Mercury Begins (Mercury Trilogy) (2 page)

“Wahoo!” cried Daedalus. “They work!”

Mercury, still running toward the old man, saw that he was wearing some very odd-looking shoes. They were silver in color, and each one had a pair of bird-like wings protruding from its sides.

“No
,
they don’t, you idiot,” Mercury yelled, gently setting the man back on the ground.
“What the hell are you trying to do, kill yourself?”

Daedalus stood unsurely on a boulder, eyeing his silver shoes. The wings flapped lazily against his ankles.

“What on Earth would make you think something like that would work? Have you never heard of physics?
Or animal trials, for that matter?
You need to
try that shit on a baboon first
.
”

“But…” said Daedalus. “
I was
flying
.”

“You were defying gravity,”
said Mercury.
“
Thanks to m
e
performing a minor miracle.
If I hadn’t been here, you’d be dead.”

Daedalus regarded his shoes sadly.
“Another failure, then.
Just like the horse.” He climbed down to the ground from the boulder.

“I’ve never seen a horse fly
either
,” said Mercury.

“Really?” asked Daedalus. “
That’s odd.
Have you seen a house fly?”

“Don’t think so.”

“
Huh
. They’re all over the place in Greece.
How about a dragonfly?”

“No thanks,” said Mercury. “Not hungry. So where’s this flying horse of yours?”

Daedalus shook his head. “The horse doesn’t fly.”

“Well, you’re
zero
for two, then.”

“No, no,” said Daedalus. “The horse isn’t supposed to fly. It’s a weapon.
I’ll show you.
”

Daedalus led Mercury over a ridge, where a massive structure sat covered by a canvas tarp. He pulled a rope and the tarp fell away, revealing a gigantic wooden horse.
It
had to be
thirty feet from the ground to its ears.
[2]

Mercury whistled in awe. “Wow,” he said. “So what does it do exactly?”

“Well,” replied Daedalus, “It’s supposed to shoot fire from its mouth here, see? But it doesn’t work. I’m a terrible inventor.
The worst.”

“Now, now,” said Mercury. “Don’t let one little setback get you down
, Dave
. So what’s the problem, exactly? Do you have ignition? Is the fuel to air ratio right?”

Daedalus stared at him blankly, his shoe-wings fluttering in the breeze.

“OK, let’s back up,” said Mercury. “What kind of fuel does the flame mechanism use?”

Daedalus looked at the horse. “
Flame mechanism
,” he said.

“You did build some sort of mechanism to shoot flames, right? You weren’t just hoping that the horse was going to magically start shooting… oh.”

“I’m the worst,” Daedalus
said again, sitting down on a nearby boulder. He took off his shoes and threw them at the horse.
He cradled his head in his hands and began to cry.
“This was supposed to be our secret weapon, to skew the odds against Troy in our favor.
I was going to call it ‘Greek fire.’
”

“
Hmm
,” said Mercury. “Unfortunately, I think you’r
e about a thousand years early. You guys aren’t supposed to have liquid incendiaries until the Byzantine Empire.” Mercury’s knowledge of future history was sketchy, but he had good recall for events involving fire and explosions. “And you won’t have gunpowder until the late
Middle
Ages. Too bad we aren’t in China. Of course, those
dudes
have a centralized government, a common language, and….” Mercury trailed off. Something of
Uzziel’s
briefing was coming back.

Mercury was supposed to help the Gre
eks destroy Troy. There had been a whole Powe
rPoint
[3]
presentation with charts,
graphs and maps, indicating what would happen if
the Greeks were unable to achieve a definitive victory over Troy
. The antipathy between Troy and Greece would continue for another 200 years, preventing the formation of a
unified empire
in southern Europe.
That meant no Roman Empire, no Province of Galilee, no Herod, no Pontius Pilate… no Crucifixion. Jesus of Nazareth would live to a ripe old age as a beatific and preternaturally skilled carpenter, and the
Divine Plan would go completely off the rails.

Mercury walked over to the horse
, climbing onto a boulder to get a better look
. It was an impressive piece of carpentry, if not a part
icularly formidable weapon. Standing on his tiptoes, Mercury could just touch the horse’s underside.

Dae
dalus was sobbing quietly into his hands.
“Greek fire,” he
blurbled
.
“What was I thinking?”

“It’s a good idea, in theory,” said Merc
ury, trying to reach the latch of a door in the horse’s belly. “In a few hundred years, you guys will use it to great effect in naval battles. Well, I say ‘you
guys
,’ but of course I mean the Byzantine Empire, which
as I recall
is really the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which brings me to…
gyeeeeaaaugh
!” Mercury had been
straining to reach the latch
when his foot slipped and he lost his balance. With no time to grab hold of
interplanar
energy, he fell to the ground, smacking the back of his skull on the boulder.

“
Guh
,” Mercury muttered, holding his head.

“Are you OK?” asked Dae
dalus,
rushing over to Mercury, having apparently forgotten
his own sorrows.

“Yeah,” said Mercury. “That didn’t help my
keeyaah
any though.”

“
Your
what?”

“
Keeyaah
,” said Mercury. “You know, from drinking too much beer.” He flapped his arms and croaked, “
Keeyaah
!” Instantly realizing this
was
a mistake, he cradled his head in his hands and moaned.

“I think you mean a hangover,” said Daedalus. “Here, try these.” He held the winged shoes out to Mercury.

“I’m not seeing how shoes with wings on them are going to help my head,” Mercury said.

“Not for your head, for your feet.
Feel.”

Mercury took one of the shoes, rubbing his thumb on the sole. “Ooh,
grippy
!” he exclaimed. “What is that?”

“I made it from rubber tree extract,” he said.
“Figured it would be good for landings.”

“This is great!” Mercury
exclaimed
. “What do you call it?”

“Rubber tree extract flying shoe sole compound.”

“Catchy,” said Mercury, removing his sandals. He slipped on the winged shoes and climbed back onto the boulder. Even on his tiptoes, there was no chance of him
slipping
with his new
grippy
shoes
. He pulled the latch and a wooden door swung open. Seeing that a series of rungs had been installed on the hatch, Mercury grabbed one and hoisted himself up, placing his rubbery sole on the bottom rung. He climbed inside the horse.
It was completely hollow.

“Wow,” said Mercury, walking around inside the massive structure. “I feel like a little
baby
horse inside a giant mama horse.”

“What?” called Daedalus from
below.

“I said it’s like being a little horse inside a big horse,” repeated Mercury.

“What?” called Daedalus
again.

“A little horse!” yelled Mercury. “I’m a little horse!”

“Oh, no wonder I couldn’t hear you,” said Daedalus.

Mercury stuck his head out the opening. “Come on up,” he said. “It’s like a tree fort
in here.
All we need is a ‘no girls allowe
d
’
sign.”

But Daedalus couldn’t reach the ladder. “Here,” said Mercury, harnessing a small amount of
interplanar
energy to lift Daedalus into the horse. He wasn’t really supposed to be performing miracles without a good reason, but he figured he’d already blown his cover with Daedalus.

“How do you do that?” asked Daedalus. “Are you a god?”

Mercury shook his head. “I’m more like a messenger.”

“But you work for the gods?”

“I work for
the
God.”

“Zeus?”

“No, not… sure, Zeus.” Mercury was getting tired of having to explain monotheism to primitive cultures. It wasn’t his job anyway; let those yahoos in Prophecy sort it out.
“How many people do you think could fit in here?”

Daedalus shrugged. “
Six
?”

Mercury regarded the cavernous space inside the horse.
This guy
was as good at estimated volume as he was with aerodynamics.
“I was thinking more like a hundred,” said Mercury. “
We may have to slather them in olive oil
to squeeze them in
.
Here, let’s try something. I’m going to hop out. You close the door and then walk around for a bit.” He lowered himself to the ground and Daedalus closed the hatch behind him. Loud footsteps reverberated above him.

“OK, open the hatch
, Dave
!” Mercury yelled. “We’re going to need a lot more of these shoes.”

“All right,” said Daedalus
, scratching his chin
. “But I’m not sure I have enough feathers.”

“I don’t care ab
out the feathers, you numbskull,” said Mercury. “
I just want shoes with rubbery soles, so the men don’t make so much noise inside the horse. These shoes hardly make any noise at all. You could sneak right up on someone with these rubbery soles. Hey, that’s what we’ll call them!”

“Sneakers?”
asked Daedalus.

“
Sneakers?
Good grief, no. That’s a terrible name. I was thinking ‘rubbers.’ Imagine
a hundred Greeks, oiled up and wearing rubbers!
The Trojans wouldn’t stand a chance!”

“You’re going to put a hundred men inside the horse?”

“Sure,” said Mercury. “We’ll tell the Trojans the horse is a gift.
They’ll drag it right into the city. Then at night, our
oiled up contingent will pop out from underneath the horse and
penetrate the Trojan defenses
.
”

Daedalus regarded him dubiously. “You realize the Trojans aren’t all complete idiots, right?”

“I don’t need them
all
to be idiots,” sniffed Mercury. “As long as there is an idiot or two in a position of power – and there always is – we should be fine.
Or did you want to go back to hoping the horse will magically spout fire?
”

Daedalus muttered to himself but, not having any better ideas,
he
went along with Mercury’s plan.
The two of them met with the Greek commander to persuade him of the soundness of their
idea
.
Fortunately Mercury’s theory about idiots in power held true for the Greeks at least; t
he
Greek
commander
, who
possessed an inexplicable respect for Daedalus’ “genius,”
gleefully went along with the plan.
He found
a hundred Greek soldiers willing to slip on rubbers and climb inside the
wooden
horse
[4]
, and the rest of the force boarded the ships and made a great show of leaving the area
.
Under cover of night, the
hundred men
dragged the horse within view of the city walls and the
n
climbed inside.
After several of them fainted from lack of oxygen, Daedalus had the idea of drilling air holes in the horse’s back.
The sun was just coming up when he slunk away over the hills.

Meanwhile, Mercury went and hid
on a rocky outcropping
about a hundred yards away
to make sure everything went according to plan. It didn’t.

“We should burn it,” said one of the
Trojans
who had come out of the city to look at the horse.