LXXI

HEPHAESTUS

2,057 Years Before the Final Exodus

 

Zeus was displeased, to say the least.

The Lords of Kobol were arrayed in the Council room and there had been no chattering before the start. Nearly all of the Lords were there. Hecate was not, of course, and neither was Artemis. Or Aurora. Hermes had been the last to arrive and as soon as he sat, at Zeus' signal, an acolyte brought in Chief Quorum Archon Eris. She seemed bewildered and frightened. She felt the angered Charas of the gods. Zeus truly was angry. Hephaestus found himself conjuring up bad memories to force himself to feel that way. Eris knelt before the table without being prompted.

"Lords of Kobol," she said with her face by the floor, "I beg your forgiveness."

"So you know why you are here," Zeus said through gritted teeth.

She lifted her head somewhat, though she was still out of sight to most of the Olympians seated around the table. "Yes, Lord Zeus. I withheld the truth from you and provided false information to the people."

"Yes, you did." Zeus stood so he could see the woman.

She began to plead, "We did arrest many monotheist terror suspects! And we brought you the man who bombed your temple here in Theonpolis!" She paused, waiting for some sort of reaction before she continued, "He led us to dozens of his people."

"I'm glad. Stand up." When she did, tears were evident on her face and her eyes were wide open. "You have lied to the gods."

"Yes, Lord."

Zeus raised an arm, "I now pronounce judgment." Zeus' move was for show, but Eris quickly pushed her face into her hands and sobbed openly. "You will immediately resign your position as chief quorum archon. You will no longer hold elected office anywhere on Kobol. You are to depart Theonpolis and never return for the rest of your days."

Sensing the end of the sentence, Eris lifted her face and knelt again. "Thank you, Lord Zeus. I will obey."

"Yes, you will." He pressed a button and the acolyte returned, took Eris by the arm, and departed. He paused for a few moments, sat down and grumbled. "Where the frak is Aurora?"

"I don't know," Apollo said.

"You better hope she shows, boy, to take some of the heat off you." Zeus leaned back and saw Hephaestus, "You as well!"

Hephaestus lowered his head somewhat and turned his face away from Zeus. Zeus had always been his friend, but he was truly upset now. They had grown apart over the ages. There was no denying that.

"I hope you didn't start without me," Aurora said as she entered the room. She immediately sat in an empty chair. Everyone stared at her and noticed the wide, almost eerie smile she wore. "What?"

Zeus spoke softly, "We couldn't very well have started without the architect of these events."

"I wasn't the architect, Zeus," she said with a chuckle, "some … thing else was."

"What?" Zeus asked.

"God." The other Lords' eyes widened and eyebrows shot up. They looked from Aurora to Zeus and to Aurora again.

Zeus scratched his beard, "Are you serious?"

"Yes, I am." She was still smiling.

Apollo and Hephaestus both looked down at the table while the others shifted in their seats. Zeus slapped the metal and made everyone jump. "You two! I want to know who did what and when."

Aurora quickly volunteered by speaking first, "I was approached by an agent of God … oh, a few centuries ago. He told me that hard times were ahead for the organic Cylons and that it was my divine duty to shepherd them through it."

Stunned silence.

"'An agent of God?'" Zeus repeated it slowly and doused it in sarcasm.

"Yes. And he took the form of Hades."

An audible gasp. Zeus straightened in his chair and opened his mouth to speak twice before clearing his throat. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No, Zeus."

Hephaestus was now thinking back to his interactions with Aurora over the last century or so. Did she believe this agent of God was helping her when she came to Vulcan to get his help? He looked over at Apollo: his eyes were closed and his fist was at his mouth. Was he about to say something?

Zeus placed his hands on the table, palms flat. "Aurora, you set yourself as a god above those people …"

"I never told anyone I was a god, Zeus. You know that." She was still smiling.

"You told them about the one true God? You taught these people to deny our divinity?!" He was yelling.

"No, Zeus," she yelled back, not in anger, just in equal volume. "I told them nothing about God."

Zeus pulled his hands along the table, making a slight squeaking noise. "You … positioned yourself as a leader of the Thirteenth Tribe …"

Aurora nodded, "I can go along with that."

"You ordered the construction of space vessels for the express purpose of taking Kobollians from this world and colonizing another."

Still smiling, "Yes."

"You went to Hephaestus and convinced him to manufacture multiple faster-than-light drives for these vessels."

"Yes."

He smacked the table again. "Dammit, stop smiling!"

She did not comply. "I can't help it."

Zeus contorted his neck and twisted his head away. While looking at the wall, he began to speak again. "Do you not realize that these are things that I have purposefully caused from being revealed to Kobollians?"

"You've mistaken me for someone who cares."

Zeus jumped up and moved about halfway around the table before Ares grabbed his waist. "Aurora, stop baiting him, please," he said.

"Sorry," she smiled, "it's just so easy."

Zeus inhaled loudly and began to move back toward his seat. "So, angels told you to get the Thirteenth Tribe off Kobol."

"Yes."

He sat down slowly. "Why?"

Aurora shrugged, "The One chose not to reveal all of … its plan to me. Just that I was to gather them near me, let them grow. I was told …," her smile faded for the first time, "I was told what would happen if the Thirteenth remained on Kobol for too long. A vision of the future. But I could stop it. When the time was right, I was to help them leave."

"And that's when you went to Hephaestus?" Zeus said, pointing at him.

"Yes," she said. Hephaestus exhaled slowly and straightened in his chair.

"So, Hephaestus," Zeus began, "what form did the angel take when it came to visit you?"

"What?" Hephaestus asked. He shook his head quickly, "No. There was no angel. C'mon, Zeus, you know I never believed in God."

"That was a few thousand years ago, Hephaestus," Zeus said while leaning back in his chair. "You may have changed your mind. Rethought your divinity."

Hephaestus shook his head again. "That's not what happened."

"Explain it to me, then."

Hephaestus glanced at Aurora, who was still smiling. She nodded at him to go on. After a slow inhalation, he began, "Aurora came to me a few decades ago, asking questions about FTL, what it would take to build drives. I asked her why," he looked over toward her.

"Don't worry. Speak the truth," she said.

"I asked her why and she said it was 'just in case.'"

"So she intimated that these jump drives would be for us to use?" Hestia asked.

Hephaestus nodded. "At first. Then, some years later, she came back. Said she needed far more than just the two or three I had in my personal workshop."

"Until this point," Hermes said, "you were working completely alone?"

"Yes," Hephaestus said. "The second time, Aurora said it wasn't just about saving us, but it was about saving everyone. The whole planet." Hephaestus grinned gamely and he glanced over at Aphrodite. She looked concerned. "She had such conviction, I believed her, to a point. And I wanted the challenge. I knew I could make FTL from scratch. But she needed more than I could do by myself."

"So you went to the humans," Zeus said.

"I subcontracted the manufacture of certain items from several different companies. They had no idea what they were building and they had no contact with each other. Only me. I'm the one who assembled the final parts in each ship and after I was finished, I went to each company and saw to it personally that all of their equipment and files were destroyed."

Zeus was shaking his head. "Still unacceptable. We've said for years that the humans weren't ready for FTL and here we go, giving it to them."

Hephaestus was about to re-argue his point on spreading out the construction when he remembered something Aurora said. He paused with his mouth partially agape and looked over at her. She was smiling, of course. He understood. "Zeus, no human ever touched a complete FTL engine."

He chuckled with disdain, "What?"

"I assembled the drives myself. The only people who got on those ships were Cylons. Not humans."

Zeus shook his head, "You're slicing thread." As soon as he finished saying it, he looked at Apollo, who was smiling, too. Zeus straightened up, "Enough of this. Because of your actions, Hephaestus, and your disregard for our rules, I am disbanding the Hephaestus Institute."

"What?" Hephaestus said. Anger welled up inside and he balled his hands into fists. His face flushed with heat. Aphrodite and others shook their heads and tried to speak to Zeus, but he pressed on, angrily.

"Kobol has already progressed to be the society we wanted it to be," Zeus said, still waving off the protests of the others. "We have no further need for the technological advancements your Institute has provided."

"You're out of your mind," Hephaestus grumbled.

"Watch it!" Zeus said, leveling a finger at Hephaestus.

"No, I'm finished with you." He stood and walked toward the door. Aphrodite stood, too, and joined him. "You take away my Institute, you take away the one thing that I do. If you take away … whatever challenges lie ahead, I have nothing left." His wife hugged him and they left the room.

The couple walked through the hallway toward the Olympus foyer. They stood quietly in the windowed sunlight for a moment. Aphrodite said nothing.

"I don't know what else to do," he said finally.

She nodded and hugged him tighter. "I know."

He looked at her. "I … Technology, engineering, it's what I do. I've tried just living, just being, but I don't know if I can."

Aphrodite held his face between her hands and smiled. "Let's try again. We'll do it together."

Hephaestus hesitated and he reached up for her wrists. He lowered her arms and looked at her meekly. She had a hard time on Kobol, no question. He had a purpose from the start. For the longest time, his wife didn't have that.

Aphrodite busied herself with art, music, and then direct involvement in her worship. She tried to play supportive wife and mother. Coronis had moved on. Eros did, too. What was left for her? Hephaestus swallowed past a lump in his throat and he realized that she stayed for him. Only him. He wasn't sure if … no, he knew he didn't deserve her devotion.

She was still smiling broadly and finally Hephaestus grinned, too. "We'll do it together." The skycar doors slid open and the pair stepped inside. "We can travel the world slowly. See how long it takes for me to drive you mad …"

Aphrodite laughed, "I've stayed by your side for almost four thousand years. I'm certain I can manage a few more centuries."