Variations on an Apple Read Free Page B

stars glinting off the barding of massed ships. “Yes,” Ilion said, “they’re so sick of it that they’re going home.”
    â€œThey must want something concrete out of all this.”
    â€œGlory,” Ilion said. “Vengeance, spite, security, the sheer unadulterated expression of aggression. None of these, I will note, is concrete .”
    â€œYou could vomit up that damn apple. I wish—” Paris bit his tongue.
    Ilion refrained from an entirely redundant I told you so . This was, at least, an improvement over the first nine years.
    â€œI am going to fall asleep here,” Paris said. “And I’m going to dream of enjoying silence, and waters unblemished by ships, and eating nothing to do with fruit—no sauces, no preserves, no fresh chilled slices, nothing —for the rest of my life.”
    Ilion threaded his fingers through Paris’s hair, untangling a lock. It almost didn’t hurt. “Sleep, then,” he said in a voice sweet as water. “It won’t be much longer.”
    Paris meant to ask what he meant by that, but his eyelids drooped, and sleep descended upon him. Whether he had the dreams he had wished for, he never remembered.
    *   *   *
    Late in the last year, some but not all of the enemy fleets withdrew. Hector and the defense fleets were on high alert for weeks afterward, patrolling Ilium behind the cover of its flanged force-screens. Paris edited out his need for sleep, as much as he longed for the escape, and oversaw the city’s artillery defenses. Far-archer , Ilion’s guns said of him, mostly with affection, where he could hear them. (They called him other things behind his back, in the way of soldiers and commanders everywhere.)
    â€œI don’t trust it,” Paris said to Ilion as he stared over the pattern-maps and their mystifying gaps. He almost knocked over a tall glass of wine.
    Ilion deftly caught the glass. “You need to quit pruning your need for sleep,” she said. “If it’s regenerating this fast, you need the rest more than we need you awake obsessing over the invaders’ whimsies.”
    â€œYou’re taking this too lightly.”
    Ilion fixed him with an interested stare. “Excuse me,” she said, “ somebody is forgetting who’s responsible for coordinating all the systems around here. Even when I’m busy feeding you grapes because you’ve forgotten to show up for dinner again.”
    Paris gave it up. He didn’t like the fact that none of their intelligence had anticipated this development. They had spent long hours tracing through what they knew of the invaders’ councils—depressingly little, in spite of their studies of signal traffic, and repeated attempts to crack the encryption—in an attempt to decipher its significance. So far they had a lot of speculation and little evidence to back up any of the going hypotheses.
    â€œStop that,” Ilion said.
    Paris realized he had been tapping his foot in a querulous one-two, one-two-three, one-two rhythm. “Sorry,” he said, mostly sincerely.
    â€œLook,” Ilion said, leaning over him. She was tall now, even allowing for the fact that he was slouched in his chair. “If there’s a pattern in there, any shred of meaning or menace, I’ll find it. The young are so”—she smoothed his hair back and kissed the side of his brow—“impatient. We will prevail.”
    â€œOther than the kiss,” Paris said, unimpressed, “you’re starting to sound like my brother. You’re more succinct, though.”
    Ilion laughed. “He does like his rallying speeches, doesn’t he? It’s a harmless foible, as these things go.” Her hands trailed lower, began massaging the knots in Paris’s neck. The calluses on her fingers were oddly soothing.
    â€œI would feel so much better if you showed any sign of concern,” Paris