clothes police poured in from the loading dock—and who should I see but tall-guy, sans sunglasses, wearing a badge suspended from a lanyard and his two massive hands gripping a Glok. 

    “Drop it!” he snapped at Leonard. “I said drop it, asshole!”

    Leonard squatted and laid his gun gently against the concrete.

    “Stay down—all the way—face down!” In an instant, Leonard was handcuffed. “Wait a minute—what’s that smell? Did you fire this weapon?”

    “I had to protect myself! These people are maniacs!”

    “What maniacs? All I see is a girl who’s been handcuffed—“

    In a second tall-guy leaped across the floor towards me. He seemed about nine feet tall—until I realized I was still on my knees. With exquisite gentleness, he helped me onto my feet.

    “Did he fire his weapon at you?” His eyes blazed blue with anger. “Did he shoot at you?” I was terrified of making him even angrier, but I couldn’t speak: my jaw would not move. “Uh…boy!” His posture changed suddenly, and he called: “Hey, Sarge?”

    The next thing I knew, a big, mommy-type woman had wrapped her jacket around my shoulders and gripped me in a bear hug with one arm, while with her free hand she was clutching my jaw.

    “Mmm! Can’t bweathe!”

    “Sorry, hon, just trying to stop your jaw from chattering. It’s not good when it does that. Here, let’s walk—Take deep breaths. –Hey! Can somebody get these cuffs off her?”

    And, lo, the cuffs disappeared.

    Sergeant/Mommy and I had walked back towards the statue and were now standing behind it, where we could see the frantic attempts to free Dreblin’s arm. The effort was being led by a squat detective, apparently Italian-American, who reminded me of my Uncle Lawrence. God bless him, he even sported a fedora. I stifled a sob.

    “The damn thing don’ wanna come out! What kinda statue is this anyway? It don’t belong in a museum: it’s too dangerous. Nah, I can’t get—Best thing is to cut the sleeve off.”

    “This is a twenty-six hundred dollar suit!” Dreblin protested stupidly.

    “Difference does that make? You won’t need it where you’re going.”

    And then Dreblin’s eyes fell on me. “She’s the one who rigged this statue! Arrest her! Booby-trapping is against the law!”

    “Oh come on! How could she booby-trap a two-thousand-year old statue? You’re the one who’s going down, Dreblin!” My defender stood among the “suits” who had just waltzed in with Chet. But then he turned to face me, and I saw that it was—him! My hoplite!

    “Archilochus!” I half-gurgled, half-cried.

    “What?” He looked at me, puzzled. “You mean me? That’s not my name. My name’s George. George Demetrios. I’m with the DA’s office.” Archilochus/George walked up to me and handed me his card. “You were right about my being Greek—or my parents, anyway—Hey, better get her to the emergency room.”

    “I wanna go home,” I mewled, but what I really meant was I want to stay here with you, Archilochus/George.

    “It’s all right,hon, we have to check you out first.” Sergeant/Mommy still had me in her grip. “You’re a crime victim!”

    And so I was: no shoes, torn dress, bloody knees—and suddenly an additional arm was thrown around me—Caitlin’s—and then I heard George scolding Chet.

    “How did she end up in the middle of this? Didn’t you warn your people about the sting?”

    Sting!

    “No, he didn’t,” Caitlin bawled, “Not one word about it—all because he’s in a snit—“

    “Now just a minute, young lady—“

    “No, you wait a minute, Mr. Museum Director,” George snapped, “Your negligence put her life in danger. She could sue you!”

    Chet looked at me—Checked out Caitlin—Glanced at George—then back at me and said: “I’m sorry, For. I’m sorry. Please don’t sue the museum.”

    ”Not the museum,” George said pointedly, “You!”

    “But I was so angry. You have to understand, Mr. Demetrios, they were talking behind my back, making fun of me….”

    A deep, all-surrounding silence followed Chet’s pathetic confession—until George broke the silence.

    “Oh come on, everybody makes fun of their boss sometimes—um—except for me!” he added, to a surge of laughter from the troops. “I don’t want stories getting back to the DA!” He stopped and looked at me. “I’ll send a car for you tomorrow, so you can come in and make your statement. Okay…Fortunata?”

    What? I thought. He knows my name?

*    *    *

    True to his word, Assistant DA George Demetrios did send a car for me the following day, but blessedly not until three p.m. In his office that Saturday afternoon I was shocked when I realized I could not make a coherent statement; I was babbling. And when he asked me to describe the way the statue seemed for an instant to come to life, I broke down in sobs. By the time I arrived home, once more courtesy of a car from the DA’s office, all I could do was throw myself on the bed fully clothed—and lie there like a dead person for about 19 hours.

    I had no idea if any part of my statement had made sense; apparently it hadn’t because George was forced to send a car on each of the weekdays following. While we still could not make any sense out of the statue’s moving, by Tuesday we started holding our working sessions in a local coffee shop where we pigged out on pastrami sandwiches, cups of strong coffee, and cheesecake (me). The food was great, but I still found it very difficult to talk about my experience of that night—or even to focus on George’s questions. This made me feel bad because I was really beginning to like him.

    “Fortunata, you’re doing fine,” he assured me. “Some people clam up and are unable to remember anything. It’s traumatic.”

    So the interviews continued on into the following weeks—until we were conducting them over dinner. Okay, by this time George and I were dating, but I still felt uncomfortable because I was not being of any help to him. On October 2nd, we did find out from a team of special investigators from FBI headquarters that the statue had contained some advanced electronic parts but that these parts were now fused together and unidentifiable.

Electronics on an ancient statue? I had not even mentioned the “outer space” connection—I didn’t know how to bring it up—I couldn’t see how it would fit—and the longer I didn’t talk about it, the harder it seemed to broach the subject. Then I started to worry that if my two attackers had actually been insane, my leaving out that part could constitute obstruction of justice or some such thing since they could not stand trial if they were mentally incompetent.

We didn’t talk only about the case—we were after all dating—but these worries always preyed at the back of my mind. Then one evening, just before dessert (cheesecake), George suddenly laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?”

“I have to tell you the latest. You know what Dreblin tried to pull? He actually claimed they aren’t subject to our laws because they are both from a more advanced planet! Can you imagine? Trying to dodge the issue by claiming insanity?”

In my elation at having one worry exploded—and scrupulous to a fault—I heard myself blurt out: “What about their space ship?”

George’s response was to throw back his head and roar with laughter. “That too! Dreblin gave me some b.s. map coordinates, and of course I had to check them out—could’ve been bodies, who-knows-what, out there. When I called the state police, the trooper I spoke to couldn’t stop laughing—but no, we went out there and nothing: just a circle of burnt grass…um…What made you ask about the ship? You sound like an investigator.”

“Oh…well, I am. I investigate the past.”

“But…but…a spaceship?”

“George…” I sat with that a while, keeping in mind that George was also a lawyer—a prosecutor. “Now that the…trauma…has passed, there are things that I remember.”

“Fortunata, I’m all ears….”

Oh…well, I am. I investigate the past.”

“But…but…a spaceship?”

“George…” I sat with that a while, keeping in mind that George was also a lawyer—a prosecutor. “Now that the…trauma…has passed, there are things that I remember.”

“Fortunata, I’m all ears….”

* * *

“I understand, Fortunata. Those guys tried to kill you. But you’ve told me everything, and if it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense.” On this note George looked off into a distance. It was getting on to midnight; fortunately, we had picked a 24/7 coffee shop. When he was ready to speak again, he said simply: “Just stop thinking about it. You know, I’m starting to—I mean, I really like you.”

“I like you too, George. But you think I’m crazy.”

“No! I think you’re driving yourself crazy, you’re obsessing.”

“But there still is the statue. An alien technology would explain how electronics had attached themselves to an ancient statue. Dreblin was babbling about art ‘with benefits.’ If that’s so—Let’s just say it is for a minute—does the idea of 'benefits' imply intentionality? Because that statue had saved my life.”

“Okay, that isn’t possible.”

“Yes, but it did happen!”

“Hmmm…. Well, I certainly don’t have all the answers. My frame of reference is relatively narrow, but yours! It covers all of Antiquity.”

“And then some!” I was still freaked out by what had happened: someone had shot at me with intent to kill, and now the future—at least my future—no longer beckoned with a smile and a friendly challenge. “George, I'm scared.”

“Don't be. We've nailed these guys. Whatever their story is, they're criminals: conspiracy, abduction, criminal assault, attempted murder—No, the hell with what they say: our focus will be on their crimes.”

And I did feel better then—knowing that George was on my side and that there were no more secrets between us.

“A statue with benefits, you said?”

“It did save my life. I saw the lance nail Dreblin's sleeve to the wall—and cause him to drop the gun. Oh-and! The statue somehow released the handcuffs, so I could escape their clutches. George! I didn't imagine all this.”

“I believe you. I do. And not just because I like you. There is the burnt electronics—“

“Yeah, I got the impression from those two weirdos that the benefits were a one-shot deal.”

“We'll never know, I guess, the real story. Hmmm…Say, Fortunata, I've been meaning to ask: have you been to Greece?” George smiled, having successfully changed the subject.

“Many times.”

“Wow, to see the Aegean, Homer's 'wine dark sea'!”

“George, you've never been? No? Your parents never took you?”

“My parents had to leave because of political problems, you know. This was a couple of decades ag0, and they never wanted to go back. But Greece is part of my heritage. I took courses in college—Oh, not at your level—But before law school. You—Fortunata? You want to go? Sometime? With me, I mean.”

“George, you take my breath away—“

I meant that literally. While I was struggling for breath, my dream of Archilocus from Mytilene popped into my head. George was not a dream, but he had the same dark eyes. And he was a keeper. Heraclitus had taught that life was constant change; flow, he called it. Now was my time to get in the flow.

“But—Yes! I'd love to travel to Greece with you.”

“I'll be a good pupil if you'll teach me. 'O Phidias, the plastic rhyme/With which you strove to conquer time/Is lost', et cetera.” His voice trailed off though a far-off look had come into his eyes.

“Who wrote that?”

“I did. In my flaming undergraduate days.”

“George, you'll love Greece! In summer, it's hot, hot, hot but dry. And the sunlight is so bright it defines everything—sea, sky, mountains. And at night, you sit on the beach with the sea lapping at your feet. And the stars—so many of them!”

“The stars, yes! Those ancient sailors who taught the world to navigate by the stars: I wonder, did they even know--?”

“What the stars really were?”

And so my story comes full circle. Perhaps the benefits had not run out after all.

“Oh yes, they knew.”

# # #