CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Rhodes is pretty big.

We were there for maybe an hour before I realized we probably should have asked Helen for more details about exactly where on Rhodes we were supposed to go.

I mean, it’s not Texas-big. But I figured we’d show up, go to the largest ruins we could find, and then meet Archimedes.

We showed up, went to the largest ruins we could find, and nope.

The city of Lindos is ancient. Ancient. They could sell shirts with the slogan, “Lindos: Eleven centuries older than Jesus.”

Darling loved it.

“The Acropolis at Lindos is not just a single city,” she said, as she rested gentle fingertips on a column of the Temple of Athena. This building was fairly well-preserved. No roof, of course, but it had two walls and a stunning view of the sea. “Many civilizations built new cities upon the ruins of the old. You cannot walk a meter through the lower levels without turning up something of value.”

Atlas sniffed at that.

Darling ignored her cousin. “I come here often. Look,” she said, and pointed towards the walls surrounding the acropolis. These had been built from smaller stones than those used in the older ruins at their center. “The island made a natural fortress after the Crusades. The Knights Hospitallers came and established a base of operations, and it took nearly two hundred years of battles before Suleiman’s forces succeeded in routing them. Would you like to see the gates to their fortress?”

She didn’t wait to hear our answer. Instead, she turned and marched us across the acropolis, ending at a steep staircase that blended the natural rock of the island into its elevation. It was impressive, and Darling chattered on about great battles and body counts.

I’m sure it was interesting, but honestly? I wasn’t listening.

My ghost sense had started tingling the moment we had set foot on Rhodes. Not in a Hey! Look! It’s Archimedes! way, but more of a Hey! Stop walking through my invisible chess game! way. There were ghosts here—if Darling was right and this was a layered civilization that had seen a metric shit-ton of different wars, there were probably an astonishing number of ghosts here—but none of them were interested in making contact with us. And, as with the ghosts at the Acropolis at Athens, Mike and I couldn’t see them anyhow.

Kinda frustrating.

Oh, we also couldn’t call Sparky and have him act as an intermediary, because he and the rest of OACET’s administration had just gone into a meeting with the President. I have no doubt Sparky could split his mind and manage two important conversations at once, but I sure wasn’t about to ask him to do it.

Time to put on my big-girl pants and find Archimedes.

“Darling?” I interrupted her. She put down a chunk of rock, which she claimed had been used as a cannonball during a siege of the fortress. “I might have gotten the meeting place wrong. Is there another old ruin on Rhodes?”

She and Atlas made that gaping-fish face that I’d come to associate with my stupid questions. “Ah—”

“Gotcha,” I said. “There are bunches. Let’s narrow it down—where would Posidonius have set up shop in Rhodes?”

“No one knows, but it is likely he taught here,” Atlas said, pointing at the castle and the ruins behind it. “Many of the other sites around the island were destroyed in a massive earthquake not long before Posidonius would have been born. Lindos remained relatively untouched, and the shrine to Athena became the most prominent on the island. It was believed that Athena had spared this city, and reconstruction was centered around it.”

“There is another acropolis near Rhodes Town,” Darling said. “But it was damaged in the earthquake and never regained its former glory.”

Speedy gave a deep yawn and lifted his head from where he had lain slumped against Mike’s chest. “Might be worth checking out,” he said. “Posidonius was a teacher, and the Odeion at Rhodes survived the quake.”

“The Odeion is…”

“A big stage,” he said, as he rested his head on his paws again. “Built so a performer’s voice could be heard by anyone in the audience, even in the back rows. Teachers used it for their lectures.”

“Good enough,” I said, and we headed back towards the donkeys.

Yes, I said donkeys. The touristy way to travel to the Acropolis at Lindos is on a donkey. It was a nifty slice of the city—I would have loved to explore if we had had more time.

On the ride down the hill, Atlas nudged his donkey so it fell into step beside mine. He pointed out fancy nouns as we rode, native birds and plants and whatever, before he finally got to the real reason he was small-talking.

“I could be of better help to you if you let me know why we came to Rhodes,” he said. “I feel that I have not earned my pay on this trip.”

“I’m intentionally keeping you in the dark,” I said. “Since everything I do goes straight back to Senator Hanlon.”

Pause. Blink. Token protests.

If we had been walking, I would have stopped and gotten in his face for effect, but no, we were bumping downward on donkeys. The best I could do was not to fall off during the angry handwavey parts.

“Atlas? Do me a favor,” I said. “Think about who I am. Think about who my husband is. Then ask yourself if you’ve been in contact with Hanlon recently, and don’t bother to lie.

“Thus far, you’ve done jack shit for me,” I added, intentionally ignoring Helen’s beads on their new cord around my neck. “Your cousin’s been a lot more useful. So, start earning your keep—tell me what’s special about this other acropolis.”

I saw his knuckles turn white as he gripped his donkey’s saddle, and then relax as he brought himself down. Good.

“The Acropolis at Rhodes Town is not as well studied as those in other locations,” he finally said. “It is a large, sprawling site, and much of what once existed has been reconstructed. Excavations, however, have been limited.”

“Why?” I asked, but I thought the chunked-up mess of Lindos was a good enough answer: archaeologists thought the exciting stuff was happening right here.

He proved me wrong. “The site is restrictive,” he replied. “It is built on a hill, and the temples situated on terraces. There is no mystery to the land; the people of Rhodes shaped it to their purpose.

“For the last fifty years, it has been the Monte Smith Park,” he said. “Not many tourists visit it, but the locals go there for recreation. I do not know what you expect to find there.”

Neither did I, and that worried me. If we didn’t find Archimedes, we’d have to ask Helen to set up another meeting, and second chances didn’t seem to be her bag.

It was another hour to Rhodes Town, and thirty minutes after that we were at the new acropolis. Sorry—the second acropolis. Like the one at Lindos, the Acropolis at Rhodes Town was ancient, and situated on top of a hill with a view of the sea.

Really pleasant, though. Lindos was a tourist trap, but this one was all open spaces and trees. We hiked up to the top of the hill, where three tall stone columns held up the barest remnant of a temple.

Atlas started playing tour guide. He got about two sentences into describing the acropolis when my ghost sense twitched.

“Hey, you know? This looks like a nice spot,” I said. “Take five, guys. I’m going walkabout.”

I took off before Atlas or Darling could stop me. Behind me, I heard Mike tell the cousins to hang back, followed by the unmistakable plop of a koala hitting the ground.

I paused so Speedy could climb up onto my shoulders (not a courtesy for him, mind, just that a walking koala doesn’t dig in his claws like a running koala), and the two of us headed towards the less prettified areas of the acropolis.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“Temple of Apollo,” he replied. “Head south.”

“What’s south?”

“Fewer people.”

“Fair enough.”

We wandered to the southern part of the acropolis, making our way around giant rocks that were suspiciously reminiscent of broken buildings. If I had thought Athens was arid, it was only because we hadn’t hit Rhodes first. I thought the island’s air would be sweet and tropical. No. It was hot and dry. The sounds of unfamiliar insects chittered at us from the trees, pausing as we got too close, then screaming at us as we walked away.

Unlike the acropolis(es?) at Athens and Lindos, the preservation efforts at Rhodes were sort of meh. The further Speedy and I got from the Temple, the more haphazard the reconstruction. Nature had been allowed to get a firmer foothold, and whole groves of trees were scattered in and around the ruins.

We found a nice shady spot under an old myrtle tree. I traced the fading edges of a frieze on a worn slab of rock before lying down. Speedy darted up the tree, and I heard a happy sigh as he curled up on a branch just over my head.

“Better?”

“It’s no eucalyptus, but it’ll do. Check for ghosts.”

“I don’t have to,” I said, as I let my mind wander. “They’re already here.”

The feeling was really strong. Whoever was nearby wasn’t a random soldier, bound to the site where he died. No, this was a ghost with a good amount of fame fueling it.

And I still couldn’t see it.

“Start translating,” I said, and I began talking to the empty air.

I wasn’t about to assume that this ghost was Archimedes, so I told the ghost who we were, and why we were here. What OACET was (As if they didn’t know. According to Ben, the entire Afterlife is fascinated by the idea of cyborgs!), and why the Antikythera Mechanism might be a Big Deal.

“We’re here to learn if something is wrong,” I finished, as the koala chattered overhead. “And if so, we want to try and put it right. But we don’t know where to look. If you can help us…”

I paused—I’m never sure about the etiquette of gift-giving for the dead—before I tugged my pack towards me and removed the small travel bottles of ouzo that had been clinking around in the side pocket. Hopefully, whoever was watching us would think I was keeping to custom instead of trying to pay them off.

“…we would be grateful.”

I lined the three bottles up on the rock, and waited.

Then, with tiny pops of air, all three bottles disappeared.

And I still couldn’t see it!

“Oh, come on!” I shouted, and flopped back onto the rock.