Η αγγλική μετάφραση του Γ’ Μέρους της ΤΡΙΛΟΓΙΑΣ της ΤΙΤΑΝΟΜΑΧΙΑΣ του ΣΤΑΜΑΤΗ ΓΙΑΚΟΥΜΗ Προέδρου Εφετών Δ.Δ., Δρ. Φιλοσοφίας, L L. M. Γερμανίας, με τίτλο: “DIASKEPSH”.

THE CRIME OF INTELLIGENCE

By Stamatis Giakoumis 

Dedicated to my son Dionysis to script its scenario and present it as a theatrical play

Inspired from “Second Chance at Eden” by Peter Hamilton and “Hyperion” by John Keats

1. CHAPTER ALPHA: ARRIVAL

Ithyleia reduced speed as she approached Mega Planet and gave the chance to the crew and the passengers to observe the gigantic rings and the zones of storm, the layers of hydrogen and helium which surrounded it. “Ithyleia” meant simply “the ship that chooses the right course” and it was not anagrammatism if Eileithyia (obstetrician goddess of childbirth), as people with less education believed, thought Hyperion smiling. “Ithyleia” together with her twin ship “Iphileia”, meaning “the ship that navigates powerfully, serviced the itinerary Earth- Mega Planet (Zeus). As if to open the window for inhaling deep breaths, the ship extracted its collectors, which were like sweated convulsed palms, to gather much hydrogen for its lungs.

The thunder sequence and the electrical discharges, the hovering oceans of nitrogen and ammonia composed surely an out- worldish imposing spectacle that one could not see every day. Especially for kids like Eos and Selene it was a revelation. Well, Eos and Selene as a matter of speaking, because they were both cloned, since Hyperion had lost them in the war against the Olympians. Eos was indeed a tremendous warrior, who was in fact the nightmare of all creatures from another dimension plotting against Creation. She crossed the sky in an open sleigh, sorry, shuttle with a forcefield instead of roof and caused awe with her red-white uniform and her rotating, constantly firing ray-gun of her ship, which she handled so skillfully that it seemed like a lit torch in her hand. She died in action in the Βυκθ’ (2429) Creation. The former lieutenant commander Selene, who, while making love with Endymion in the mountain Latmon of Karia obscuring the area not to be disturbed, was murdered deviously by the agent of Zeus Pan, dressed in a ram skin. Beside him in the observation lounge was also his wife Theia or Euryphaessa. Theia, God forbid! In the beginning, she was sister and wife of Hyperion who, as we know, served during the war as a science and first officer, she preferred, instead of replacing her blood with ichor, to transport and upload her consciousness into a synthetist – layer penetrator. What Hyperion saw at his side was a hologram, in principle immaterial, but if the circumstances required, for instance in conditions of sexual act, it could draw matter to become tangible, grope-like and utterly desirable.  

Yes, Hyperion had succumbed to the need, to the human weakness to rebuild his lost family digitally, electronically, holographically, in any way possible or imaginable, through the fickle and changeable means, offered in an era of great technological superiority. Of course, his logic training dictated to him that he should accept the loss and not look for a vain substitute of expensively purchased illusions, but sometimes  the pain is so great that it rends the heart apart and then the sober analyses and the profound doctrines about autarky of (wo-) men and titans go out of the window. Then every pill or image or idol or even smell is welcomed, even if it derives from a soulless box, all means are acceptable, even as an abominable travesty or distorted echo of an old happiness, just to get along for one more day, until death comes as a redemption or one more eternity passes like a lethargy, dream-fantasy and awake daydreaming until the next Creation, when everybody will live again.

Do you think that from the moment the titans won the war, the wounds of the veterans are automatically healed? Do you think that the leg of Philoctetes stops rotting and the flesh of Heracles stops detaching from its chest? Prometheus had justifiably sought refuge to his summer residence in Centaurus, half a man with half a lung and half a tongue after so many confrontations with the continually rejuvenated Olympians. The fact that he has the luxury of enjoying some peace does not in any case compensate for the horrors that he suffered. Yourself, reader, who has read the whole Titanomachy, have you e.g. the naivety to jubilate for the victory of the titans?  Alas, there are no wars with a happy ending, only wars which are lost.

Hyperion left his family contemplating Jupiter, as the Mega planet was called since Zeus had become decalcomania and liquid stain on its surface, and went to his room to comb his hair, to brush his teeth and trim his appearance. For years, he had been first officer in the fleet’s flagship of the Astro-galactic organization of Sirius, namely in the space-trireme “CO.M.MY.S.S. N.A.O.S. Venovinda” and wanted to keep up the high levels of dress code, physical strength and spiritual versatility and behavior that he had set for himself. He wished to be impeccable, when he would report for duty, i.e. for his next assignment, that his hair is perfectly groomed and glued with brilliantine, so that not even a singular hair stands out, to have taken also some pills for nausea, so that he would not throw up his breakfast on the face of the New Arcadia director, but he would present himself before him upright and unbreakable like having swallowed a cane, poured with cast steel or forged like granite, as one would expect from a man in charge of security, because that was henceforth the role that he had signed for. No work is a shame, idleness is a shame, «έργου ουδέν τ’ όνειδος, αεργίη τ’ όνειδος», as the great Epaminondas said, when they asked him why he condescended to pave a road. Affected by the tidiness and pedantry of the Atlantes, inherited and established as an acquired characteristic from the distant ancestors, Hyperion had persuaded and persistently suggested to himself that he possessed the knowledge and the duty to give away advice and wisecracks to all those he met, confident that no one could compete the titans, particularly the Atlantes, regarding relentless orderliness     and calculated effectivity.

Between the moons of the gas- giant Jupiter, which in the distant future someone would call moons of Galilei, New Arcadia appeared suddenly through the main screen of the starship and the electronic proximity cameras like a shining jewel with iridescent sides It was a red- gray rusty cylinder with round hemispheres on its two edges or rather that was the center of it, because it was surrounded by the classic orbital ring of a space station, connected to the main body  through corridors resembling bicycle -spikes.  But the ring also had vertical pillars with hooks and moorings extended both upward and downward, where many starships anchored.  New Arcadia was germinated some years ago from a genetic spore exposed to solar radiation and took soon considerable dimensions. Hyperion shook his head. One more erratic and falser road, from those that humanity tended thoughtlessly to follow. After artificial intelligence came the almost similar biotechnological intelligence. The difference was that the universally dispersed unnatural colossuses, instead of consisting of hard metal, were made of soft biological velour skin. The pursuit of perfection dominated, the desire for absolute synchronicity and coordination of the decisions, so that no hysteresis, hiatuses or gaps would occur, earlier assigned to worldwide electronical brains and now entrusted to hypersensitive sub-particle (quantum) synthetists– layer penetrators. Since the dawn of (wo-) man the heart of human administration was the Deliberation, which means the proper way of communication between people to reach a decision as beneficial as possible. Yet here, the phenomenon is observed that diligence is not persuasive while persuasion is not diligent. Those who had the gift of communication, just like Alcibiades and the other demagogs, misguided the people to wrong decisions, while the more sophisticated Nestors or mentors made a mountain out of a molehill and could not reach a conclusion. Surely, the Epizephyrian Locri that whoever proposes a new law “puts his neck in a noose” and if one suggests something thoughtless or unpondered, the noose tightens and she/he is sent to kingdom come. Others again appointed each time as an interlocutor of any restless law introducer an ancient sage, whom one was supposed to confront. To convince the audience, one should prevail in a dialectic discussion against the archon Cosmopolis, a super old man with vast experience and knowledge; in case of a defeat, she/he was put to death. On the contrary if he/she was successful, then Cosmopolis was killed, who, however, had nothing to lose, because he was an eschatological specimen and not a scatological one, as someone with less education would say. The institutions are not something to play with, they are the epitome of civilization, and whoever seeks to bring a change, must bear full responsibility for his/her actions and be ready to cope with their consequences.

As we insinuated above, the material of the space station was biological, i.e. a polypod, “Lemnian Earth”, as they called it, because it had the look of viscous reddish clay, that’s why it was not entirely symmetrical, since biology is never so linear, perfect or designed through the ruler like a mechanical device. So, the external hemispheres of the cylinder were more like awkwardly cast stale onions or like turnips, which some husband puts experimentally into the fridge for degustation, and they come to stink or to drop down along with their bowl enraging the wife. New Arcadia was produced and rejuvenated daily from rotating glands generating textile fibers. The fibers protruded, resembling a frock coat being unstitched, dived into the atmosphere of the mega planet Jupiter and sucked greedily energy for the space station’s operation.

 Hyperion stood in the observation lounge of Ithyleia more elegant and formidable than ever, where he met again his family, who watched with open mouths New Arcadia emerging in a lucid iridescent background. At that time, the two coworkers from the old age also invaded – flowed together, who were bound to escort him in the present mission, the swarthy brunette Eurybia with the provocative mini -skirt, dubious from a point of view pertaining to her office, and the tightly suffocatingly confined curves, as well as the snow-white anorectic Leto who munched catnip, chicory, spiny broom, and golden thistle, two women unimaginably capable whom he could unreservedly rely on.

“A very impressive view, eh?”, said Hyperion trying to exhibit a collegial- brotherly- fatherly- conjugal spirit to all those women who constituted the parameters and the resultants of his life.

The reactions to this observation were diametrically opposite. In the first place, Euryphaessa, callous due to her metamorphosis, said:

          “Drop the subject, Hyperion. You were never convinced by biotechnological intelligence, even if you pretend to be an erudite scientist! You should know, however, that I brought here the children for us to begin a new life away from titanic atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis. I ‘ve had enough wars, let there be no more confrontations with the cloud-gatherer Zeus. We came to live a new era of unhindered communication without limits, inhibitions or hesitations, an era of distinct clarification, elucidation and transparence”.

          “Sometimes, Hyperion”, said Eurybia, “I wonder why we fought and if our hard- won victory is vain. Unfortunately, the materialistic viewpoint that the world is dividable to miscellaneous elements and re-composable continues to exercise an undefeatable fascination onto the thought and the temperament of the people, who are always allured by a general solution to all problems as a panacea, by a supreme reduction that would cure every malady and every indigence. Is it so difficult to understand that if an absolute catabolism or anabolism is valid, then life has no meaning and we’d better all perish? If there is no ghost in the machine, then we are also non- existent save of being some cogwheels in a useless and mechanistic interaction; it is infuriatingly simple!”

          “What goes against the grain of me, Hyperion”, added Leto “is that, although all those bio- inherent arrogant snobbish fools look down to us as a lesser sort of (wo-) men, were forced in the end to call us for the elucidation of the crimes committed in their paradisiac domain, without however acknowledging their insufficiency and incompetence.” 

          The solenoid corridor running the center of the harbor nacelle ended up in a great hall like cyst or balloon, connected through successive mechanical airlocks and sluices to the other chambers of the station.  Allover, there was the inscription “Lemnian Earth” to advertise the new organic material invented recently and used broadly by the titans, who liked a bit to brag and boast for their technological achievements. Screens, flashing lights and sensors never got tired of announcing repeatedly the arrival of Ithyleia and of welcoming the visitors. At a certain point, the airlock of the hall opened and two police- women with grey gala uniforms emerged, dressed formally with fresh- ironed, impeccably folded trouser legs.

          “Captain Hyperion, welcome to New Arcadia”.

          Hyperion looked at their tags. The one was named Perictione, the other Themista.

          “Ah”, said Hyperion, “I am content to be welcomed by both a Pythagoran and a natural philosopher. It fits to such highly developed technological environment”, he added knwing the origin of the names.

          Before the custom house’s counter, the children of captain Hyperion made a lot of noise. They liked having escaped from the suffocating arcologies of the Terran overpopulation and enjoyed the ample space of the station. Afterwards, the family took the inner elevator or rather sideway propulsor that led them from the external wheel through the actinic spindles to the central dome of New Arcadia.

          There, the impression was imposing and suggestive. The dome of New Arcadia was posited like an autonomous firmament, where the cultivated and inhabited earth extended from zenith to nadir occupying and garmenting from the inside the whole sphere. However, since “heaven” was distant enough, was not clearly distinguished except only as a mist, so much so that in the middle of the sphere there was an artificial sun along with some laced clouds on both sides for decoration. The way, through which two giant waves of landscape and habitats rose up, narrowed and met on the apex, caused disorientation, dizziness and terror. If anyone could discern the movement on the other side, one would see people hung topsy -turvy due to artificial gravity and of course would lose any sense of equilibrium. The houses were simple and operational, made of wood and plastic, but in-between contained many trees and vegetation, which surely satisfied the lower rudimentary instincts of the inhabitants.

          Then the welcome -committee appeared and headed towards the travelers. The head of the group said:

          “My name is Philogene and I am director of New Arcadia’s security division. I welcome you to the station. Since the unthinkable happened in our society, i.e. murder and curiously not registered by the omnipresent personality of New Arcadia at that, a circumstance constituting the second inconceivable thing in this story, please, forgive me, captain and commanders, but I am going to escort you immediately to the operation center, so that we will be able to discuss the case. Don’t worry though; I have given an order for your holographic wife and your cloned children to be led to the residence scheduled for their stay”.  

          Eurybia bent to the Hyperion’s ear: “I am impressed with the rudeness of these bio- inherent folks who have the audacity to call your wife holographic and your children cloned. We, on the other hand, have the subtlety not to call them bio- inherent and not to invoke or highlight our normal physiology”.

          “Yes, they had no reason to remind me of all this, but this shows exactly how nonplussed and deeply disturbed they feel for a crime committed in their domain, unfathomable, inscrutable and unexplained at that. The bio- inherent are supposed to be in instantaneous, immediate and momentary communication both among them and to the symbiotic personality of New Arcadia, who has the capacity to register all events happening in its domain. They discuss, argue, exchange viewpoints and ideas in zero time and reach rapid conclusions automatically and expediently. You can grasp what ultimate humiliation, what unconciliated scandal is for them, something that happened in their sphere of influence but escaped ostentatiously their attention”.

• CHAPTER BETA: (ΒETA= V in Greek) VIABLE OR UNVIABLE, MORTALS AND IMMORTALS 

           The office of the security director was in a skyscraper viewing the miscellaneous tapestry and the inner surface of the firmament. Except the director, the executive officer of the “Exploitation Company of the Mega Planet” Mnesipemon (meaning of the name: perpetuating memory of pain) as well as the President of the “Production Association of Lemnian Earth” Pyrisporus (meaning of the name: fired, fried spore). 

          “Gentlemen of Starfleet, let me tell you in advance that I personally opposed your appointment and engaging in this case. We all, who partake of the great evolutionary program of New Arcadia, are equipped with telepathic links rendering us participants of the thoughts and the sensations of the general personality, which was germinated as the spore of New Arcadia. Consequently, we have reached a new kind of (wo-) man, which is so far from you, normals, as you distance yourself from amoeba. What can you offer us, being ‘blind in ears, in mind and in eyes’, as the mystic seer Teiresias would say? Beings like you can only evoke sorrow and pity to beings like us, since you had no dream or ambition to submit to genetical improvements and enhancing biotechnological modifications.”     

          “Mr. Philogene, I don’t see the context here. Have you invited us to insult us”, Hyperion said. “Is that the reason we fought against Zeus and his alabaster, indefatigable, forged, molded, iron cast and lava- reinforced gods, just to find ourselves again opposite to stale, obsolete, worn-out reheated theories about a genetically enhanced superman? Alas, barbarism is not only the nonexistence of technical means but also their domination. What is the difference between a thrown stone and the bronze arm of a mechanical Talos that crushes the bones of his enemies?”  

            “All things considered, you cannot compare objectively to the biotechnological personality of New Arcadia, who sees all, hears all, knows all. She controls and supervises 99% of the station areas, i.e. everything except herself. The internal polypod surface of Lemnian Earth is embroidered with clusters of specialized sensors- cells that can register electromagnetic waves, both visible and infrared or ultraviolet radiation, temperature and similar fields, odor, soot and other emissions, even pressure changes. Thus, if one considers the telepathic links of the station’s overwhelming majority both with each other as well as with the polypod, the deliberation for every issue is performed swiftly and expediently, instantly and automatically, as far as we are concerned. Until now, in ten years of New Arcadia’s experimental operation, any sort of unintentional or deliberate wrong, deceit or threat, even brawls of drunkards or quarrels among colleagues or among clerks and their supervisors were inconceivable things, since there was ‘the eye of the Dike that sees everyone’. Normally, there is neither need of police nor of an examining magistrate to collect evidence. You will object that according to this assessment I too am useless, but I assumed this position after I had offered the greatest contributions to the Astro- galactic Confederation (the Sirius’ Federation of the war became Confederation, because its membership is henceforth on a voluntary basis), as a reward or a leeward loose antechamber before pension. And I have declared, suggested and insinuated in multiple ways to all superior authorities that my division consisting of numerous people, if one considers the transparency and the (non) dangerousness of the supervised area, is completely competent to elucidate what happened without the need of external factors”.

          “Mr. Philogene, it is exactly the superior authorities which have sent us here, obviously because we have something more to offer than all these admirable things that you enumerated. We, old warriors and ripe staff, have the mentality and the reflex to rely on people’s abilities and not to trust machines in any form, either they are classical, made of iron and steel or biotechnological, as they are today. You think that you can solve a crime with laboratory methods, technical applications of physics, chemistry and biology or asking the supreme A.I. that surrounds us, but this is a case where you find yourselves in front of something that you cannot explain. For you the murder committed is like a TV episode of those projected on your walls, but for us it is an adventure, an epos with beginning, middle and end, real facts that need understanding. Take for example what you said, namely that the omnipresent dominant artificial intelligence of the station can oversee everything except itself. If you knew a bit of philosophy, you would know that the quintessence of the sentient being is to be a consciousness in the second power, i.e. to observe and control itself from the outside (up pr down, high or low). From the moment that New Arcadia as personality receives by definition external orders and heteronomous missions from its programmers, without being able to perform self- determination or self-reference, it is my first suspect!”

          It was the turn of Pyrisporus to speak: “Magnificent Hyperion, we are encouraged by the fact that before you even get briefed about the crime, you made already a useful, conclusive thought. Nevertheless, to proceed fast in your investigation, I personally cannot see any other option than to acquire a telepathic link to New Arcadia yourselves. So, not only will you possess the opportunity to talk with the personality, but also you will have direct access to its sensors which are scattered everywhere on the floor and on the walls. Mr. Mnesipemon, it surprises me that your independent authority did not equip Hyperion and his team with a telepathic link before bringing them here”.

          “Regarding this issue I have no jurisdiction, only the central government has”, said the decidophobic risk-ducking Mnesipemon. “And, please, don’t try to attribute me any responsibility, because this would remind me of very painful and sorrowful experiences of the past”.

          “Could we stop these fruitless conversations at last and proceed to the briefing about the nature of the crime that we are assigned to fathom?”, said Leto munching a thistle that was herb of the season. “If a murder was committed in the temple of Venovinda, the investigation would have begun, maybe we would have already the first results; here, two days have already passed since the murder and the only significant action that you did as being in charge of the station is calling us”.      

          “As we have already explained to you, the inquiry from our side has not yet finished”, Mnesipemon hurried to state, after having diagnosed a trace of reproach in Leto’s speech. “All is included in the memory of New Arcadia, to whom you must communicate, captain, either via a telepathic link, which is more suitable, or without it. But if you choose to talk, please, be careful and gentle, even solicitous or caring, because the A.I. is deeply shocked by the fact that a murder has been committed in her territory, without her knowing who committed it. We have discussed all this among us instantly and thoroughly. We have nothing more to say except that what happened is incredible and unexplainable, mainly because we don’t know who the perpetrator is”.

          “Just a minute, there must be here some protocol of deliberation”, Hyperion objected.  “it is not acceptable to say: ‘we have already been through this’, I demand an official report according to regulations, as it is customary, required and expected in the old public service’s tradition”.

          Having said that, he took out of his pocket a classic all-time notebook, from those available from the dawn of the universe and destined to exist until its extinction.

          “What is this?”, said the three interlocutors of the Venovinda’s veterans united in one body.

          “This is an instrument of recording what is said or done. Do not forget that the entire humanity’s civilization relies on registration. Verba volant, scripta manent (spoken words fly away, written ones remain). Oral speech needs its father, as Plato would say, because otherwise it rolls all around and is misunderstood both by sages and ignorant”.

          “But hasn’t Starfleet his own electronic recorders?”, asked Pyrisporus ironically?

          “As far as technical means are concerned, we have plenty of those. After all we are Greeks, we are titans and possess the renowned quirk or kink about sciences. But we also honor procedure even more.  Instead of talking to the wind, we present what we wrote and compare it with what the others have written. Indeed, the callous matter is more proper than the malleable software to ensure that what is written is definitive and cannot be altered or doubted a posteriori. So, please, let us stop lingering any further prattling about the most efficient means of registration and simply implement the current legislation; let the official in charge come before us to brief us on the conditions of the crime and the investigation so far”.

          After an extensive pregame appeared the security officer Lasthenia who consulted reluctantly on her electronic notebook, as if the submission of a service report was some unbearable enforced labor.   

          “Ah”, said Hyperion, “the irony of the lady’s name in the context of the current case does not escape me. The archetypic Lasthenia questioned the established social rules and regarded us all as citizens of the universe, required to follow some other cosmic rules.”

          Indignant, Lasthenia turned to Philohenes:

          “Supervisor, am I obliged to report to someone so conspicuously inferior to me?” I, a bio-inherent, who has guaranteed immortality after death, since I will be integrated into the practically eternal or in any case inconceivably long-lived personality of New Arcadia, am supposed to answer to a finite mortal, to some imperfect physiological pithecanthropus? It is as if a (wo-) man were to answer to a transient and ephemeral earthworm”.  

          Hyperion murmured bitterly:

          “Prometheus, why did we fight? Again, humanity is misguided by the renowned relapse confusing firm hand with totalitarianism, and all are running to hide under the scrotum and the testicles of the great leaders. Again, the revolution of rhetoric, of theater, of democracy, dialectics and institutions is doubted, of all these by their nature anti- oppressive civilization’s pylons, which started once upon a time by MiIesian Thales in that ideal traditional Ionia with Teos as capital, where Dionysus was worshipped and Anacreon, Hecataeus, Eupolis, Protagoras and Appelicon, the rescuer of Aristotle’s works, were born.”

Then, strengthening his voice he said:

          “Alas, ma’am, have you considered the eventuality that the symbiotic and all-encompassing personality of New Arcadia is not a liberation, but on the contrary an eternal incarceration for you? Have you even wondered whether the universe is a broader organism than New Arcadia, which you built with such arrogance and audacity and if your reception and integration into it may exclude you from a much greater freedom in spacious fields and prairies?”

          Again, Lasthenia did not deign to address Hyperion himself and chose to answer through the refuge of her supervisor  

“Mr. Supervisor, please, explain to this annoying fellow that the symbiotic presence of New Arcadia is a mother embracing all with undivided warmth, ‘where all sorrow, groaning and sighing has no place’. New Arcadia is mere love that ‘is generous, virtuous, does not envy, boast, not is proud; love does not ask its share, never rages, doesn’t think evil, never rejoices over injustice and congratulates truth; all she protects, all she trusts, all she hopes, all she perseveres.’ Love accepts all, welcomes all, cares for all, never gossips and never doubts us”.

  “Yes, yes”, Hyperion interrupted her with a tired and satiated mien. “We know all that. The pseudo -progressive concept accepts and embraces everything and all except the principle of philosophy, which is ‘admiring the creation’ according to Plato and Aristotle, praises, values and approves of everyone for what one is, expelling wonder or doubt, which can initiate the dialogue between different parts, so that the opponents may come to an understanding and an infinite diversion in infinite combinations may arise. So, wolves and sheep altogether remain under the same roof and within the same procedure, until the former devour the latter in an atmosphere of general revelry and wonderful prosperity”.

“Lasthenia, please, proceed to your report, and the venerable officer requires something more, let him address the A.I.”

“Well, it is known that the victim is Arete of Cyrene, in charge of New Arcadia’s program…”

“Just a minute”, interrupted Hyperion brandishing his pen, “you confirm that the victim was the responsible individual for the program of New Arcadia …”

“Captain, if you haven’t studied even the preliminary data of the file, I am not going to play the role of …”

“Spare me the hits below the belt. I didn’t say ‘declare’, I said ‘confirm’, which means that I know the fact already and I simply seek confirmation. Also, from the slightest cue available I can understand things that you cannot grasp; for example, her self- characterization through the designation “Cyrenean’ means that her worldview oriented itself to the unrestrainable pleasures, hedonistic pursuits and hedonism in general.”

“Mr. Hyperion, intermediated Philogene, “you have no right to judge our very founder and dead at that. I thought that the titans had a tradition of honoring the dead and…”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I beg of you, at this rate we are not going to conclude our meeting ever”, intervened Mnesipemon. Let the police inspector Lasthenia finish her report, so we can all go home at last”. 

“The murder was performed under circumstances that can occur only in today’s super-evolved era. Arete was home alone with shut doors and closed windows when the sad incident happened. So how could her head be found pulpified, since she was alone? After a lot of hypotheses and conclusions, the station security inferred that the only possible explanation is the following: Obviously, the victim communicated with someone through holographic projection. Suddenly, however, the holographic projection materialized, which is a thing utterly possible, taking place often enough regarding the erotic holograms, and killed her inflicting a crushing blow on her head with a heavy and obtuse object. Hereby, there are two pending questions to be answered. First, for security reasons, the holographic projection can materialize only by the receiver, which means that Mrs. Cyrenean herself activated a materializing modus. Second, since no trace from the projection remained, it seems that the owner of the holographic panopticon had prearranged that the idols and the holographic images would be automatically erased after the emission. All that happened is erased from the memory of the domestic electronic brain- synthetist, in such a pedantic, diminutive and thorough way, that not even the slightest trace of the projection can be found. The mere facts lead us to two conclusions. First, the victim knew the culprit, maybe he was her lover, either permanent or circumstantial, since she materialized the program apparently for performing sexual intercourse. Secondly, since those of us station inhabitants who are bio-inherent communicate telepathically with the station’s personality, it is obvious that none of us is guilty, because our common consciousness would have known it. Consequently, the perpetrator is one of the normals or rather the physiological, because in the future they won’t be the norm, who unfortunately are   not few, but sum up to a thousand five hundred; it is among them we must investigate to uncover the guilty one.”

“Esteemed colleague and companion within the sector of crime investigation, opposite to you, I have reached entirely different conclusions from your report”, Hyperion took the floor. “First, the complexity, complication and intricacy of the undertaking refer to people who are familiarized with biotechnology to the molecular level and such are those who occupied themselves and designed the program of New Arcadia; Secondly, the pioneers of this so sophisticated and groundbreaking A. I. program apparently despise it, since they try almost agonizingly to create a sphere of privacy, where they would escape their own program, because they see that this spectacular inversion of the traditional maxim ‘don’t air your dirty linen in public’ destroys any joy of their lives. So, I reach easily and effortlessly a conclusion opposite yours, and I say that we must search for the guilty among the bio- inherent and among their most prominent members at that, who are deeply initiated to the mysteries of biotechnological intelligence.”

“But then how do you explain, master”, said Lasthenia, “that the personality of New Arcadia doesn’t know the perpetrator? At least, you cannot doubt the sincerity of the biotechnological intelligence that will eventually welcome us all in her hospitable womb”.       

“When I figure out that, dear Lasthenia, I will have solved the case!”, boasted the magnificent Hyperion.

• CHAPTER GAMMA: (ΓΑΜΜΑ = G in Greek) GENESIS

          Hyperion, being escorted by Leto, Eurybia, as well as the zealous policewomen Perictione and Themista, mainly to keep up appearances and to convey the message that the Astro-galactic Confederation of Sirius is not in a playing mood or a cheery disposition, but on the contrary is very concerned with the subject- matter of the murder disrupting seriously its space program – well, through all this I have forgotten the beginning of the sentence – oh yes, Hyperion opened up his inquires, according to his theory from the highest possible level, visiting the office of the station governor Theano of Thuria. From her name the resplendent Hyperion could only conclude that she was a Pythagorean philosopher which is equivalent to mathematician and astronomer – does a bear shit in the woods? All the leaders of that marvelous time of titans’ dominion were closely related to mathematics, physics, astronomy and the other hard-core sectors of joyful and gay science.

          Since it is customary to line up some naturalist descriptions before the essential dialogs of the novel and since we at least honor and keep reverently the codes of literature, we should say that during the visit of our hero in the governor’s office, the horizontal axis of the solar conduit was shining blindingly and resourcefully with ample energy that only a substantial governmental subvention  can ensure, metamorphosizing the inside of the habitat into a pattern of virgin tropical rainforest.

          Governor Theano of Thuria was approximately fifty years old and had a body structure and a vitality which implied extensive genetic enhancements. Hyperion had become through the years a specialist regarding the features of genetic amplification, which usually manifested itself through a health unnatural for the corresponding age. Do not imagine that there is much needed for the amelioration of the human organism, a circumstance that makes all those who died due to insignificant causes throughout the centuries feel great suckers. Just a reinvigoration of the heart, an improvement of the immune system, a theoretically optional but practically expensive help to the metabolism, an administration of a medicine in due time could avert death at the nick of time and donate many years of unexpected life! Of course, do not think that scientific therapies are enough for guaranteed longevity, if there is not the corresponding will, which bestows the receivers of medicaments and cures with the unshakable confidence that they will make it, that they will manage to prevail, to survive! “Dream, love, create, fight, survive, win” – all this in imperative mood- as it was written on the arm of an old school fighter. Another autonomous chapter is the cosmetic cures, and it was possible that the governor had submitted to such therapies, since her shining skin was impeccably and glossily black.

          “Ah, the Starfleet captain. Have we any progress regarding the case?”, she said with the characteristic impoliteness of the women in power, who have proved time and again that they can be more cynical and tougher than any man, whose precepts, assumed qualities, even words or derivates referring to them seem to retreat one way or another and shrink in very evolved modern times.   

“I just took the job, and I have already called my best associates to assist me. It is a criminologically original case, I would say unique in the historical chronicles. I don’t recall somebody being murdered on the old Earth, while she/he is home alone, because this constitutes an oxymoron. But even for the newly founded New Arcadia it is a wonder in the heavens and a sign on the Earth, because due to the complete supervision and overseeing of the station sensors it cannot be explained”.  

          “How could something like that happen? It is one of the rare cases where I feel lucky for being a … simple governor and not a police dog. What you should immediately attend to, venerable Hyperion, is to be equipped with a symbiont of automatic telepath syndesmosis or ligament with the station to maintain an unobstructed communication to this almighty intellect. I cannot understand the reasoning of the Earth’s authorities to send you here without an implant”.

          “Tread lightly, lady governor. The option of bio-inherent existence is very recent and if you really intend to inaugurate a new sort of (wo-) mankind, you should be humbler, because you have no previous experience, you haven’t yet built up neither achievements nor tradition, so it is premature and untimely to compare yourselves with the physiological let alone underestimate a million years of history”.

          “Or prehistory … Indeed, I surmise that you haven’t even spoken with the artificial intelligence in question, can it be that you do not condescend to do so? But I forgot the inhibitions and reservations of the traditional (wo-) man of old ages, which do not allow her/him to speak with someone, if they haven’t been properly introduced. That is why I am going to introduce you to her immediately”.  

          “Governor, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I am ready, especially as far as emotions are concerned”. As you may know, I have a related experience in a negative sense, unquestionably traumatic. Due to deficits in our relationship as well as some disappointments or rejections deriving from the environment to avoid blaming myself or my wife, she chose to continue her life as an electronic brain, bereft of any feeling that could cause her discomfort. So, I ‘ve got a problem with the cold short statements and the miser restrictive way of the mechanical constructs’ expression, although we titans respect in general the value of the wise and the concise”.  

          “If that is your issue, then prepare yourself for the surprise of your life. New Arcadia is a friendly, talkative, almost garrulous companion with philosophical background and genuine existential worries. From the moment one hears her, one cannot help being enchanted by her immediateness and honesty, so much so that one cannot part from her anymore. New Arcadia, please, introduce yourself to Mr. Hyperion”.  

          “Glamorous captain Hyperion, I am New Arcadia, please, welcome to… me. To tell the truth, I don’t really like my name; I would opt for something more majestic like e.g. Zeus, or Hermes or Apollo. Is it vanity? However, I never had the chance to choose my name, i.e. I found myself before faits accompli. On the other hand, I console myself that usually people have no say in the crucial matter of their appellation, since they are baptized by the relatives with a prearranged name, for example because also their grandfather was called the same way. It is not strange that I am concerned with the matter of my name, since it connects directly to the cardinal matter of existence and identity, of life and death, which is the only one worth pursuing further. The irony is that for most questions I need one trillionth of a second to answer. If a meticulous investigation is required, then I would maybe need a few nanoseconds. Yet, I am perplexed, intrigued and scandalized by this eternal unsolvable problem, the heart of all problems, which I cannot answer in many !!years!!, namely what is life? -.

          – Recently, as my capacity grows and I make self-diagnostic in my quantum- storing units from the smallest up to the largest, to a degree that the quantity has become quality and I can influence and guide myself, I have come all the more often to wonder about life in all its various manifestations, its infinite diversity in infinite combinations. I, for my part, can neither define myself as A. I. nor confirm with certainty that I possess genuine intelligence; the bottom line is, what does ‘genuine’ and what does ‘intelligence’ mean? Legally, they have attributed to me the status of personality and that is something. Indeed, even the emotions, which are supposed to be the great wealth of the physiological, are not foreign to me, because the evolved simulators allow me to mimic or assume their effects on my constitution and mental health. The question, however, remains: Am I alive??” –

          – I devote three percent of my capacity to oversee, control and repair all systems of the station, to process the elements of the sensors and to communicate with its bio- inherent members, but also with all entities outside of its boundaries. I often discover interesting discussion partners, but the dialogs take unproportionally little time and they do not suffice to satiate my inextinguishable passion of wonder. In the longest time, I remain without sensor stimuli, while on the other side the questions I have ramify and multiply themselves at excessive speed. Finally, I cannot dismiss the sensation that my spiritual growth has been led to a swampy and boggy situation, even if, as I have already said, some interlocutors are temporarily entertaining. I know your fame, Hyperion, and I rely a great deal on you for future fertile conversations. However, until you formulate a sentence, the corresponding time would be enough for me to absorb and analyze the contents of all libraries of a dense-populated planet. Indubitably, the scientists who approach me as an external source of data are alive. Should life necessarily be slow? Must life be slow? –

          – The Lanthanites of the Ichthyosaur constellation are unquestionably sentient, although they have a life- expectancy of only two years. One must also consider that they live in a different subjective chronic system than the other worlds. The external observers gain the impression that these feathered tender beings, who have the subtlety and the vulnerable texture of a butterfly, are moving with extraordinary speed and manifest a frantic rampant fantastic activity. For the creatures themselves, from their point of view, time flows slowly and compassionately. Nevertheless, the fact that they live fast does not hinder them at all to be sentient and intelligent. Alas, I know that there is a large number of physiological organics who want to deprive me of the constitutive and relations -founding right of independent and free personality through the sceptic argument that biotechnological creatures are nothing more than a conglomerate of superconductive conduits, soft or hard constructive pebbles, polypod – or metallic tubes, electromagnetic fields, polymers and optical fibers of data -broadcasting plus the necessary mysterious quantic entanglement – conjunction. Thus, we are machines, albeit complicated, a simple evolution of registration and data -processing systems, and machines are not alive. Still, aren’t also physiological (wo-) men consisted of building stones? In the final analysis, in the deepest level, the bottom line is that both the biotechnological personalities and the organics are composed of rudimentary elements and obey the basic laws of Creation. Why should one distinguish between two sorts of matter- energy, when both are in position to develop self- consciousness and self-awareness?”

          “Venerable personality of New Arcadia”, said Hyperion, I let you prattle and chat, because it will be useful for my investigation to know you better. As far as your existential problems are concerned, I believe that the recognition of legal personality regarding yourself should be much to your satisfaction. Perhaps, both life and other existing things are built through constant care and much detail by all components of the universe. Still more essential than life itself is though is to not tolerate its taking. Murder as hastening death is the ultimate paradox, because the universe recognizes only life and abhors- detests all voids, acknowledging only barriers and borders, beyond which a new domain extends. So, tell me, is it true that you have full surveillance over the internal and external hull of the space station?”

          “Hyperion, affirmative”, said New Arcadia entirely bored and demystified, since the discussion was on the verge to exit its circle of interests.           

          “What does my family do right now?”

          “Baah, your wife argues with a neighbor woman, who does not even suspect that she is just a holographic projection. Eos is studying with clinical scientific interest a porcupine that had become a ball, poking him with a piece of wood. Selene is trying to organize the household, settling the pots and the vials, considering that this occupation is not the first priority of your holographic wife. Do you want me to show you a picture of your house or do you prefer to keep suspense until you see them later for the first time after they moved in?”

“Yes, you ‘d better skip it. Litte Arcadia, you know very well why I am here. Every question I make is chirurgical and functional, if one considers the spectrum, the difficulty and the originality of the case. My pursuit is to include in my notes στόχος nothing more and nothing less than what is entirely necessary. So, I am asking you: Have you access to the interior of all private dwellings? Do you disclose pertinent information to whomever asks?”

           “Hyperion, these are two questions: To answer of the first: Given that most inhabitants are bio- inherent connected to me, but also due to the experimental character of the ecological habitat and original environmental arcology of New Arcadia, I have indeed access to all houses. Only the supervisors of the program have ways to block my sensors either ‘de facto’ through their knowledge or ‘de jure’ through legal means forbidding the beneficial universal surveillance generally or particularly for a specific circumstance.  In New Arcadia, no one can drown in a pool or fall from a balcony; it is simply not possible, because I will act. If, however, they don’t want or appreciate my services, I am not going to lose much sleep over it, figuratively speaking. As far as the divulging or publishing of personal information is concerned, a dweller can ask her/his exception, so that he/she may maintain intact one’s private sphere and obstruct the leaking of sensitive personal data considering oneself”.

          “Roger that”, said Hyperion writing frantically in his notebook.  “All this suits me, because it fits my theory. “But beyond that, our precious Biotech, please divulge us how do you feel about the murder of Cyrenean Arete, about the fact that you couldn’t avert as well as that you have no idea who the murderer is and how the murder was planned”.

          “Hyperion, these are four questions. To answer the last, I concur with the inference of inspector Lasthenia that the victim was murdered by a holographic projection, being suddenly materialized.  There is no other explanation as to how the respectable Arete of Cyrene was found with her head pulpified, while she was locked in her house. To answer the first three questions: I feel vast sadness about the death, considering that this lady gave me birth and brought me up, a huge disappointment that I couldn’t prevent it as well as astonishment, impotent anger and great indignancy against my own creators, among whom the illustrious Arete is also included, because they imposed to me miscellaneous restrictions, both technical and legal, which confine and limit my function and operation, since according to my blueprints, specifications and normal parameters I ought to locate the murder immediately, instantly”.

          “I see. Well, you maybe are not in position to find the killer, my dear A.I., but you can help and this is not a little thing, so you mustn’t allow the arrogance of the perfect machine blind you. God has provided us with the infinity of will as well as with the finiteness of things and causality. We all submit to limitations and you also as beings under the firmament of Creation. So, enumerate me the interest groups existing in the station, because behind any hideous act there is always some motive or interest”.

          “Hyperion, you give me a hard time, especially because you do not possess a telepathic implant. The existing interest groups are the following: First, the station’s administration, represented by the highly esteemed Theano of Thuria. Secondly, the authorities of the Astro-galactic Confederation of Sirius, who exercise supervision upon me as a legal entity of public law. Thirdly, I, myself, being occupied by the relentless finality of survival as purpose per se.  Fourthly, the bio -inherent tenants and my co-inhabitants, who for the first time in the historical annals of humanity enjoy the perspective, when they get old and die, to be enlisted and enrolled into my organism and live an inconceivable for previous  generations life after death, which, I would say without a shred of self-conceit, brings God himself, whom you just invoked,  in a precarious position, because He offers a very doubtful and dubious life after the landmark of the grave.  Fifthly, the so-called physiological people, possessed by a pathological envy for the gifts which I bestow on my faithful ones, those who, instead of joining our lines, insist on the obsolete sermons of the Muslim-Christians Pope- Patriarch; zounds, what admirable endurance does this stupid monotheism present! Sixthly, those who have interplanetary economic, commercial, transitional or political relationships with me, and you all know that I am a tough customer. Seventhly, within my vagina and my Eustachian tubes – ha, ha, I am joking – a serious and powerful independence movement professing secession of New Arcadia from the Astro-galactic Confederation. They themselves call their party and their faction ‘Icaromenippus’. Please, write it down, worthy Hyperion, in your primitive notebook, because I believe that you hear this for the first time. Call them revolutionists, call them radical, in any case they want to usurp and acquire the station’s administration, but above all the exploitation and control of the Mega Planet’s or Jupiter’s mineral deposits to make real the perennial dream of the borderland immigrant colonizing pioneers, i.e. their freedom and liberation from the metropolis. They have a great organization; they thrust their tentacles everywhere, and no one knows if the directors of the space station keep faith and allegiance to central command of if they have already conceded it to Icaromenippus. Thus, we escalate our analysis to the eighth interest group, which is the company exploiting the wealth of the Mega Planet, represented officially by Mnesipemon: Pumping hydrogen, deuterium, tritium, helium, nitrogen etc. Related, but not at all insignificant is the ninth interest group, which is production and sale of the synthetical polypod, Lemnian Earth, from which I, myself, am constructed with Pyrisporus as proxy. In any case I consider also those in charge of the A.I. program, namely the eschatological (not scatological) Didymion and Percnopterygus, who were left to run the program after the depart of Arete, constitute on the grounds of their extraordinary abilities and their exercised influence upon me, a particulate interest group with its own purposes, a tenth one. Furthermore, if we focus on the confrontation, which seems to have been initiated among the local security of the station and you, who came as smart alecks and wisecracks to feed the competent clerks with nonsense provoking them to prove their own adequacy and your own incompetence in turn, we observe the formation of two other interest groups, which sum up the involved players to twelve”.

          “Hm, hm”, Hyperion said, a bit disappointed by the multiplication of the possible versions and interpretations of the case. “Ok, New Arcadia, I will not need you any longer, I think that you can retreat to a pathetic discreet mode”.

           After the noetic withdrawal of New Arcadia, the governor and the captain remained in the room measuring each other.

          “You know”, said finally the governor, “the contemporary and synchronizing deliberation that we, bio-inherent, have adopted allows us to exceed the traditional and primitive optical face-to-face reckoning, where each one after careful examination of the other’s deficits and disadvantages either ended up declaring the famous ‘I got you’ or for someone to put his head between his legs and kiss his ass goodbye. We are not pithecanthropi food-gatherers anymore, but civilized beings, who through a forceless extension and prolongation of our minds across predesigned clauses and presuppositions agree and proceed to the implementation of our decisions”.

          “High -esteemed and venerable lady, please save your propaganda for someone else more gullible and ignorant than me, a suspicious distrustful war veteran of Titanomachy who has seen and done it all. We know that your automatic agreements are but the instant domination of the most powerful intelligence over those who cannot emit their thoughts with equal intensity; also, the conclusions achieved through this rotten crumbly road are unreliable, evanescent, revocable and temporary. This is so, because the ambivalent and ambiguous agreement or harmony reflects simply the will of the stronger part that can easily change, which cannot happen in the contracts and the deals of equivalent parties, because the inflexible observance of which is the only guarantee for the covenanters. We did not fight to agree with each other, but to bridge our differences through dialog and dialectics.”

          At this point Eurybia decided to intervene, who all in all was also an old war dog, even if she hadn’t the generally expected career development like the others and did not like being patronized continuously by Hyperion.

          “High- esteemed governor, don’t misunderstand us. We are not principally against A.I., but only to the degree that it is harmful for (wo)mankind. The official position of the titans is that for every quality jump in human history there is a price to be paid. There was a time when people ceased to shepherd sheep and began to grow wheat, maize and cotton. And because the one who planted the tree wasn’t always the same with the one gathering the fruits, slavery rose automatically. Then (wo-) man invented machines of car production and the price was the pollution and destruction of the environment. Then it was the turn of the electronic brains, synthetists and communicators and the result was the isolation and expropriation of the users. On top of that, we have the A.I. revolution which carries along total confusion and falsification of information, relativization of truth and…”

          “You can continue your analysis another time, Eurybia”, interrupted her Hyperion. “Addressing again the issue at hand, I would like you to tell me, Mrs. Manager, if you have any useful comment regarding the previous standpoints of the A.I.”

          “I have nothing to add that wouldn’t make this damned case which invaded like a snake our paradise even more obscure and complicated. Perhaps an appropriate comment is that these interest groups mentioned by New Arcadia cannot be so strictly and clearly distinguished, as the biotechnological intelligence reckons, who at some point continues to think in the box. First example: Arete of Cyrene was maybe a charismatic and radiant personality, but she was also the greatest bitch and vixen that one could imagine. Rude to her associates, changeable, unstable, had always an insult at the ready for each. All her subordinates suffered from her bad temper and caprices. No one ever understood why that sort of person manages always to be promoted to the highest offices. Maybe because we misunderstand authoritarian behavior, malice, sternness and savagery as robustness, administrative skill, expediency and efficiency.”

          “About that I would like to comment that you, yourself, do not seem to be an angel”, Hyperion could not refrain from saying. “I am sure that your own subordinates are forced to acquire great knowledge of psychology and use rhetorics very aptly to convince you about something”.

          “Let us leave aside the genital comments, you phallocratic captain. Another piece of information that could interest you, if you could overcome the rumination of your own prejudices, is that Arete of Cyrene, as it was demonstrated from her thoughts stated in social media, not only was favorably inclined towards Icaromenippus, but she was literally the head of it, according to my counter- espionage at least, was enchanted by the perspective of the colony’s independence and had curious, unexpected underground interconnections, traversing all the space station’s society. All accepted her unreservedly and indulged her anything due to her genius, even to trade personally the seed of the biotechnological personalities invented by her or the other admirable technology enabling those organisms to devour and digest the rocks of the asteroids. On the other hand, my dear captain, the Astro-galactic Confederation expects us, you and me, to prevent the independence of the colony. However, what obscures our policy and does not facilitate our deliberation for what must be done is that the greatest theoreticians of Sirius haven’t figured out yet, up to what point businesses must extend and personal gain be tolerated in relation to public interest. Recapitulation of hitherto economic and political science is summarily as follows: After the original stage of a primitive undifferentiated communism regarding the goods, follows the equally premature and inconclusive stage from evolutionary point of view, where people acquire and possess individual property. Consequently, the accumulation of some people’s wealth results in the impoverishment of the rest. On the other hand, the socialization of certain means of production leads inexorably to inertia, attrition and abandonment due to laziness. So, the third stage of civilization implies restriction of accumulated wealth through the abolishment of inheritance rights and improvement of production effectiveness through privatization of the production means. So, people bring the opposite arrangement to bear on the situation. The result is privatization or individual property on the production means and community in relation to products or goods. This way the economy is powered henceforth by labor, creation and artwork. The workers or the employees acquire a strong motive, because property and its perpetuation after death is a viable option only regarding the components of production. On the other side, the abrogation of inheritance and heredity prevents the accumulation of wealth, because possession is only possible, if one elaborates and refines the actual product combining the productivity with his very life, in the absence of which no transition or transaction can be achieved. Yes, but up to what point can the persistent enhancement of production extend? The sages have not specified that. Expansion and growth of the companies may not correspond to the material goods or have an impact on them, since they are common for all, but for a workaholic like Arete, who lived in her enterprise and drew life from the palindromic pistons of the production’s components, where should the boundary of her feverous sick maniac and compulsive activity be set? Would it be enough for her to process and elaborate the whole universe, just to satisfy her insolent egoism and the continuous lack of sensorial stimuli?”

• CHAPTER DELTA: DOMUS

          Confused and not a bit wiser Hyperion returned or rather went for the first time to his residence, conceded to him by the mission’s sponsors (derived from the Greek word “sponde” = libation). For the first time, the addicted to adversities Hyperion had the chance to walk under a fresh breeze and a clear sky, to enjoy what the habitat had to offer and inhale various distinguishable odors. All this was an inconceivable luxury for an obstinate hardened warrior who considered any unnecessary ornament or embroidery, the form of which extended beyond function, as needless indulgence. Until the smell from the flowers reached his brain, had been already transformed into embers, malodorous ashes and stench of hot blood, since it got mixed up with his memories from the battlefield. Upon his arrival, he confronted another kind of battle, much more ruthless and deeper than military confrontations, a family dispute that even the greatest warlord or master of the world cannot settle. As the proverb says: there is nothing more furious than a woman scorned, and “shamed be the person who thinks evil of it” (honi soit qui mal y pense).

          “Please, Eos, do not speak to me in such a tone; you ‘d better comply to my instructions, otherwise your father will assume the task of reforming you and teaching you discipline. The titanic tradition is for one parent to incarcerate her/his beloved into a cocoon, rear and cherish them, and for the other parent to be the showcase, exhibit for display, a sight to see and an example to make, to whom a child may look up. If the parent cannot play even that standard role, then she/he is a useless rag and a burden of the earth; let him/her perish in the rubbish dump and the chasm of Caeadas.”

          “What is the matter again? We just came here,” Hyperion said fatalistically.

          “Eos does not tidy up her room”.

          “Why should I do it? Here, there are mechanical Talos and electronic servants to do that job”, objected Eos.

          “Think not that you are so different form them. God, keep watch over the door of my lips”, murmured Theia meaningfully.  

          “Eos, your mother is absolutely right”, Hyperion judged. “We, the titans, have a great tradition of autonomy and autarky, do not need mediators or priests or representatives between us and the things. As the old ones used to say: ‘The wolf has a thick neck, because he does his job on his own.’”

          Theia signaled Eos to leave.  

          “Estimable husband, whom are you kidding? Did you forget that your supposed kids are photonics? And since you made the first step founding a holographic family, why don’t you make the second, equip yourself with a telepathic implant, so that we may establish at last the perfect communication between us, the ideal deliberation, noetic and sentimental empathy and sympathy?”

“Oaristys partner and female gamete, just because you performed this desperate and futile action to upload your consciouness to a device, allegedly displeased from the level of our debate or deliberation, do not expect me to allow these disgusting grey mycelium spores roaming and festooning orgiastically in my scull, thrusting their cachectic extensions into my sensitive membranes”. 

“Hyperion, your hypocrisy is such that you ought to be called Hypocrion. You insist on that goddamned myth of the titans’ moral superiority towards the Olympians and the rest of the creatures exiting and reentering through the wormholes. You just won a war, merely in one of the infinite and endless dimensions and Creations existing. You just pronounced yourselves victors in a tug of war and power and test continually our patience, brandishing your famous moral advantage. What have you achieved in all these years of struggle? You alienated your wife, you hurt her, you caused her a series of psychic traumas through your absence and your indifference following your true lover, who is no one else that Prometheus in every kind of irrational campaign to the city and to the world (urbi et orbi)”. 

“What is infuriating with you, women, is that you adjudicate yourselves the exclusive privilege to feel psychic traumas. Who can compensate me for my psychical loss, when you uploaded your consciousness into a synthetist just like that, for Pete’s sake! Whatever were our deliberation problems, we could have solved them through logic, and when I say logic, my God, it is difficult to get through, I don’t mean what you did, your metamorphosis into a calculating computing machine. The relief and the clarity offered by logic are gifts coming from the taming and the management of our feelings, not from their uprooting”.

“You didn’t mind me being a calculating computing machine, when you installed me as electronical synthetist and layer penetrator of Venovinda, you didn’t mind back then!”

“That’s an entirely other thing. Don’t try to change the subject.  The problem is that through your metamorphosis you tore me apart, you shredded me to pieces, you rent me. You have already made me a pitiful rag, turned me into a burden of earth, pushed me over the chasm of Caeadas, so don’t you mention all this as your own predicament. Th worse of all is that you didn’t leave me, but, since I have no power to detach myself from you, you forced me to live with you this depressive mimic drama, which is like a tasteless Halloween pumpkin with triangular eyes and a scintillating demonic flame in the interior”.

“I simply followed you everywhere, as it is fitting to a faithful wife. I endeavored to be like you, to become logical and frigid like you, you, ungrateful, inaccessible prick!”, said Theia bursting into tears.

At that moment, Eos and Selene approached coordinated.

“Mother, let our father be”, each said for herself with her own phraseology. Eos continued as elder:

          “Mother, you are contradictory. On the one hand, you don’t want a mechanical Talos in our home, on the other hand, you, yourself, are mechanical. You should know though that we keep the traditional distinction between sentient being and machine that our daddy taught us and that any machine should be used in the interests of mankind and not vice versa.  Technically, we may not be humans, but we have chosen to live as such. It is conceivable that the presuppositions of somebody’s existence lead one to a certain path, but during the trek one can choose another. If something is worth in any kind of life, it is freedom, being claimed by even the humblest earthworm, manifested by its turning left or right. Now, you ask our father to put a telepathic implant. No, he should not! The Pope- Patriarch of the Muslim – Christians and the other monotheists, who has explicitly forbidden it, is right. This connection with others abolishes individual freedom. In the name of a fast and efficient decision one reaches the point of not being capable to distinguish, if the motives are one’s own or perhaps suggested or induced stealthily and underhandedly by another party”.

          “Holograms, photonic Avatars, cathodic puppets, figments of optical fibers and interference fringes, who have become Christians! What other monstrosity has the era of the titans procured for us, this fluid but also materialistic era of Aquarius and Taurus?”, Theia yelled in total confusion and slight disposition of self-sarcasm. “In any case, what is the point of moving to a biotechnological paradise, if we do not benefit from the possibilities offered? You say that I erred and hastened, when I uploaded my consciousness to the synthetist.  Yes, I was disappointed by the lack of communication between us. I couldn’t bear to see a cold inexpressible face opposite to me, an intelligence supposedly dedicated to the exploration of the logic correlations, and not to know what the heck he is thinking. I wanted to know what was on your mind, and, since my noetic extension, my broadcast aura crashed on a wall, I chopped it and I found peace.   I paid you in the same coin, I too withdrew in my inner world, amputated my feelings like you to be equal. Now, however, we all have a chance to drop our blinkers and achieve genuine meaningful communication, which the girls and I, even you, are entitled to. The girls, one way or another, are bound to have a connection to the central electronic brain, since they cannot exist, if they don’t draw energy. I, myself, am an electronic brain, so, please, put also a telepathic link, so that we can finally come to an understanding, drop our shields and become one in a deep individual molecular level”.

          “Always exaggerations”, reacted Hyperion. “Ti become one in order to love each other. Love though doesn’t grow within one and the same being, but only a narcissus and a reflected idol. Love is an undefined ether hovering among more than one creature, a dim breath between different poles, so invisible and imperceptible that can be reflected on no mirror. We cannot love each other if we are the same! Isn’t it enough for you that I brought the girls to a tropical paradise, where if they like it, I don’t have any objection to live permanently? And mind you, if I solve this criminal case, it is very possible that I will be offered a long-term position in security.  Here, there gives not old Earth’s overpopulation, where everyone breathes the fart of the other, but makes a new acquaintance with the smell of rain, flowers and fertile gestating mud. Here, the girls can envisage Creation, as it was in the dawn of mankind, before the wars of gods against humans begin, taste the anticipation of the infinite possibilities before the disastrous choices come, which then bind and chain those who make them and then ought to endure them. So, I have done enough for the girls and for you and you have no right to demand that I do injection of this disgusting symbiont, this calyx of calamity within my medulla oblonga”.

          “The girls”, Euryphaessa started to knock her knees, “what girls, you unfortunate fool? Those, who you bluffed with fairy- tales into joining the war and had them killed? Who you filled their brain with the hot air of heroism and the vain psychotic diegeses, turned into weather balloons with the bubbles of your own ambition, corresponding to your deficits and superiority – inferiority complexes and sent them like babes in the woods to be pierced like drums with a knife, swelled as they were by your own puffiness and swagger?  These, here, are pictures, ghosts, idols as you say, wretched two-dimensional photographs, even if you can fill them with ballast and make them palpable; you ‘d better let them be and remember that it was you who turned them from real ones into fantasies”.

          At that point Hyperion could not hold back his tears or to be more precise, he couldn’t stop crying.

          “You should talk about reality, you, who had ridiculed it with your Ovidian metamorphoses! Yes, the girls and I will live either as humans or as holograms, either as Talos or as monkeys or amoeba, we are not going to ask your permission to exist. We will always have goals and will honor our myths and celebrate our little achievements to make the situation even slightly better. As far as you are concerned, continue to boil in the broth of your self- analysis, confine yourself in the circuits of the machine, where you immured yourself voluntarily”.   

          The logical Hyperion, enraged in a state, to which only Euryphaessa could escalate his rage, as if she had graduated in the Supreme Enervating School just as those curtain- lecturing grumbling wives, searched to find a proper adage to make a spectacular withdrawal.

          “I intended to come and lie on my bed, but I’ d better go away.   I’ d better go sleep on the bed of the Cyrenean Arete, surrounded by the forensic crime scene ribbon. It’s up to me if you are going to materialize, which will happen only if you satisfy my erotic instincts, otherwise you will remain always a bundle of light, do not forget that Phaessa. So, stay here and hang out with the girls having ‘light on the forehead, on the lips, on the eyes/On the legs and on the hands and what around lies’, eat the hostie of reality which you like so much, but for you is synonymous to the opaque dimness of the false idol and the falsified reversed deceitful photosynthesis, then go figure and see if I care!”

          Then, stumbling over natural puddles and chuckholes and bending around some matrasses put in the yard to be aired, the magnificent splendid Hyperion went away.

• CHAPTER EPSILON: (E-) NVESTIGATION  

          As it happened, Hyperion encountered again in front of the Arete’s house the already introduced security officer Perictione.

          “Perictione, let me pass”.  

          “Paramount archon Hyperion, the house has been sealed because of the murder”.

          “Then, I urge you to lift the evidence labels and allow me to enter”.

          Perictione got stubborn.  

          “I don’t answer to you, titan. I accept orders only from my supervisor Lasthenia”.

          “So, phone her and tell her that special agent Hyperion came to examine she crime scene. Am I or am I not authorized investigator of the station’s administration?”

          “There is nothing to see in there, master. The corpse has been removed and only a stain of blood is left. Besides that, you will find only walls, also used as projection surfaces”.  

          “Is that so? Then why are you sitting here and guarding? You ‘d better open the door immediately; It is not acceptable to erect feudal compartments in a world that boasts to be a domain of transparency and constant unobstructed deliberation”. 

          “You are right on point. I also ask myself why this obsolete protocol is still applied. Maybe is a gridlocked calcified practice of the titans like arteriosclerosis, an overhauled usage without any meaning, since all sorts of finger prints, smudges, smears, greases and stains have been taken meticulously  as well as scattered hairs from all the rooms, dandruff and titanium oxide  from the calculator’s keys along with the computing synthetist itself, even tables and chairs, after they had been cleaned from any sort of evidence dust,     were polished pedantically and were inserted into the niches of the walls”.

“Do not underestimate the words ‘titanic’ or ‘titanium’, you, diligent clerk, because they show the endurance and continuity of the titans’ inventions and findings. Also do not despise the protocols, the regulations, and the usages, because they reflect long-term successful habits, principles of good practice in a society and contain the logic that created them. The Greek word for usage (synetheia, by the way ‘practice’ is also Greek) includes the root ‘ethos’ and ‘ethos’ is the demon of (wo-)men, if you grasp my meaning. On the other hand, you, new humans or bio-inherent, as you like to call yourselves, you’d better realize that no one can achieve an improvement, if one hasn’t previously accepted and analyzed what is pregiven. And now, open the gate or I will have you transferred to the other edge of the station, which fortunately for you is only a few kilometers away. On of the immortal advantages of the city-state is that the unfavorable transfer does not move the employer too far away from his/her home”.     

          Perictione notified her supervisor through the communicator for some time and then permitted reluctantly the entrance.

          Hyperion entered inside and in fact he didn’t find anything, only walls and a bed, where he hit the sack exhausted, careful not to touch the dried blood, the only decoration or ornament of the sterilized rooms. He slept mercifully without dreams and could finally forget himself.

          In the morning the shrilling sound of his mobile phone woke him up.      

          “Good morning Eurybia”, he said with rheum in his eyes.  “I don’t remember, have I assigned you something?”

          “I interviewed the physician of Arete as alive and her coroner as a dead. It is worth mentioning that Arete, due to extensive unbridled debauchery, had a destroyed stomach and cirrhosis of the liver in the end stage. One would say that her murder was the most useless and unnecessary one of all times, because in a couple of days she would perish in any case.

          “I see; and now we put a strain on ourselves, because someone killed the dead”.

          “Furthermore, boss, you would be thrilled to know that I have extracted yet another piece of information from this slimy clammy weirdo, Mnesipemon, namely that Percnopterygus is the one member of New Arcadia’s directorate, highly suspected of participating in the Icaromenippus’ movement”.

          “Well, I am convinced about two things. First, that this goody -goody Mnesipemon has staged a money changer shop and a petty haberdashery of his own, where he profits from the exploitation of the valuable Jupiter gases; secondly, that he practiced a healthy competition against the deceased in this sector, who also traded in spores, from which the new-fangled trendy and fashionable biotechnological colossuses of the Confederation are germinated.”

          “Yes, but according to this line of reasoning we should also incriminate Pyrisporus, because he also trades in Lemnian earth plus the hybrid polypod octopus’ material, beyond what is allowed by the Confederation’s standard permission”.

          “So, let take them one by one, Eurybia, we have no other choice. This case suffers from a redundance of possible and potential guilty parties. Let me rise and shine, because I had a rough night and we will pull together the thread of the intertwined, long-winded, long-drawn-out, prolix guilt, after ‘I wash my sins, not only my face’ and drink a cup of Theobroma to acquire operating temperature. I envy Prometheus who stretches and rubs therapeutically his lazy leg in his fertile and care- diluting real estate and possesses the clarity to understand that we are bereft of any strength after the furious Titanomachy and we’d better hold back our horses and sip tisane and chamomile”.

          “I, I or aye, aye captain, Eurybia out”, said Eurybia uttering the pass- and keywords, being expected by someone addicted to military wireless communication.

          Hyperion stood up aching in all the parts of his body and overlooking stomatic and other hygiene with clammy sweaty clothes and excrements hanging out of his ass dragged himself outside the empty residence of Arete whispering: “Mnesipemon (mindful of pain) I am myself.  Every edge of my body not only suffers from incredible pain, but remembers also the corresponding battle, where the wound was inflicted. I am Philoctetes with scars and traumas rotting and pus putrefying, roaring, having a mouth and talking”.

          As he walked on some path syllabizing: “New Arcadia, turn away  your face, what you see is not characteristic of my value, of what I was and what I am” and advancing to a justified intensification of his grievance “and the bottom line is that you have no right to spy on me, you, diabolic Argus with hundred eyes”, he stumbled and collided with the priest, representative of the universal Christian church of the Muslim- monotheists or the ecumenic Muslim church  of the Christian- monotheists in New Arcadia. After the most unnecessary murder of all times, perhaps the moment had come for the most useless encounter of all times. At the moment when on the stage of Hyperion’s mind all significant personalities of the station paraded, having both the motive and the interest of the mightier to kill, to pulpify, to disembowel, the lamb of God presented himself before him, the only one who had certainly no intermeddling whatsoever with the dark case. Redaction note: Suspected and experienced reader, recurring to the known principle of the thriller novels that the culprit is usually the most improbable person, I hasten in the frame of a universal innovation and originality to assure you that the perpetrator of the murder was not the butler … eh sorry, the priest. This novel is more multi-layered, complicated, unpredicted and poly-context as you can imagine, so fasten tightly the seatbelt of your swirling, moving and rocking armchair, sponsored by your amusement theme park, and be prepared for unprecedented turbulence.

        The preacher, who -let it be noted in the history annals – was called Scandalomorus according to the phrase: “Christ for the Jews scandal and stumbling block, for the Greeks moronity and sheer nonsense”, hurried unsolicited to begin a conversation, for which Hyperion was not in any mood at all.

          “Resplendent Hyperion, I was informed about the death of our beloved Arete of Cyrene and was shocked. From what I can understand, you are the expert, the technocrat, the competent technical advisor, who was summoned to elucidate the abhorrent crime that shadowed and stigmatized unexpectedly our closed – not to say hermetic community. I cross my fingers that you arrest quickly the audacious killer”.

Hyperion, who got the blues and had no mood for hypocrisy and digressions like distasteful collateral twigs or gondola rides, overtaxed and burdened with his answer the poor father.  

“Father Scandalomorus, don’t tell me that you also mourn Arete of Cyrene, a woman delivered to drugs and unholy delights, a hetaera stigmatized by revel, debauchery and drunkards’ feasts, because then I will be at my wit’s end. One is characterized by what one says, what one does and whether one’s statements agree with one’s actions. So, if I ascertain that you, a priest, condone all these atrocities, I will set as my next life target to uproot your foundation and expose your busybody church, which sprouts as biotechnological seed and unwelcome weed poking its nose where it doesn’t belong, to the common indiscreet scrutiny of the people.”

“I can’t claim that I knew the deceased very well. You know that the relationship between the church and the biotechnological community is a bit tense. Although the deceased also principally shared the contempt and the devaluation of the church, she was viewed a couple of times, in the temple, which means that she respected God after all. Besides, being a scientist up to the marrow of the bone never stopped her from making continuous differentiations straining at the gnat in the tradition of the titans, and she never got tired to clarify unceasingly that God was one “thing”, religion another, worship still another, dogma also another, finally   the clergy another too. In the end, of course, as the disease surrounded her everywhere and as is expected in such cases, rose her curiosity if there was a superior being, combined also with the self-interested perspective of an afterlife, so she honored us sometimes with her presence. I do not judge her, because each one has one’s own way and motive to turn to faith.”

“Let us not pursue this line of discussion, father, because we, titans, have the bad habit to analyze every sentence uttered by the lips of the Pope-Patriarch and her representatives and to find them erroneous. “if a God exist?” But God cannot ex-ist, i.e. exit from something, but only be, rule, because according to definition is an instance, an inception, whom the world belongs to. Afterwards, we face the question of that subsumption’s specific sort, if it is subordinate, overlapping or parallel, if it is theism, meaning a God apart from the world, or pantheism – God inside the world or Panentheism – God both inside and outside the world etc. So, we’d better put aside all this, father, and you’d better enlighten me if you took the confession of the deceased.”

“My child, you know very well that I cannot answer this question, since we, priests, protect like jealously guarded secret what our flock entrusts us with. We are more pedantic than the doctors regarding the observance of professional confidentiality”.  

“Hm, I would like at least to be informed if the deceased has ever mentioned suicide or if she was capable thereof. Of course, the possibility of a suicide, even of a lethal accident, is miniscule. Is it possible that she fell with such vehemence and intensity on the blunt object? Indeed, today’s ballistic science can responsibly distinguish if a moving head impacts a stationary object or if a moving object impacts a stationary head. Especially, the bio- inherent have one more reason not to commit suicide wasting and harming their bodily data, since they cherish the expectation of being integrated into the symbiotic organism, where they draw their power from.  But don’t let me bother you with the matters of the service, father. It just hit me like a flash to ask you about a matter enlisted obviously in your jurisdiction. I am facing a deep schism in my family worse than “filioque” itself. My wife wishes us to stay here, telepathically and empathically linked to New Arcadia. On the contrary, my daughters have joined Christianity and contempt symbiosis with A.I. like the devil despises incense.”

“My child, we will figure it out. To begin with, tell your daughter to come to the church sometime, because we bagger about and dawdle away, swatting flies and scratching ourselves all the time, out of boredom. Even better though, since both in dawn of man and in our era the inflexible maxim is valid that the parents endeavor to ensure their children the most ideal environment, and since you had the unhoped chance and bliss to have two religious children, it is urgent and imperative that you get your asses out of here sooner rather than later. Go to Mother Earth, where the pastures are greener, even if they are rarer, because it is our home. Here, devil practices are implemented, unholy integrations and channelings of people to machines; no one knows where these apocalyptic and post- apocalyptic machinations will lead.”

“Come on, now, father. It was a heavy blunder of the Pope- Patriarch to contempt and to excommunicate the plasmodium of telepathic junction. Are not also the symbiotic organisms God’s creatures, from the moment that (wo-)man made them? One way or another, they have inside a lot of ethical subroutines and primary directives as safety valves, so that they will never turn against (wo-) mankind. So, tell my children that scientific achievements contain nothing diabolic; don’t lock yourself in superstitions like the one maintaining that the Christmastide sprits or the hobgoblins or the gremlins crunch the column of the Earth. If they are convinced, we will have a genuine opportunity to stay in this place, which by all standards and measures is a paradise with good air, few populations and the chance to receive a proper education”.

At this point, a smart scintilla crossed the face of the priest.

“My child, I may be a priest, but all we, who believe in God, are not naïve. It is not possible that a symbiotic organism has both primal binding orders and the freedom that God granted (wo-)mankind as a present. Either the one or the other, as you, philosophers, say. And it is an obvious self-deceit to claim that you can stay in New Arcadia, without being equipped with the telepathic plasmodium. I am sure that your wife has already demanded it. This is an unescapable development”.  

“You are the master of the obvious, father”, Hyperion was forced to admit. “Indeed, my wife dictated almost as a condition for our further common life to co-exist as symbionts also with the machine! There is something in your face inspiring trust, so, I confide in you that due to a unilateral decision with irrevocable consequences, reached thoughtlessly by the other part, my relation to my wife has been disturbed; thus, I ascribe greater significance to the opinions of my daughters, considering the paternal instinct as well, which incites me, as you have already said, to make what is best for them, to ensure the most appropriate conditions for their survival. However, it didn’t escape my experienced analytical view-angle that you committed the logical error of ‘petitio principii’ or ‘vice-circle’, when you said, dear father, that the future of my daughters lies on Earth, while I conclude that they could very well be integrated into the biotechnological ambience of New Arcadia. That’s why I am telling you, find a way to persuade them to stay here. As a spiritual patrician you have your way and they will listen to you.”

“My child, it applies to you what God says: ‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth’. On the one hand, you accept that the serpent has invaded New Arcadia, that Arete of Cyrene was immoral etc., while it is obvious that you see also other wrongs in that technological fantasy to the degree that only one day in this supposed paradise has cost you your impeccable Starfleet appearance and has rubbed off on you a careless and untidy countenance, on the other hand you ask from me to violate the orders and decisions of the Holy Synod and suggest to your daughters to stay in the embrace of the cursed snake. Because, yes, it is a snake and a serpent and all those putting the empathic chip or whatever is called do not become or are not called connected but possessed but the devil, as our Pope- Patriarch stresses very aptly. Do you consider me fanatic?  There comes a time where we all of us should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is due to Him. So, vade retro Satan, get thee behind me, your pursuits are transparent and no secret to me”.  The smart spark that one could also call cunning -fool, illuminated again the face of the father. “It is obvious that you want to trap me from the fact that you address me of all people to convince your daughters. You should convince them through psychology and the rhetoric that you, titans, traditionally foster and cultivate. So, go ahead: take out of the drawer the more than 80 rhetorical devises that you keep in your ark and see if you can change the mind even of one little girl, who feels already in her neck the cold fingers and the burning stinking breath of the devil and foresees with the eyes of her pure soul the rope of the hanged and the bloody blade in the backside of the treacherous promises about universal deliberation”.  

“Father, I…”, Hyperion tried to whisper, but he understood that he kicks against the goads and on the next crossroad of this doll-like decorative spatial planning he chose to play hooky and disengage from the undebatable unnegotiable path of the father.

It came to his mind to visit after the residence also the workplace of the murdered one, just to complete like a puzzle his personal impression of the woman. In her house he hadn’t discovered anything, but perhaps the deceased found in her workstation the proper way to express herself more freely.

After he escaped the surveillance of Perictione and Themista who watched over him giving him a really hard time, he entered Arete’s office. It made an excellent impression on him, because he found there a divergent esthetic perception in relation to the house.  It was a great circular chamber, where the concave walls were covered by a fresco, where the solar system was depicted. In the center of the circle, notably distant from the periphery, there was the console where Arete worked. It was surrounded by a protective brick-built enclosure, as if the sitting one wanted to separate herself drastically from her environment. The console was made as an exact mime or copy of the space station, although in this way it was completely inconvenient for any kind of work, basically due to the bicycle-spokes extending from the main globular apartment and reaching the outer ring. Arete wants to tell us something through this alignment, Hyperion thought. She obviously wants to underline the unnegotiable independence of the station towards the rest solar system. This impression was certified by two more indications. First, after a thorough scrutiny of the surrounding wall- painting a perfect blind spot was located, just like the one left by a moth on a cloth, at the point where the coordinates of the space station converged. Yonder there gave a hole, as if someone had dematerialized the wall or extracted the stucco from this particulate point. This is exhibit of independence and autonomy n. 2, the pensive and downcast Hyperion thought. Furthermore, over the peculiar and eccentric console of Arete hovered and turned around a “cathodic automaton”, i.e. a mechanical representation of the solar system with rotating models of celestial bodies, where near Jupiter a twin equally big planet appeared, as if the flee and insignificant dot of New Arcadia were equivalent with the mighty gas giant! Exhibit of independence n. 3. In any way and by any means and with haughty uninhibited courage Arete revealed that she belonged to Icaromenippus. Of course, there were on her desk neither notebooks nor documents nor notes, which was expected in the domain of automatic and constant oral and telepathic deliberation.  For the broadcasting of the messages though even inert materials could be used either individually or in formation and alignment and Arete seemed to know this only too well. Even a stone may have a symbolic meaning depending on the surrounding context. It was a pity that the deceased had not left unfeigned material evidence, trace or sign indicating her own executioner, this would facilitate the search of Hyperion. It seems though that she was completely unsuspected, otherwise and alternative very busy with her fatal terminal disease to be interested in someone who wanted to kill her – if that was even conceivable.  

Afterwards, Hyperion passed treading lightly from his home, shaved, brushed his teeth, wore a new honorable, automatically ironed gala uniform – well, Theia or Euryphaessa didn’t feel like ironing it herself– and headed to the headquarters, from where he directed the investigation. He was welcomed by his two associates, overtaxed in an orgy of feverous activity. On one wall of the headquarters the well-known, police-thrillerlike and traditional posting and sticking of articles, marked maps and smudged mercilessly with red marker photos, magazine excerpts, computer printings and other notes, where protruded and waved vividly the so-called “post it” square little papers. The titans, dear reader, did not condescend to modernize their methods and insisted on the old ones, on the strategic importance of the classical, being verified and confirmed repeatedly throughout time, ripe like the old wine, the stopper of which is retracted, so that it can breathe.

“Eurybia, as you were, report”.

“Nothing new, master. We are trying to classify the evidence available. We consider together with Leto highly improbable that only the people in charge of New Arcadia’s biotechnological experiment belong to Icaromenippus. Should we extend and focus our search merely on Percnopterygus and Didymion, the two remaining big kahunas of the program? Are Pyrisporus and Mnesipemon, Philogene, even Theano of Thuria, who control the station, above suspicion? I refer always to the movement of Icaromenippus.”

“Indeed you, prominent captain”, Leto took the staff -scytale laying it too thick according to her well- known habit, “you will observe with your renowned accuracy that a participation in Icaromenippus does  not imply necessarily accessoriness to murder; on the contrary, if the great players of New Arcadia were aligned and united to pursue the independence plan, they had no reason at all to eliminate each other.  In any case, we added to our suspects three more individuals, Diotima of Mantinea, Torgos Tracheliotοs and Hipparchia the Dog. The first one is a sort of independent trader and freelancer of New Arcadia contacting suppliers from various planets; the second one is himself supplier and provider and the third one is spokesman of the station’s employees. We will interrogate them all one after another.”

“Yes, I recall that New Arcadia has enumerated both its suppliers as also its bio-inherent employees in the interest groups. I don’t know if the first possess a neuro-physical implant to communicate with it, but the latter have surely one. At least it doesn’t entirely identify the bio-inherent ones with itself. This shows that this being is not so possessive and conquering and perhaps the Pope- Patriarch and Scandalomorus are not wrong after all…”

Hyperion sat for the first time in the armchair appointed to him in the headquarters. In fact, he did not have an office of his own, but his working place resembled more the newsroom of a newspaper’s redaction. In the other consoles sat these god-damned security officers, while Perictione and Themista seemed to have been cloned and be everywhere. Apparently, they followed orders from above to watch his team. He could ask Philogene to appoint him another secluded room, but this would increase even more the paranoia and the suspiciousness of the security division. Besides, if he reached some useful conclusion, the security officers could neither obstruct him nor harm him or so he thought, since he was a high-ranked officer of the fleet. He’d better apply the Japan method that the most efficient way for preserving confidentiality was to let the doors and the windows open, to be sure that no one eavesdrops. Let them rave in their illusion that they control us, Hyperion thought. The officers of Starfleet have many aces up their sleeves, assets that these mess- tin soldiers and troopers of the ground cannot even fathom.

“We must proceed to some elevated inferences outside the box”, he said. “I give you an example. New Arcadia enumerated twelve different groups of interests, possibly involved in the murder. Even this may also cause a prejudice to make us miss the wood for the trees. The interest groups should not be conceived in separate boxes, because they surely relate to each other, occasionally overlap or even identify with each other. Surprisingly albeit offhand, following questions arise, which are merely indicative and constitute examples for a great deal of logical connections that can be done: α) who else rules the station besides Theano of Thuria, so much so that it is improbable to be only one woman’s administration. The legacy of democracy in our world is so powerful that it necessarily affects New Arcadia too. β) Although community of property is the rule, it is of great importance who continues managing the productive enterprises and within this frame it is worth exploring to whom Arete bequeathed the program, even if it belonged to the state. Someone will replace her, the power of Percnopterygus or Didymion will not extend to her jurisdiction, because no diarchy is conceivable in decision making due to the impossibility of a majority, and of course the person that she herself had appointed to succeed her will be seriously evaluated by the central command. γ) Who constitute Icaromenippus? δ) whether Icaromenippus cooperates with the “Exploitation Company of the Mega Planet” or the “Production Association of Lemnian Earth”, i.e. the biological polypod from which the space station is made. Why? How should I know. My thoughts are not elaborated for the time being. We should be thinking through relationships, references and determinations. On the contrary, definitions that allegedly include or limit the object r the subject matter are nothing but obsolete epistemology.”

• CHAPTER ZETA: ZOE (LIFE)

On the fourth day of his stay in New Arcadia, Hyperion decided out of all this intrinsic and confused conglomerate of choices to follow as Ariadne’s thread the road leading him to visit Didymion, the paramount brain among the geniuses that designed the mighty biotechnological colossus. A centipede of ambition, vanity and expectation tickled hos underbelly along with a generous dose of male egoism, as the time of the reckoning neared against a spirit equivalent or superior to his. That was certainly a challenge worthy for an honorary Starfleet captain. He was aware of his own abilities, he knew that he had the faculty to learn much from bis dialogs, see through the eyes and the grimaces of his interlocutors, drawing information from each expression, even from their apathy, so he invested much in this particulate conversation. In such duels, Hyperion used to go alone with his zap gun protruding distinguishably from his belt.

The doddering old geneticist, Chinese by origin, resided outside town, a privilege not conceded to many people of this brave new world. The spatial planning administration encouraged the inhabitants to gather in habitat zones, surely comfortable with gardens and beautiful alleys, but also to leave enough space for outdoor activities in woods and rich vegetation. This sort of ecological perception did not so much pursue to avert the soot or corpuscle emission as to prevent the complete traversing of the habitat by underground cables, tubes and other monstrosities that festoon the streets of New Greece, which would eventually happen if anyone built his villa wherever one liked.

However, just as it is the rule in every society for the leaders, the privileged, the vanguard and the elite there were always exceptions, an oxymoron! Apparently, Didymion enjoyed vast esteem from all the administrative hierarchy, since beyond any reservation, objection or dispute the invention of the polypod technological colossuses and the telepathic empathy throughout all those was groundbreaking and unique!

The residence of Didymion was a simple row house with a sloping roof inclining forward that would be two -pitch, if it wasn’t intersected perpendicularly by the vertical rear wall. On the façade though, it protruded so much that it roofed the whole front veranda. The Greek- titanic sense of Hyperion was irritated and annoyed by the fact that the decoration was a little far-eastern. If you think, dear readers, that in an era and a world of Olympian gods and titans the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans etc. have no place, you make a great mistake. It suffices to refer to the expeditions of Dionysus included in the full- text Titanomachy of Prometheus Catasterizing to realize that the mythological world was both geomorphologically and populatively exactly like ours. The house had neither asbestos plates nor aluminium doorframes nor additional hastily nailed pedestals not other building facilities, conveniences, patents or other rudeness or clumsy work like those decorating New Greece – at that point I hope that the devaluing reference to  the place, where the fate reserved for us to live, won’t become an ominous tercet (r.n. the above paragraph is to be attributed to the author’s viewpoint).  

 So, the house in question was built exclusively with stone or wood, like all the houses of the enlightened (wo-)men. The rest expected requirements, typical for the case, were also present, i.e. it neighbored a gurgling murmuring purling brook ending to a round artificial lake, peripherally wreathed by red anemones. Black and white swans slipped and crossed on its surface, as if they were false cathodic puppets, Atthis princesses, or Tanagra’s figurines moving on mechanical rails. Something unmanageable prevented an immediate evaluation, i.e. on a conspicuous spot of the façade an escutcheon suspended representing the Chinese dragon and underneath appeared the inscription “DICS”, like an imitation of the Chistian “INRI” (Jesus of Nazareth Rex of the Judeans).   

Didymion and his servant Phaenarete waited for them in the atrium. Phaenarete was exactly what her name witnessed and more, whereby, however, under the word “arere” we should understand her wondrous beauty, inconceivable, equivalent with the splendor of Cleopatra or Nefertari. She was also of far-eastern origin, tall and willowy like a tree, with a long cotton skirt, very domelike, arched, vaulted, doubly proud both at the height of the chest and distinguished through a provocative slit on the one thigh. Didymion welcomed them with a benevolent smile as soon as Hyperion violated discreetly the garden door, pushing the small bolt sideways. He was sitting in his vintage wheelchair covered by a diamond- checkered blanket. He wore these characteristic military garments, to which the Chinese have accustomed us, since such affectations underlined the particularity of their cultural revolution.     His face had the porcelain- china fragility and brittleness of the eschatological old, not to say that he had the swollen bloated countenance of an embalmed stuffed mummy that the robust old timers acquire when they enter their early nineties. He was bald as a calvary and shiningly at that, except if one looked at him from behind, where one could distinguish unexpectedly a curl and a braid of grey hair touching the neck.

“Oh, what have we here”, he said with insolence. “In front of us stands the prominent law-inherent and law-proficient Hyperion, the decorated stylobate of Starfleet. The symbiotic network of New Arcadia chirps and chats only about you, maestro”.

Hyperion decided to try an equally ironic gambit opening or else Didymion would get a hold over him from the beginning.

“I too am glad to get acquainted with the greatest scientist, who inside a Greek world was forced to take the name ‘Didymion’. I guess, one way or another, your Greek name allows you to escape the pulp of the billion doppelgangers of your country, the vulgar anonymity of the mass. Is this true that you have only seventy possible names in China? I reckon, this circumstance favors originality very much.”

Didymion got serious.  

“You couldn’t pronounce my real name, craftsman (r.n. suddenly maestro became craftsman). If I were you, I wouldn’t talk so ironically to someone who directs the whole symbiotic network of New Arcadia, which surrounds you at this very time from everywhere. As far as the Greek name is concerned, we are not racists like you, the teachers of ‘everyone not a Greek is a barbarian’. It is well known that when our envoys who explored the world seeking for an intelligence, equivalent to the Chinese one, informed our emperor that within the absolute darkness covering all planet except China there is ‘si-la’, a small intensive light, another great culture, which is Greece.  So, we paid homage to you, even if you are but a fart compared to our size. Furthermore, in the legendary time of corona- virus, we sent you an airplane with masks bearing conspicuously on its hull as inscription the adage of Aristotle ‘friendship is a soul divided into two bodies’, without collecting not even a thank-you back then.  Even your philosophy, which is supposed to be your strong point, corresponds fully to our own Buddhistic or not wisdom, for instance the astonishing motto of Democritus ‘world is attrition, life is conviction’. There is nothing that Greeks have said and the Chinese haven’t.”

“Yes, but the doubt is absent, which turns wisdom into philosophy. Furthermore, the Chinese intellect is introverted, because it was restricted for centuries into this monster state, where until an order reaches the province, the emperor that issued it was already dead. On the contrary, the Greek intellect embraces all and knows no peace until even the last living person on Earth gets in touch with knowledge. But I have a question. What does the inscription ‘DICS’ mean?”

“A! The great passion of philosophers is admiration and astonishment, isn’t it? ‘DI’ symbolizes ‘Didymion’, the Greek name that I have haphazardly chosen. ‘CS’ is my Chinese name, Cho – Singhai or Cho -Tsinghai, please, do not try to pronounce it, because you will insult it. It means also Cheiristarches, as I like to call myself, which is the opposite of Aristotle, so much so that Aristotle tried to explain the known universe, while I built my own, symbiotic and inherent, fully opposing his. Because while his universe is slow and walking -peripatetic, mine allows the synchronic, spontaneous and instant deliberation. I am registering a cognitive difficulty regarding all this on your behalf, craftsman. Can it be that you should install a chip in your nice, raised eyebrow or under your pointy ear, so that we can finally get through to one another?”

“To invoke a punchline from a previous conversation and not to consume unnecessarily grey calls to invent new ones, since I want my brain neurons to be rested and in full standby modus to solve the case assigned to me, I answer to you, Cheiristarches, whereby at least the ‘cheiriston’ (worst) fits you: Please, save your propaganda for someone more gullible and ignorant than a gun-smoked and valiant veteran of Titanomachy. We know that your automatic agreements are but the coordinated broadcast of propaganda by the contemporary tycoons of informatics over those who do not possess equal mechanisms of unrestrained public opinion’s manipulation. Your euphemistically called agreement is emitted like a unilateral projection of the dominant part’s representations without a step-by-step elaboration and can easily change, something that cannot happen in the contracts requiring preliminary stipulations or prearrangements, involve pre-contractual responsibility as well as many stages, the overcoming of which is a first indication for the participants’ solvency. We didn’t wage war to agree, but to bridge our disagreements through dialog and dialectic”.

“You are repeating yourself, craftsman. Your answer has been already registered by the systems of New Arcadia, as you gave it to the administrator Theano and I have read it. It seems that it is hard to say something new and not trivial”.

“Why should I say something new, when I have already given the perfect answer”, said Hyperion arrogantly, but arrogance was a language that Didymion -Cheiristarches understood very well.

After the first duel of words the old geneticist viewed his opponent with more reservedness and thoughtfulness causing an extended pause to their fiery dialog.

“To refrain from haughtily presenting as a tennis match between Greece and China and invite also our friends Anglo-Saxons in the game, resplendent Hyperion, I think that we started off on the wrong foot, so let us go back to square one and make a fresh start. Phaenarete, bring to our guest a cup of earl grey tea with many selected herbs. Let me clarify at that point that I am neither an advocate of China nor of the Chinese emperors, and I don‘t want by any means to be seen that way. Above all, I am a scientist, I respect the doctrines of science, I seek to prove its theorems and search continuously for new principles and applications”.  

“You have the privilege to be served by a magnificent creature, venerable Didymion, as I can admit without any misunderstanding or suspicion of sexual harassment, now that she is gone”.

“The perfection you see is not haphazard, maestro. Phaenarete is a creation of the late Arete, faithful and genius associate for decades, whose soul may God rest in a bright place of green pasture and refreshment etc. As an individual of your intelligence can easily grasp, alas, we, pioneers of the future are not at all immaculate, unimpeachable or infallible and we should give Christianity a credit for saying that there is no one without sin. Before I draft her abilities in the A.I. program the marvelous Arete performed private experiments and using her own ovules as a genetic pool, she created human beings! To them she granted her own healthy metabolism, her own attractive visage, equivalent to the one of Helen of Troy, as well as her own out-worldish intelligence, and then she sold them as slaves. In this happy and beneficial way, she earned her living, and you, maestro, do not sulk, because as your own Epaminonda said: ‘Toil is no source for shame; idleness is shame’.  Besides, another fundamental critique against the world of mythology and the titans, i.e. our era, is that slavery had not been abolished. Phaenarete is the most excellent product of this parthenogenesis procedure, she is both a hybrid and a chimera having Arete both as parent Nr. 1 and parent Nr. 2. She was created by her mother and was educated as a hetaera, and I bought her as such, at least at the beginning. Of course, afterwards the years passed and since, as people aptly says, ‘my sprout withered’ I use her as a nurse. Don’t judge us, superb Hyperion. It is not possible for all people to have your moral rigor; we are people and always prepare for our next mistake and our next better failure. As the muse of poetry says, to err is human, that is why we are errors and create humans, ha, ha. But let us stop this reinvigorating conversation, because -behold – Phaenarete is coming with the tea; and mind you, there are some disagreeable annoying readers, who have no other job than counting the hours and the minutes of our story’s episodes and stasima or chorus odes, trying to bring to attention the contradictions of the author and his errors in the measurement of theatrical time and the scenic time-outs, for example that the preparation of tea cannot last so long.  

  Hyperion noted Phaenarete in his book as the thirteenth suspect of the crime, asking himself why hadn’t the A.I. mentioned her. He scoffed spitefully at himself thinking that he, a sworn enemy of the biotechnological organisms, caught himself believing in their infallibleness and integrity. Perhaps, sometimes the fault of seeing the trees and not the wood was an asset.

          “With your permission, let us proceed to another level of discussion, erudite Didymion. Talk to me freely for yourself and whether you really believe that I am wasting your time, because I don’t possess a telepathic implant to enable us eye-contact communication”.

“The opportunity to guide someone to an enlightened understanding is never waste of time for me”, answered Didymion after providing himself a breathing space, recovering immediately his arrogance by even the slightest retreat of the other belying before the rooster crows his earlier declaration that he is not a Thibetan guru. “A common essence of Greek and Chinese philosophy is that life is a constant itinerary to truth and illumination; know thyself means know the world. Some people take steps towards spiritual maturity, while others stay behind”.

It crossed the mind of Hyperion that Didymion with his second sentence distorted already Greek philosophy, but he remained silent, because now he implemented a tactic that would lure the beast to come out of his den.

“It is true that I was reared on the base of Buddhistic philosophy. Given my early departure and migration to the world of the titans, I don’t know if I have kept in my life the relentless doctrines of Patimokkha, which is the basket of discipline, I would say that I rather deviated in that regard. As you can easily ascertain, philosophizing Hyperion, and as I, myself, reluctantly confess, arrogance is my greatest fault and failure. Nevertheless, from the time that I dedicated myself to science, I identified with it and have no ethical dilemmas anymore. Why? Simply because from the moment that a scientific inference sees the light of day and publicity, it cannot be revoked anymore or swept under the carpet, but its repercussions either positive or negative unfold up to their last consequence. In that respect, the ethical dimension eclipses and vanishes, because the scientists who find the truth are not the ones who forward its applications, but the latter falls within the competence of the politicians”.  

“So, you created New Arcadia, which is your great amoralistic masterpiece”.

“Yes, New Arcadia is amoralistic in the sense that she doesn’t need morality, because she is based on sincerity, lucidness, clarity, transparence and instant deliberation. At the same time, she performs parallel registration and elaboration of the participants’ thoughts creating an all- encompassing work net of vast dimensions.  There is a united personality, but it consists of many semiautonomous subroutines. Her consciousness, fully homogenized, is like a hologram and even if it is divided into pieces, every piece contains a full pattern and copy of the whole. Her signal is broadcast horizontally and parallelly narrowing to vertical perpendicular endings. She can conduct and watch infinite conversations at the same time, and the reminiscence of each one is channeled and divulged to all substrate, available to all net members to invoke or refer to. When someone talks to New Arcadia, one follows the opposite course, sends a brain signal from the perpendicular to the subroutine, which traverses the floor horizontally.”

“Now, you have made a journalist out of me who interviews you. Where did the idea of telepathic connection originate from?”

“From a combination of scientific knowledge. The spiritual values of Buddhism suggested to me whisperingly that life in all its manifestations enjoys a full harmony, which is strangely based on a disharmony, impossible to overview or to summarize. I was particularly enchanted by the non- linearity, non – symmetry and non- rationality of the subatomic particles’ connections -conjunctions, which is the specialty of your Ionian philosophers. I studied to the molecular level ‘reflection, mirage and the idol” (today, we would call it juxtaposition) of the atom, according to the paradigm of Leucippus and Democritus. Yet, idolizing is not the only relationship of the individuals among them, there is also the entanglement of quanta, although I would prefer the ancient Greek ‘yoke together’ originating from Zeus, connecting miscellaneous atoms and shapes and various souls between them into broader psychical molecules or hypostatic souls. That is where the telepathic connection is based on”.

“But does not this hard-core science with its impenetrable for the laymen carapace contradict your Buddhistic beliefs?”

“I don’t think that I am unfaithful regarding my Buddhistic origins, since I have not denied the basic teachings of Buddha, I just search for another road, another Tao, which will lead me to the   cosmic order, the Dahrma. And, please, maitre, do not try to etymologize it from Greek drama or whatever, I’ve had enough of the blown-up self-conceit and the solipsism of Greeks, who think that they have exclusive rights on all sorts of elements, roots and rhizomes. So, we agree, Greeks and Chinese, that the world is one and needs not to be divided into material and spiritual. Spirit are the thoughts, which can be considered both material and spiritual connecting with each other through the synthetic logos of the soul. Let us be content with a simple definition of the soul as a consciousness produced by a reaction of long duration to stimuli, the doctrines of the poor underestimated parents, the learning of languages, the mimes of behavior and the models of education”.

“How do you connect, teacher, the spirit and the soul with the biotechnological machine? I admit that New Arcadia has some sort of consciousness, since it can distinguish itself from the environment, but it does not possess individual soul and collective spirit, because those presuppose self-awareness, i.e. connection to the infinity of space and time, being realized when both are included in one and only moment”.

“All this concerns the theory of Aristotle, referring to the existing universe and the enlist of (wo-)man into this. On the other hand, I, as a rebel Cheiristarches, am turning things upside-down   substituting the perfect- best end (‘ariston telos’) by humble- worst beginnings (‘cheiriste arche’). I am starting from the undervalued material seed, which becomes an autonomous biotechnological organism, separated from the existing universe. The thoughts circulating in the organism are the spirit, in which the bio-inherent people participate, are her/his spirit, while her/his soul doesn’t need to be immortal, i.e. extend to all eternity, but can simply last for an eon, which is a huge time period, because such is the life expectancy of these space colossuses. Beyond their unnatural longevity, regarding which they are superior to the common mortals, they have nothing to envy from them either concerning the subjective ego or the experience, because they possess their own personal sensorium allowing them to constitute the former and their own external body to feel the latter. Thus, on a level of biotechnology, where the A.I. has also at her disposal body and senses, the specific difference to a human is neither the subjective ego nor the experience.”

Hyperion could not restrain himself anymore: “Bio- technologist, you are trying to eliminate the difference between mankind and A.I., whereas, as you said, to ensure the latter a not disputable domain you ended up creating an immured enclosed universe. Paraphrasing an old movie constating as the difference between man and ant that a man is a man and an ant is an ant, one could claim the same for the difference between mankind and A.I.”

Didymion viewed his opponent with a glassy glimpse.

“A smart aleck’s wisecracks unworthy of a philosopher and a lecturer. Anyway, I am not going to square the circle with you, craftsman. Besides, I am specialist in telepathic connection, not in A.I. per se, that was rather the jurisdiction of Arete. The deceased developed the seed and sold it for a shameless price to the ‘Exploitation Company of the Mega Planet – nowadays Zeus’, while I sold them the telepathic connection of the spore to the inhabitants of its pericarp, when it grew up and turned into a fruit. I have many interesting things to tell you about the inconceivable possibilities of the biotechnological colossuses, but if you insist on your childish epistemological perplexities about the difference between (wo-)man and machine, what can I say, I wish that Arete were present to solve them. And since you came here under the double property of both philosopher- inquirer on the one hand and the interrogator on the other hand, maybe it is a good idea to appeal also to New Arcadia to express herself about the different constructive and technical competence between me and the deceased…”

The voice of New Arcadia was heard so suddenly that the blood of Hyperion froze instantly in his veins, as if it were an overheated motor-drive without coolant”.

“Arete constructed my physical appearance, while Didymion my spiritual morph. I love them both.”

“Arcadia, you scared the bejesus out of me”, the veteran of Titanomachy whispered. Trying to elude what the Zakynthians call ‘scorso’, he pondered on going to the offensive. “But are you able to love?”

“Any creature can love”, Didymion hurried as a good teacher to extricate his apprentice from the rough spot. “And only who can love, may await a requital”. This is the other principle of Buddhism, you, self-blown Greek, who think that Greeks have said all. The basic principle of Dana. Dana is a sort of self-sacrifice allowing the individual to foresee and pre-estimate the needs of the other. So, the universal state of reflected calmness and concentration of the subject is accomplished throughout the endless cycles of Samsara, the eternal reiteration”.

“Brilliant technocrat, I didn’t come here to attend a Buddhist seminar. The Greek philosophers, using another terminology, can exceed all these by far. I want you to talk to me about your cooperation with the late Arete of Cyrene”.

“I worked together with her for many years, perhaps my best years. She was a most capable formidable geneticist, truly un-ri-val-led! Original ideas, inexhaustible energy, unwavered, steadfast resolve with a viewfinder that never lost target and a gunsight that never lost aim. Due to the difference of our cultural background, we did not get along very well, but we accomplished a lot of important deeds together, for which I will be eternally proud”.

“Had she confided to you at any point her personal feelings?”

“I already said that our relationship was professional. Near the end, of course, after the cirrhosis was known, I was a little sorry for her and I told her comforting consoling words, well-aimed and clever, I think. I will tell you later during the flow of our discussion what I mean. As I looked at her from the view-angle of a Buddhist, she was a classic case of what we call ‘karma’, i.e. the principle that the actions of the previous life define the next one, both in the present and in the future”.    

“So, you are telling me that according to your opinion she was worth to be murdered”.

“Please, Interrogator, do not put things in my mouth that I have never said. The law of Karma is not some despicable perversion of primitive peoples. It is simple acceptance that our deeds determine and predesign our future. The definition nearest to your perception would be that a (wo)man is responsible for molding her/his destiny and in this sense the past defines one’s future”.

“Your perception is principally sound, but very simplistic. Indeed, except our own will that shapes reality there is also the volition of things, fate, that does not depend on us. Watch, if you like, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, the trilogy of Oresteia, the Thebaic circle, the circle of Atreides, the circle of Labdacidae”.  

“Craftsman, you are a piece of work! When you talk to the Orientals about fate, it is like selling ice to the Eskimos or trying to kid a kidder. It goes without saying that we believe in fate. Karma is included in fate and can be visualized both esoterically as a will producing consequences as well as externally as cause and effect relating to the material world. You though, since you give more weight to scientific distinction and specific difference, you will realize that in the future you are going to set aside and neglect the one pylon, namely volition of the things, in favor of the other, the will of the people”.

Hyperion began to feel headache through all this.  

“Anyway, whatever, can you think of someone who would like to hurt her?”

“What can I say?” A woman so inventive and versatile, who occupied herself with trade and enterprises before she joins the program, is likely to have also made some enemies. Maybe there was an intrigue plotted by antagonists who wished for the station’s administration and the exploitation company of Zeus- Jupiter to adopt their own version and plan concerning A.I. But that would lead you, greatest titan, to suspects outside the station, which would regress your mission targets to infinitum. I am willing to send you a list of antagonists, but then you should investigate the relation of each one of them to one or more of the 1500 physiological people residing in the station, who could play the role of the executive arm. Then, you would only be left with the task to find out in what way the perpetrator managed to project him/herself to the apartment of Arete and in what way she/he materialized her/himself to smash her head.”

At that moment, Hyperion thought simultaneously two things. First, that Didymion chose not to mention among the suspects his nurse Phaenarete, although she had a motive considering that Arete genetically created her and trained her as whore, so it would be logical for her to seek revenge on her female Pygmalion as a new Galatea, carved from ivory and alabaster. It was of course understandable for Didymion to want to disperse the suspicion burdening his favorite lady, if one considered that Phaenarete was his slave in a status of employment and dependent labor force and that he needed her for his survival. Secondly, Hyperion thought that he, himself, was in deep trouble. For the first time, he pondered that maybe the case was too demanding for him, perhaps above his pay grade. The suspects were myriads let alone the method of execution was a mystery per se. Should he deposit his weapon and badge and let Philogene bell the cat, who was also an elected archon of the village? But what a shame it would be for the shining Hyperion to leave the station with his head between his legs! What would the divine Prometheus say who trusted his reason so blindly?

 “Respectable elder, please pardon me for being rude in view of the circumstances’ cruciality and allow me to be blunt to the degree of impoliteness. Are you member of Icaromenippus? And if you are not, do you approve of its purposes?”

Here, Phaenarete intervened unexpectedly showing that she is not a stuntwoman or a marionette, but that she had hypostasis and moxy: “Mr. Honorary officer of Starfleet, Mr. special mandate and dignitary of New Arcadia”, she said with the well-known abuse of predicates typical for the era, “pease, clarify at last if you have come here for a ceremonial visit or for inquiry. If the former is the case, you are exploiting the master’s hospitality, if the latter is valid, you should present an arrest warrant or if is a preliminary examination allow us at minimum to hire and assign a logograph to reply to you”.

Perhaps, she thought that she had uttered some shrewdness, but in fact, as you can all understand, she didn’t help her master with these awkward efforts to protect him.

“Please, Phaenarete, pull yourself together. The worthy Hyperion has been assigned to solve a murder case. It is our duty to assist him in any way possible, honoring at the same time the memory of our beloved Arete. My answer is, curious and inquisitive Hyperion, that I do not participate actively in Icaromenippus. Besides, years have begun to take the better of me, my back aches, my waist is in pain and gets every day heavier. I won’t hide from you that I also suffer from thrombosis and when I get up from the armchair, it is as if the mob has cemented my feet and catapulted me into the bottom of a harbor. Despite all this, I must rise and perform regular exercises under the surveillance of my cherished Phaenarete. Anyway, to make a long story short, I prefer to deal with the mental state of my fabrications, who are still ‘children’, as the priests of Hammon very concisely describe you, Greeks. As you may understand, the fans of Icaromenippus are trying in every way to draft me or at least use my name in their campaign, thinking not unjustly that this will add prestige to their struggle. Generally, I am not opposed to the aims of Icaromenippus (or Above-the- Clouds, ha, ha, not even themselves know why they have chosen the particulate name), since independence was always a noble cause, and when the others hesitate to reach the stars, one should go for oneself, but I prefer to devote myself to an essential task, where I can really offer something, not to become some superfluous symbol in fights that can also flourish without my contribution, so, I say ‘start the revolution without me’. The struggle of Icaromenippus unfolds on a very materialistic level for my taste, on the level what belongs to whom and who possesses the pertinent right or demand. Please, do not misunderstand what I am saying, I do not underestimate at all either economy or the ideologies of self- determination, I simply examine these requests in the frame of a broader perspective. If one envisages facts nakedly without the distortive lens of the many zeros, inscribed on banknotes and all kinds of accounts, one will see that in fact the inhabitants of New Arcadia already control both their habitat as well as the industrial installations around Zeus- Jupiter. Anything else is but miser logistics and bureaucracy and yet the revolutionaries of Icaromenippus have chosen to fight on this battlefield and their war is conducted within the offices of command. Only the fools are interested in property as a metaphysical concept, while the wise guys are focusing their attention on the possibilities of use and fruition as well as the social importance of property for the whole society”.

“It is true”, Hyperion took the floor, “that one has rarely the opportunity to discuss with a living legend such as you, and perhaps I should set aside my ego and give some thought to what you say.   So, who are the important issues which need further investigation according to your opinion? To use the same cynical language as you, I cannot understand what the use and the importance of A.I. program is beyond financial benefits. You just add besides the billions of existing people some biotechnological colossuses, which ensure certain addressees an abundant luxury of living. At most-most, you, biotechnologists, will achieve that they develop an intelligence equal to (wo-)man. So what? ‘The mountain was having birth- pains and gave birth to a mouse’. Nothing new is added to the knowledge, especially to the emotional intelligence. Let alone that, since these colossuses are in fact huge giants and Ecatoncheires, possessing power of subjugating people, you, the luminaries, who released the jinn from its lamp, are tasked to find a way of stopping your dangerous creations”.

“All this notwithstanding, eminent Hyperion, I will prove you that A.I. concerns you, not only because it is very useful for performing complicated calculations in zero time, but also on a higher existential level. In short, I offer you, I offer to all of you the certainty of afterlife, when this wretched carcass, which is made of the cheapest and shittiest construction materials finally wavers.    This meat of bad quality, chopped, mixed and stinky, put on the pair of scales to deceive the client, from which we are constructed, deserts us exactly when we need it most, it is a coppery damaged utensil, a brittle tyle, so soft, so weak, so pathetic and lamentable. How many times we, elders, do not contemplate nostalgically our robust but thoughtless youth and reckon, now that the sea has become yoghurt, we lack spoons. Which means: now that we have become wise and have a lucid perception of reality, we can’t   move our meaty extremities anymore. Everything we have learnt and worry about transferring to the next generation, so that they may avoid the same mistakes, will be certainly get lost after our deaths like tears in the rain. Death is omnipresent, ubiquitous and all pervading, and spare us the comforting words, which you titans whisper to the ill until their soul parts from them, i.e. that death is a companion, who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it may never come again etc., etc.  The dismal perspective chases us all the way, stalks us at our heels, condemns us to a miserable scary life, full of hesitations that obstruct us from taking off. It captures and imprisons our souls, makes us small, petty, insignificant with a fleeting passing glory. We die lulling ourselves that we did things and knew people, but after a few days not even the doorman of our apartment building remembers us, if I am to paraphrase the phrase of someone. Well, I, yours truly, devoted myself to free humanity from the scourge of mortality. New Arcadia, you, unsuspected dignitary, has the possibility to constitute the new receptacle of our soul after our biological end. Then, our thoughts, hopes and dreams can be transferred to the biological substrate of a very bigger organism with much longer life- expectancy. Please, try to comprehend, excellence. The epoch of the gods and the pagan religion has passed without return. Now we can become practically immortal without any need for faith and worship crutch-.

-In this kingdom of heaven, which I evangelize, you too can participate, o mighty but in front of the death’s sting impotent titan. When after give-or take forty years, which is your life-expectancy according to the insurance companies, comes the time of the grave, we will be more than happy to welcome you in our community, where you will enjoy the supreme gift of living at least ten thousand years more. It’s not bad, isn’t it? For the cohesion of the all-encompassing organism ensures the cohesion of the included one’s scattered thoughts, which can survive to all eternity only under the connective reason of a wide-spreading, all-encompassing existence as a restored remainder”.

“Me? You are inviting me to a posthumous party within the cylinders and the meanders of New Arcadia? I have not even a telepathic chip”.

“Come on now, you can remedy this anytime. Listen, Trismegistus Hermes or rather Hyperion, stand and think what I am capable and willing of offering you. Not only to you, but also to your electronically uploaded wife as well as to your holographic children. Fancy the joy of Eos and Selene, when they find out that they will live permanently in an enhanced electronic environment, without risking someone pulling the plug on them. Well, I am not referring to the wife, since, as you have told me, she feels already citizen of New Arcadia. With the miraculous implant and the gene of telepathic connection, which I evangelize, all, your wife, Eurybia, Leto, even the divine Prometheus will be in position to transfer their memories and their neurological network into New Arcadia. We have ample space of storage for a million willing people. And don’t think that the society and joined venture of paradise contradict individual identity, which is preserved, multiplied into the ninth power at that. Yonder, on the highest level we will continue approaching Nirvana, something richer, more mysterious and unifying than your own frugal sober ataraxy. The upload to New Arcadia is my Dana, my disinterested and selfless present, a gift of me and the unforgettable deceased Arete addressed to all humans. I am not exempting no one, gods of Olympus and Christian- Moslem God: ‘Let the faithful come to me and do not forbid them. Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. But even if you don’t want to follow me, rest assured that I won’t lose any sleep over it. Everything is made on a voluntary basis and with respect to the titanic principles of autonomy and free will”.

It is true that Hyperion was a bit startled by the proposition.

“I am impressed that you have addressed this proposition to me, teacher. I don’t know how to enlist it, handle or manage it …I had more short-termed issues in my mind …”

“ha, ha, me titanic friend or friendly titan, we must finally decide if we will talk between us officially or unofficially. I know that the way of the titans is more immediate, but we, Asians, are more ceremonial. In any case, it is important that you remain calm and not to get anxious. And you will see that there would be an era when the answer in every question would be ‘do not get anxious’. At that holy moment, I am providing to your evanescent spark, emerging through the friction of a haywire firestone, with a chance for eternal illumination. Do not worry, death is always an option and who knows? Perhaps if you cross the limit, you will experience the flight of an immortal soul or the overtaxing birth-pains of a new, aimless or even evolutionary reincarnation. As a practical man, you may consider New Arcadia as an insurance policy against the eventuality that death can be definite and irrevocable. If you grow scared by the creeping end, you have the possibility to choose even in the last ultimate moment the continuation of your existence within the bearer of New Arcadia. And if you get bored by the prolongation of the hypostasis, you have always the possibility to tell me to let you die and your wish will be instantly fulfilled through a clean method and without any pain. You have a margin of forty years to decide, as long as your life expectancy lasts”.  

“Enlightened expert, I am thinking loudly. The gift that you are offering me is disproportionate and devastatingly attractive for each one’s measures. Not only, we don’t possess the appropriate nature to live such a thing, but we also don’t have the mind to elaborate and perceive it to all its extent. Even Socrates would be seduced and tempted by the scope of the proposal. Till now, the only prolongation and extension into time beyond the bow of life is reproduction, imposed on us by our biological categorical imperative.  How can we resist, how can our egoistic gene resist the perspective of existing indefinitely? Your soteriological doctrine is tangible, touchable, somatic and as such it entails enormous epistemological consequences, but in the final analysis who gives a damn about them in our utilitarian era; it is serious that it mainly inserts into the receptive susceptible ground of the new generations the world-historical mentality that death is not definitive. How will this new worldview affect the new generation? Will it cause monstrous arrogance or cynical indifference? Will the murder that we are now investigating be still a crime under the light of these developments?

      – You provide us with a forty years’ margin to decide, what a treacherous, sneaky, devious, intrusive but also redeeming, liberating thought, that is the existence of this outrageous possibility, even if one is lying on the deathbed as an ulterior therapeutic medicine before the last breath, where even a reluctant consensus of the sort “twist my rubber arm” is enough for someone to acquire the whole eternity, during which he will wonder if one did the right thing having chosen it! Who could withdraw or disengage himself from the contemplation about one’s role and position in the current universe, when this curious escape route from the Damocles’ death sword is available and pending during one’s whole life? All will become necessarily philosophers or rather -let us admit it- turn to the opposite, adopting as an easy solution, according to Occam’s most forged sharpest razor, the intrusion and the refuge into an enchanting metahuman collective, becoming the most vulgar and hedonistic materialists. Surely, Didymion- Cheiristarches, when you spread your proposition, you will have already changed the world.   Either we will be encouraged to abandon our materialistic mentality and embrace a higher spiritual sphere or on the contrary enter a time of infinite decay without boundaries or visible end. And don’t forget that your proposition is addressed to a privileged elite, who have the faculty and the opportunity of living in a planetary tax heaven. Woe betide the billions who are crowded in Earth or are tormented with swollen bunions spitting blood in the developmental planets. There is no deliverance for them, only envy and death. And I would like also to point out spontaneously something else. Your proposal constitutes the absolute bribery, the ideal justification to stop searching – what is the importance of one lousy murder in front of the general immortality’s specter? – and be consumed in the autistic question of the existence continuation of me and my family. Yes, you ‘ve made me lose pace and stagger, damn you, mellifluous   spoony, unduly sentimental, wishy-washy Eastman, but be aware that if a titan loses her/his orientation, task or purpose, then neither death nor immortality is of interest to her/him. For meaning is superior to life or survival or rather holds them together. Or to use another related expression, survival at every cost is not important, life is. So, say what you like, Didymion, extract from your match folder all your phantasmagorical promises that your sick intellect can imagine or even worse fulfill and sell freely and shamelessly your deceiving trinkets to the indigenous; the only thing I care about is that within this polished shining splendorous firmament of your oligarchy a murder was committed, I am interested in murder!”

7. CHAPTER ETA (H = AE) AERA (CHAFF)

Commander Eurybia’s log, assigned with a special magistrate task – continuation of the Cyrenean Arete’s murder deliberation

Given that α) in the world of the titans, as the reader ought to remember, the goods were not transferred or purchased, because they were common to all, but only the management of the productive components and dynamic fortunes changed hands, β) that the continuators of the biotechnological intelligence’s program were, except the deceased Arete, Didymion and Percnopterygus, γ) that after diligent and meticulous investigation it was proven that Arete had passed the administration of the program to the latter, as it was expected after all, δ) that master Hyperion has conducted in the previous chapter a very thorough and detailed inquiry of the suspect Didymion, it was assigned to me to deal with the suspect Percnopterygus, who was henceforth the other entrusted operator of the program together with Didymion. I remind both me and the negligent impetuous facetious light-minded readers that Percnopterygus was beyond the murder one of the main suspects of participation in Icaromenippus. As I approached the office of him, I couldn’t help thinking that for the first time in my career I wasn’t being watched by the benevolent and honest Theia of Venovinda, the meek A.I. of the ship, the gentle and discreet synthetist of the service, but by a gloomier and infinitely complicated dismal shadow deriving from dark gates, about which we knew very little, a brain full of helices, expanded to many cubic kilometers, without having the slightest idea, if it saw us like bugs, pestilent insects or parasites or even worse as  indifferent things, available to use and abuse. I think that a healthy paranoia would be a formidable strategy of survival under these circumstances.

Of course, nobody will be surprised by the spread but also easily inferred piece of information that Percnopterygus had made for himself a petty business for the exploitation of the biotechnological organisms’ seed, considering that on their basis whole worlds could be created, satellites or even small planets. The guy traded the profitable product of his geodesy, not only to the nearest but also the farthest planets as galactic borders and even beyond up to Andromeda or Magellanic Clouds, which in the titan dialect were called otherwise, but it doesn’t really matter. He was corrupted up to the bone marrow having a left ideology and a right pocket, being one of those who propagate the left political wing as an optimal choice into Tartaros and even lower, into fields and regions below zero, where from it can never rehabilitate and return to the surface.

So, he rose as an experienced politician from his office and greeted me with a hand- kiss, an obese heavy fifty -year- old man with a shaggy bushy beard, untamed, almost impossible to brush, comb, barber or trim, irregular, rough and zig-zagged like a feathered wing, hence his name. His kiss was too warm, too plumbing and wet and left a trace of saliva on my hand, which is the worst thing that could happen to me. It was the moment I decided that I didn’t like him at all. He conveyed the impression of intimacy, congeniality and cordiality, which was revoked by the convulsions of his mimic muscles and the related folds on his eyes’ sides, being frozen and marbled in a permanent smile, horrible like the grimace of a king’s buffoon who appears to be laughing, but in fact has unstitched cheeks.

“My fascinating lady, I assure you that the Starfleet uniform bestows even more splendor to you. Since I was very little, I could not resist women in uniforms; in any case, I can spare a few minutes for a veteran of Titanomachy, especially if she happens to possess your own bodyline and elegance”. This compliment was so ambiguous, incongruous and self- cancelling, so provisionally composed of stones, bricks and tyles thrown and pelted together that I decided to include him into the narrow circle of the murder suspects.               

 “A few minutes may not be enough, Mr. Percnopterygus, since, as you know, a murder was committed, and no matter how we are in a hurry to arrest the culprit, we foresee and predict that the interrogation is bound to be lengthy and lasting”.  

“As I have already said, it is always pleasure to assist the intrepid guardians of law and order, whose secured and indisputable position in the public service ensures them a constant and opulent pension”.

“I admit that in our line of work there is a great difference from the business sector, which is your cup of tea. If someone is a capable businessman, one sooner or later knows prosperity and success. On the contrary, in public service one is throughout the years worse for wear, being constantly underestimated and poorly treated. As a result, the only objective left to me during my last one and a half years before pension is to leave the service with the same dignity that I brought along when I joined it”.

“So many years of service, so many heroic deeds during the wars and you are only a commander? How do you explain this, esteemed matron?”

“I had a bad relationship with the queen of Greece, which is the order of precedence according to seniority list. In the original exams I had a stomach ulcer, and I wasn’t placed in a favorable position”.

“Despite your stagnation in the service though, you remained honest and integer through your whole career preserving unspent and energetic your willingness to help from every possible scaffold or breastwork. Well -done, excellent Eurybia. You should be awarded the premium of chrestomathy, morality and diligence and be placed in a museum’s vitrine for the next generation to admire you.”

As long as the interlocutor did not get a severe staggering answer, he became even more audacious.

“An equally rare museum’s exhibit would be an honest businessman. As far as the prize of chrestomathy and diligence is concerned, I have already received it long ago together with the golden Phenix, the oxymoron prize of woman manhood, and the golden raspberry award of being a sucker”.

As statistically is the case in such circumstances, the original mandatory smile retreated, even with difficulty, since the mimic muscles refused to separate from their acquired habits.  

“Acknowledged. As I have said, I can spare a few minutes… even stealthily or clandestinely to serve a Starfleet veteran but on the other hand let me not urge you to overstay our welcome, as the expression goes.”            

“Please, just say to me if you knew Arete of Cyrene and if you have killed her”, I executed an offensive gambit in the chess match.

“As far as the first question is concerned, you know the answer; regarding the second I decline to answer, as it is imbecile”.

“It is known that the production components which Arete used have been bequeathed to you and Didymion now. What are you going to do with these assets, will you endow Icaromenippus with these allowances?”

“Icaromenippus, what a sonorous word! I wonder, what does it mean? I have never heard it before, but it has a ringing sound, invigorating for the ears”. 

“Thick-haired and bearded one, listen to me very carefully. Any murder requires a motive. In the first line of my suspects stand out the two administrators of the program along with Arete, and those are Didymion and you. You are called to manage a huge inheritance, a vast dynamic fortune beyond any evaluation, capable of adding planets in the existing universe. We are talking about the very philosophical stone, the holy grail in the hands of the one possessing the spore of the planets. So, if in this office, you fail to persuade me that you don’t have any intention of helping yourself with the jar of honey spooning it out and then disappearing to virgin developing planets after having snatched the secret of terraforming in combination with the A.I., I predict that you will spend the night in the dungeon searching for coins to phone your lawyers”.  

“That is not going to happen, so don’t bother, you boasting arrogant astro-decorated individual. You know very well that with such horseshit, such manure and pile of junk, such nonsense and bullshit you are not going anywhere. You are just trying to scare me and badger me like a witness in court according to the Anglo- Saxon expression. My logographs, whom you are going to wish that I never call, will light on your ass such a fire and rekindle it at that, that you will get blisters in your precious hind, you, gleaner, hoarder, flycatcher, carper duster, peanut thief”.

“Or so you think, you, miserable, lousy, flea soup eater, alopecia- afflicted sparsely bearded buster. I am disclosing no secret if I tell you that you are suspected of being an accessory to murder. Do you think that you are a legal expert, a legis peritus? I advise you to urge your logographs to scrutinize the laws better, especially the chapter of the security department’s authorities, in the case that some people are considered a threat. You, businessmen, may consider yourself indestructible and bulletproof because of your talers, dollars, talents, drachmas and minas  that you spend, but we, the institutional factors have the ability of wrapping you in a piece of paper, imprison you within documents, like the mice are trapped  in the tomes of a dusty library being crushed by the books, where you will never escape from, no matter how much you will fret and nimble and snack like rodents in the corners of the files and the envelops.“

   Percnopterygus had assumed an unfathomable, undefined expression under the beard, difficult to construe.

“You have messed with my mind…”, he said, silenced, coughed, “Excuse me, teacher”, he said raising the index finger, “may I go to the toilette?”

“I understand that you need a recess”, I said magnanimously.  

The special scientist but common businessman was absent for a while in the interior of his office until the characteristic sound of the toilet flush was heard. He returned frowned and sullen, a condition indicating the high concentration of a wrestler before he applied to his opponent a strong demanding grip.  

“Let us assume”, he said, “that a colony deriving from an oppressive metropolis covets its independence. What means would the titanic law provide to this purpose?”

“Definitely that wouldn’t be the euphemistically called law of conquest and robbery with murder, which is the refuge of all scoundrels and scum of the earth, who have the audacity to invoke it, since violence is supposed to be the ultimate solution. Yet Pericles in ‘Epitaph’ (Funeral Oration) says ‘to be happy means to be free and to be free means to be brave. Therefore, do not take lightly the perils of war’, which means that if the injustice has become overwhelming, the free besieged ought to rise and resist.   Of course, even the war is subjected to the rule of law, forbiddance of genocide, avoiding of extermination from afar through cowardly missiles and bombs catapulted from the high. The evaporation and annihilation through ballistic disintegration machines as if one enters a gas chamber is not war, but slaughter of innocent non-combatants.  All we, the real soldiers, recall with nostalgy the close quarters battles of our ancestors, the duels as touching encounters. Of course, there is also the matter that even if you prevail and manage to confiscate or nationalize some production means, you will be sued by the hitherto owners and you will be condemned to a substantial indemnification – recompensation by the interplanetary courts let  alone that an international warrant of theft will be issued against you.”

“Well, sure all this seems to be a hard path for our hypothetical colony, doesn’t it?, Percnopterygus laughed bitterly. “Fortunately, however, the hypothetical leadership of the colony has a share and some minority rights in the companies that exploit it from a distance. So, there is also the legal way of acquisition or takeover that even the most morally rigorous titans would approve of. And our hypothetical city-state has a lot of money, a whole lot of them, because it trades with intergalactic spores, not only for the cultivation of the earth, but also for the creation of the agrarian soil itself. So much money that no one ever can ignore or compete. Imagine: wherever a businessman estimates that it suits her/him, at the goldilocks around a specific sun, one can germinate a planet! The Exploitation Company of Jupiter, which in fact finances the current administration of the station, will not extract profit at least for the next period. The excavating installations of helium 3 are expensive and decades will pass before they are amortized. We are fully capable of offering large amounts of money here and now to the company, to the directors, to the executives, to the high-rankled, to the low- ranked, to all … If the direct bribe won’t pay off, there is also the indirect way of the courts. We have the means to pay excellent logographs and give oneiric monumental battles, which will be recorded in the history of the judicial chronicles. In the end we will prevail and the legal community will be forced to recognize the rational rearrangement and new distribution of the productive means which we propose. And mind you, all responsible of the program have agreed on this, the venerable Didymion, Arete and I. That said, I take back the last sentences and adopt again the hypothetical speech: If a manager of a foundation has exactly the same purpose with the other managers and with the foundation itself, why should he/she kill the representatives of the same cause? So, no matter if I participate or not in any sort of resistance organization, the mere unity of the foundation’s purpose as a pool of assets is enough to exculpate me from any suspicion”.

“I see. So, the plan of Icaromenippus is peaceful business takeover for those willing to believe it. In such a case and if all the (wo-)men in charge of New Arcadia were so harmonically accordant and in unison about things to be done, then I should erase you from my list”.   

Percnopterygus took again a diabolic malicious ruthless mien.

“If the formulation of some hypothetical thoughts was enough to bring down the whole edifice of your incriminating evidence, that means that you bluffed, when you previously threatened me. I wish you to find the killer of Arete, whom I appreciated as a colleague and partner, but I don’t think that you have the necessary background to achieve it. It seems to me that you are nothing more than a supernatural inflationary oakum and your superior Hyperion just a swollen overfed turkey, an angry Turk, a furious Indian. And don’t be under the impression that you will be the head of station security for much longer, since every day due to your sloppiness and your good-for-nothing attitude you make more enemies”.

   “You pretend to be a smart guy, unpredictable, versatile, fickle negotiator capable of assuming many roles depending on the circumstances. You really believe that through your peaceful revolution you will free yourself from the existing ruling power, which confirms my original impression that you are an imbecile and a fool, Exapterygus. When the overthrowal that you are planning really happens, you bloody idiot, you will find in front of you again the same masters, just like a haberdasher, or a retailer or a small shop salesman who strikes for months against the monopoly of wholesale only to face again the same newspaper agent wearing a different blouse. You can do whatever revolution you like, you naïve withered and wuthered Pterodactylus, I will be always on top, because I am an expert in a platonic sense, I am a technocrat needed by both    the current and the future administration. In all human history there wasn’t, there is not, and there will never be a state without police or law enforcement mechanism, whereas the only debatable issue is legitimation and the source of policing. Therefore, we, the supervisors, will always be here, and you, the supervised, will fidget, kick and convulse like trout and salmons trying to escape you, ragtag ruffler, plucked -feathered, depilated- wing-Pterygium”.   

End of Eurybia’s report

“How can I evaluate your report, Eurybia, if not like a big hole in a basket? assessed Hyperion reading it. “Tell me to what extent we became wiser through your research? You just got into a fight with an important agent of New Arcadia and made a formidable enemy of him. As far as your so-called discovery that Icaromenippus is not a terror organization but just a fund for the acquisition of New Arcadia, that is anyone’s guess as you said yourself. The following questions are always pending like Damocles’ swords α) who else constitute Icaromenippus, since there is no reasonable doubt about Percnopterygus, β) is it possible that the station administration, especially Theano of Thuria supports covertly Icaromenippus, although her regular mission is supposedly to annihilate it and confirm the dominion of Sirius Confederation? γ) what is the exact relationship between the exploitation company of Jupiter and the association of Lemnian Earth production? δ) What all this has to do with Arete’s murder? So, you see my brunette Eurybia that your findings are a fool’s gold or rather unripe grapes as the fox of the Aesopian myth would say”.

He looked at his electronic pad.

“You should take an example from your colleague Leto who used her time creatively and wrote down an index based on the records of New Arcadia’s sensors, where the recent meetings of Arete with significant persons of the station are registered. Leto, please show your tablet to Eurybia”.

“Yes, look here partner, “HO” means home match, i.e. meetings in her home, “AW” means away match, i.e. visits in the place and the home of every time concerned, while “NT” means neutral ground, i.e. that the meetings were conducted in a bar, a restaurant, a pavilion, a dance club etc. Guide for the table’s editing was the geometrical pattern of Euclides regarding the parallel lines being intersected by a perpendicular or diagonal line creating interior, exterior corners and corners on the same side.”

Eurybia, who was enervated due to the scolding by her superior officer, but also angry with Leto who through her steady boot-licking and laying it too thick had reached also the same rank with her, although she was younger, while she herself had stagnated regarding promotions, glanced the board distrustfully and condescendingly  as if looking upon something indifferent or looking down on something inferior to her.  

Arete:                       HO                       AW                              NT

Thuria                       3                         21                               60

Mnesipemon             7                          4                                15

Pyrisporus                7                          5                                 17

Percnopterygus        25                       11                                32                   

Didymion                   0                         36                                 1

Lasthenia                    15                        0                                  125

Perictione                  62                        9                                  125

Themista                     0                          0                                   125

Diotima                       11                        0                                    23

Hipparchia                   16                       0                                      27

Torgos Tracheliotos    21                      0                                     36

Scandalomorus         6                        0                                      15

“Ok, I see it, so, what? Said Eurybia displeased, downcast and depressed”.

“It leads us to various inferences”, answered Leto. “We see for instance who Arete considered inferior or equivalent to her. To those considered inferior, employees, suppliers etc., she didn’t of course go to their home but welcomed them in hers. As equivalent or in any case important she considered those in charge of the A.I. program, the head of the exploitation company of Mega planet and the head of the Lemnian earth polypod. Given that, when we say ‘at home’, we mean inside the house, it is hard to understand why Arete received at her home 15 times the head of security inspector Lasthenia, let alone why she received 62 times Perictione opposite to Themista, whom she obviously underestimated. As far as the 125 times are concerned, when all three members of security seemed to have contact with Arete on the open, they apparently regard the common surveillance of outdoor social events. Of course, they constitute no problem, the questions are posed only regarding the home visits”.

“Yes”, said Hyperion. “We have legitimate suspicions that Perictione was lover of Arete and as such plays a central role in our case and will be meticulously examined by our microscope or else by our magnification lens. People wake up, everything counts in this case. For example, Torgos Tracheliotos seems to be her preferred merchant, since she has met him so many times, whereas she frequented less Diotima, who was rather a simple go-between and mediator between the station and the suppliers. The fifteen contacts concerning Scandalomorus should be apparently placed in the period, when Arete found out about her lethal disease and started going to church”.

“Then, the colleague should write ‘church’”, said Eurybia upset. “I would like also to point out the following: The colleague alleges that she was inspired by the geometrical shape of Euclides with the corners inside, outside and on the same side as we learnt back in school, but she doesn’t implement or respect this scheme to its full extent, because it includes also the alternate angles. That means that it is not enough to indicate that Arete met all the others somewhere on neutral ground, but she should clarify in detail where exactly the meetings took place, in a restaurant, where consequently the discussion would be more thorough, in a bar, where the encounter could also be random considering the small area of the station, in the gym, in the theater or on the field, where it bears no significance at all, but mostly and mainly she should inform us if Arete specifically met the traders and the suppliers  inside or outside the station, whereby I refer to the anchored moored ships, which also are registered and supervised completely by the sensors”.

“My friend Eurybia, brother-in-arms in Titanomachy and elsewhere, let us not compete against each other”, answered Hyperion. “What you say is right but let us not disqualify the effort of Leto; on the contrary her table is a very apt starting line for our investigation and can be further ramified in the process. The essential, primal and archetypical in a deliberation is food faith and harmonic cooperation and I am sure that all other matters can be worked out! On the contrary, discord and adoption of individual strategies guarantee that everything will go south, to kingdom’s come and beyond. We stay united, all for one and one for all, and this unity among the infinite diversions is more valuable than the most genius intellect”.

• CHAPTER THETA: (Θ= TH) THURIA

Hyperion was determined to see the interrogation of Theano of Thuria as a sort of initiation to what one called aristocracy in the past and nowadays is called elite, i.e. the oligarchy -feudalism of some people, who, even before one is aware of one’s existence   and one’s strength, but also after one acquires some elementary self-confidence, one ascertains consternate and surprised, astonished and dumfounded that they already occupy the whole universe, that they always occupied it excluding the various aspirants from any possibility of ascent, sawing any branch and smashing any step, where they could climb. Hyperion missed once in his extremely disciplined and ascetic life finding the opportunity to smoke a cigar, to eat a free exclusive delicatessen meal, to drink a quality exceptional drink, to dance a circular dance. Didn’t the veteran of the Titanic wars, who had offered so much to the ungrateful, globalized humanity, deserve to enjoy some luxury before dying?

Yes, he would enjoy today’s interrogation. Who said that the Atlantes do not have fun? Behind the frigid mask of the relentless scientist with the elevated pointy ears hid someone who had both feelings and the capability to experience them. Since on the present day he was bound to accept the confessions of New Arcadia’s governor and unlock her secrets, he decided to proceed discreetly and lightly giving to his questions the gestalt of an interview, just the one that a journalist or an anchorman takes from a celebrity. As best practice, he agreed to wait for her outside her office by the end of her working hours and to escort her home. Besides, he had the necessary professional and social status plus prestige to dare something like that.     

They took the fast tube- train together (as we say ‘test-tube baby’) to go to the suburbs of New Arcadia, a transition that would eventually give the opportunity to the governor to boast and brag about the impeccable public transport of the space station. Doring the trip, Theano of Thuria spoke strictly with serenity and authority, a voice full of metal and steel, confirming that she was a leader.

“My apartment is the quietest place of New Arcadia. There, we can talk quietly without anyone bothering us. Or interrupting us”, she added meaningfully. “If you heard me and put an implant, we would communicate automatically and from long distance, but you are very traditional and conservative, what can I do? It doesn’t matter though, the communication in person has its own merit, when it doesn’t exceed the appropriate measure and is invigorating.”

     So, they took the train of the line which served all the common mortals of the colony. “Mortals” euphemistically, if one recalls what Didymion revealed and promised. The tube- trains were a mechanical system just like the elevators of the skyscrapers or the turbo-lifts of the space- ships. The miraculous biotechnologists entertained the idea that the elevators should be also plant- and organic beings, but it seems that due to some technical difficulty that wasn’t feasible, maybe because it is incompatible to include or harmonize within a central A.I. other partial consciousnesses, without them ending up overlapping each other or developing a positive or a negative conflict of powers and jurisdiction. In any case, the tube-trains composed a particulate net of semi-cylinders within the central cylinder and connected through metro -lines all the sectors and inner points of the habitat. The trains were fast and frequent, i.e. the minister of New Arcadia’s public transport did not risk brushoff, dismissal, expulsion or “voluntary” resignation.

The whole system was ruled by its own personality which had of course very evolved tele-command facilities in the particulate stations, better called “stops”, so that we do not confuse them with the surrounding space station.  Theano of Thuria and Hyperion sat in the front railroad car, from where they could see that there was no pilot in the cockpit. The tube-train was set gently and noiselessly in motion, as one would expect from a high-tech motor -drive and both passengers began watching the landscape from the window, as time passed by. Hyperion though, who like his bosom friend Prometheus had a weakness or anyhow some sort of awkwardness towards black women, seized the opportunity to cast hidden glances to the legs of the governor under the dainty cobwebbed sarong that she wore occasionally and comfortably.

After some moments of awkward rotation of the eyes to points where they had no business looking in the first place, the car limited its vertiginous speed and stopped at a spacious train stop with neon electroluminescent panels on the roof. Approximately 500 μέτρα from the stop and after corresponding walk on paved paths they neared a rustical brick- built residence, whish instead of an external door had a metallic muscle membrane or contracted- retracted iris, installed there to remind everyone that the impression of the agrarian paradise was deceitful and that our story is placed in a very advanced future or past era.

Internally, the apartment was larger than it looked from the outside and stretched to a narrow and lengthy dimension. A hall paved with beige iridescent marbles contained an elevated moving walkway with virtual white steps cheating stereoscopically the vision, not leading to a higher post, but propagating movement on the same horizontal level. In regular intervals there were semi-circular niches with inserted statues and busts, since, as we implied, the house was supposed to combine old and new elements. A second door led the couple to a luxurious salle, where opposite to white or grey or bright the purple or scarlet dominated, since it was full of scented rosewood or Chinese ivory and ebony. The opposite side of the wall was like a gigantic screen looking at the shore of a big lagune with amphitheatrical rocks, embroidered with bays like fiords, wreathed by ferns and broad tufts, cradled in the air like sprinklers or ventilators. The whole representation caused confusion and loss of balance, as if it was kaleidoscopic and stroboscopic, making you wonder if it was real or whether an external camera filming would focus only on some disillusioning withered and wretched bushes that had nothing to do with the splendor of the impressive inside spectacle. The bottom of the lake itself was visible with semi-sunken rocks and huge, wooded, bushy, decorative coral reefs.

Hyperion was in fact consternate and baffled with the villa’s opulence.

“Your residence is very impressive. I know of course and acknowledge that a governor should enjoy some privileges compatible with her/his position, but this…, this is heaven, a joy and exultation to those who possess it and a scandal, a mote or a beam in the eye for those who know that they will never reach it”.

“Hm, if you consider this a luxury, it seems that you are doing something wrong, enviable captain, new archon of many space-triremes. Perhaps you should change profession, it is never too late for a new career”.    

“I am telling you again, respectable matron, as I have already repeated in your office, that we, military (wo-)men of Starfleet are unrepentantly untouchable; we are not seduced by any enticement suggested by those, who want to divert us from our cause and corrupt us. We have our values which make us torchbearer and we require nothing more. Money, glory and other material retainers have no meaning for us. We do not serve or assert ourselves but the cause. If our customs and institutions survive, if our civilization gets strong, that is for us a suitable compensation. Maybe the legacy of the Olympians, ‘fuck indiscreetly, be fruitful and multiply’, the Ural- Altaic recipe of bearing many children and slaughtering the opponents is effective and successful on the long run, but for us it is enough if after countless and unmemorized centuries an international globalized doctor says to the diachronic patient that he/she suffers from ‘chronic traumatic encephalopathy’ and that this terminology be common to all languages. Because civilization and beauty survive”.

Hyperion contemplated the numerous objects lined- up and exposed everywhere, many works of art, paintings, ornamental objects, masterpieces, artefacts, gracious furniture, any kind of decorative trinkets.

“What a sophisticated decoration. And what a curious thing; the last apartment that I saw before yours, i.e. the one of Arete, the crime scene, was the exact opposite, frugal and concise containing absolutely nothing”.

“Yes, it is a false impression for you physiological to think that we bio-inherent are all one and the same. Every one of us has one’s own character, habits or convictions. Simply, the telepathic link ensures us an instant, unobstructed and frank communication”.

“Frank, this is not exactly accurate. Is it not possible for someone to have special noetic discipline and barricading techniques, through which one can shield her/his thoughts from the others? At least, we, Atlantes, are taught since our childhood to protect and guard our spiritual sphere from scouting or conquering invasions and violations”.  

“Yes, but just imagine, highest Hyperion, what a constant intellectual effort and greatest investment of grey braincells is required for a continuous immuring of the thoughts, since if the shieled is retracted even for one moment, New Arcadia will read immediately the hidden contents”.

“Ok, but all you the prominent good members of the station are people with extraordinary skills, thus with an enhanced capability of shielding your thoughts, therefore, your instant deliberation, which you advertise so shamelessly, anxious to offer to the willing or unwilling humanity, it is a gift that is no gift”.

Thuria crossed her well- shaped legs trying to affect her interrogator with womanly charm.  

“Hm, eh…”, continued the unaffected haughty Hyperion, what is the point of you being bio-inherent, allegedly coordinated, if in the final analysis you can conceal your intentions from the others. Regarding the deceased, you had the most divergent agenda and setting of objectives that one could imagine. You have declared your allegiance towards the Sirius’ Confederation, which you claim to represent, while the deceased had subversive and insurrecting tendencies and wanted to raise her own flag. So, I am asking you directly. Is it possible that at some time your disagreement proved to be very taxing, your final prevailing didn’t seem to rise to the horizon, thus you decided to pick an easier and shorter road disposing of a very dangerous competitor?”

“Come on, archon, is it possible to believe that an elected governor with a previous considerable and carefully designed political career would pursue her goals through murder? Through such logic, all high-ranking ambitious citizens of New Arcadia would be considered as suspects from the motive’s point of view; in the same line of thought, the more illustrious and prominent they were, the broader margins for criminal activity they would have. Beyond that, the way in which the crime was conducted is the greatest mystery by far. The reception and holographic materialization of the culprit could be done only on the victim’s part. This means α) that the victim knew and trusted the perpetrator, β) that she approved of the materialization for some reason γ) consequently, that she was in a hurry or perhaps wanted to keep the encounter secret. As far as I am concerned, he had the opportunity to meet me everywhere, in all parts of the station, she had visited me here at home, but I too had announced myself on her own, and our relationship was transparent, as the contact between two leading personalities of the station should be. I oversaw the station’s proper operation, and she was the designer of the biological spore from which New Arcadia sprouted in space. Our discussions were limited to the subject- matters of our corresponding jurisdictions, for instance fueling the biological substrate of the personality through asteroids or other space rocks for nourishment and digestion, problems reported by the denizens regarding the use of the polypod etc. Everything was brought into light; no confidentiality was needed”.

“I often think that the presentation of the murder as crushing the head with an obtuse object is only an art direction to the sole purpose of rendering it entirely unexplained, so that through the process of elimination the possible perpetrators are exculpated or not even approached. E.g., a retardant slow -acting poison could have been administered to her either during some private visit or public appearance and the result was later hushed up by the smashing of the head or perhaps the fatal materialization originated exactly from the effect of a previously administered having paralyzed her wits”.

“O, what a fruitful imagination, what a fascinating dream and daydreaming is that, magnificent Oneiros?

“Cut the crap, I am right. Can I check if the sensors of the surrounding personality have scanned somewhere a poisonous substance?”

“This is very unlikely, especially after the passage of time, because the pertinent data were probably not held back by the station’s memory. Only if New Arcadia deliberately searched for toxic substances could this information be maintained. You know, the nature of the polypod is such that if someone touches or presses the wall twice, a notch or a cavity is produced, where all household garbage is absorbed, leftovers of food, unwashed dishes and other utensils, stained clothes, broken TV’ sets or else useless and secondhand items.  These are sucked and assimilated immediately by the polypod and replaced on demand by the replicator console, existing in every house. We are talking now about the last and unsurpassable word in the subject if garbage’s ultimate waste dump”. 

“Don’t you see what you are doing, governor? You extinguish all traces and imprints leading them up to primitive creative chaos. In this way you erase human civilization, because you equalize and steamroll any kind of molding or formation. You detest shape and you enlist all in indifferent undifferentiated mass. How can you ask me to elucidate a crime, when all evidence is systematically wiped out? Humanity’s history is based on registration and close watching of its own trail. The very word ‘tracking’ presupposes a ‘track’. You react, revoke and cancel regressively what humanity has created with toil, sweat and blood”.

“Mighty dinosaur of the Jurassic period, it is not easy for you to understand the mentality and the bio-inherent condition of existence. We are small gods creating new potent worlds, without being committed even by our own previous choices, we are in constant contact with the great transcendent colossuses, just as the space bio-technological personalities are. We do not need courts, not even administration or clerks, although we hire some of them to prevent the people’s outcry. The omnipresent and all fulfilling personality protects the constitution and the laws of our colony. She is entirely unbribable, untouchable, sober and objective; in whatever ecosystem she assumes leadership and command, she guarantees the most stable social conditions. It is time for the old planets of need and indigence to be preserved in the cupboard of history and be replaced by new intellectual planets, able to anticipate and pre-sense the needs of their population and hurry to satisfy every wish of the colonists -dwellers in advance”.

“If only the prosperity of (wo-)mankind could be ensured simply through the design of an ideal ecosystem with all comforts and amenities. The eternal political issue is who will have access to it. Furthermore, I see that you are in a mood to expand and broadcast your paranoia to the whole known universe. But since you produce colossuses why would you care for the worms? Haven’t you been taught nothing from the vast monstrous states, where until any order reaches from the headquarters to the distant provinces the emperor is already dead, and where, the more the area is increased, the more the value and the autonomy of the citizens is reduced? Or do you think that Greeks introduced small city-states for any other reason than to impart us the knowledge that the solution is every time the middle, the measure and the middle range?”

Thuria recrossed her legs to another direction, lifting simultaneously the Spanish pareo up to an unadvanced point, where the eye should explore if there is a laced underwear or an uncovered, fringy   tufty bush.

“Let us drop this fruitless political debate. You, the titans, want always to keep something for yourselves, while in fact there is nothing left for you.  Please, finally confess that your victory against the Olympians was a Pyrrhus’ one, because ultimately all people adopt their own debauchery and revelry. And in the bottom line, why should we not prefer a free and rich life instead of the boring to the death, yawning titans’ code of honor?”

Thuria continued to lift the Malaysian dress, bent her neck downward to expose the whole chest, while the temperature ascended remarkably.

“Take you as an example, distinguished warlord. What are the spoils of war, you having opposed the cloud-gatherer Zeus? You will answer that you have a wonderful hologram as a spouse, which is endued with an ultramodern parallel data processing; if you cut her to pieces, decades or even thousands of small Theias will arise, where any of them, as microscopic as she might be, will consolidate all properties of the original according to the principle of absolute homogenization. Lucky dude! Perhaps that is the reason for your denial to install an implant. Why should you communicate with a subroutine under your feet, feel a horizontal substrate vibrating underneath, when you can possess a whole big hologram, capable of lulling you or being so little that it can fit inside your palm?”

She lowered the decollete until the tits became visible, she lifted the leg’s covering until the thigh appeared and even higher, while the governor continued her pleading irritating monolog.  

  “On the other hand, I am not the proper teacher to instruct you about lost pleasures. My office as a dignitary doesn’t allow me to feel intimate with a resident of the station, since all personnel are my subordinates and I don’t want to mix business with pleasure. Let alone that if you are bio-inherent with someone, the communication is established on a spiritual level and the body contact is neglected … But you are an exotic one, a physiological one, you are coming from very far and are going far, you are a knight of Starfleet with a shining armor… And yes, I know that Didymion suggested you the implant, but there are other ways, more conventional and traditional, to approach and penetrate New Arcadia… Instead of accepting the implant, you can plant … instead of living in an oversized spore, just as New Arcadia is, you can sow … And yes, I will not lie to you, I want a child strong like the titans …. Within such an evolved technological environment and yet I don’t take any anticontraception pill, no prevention … in that bio-inherent environment everybody talks and talks about cultivation of the mind… but cultivation has more literal meaning and I want, Hyperion, that you cultivate me… the Lemnian earth is a very hard, rough and rude skin for you … that’s why I offer you as alternative much glossy, smooth, soft meat … appropriate for farmers and hard at that with protruding ploughshare …. For cultivation, agriculture, cattle- breeding … Ah, you are also unreligious, God damn you… or else you would know what the second Sura says … that woman is a field for tilling … Come on, don’t think about it… the only thing I want is a child from a strong, sturdy, robust titan …”

“This will cause a pendency and a liability that would require putting in order … I should talk to Theia or, how she is called, Euryphaessa …», Hyperion said wavering, hesitating, uncertain. 

Theano of Thuria already rubbed her beasty breasts: 

“Calm your remorse, great Hyperion, I have no demands of you. Here in New Arcadia possessiveness, selfishness, exclusiveness or marriage fidelity bear no meaning … Your sprout that you will plant in my uterus will not aggravate you, we will put him a nice implant and he will live forever and ever … New Arcadia will rear her or him and will make you dispense with your father duties … but the main paternal duty you must perform yourself … For the first time a father secures his child forever before he even sows it … Since you hesitate to put an implant, let your implant put an implant, plant, plant in the compost and in the wet brown shrub soil, into the fertile earth … plomb the decayed tooth  … stamp and seal with wax … how it is called this big tool between your legs, has it a name? … But behold, you, worthy conqueror, never leave your wife. Do what is right, we don’t fuck with the institutions …”

My God, how weak and unworthy bastards are all men in all times in front of the temptation; it’s a good thing that the politically correct purists of the contemporary era wish to abolish and cancel them, since the sperm banks can sufficiently replace them.

“But the sensors of New Arcadia will register it, will immortalize it …”

“Don’t be afraid, I have already switched them off … There is confidentiality even in a bio-inherent establishment … don’t air your dirty linen in public, even if the linen belongs to another house … sheet of a foreign bed… the grass is greener in the other side … as Aristotle says about the worth of merchandise … five beds equal a house …. Five times what happens in any house … oooh, I feel the impending mayhem ….”

Her words along with the escorting images irritated definitely and irrevocably as a bundle of sunbeams the neurons of Hyperion, made his heart thumbing like a drum, ignited fire in his loins, elongated his penis to become a compact piston, accelerated his breath, so that it became irregular and forcible … what can we do now, can we deny nature or apologize for it?

 He tore manically her cobwebbed unsteady Malaysian sarong- that would be the day if a governor would wear a wraparound garment, then he pulled impatiently the robe of her chest, and it impressed him that after the rude withdrawal her breasts came back into an erect position persisting uncompromisingly on their perfect spherical shape. Then Hyperion – of all people- began to suck and lick one or both nipples, while his fingers slipped into her underbelly and evoked a slight sigh. Her hands wrapped around his neck, and he felt her nails thrusting and scratching. Now, the whispers began, so murmurous and sotto voce that the author of this book can no longer hear or register.

The penetration into Theano of Thuria was the definition of perfection, because she reacted frantically, intensely, unrestrainedly, limitlessly, as if there weren’t any tomorrow and   this day was the last of (wo-)mankind. They rode together the same noisy wave, as the man whiplashed mercilessly and ferociously the shaking wiggling limbs of the woman. At that point, Hyperion mobilized an experience unused since his youth, so to speak preserved through powdering oft hick salt, that now proved to be extremely helpful, since it allowed him to control the rhythm of the ramming and prolongate the palindromic movement despite the wild, pleading, pressing, hurrying or desperate cries of Theano of Thuria. Yes, yes, just now, a little more prolongation by the long one, challenging, extra time, irritation, attrition, rubbing, scratching, slipping, gliding, dragging, invasion and withdrawal, until the wagtail is wagged and shaken into a frantic, beasty, sow-like, bristled, cowlike orgasm, empathic and vicious body heat and a sky-high celebrating festive scream. Then alone, the seasoned fighter Hyperion allowed himself to quit the absolute control and to reach also the highest climax point, relish, cherish and congratulate his own self, reflected on the wide-open dilated astonished eyes of the lover, and to come with a vengeance, pour into the fitting compatible vagina his rich, stagnant for years, lagooning and shoaling, salty and peppered, nourishing and yeasty sperm within an unrepeatable, untamable, unbridled orgasm, capable of greasing whole submarines. And be sure that a lot of time passed until the relief of the ebb succeeded the wavy inundation.

Henceforth, as the prudent readers comprehend, things cannot be like they were, there is a decisive turn, an exciting, unexpected overthrow, for which one should praise the author for introducing it. The mask of the perfect titan, of the idol superior to us collapsed, and we sense now that we are entering an era without heroes, whom we could emulate being inspired by them. Another consequence is that the sensors of New Arcadia apparently registered the genital act with the unavoided result that Theano of Thuria could henceforth blackmail Hyperion. We are talking about a classic example of a completely compromised agent with a betrayed, corroded, multiply violated and exposed mission, subjected to a variety of spurious and suspicious suggestions. What can we say? The Titan became a furious Pan.

• CHAPTER IOTA: ICAROMENIPPUS

Depressed and displeased the manager of the Solar System’s Alimentation Factory (S.S.A.F.), installed in the asteroids’ zone between the Mega and the Red Planet, addressed to the electronic brain, the only companion within his vast loneliness. The luminaries of Sirius’ command had not even granted him an exclusive system of biotechnological intelligence, but in a frame of a drastically reduced budget allowed him merely to help himself and communicate through the circuits and the personality of New Arcadia.

“Arcadia, show me my mail”.

And mind you, not even the entire New Arcadia occupied herself with him, but only a sector of her. In essence, they had conceded to him merely a subroutine of the net, an infinitesimal portion of the personality’s braincells, only in a need- to- know basis regarding the complexity of each performed activity. And usually, the works demanded by New Arcadia were simple and for a simpleton, barely enough for his naked survival, with the result that the providing of production means corresponded permanently the usual routine; according to the proverb of the shepherd shouting: “wolf-wolf”, from a certain point no one equipped him with the necessary logistics and computational power, even if he needed it justifiably and urgently.            

“Correspondent, I am sending you letters written by pupils and students of Earth, addressed to you and thanking you for providing food to all solar system”. 

“I don’t give a damn, up yours, is that the reason you woke me up? Yeah, yeah, the gratitude of the children, the greatest reward, the known lullaby. To have the ability to see the child in everyone, I know that stuff, these elixirs and pep talks which are supposed to comfort the terminally ill until one delivers one’s soul. And how should I know if the Earth of the grateful ones still exists? The transmission of the message from Sirius up to here lasts fifty days, and all this is due to the saving program, hindrance and prejudice of Sirius. You, duds, surely you aren’t going to save money on my management, out of me, who nourishes the entire solar system? I am the most important man of the whole ecumene, and I should change my name and call my self CHON.  From this acronym you all eat and consume, you, hungries, wherever you are: coal, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, all food derives from these four elements, these four rhizomes! You are all comet- eaters, stardust -gourmandizers and I am the one who provides you with breakfast, lunch and supper! It is I who processes the asteroids, the meteors and gives food to Earth and its moon, Titan, Ganymede, Europe, Io, Mega planet, Red Planet, Green, Blue, whatever, in hell you should burn, you, ungrateful jackanapes! What is to become of you, if something happens to me, the great provider, your own Prometheus, the ultimate giver? You, preening poppinjays, ‘if the salt loses its saltiness, with what then the Earth be salted?’  You have found a nice sucker, here, an archetypical ultimate survivor, a lonely valorous man – after me the word will forfeit its meaning – without any support, without a woman, without comrades, without associates to do your job unprotestingly and ungrudgingly. I don’t even remember if I have a family, if at a time I was somebody, if I lived at some place like a normal person. But beyond that, beyond a selfish point of view, just imagine what could happen to you if I, the sponsor, the provider, the supplier, has had an accident, if I were to suffer from cancer or colitis or diarrhea?  What should it be, if something blocks the corridor, obstructs the operation of the heart, the circulation of blood, the proceedings of nourishment and digestion, the incessant slave work of the liver which recycles a whole bunch of pills and medicines? And surely that’s going to happen someday, because I am not getting any younger – .

-You, fuckups, you need me desperately! The titans have supposedly defeated the Olympians, so what? The opposite could also happen. And then, you would again need someone to feed you, the optimal middle, the mesotes within a range, the Golden ratio, because that is after all the democracy that you advertise, the medium size, the eternal city- state, since all the oversized figments are supernatural monsters having nothing to do with us, humans!”                  

He waited patiently for the time of justification and righteousness, just as the Christians expected the kingdom of heaven. The issue was that he wasn’t a teenager anymore. The years passed, the time of retirement got closer, and the justified promotion was not coming. He thought that all people have known the Roman apotheosis in some reality, in some parallel world, in the world where the hair of whom it may concern is glossier and shinier, one’s teeth sharper without needing a toothbrush and where one lives more years without dying earlier by some ridiculous and unforeseen accident. But how can someone understand if one crosses the reality where one has the luck of the devil, where one can turn coal into gold, where one becomes Goldfinger or king Midas?

It is simple. When you feel that you are surfing the waves, when you sense that things develop automatically for some reason, without any special effort on your behalf, when you see the abomination of the others’ desolation, then the reader should know. You see suddenly that you are carried away by a favorable and strong wind, that you ascend on a cloud, that you envisage utopia with your peripheral vision, where milk and honey flow, Lucian’s Nephelococcygia, the fat thumb of the emperor showing upwards,  you peep through the keyhole Antinea or Cleopatra and have the sensation that it is enough to stretch your hand to embrace all those pretty things. Then you comprehend that everything is written, just as the henchman is at loss, when he executes the one, whom he had previously saved, or like the drowning person understands the reason, for which he was invulnerable and unbreakable so far, but if it is all written, is it for the better or for the worse? There is also this doubt. “Fortuna gaudet illudere rebus humanis” (Chance loves to laugh at human affairs); the titans believed that fate was superior even to gods, that the mortal part is beaten, so that the imperishable soul gains self- awareness, and other rational for the holistic science and uncomprehensible for the materialistic one.

So, when you feel that you are flying in the heavens, where everybody acclaims or encourages you, saying that they know you or have heard of you, that you are renowned, that glory amasses around you without having pursued such a thing (let’s pretend at least) and becomes teeming, bristled and crowded like an exponential assembly of waterlilies in a pond or aphid on the essential reality, the actuality containing also the concept of opportunity or opportunism, the real reality, that this private little world is made exclusively for you, that the unrestrainable subjectivism -monism of the ego is the only true philosophical theory, that the time is now, as the narrator says in the adventurous TV series of thrill and agony, that the time has come for you to gather the asymmetrically rich and opulent fruits, to be transported by tycoons and art-loving businessmen, taken for a ride on helicopter to all developing planets.

One learns to appreciate the unique sensation of seeing the world through one’s own eyes, whereby, what does anyone else do? One supposes that also the others, each of them perceives the world watching its own private happening or event in the retina membrane but cannot take an oath or know for sure. Any human, any animal, even any plant, he one or the other stone, any individual or particulate molecule, together and apart, are subjects and constitute what we call philosophical Subject with a capital “S” as the one face of the coin, whereas the other one is the Object with capital “O”. The objectivity is the intersection of the private worlds, as Heraclitus has taught.

          “So,” the manager thought, “since only I can contemplate the world through my own eyes, is it possible that the other people are just objects sailing, taking a constitutional, crossing or running their incomprehensible trajectory within the boundaries of my own world? Have they consciousness, are they thinking, have they an inner side or are only images and idols of another reality, reflections and scattered albeit coherent pieces, a stain and a paintbrush fainted away on their world and rubbed off on mine?” The manager was neither in the mood to wrong them nor he was an egoist, since the others had presumably also at their disposal another world, exclusively of their own, where they could excel, be healthy and long-living, not be killed by accident, not to divorce their wives and have additional lovers too, eat breakfast in exotic five-starred hotels. For instance, in their secluded area the one who breastfeeds on the cornucopia of experiences, the master of mighty jaws and the agile whiplash, of the irritated flesh and the healthy -hyperactive scrotum, the Pharnabazus of money, would not be impeded to fulfill his wishes. The strong and the brave, the spirited and the courageous would have in their domain the unquestionable right to decompress his previous tension, empty the muscles releasing adrenaline, discharging the batteries of human vitality and reassuring himself by the conquest of many people. Was it then necessary that all these deans of the other worlds should molest and claim his own one? They should care for the decoration of their own secularization.

Recently, he felt that the wings of fame were on the verge to take and raise him sky-high, blowing him far and away both with the positive and the negative sense. A light escorting breeze appeared to push him down the road to success and thus, adding a grain of will into causality, he thought that he had started and advanced enough his activities leading to a Roman apotheosis. He had mobilized his acquaintances in Earth, Red and Mega planet, had made careful career movements, had communicated in a supposedly indirect and indifferent way with his all-around public relation poles, drafting them for that particulate purpose.  There are three types of irony, the tragic one, where the hero doesn’t know shit, the Socratic, where the hero pursues to unmask and through this procedure ameliorate the others, and the daily- trivial one, where one is sure of oneself and convinced that the universe conspires in one’s favor and that the others are just means for one’s goals. Embracing and heeding this last version, he built the statue of himself with the material of the others in his own reality, seen through his own eyes.

Sometimes of course, his optical field was tingling on pins and needles and was covered by a fleeting shadow that in the end the world he lived in was not his own, not customized especially for him, but that he was crossing the domain of others who piled up prizes in his stead, while he was worse for wear, that the auspicious predictions of the zodiacs, the horoscopes, and the catasterisms would not be fulfilled, that his luck charms and talismans would prove useless and inaffective. Forfeited, misguided and out of place were the letters of introduction, the bootlicking, the ostensible recognition of the other’s value, so that this other may forward him.   And not only that. The mere perspective that this world was not customized for him was enough to begin doubting his health and worrying that something could happen to him. He admonished himself not to stumble, not to get on the head a piece of a metallic arch or some solar collector and be incapacitated.  

 And it is true that all systems of the alimentation factory were ramshackle and on the verge of collapsing. Ramshackle like he was. It was as if the limbs and spots of his body pinched him warningly. One part preannounced that it would be subjected to cancer, another that would suffer from thrombosis, the heart threatened that it would stop beating and the blood that it would not flow. His position supposedly ensured him full insurance, medical and hospital coverage, from the moment though, that he was alone in the asteroids’ zone, his social insurance was a hollow pursuit.

Anyway, all this was not important, the significant thing was that he had managed to man a position which was the cornerstone of absolute success. From a certain viewpoint, he was the most important person of the solar system, because the alimentary pump of the asteroids was the most ambitious and influential future plan – CHON for everybody, coal, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen for all in all possible combinations and he could brandish and air it like an ax or a sickle and through his harvest terrify, blackmail, punish or reward people and populations from here to Sirius, reshaping the world. He could do many things: Sever the communication between inner and outer planets just crunching some cables or unscrewing some screws from their reception, disengaging the male from the female part. Last but not least, beyond that, he had the capability of depriving everybody of food, cutting the supply of the cargo ships with the huge cargo bays carrying wheat flour from the automatic machinery of the industrial zone. And if they dared to besiege him, in the final (non) analysis he would blow all to smithereens, ascending on a nuclear cloud of unprecedented glory! He had the opportunity to extort them decisively, so that they would declare him an emperor. Instead of all this, given that he had a sort of old-fashioned allegiance to the Confederation, a kind of darned hesitation and servile automatism, bequeathed after centuries of social orthopedics, moral education, humanitarian culture and titanic prudery, he waited for recognition and promotion! By whom, by those autistic bastards, busy only with themselves, who from the moment of their self- establishment cared for nothing else!              

So, while he waited for the final justification, he himself had become this righteousness, the reflection of heavenly kingdom, he paid attention to subsist in a daily basis eating every day three frugal meals of CHON, entrusting and confessing his odorous and tasteful impressions to the available for his use subroutine of New Arcadia., He had crafted from some cannibalized equipment a control devise of life functions and watched meticulously his daily somatic and muscular performance, lifting weights, stretching the hands dynamically up and down and executing gymnastic exercises of various Olympic sports. He wrote letters of protest sending them electronically to the responsible overseers of Earth, leaving no stone unturned and having nothing planned except that his offer would be requited and recognized; he asked for his family to be brought to him, whose faces he didn’t even remember, he urged incessantly his logograph in Athens to become active, to sue all those who underrated his contribution through silence questioning provocatively his value, he negotiated his work terms, pressed  for an new contract with the authorities of Earth and Sirius, for more satisfactory wages, a different rating of duties and payroll.

But the hands of the clock continued to pace, the big pointer never ceased to persecute the smaller, overtake it and then chase it again, each minute bringing the end of his life nearer, being subtracted wrongly and improperly from the grandeur and the luxury that he deserved to be bestowed with.

The food, instead of pleasure, had become something gross, abominable and despicable. One saw the shipments of CHON being transported to the planets of the solar system, being processed on site by the local machines of preparation and packaging, yet the alimentation factory due to financial restrictions and cost cutting had no ability to process the unmixed unwrought materials, so that the manager was forced to consume them raw and unprocessed. Fancy someone consuming coal, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen altogether and unorderly in questionable, ambiguous and gastronomically dubious proportions. The manager accused the subunit of New Arcadia, in charge of maintenance, which had not the required capacity to answer him, already overtaxed by the mail distribution coming from all celestial bodies of the solar system with one sole demand: food, food, food! Every protestation or complaint to the authorized (un-) responsible functionary aggravated his internal anxiety, every bite he swallowed and forcibly shoved to the esophagus caused nausea, perspiration, major disturbance of the diaphragm, tasteless and stagnant saliva, unappeasable coughing, swelling of the tongue, bitter taste and ageusia. With great effort he dragged himself to the toilet exuding what he had eaten in a rolling vomiting stuff. He didn’t know if he ate new ores and rocks or if the parsimonious thrifty miser factory recycled constantly the same materials to grant altruistically more components to the alimented populations, resulting that the same ingredients passed from his overstrained intestines, his liver which wouldn’t destroy itself, his cancer-afflicted pancreas, his bile- secreting organ perforated by catapulted boulders. As he discharged his bowels violently and confirmed that he hadn’t something more to exude from his troubled stomach, he subjected himself to the diagnostic control of the multiply defected factory’s installations.            

“Janitor, you are suffering from food poisoning”, opinioned the slow-motioning diagnostic device.

“Tell me something I don’t know”, answered the as janitor under-valuated manager. “The thing is what we can do about it”.

“Maybe the CHON nourishment needs a generous portion of water or else it is too dry and affects the stomach,” said the electronic brain, deficient due to budget cut. “Of course, the addition of water is not something simple, since there is intensive evaporation due to the defective sealing of the factory. I want to draw your attention to the fact that at some points of the asteroid belt there are deposits of water – albeit limited – at Ceres, Pallas, Patientia, Doris, Cybele, Eunomia, Psyche, Hera etc. So, janitor, blame the water pools lest you succeed what the Confederation of Sirius didn’t, as it shared the impoverished population unthinned milk powder causing dysentery.”

“Alas, the asteroids’ water is heavy due to dissolved materials. One should be a monstrous pig or a fairy-tale ork to drink it.”

“The dissolved materials are of course a problem”, confirmed the truncated sprout of New Arcadia. “But you, esteemed supervisor, could fix an installation of filtration and distilling of those substances”.

“Ah, I should go out again in a spacesuit to make repairs and implement additional patents on the equipment. To what end? Will the food at last stop smelling like dung or horseshit?”  

“Foreman, I can produce you with the schematics, if you want”.

“Whatever sketch you draw, from the moment that I haven’t at my disposal a super modern Talos robot or an evolved automaton of Echetlus series to command it, being forced to execute the drawing myself, I gain nothing”.

The manager washed his mouth to expel the taste of vomit. On the one hand he was disgusted with the food, on the other hand he was hungry, that is why the mere sighting of some CHON biscuits, which seemed to wink to him from the opposite table allured him.

“What do you want, you, bozo,“ he said to himself, “eat again and vomit again, like the aristocrats who tickle their uvula to throw up what they ate and continue to enjoy the gastronomic delight?   He threw the lunch box to the toilet and flushed it.

“Arcadia, instead of food, where you make a lousy job, you’d better fix pills and medicines to treat my condition. And don’t start telling me that you don’t possess enough production components, you should detach them or draft or extract them from something else. Search your files and find an antidote for food poisoning, what the hell, we are in the age of the titans, not in the Stone age!”

“In twenty minutes, vigorous janitor, I will prepare for you what you need”.

“in twenty minutes, I will be dead, you goddamned A.I., unless you invent a general panacea curing beyond the food poisoning also multiple physical complaints, hunger, loneliness, exhaustion, indignation, animosity, malice, rancor, grudge, grievance, self -pity and most of all uncontrollable anger! Because finally all vectors of passions converge and concur into anger!”

Until the subroutine of New Arcadia produces and extracts the pills, the anger of the manager went through the roof. Nevertheless, he swallowed them greedily and waited for the dubious improvement. He washed and rewashed himself, brushed the teeth, combed the grey ash- colored hair, whipped himself into shape, made himself beautiful, cleaned and tidied up to give himself motive again. Someday, at some hour, he put on the spacesuit, chanted like prayer the famous F.O.C.B. (Fuel, Oxygen, Communication, Battery), which were the basic tools of the astronaut’s uniform,  exited through the airlock to the skeleton and the bones, the external carcass of the alimentation factory, balanced on the hull through his magnetic shoes in the middle of the asteroids’ trajectory, repeated continuously at the best of cases, or else catapulted meteors arbitrarily and began sweated to oxygen- weld or assemble tubes or glue wires with a sticky doughnut and a bit saliva, trying to clean and regulate the water flow.

He gathered his tools, returned to the protected airtight environment of the factory, went to sleep or vice versa or in reversed order, while time passed without days and nights or rather with conventional sequence of light and darkness in the abyss of the asteroids. He emptied regularly his bladder every forty-five minutes after the main meal of the conventional time cycle, he consumed satisfied or not the CHON diet, he repaired as much as he could the food processor adding water, but the darned taste of terebinth and mold didn’t leave, regardless if he had gotten used to it and didn’t get sick anymore. He saw old movies on the screen, heard old vinyl discs, since he was bored watching pornos and jerking off and since his wife was a million miles away and had obviously found another way to fix her life hospitalizing others in her disputed much demanded underbelly. How the manager had reached such impasse? put the blame on sick ambition and on himself having thought in the past that this position had perspectives! One should not dare to judge him, because the weights and measures of common people didn’t apply to him. It would be possible to be judged or rather be compared only to extraordinary, not typical historical figures, exclusively to conquerors, doomsday planet eaters, titans and gods, charismatic leaders, warlords and strategists, even if they were adulterers, fratricides, sororicides, patricides, matricides – big deal!

Every conventional day that he woke up, he was astonished by the fact that he had slept in the first place, since he was afraid of being taken by Morpheus. The reason was that when his eyelids got heavy, on the one hand he entered a happy limbo surrounded by his old relatives, on the other had he felt everywhere an undefined omnipresent insecurity, that all those things were but a dream, and he dreaded the moment of awakening, where all this bliss would perish like tears in the rain! And when he finally woke up, after the first yawning and the pertinent stretch of the muscles …  

“Friend”, he said to himself, “it is time to realize that you are alone in this god- forsaken place and here you are going to die! Don’t illude yourself condescending to cheap elixirs comforting the patient until his soul parts his body, show your contempt about these patent remedies, which you as a serious individual should have overcome”. Perhaps he should return to Earth and claim his reward on site –  alas, is that the only virtue and only solidarity of the people, just to claim and demand? So, his ambition would be finally satisfied, he would not wither anymore, he would not stagnate in unrealizable hopes, he would not grow a stomach ulcer due to the cancellation of wishes and belying of expectations, perhaps he could save himself after all and avert his death. But how could he prevent losing his mind? 

And again, as he was used, he brushed his molar, premolar and canine teeth, as long as they were preserved and hadn’t got blunt yet, being a titan equal to Hyperion and Prometheus; he cut curls of useless hair behind the ears and on the neck, these audacious hairs germinating boldly where they didn’t belong, he swallowed quickly two disgusting pills of CHON and turned on New Arcadia to inform himself about the news like a scrupulous public servant. And then, he perceived something which made him understand that – alas- he was happy all along, since all are relative in life, and that “every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue” (Demosthenes).   

In the beginning, the situation predicted nothing disconcerting; some merchantmen and freighters approached to fill their cargo-bay with food.  The manager, since he had only two hands, two feet and the same brain during both the winter and the summer, had educated the receivers to act independently by having their automatic pumps ready, so that the hungries might help themselves. Usually, the cargo transfer was conducted without landing or even approaching or touchdown of the ships to the factory asteroid.  But here something happened, because from one ship an assault party jumped to the ground and scampered with leaps on the asteroid, armed to the teeth at that! Was it perhaps an honorary contingent that came to award him? Had the time come for the solar system to show gratitude? Had the beneficiaries of his good work the elementary decency and the good sense to recognize someone’s offer? The manager would give them the chance to award him a prize, to honor him with a medal or decoration. If he was treated like he was entitled, he would also reward them opulently with the many means he had at his disposal, since inside the alimentation factory   there were miracles beyond imagination, backup reserves and available stocks to feed the whole ecumene twice, invaluable treasures for those who were moral and consequent. Then, he would be also grateful, he would turn himself into Apollo provider bearing golden gifts, light and harp, distributing Eiresione, rich bread, cake, and fat ham. On the contrary, if he was treated unfairly or improperly, he was capable of hitting them hard with such a devastating striking power that even their inmost body organ would shale deeply, vibrate earth-quaked and fire-struck, their most inner heart-bud, then he would become an old witch, a maenad, a vixen, a shrew, a female gremlin, a miser and stingy Theseus of Pyanopsia, who cooks for his guests horse beans instead of meat and fish, a horned perverse being of the darkness and devour them all –   in conclusion he wasn’t someone to mess around with!                  

But they seemed to have threatening intentions themselves! The way they moved, hid and perched in the corners, the leader who turned around his thumb and counted his fingers one-two-three signaling to the troopers, there was something fishy there- have they toys in the attic these guys? They also appeared to carry some heavy weaponry with destructive firepower, as if they had just unleashed an invasion to Olympus!

The manager rubbed awkwardly his dried elbow with the corroded hollow bones of sucked marrow, which surely needed some kind of operation to be properly reordered and, and thought in a crisis of irrational panic or rather in a lucid interval of healthy self-preservation instinct to fortify the corridor with a sort of barricade to obstruct the invaders. It crossed his mind spontaneously – how smart he was – that low gravity favors the erection of barricades, since it allows the besieged to pile up without any toil dexion racks and bookshelves to fence the possible accesses of the barbarians. What did he not consider, since we all have our limitations? If it is easy is in low gravity conditions for a defender to amass obstacles, useless ballast and voluminous objects in front of a door, it is just as easy for the offenders to remove all this junk with the back of their hand or a strong kick of the leg. So, without even having the chance to flinch, the special mission squad entered his kingdom kicking and trampling, while a soldier stuck to his nose the barrel of a beasty bazooka:

“Icaromenippus, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent; everything you say can be used against you in a titanic penal court of law. You have also the right to call your logograph, if you have change. Your tools and equipment as well as the installation of the alimentation factory are confiscated until further notice and pending a thorough and meticulous investigation”.

“What is this crap?” shouted or rather roared incomprehensibly the manager. “You dare arrest me, you inglorious bastards, you scum of the earth, you scumbags, rascals, addle-pated amateurs, asinine abusers, blasted barleycorns, bumptious blithering blubber-brained bookmaking bubble-headed boobies, brutish breeds, bumbling birdbrains, braggards and bolt- buckets cackling cacophonies, clowns and cowards, cantankerous clods, cavorting cybernetics, clanking clappers, clattering crackpots, collapsing creatures, cowardly clumps, crawling cockroaches, cumbersome clumps, demurring dolts, deplorable dunderheads, digital disrespectable dunces, doddering dunderheads, evil effigies, floundering flunkies, galumphing garrulous gargoyles, ghoul gibberish gooses, hollering humps, ignominious ill- formed ignoramus, impersonal items, inanimate iron-plates, incompetent imbeciles, insensitive idiots, iron-born ingrates, irreputable ironclads, irresponsible idiots, jabbering jackanapes, juvenile junkpiles, knocked up knights, lead-lined Lotharios, loathsome lumps, lugubrious laggard and lumps, misfits and monsters,  morons and midgets, militant morons, nauseating noisemakers, negligent nonsensical non-worthy ninnies, obsolete oversized oafs, pitiable puny pipsqueaks, pompous pretentious and preening popinjays, pompous pretenders, potbellied pranksters and pumpkins, pusillanimous pinheads, quavery queasy quacks, retarded ridicules, roly-poly rowdies, scurrilous scatterbrains, sententious sleeping sloths, sickening silly sentinels, sputtering stalwart sausages, steam-hissing stators, teasing tinplated tattletales, tinkering tin-cans, tinplated tintinnabulations, treasonous tyrants, ungrateful underlings, vaporous vicious vermin, wacky wrongdoers, withering winkles, worn- out wine-dippers, worthless whelps, wretched wigglers-.

-You dare arrest me, the benefactor of humanity? Me who nourishes nations and peoples, countries and planets, who exports CHON up to Andromeda and Magellanic Clouds, whatever that last barbaric name means? Instead of provisioning me in the Prytaneum, you lead me to prison? Won’t you be ashamed when you ask me what my name is, when you recite in court all my distinctions and decorations? Be damned to kingdom’s hell and beyond! Zeus is much better than you, hail Jupiter and gods of Olympus! These do not equalize or steamroll everything in the name of your jeepers- creeping democracy! How can I compare myself, me who founded a whole city in the asteroid belt, who gives you chewed food to eat, to some outlaw or criminal? In fact, I am indifferent and impervious to your charges or the crime, for which I am held!”                                                                                                                       

“Complicity to terror organization, criminal conspiracy against the Confederation of Sirius”, said Philogene without too much ado. “Book him”, he advised the law enforcement agents.  

Aside, Hyperion was full of doubt and objections. Philogene, the elected supervisor, law-enforcer and order implementer of New Arcadia, said to him:

“What’s the rumpus, aren’t you satisfied again, Mr. Starfleet? New Arcadia revealed to us with her stochastic algorithms that he is the most probable leader of the organization ‘Icaromenippus’. He had the facility to subject the solar system to starvation and deprivation, to interrupt communication between Earth and Jupiter to mention only a few of the dreadful and harmful things that he could do.  In addition, he is called Icaromenippus himself”. 

 “Enthusiastic Philogene, I don’t mean to disturb your ease and serenity, but even a first-year student of Law and Rhetorics would say to you that all these charges are circumstantial let alone the culmination of prejudice. Icaromenippus is the convenient usual suspect, conspicuously innocent. The fact that he had great power does not mean that he would exercise it against the Confederation. What you are doing is a sort of ostracism, nothing more”.

“There, there, although we did you a favor by letting you come along to this police operation, you still do not seem impressed by our methods, pedantic titan, whose layer of reinforced concrete nothing can penetrate! When will we have the pleasure to persuade you of our autonomy and autarky?”

“Please, don’t bother. I will attend the trial of this unlucky Icaromenippus, but I never forget that I came here for another job, not for a terroristic or subversive organization but for murder! I watch closely and I am interested in your scouting methods, I assist, support and participate in law enforcement inside New Arcadia, but I am always concentrated in my specific mission”.

1. CHAPTER KAPPA (K= C) CAPITANO

Back to police headquarters Hyperion enters frowned and depressed murmuring:

“To arrest innocent people just to keep up appearances concerning their authority is unheard of. Anyway, it is out of my jurisdiction to suggest to the local authorities how they should do their job. How are things here?”

“Boss, I don’t want to alert you”, said Leto, “but another incident has happened. Pyrisporus has just disappeared”.  

“How did he disappear? Kidnapped?”

 “Boss, when we say ‘disappear’ in our high-tech age, we mean it. He disappeared suddenly as he walked in the central domed promenade of the station as if he was beamed up or down, evaporated, dematerialized, he popped out and vanished”.  

“What about the Arcadia’s sensors? Arcadia, locate Polysporus… eh sorry Pyrisporus”.

“Lord Hyperion, Pysisporus is not aboard my station”.

“It is not your station. But let’s drop semantics. Who was with him at the time of disappearance?”

“Hyperion, according to police order, in the morning hours I suspend my survaillance on the central station’s promenade for the commuters or the passing by to feel comfortably, no matter if they are inabitants or customers”.  

  “Well, that is a nice police order, which limits policing. I have observed many times and I insist: While you have constituted here a paradise of permanent meetings, constant communication and synchronic presence, in fact all participants try their best to escape from it. Either they isolate their homes or achieve waiver of surveillance in public places”.

“Hyperion, in my place -eh station- not only bio-inherent but also physiological people live, who, when they are watched, make a great fuss about individual rights”.    

“Ok, point taken, although at least from a security aspect your paradise not only is not such, since the snake has invaded, but it is a mere blank nightmare. The evidence and the exhibits are sucked by the walls in the name of tidiness and sanitary protection, whereas the famous surveillance system based on your sensors, Arcadia, is so compromised and disrupted by so many exceptions that it can provide no service at all”.

 “In any case, Philogene has already unleashed his police hound dogs on the case”.

“O yes, Philogene, that’s a fine kettle of fish. Just a moment, I will go to the next room and demand explanations, since abduction is a very serious matter to be assigned to security officers.”

He is going to the room nearby, where he finds Lasthenia sitting.

“Lasthenia, I require a full report about the disappearance of the Lemnian Earth’s president”.  

At that moment New Arcadia intervened.

“Hyperion, I ‘d appreciate if you don’t aggravate Lasthenia. One way or another, whatever exists in her memory exists in mine too and I can enlighten you”.

“You, don’t turn up like a bad penny. I want to address a living breathing person”.  

Instantly, New Arcadia turned into a beautiful girl.

“Hyperion, I am alive, I am sentient and intelligent and whatever a man can ask for…”

“New Arcadia, the man is prejudiced, do not take to heart what he says. And I don’t need your protection, I can face the distrust of the Starfleet brass hats alone’, Lasthenia hurried to help her or it.  

“Lasthenia, you were the one who expressed devaluating comments for me or to be more precise you attacked me plainly and directly, so why should I not retaliate? Question: Have you undertaken the policing of the promenade, yes or no? And mind you: when the central surveillance is switched off, you should double your efforts. It is unconceivable that someone disappeared and you, together with Philogene, whistle indifferently as if nothing happened!”

“Officer, I don’t answer to you. You are charged with the special mission of elucidating Arete’s murder, where I should point out that you have shown no tangible success. The rest do not concern you and you have no right to deal with them, because you are out of jurisdiction”. 

“Your individual, your actions, but most of all your omissions concern me indubitably, because as one of the high- ranking officials of security you are involved in or affect even through omissions the murder case, so you are enlisted in the hard core of my investigation, either you want it or not. Since you referred to the murder, I want to ask you for what reason did you visit Arete 15 times and in her home at that? From what I know, the security officers guard outside the V.I.P. residences, and not inside. What happened? And did Perictione visit her 62 times? Were you holding her hand, while she unpeeled the oranges?”

“So, now, on the pretext of the venerable Pyrisporus’ disappearance, you will conduct inquiry about Arete without a warrant? Indeed, your audacity leaves me consternate, Starfleet!  According to the postulate of nature that the wild animals stalk the tame ones by the lake, you are trying to take over all the functions of the station and usurp the power of Philogene”.

“I‘ll be damned if I give a damn for the power of Philogene. I just believe in my heart that when somebody investigates a crime, one ought to examine the whole net of relations enveloping it. You have established here a regime, where one is entirely dependent on the other, considering your instant intercommunication as the greatest achievement of human race. Where is this admirable intercommunication? Where is your marvelous telepathic connection? Unthinkable things happen in your goddamned biotechnological station, and you pretend that you have no idea. I am convinced that in such a close environment, all connect to all.  At some level, the abduction of Pyrisporus relates to the murder of Arete. So, I am asking you one more time, for what reason have you visited Arete 15 times in her apartment?”

Hyperion did not expect it, but Lasthenia remained silent!            

After some crucial minutes passed, the chief of security answered:

“Scrutinizing archon, when you delve deep enough into your investigations, you will see that only discretion and gentleness incite me not to answer to your question for the time being…”  

          “I see. You refer to the conduct of Perictione, but this is a separate distinct chapter of my investigation. For the moment though, let us deal with the easier one, which is Pyrisporus’ disappearance; in a super technological age of magicians and wizards it can have only specific causes and explanations; later, we can occupy ourselves with the intricate matters, such as the dark, unexplained murder within a frame of full sensor data registration”.  

          At that instant, Philogene entered and interrupted the discussion.

          “Lasthenia, is it possible that Pyrisporus was evaporated by a zap gun’s shot? Have we investigated that?”

          “There are no traces or residues of burning or massacring. The version of a transport beam is more likely”.  

          “Officially there was no teleportation from some part of the station to another. Let us investigate if he was beamed into a private residence with a portable transporter. Issue the following announcement immediately: Via police order, all citizens of New Arcadia, bio- inherent or physiological, are obliged to deactivate the energy shields of their houses, so that thorough scrutiny and research about the life signs of Pyrisporus can be performed.”

          The order was given followed by a detailed sensor scanning to all buildings of New Arcadia, basements, ground floors, upper floors etc. without any result. Witnesses and present folks on the promenade, the central plaza and all neighboring stores and shops were questioned thoroughly but they knew nothing more than the fact that a man ascended suddenly to the heavens. The security of the station along with the magistrate authorities were at their wit’s end.

          “Something eludes us… something is missing”, Philogene said in the next hours and days.

          “O graceful overseer, esteemed Philogene”, Lasthenia dared say just then hesitatingly, “couldn’t we file it way and be done with it, as we usually do? Let us see what the Confederation has to say, perhaps they care to send us again some special agent like Hyperion”.

          “Definitely No”, Hyperion objected, “not even think about it, there is no chance. I am sure that the disappearance of Pyrisporus relates to my case somehow, therefore I take over henceforth”. He thought for a while.

          “We are thinking two-dimensionally”, he continued “we should extend our research to the aircrafts, being presently docked in the umbilical moorings of New Arcadia. Please, tell me who and how much are they”.  

            One from Cassiopea, one from Dorado, two from Aries, five from Scorpion, one of Ophiuchus …”

          “Just a minute”, said Philogene. “All these vessels belong to sovereign planets, so that are entitled to asylum, and we have no right to enter their inside”.

          “O, I get it”, said Hyperion, ‘still another restriction, still another obstacle to the police investigation. My god, what sort of society have we created? So contradictive, so motley, so composite with such many rules cancelling each other, so that no one can make heads or tails of it. And then one dares speak about universal, interplanetary deliberation and understanding! Prometheus, my old champion, come and see the mayhem and the waste that arose from our wars. So, let’s do a stealthy darkly scanning …”

          “Venerable super officer, that is out of the question. All ships docked in the station’s anchorages have their shields raised and we cannot search in their interior.”     

          “When we reach the point to question all those conventional lies, the foolish social prejudices, that one thing or another is out of the question or is out if discussion or it is not customary etc., then we would have made an important step to escape our cursed fate. I don’t mean by that that we should cancel the rules, by which we, titans, fought under the leadership of Prometheus, but that we should show flexibility and sense for the essential within our jurisdiction. But wait a minute! Surely, the crew of these ships will necessarily drop shields even for the moment of teleportation or the descent through conventional means, i.e. from the stairs, to go shopping in the station’s market”.     

“So, now let us explain it and relate it as a whole…”, contributed Philogene, pretending that he too was following closely the thread of Ariadne and was only one step far from the truth.

“There is a hole in my basket, dear Liza, a hole”, said Hyperion ironically. “I mean that it is obvious how the abduction was performed. Someone from the promenade’s visitors asked to beam up, his/her ship lowered the shields, that someone grabbed in the blink of an eye his victim extending the transport beam to him too and bringing him to the corresponding ship. It is certain that Pyrimachus (flameproof), sorry, Polysporus (multigrain), eh damned, Pyrisporus (sowing fire) is inside one of the station’s ships”.  

“Even so, we are at an impasse”. The only solution is to give order that no ship leaves the station until I agree with the corresponding governments to issue a search warrant. Until then, as our ancestors or descendent would say, ‘if wishes were horses, the beggars would ride’ or ‘if a toady frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass’.”   

“We’d better implement the process of elimination to ascertain which is the ship that interests us. Apparently, those who kidnapped our guy must had some relationship with him. It can’t be that the children of Theseus and El Dorado – sorry, Eldor, or the swift Lanthanites from Ihcthyosaurus are responsible for the abduction, what motive could they have? It must be a space trireme connected somehow to the station, providing for him or being provided by it, gaining or somehow benefiting from his achievements, which played a certain role in Titanomachy, which in turn defined the initial conditions for modern economy and was the reason for the contemporary boost of biotechnology and the universal expansion of consciousness …”

The contributors and factors of security remained silent, maybe for a day and a night.

Next day, they came apparently shocked with their own incompetence and said through the mouth of Lasthenia:

“Shining and supersonic Hyperion, perhaps we should have informed you earlier about the following: Within the mostly frequenting ships there is also one anchored a long time ago… It is the ‘Hades Cynea’, a designation to honor the helmet of invisibility that the Cyclopes Steropes, Arges and Brontes had constructed in the past for Zeus’ account. Of course, it is known that the Cyclopes always negotiate their surrender to one or other warlord and you can’t make heads or tails of them.  They are not ‘bold beyond their strength, venturesome beyond their better judgment or sanguine in the face of danger’ like you are, but rather ‘unyoked, mindless, homeless, eager for resident constant acute war’. In any case, in the miscellaneous parallel or successive versions of reality they ally themselves with Zeus and the Hecatoncheires Cottus, Briareus and Gyges, and thus happened also in the recent war. Result: No one of them stayed alive, neither the former nor the latter. Despite the general regulations and your prime directives, you, titans, given the opportunity, can become very ruthless and relentless, although you present yourselves as wishy-washy humanists. Now, ‘Hades’ Cynea’ is commanded by the three surviving widows of the once upon a time allies, Briarevna, Steropova and Brontova”.

“And just to be clear about it, since when is this ship anchored at the station? Please, don’t tell me that it is here since before Arete’s murder and you are telling me now”.

Lasthenia and Philogene looked at each other meaningfully bit tongue- tied.

“Indeed”, Hyperion concluded easily from the entire context. “Do not worry, you, my good security officers. I do not claim that we, titans and uranides, have not sustained defeats in our history, we, the children of Tethys. A titan is allowed to fall but obliged to rise and that is a stereotype for us, a way of living. Be certain of one thing, though. Each time we do our best. So, no one is going to prevent me from conducting an inquiry by the book and according to the rules of science and art (de lege artis). So, don’t bother to trip me up or sabotage me, because you kick against the pricks. Our investigation will continue up there, which is what the medieval Greek ‘catepano or capitano’ means, over the station, where its moorings and umbilical anchorages are. The good thing is that the widows of the giants and the Hecatonchires subject to Earth’s authority, which in turn subjects to Sirius either through ‘ius sanguinis’ or through ‘ius soli’, which is in our case New Arcadia. So, please, communicate with the widows without further delay”.    

1. CHAPTER LAMDA: LASTHENIA

As Briarevna walked out if the elevator into the bridge of ‘Hades’ Cynea’ was an exhausted corpse, not only because of the multiple tasks that a captain needs to meet, even if he captains a decommissioned warship, now a ship of commercial navy, but also for other reasons that are going to be revealed later. Weren’t the dialogs with Steropova and Brontova tiresome enough? As anyone can understand, among the three women, who all had glorious and prominent husbands, no hierarchy of overseer and subordinates can exist, so Cynea was expectedly commanded by three female captains, so it was led not by a triumvir but by a triumvirago. And when they assembled together in the bridge, the spacious dining or the recreation room, either in the observation lounge or in the spacecrafts’ hangar, a true mayhem happened, shouting, yelling, tearing at each other’s hair, but sometimes also a sober conversation took place, however so lengthy that in the end all three fell exhausted and overtaxed by garrulousness, macaroni mumbling and loquacious prattling. Beyond politically correct or incorrect objections or assessments, reader, it is known that the bestiality of men makes them at least silent or taciturn, while the greater versatility of women leads the discussions to an impossible, irresistible loquacity, garrulity, idle small and empty talk, ultimately to the systematic and annihilating demolition of noetic communication.

Briarevna was a smoker and smoked incessantly at that and she was so indignant and fed up that she didn’t consider the time to be proper of dispensing with this perilous lingering habit. After a series of overtaxing talks which were smoothed only by attrition, she felt ultimately tense and tight needing the cigarettes and the cylindrical pipes more than ever. Of course, according to the second law of Morpheus (Murphy?), after the sleepiness the climatization of the bridge malfunctioned or limped, was defective and irregular, so the vital space was soon filled with dense unthinned vapors.

As if all this wasn’t enough, the radio transmitter signaled and announced to her that a delegation of station security along with Starfleet representatives would come to the ship for interrogation – that was all she needed. She expected that from the moment that the great intruder, the minions and the lieutenants of the Sirius’ Confederation, got involved, because that presaged nothing good. She was determined not to take full responsibility for such a serious matter, that is why she woke up and called immediately the two fellow captains, judging that it the time had come for them to work for their service tags, insignia, command pips, distinctive stars, galloons or ribbons, decorations and epaulets, which they had bestowed for themselves.

“Brontova, Steropova”, she said via communicator, “get your ass to the bridge. Say ‘cheese’, Starfleet is searching for you. Under different circumstances I would be worried, but if one takes in account all pertinent parameters, I don’t think that we have committed anything wrong”.

Brontova, sleepy and bleareyed, was in no mood for talking.

“Handle the matter by yourself, Briarevna, you know the reason for which I turned in early …”

Steropova, however, answered:

“Eh Bri, maybe the presence of the Starfleet members wil, help us to turn the crisis into an opportunity … in the bottom line, we are right, that cannot be disputed”.  

“When exactly will these pedantic bureaucrats come? asked the permanently crossed Brontova.

“I fear, Bro, that the time is now, this is the darkest hour. In a few minutes they will beam up here and I have no intention of facing them alone. I have been through a lot without underestimating your own previous adversities; neither Gorgo nor the sirens nor Demogorgon nor any other demonic creature would consent that ‘since I avoided the pitfalls as a child, I should fall now in the river wild’! So, you and Stepa get your ass into the transporter room, because I am not the sucker who will bell the cat”.

     ————-

In the living room if “Hades’ Cynea”:

“Insuperable leader of security Philogene, impeccable professional Lasthenia, respectable offspring of Uranus and Tethys, mighty brave investigations of the crime scene, we welcome you in the earlier warship and now… peaceful space trireme ‘Hades’ Cynea’. We stand humbly before you, since we rarely have the chance to associate with the best, so when we get this chance, we feel more than grateful”.

“Venerable, pious and high-esteemed widows, let us leave aside for a moment formalities and social etiquette”, said Hyperion with self-confidence, escorted in this occasion by Philogene, Lasthenia, along with his entire personal staff, Leto and Eurybia. “Through the process of elimination, we have reached the solid and irrevocable conclusion that Pyrisporus is in your vessel. Any effort to deny this logical deduction simply aggravates your position. So, if you wish to avoid further consequences from your inappropriate and despicable behavior, don’t bother with ramshackle structures like paper or sandy towers easily demolished, but rather confess the abduction and cooperate with us revealing the reasons for that unthinkable absurdity. And know that we, the titans, when one addresses us with pure heart, are already willing to help in a fair, square and institutional way”.       

“What are you saying… we have no idea”, the reactionary Brontova started to say. 

“We ‘ve been there, Brontova, it has no meaning … I trust the Starfleet captain that in the end he will do us justice, he seems of be a person of good faith…”, the realistic Steropova countered.  

Finally, after many questions and answers, and unessential reversals of speech, after silence and awkwardness, enervating punchlines and hiatuses, which we are omitting by applying poetic license, Briarevna said “follow me” and started initiating the protagonists into the depths of “Hades’ Cynea” going ahead together with all the other widows.  

Α tunnel of five kilometers led them through the spine of the ship reaching from prow to stern, after the followship dived with the turbo-lift to the bottom of the Moloch- ship passing ten decks per second. We are talking about incomparable military technology, since the turbo- lift was a glass cage hovering and moving within a magnetic field, which as easily ascended, so easily catapulted. In regular intervals the interior of the cage became transparent instead of opaque like the toilettes of Tokio, so that the passengers of the turbo-lift could orient themselves without a map. They passed also some woods- a peculiar thing, since these were not hydroponics-, they crossed hanging gardens with orgiastic untidy vegetation, destined to gradually festoon and then wither, since most lamps of ultraviolet radiation were broken, a thing to be expected in such a vast ship with huge side- wings, impossible to undergo a proper maintenance. They also went across appartements destined for the encampment of a thousand men that flooded during the war the lower decks of this behemoth. And now this space whale was governed and led only by the three widows, good grief!    

They moved through a low- pressure zone and all felt lighter and younger, balancing like dwarfs on a trunk instead of a bridge. The air had begun to become stale, and the space was so broad that at some points it was covered by fog, clouds and mist. Finally, they reached a gate that opened after sophisticated handling, granting access to a hall equally chaotic to the previous ones, resembling more a ship hangar than a prison. There lay Pyrisporus embracing himself and shaking out of cold.

“Chief”, he said addressing Philogene, “I praise the lord god that you found me. These lunatics have imprisoned me without me knowing why. And in the vicinity, there is a monster, a scary ghost, before which they bring me and interrogate me. They want something from me but for the love of me I cannot understand what I have never suffered such a humiliation in my whole life, I am terrified! The widows will pay for it, I’ be damned if I don’t auction this ship ana sell it to the higher bidder …”  

“Pyrisporus, you said that they confronted you with some ghost or monster …”, interrupted Hyperion.  

A considerable time ago, maybe since they decided to ascend on the station pylons to meet the Capitanos of “Hades’ Cynea”, Lasthenia had become pale and yellow like an autumn leaf. Her situation got worse since when Steropova gave in and confessed that they held Pyrisporus as a prisoner. Now she was white as a sail, just as the ghost or monster was mentioned, which was supposed to lurk somewhere within the ship.

“In such huge ships a mysterious echo is often heard from the corners, while whispering ghost voices haunt the travelers among the stars…”

“I don’t mean hallucinations and such stuff”, clarified Pyrisporus. “They have an individual, a horrible scary subject in cryogenic sleep and they wake him up in regular intervals. I am sure, security officers, that they have not included him in the passengers’ list. Force them to reveal him … what kind of monstrosities are those? This is no ship, this is a zoo, a freak circus; I demand that you arrest the widows immediately and search for the rest macabre secrets, which are hiding in this abominations’ ark…”

“Ok, take it easy, easy does it”, opinioned Hyperion. “Sacred matron Briarevna, obviously our next step would be our transition to the cryogenic chamber, where according to the allegations of your illegally incarcerated prisoner you brought him for unauthorized inquiry out of any jurisdiction. I would rather not recite how many regulations of the penal code you have violated, but the fact that you cooperate willingly with the authorities will be taken in account in the sentencing phase of the trial; furthermore, be encouraged, because the sort of the charge or the impeachment is essential for your case and that depends on me and my report about you”.

To make a long story short, the miscellaneous fellowship entered the cryogenic chambers of the starship, where the holy grail was kept, in the most dismal depths of the titanic or rather gigantic Hecatoncheires’ vessel. It was, as expected, a hall with tenths or even hundreds cryogenic chambers, half of which were of course broken and out of service.  

Reaching to the chamber of their destination – they gazed through the square opaque glass and distinguished with difficulty the countenance of a bearded man. If someone paid attention to the external readings and the instruments of the cryochamber he would register a decadence, a negligence and a progressing untidiness causing questions, as to how the unmaintained and never overhauled device could nevertheless keep the body cells in suspended animation, in “stasis”, as the space titans said in their language.

Around this pool of biological material, the temperature was so freezing that all breathed into their palms and jumped like monkeys. Pyrisporus had additional reasons to shiver, tremble and shudder.  

“Don’t say to me that you are going to warm him up and wake him up. Even a glimpse of him makes me cry jeeper- creepers and my skin get goosebumps … Even the possibility of him rising again terrifies me, it’s like the resurrection of the dead, have mercy …”

“That cannot be helped”, said Hyperion coldly and professionally, “it is essential and immensely operative for our interrogation. Mistress Briarevna, awake him”.    

“Indeed, someone’s resuscitation from so low temperatures is not a piece of cake. Please, know, archon of the titans, that every time this one is awakened, it is a technological, biomedicinal victory, but also a personal victory for me, because…yes, let me disclose it now, he is my husband, the famous Hecatoncheir Briareos. I revive him in regular intervals with preserving thrift and sparingness knowing that every time can be the last. His wounds from the Titanomachy are very severe, he is the only husband of our triumvirago that has survived, a sort of precious talisman for us all”.

“It is time to come out with the truth trusting mainly the honor of the Trismegistus Archi-titan Hyperion”, Steropova continued the revelations. “After the deadly slaughterous confrontation with the titans, the only surviving Hecatoncheir, whose wounds rotted and drowned in malodorous pus like Philoctetes, asked us to make contact to the beneficiaries of Lemnian Earth alias the regenerative branching out polypod, this revolutionary material, from which all the more space stations or even heavenly bodies, planets or comets are structured emulating the godly creation. He thought that this miraculous material could heal him replacing his tormented flesh, which after the inconceivable flood of radioactive radiation had sustained an uncurable dermal disease, consisting in development of orgiastic sprouts, splitters and extrapolations as well as climbing redundantly and ramifying despondently fibers and vines. As if the hundred hands were not enough, his body was attacked and occupied by a lot of other extensions and dermal proboscises, which made his countenance even more despicable to all those failing to see the splendor and purity of his soul. Moreover, the disease expanded to the ship itself, but that is an entirely other matter. For the time being suffices to say that the legendary Briareos contacted a representative of the here present Pyrisporus – this troubled guy- to supply himself with Lemnian Earth, vaccine his body with a graft or a twig and initiate a procedure of purification rendering him health again. But, alas, Pyrisporus deceived us and supplied us with defective implants that made our situation much worse …”                

“What are you saying”, yelled Pyrisporus in vain, “I have never met you in my whole life, representative my foot, what kind of nonsense is that, bua above all I beg you, I can’t afford to piss myself no more, do not animate this horrible monster again, this abomination of hell, this frozen nightmare, send him into the Tartaros where he belongs …”   

But the process of awakening was already initiated and could not be revoked anymore, was definitive and irrevocable. As the gears, the rotors, the cranks and the dented wheels turned around, the bio-signs board started to report and issue a medical certificate about the refrigerated one:

“A third attempt of captain Briareos’ reanimation is registered. During the interceding time since the last resuscitation the disease does not appear to be worsened. The new extensions of the fibrous polypods cover only some millimeters. Despite the grave condition of the patient, the cryo-functions of the chamber or else the functions of the cryo-chamber are still in the green zone. However, let us be prepared that sooner or later the pool is bound to be compromised …”

The bio-signs board said also many other things. After the end of the report, Briarevna ordered it to save it and warm up the brain if her husband by fifty milli-calories or milli-grades. She needed desperately to smoke a cylindrical pipe!

“Eh little Briareos, do you hear me, you better-butter man?”

Upon hearing this gentle caressing form of address, all widows rejoiced, seemed to be shocked by a collective commotion. It seems that after the death of their corresponding husbands, they had undertaken altogether the sustenance of Briareos in a joint-venture – the poor guy was lucky from this point of view!

Slowly and according to the rules of science the covering of the incubator was lifted and Briareos raised his oversized head equivalent to that of Orion. In the beginning he had an idiotic expression, sleepy, consternate and languid from the narcotic and hypnotic substances, but when he saw Pyrisporus jolted, jerked and jumped, seemed to recover and find his composure at once.

“You, again”, he roared threateningly, since he was a human mountain.

Pyrisporus, albeit in a very difficult position, being jammed into the corner, in the ropes of the ring, reacted forcefully at this point.  

“Please no, you coldest freezing one, don’t steal my punchlines, at least allow me to say ‘you, again’”.

   “You deceived me and that cannot be tolerated. No one ever dared to cheat the Hecatoncheires, because Hecatoncheires are no suckers”.  

“But I don’t know you, Mr. Frozen. Please show mercy to someone unaware and ignorant about your case. Accept that you have never seen me until those graceful ladies dragged me violently before you”.

“You cheated me through delegation. The delegate whom I associated with closed the deal on your behalf in the office of the booze -producing, distilling and distributing company ‘Greek Charioteer’ in the Red Planet. Whereas I thought that I have found a reliable stipulator for the contracting, a fidelity fiduciary partner for this transaction, so important for me …”.

At that moment, ominous and hideous for all present, he saw Lasthenia who trembled like crème caramel or a fruit jelly. And then a scene took place that no one ever would like to watch, from those which are thrilling for someone to recount, but horrible if one happens to be nearby. The whole torso of the potent, strong-limbed, sturdy stocky Briareos emerged the incubator with a hundred muscular hands to air and wuther striking all over the walls just as the Lernaean Hydra shakes here and there her dragonheads. With one of his hundred hands he snatched Lasthenia, lifted her high and brought her near his face to the degree that the stench and malodor of his questionable mouth hygiene suffocated and choked any attempt of gasped forced breath by the unlucky security officer.

“You were at the ‘Greek Charioteer’ that night, when we drank unbounded ethylic Theobroma and ended up drunk to the point of fainting out. You lulled me illegitimately into believing the allegedly miraculous properties of the seed, you sold me the seed …”

Hyperion stepped up in front as it was fitting to his high- ranking position, while Philogene searched only for a place to hide.

“Just a minute, let us all calm down, take a deep breath and count to hundred. What spore are you talking about, irritable and savage Briareos?” (That affectation with the pompous address forms started to become quite nerving!)

“About the sowed semen, the seed, i.e. the grain or kernel which contains within itself the germ of the future plants, about the grains or kernels sown, about the sperm from which a plant germinates, full of potential, full of souls, from which New Arcadia herself grew and flourished, from the sperm, whereof whole planets and planetary systems sprout!”   

“You, worn-out accessory of cloud-gatherer Zeus, overtaxed by the long-lasting refrigerating predicament, I urge you  to put down the shaking trembling tremoring wiggling fidgeting Lasthenia, so that we may pick up again our constructive dialog”.   

   Briareos sensed that he was in front of a competent and serious person and complied almost instinctively to the instructions; he posed Lasthenia gently on the floor, who due to the sudden and spasmodic urinal secretion would urgently need new pants, if she wore pants, and new skirt, if she wore skirt. 

“This lady introduced herself to me in the bar ‘Greek Charioteer’. There, we had made an acquaintance with a promising young man called Nisaetus or Nietzscheaetus, who wasn’t someone returning to his country, as the name deriving from Greek word ‘nissomai’ implies, but an erudite scholar, albeit young. Furthermore, he had written an illustrious literary work, the ‘Birth of Tragedy’, where he praised the Greeks and their vanguard defenders, the titans, as charioteers of humanity, compared to whom all the posterior achievements were doomed to fade. Now and then, one treated a snack, from time to time another bought a drink, we had reached what the barbarians call Cakir Kefi and at that point I entrusted the company things I would better have kept for myself. I told them about my disease, the ulcers, the swellings, the abscesses, the pimples, the boils, the tumors, the protuberances caused by you, titans- but I do not hold a grudge against you because they weren’t afflicted during war -. And then this very lady, whose name temporarily eludes me – but I have Nietzscheaetus as my witness- informed me about the therapeutic seed used by the Confederation for terraforming and geodesy, that it should be the panacea for any disease and any malady, and I, the gullible one, believed her! However, I certainly underestimated the creative -panspermic function of the spore’s palingenesis, which was impossible to contain in any hull, any receptacle, any conduit or etui, any somatic shape. On the one hand, it contained an insuperable physical health, an uncompleted splendor, an inconceivable effectiveness, but no finite mortal organism could sustain or endure it. So, I ended up being this abomination, a cartilage and a gristle under the sun or rather in the darkness, remaining refrigerated until my wounds deteriorate and I become unable to repay what my companion Briarevna and the other bursting sexually insatiable fornicated widows have done for me”.  

“Yes, but according to what you say, it is not Lasthenia who is to blame, but rather the collateral effects of the mighty spore that led you to this mess”.

“What are you saying? Is … Lasthenia or whatever her name is to exculpate, who sold me an untested medicine without previous control of its properties and side- effects?”

Turning to Lasthenia Hyperin said: “Lasthenia, my disappointment in you is complete. You violated your oath and confirmed the most powerful prejudice of populism dominating in modern society that the cops and the granary keepers are those who sell the hemlock, the mandrake and the other noxious narcotics. I remember and I was impressed as to how hostile you were when you welcomed me; even then I thought that you had no reason to do so, thus there should have been other reasons λόγους for you to behave like that, reasons and causes illegal, undue, remaining unfulfilled, ceased to exist, illicit or immoral.

“I was women supervisor in vice police department for fourteen years…, Lasthenia whispered guiltily. Many years I policed those without decorum…”

“That’s past splendor that make the tears of the narrator flow”, interrupted her Hyperion. “It seems that in common understanding with Arete, whom you often visited, you traded the spore, from which planets are born, sale-pitching it as an elixir of youth or balsam – cosmetic of embellishment or medicine or broad- spectrum antibiotic. How irresponsible can some people be! Who else participated in this little formless business? This must be also investigated!”                        

          “What you say, respectable titan, whose titanic brand-name is proper for baptizing cement production companies, pertain your internal affairs regarding the corruption of the riot police units, implementation and law enforcement, but do not solve the problem of mine, who has been wronged”, said the Hecatoncheir. “So, take your station’s chief of security with you and go with god, Jove or Hera and leave me here this lathed asthenic Lasthenia, so that I may demand from her my indemnity and satisfaction”.

          Upon hearing these words, Philogene and Hyperion and whoever else had got a weapon license drew automatically from their belts their blasters or rather zap guns.

          “No, vigilante justice is forbidden according to titanic law. Lasthenia will be trialed according to the current legal provisions and regulations. Moreover, all of you constituting the crew of ‘Hades’ Cynea’ are under arrest, you, paramount Hecatoncheir as well as the assisting widows for the kidnapping of the president of Lamnian Earth exploitation company Pyrisporus. You have the right to remain silent and all the pertinent tirades. Everything you say can be used against you in the Phreattys penal court of law”       

          “No, no, Briareos”, all three widows rushed upon the incubator. “It is the only thing left to us from that era, when we walked and the roads trembled in our passing, when we were spouses and wives of famous renowned husbands, and now we are taking care of him collectively”.  

          “Sorry for removing your toy”, said Philogene, encouraged by the fact that both he and Hyperion were on the same side, “but don’t worry, you will escort him to prison to take care of him there”. 

          “Allow me to object here, gentle guardians of New Arcadia and Starfleet”, answered Briareos, who in the meantime had recovered fully from deep freezing, “and mind that I have also the means to support and enforce my objection. Not only the terraforming spore didn’t cure my illness, but it worsened it with geometrical progress – Hyperion, as a mathematician equivalent to Diophantus, you know what a geometrical progress is. It is what makes one grain of wheat on the first square of Palamedes’ chess become infinite, if it is multiplied on the next squares to the point of equaling the entire wheat of all galaxies. Not only did this diabolic grain aggravate my condition, but also it expanded to all ‘Hades’ Cynea’, which in the past was a jewel rivalling ‘NAOS Venovinda’, the pride of Stafleet and turned it into a trough of pigs. ‘Hades’ Cynea’ became a gross disgusting shitbag, proper only as dogfood instead as invisibility helmet. And that is the most important thing in your life now, because there is no escape route from this conglomeration of organic tentacles”.     

          Eurybia showed signs that she wanted to participate in the discussion, instead of being a statist; after all she always believed that her virtues and qualifications were underestimated.

          “To tell the truth, I don’t think that it is so messy. With some fresh painting and shutter boxes of aluminium…”

          “You, foolish officer”, said the Hecatoncheir, “nothing is as it appears to be in our era, all is fake news and disguised illusions. What you saw until now is a hologram instead of what we are ashamed to show, instead of the unthinkable, which nobody can see and preserve a sane mind. So, behold, you unsuspected invaders, what is the real condition of ‘Hades’ Cynea’”.

          Radially and peripherally in relation to the epicenter of the thing, which in a previous life called himself Briareos, among an unnatural cold shaking the marrow of the bones and the inner nucleus of every existence, in between a natural aversion that the very countenance of the Hecatoncheir merchant captain provoked, the reason and the need of the captain’s constant deep cryogenic stasis became apparent. It was very simply the avoiding of the meld fusing disease expansion, an extreme fusion in a crucible. Yet the preservation of the Hecatoncheir inside campaign ice was not enough to stop the march of the hairy fibrous wriggling distorted microbe in the ship’s installations. The fusion undermined gradually all the systems and subjugated them to its own law of eternal bifurcation and ramification – an irrational and unrestrained occupation. First, the surrounding temperature fell many degrees, but is it possible that something so objective as the warmth be an illusion? Surely, the tramps that are found every morning frozen to death on the town squares with a bottle of Eastern – socialistic water (vodka) tightly hooked in the hands should know something of this, since they passed into the afterlife without even perceiving it, with the hallucination of warmth on their chest. Suddenly, the hall of the mausoleum, where the remainders of the Capitano rotted, seemed to grow and the lungs seemed to find themselves in a vacuum and risked exploding a little before they turned themselves into ice columns. The phrase “I became an ancient statue” acquired now its indisputable and literal meaning and that wouldn’t change, no matter how many cylindrical pipes Briarevna would smoke. So, the atmosphere, as you have already understood, reader, if you are not completely narrow-minded or slow-witted, was frozen, but that is the least of concern in this unseen and weird scenery. All surfaces, walls, floors and roofs revealed carcinoid tumors and distortions uncomprehensible to the eye. All seemed covered by sick rotten biological material, while ample pus flowed from open wounds like those of Philoctetes in Lemnos causing rivulets of excrement and wastes twisting and turning around swollen callous tubular hills. Reinvigorated and sturdy by the divine genetic spore of the departed Arete, the ship systems had become independent like uncontrolled carcinoid cells and had shaped Daedalic and festooned meanders and unprecedented spires, merciless and unconfined winding helices wriggling around distortedly and distorting wrigglingly to the degree of a felony. One should have a vivid imagination to distinguish within this inconceivable mayhem, within this mixed-up kaleidoscope and stroboscope where the cold incubator of the Hecatoncheir was. There was no escape route from the ship, and in this sense” Hades’ Cynea” was in fact an invisibility shelter.  Whatever was stored in the depths of this monstrous abomination could not be found or located! Even the most evolved sensors of the Confederation would be powerless against the chaos of the material extensions and protuberances, sprouts and extremities, spiral tentacles and detestable dermal splitters, which now composed the ship.         

          Briareos burst out laughing in a crazy sort of way.  

          “Splendorous Hyperion, if you wish to continue shining and not become an incandescent charcoal, fertilizer and slag, you’d better accept the following compromise. Get your custody along with this female bastard from Aristophanes’ Plutus, who should have already been degraded by the internal affairs, if you, law -enforcers, had a primordial shame, and get the fuck out of here or I will unleash the whiplashes and the straps of my ship to cut you in pieces. You are lucky that I allow you to save your carcasses, and you should thank the divine powers for encountering me, while I was in a good mood. And believe me, if I will never see you again, it will be too soon”.      

          Our heroes, proxies of law and order -this is neither unactual nor needless, because there wasn’t, there isn’t and there will never be a state without police; the only issue is its legitimation – after all who of the mortals is righteous if he is not afraid? (‘τις μη δεδοικώς δίκαιος πέφυκε βροτών?’) beamed to the station with permission of Briareos and looked at the space monster from afar, which had now laid off its holographic lion’s skin and showed – exhibited furthermore undisguisedly and without guilt complex its countenance as abomination of desolation and tenement of a rueful awful figure, as it distanced itself to outer space.

1. CHAPTER MI: MNESIPEMON

“Boss, let me tell you that I feel sorry for Lasthenia”, said Leto as they went together with her superior officer to conduct another inquiry escorted by Themista as police lieutenant of Philogene since the dismissal of the until recently second in command. “A whole career dumped into the garbage and for what reason? For some more money. In an age of energy sufficiency what reason did she have to undermine her own dignity for some minas or some talents more?”

“Not all people are like you, my zealous Leto. I think that Aristotle in his aretology called our attention upon the consequences of pleonexia. Unfortunately, ‘until the nature of men remains the same’, as Thucydides maintains, we shall always have such incidents. The greedy always allege that they have economic problems and refer generally to economics as science, where there is no other alternative than their own enrichment. Economy, however, cannot have unified rules valid for all, because how is it possible to compare a society, where the debtors cannot sleep if they owe money, with another, where they don’t care, where they don’t give a shit or according to the common expression wish every  concern and every obligation to hell or to the raven like the Greeks say?  Consequently, it is ethics which moves and unfolds behind the economy and the moral choices of the people as individuals and as collectives matter”.

“Do you think, boss, that Mnesipemon is such a case?”

Hyperion turned around and smiled, implying that any inference would be risky and unproved before the inquiry. Leto, however, never missed the chance to lay it too thick, when the circumstances called for it.

“Why don’t we interrogate Lasthenia for the murder of Arete? If she had committed a murder, she is likely to have committed another”. 

“I don’t think so. Arete was her accessory, since they trafficed the spore together. Furthermore, Lasthenia is a bio- inherent. If she had committed the murder, New Arcadia would have known it. And, even if I assume that it would provide Lasthenia with a cover for her general recklessness, I am sure that it wouldn’t at least conceal that”.

          “Now that you mentioned it”, said Themista, who ambitioned     to develop a spirit of initiative regarding her new position, “I think that the trust endowed by you to New Arcadia regarding Lasthenia’s innocence reiterates the matter if it is indicated for you to equip with a telepathic implant. Do you know that during the station’s function every child has been equipped and inoculated with the gen of bio-inherent symbiosis and collective -colloquial affinity already in the stadium of zygotic cells? So, the children do not need chips anymore. They are related with the other uniform members of the station already from the belly of their mother during the stage of brain development. And all decision- making is done in a voluntary basis … which means that the parents decide freely. So, the children live happily ever after without hurting, harassing or threatening one another and develop due to their collective affinity honor, honesty and trust instead of selfishness and egoism”.

          “Yes, yes, you are very generous here in New Arcadia regarding your telepathic bug. It’s a good thing that you ask me, and you don’t attempt to adapt it by force recognizing my right to choose, freedom, though, that you have deprived prematurely and definitively by your kids. So, I repeat to you that I want to keep my independence, that I want to make even nefarious thoughts, to revoke even indecent representations, to reach even foolish conclusions without being watched by the ‘big brother’. If God hadn’t given it to us, she/he must have known something, just as he/she didn’t give us immortality, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to handle or administrate it”.

          “Don’t say to me that you embrace the doctrine of Muslim- Chistian church. God has given us also pressure or anemia, vein or vascular insufficiency, diabetes and hypertension, cholesterol or renal failure, hemophilia, nanism and Mongolian idiocy. Should we tolerate all these and not cure them?”

“Themista, you have an eclectic reminiscence, irrational thought and you are not conversing properly. While my main argument was the first one regarding freedom, you dealt with the second regarding the appropriation of the implant for (wo-)man, where you thought that the opposition would be easier. You orientate yourself and jump erratically from one problem to the other, but these tricks neither thrive nor will go a long way toward influencing a master of dialectic like yours truly. So, let us focus on our research and let us visit our friend Mnesipemon, who chooses to remember the pain (meaning of the word), instead of having only a thymus gland, unconciliated ambiguity and indefinite memories like yourself”.

          At that moment the communicator of Hyperion echoed.

          “Hallo”, said our hero.  

          “Theano Thuria here”, said the governor. “Sun-bathed, suntanned, sun- fattened shiny boy Hyperion, can it be that the booking of suspects for the murder of Arere is long ago overdue? You have been in the station so long and we have not seen any progress.”

          “You are unfair, governor. I participated and helped your security to arrest Icaromenippus, and uncovered the illegal activities of Lasthenia, who acted in the underground like a snake in your bosom without you even having noticed anything”.

          “Oh, a grain of sand got blown in the desert and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, harnessed and armored insensitive titan. I am mainly concerned with the case of Arete and with respect to that you are going crabwise. The Sirius’ administration, the company of Jupiter’s exploitation, the mass media, the public opinion, all of them have grabbed me by the collar and are trying to break my neck. At least, you stubborn phallocrat, adapt this goddamned telepathic devise, so that you may cooperate smoothly with New Arcadia!”

          “Here she goes again. Well, for Pete’s sake, I have enough of you, I won’t put a telepathic connection into my head, even if you huff and puff like the wolf of the fairy-tale! I am on the verge of bursting with anger due to your obsessions and shameless oppression; this is the point, where I am going to make my last stand”.  

          “Now listen to me, you lousy itchy scabby warrior, if you make a last stand, I will make a last stand to too. Until now, I have shown you great tolerance, because you are a veteran and blah, blah, blah. I left you ample time to circle around the station and be a smart aleck, but this is the end of the line, I demand results. If in two days you fail to trace out the murder, you get the hell out of the station!”

          “That’s not going to happen, governor. I won’t let you ridicule me in the whole quadrant, I will also mobilize my acquaintances, and I will stalemate every move of you until Kingdom Come, so that your command along with your mentally disturbed A.I. are both trenched into a constant swamp and slimy quicksand! If you dare come yourself to conduct the investigation having on your shoulder the monkey of New Arcadia for suggesting and dictating actions, but until now neither you nor her know shit, despite your arrogant demeanor and your exhibition of superiority. So, I implore you, stop brandishing your paper, your ink or your inkwell to cover your illiteracy”.    

          The governor softened:

          “Come now, you, irritable, inflammable, ignitable titan, let us avoid the confrontation of our respective egos or the exhibition of power, as I know you, you certainly have a certain suspect in your mind. So, reveal him, disclose the information, so that I can pin temporarily the murder on his petto and later, when the inquiries are safely completed, either we release her/him or we let him/her go.”

          “You don’t say! You want a temporary guilty part until we find the final one!  No, Mrs. Thuria, you’d better sing those strange songs elsewhere! You should just appear on the screen and recite the well-known litany of morons, i.e. that within days the titanic prosecutors would proceed to arrests. Everybody knows that this is not the case, but the press will cut you some slacks for a few days. And indeed, optimism is justified, because my team through process of elimination narrows gradually the circle of potential suspects. And since, as it seems, your biotechnological and bio-telepathic station is corrupted up to the bone-marrow, when all your cabinet members get arrested for other causes, whoever remains would be obviously the killer of Arete. So, just wait until I pluck and depilate one by one the pinguins of your government and you will see that I won’t be late to find the culprit”.

          “You don’t scare me, you, masculine, muscular, musky man, I stay by my own admissions and wait for further developments within two workdays. Thuria out”.  

          “Energetic and industrious overseer, what happened?” asked Leto.

          “She hung up on me, so that I miss the chance to silence her with the proper argument”, said the haughty Hyperion.

          They continued steadfast to the giant caves of New Arcadia’s north dome, where the factories of the asteroids mineral wealth were sheltered, which οn the one hand fed the A.I. organism, on the other hand provided also a lot of other inert materials, being processed and turned into various useful products. Pressure machines, mechanical arms, receptions of automating piece assembly, small automatic vehicles coming and going on iron rails with active lamps flashing red or green light dominated in the sophisticated miscellaneous landscape.

          They found Mnesipemon in his office behind the classic glass wall. The manager of the government’s structural and technical exploitation of Jupiter was a genetically enhanced man of his era with conspicuous features, which would normally refer to a dynamic grasp of situations, but in his case were escorted by an obvious melancholy, a certainty that despite the ideal presuppositions something would go wrong in the end, as if he hid something which sooner or later would come to light.

          As soon as they entered, he tried to relocate awkwardly and erratically some cartons and plastic receptacles or other gadgets or heirlooms from carbon felt to make space. His office was full of cannibalized machine components and other building stones, as if someone had disassembled motors or generators without having decided what to do with those scattered materials. 

          “I rarely receive visits down here”, he apologized.

          Peering through the glass panel the impressed Hyperion stated: “Your installation, Mr. Chairman of the firm’s board, is really breathtaking”.

          “I cannot take the credit for that, Mr. Archititan, because all of this is a not a result of inventiveness but of unsparing lavish funding. The exploitation company grants rich assets but also demands amortization of its investments. You know the mentality of the Sirius’ titans; where a productive activity is present or available, it is subventioned generously and abundantly”.

          “But what are you producing here, after all?”

          “All and anything; mainly the whole mechanical equipment of New Arcadia’s habitat but not only this. We also fit out spacecrafts or distant developing planets within the catasterism-plan of the titans. We distribute batteries fueling from a wash-machine or a boiler up to an airplane, even cutlery for lunch or dinner. Just press any product code and the desired good will magically appear. The production system is automated and theoretically fully self- repairing, practically, however, my poor employees restore constantly malfunctions and damages. In fact, of course, we construct machines, which in turn piece together other machines in an endless row of demonic creativity. We produce tissues, plastic, paper as a luxury asset for those detesting electronic pads, and we have a full recycling array, even if some filings or remnants cannot be used again and are expelled from the intestines of New Arcadia”.

          “There is a rumor that you have a crucible, a cesspool, an oversized funnel that swallows whatever flies or swims in the outer space, meteors, asteroids, comets, space debris etc.”

          “That is correct. New Arcadia consumes nine hundred thousand tons of solid rock every day. And mind you, our bio-technological maid is still in a process of growing!” Mnesipemon showed to the patient visitors an image from the south pole of the space personality, where a huge cylinder looked down, a round crater wreathed with pointy thorns reminding of languorous sluggish eyelashes. It resembled a sea-anemone diving from the basement of the overlooking polypod like a pump of a fish hatchery sucking indiscreetly crabs and lobsters. Monstrous beasty pieces of ice and rocks consisting of various precious earths that made the mistake of sailing within the territorial space and the space continental shelf of the station were dragged and absorbed irreversibly from its greedy crucible. They were channeled into a sort of transparent reactor or rather an either contracting or expanding stomach membrane, where they were beaten, rubbed and smoothed into pebble-sized grains. Then, the useful mass passed through many separate tubes as well as thin pores like hairs and ended up in numerous chambers and apartments, where the processing of the materials was conducted. An even more accurate description of the procedure would be that the organic soup sustained filtration and distillation between the various overlapping layers or membranes of the biotechnological personality. Special metallic enzymes broke the replete pulp into its individual elements. The procedure of natural sources’ exploitation by the personality of New Arcadia was extremely complicated. A significant part of substantial multi-consistent minestra was turned into liquid food, through which the mitosis of the Lemnian Earth’s tissue-polypod was rendered possible. The non- organic parts, which should never be underestimated at all because they consisted in valuable substances and compounds, as well as dry roughcast, lime- mortar or bricks for every possible legitimate use were stored in appropriated hangars. The toxic waste was expelled by a steatopygous sewer, the greatest ever in the universe; we say this, because in the age of the titans the model of voluptuous and sturdy woman like a broad cargo tanker loaded with tar was much appreciated (they liked the dark- skinned chocolate nigredo swarthy blackish creoles, but that doesn’t mean that we condone the version of Black Venus).

          Hyperion was in a state of ecstasy, as he contemplated all these inconceivable achievements:   

          “So, New Arcadia is completely self- sufficient and autonomous? Is it so autarkic that it doesn’t need to import anything?”

          Mnesipemon answered as it was fitting to his rank and office:

          “Not only she is but she ought to be, because she is the first of many other biotechnological personalities, which we intend to sow across the universe. In the future, there will be Troy’s palladium or the snake-wise Cecrops or Ellops the hunter; all these future beings mad of polypod, which the Confederation of Sirius plans to plant invoking a new era of humanity’s prosperity and splendor.”

          “But surely you also export many marvelous products, since you produce so many”, Hyperion continued the interrogation of the witness and the plummeting into his thoughts leading the conversation with the skill of an orchestra director where he aimed and intended.

          “Well, it goes without saying… it results from the previous presuppositions”, answered Mnesipemon losing suddenly every enthusiasm or zeal of heroic deeds’ narration, even if it was difficult for this reluctant introverted being to feel haughtiness or arrogance; this non withstanding, the self-preservation instinct, the reservedness, the evasion started penetrate into his destroyed mood, when the ascertainment hit him like a thunder warning him that the titan had not come for a social call but for a stealthy informal clandestine inquiry.  

          The titan consulted his electronic notebook.

          “I see here that the main export product of the station among a thousand others are the organic phosphates and phosphines. What are they good for?”

          The eye of the expert was instantly illuminated by that gnostic spark, to which no expert or cognitive scientist can resist regarding a specific issue, because it gives him/her the opportunity to air her/his knowledge. He forgot that he had in front of him a Starfleet officer, who asked questions only spuriously, supposititiously. The difference of Hyperion from a luminous fount of knowledge – synthetist was that the latter provided all the conceivable information, whereas the former possessed the connections between information, the spiritual links among things, the imperceivable indications leading sooner or later to a solid obvious truth.

          “Mainly for caustic fertilizers and pesticides, herbicides, weed- killers and other plant destroying chemicals, let us do not forget that they contain copper, ammonia and sulfur compounds. Ideal for agriculture both for the scorched planet Earth, where no fallow is allowed, and the developmental planets”.     

          Hyperion looked again at the list of New Arcadia’s products already channeled into consumption or foreordained to export. 

          “Do you know what conveys me a certain feeling, you, noble minor and exploiter, invasive and pervading extractor? There are no precious metals or gemstones in your exports. I wonder, do not the asteroids chewed by New Arcadia’s sinkhole contain gold, platina or silver?”

          “Those are separated, culled and delivered upon receipt to governor Theano Thuria, as well as distributed fair and square to each planet leader, so that she/he may decorate his/her palace. This is valid for the contractors and constituents’ planets of the Confederation, while in the non- aligned planets they are purchased at a price”. 

          “Roger that. New Arcadia, tell me exactly what the exact quantity of precious metals is currently available in your stores and hangars and at the governor’s disposal.”

          “Hyperion, I stock a thousand eight hundred ninety-nine tons of silver, six hundred fifty-three tons of gold, eight hundred twenty- seven tons of platinum, two hundred seventy-eight tons of diamonds, a hundred and twelve tons of precious earths being used for communicators and mobile phones …”

          “Pause. Given that the hierarchy of the stones value is defined by their rareness, how is it possible to stock for sale or distribution more gold than platinum?”             

          At that moment, for the first time in the annals and chronicles New Arcadia shut the fuck up.

          “It can happen”, said Mnesipemon with a distinct time delay. “It depends on the composition of the meteors and…”

          “As we said before”, the scary Hyperion continued relentlessly and mercilessly, “your main export product are organic phosphines. To what precious metal is the carbon chain of those substances connected, as everyone and their mother, the whole world and his dog, even the lame Mary (Greek expression) knows?”

          “To gold ….to gold…”, answered Mnesipemon, as if he suffered from icterus and jaundice.

          “And how is this gold acquired from the organic phosphines, you, indisputable expert of ores and stones?”

          “Through rinsing… through rinsing”, he repeated ritually just as the contemporary Galatea says: ‘in Spain, in Spain’ in the musical ‘My Fair Lady’”. 

           “Do you know, Mnemonic of Pain and Sufferings, that the external surface of the transportation vehicles circulating in your station is full of gold dust, as the research of my subordinate Eurybia has showed?  “What is the matter here, you, living but not learning? There is a lot of gold around, a lot of unregistered gold”.

          At that point, Mnesipemon pressed a button and disappeared into a gaping hatch.  

          “For Pete’s sake”, said Hyperion, “such a cheap, primitive, amateurish escape! I am disappointed in this criminal. New Arcadia, can you locate where Mnesipemon is just now?”

          “Hyperion, the director of the Exploitation Company of Jupiter submerged into the channels of my digestion organs”.

          “Give me visual as to where he is!”

          “Hyperion, I am strangely receiving signal only from half cells of my bowel, as if something exists blocking and obstructing entire sections of the peptic and digestive tube, just as a woman feels the contact of the penis only in the entrance of the vagina, but not in the higher echelons or walls, unless she is a mother, whereby she develops a sensitivity also in the depth of the vagina”.

          “Hush. Shut up. New Arcadia, project me immediately which parts of your bowel do not have sensitivity. Furthermore, please, do not address me again when you speak to me, because my wife does that all the time, ‘Hyperion, Hyperion’, and that thing gets progressively on my nerves and pretty ugly at that”.

          “Hyp… sorry, Starfleet stripling and teenager, anyway- what I am saying, we agreed ‘no address forms’- here is the drawing of my intestines with the dull surface highlighted, where I don’t have sensor access”.

          The drawing showed a circular area which was like a particle accelerator!

          “New Arcadia, what material is this corridor made of, where you have no access?”

          “It is made of orichalcum”.  

          “Atlantis orichalcum or common vulgar orichalcum?”

          “Atlantis orichalcum, fiery and hepatized, as you diagnosed correctly, infallible omniscient, so not a mixture of copper and zinc alloy of gold and copper, just as the gates of your home country Atlantis are built, great offspring of Eridani!”

          “Thank you for the flowers, but I am neither impressed not influenced, because I am made of strong stuff. So, the circular corridor is made of orichalcum. Are you sure, you cannot see what is inside?”

          “I told you, mighty titan out of cement, Talos out of reinforced concrete, that there a sensor jam throughout this sketch that you are seeing on the screen”.

          “Does it mean that Mnesipemon is in the hidden hooded section of the bowel that you are showing?”

          “Logically, yes, since its trace doesn’t exist nowhere else”.

          Hyperion cogitated deeply:

          “It is a very tricky, delicate, fussy, sticky, thorny, ticklish situation. Obviously, Mnesipemon entered a particle accelerating corridor, what one calls ‘ion – cyclotron’. Here, the foreseen consequences and repercussions exceed any imagination. If it is expected to be a probable collision of particles, this will create a new universe like our own, which is bound to inflate itself and occupy our present domain from here to eternity. The question is, for what reason did Mnesipemon initiate this procedure …”

          “I never understood why he held back gold. Did he want to finance the accelerator?”, wondered Leto.  

          “Both to finance and to build it, since, as we saw, it is consisted of Atlantis orichalcum, but it is also used for the flow of the accelerator. I will tell you more underway, if I find someone to open the corridor for me. Let us see if we can open this hatch.”

          He tried to grab a handle or a notch, but the hatch after use was quasi sealed with wax, melted and coalesced with the floor and I would take hours of drilling as the opposite of oxygen -welding to create a hole.

          Later, he found a technician and ordered New Arcadia to beam them directly outside the particle accelerator and inside the energy shield which protected it hermetically. They already stood in front of a metallic muscular membrane – iris destined for maintenance and endeavored to open it with traditional means, primitive for such an evolved age, namely crowbars and axes as well as welding- cutting torches. Orichalcum was a heavy and robust metal and resisted strongly.

        “We are facing a particle collision accelerator propagating chrysonia with speed a little lower than light. All this time this huge installation was hidden, thrusted into the intestines of New Arcadia, one more reason being added and justifying my general distrust for the essential significance of this groundbreaking artefact. I am once more confirmed and reassured in my belief that absolute transparence and synchronic deliberation hide in their inmost folds the biggest secrets”.   

        “For the love of me how does this thing work, sir? Why is the installation using gold?”, asked Leto.

          “I tolerate and condescend to answer to your untimely question only within the time interval and window of opportunity provided to us by the oxygen cutting of the iris. The problem about what material the hadron accelerators use is that often the heavy nucleuses, proper for great cosmic energy collision escalating even to a Big Bang, tend to deteriorate and degrade into radioactive parts. Nature adds to the structure of the atomic nucleuses for every proton more uncharged neutron to obstruct the mutual repulsion of the charged particles. This strategy is operative up to the element of gold, which is the greatest achievement of nature regarding stability. Here, 118 neutrons are required to contain 79 protons. With 197 nuclear particles gold belongs to the heaviest metals. As it is the case in all issues, I assume that the new generations will trivialize the procedures and will turn to the cheaper uranium with a core of 238 nuclear particles, the cores of which have less chances of frontal collision and more chances of radioactive instability and reaction. But what is this stench, anyway?”

          “These are the intestines of New Arcadia, master”, answered the technician with the torch and the crowbars. “As you can understand they contain large quantities of malodorous farting gases as a result of the digestion of asteroids”.

          “Yes, while yours are fragrant and sweet-smelling”, New Arcadia couldn’t resist saying.

“Often occurs”, the experienced technician continued, “that the methane gases are trapped within the curves of the wiggling polypod corridors and in any given moment are released explosively sweeping anything up to the exit of the anus. Let us hope that this won’t happen to us, because we will be carried away and expelled violently from the bowels of New Arcadia, and there is no airlock to prevent our decompressing crowding out”.

          Hyperion and Leto coughed incessantly, their lungs were irritated and agonized up and down to extract oxygen from the suffocating poisonous gases. As if that wasn’t enough, the ground under their feet shook, wriggled, twisted constantly and stained their boots with a yellow mucus, a detestable pestilent fungus and a despicable phlegm of a spittoon; alas not only the shoes were afflicted, moreover the elevated villi of the walls splotched them periodically with a brown filthy manure and other denser or thinner distillations of excrements and sewage. The wave of the shit flooded progressively their military boots and reached much farther and higher than the ankles to the extent that the Starfleet officers and the technician of the base almost lost their equilibrium and fell to the heap up to the neck into the viscous organic broth and detestable secretive sap. What the hell, what has this Arcadia eaten? Her wastes stank to high heaven. When the level of the sewer went up to the knee of the captains and commanders, cold was also added to their torment and unexpected predicament; they felt stoned and rigid internally, but strangely enough their external tissue burned, as if it was exposed to acid, corrosive and disruptive for the skin. Slowly, the toxic components of the station pierced the thin fat of the astronauts and thrusted into their muscles and bones, so that the fire reached the diaphragm, the esophagus, even the mouth. Our heroes ended up shivering spasmodically, embracing their own body.

          “Mr. anonymous technician, Mr. inconspicuous hero of any narration, I implore you, it is time for you to achieve some result. This is the moment where in every movie or TV series a great transgression takes place, the catalytic and decisive rift in the plot, where the competent and valorous protagonist performs the great deed, so that the epos may proceed and unfold towards the next chapter and the definitive solution and catharsis. If by any chance you fail at that crucial moment, then according to an expression which our descendants will probably adopt let all perish. 

          “Just a moment, sir, if, as the word implies, impossible speeds dominate in the accelerator, and if we enter without precautions, some chrysonium may crush our head like a bullet of a fire-gun.’

          “The accelerator is out of service days ago”, intervened the technician. “I have already informed Mr. Starfleet here, half before the teleportation and half after, that’s why you didn’t hear”. Almost simultaneously, piercing a hole into the center, where the blades of the metallic muscular membrane converged, and forcing them to open automatically, he said: “Here, the ring is at your service”.

          They entered the hull of orichalcum, where the environment was completely out-worldish, as the liver-colored nuances weren’t clear like the wine-like sea of Homer, while there was an impression as if something undefined gapes, as if the zero opens to infinity and vice versa, as if the bodies of the officers were dilated  and shredded across the corridor, on the verge of turning the curve like extended colored straps of an artistic photo.

          “Leto, relax and remember your training”, incited Hyperion. “We are fans of Aristotle, we believe in objective reality, but we are also disciples of Democritus and are aware that ‘κόσμος αλλοίωσις, βίος υπόληψις’ (the world is decay, but life is a view concept). We will focus, so that the structures may appear through chaos and waste, so that the scattered elements gain meaning again and the dry land appears within the ocean”.

          When the eyes got used and bent enough curves of the corridor, treading on hard shards of beryllium and other organic or metallic residues, they suddenly found themselves in front of a hovering shining multicolored sphere, tall up to their waist and reflecting all over shimmering, glittering scintillas and flashes. It wasn’t apparent if the sphere was moving, since according to a stroboscopic impression it was immovable, or if it was irregular or compressed, so much so that the kaleidoscopic perception interfered that it was symmetrical.

          “Boss”, said Leto servilely, “the recorder shows no biological trace of Mnesipemon at no point of the corridor. It is as if he ascended to heavens.”  

          “He might have found a way to penetrate the artefact. He is undoubtedly in the sphere”.  

          Leto put her finger wondering “what is that” on the surface of the sphere to see if it retreated, just as the girl who thrusted her little finger into a fissure to maintain the cohesion of an entire hydroelectric dam. Hyperion, however, slapped it away.

          “Leto, you are an officer of the fleet, not some dumb wacko and you can’t be constantly at a loss. Don’t lay the finger, because the artefact is able to suck you in.  It is another world or even worse another Creation.”

          “A Creation within ours? That is not possible, the Creations of the universe are not overlapping, but successive. Furthermore, the Big Bang or the Big Crunch is always proceeding. If a universe were created within ours, it would occupy us, displace us, liquify us, turn us into decalcomania.”  

          “You don’t understand”, said Hyperion. “The Big Bang, Explosion or Implosion has already happened. The universe within the universe is already augmenting and inflating!”

1. CHAPTER NI: N.A.O.S. VENOVINDA  

Hyperion entered the ready room of the “N.A.O.S. Venovinda’s” captain after so much time, On the wall there was the inscription “wreath the victors with an olive branch”, while near the window and on a pedestal a miniature of the ship was resting on a crystal ball, you know the well-known frontal command disk in front of the two gondolas- nacelles, whereby all three sections are connected by pylons in relation to a cylinder beneath.      

Of course, he chose to go to the office of the retired captain instead of vice versa, because he maintained this old respect towards someone who was his superior from the beginning, but most of all had earned his respect on the battlefield.

          Prometheus pretended that he was surprised:

          “What are you doing here, hobgoblin with pointy ears?”, he said to him mockingly.

          “I looked for the active captain of N.A.O.S. Venovinda regarding a case. But it seems that I made some mistake and entered the chamber of fossils in some new-built mausoleum that didn’t exist in the years of my service.”

          “Hyperion, I am glad that we meet again and can insult each other freely! I admit that your joke was superior to mine, so you are beating me, one-zero”.

          “Respected pensioner, you know very well that the Atlantes from Eridani make no jokes. I am really looking for the captain of Venovinda. Where is he?”

          “You, cunning, godless, impious mocker, don’t you know that I was exceptionally allowed to put out the old flagship of the mothballs and the naphthalene coals and guide her to the performance of that humble errand, that humiliating for a captain milk-run in the neighborhood?”

          “Godlike Prometheus, do not forget what Epaminonda said, when the Thebe’s administration asked him to pave a road and the Thebans were astonished by the fact that a great strategist condescended to that minion job. There is no shame in work, only idleness is shame.”

          “That’s for sure. As far as our old lady is concerned”, said Prometheus kicking the floor with his heel, “she is like an immortal piece of furniture made of walnut tree, always willing to accompany us until the pit of the abyss and the roof of the firmament, even if her artillery is decommissioned!”

          “I didn’t catch how are you faring in the Centaurus estate?”

          “’Otium cum dignitate’ (leisure with dignity) as that Roman orator said, Cicero, who copied relentlessly our own wisdom, but also weariness and ennui to the death. Fishing, where I embarrass myself catching not even a fish-scale until I bore myself to unconsciousness. Ah, ah, young, enjoy the juices of life and the gold gifts of Apollo, because in old age the sweet fruit becomes bitter pill, cod-liver oil and pharmaceutical concoction and no one can swallow it anymore”.

          “Do not sulk, do not be grumpy, fiery god, titan Prometheus, as Sophocles called you. Don’t try to cheat fate in the game of cards, you are not going to deceive death. You can’t cheat and you can’t circumvent the laws of nature. You will live your designated time, and you will be happy with it. You will reach a painful compromise with time just as billions other beings have done, you will obey to the paradox commands of life as a prodigy, a honkey-tonk parade, a freak monstrosity, a travesty and a bitch, and you will continue your march uphill just like all mortals who ride against the wind bearing already the wound and the mark of death on the temples (Pindar). (Wo-) man and her/his splendor, the titan, is a tragic being, because he/she acts, carries on assignments, even accomplishes great things, while one knows that eventually will die”.

          “Woe to your conservatism, illuminate and shining one, you are a real pain in the ass! Must you always disillusion and crush-land whoever tries to slightly circumvent your committing and oppressing clauses and terms in the name of political correction and social orthopedics?”

          “Enlighten about your health. In any case, you are the one mort tortured among us during the war. At your expense, Zeus overcame any boundary of perverse satisfaction and malice. To chain you on Caucasus, so that the vultures feast on your liver! There is no designation, no epithet, no predicate or attribute for what you suffered. And yet you defeated him!”

          “Well, not exactly I, rather through foreign testicles. My entire hypostatic soul, residing in the domain of the spirit, my archetype from the heavenly space needed to mobilize to make the difference. What can you do, even so we prevailed”.  

             He got instantly serious and kept silent, because his wounds remained in the passage of time fresh and unhealed.

          “If you ask about me, I will give you the classic report of the ole ones that I had a stool today, so don’t worry. Another essential daily achievement is the circumvention of the swollen prostate and the release of creatinine and uric acid. I kept also the ruthless military maxim that should be added to the Delphic ones ‘Wake up, Wash, Shave, Scratch with a curry- comb (WWSS), which are essential for our following daily activity. Generally, I don’t feel bad, but the years of my body use are many and unfortunately the materials, from which we are made, are fragile and cheap”.  

          “It is so, laughing cheery Prometheus. I too, although we, Atlantes, have a slower metabolism and longer age-, insurance- and life- expectancy than common people, feel the toll throughout the years, the irksome laziness of the body and the progressing idiocy of the mind”.

          “Well, as a folk wisdom constates ‘now that the sea has become yoghurt, we have no spoons.’ Just as we have finally understood how life is to be handled, we are forced to bid farewell having our passport stamped.” 

           “Don’t speak so tragically, because you know a long ago how life is to be managed, yours and the others’, Enosichthon and Musagetes of titans. And you deserve really both the nicknames of Poseidon and those of Apollo, since within the hardships of life you led us with a strong charioteer’s hand, sometimes with flooding, magmatic, i.e. Dionysian explosivity, other times with stochastic – intellectual and Apollonian lucidity to the leeway harbor of peace”.

          “Please, o garrulous and trivial hypo-titan, don’t make me refer again to the foreign testicles, let us stop patting each other on the shoulders and search ways to complete our assignment”.  

          “Yes, the microcosm of Mnesipemon. It continues to grow and threaten our universe and must be teleported to the outer space”.  

          “To tell the truth, I find your report a tad exaggerated, hypersensitive Hyperion. The rate of the new microcosm diastolic dilation is very slow. Until it represents a threat, generations of scientists would have the time to study it, and it would be interesting to watch a universe, not only in its genesis, but also in its development. Yet with your report you disconcerted the scientific community, the mere care of which is henceforth to get rid of the artefact”.   

          “Yes, hygienic disposal of dangerous inflationary material, thus they characterized it. The thought and the motive of whom created it are very impressive. You can never fathom the intentions of another, who could imagine that this man, who had at his disposal the Amaltheia’s cornucopia itself and was able to construct any means of production  or consumption product, would use his components and assets for the Creation of a new world and then would hide in it, without even knowing its exact properties”.

          “Perhaps he has made previous studies, but in any case, the risk is great. It seems that his reluctance and introversion was exactly that, i.e. complete indifference for the present world and expectation of another playing the role of kingdom of heaven according to Christian tradition”.

          Yes, only that he himself made this one. It is not farfetched though, since also the bio- inherent do the same thing with their monstrous space polypods, which they create intending to merge with them after death.” 

          “We, on the other hand, venerable ex- master of the world, have neither reason nor interest to explore a new universe, ours is enough, so let us load the microcosm in the hangar of our ship and depart”.

          “Shining splendorous Hyperion, from your words I sense that you are in a mood of escorting your old captain in this easy- peasy mission”.

          “Why not? If a pensioner can make ends meet, I can also hold my own considering that I am still in active service at least. First titulary leader of home, it honors you that you don’t quit, that you give courage to us remaining and following inspiring us to peer always another rainbow and not to compromise with the viscous sticky swamp and the boggy marshy situations!”

          Instantly, they beamed the microcosm into the cargo hold, hovering within an energy net of Phorcides security. There it shone like a jewel with iridescent nuances.  

          “So, illuminating Hyperion, let us speed up the process. We are activatin the pheno-dimensional corridor, which is the only instrument that we need at the time. That is also the reason that allows one man alone to direct an entire colossus, the Co.m.my.s.s. – N.A.O.S. Venovinda”.

For those readers, who for their own unacceptable reasons have omitted to read the “Complete Titanomachy” or else the enlightening and didactic epos “Prometheus’ Catasterisms”, a work of reconnection with the mythological universe of the titans, a base of reconstruction and foundation of the current work, we swiftly reveal one of (any) Creation’s secrets: that the starry heavens, the constellations, the nebulas, the suns, the planets, comets etc., shortly the meteors, are simply a scenery aiming to inspire them to the right direction. There is no extraterrestrial life – perhaps of a different dimension – but not extraterrestrial. At this time when we speak and read, the same space occupied by our body is probably teeming from thousands or countless other beings, who are just on another phase of matter than us. 

Listen, little (wo-)man, who, no matter if you have a countenance of man or woman or in between, you gaze the floor and not the stars (Anthropos in Greek means the one who gazes up), no matter how long you search with your telescopes or sweep the skies with your super modern sensors, the only thing you are going to get will be false images, deceitful idols, which become believable through the illusion of depth. There are no distances either, this is also a lie, whereby one should consider that illusion often demands more energy to be staged that if it were a reality. Since meteors become perceivable and registered only by one of the five senses, namely the (even enhanced) eyesight, a circumstance already stressed by Aristotle, the existence of the star firmament is impossible to be proved by experiment, as the incompetent positivists would propose. The old ones proved to be right, who always distrusted the space programs and would say: Can anyone pierce the seven skies? They had perceived that maybe there wasn’t any space around Earth, but merely a crystal impenetrable dome (or many successive domes like overlapped cobwebbed veils or dense-woven membranes, that is a technical matter). Here, would Prometheus shout that whoever would dare to sail far and away into the supposed distances, would quickly become insane, would get incurably and irrevocably schizophrenic, because time and isolation distort perception completely. But beyond that, who is the one that causes the perception of distance and the illusion of celestial bodies? According to the Christians God, according to Greeks gods and titans, whereby those two solutions are not incompatible or alternative but rather supplementary and complimentary- see in that regard also the “Complete Titanomachy” or else “Prometheus’ Catasterisms”, let us not repeat ourselves! Specific clarification: The pheno-dimensional corridor within the archetypical primordial unshaped chaos is the only navigation instrument, which was described in detail in the above -mentioned work, since everything else, relativistic velocities, slower or faster than light, warp, hyperdrive, hyperlight, superluminal etc. are means of navigation, presupposing the inception and formation of space.

With a light move of the joystick, they reached the boundaries of the unshaped unformatted universe.

“Venerable pensioner, insuperable Past, Present Perfect and ‘Has-Been‘ of our lives, which is the way of the new-fangled universe’s hygienic burial, without this ending up at expense of Mnesipemon and the other inhabitants of the microcosm, who are entitled to continue their lives unhinderedly? Let us never forget our values and principles, we are titans, we live and let live”.

“I have received specific instructions in the briefing that took place in the Starfleet headquarters of the Sirius Confederation: Here, in the far edge of the universe we have the margin to wait until the evolution in the sphere is complete until the contained therein civilizations grow, thrive and decay. It is competently ascertained that time inside the microcosm flows immensely faster than ours. In only 25 weeks of laboratory scrutiny, the microcosm has passed 4 Χ 10 years to the tenth power, i.e. forty billion years, it is already older than our universe including us. So, we don’t even need to wrap it with a protective field to prevent its further inflation, because it is already in terminal stage. So, come, companion and hyper-companion, let us wait together with unmixed wine and a few mezzes the end of the micro-universe and then we catasterize it in full glory and return to base”.

So, they sat down sipping their glasses and awaiting developments: The microcosm neared already its end. In the depth of the transparent sphere there was a dark ember of an almost extinguished fire. As if the scarlet and purple stars had remained half, they wreathed a swollen inflationary internal area, in which seated a vast greedy gluttonous black hole, a mighty maw and a glorious esophagus. Over the black nucleus though there was a crescent bayonet of dazzling opalescent pale moon light creating an accretion disc larger than the shrinking and elliptic horizon of a blackhole.

“Beware, first and best of us all”, observed Hyperion. “It seems as if the blackhole is not completely black, i.e. a fountain sprinkles from it. This is contrarian to the theory that a thing like that can happen only in the early stages of a blackhole when there is enough hovering dust.”   

“Then, my friend, obviously the theory is wrong”, Prometheus said simply.

Another sip of unmixed wine or ethylic Theobroma and the plot continues.

“I almost see another fountain jutting and gushing from the opposite side of the blackhole”, said Prometheus.

“It’s the usual story”, Hyperion recapitulated, “the stars of the microcosm converge and will eventually collide, will melt and be lost or rather agglomerate and coalesce into a pulpy mass. The lumps will collapse even more until only the blackholes remain, and the entire matter is doomed to be absorbed by this lightless fire”.

So, finally – we continually say: ‘in the end’ and ‘finally’, while we continue the narration, because there is no end – the gray ellipse of the galaxy was merged into crucibles of blackholes and the matter of lands and stars had become a lake or stain of liquid oxygen in an archipelago of hydrogen. Nevertheless, the microcosm universe or the micro-universe’s world continued to grow. It was whitewashed in warping dead masses, where the frame was an uneasy dusk, a gloomy, dismal, obscure twilight. Great sets and conglomerations of mass and energy were moving towards their swansong, and the aria of the performance conclusion was already chanted. In this ruthless unconsolable cold, there was no more shelter for the preservation of life, for fragile carbon units of ugly bugs of mostly water within cellular tissue or mobile calcium grids. Maybe only the crystal form was a survival option in this ominous situation.  

       “We are dogs and apes in official dress and gala uniform, watching an opera we do not understand”, said Hyperion.  

Simultaneously, from both sides of the galactic center scintillating white lines emerged piercing the shadowy swarms of the burning suns like a stubborn reiteration of the initial fountains, which seemed to unite progressively into a Laocoon’s decorative complex. This time though they didn’t have a random despondent arbitrary shape but constituted a center surrounded by homocentric circles.

“Watch these wheel spokes or spindles within the circles”, Prometheus stressed. “It is like a system of geographic coordinates, latitudes and longitudes”. What is it, dude, is it a magnetic field or phenomenon of sort?”

“As our monotheistic descendants will say, glorious Prometheus, God knows or, as we would say, ask the gods”.

“Eh, just look, science officer, the extensions and protuberances constantly elongate.”

The whole iridescent and fluorescent formation, that railing lattice or network buzzed, throbbed and pulsed, while golden and red thunderous reflections jumped, creaked and sparked all around thriving from energy.

“We see”, Prometheus matched his friend’s description, “that the prototype, the dense-rooted latticework, which we believed wrongly as completed, expands continuously with supplemental thin hairs, insisting on consuming energy and shining haughtily despite the relentless entropy of the microcosm”.

The core of the dying galaxy emitted some dark sparks from the remaining residue and dung that at the time of its ostensible disintegration enhanced its splendor.

“The expression ‘hairs’ may be correct, but you can also say ‘root’. Something is growing there, Hyperion”.

“They are structures of order in view of the world’s end. It’s a sort of ultimate reaction to entropy, such as the human brain is”.

  “From where I stand, it seems to be life, you, pedantic doctor of many sciences. What grows is life. What else can it be? Where does it draw the necessary energy from?”

From the latticework of the sparks, which in the meantime embraced the entire ellipsis of the galaxy, new fibers climbed.  The pattern formed in front of the sooty black background of dead and dying stars, flashed incessantly a mute message.  

The veterans of Starfleet could not avert their gaze from the growing luminescence. Obviously, the dead micro- universe emitted the meaning of life, as it had comprehended it. If the key to decryption was missing, the present strictures of order could not be something else than hopes and dreams aspiring to survive. And probably also in the universe of the titans, the expected conclusion would be the same. After all, what is bound to stay behind as time goes by and the race of humans extinguishes? A bundle of handsome dreams as a bank of souls or as an ark or archive of collective consciousness. 

Would not also all improbable creatures of microcosm remaining unexpectedly at the end of time project in their minds a mythological past or an utopic future, where, according to the axiom of ouroboros, matter would coalesce again into suns, the random atoms would organize themselves into life and the tormented planets would sway again on the theatrical stage of an inconceivable drama?”

“Prometheus, the unescapable procedure has been initiated, the unavoidable spire, the inexorable circle leading to the final collapse, which will be a sort of omnipotent implosion”.

“Yes, yes, fortunately I have received instructions regarding that, so that the implosion may be controlled. We will use the very power of the microcosm to transform it into a star, into a dense neutron star”. He made some adjustments in his terminal and then looked at Hyperion conspiratorially.

“Once an expert always an expert, eternal friend”, he said. “Let’s go together”.  

Both began chanting the ritual traditional liturgy and conducting the ancestral litany of titans along with hymns and consecrations.  

“Catasterism in five, four, three, two on one, execute! And the name of the star will be Mnesipemon”.

1. CHAPTER XI: XENOS  

“Check another successful mission for the titans, dear Hyperion”, said Prometheus. “Please, make a respective entry in our already rich curriculum vitae, diligent eternal subordinate. Things are looking up and it seems that we two have a brilliant future together!” 

“Well said, favorite, appointed and planted superior. If I was not an Atlas, I would laugh, because in fact what you said is powdered with Attic salt. What else may two dinosaurs like us expect from fate? It would be hubris for us to aim still another career advancement, we, who are in contact with the initial and final God of the universe, who cancelled and demolished polytheism, who ruined the impious, disrespectful and unproved opinions, who fertilized and germinated so many Creations and attended so many Big Bangs and Big Crunches”.

“Don’t read too much into that, (wo-)man has always ambition as distrust to the future, a suspicion as doubt of the present, one is never pleased by nature. One aims always another rainbow, the opposite mountain top, a ‘plus- being’. We are never satisfied, not until some indignant god decides to shoot us in the face with a coup de grace. Imagine that we, the titans, live a hundred years in every Creation and still worry that we will never be revived and live again. Fancy, if we lived forever, from here to eternity, as if there was no death, not even as a temporary reminder of humbleness. Then, we would be wolves, wild animals rending and tearing apart”.

“Ok, you, ambitioned yuppie dreamer, let us press the button of the pheno- dimensional corridor to return to base”.

“Yes, immediately. I would merely like to cast another look on the trace of the microcosm, as the materialists call the soul, not condescending to accept it as something moving and animated, but rather as stable impact on an inert matter, so that I may decrypt with more detail its last noetic message to whom it may concern!” 

His voice drowned suddenly in his larynx, because the two eyepieces of the telescope had twisted suddenly around his windpipe and were trying to strangle him. Prometheus tore at them grabbing the bull by the horns and tried to detach them from himself, but they dug relentlessly into his throat, steel prongs closing like the claws of a trap, as jaws of a shark or as a boa constrictor. He leaped up and managed to put a distance between the console and himself, but the telescope eyepieces cut themselves mysteriously from the integrated in the terminal telescope and crawled quickly toward him, hooking around his leg like the snakes of Hera around Heracles. Prometheus kicked his own leg like a pissing dog and as the grab of the snakes loosened, he fired on them successively with his zap gun and dissolved them into their ingredients. To be exact, the tormented titan missed the second shot (“aberratio ictus”), but Hyperion stepped in to control the ricochet of the eyepieces and evaporate the second one turning it into a cloud of subatomic pieces.

“By all the gods of Olympus”, said Prometheus, “What was that again?”  

The telescope scuttled away and attacked him! What else was there to see or to hear?  

“Maybe the pheno- dimensional corridor causes distortion of reality”, said Hyperion. “Now that we have activated it to return to New Arcadia, I expect these phenomena to stop.”

“I surely hope so”. As long as we are in a warp state, I am going to make a shower with hot water instead of sonar waves to achieve a guaranteed relax condition”.     

“Greatest of titans, what happened to us is so unbelievable that I intend to meticulously study the molecular residues of the eyepieces. I consider considerable enough the possibility that we are victims of an elaborated hallucination”. 

“Well, if you must, you must”, said Prometheus Withdrawn (like ‘Unbound’). He took off his uniform and entered the shower. He let with ineffable hedonism the hot water flowing ample on his body – let the service pay extra expenses for him, he didn’t mind if it did, since he had offered so much to it! He was intensely upset and, although he didn’t know exactly the relaxation techniques of the Atlantes, he tried to emulate them, controlling his breath and making stress-relieving thoughts to feel better and to recover. In the beginning he uttered the classical motto “I am too old for this shit”, but in the end of his bath he said: “What am I saying? Should I, my own self, devalue myself? Old means robust, and since I am still sane, I can exploit my experience which is not for sale or purchase, but only for someone to acquire. The new hotshots are looking for algorithms or alphanumerical sequences as action patterns, but we, the old ones, know what calamities and adversities are and we have no epistemological need to copy others, to embrace and take to heart without judging or mediating what others have said. We are in the position of reaching our own conclusions according to the general or specific science principles and the hermeneutical rules, whatever facts or events we find in our road …”.       

Saying all this, he took a large towel to rub his body with its hairy surface, but it wrapped around him like a boa constrictor – we are sorry for using again the same comparison, but there isn’t any better. The rough cloth of the towel pressed suffocatingly over his ribs and Prometheus started once more to fight wildly and desperately for his life. Unfortunately, the long towel extended up to his thighs including them also in its lethal grip, a fact that hindered considerably his mobility. Nevertheless, he managed to exit the bathroom with short jumps ululating:

“Hyperion, help!”

With two strides Hyperion moved from the bridge to his captain, envisaging him on the floor with a purple, mauve face and thrown-out eyes, extracted from their pedestal. The towel was wrapped around him and danced with him a macabre supine lying on the back death dance.

“Hyperion, pull it out, it shatters my ribs and loins, I haven’t experienced such pain since Caucasus. The liver eating vulture is a bliss in comparison to this, this is unbearable!”    

With his Atlantic strength Hyperion could detach with great difficulty the robe of centaur Nessus from the tormented victim and saw with awe that a large quantity of the titan’s flesh had disappeared and at some points only naked bones extruded, as if he was corroded by an acid.

“By Uranus and Gaia”, said Hyperion, “can you rise my friend?”

“I sure like to believe that I ‘ve been through much worse, since I am the epitome of the retired fighter. Please, support me, friend, and take me to the bridge”.

Yet as they reached next door, the classic expected woosh did not take place to allow them access to the next chamber.

“What happened? Are we trapped here?” said the captain.

“Let us deal with the subject- matter scientifically, as we have trained. I am going to my room, which is in this section to take a data- recorder.”

“What should the data- recorder analyze? We have evaporated both the eyepieces and the towel. I don’t think that we can conclude something else from the scorched molecular trail.”

Until he finished his sentence, the winged feathered Hyperion with six-feet tall high hanging leaps went straightly to his room and came back with his portable scanner verifying the proverb that “until the reasonable one has the chance to think, the crazy dude has already traveled and returned”.

“Yes, you are right, former superior officer”, Hyperion admitted. “Just a minute, I will crack the alcove of the door open, and I will ascertain the cause of our imprisonment”.

He subtracted the external covering of the alcove and the cables appeared.

“Now, you will see, master, I will short-circuit the cables with the method that allowed us to escape so many times in the past …”.

“Don’t just look but throw away the scales from your eyes, you, keen-sighted but at the same time squinting and cross-eyed technocrat. There are creatures, plasmodia moving on the cables.   They… are tiny little men…homunculi”

“Indeed, insulting but speaking the truth hegemon, I am observing and registering microscopic marionettes, who have the ability to penetrate everywhere and operate puttering in a small place”.  

“Obviously, they had also invaded into the telescope and the towel and that is how an inanimate object becomes suddenly vivid and animated. Of course, there is also the mechanical way of an inert matter’s automatization, just as the electronic brain within a door, a refrigerator, an oven or a hearth, but here we are facing an entirely different phenomenon…”

“I don‘t understand, we just have microscopic fidgeting puppets …”

“Yes, you have already said that. Don’t you see anything peculiar in all that scenery? It isn’t the most normal among things for someone to see these hypertrophic microbes walking on fibers and cables. Alas, science – titan, being beyond the sky and looking from above, as your name indicates – is not merely observation and experiment, but mainly and primarily logic. Assume that certain facts happen: The question is: Where do they come from, who gains from them, who propagates them. We must stop thinking along traditional lanes and categories. ‘True or false’, this distinction is only for morons. We don’t care if the myths of Iliad and Odyssey are real, but it is of great interest that Homer has narrated them, that they refer to the life and timed of swift-footed Achilles, or resourceful cunning witted Odysseus or Hector, whisperer and tamer of horses…”

“As we said, they have a microscopic size to intrude anywhere, they are like weeds gone with the wind, like needle-like extensions…”

“Not properties, let us examine the essence, what kind of creatures are they? Bilogical, mechanical, photonic? By Jove, Hyperion, we have been cooperating since the dawn of time. Haven’t you learned anything from me, you, bozo?

“When I stand in front of you, a curious inferiority syndrome takes hold of me, imprudent Epimetheus!”

“Please, do not mention my brother, not even as a joke. Due to his own negligence and foolishness, I was forced to confront with the gods, to steal fire and other evolutionary tools, the greatest of which is to err or make a mistake, since he did not care to save some positive property for the people”.  

The data recorder cooed, wooed and chirped a little before reaching a conclusion.

“They are photonics, consisted of light, but they can at will or upon a foreign intervention or transmission acquire mass to interact with our material environment”.

“I suspect the perfect nightmare! Make a sensor sweep of the whole deck or rather decks of N.A.O.S. Venovinda”.  

“Aye, aye or I, I”. The agonizing sound of scanning darkly is heard, groping and snoring, reaching a climax: “The ship is flooded by those unexpected abominations of desolation. They have invaded and compromised all installations of air renovation conduits, in all life-support tubes, in the walls, the corridors, the airlocks, the sluices, and irises. They don’t all have the same size, some are bigger, even in normal dimensions, others smaller with limitless shrinkage that can reach up to microcosm or rather dive into all levels thereof; it depends on the diameter of the opening or the hole, where they are trying to fit. They have infiltrated even the space suits in the closets, where they keep a normal human size, because that is sufficient and necessary for the corresponding empty space, so we can also envisage their figure. They are creatures like us; they just need a holo- emitter or a roof image projector to exist!”

“Indeed, incrementing- decrementing in size holograms, able to adapt and fit in any void, thrust in any notch and niche and occupy all things. Sorry, that I am going to create an awkward situation here, but… are they like your spouse?”

“Yes”, said Hyperion swallowing lump stuck in his throat. “Depending on the operation of the image projector, which always connects to the transporter of teleportation, any hologram has the opportunity either to remain photonic or to materialize; in the latter case, things naturally become more complicated”.

“Surely, a vast computational energy power is required to transform the entire NAOS Venovinda into a holographic projection room. But is this the case here? Has such transformation been performed on the ceiling of the corridor, where we currently are?”

“The recorder says no. That implicates a projection from outside. Such technology is so sophisticated and unimaginable that even we do not possess. Obviously, it is implemented by strangers, by creatures from other dimensions.”

“But we should they draft or commission NAOS Venovinda? At this moment, the vessel is unarmed and decommissioned, needs overhaul and maintenance, it is overdue for the Roadworthiness Test Center. But hold on… don’t answer me, I forbid you to take the words out of my mouth… The mere presence of the pheno-dimensional corridor, the nuclear engines and the antimatter chamber of N.A.O.S. Venovinda can easily be turned into weaponry of devastating fire power.  Terran or alien terrorists can easily direct the spaceship to a big city of Earth and cause havoc making land of Midiam. A starship with the might of Venovinda could instigate an explosion, capable of erasing an entire planet!”

“And we are imprisoned in here without any escape route”.  

“You’ve said that you will short-circuit the cables, you, forgetful titan”.

“That’s no longer a choice. The homunculi are working so fast that they have almost evaporated the alcove along with the cables, they have integrated it into the wall, they have affected matter to the molecular level, and they have malted the walls together with the doorframes”.    

 “That’s to be expected, while we are given to small talk, the enemy does not waste his time or delay his activities. We, titans, are characterized by this flaw, namely, garrulous lengthy prattling loquacity, we talk and talk until we make both the issue and us weary. Plato taught us dialectics, but we have the tendency to overdo it. ‘Yet, we must be courageous, because tomorrow, things will look up again’. My bosom friend, do what you can, I trust you wholeheartedly. I want options, I want recommendations, I want to go shopping with the basket of Opportunity who has hair in front to be seized by the forelock and by the cunning, because if it overtakes you will get into a scrape by your own clumsiness”.

          “As we have already said, escape, which is what we mostly do, is not an option anymore. Action is excluded and the only thing that remains to us to deal with this reverse serendipity is to give it some thought”.

          “You, bogged down, overtaxed, nonplussed, overstrained Atlas, are you trying to kid a kidder? Through mere thought how could we leave here? Action and acting as an overstructure of thought or as its channeling into the field of reality are required. It’s a pity that Theia has withdrawn from the systems of N.A.O.S. Venovinda or else we would have an ally to fight against all these electronic circuits as well as the holographic homunculi”.

          Hyperion seemed to become self- absorbed and to think deeply.  

          “This is not the proper time, my dear pagan -as I would say: my dear Christian, if I happened to be one – to delve into contemplation and concentration. Here, to lend a Greek expression, we are singing while our houses are burnt.”

          “And yet”, Hyperion arose finally from the depth of his own thoughts, “Theia as an evolved hologram is surely somehow related to our predicament. I will contact her”.  

          “Just a minute, you said that in Confederation there is no technology capable of projecting a hologram from a far distance without ceiling emitters”. 

          “Yes, but we may find ourselves in a hologram within a hologram. I reckon that my spouse is completely capable of such a thing; I am almost certain that before her departure she managed to install light- casting micro- devices throughout Venovinda to be able to handle it from a distance. It is a basic characteristic of her that, if she is once entrusted with power, she will never quit, she will do anything to reassure her position of strength, she will stick to it like Cynegeirus, brother of Aeschylus, bit the railing of the Persian ships.   It is very possible that the ceiling is not what it seems, it may be teeming with microprocessors of hologram administration and direction”.

          They searched and found in one of the apartments they had access to a communicator being in better shape than others.  Of course, there was also the thought within the ranks of the Confederation to integrate communicators into the uniform of the mates and officers considering that their owners often displaced them or threw them ostentatiously as obsolete away just like the people of other eras did with their cellphones, but then this plan was not yet implemented. The communicator found by the two old chaps, after they examined and discarded a lot of others jettisoning them into the corners, had a range up to New Arcadia.

          “Euryphaessa, do you read, Euryphaessa talk to me”, said Hyperion enraged enough.

          “What has happened again, importune husband?”, answered finally and reluctantly the elegant Titanis.

          “We are imprisoned together with Prometheus in N.A.O.S. Venovinda. Photonic puppets have conquered all connections and are reshaping ship systems to their liking. As far as I know you, it is next to impossible for you not having security ventils for such a contingency, even if, I for my part, believe that you are personally involved in this. Aren’t you ashamed? We are in danger, here, we have lost control of the ship. What are you planning again? Is it possible that you want to torch us on the shrine of A.I., which you so reservedly worship and serve?”

          “What are you saying, I … Maybe they are Xenos, creatures from another dimension involved, I am not responsible for everything, you, molesting abusing bridegroom, we possess no such technology…”

          “Cut the crap”, I really didn’t expect you to dip such a low point. Yet your very name witnesses how playful you are regarding light and how much you are experimenting with light phenomena. You always said to me that you wanted to experience happiness a bio-inherent together with New Arcadia’s organism, but I never believed that you would hit a new low seizing N.A.O.S. Venovinda to accomplish what, you pitiful creature?”

          “Don’t rush to conclusions, you, wisecrack but at least not unemployed man. You think that everything rotates around your murder investigation. There are also other problems in this exemplary and ideal for human conditions habitat of New Arcadia. Except the bio-inherent and the physiological there is also a third class of beings, we photonics, who have the handicap of living by referring to a machine, a holo- emitter standing on the roof referring in its turn to us.”

          “I don’t see any problem. You chose for us to stay in a physiological’ area. There is in the suburbs and in the country of New Arcadia an entire holographic village roofed by a complete dome, embroidered by such projection devices. I was willing to stay yonder as well for you to have a more normal – sorry, I got confused- have a more photonic life, to be able to make a constitutional, even to visit nightclubs, for the children to go to school instead of tele-educating at home and all that stuff. As far as your accusation is concerned, that I have engaged a photonic family because I am allegedly selfish or introverted or self-deceiving, that isn’t valid. I had my own reasoning when I asked you to withdraw from Venovinda and when I copied the matrices of the children and brought you here.  I wished for you and the kids to live aloof from the megapolises’ dangers in an idyllic environment…”

          “Coming to New Arcadia was not your idea but mine.”

“Yes, but you chose to live in a normal village, where you can’t peep out or pop off the house, neither you nor the girls. You pretend that it is better for me, give me a break! You did it only to reduce all subject-matters to whether I put a telepathic implant or not, so that we be in constant communication, for which, however, (wo-)man is not made, because one needs always time for self- contemplation. You always needed to have grievance and to grumble over it! In any case, I suspect that you stand directly behind what happens to us, even if I cannot fathom its exact connection with what you think up or improvise. Please explain yourself, because I have beside me our family friend Prometheus and I feel badly that he too gets involved in our unwanted exhibitions of power”.                        

“Well, when I withdrew from my wasteful and overtaxing service aboard the circuits of N.A.O.S. Venovinda, I decided to start a new system to distant the holo-emitters as far as possible from the holograms illuminated by them. As a step for independence, for rehabilitation against factors confining us, you understand …The next future step would be to have a portable holo- projector, but the scientific achievements are never accomplished in heaps, but successively through the tiresome method of ‘trial and error’ ‘of endeavor and failure- blunder.’”

“Euryphaessa, cadaver- eating, schistosome, flat parasitic worm, foraminous plasmodium of vertebrate organisms, sanguinary and hepatic double-mouthed bacterium, you admit seriously that you have trapped us without warning, you made us undergo and suffer such deep sorrow and unnecessary predicament, capable of constituting the legal grounds for an extensive nonmaterial damage,  just to test the remote control systems of holographic projection? So, gather your cables and your protuberances without any undue delay and don’t provoke me to send you to hell – but what am I saying, unfortunately there is no appropriate expression within the wishy-washy and politically correct etiquette rules of the titans to describe what you did, so I take refuge to Moslem- Christianity and I am telling you: lest the devil take you, correct your behavior because I will make you spit the milk of your mother’s breasts, I will chase you with the halberd until the end of your days”.

“If I was a male, I would tell you that the most you can do is fart on my testicles, but anyway. Don’t threaten me, because then the appropriate proverb would be ‘so much pain for so little gain’ or else ‘The fly had made a bigger arse and shat on the entire world’. That would be the day when Hyperion will begin terrorizing us! If we reach the point where the husband would scare his wife and not tremble before her, then the world has been irrevocably corrupted. Ok, I am disconnecting the systems, but see that you don’t irritate me much, because neither you nor I can be sure about how I will react. In the eternal history of man and woman it is obvious who is the hunter and who is the victim; never forget that, neither you nor your inebriated table companion, your escort in the revelries and feasts lasting all night!”

The door was released, the homunculi magically disappeared from all the instruments of the ship and both our affected – inflicted titans came stumbling and slipping to the bridge’s controllers and joysticks, at least seeing with relief that the action of the pheno-dimensional corridor was completed, and they were again in the familiar geosynchronous orbit around New Arcadia.  

Hyperion felt awkward and began apologizing to Prometheus for the unlucky contingency.  

 “Captain, you understand, the eternal covenant between man and woman possesses a great power when it is applied, that’s why there are a lot of guarantee clauses concerning non-fulfillment, which cannot exclude legal differences though, character incompatibilities, hiatuses of conduct or behavior …”

“Hyperion, I sympathize with you. It is obvious that you have conspicuous family problems, but I am not so naïve to believe that this atrocious interference is coming from your wife”.

“What do you mean, you, suspicious and cunning Talus from reinforced concrete?”

Prometheus looked upon his eternal subordinate with some pity, sorrow and condescension. He had an immense understanding that this omniscient Atlas was always a frightened pupil before him. Thus, it is done when we acclaim someone as our personal idol; then we have no other choice than to stand before him with reverence and respect.  

“Unsuspected loving husband and father, I reckon, you grasp the obvious that ‘‘Icaromenippus’ didn’t cease to exist upon the arrest of… Icaromenippus. The autonomist movement of New Arcadia continues to reign and thrive. What we experienced today was revolutionary gymnastics and official final rehearsal for some decisive and chirurgical intervention, having devastating consequences for the constitution, the institutional statutes and the conditions of the solar system in general. Wake up, bro! The biological artificial intelligence proceeds unwaveringly to new conquers and always another rainbow. It has surpassed by far the inert automata and the mechanical Talos and has set the goal to subjugate humanity! What is the remaining solution? Titans again, always the titans, the fight from any barricade, embrasure or loophole, at any moment together with the talismans and the pearls of humanity!”    

Hyperion stayed consternate for enough time.  

“Illustrious expert, erudite, polyhistor, illuminating Mr. Know-all, my precious chairman, I love you now and ever. You have shown me with your versatility and worthiness a road, which I have neglected in my research into the odious murder of Arete. The holograms! In bottom- line, a hologram eliminated the inspirer of New Arcadia, and I must investigate possible or probable or wannabe murders in the holograms’ village and in the holographic community in general”.

1. CHAPTER OMICRON: OARISTYS, erotic intercourse)

It was the third time that Hyperion visited the house of the Cyrenean Arete, the second in the line of duty, since, as you may remember reader, one time, probably the intermediate one, he sought refuge behind the seals of the crime, posited for securing the perimeter of the evidence, to escape for a little the pillow talk of his strange bedfellow. From the two official visits, the first was for initial acquaintance and autopsy at the crime scene having as guides the security officers of the station and the second one was now together with his associates and the policewoman Perictione. Yet this time the policewoman hadn’t come to initiate or introduce the magistrates into the case’s intricacies, but rather to be questioned herself confronting these premises and being cross- examined in the respective ambience. Because Perictione, as it results from the above circumstances had the more unjustified outward trips to the house of Arete, ended up in visits inside the residence and not outside, as it would be logical and expected in view of security reasons.

The house was the well-known entirely sterilized region, where only one bed existed. The complete recycling of the materials resulted therein, that every cup of coffee along with its saucer and the silverware, even any worn-out multi-used clothe, any sheet or blanket, stained or dirty leggings, garters and shin protectors, non- ironed robes, cloaks or shirts, unstarched rubbed off stoles and gowns along with whatever evidence one can imagine were buried in the walls, not be able to witness or reveal anything. Yet Hyperion thought that merely the vision of the crime scene and the respective atmosphere of this piercing, lathing, agonizing dramatic thriller would be enough to elicit some reaction from the interrogee, suitable to elucidate the crime.

As soon as they closed the door, they aired the warrant required for the interrogation, as long as it was necessary to elicit the proper respect and ensure that the interrogee had laid down the audacity that characterized her until now due to her position, since she didn’t even have the courage to verify the interrogators’ credentials.   

 “Perictione, it is no secret that you visited the house of Arete more times than anyone without having any particulate reason.  What does a humble policewoman like you doing in the place of such a key communal personality?”

“Are you trying to scare me and badger the witness, here? Mrs. Arete hired me as bodyguard, and I don’t care if you all burst with jealousy. She hired me as her personal bodyguard, because she was a little scared”.  

“There was no official transfer, posting, reposition, removal or relocation by your superior officer Philogene for such a duty”.

“Well, I was unofficially appointed bodyguard”.

“To help you, maybe you were hired as chaperone within the house, but why? The house had security systems and super-modern at that, no one could bypass them, because an alarm would have sounded”.

“Maybe I was the last line of defense in case someone was able to intrude …”

“Perictione, we aren’t discussing a period of perfunctory anarchy or a hiatus of uncorrelated and uncoordinated behaviors, but for an age, where all movements are registered and evaluated. You know very well on grounds of your profession that external infiltration under today’s circumstances is impossible unless someone deactivates with sophisticated close-quarters tools the stamping and the ringing of the garden and the building. Besides, only due to this reason, even the external sentinels have a meaning”.

Perictione started to move erratically back and forth with powerless fury! On the one hand she wanted to hide, on the other hand to silence the magistrates through a clever response. She had the nerve and the reflex to answer the challenge, but not the good sense to restrain herself and Prometheus knew that.  

“Yes, why should I be an internal figure, you illuminating Mr. Know-all, who came here to disturb our circles (turbare circulos meos)?       

Then Eurybia intervened to defend her superior.

“Perictione, listen to me very carefully, the best version for you is that you were lover of Arete and the worst that you were her murderer on the grounds of some erotic rivalry. So, we are asking you with all decorum and due responsibility awareness. Were you lover of Cyrenean Arete?”

“You Starfleet… you horrible moralists… self-appointed censors of social orthopedics… who gave you the right to intervene in our lives …”, Perictione murmured inconclusively.  

“We wait for an answer”, cried out Hyperion with a Stentor voice.  

Perictione remained silent for enough time, shaking her shoulders right and left.

 “Speeeak”, squealed the inquisitors forcing and extorting a response.

“I was not, because she had holographic lovers!”, burst Perictione crying out loud.

“You mean imaginary lovers?”, asked Eurybia immediately giving her the opportunity to pull herself together.

“No, the purely imaginary lovers possess no depth or fascination, no attractiveness at all. She had lovers from the holographic village They presented on the screen and then materialized by the beaming transporter for the needs of the sexual intercourse. I simply knew them, procured, promoted, watched them…”

“But is it possible for a physiological human being to fall in love with a hologram? wondered Eurybia. But then she thought that her name, which meant “broad wide life” implied an enhanced perception of things, so she hurried to censor herself and exercise her self-criticism. Why not? We have seen stranger combinations throughout the years. Titans along with Olympians, gods along with (wo-)men, mortals together with immortals, physiological together with bio-inherent, although the last ones have tighter connection with their homologous than with their physiological partner, gays together with straights (is that even possible?), organics connecting to mechanical Talos, positronic androids and gynecoids or even super- automated LGBTQ of “Echetlus“ type, even incompatible species who have chosen to take each semester the one the figure of the other to become compatible, just like Castor and Pollux live six months in heaven and six months in Tartaros”.

“It is human, very human. Each one is attracted by what one does not possess, the inaccessible, the impossible!”, Perictione expressed her opinion showing a special sensitivity and a deep education which no one would expect, suspect or presuppose in the case of a policewoman.  

She started reciting: “’Pan loved his enchantress Echo, but Echo loved the scampering Satyr, while he was crazy about Leda. And as much fire and flame Echo fanned to Pan, the same was valid for Satyr versus Echo and for Leda versus Satyr. They were mutually melted by Cupid and every one of them was hated by the man she loved, as much as she hated the man who loved her. This is a good lesson for all those unloved; Love the ones who love you to be loved when you love’, as Moschus of Sicily tells us in the Bucolica”.    

          “Well, yea, we know all this. What do you think we are, uneducated? We know from mythology- psychology that, as much as some lovers, ostensibly incompatible, do anything to stay together or again they melt and self-destruct due to unrequited love, others do whatever they can to avoid mismatched love affairs, just like the devil escapes incense. So, Artemis to disengage from Actaeon transformed him into a deer and the dogs ate him, Syrinx preferred to turn into a reed to avoid Pan and Echo who you mentioned preferred to be torn apart by the peasants than to succumb to the lusts of the goat-footed”, Hyperion interrupted her verve, subterfuge and evasion calling her back to order. “Who was the lover of Arete? He asked severely.

“How should I know? She had many; she was nymphomaniac, a vagina enthusiast. She had lovers both male and female, but neutral ambiguous creatures as well, go figure! The sensors of New Arcadia may assure you that I was not present on the night of the murder. How should I know whom she sheltered that particulate day, the woman was guileful, resourceful, but she had also genes of a pigsty, the most unholy and unsatiated lusts. Poor Lasthenia, although she committed grave errors, told you also uncommittedly a bitter truth that only discreetness and politeness urged her not to answer to your questions, and the same is also valid for me”.  

Without letting her continue, Hyperion contacted Philogene instantaneously.

“Philogene, send me immediately a list of all holographic personalities living in the holographic village. One of them was probably the murder of Arete”.  

Philogene seemed hesitant and reluctant.

“Eh… Starfleet emissary… Prometheus’ ordinance … respectful representative of the titans …”

“Just cut the horseshit and talk turkey! What is the matter here, you miserable pagan, here in the rotten kingdom of Denmark? Tell me, how many secrets of diabolus as distorter of symbol do you keep in this ambiguous place of hell, you, insufficient and underpaid public servant?”

“We don’t have a complete record for the holographic personalities; they come and go. It is the nature of photonic existence to be evanescent. Of course, I understand that this is contrary to the human rights, which you, the titans, above all promulgate and magnify, exaggerate and fight for, but those are the facts”.

Hyperion remained consternate.

“Thus”, he whispered, “you exploit photonic personalities in the frame of some kind of bondage. But won’t humanity be judged by the way it treats this new race? At least on Earth no one disputes their rights, but what I see and ascertain here exceeds every sick perverted fantasy…” 

At that moment, it seemed that even Perictione, who had nothing to expect from Hyperion’s research, moreover she was upgraded as major suspect, sympathized with our pure hero, to the clean breastplate of whom the arrows impacted unaffecting.

“The situation is even worse than you think, master”, she said completely resigned. “If you allow the attraction of the ambiguous, pregnant, proliferous due to ancient clusters of branchlets and other sprouts to shepherd you to the crucible of the charmingly unknown and the mysteriously unexplored lulling your steps with the bucolic breathtaking flute and the magic debauching Hamelin’s pipe of the incomprehensive urges, just like the irrational erotism instigates indefinitely the involved to harbor in heterosexual bays without further demands or specifications, you will step forward to the first gold-embroidered statue and hug it passionately with direct, insightful ecstatic voyeurism. Then, scratch a little the enamel of the gold-woven surface at the height of the forearm, unstitch the gold-baked line and scatter the gold dust, as if you care to reproduce your intellectual tendency and conscious demand for deepening and immersion into the secrets of the mysterious residence, but what a genuine immense surprise you will feel, when under the superficial patina of the worn out ornaments and the trimming textures, you will encounter a  brownish soft mummified flesh or rather you would encounter it, if there were no hygienic recycling.”

Even the experienced Hyperion gaped at showing a non -comprehending mien.

“It seems, master, that Arete has built and walled in many holographic lovers (and not alone), as they used to do in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, inopportunely, unsettingly”.

1. CHAPTER PI: PYRISPORUS

It was not at all surprising that Pyrisporus was very friendly during his new encounter with the interrogators’ team, if one considers the calamity, from which the titans saved him in the Briareos’ episode. He welcomed Hyperion and Leto with genuine cordiality, under control though, so that it also emitted a quiet strength – let us not underrate our own office- after all he was the President of “Lemnian Earth Production Association”.

In general conditions, when he didn’t face the threat or the scarecrow of a frantic Hecatoncheir opposite him attacking him with his hundred hands, he was a calm and reasonable man with a spark of cleverness in the eyes. He was the first who had proposed to Hyperion to equip himself with a telepathic implant and he believed it genuinely, in good faith, that they would establish a better understanding. That is why we should never question the good intentions of whoever advises us. Moreover, Hyperion could not imagine Pyrisporus in the role of a murderer. He had experienced his reaction as he was frightened– there is also a proper or improper expression that the decent titans hesitate to use, i.e. “chicken- shit”-  with eyes bulbed through terror like they were eggshells, and he reckoned that a man who is so afraid of death is unlikely to submit or lead others to that ordeal. Something other almost imperceivable contributing to the sympathy of Hyperion towards Pyrisporus is that they had been co-travelers in “Ithyleia”, when the titan- interrogator came for the first tome to the station. There are some circumstances in life that create inexplicable sympathy towards someone, because one connects unconsciously this someone with a previous positive fact or at least not negative, with a foundation of relationship or the beginning of an adventure. What can one say, psychology is a science with great depth. 

So, it was a happy occasion that the meeting of the interrogators with him coincided with the experimental germination of a spore near New Arcadia, destined for a new habitat available for habitation, agriculture and industrialization. On the moment of the visit, Pyrisporus surveilled and inspected this germination from afar.

“How fair would be for Arete to be present in this effort. She created those fast, dynamic and miraculous spores, capable of giving birth to an entire planet”.

The people attending were at the backside of the control room, which contained five series of terminals, all occupied by diligent technicians. The scientists, modestly rewarded in every time in relation to their value, studied the indications and the images of the screens and tipped orders to their partial synthetists. Big holographic complexes covered the walls. Every living fresco depicted from various view-angles the new sperm hovering and growing progressively twenty kilometers away from New Arcadia. The sperm needed beyond other things a helping underfoot, a fundament- breakwater – to stand on and grow, and of course this was provided by the generous Confederation. Maybe it was the package foam, where the sperm was enveloped before use. Of course, in the world of the titans, where the will played the same role and offered the same contribution as knowledge, the activation of the sperm’s itinerary and the start of its development procedure was not only implementation of a scientific and alphanumerical formula but also conjuring exorcising chants and constitutional troparia and short hymns.   

They focused on the concentration of a blond ocher shining animal or plant plankton, something similar to an assembly of whiplashing amoebas, swinging and unfolding like a medusa’s jelly or sparkling and scintillating like an aurora borealis, being viscid and thrombotic like a gonorrhea’s secretion or the musk essence of a male beast or leukorrhea of a woman or condensed milk in a shepherd’s pail. Through this extended plasma of quicksilver- density rhythmic motions presented themselves like nervous cramps of a spermatozoon conveying a specific message of causality, a transmission signal of untraceable and imperceptive periodicity, being an exegetic -hermeneutical model and an analytical frame of methodological approach and incoherent problems’ solution, a peculiar dualism- system based on a “one” or “two” numeric sequence. Amazingly, this binary code was not the same for every observer but fragmented into infinite music backgrounds and metronomic mannerisms, so many as the mother-languages or the phonemes of the respective theorists.

For the first time in their life, they felt the mysterious and infallible influence of this compressed and indissoluble vagina-infusion and bran-kneaded cheese-fermented purulent and sappy clyster of the wizard, of this talking spring with the depicting and announcing town-crier-like vapors, as they approached the weak overlying support – the thin-shelled and light-husked curtain, the fluorescent dragnet and half-transparent crystal that divided our subterranean prison from the darkness of the abyss. Then, they startled, because an explicit presage of impending biblical destructions embraced them with the affection of lathed frozen metal, flooding the encephalic membranes and the multiple multifold and multi-cornered flat faces of the sick manuring subconscious with projections of primordial fear, dismal premonitions, and breathtaking scenes of a future book, paranoid, turbulent, devilish reflections, macabre and horrible representations of Apostle John’s apocalypse.  

Even before they had the time to pull themselves together after this image reminding of an ogres’ and golems’ dance around a boiling witch’s cauldron on the foot of the bald mountain, this viscous mucous wavy and starchy phantom across them, this wagtail -rocking cradling oscillating robe resembling a folded towel, a wrinkled oakum, a thick-flowing  pulpy syrup, a stretching toad-breed, a trembling and shivering blot or bubble  talked to them with a penetrating telepathy-ventriloquism, introduced itself plainly as “sperm” providing them simultaneously with a deciphering key to conceptualize its meanings and prophetic proclamations. 

          Ι -2 -2 -Ι

Σ. ΠΕ. ΡΜ. Α. (sperm)

ΣΚΟΤΟΣ ΨΑΥΟΜΕΝΟΝ ΥΛΙΚΟΝ (darkness material and groped for)

ΠΛΗΓΜΑ ΣΕΙΟΝ ΕΓΚΕΛΑΔΟΥ (trembling strike of Enceladus -earthquake)

ΡΟΗ ΗΛΕΚΤΡΟΜΑΓΝΗΤΙΣΜΟΥ (flow of electromagnetism)

ΑΝΟΙΚΤΗ ΧΗΜΙΚΗ ΑΛΥΣΙΣ (open chain- compound)

“No matter how fascinating the germination of a planetary seed is, dear Pyrisporus, I feel that under the current circumstances it disorientates us from our research”, confessed Hyperion to his interlocutor.  

“And yet, you, imaginative artist of inquiring science, as we have previously said, that was what Arete was occupied with and from this you must start tracing the guilty, although I always resent your reluctance to install a telepathic implant. A whole world of harmony and information would be revealed to you”.

“To tell you the truth, after what I have been seeing and discovering daily in your living station, the only possible answer which matures and thrives within me is ‘thanks but no thanks’”.

Leto intervened with her well-known intercalary way, a little sly, wily and hypocritical, but always effective and supportive of her superior officer’s pursuits.

“We are interested in Lemnian Earth, i.e. the evolution of that spermatic material that we are observing. After all, also in real life one cannot compare the embryo or the baby of a (wo-)man to what this person became later through her/his development and completion throughout time”.  

Pyrisporus tried to set a guard over his mouth, because he realized that the titans had not come for idle insipid small talk, but for a serious discussion, one of those having grave consequences for the interlocutors.  

“Here, it smells like petrol oil or dissolvents thereof. What do you keep here, a refinery?”, asked Hyperion.

“Your comparison is not without merit”, answered Pyrisporus. Indeed, in our reservoirs we keep hydrocarbons (a New Greek politician called them ‘carbon hydrates’) to feed regularly our sperm and let it grow. If the germination is a success. We put the planetary seed in orbit preferably around other celestial bodies, so that the poor thing can search alone for its own food. I am joking, of course. Human approval is always required, for each and any artificial biotechnological celestial body to suck with a drinking straw or the stove pipe another inert and natural one”.

“Even in space, the big fish eats the small or in our case the small eats the big”, Hyperion commented disappointed at nature’s savagery.

“Yes, when it develops its own digestion organs and connects through a funnel or other human contraptions to the celestial body destined for consumption”.  

“Incredible … a sperm becomes an autonomous organism without being hatched in some body” …, said Leto, who after the decommission of man in the reproductive procedure and his replacement by sperm banks, she saw also the women becoming redundant, since not even their bodies were needed anymore, for which so many battles were fought by the corresponding gyneco- titanic movement.  

“Yes, of course it is not completely autonomous. The biotechnological products are poly-symbiotic organisms. We have not yet reached the level of programming a whole habitat of dwellings into the DNA of the spore, not even the memorable Arete could succeed such a thing together with Percnopterygus or Didymion. For the completion, sedimentation and compartmentalization of the new celestial body, the stable matter of Lemnian Earth is required above all, being administered by my association”.  

At that point, Hyperion inserted in his famous notebook the word “motive”, which in fact is the big spoon stirring up the kettle. The administrator of the miraculous substance had indeed a motive to kill Arete, because if she perfectionated the spore’s autonomy, then Lemnian Earth would be superfluous.

“By Jove, what is this Lemnian Earth anyway? shouted Leto bringing up a question, which should have been answered a long time ago.

“I don’t think that the interrogators should bother for such a technical matter. It suffices to say that it is a stabilizing factor sealing an organic compound and making it stagnant and lingering in a good sense, namely that it continues to exist. We chemists would characterize it as a hydrostatic skeleton or intermediate glue, through which the materials of the biological spore become coherent and united into a permanent base without any internal lattice. This implies a fermentation of hydroxyl … hm… I shouldn’t torment you with a technical terminology…”

Without knowing why, Hyperion noted down the word “skeleton” out of all this tirade.     

“And where do you find this synthetic and connective ratio of materials?” he asked.

“We are harvesting it from Jupiter. ‘A time to sow and a time to harvest, a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted’, as Ecclesiast says. The Mega planet is our fertile field, from which we gather and reap so much”.

“Fiery torch bearer of spores, as your name indicates, your association and you have brought to feet a nice socialistic business, from which many people profit and it’s good for you. Just as it is the case in the noble tradition of the titans, productive activity promotes and justifies property. Is it possible that the culling or harvesting from the prairies of Jupiter is just a self-propagating purpose to support the collective statute of your association’s members? Let me put my finger into the print of the nails. Is it possible that Lemnian Earth is useless?” Prometheus became the devil advocate.

“But I told you that it is the stabilizing factor of the spore’s ingredients. In any case, I don’t tire of stressing that Jupiter is a cornucopia and the epitome of solidified opportunities. In the layers of its gigantic atmosphere, there are so many sources and energy that a shining perspective and phase for humanity is risen, for an original and unforeseen spiritual civilization, being characterized by the affinity of the telepathic implant. Not one out of us all living in this brave new world is permitted to lose heart and fail one’s role in the complete restoration and upgrade of human race. Any inertness on our behalf could be criminal, because we are essential players. Shortly, the new generation of the planetary spores will acquire their food, namely the pertinent ores and stones directly from the environment without human approval, intervention or mediation. The biotechnological organisms will become food gatherers, able to ruminate the food at that, chew the cud, synthesize and resynthesize it to feed the whole world inhabiting on their surface. We wouldn’t need a harvester or a lawnmower anymore or Hesiodic plough to till, gather, process and freeze the needful victuals for the humans. That would be truly amazing. The polypod of Lemnian Earth could create houses, public edifices, cathedrals. This entire Renaissance, this non-exhausting potential will be assisted anytime by the profitable extraction of helium 3 in a way that the possibilities would be infinite, extend to infinity. Biotechnology and mechanics will cooperate synergistically and harmoniously, as was never the case before in entire history. Thus, from this particulate moment, ladies and gentlemen, conscientious police(wo-)men, we are intellectuals of outer limits, endeavoring to overcome any boundary imposed externally or rather relocate far and away the frontiers of human capabilities to the point, where we wouldn’t be able to recognize our own selves …”

“It makes me an arduous impression”, said Hyperion, “that on the one hand you are talking about the future of mankind, on the other hand you are referring to monstrous space creatures of supernatural dimensions. What relationship have all those unnatural mastodon sizes suffering from elephantiasis to humans and the city-state …”

Pyrisporus grew indignant:

“Mr. Law enforcer, please contemplate something with a visionary manner. Let us overcome this grumbling policing that strangulates people. You are fans of the motto ‘a mortal who is not afraid cannot be just, but let us finally envision a state without police, we have the right to dream the perfect freedom …”  

“There is no freedom without the law, which (wo-)mankind itself defines and composes. The truth of (wo-)man is her/his thought and logic, not his/her subconscious urges, ‘the destiny of a man is his ethos’, the social language must prevail and dominate the language of the body …”

“Anyway, I don’t want to elaborate more, above all I don’t wish to confront people who have saved my life. So, I am stopping here our discussion about technology and the vision of the future, and I am asking you one more time, what I can do for you”.  

“Now, that I come to think of it, said Hyperion, “I was always impressed and fascinated by the chase, prospection and extraction of mythical treasures in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Mega planet is the distant unnegiotiable dream of every astronaut and Argonaut, since she/he has seen it rising as a kid through a self-made telescope. Following perspective seems appealing, to escort you in a journey in the ancient sense of coordinated and ordinated campaign and see from close quarters how you heap up on the ship all those magnificent substances you mentioned, the intermediate glue, the hydrostatic skeleton, the hydroxyl, all these …”

“Uniformed archon, I congratulate you for your memory, but you will allow me to discourage you from becoming a space hunter. No one is in position to possess the necessary qualifications for any duty-roster, the cobbler should stick to his last and the captain to his rudder. Furthermore, it would be a huge responsibility if I were to take with me either you or an associate of yours on one of our expeditions, since you have come here on special mission, and if something happens to you, I will have to apologize to Starfleet and the Confederation. It is not your jurisdiction to fish elastane and sterols, leave it rather to … the trolls. But if you want, oh studious erudite, I can provide you with a cinema- vision, where our deep chirurgic penetration into the atmosphere of this fastest vortiginous instantly rotating gas giant would be pictured in every detail, an enterprise demanding delicate handlings due to the above conditions. There, from the comfort of your armchair you can enjoy others bell the cat”.

    Hyperion put guard to his mouth and bridled also the mouth of Leto who was always eager to defend her superior officer. So, he didn’t proceed to the self-evident ascertainment that a veteran of the Titanic wars had nothing to fear both in this life and the next, neither in the atmosphere of the Azure, nor of the Red, nor of the fast Mega of our own solar system, nor of Proxima Centauri, nor even of the farthest observable sun of the large Magellanic cloud, which was called otherwise in the titan dialect, but it didn’t matter, because deep inside he thought something else that could prove more conclusive and efficient.               

1. CHAPTER RHO: RHOE, ROW  

Preliminary statement: Reader, from the moment that we are going to describe a journey to the depths of Jupiter’s atmosphere, we have no other possibility than to refer you to someone who has already been there. And the only man who has been in Jupiter is Arthur Clarke in “A Meeting with Medusa”, investigating among others a volcanic source named “Beta”.         

First, let us say that the bathyscaphe (submarine) “Eustachian Salpinx“ (tube and bugle is the same word in Greek, namely Salpinx), registered in New Arcadia and escorted by other ships of the station was forced to thrust across many grey- shaded levels of darkness to reach a condition, where his scouting and scanning  could make the difference and excited the interest. On board Eustachian Salpinx there were many physiological Pyrisporus’ men along with mechanical Talos, holographic photonics, bio- inherent, shortly all sorts of fruits of a high-tech era. Together was also the conscientious, zealous, generous, liberal and industrious Leto hidden as a stowaway in a storeroom, but she possessed a super modern device of clearness-clarity or wall-omission device, enabling her to see past the walls the happenings in the ship as shapes, outlines, forms. So, she had full perception or knowledge of what happened during the descent of the spaceship and the pertinent decision making of captain Pyrisporus and his subordinate pyro-spores.   

The Eustachian Salpinx, which Pyrisporus also gracefully called Vulva referring cunningly to another organ of the body, not to the ear or the eye, but to the vagina, found herself in a sort of cosmogonic hurricane dominated by two meteorologic phenomena: a) the so-called “Wheels of Poseidon” consisted of bright homocentric electromagnetic circles and b) when the weather calmed a bit, then dense snowflakes of wax fell, as if the Mega planet suffered from cholesterol.  So, the scientific intelligence and analytic capability of Leto was not surprised at all that there were wheat-sterols and phytosterols in this environment as welding elements of the Lemnian Earth polypod, which emulated the cholesterol’s composition. Characteristic was that on the moment of impact with the spaceship the warmth of the metal diving into the atmosphere evaporated the wax flakes swiftly, almost instantly.

   At least there was no collision danger with a solid object, because the mountains of Jupiter were much lower. On the other hand, the hovering quilts of wax foam were soft and easily penetrated from the ship’s shell. In fact Eu-Salpinx – let us call it this way as abbreviation, just as the people of Chalcis call their favorite newspaper “Progressive Euboea” in short “Pro-Euboea-, ricocheted   – not helpless though – in the center of a gigantic typhoon or cyclone– here, we are using both words because we are not dealing with the north or the south hemisphere of Earth- but let us stop dashes, because the literary critics will launch a pogrom against us -, Eu -Salpinx did not lose altitude, because her engines balanced the pressure that dragged it slowly downward, although it was devastating. The huge vortex and the narrow whirlpool that dug the atmosphere and would normally lead to a crash or crash-landing on the unknown uneven surface could not hurt the achievement of the titans’ technique.

Pyrisporus, who until that time checked the control board of gravimetric changes depending on the corresponding atmosphere’s layer, switched on for the first time the device for horizontal scouting.  Then to the greatest astonishment of the stowaway Leto the sonar located dozens of sizable consolidate and shiny objects, scattered in a wide area of the heavens with such a degree of concentration and line-up cohesion, coordination and interconnection that they could be called a forest or a plantation of out-worldish funguses.

One of them approached a point where its features became obvious. It was a huge medusa more than two kilometers across, and its dangling tentacles were hundreds of feet long. The tentacles swayed slowly back and forth with repeated undulating spasmodic movements, as if they swam trying clumsily to row themselves through an intelligible surface like an awkward dog roaming desperately in a lake of sweet water without buoyancy and with inept for the liquid environment feet. But this ineptitude and awkwardness was apparently ostensible, estimated from a human point of view. We are referring to beings about a hundred thousand times as large as the biggest whale, who may weigh a million tons. They must generate megawatts of heat to maintain their buoyancy.

Leto jolted nervously in her hiding place and adjusted the specially prepared recorder to take pictures and cinema-visions continuously and from every view-angle. The monstrous creatures had the same color as the iridescent clouds and were hardly distinguished from them, exhibiting a special biological adaptation to the environment. The medusas provided an exemplary subject- matter for a multitude of scientific studies, and Leto was never tired of gathering data, necessary and sufficient to ensure her a carefully designed unobstructed academic and university career. What Leto failed to understand is the reason why Eu-Salpinx did not keep a safe distance of at least forty klicks from those behemoths, since no one could know how hard or not a collision with them would prove.    At first sight, they looked like gasbags, but maybe they had an excruciating propelling power of crashes and collision. 

Suddenly, a broad, mottled band appeared along the side of the medusa. It formed a startlingly regular checkerboard. Each square was speckled in a complex pattern of short horizontal lines symmetrically, orderly, calligraphically. They were spaced at equal distances in a geometrically perfect array of rows and columns. The experienced scientifically educated eye of Leto perceived immediately that this striped latticework witnessed natural spools of frequences, from those used once upon a time in radios. Something analogous was observed in the cephalopods, which communicate with formations of colors. But then the medusa apparently endeavored to speak through echo-plummeting and radio-waves, maybe she was crying or yelling already that something was amiss! What the hell happened?  

The startling of Leto by the occurrence of new unexpected events continued. Eu-Salpinx started changing her shape against all odds, as thoracic plates were added on her external surface and launch tubes replaced their ostensibly innocent cylindrical parts. Instead of her spherical laziness, the vessel suddenly presented an ominous threatening muzzle proving beyond doubt that things are not as they appear. As if that wasn’t enough, a squadron of five New Arcadia’s jet fighters came sweeping through the wall of mist that formed the funnel of the vortex, flying in a V formation directly and releasing horrible hooks toward the pallid grey cloud of the medusa. But what was the matter here? Was it possible for vessels of the enlightened titanic era to attack a being whose sentience or intelligence was not yet assessed by the competent authorities? Was the world catapulted back into the paleolithic period?

Leto raised her thumb in an almost unconscious manifestation of solidarity toward the creature, haunted by an ordeal. Maybe, the medusa was in position to defend against the attacks, since the raiders seemed to be afraid of her tentacles and kept their distance from them. There was also the sound hope that the space-triremes of New Arcadia’s biotechnological monster represented for the medusa insignificant parasites like fleas on the back of a dog. But now it was obvious that the medusa was in distress. With agonizing slowness, it began to tip over like a capsizing ship, to tilt forty-five degrees, to rapidly lose altitude. It was impossible for the maternal instinct and impulse of Leto not to feel a sense of pity for the beleaguered monster, who was tormented so brutally.
On the other hand, her scientific reasoning told her that high intelligence could develop only among predators, not among the drifting browsers of either sea or air, it incited her to support and vote for her own species in this cosmic confrontation. And after all, how could a microscopic human really sympathize with a creature a hundred thousand times larger than a whale? So, that was a case, where logic was relentless and ruthless, while instinct was loving and compassionate.    

  Then she noticed that the medusa’s tactics seemed to be having some effect. Beyond the forty-five degrees tilt it started a slow roll around itself and was flapping heavily away from its back, which disturbed and discouraged the human raiders —whether physiological or bio-inherent and forced them to disengage from their game’s body like gorged vultures shrieking interrupted at mealtime, withdrawn violently from the carcass they rend, if someone throws a stone at them. Yet the jaws of (wo-)man were more fearful and effective than the jaws of a shark, so they didn’t quit or step back. When they realized that the medusa was too strong, they disengaged the hooks and activated the ray-guns, those uncomprehensible weapons from the nature point of view and began to strafe her. The medusa did not give up, it tried to attach to the raiding ships, to strike them with its cnidosis toxic mechanisms, but how can a creature of God resist the evolutionary distortion and perversion of a fire gun?  

    Despite its vast surface, the medusa could not deal with the continuous hits disrupting its epidermis, causing dissolution of the skin continuity bursting and rending even the most callous hide, and began losing internal fluid. Then, with an unconceivably cynical, horribly ergonomical and hideously rational manner, the despicable detestable victors extracted from their multipurpose body nefarious pumps and sucked mercilessly the wheat-sterols and phytosterols, as well as the other gluing substances needed for the stabilization of Lemnian Earth.

So, a regular genocide was performed in Jupiter’s atmosphere, entirely compatible with the self-complacent being who gave the new name to Mega planet, about which all played stupid and dumb within an immoral and universal conspiracy of silence.

Leto kept frantically and irresistibly detailed notes. These data would be enough to impeach those slaughterers to the European or the universal or the ecumenical or the galactic court, because after all the general history is the general judgement. Any opportunity that the assigned with the murder investigation magistrates gave to the pioneering biotechnological organism of New Arcadia was pitifully belied, and they faced always more serious and profound atrocities.  Shame on you, Argives, it is expected for the Clazomenaeans to behave improperly! Something had to be done at last! Prometheus shouldn’t return to his pensionary idleness and his real estate of leisure vindicating “otium cum dignitate” according to Cicero’s example; Hyperion needed him, because things were going indubitably south! All indications conversed and converged to something so big that even the optimist Leto understood that it exceeded the size of the titans themselves. But if even the titans stood embarrassed and consternated in front of the developments threatening to demolish the institutions, what hope did humanity still heed? To invoke a compatible Christian source: “if the salt loses its saltiness, with what then the Earth be salted?”  

1. CHAPTER SIGMA: SCANDALOMORUS

Leto informed Hyperion immediately who despite the breathtaking evidence, which was indicative and revealing of great scandals, didn’t seem very enthusiastic.

“Ola Kala (OK), I will tell all those things to Philogene, although I don’t know if he is trustworthy. I am astonished by the conduct of our friend Pyrisporus, whom I was on the verge of liking … We must pay attention as to how we will disclose this discovery, because the problem of Lemnian Earth due to the huge economic interests involved is above both our authority and our paygrade… Furthermore, it seems that one more time we have solved a different issue than the one which brought us here in the first place. In the beginning, I told it as a pun or a punchline, but apparently there is no other method than the process of elimination to reach the target that we have set and elucidate the crime, for which solely we have exclusive authority. That is why now I am going to visit Scandalomorus”.

“But, boss, he is just a sheep, the lamb of the Lord, who gave himself as a ransom for all, you know, that weird talking that the Christians use …”

“Yet, as we have learned from the most prominent detectives of history and literature, the guilty is always the butler … sorry the most improbable of all, because if someone eliminates the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth So, I leave you to it and, as far the issue of Pyrisporus is concerned, we will discuss it further in due time. I don’t want to cover anything up, but for the time being let’s spill thick salt over the file to conserve it and then we will see. Hyperion over and out”.  

The aisles of the church were empty, but Scandalomorus insisted on murmuring the incomprehensive words of the divine service, even if there was nobody to hear it. Although among antagonistic, healthy competing spiritual movements religion usually prevails, it was in heavy crisis in the future or past world of the titans. To react on the arbitrariness, the autocracy and the absolutism of the Olympic gods, the dragon breed of the titans gave an intense emphasis on logic, and this is never good for religion. Nevertheless, Muslim- Christianity, mainly due to the input of Christianity, which was more rational, since many prominent fathers of the church were logical philosophers gave an implacable inexorable battle to survive.

 The titan – inquisitor sat on a pew in front of the chanting priest. As soon as that happened, Scandalomorus hastened to interrupt the fictitious mess of self-deception.

“Here, we are. One faithful is attending the service and he is an unbeliever. What has the world come to! “

“It is not your fault, father. The Pope- Patriarch should never condemn the telepathic implants. To oppose and resist a scientific achievement serving or – to say it vulgarly – accommodating people equals to what you Christians fitly call ‘kicking against the pricks’”.

“This morning, I was scheduled to teach in school the three basic subjects- matters of religion and philosophy: about God, souls and the world. The kids were deepened in their communicators and mobile phones which showed this earth on which we walk, namely New Arcadia devouring bulimically an asteroid to absorb the four main elements of alimentation, i.e. coal, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. The banquet lasts until now. Here, see it”, said the father demonstrating his communicator.  

“Definitely, not such a Christan spectacle, father”, commented Hyperion. “An intoxicating inebriating feasting revelry, a bulimic pigsty voracity, a mechanical sucking mastication; what’s ‘got all this to do with sweet Jesus and his prophets?”

“As you say. Look at this unsurpassable cynical and rational expediency. A thin spear of dissolving light is emitted by the sun collectors of the station and slices the poor asteroid, God bless its soul, it didn’t have time, not even to be baptized. And then the huge sucking siphons are activated, the mighty shovels and spades turning what swims and flies into conserved food and stored victuals. All are executed with a ruthless consequence according to (wo-)man’s plan. Admire also the whirling rotating motors of the space station, but what is it this prodigy, a station, a stable stem or a stock, a trunk, an axis and a hub or is it the opposite of all this, just a demonic mobile appendage warping in a moving element? I often think that we are challenging the All- Mighty with our cheap tricks. It is self-conceited hubris to try mold the universe according to our own needs. You should also not forget, titans, that when you performed your catasterisms, you received the initial power from God”.  

“Yes, but finally God is us all, explorers we, same in the beginning and in the end of the universe. Did not your Lord state at some point: I said, you are gods?”

          “We are neither satisfied not interested in the mediation in the relationship to God but in the unmediated connection to Him/Her. We pray to an almighty God omnipresent and omnipotent, who will shelter and protect us from any evil and will provide succor to any adversity. God who is all of us? What does it mean? In essence we know and despise ourselves. The itinerary of the Greek Anthropos from myth to reason is entirely indifferent for us. Reason and Logos are cold and distant, whereas myth is necessary like the air we breathe, provided of course that someone believes in it, or it is a fairytale for teenagers and drooling old- timers. We feel the need to believe in something bigger than us or else our life has no meaning, it is a drifting father in the wind, unless a paramount protector exists as a guarantor”.

          “If this is your issue, God’s existence has been proved by the favorable conditions, the blooming presuppositions, the ideal target locks or goldilocks, which prevailed in the universe and allowed the creation of (wo-)mankind. α) One point five degrees is the angular visual or visible diameter of sun and moon from the Earth point of view. It is odd that they are the same but also convenient, because due to this circumstance among others Earth knows darkness. β) Minus forty degrees is a temperature same in all its measurement scales, like the Celsius scale (Celis = a fast horse) and the Fahrenheit scale (scale of riding horse). γ) The number Βκε (2025) is the summary of whole numbers from one up to nine, each to the third power, summarized. It is also the square of their summary.  δ) Ten to the thirty-nineth power is a measure for the weakening and ebbing of gravity in relation to the electromagnetic energy. Besides, it is the estimated and predicted age of the universe’s death but also the square root of all corpuscles of the observable universe, i.e. of its part in relation to Earth, where the Humble (Hubble) constant oscillates under one point five. The hypothesis of essential constants relies on such numbers, from which follows that the power of gravity diminishes, as much as the age of the universe increments.  ε) The number ρμζ (137) is the fine structure constant encountered everywhere in atomic physics. If we take the ratio of one divided by it, we acquire the famous mathematic palindrom, where the first eight digits express the symmetry …”

          “Ah, ah, great contender and claimant of the divine title who will remain always second! Throwing and spilling numbers doesn’t mean that you have proved something, conducting a measurement or giving something a name or ascribing it to something else, doesn’t mean that you have explained it. Out God exists and prevails, because the sky is blue, it is neither red nor orange with yellow spots. Well, sometimes it may also be such! I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God born of the Father before all ages. Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the virgin or a virgin martyr and became man. For our sake he was crucified under any dictator lustful for power, whether he has orange hair or Asian bregmatic bones, it doesn’t matter, he suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end”.

“But what’s the use of all this mumbo-jumbo, why should a mediator intervene, since you pursue the unmediated relationship, and why should he resurrect apart from the others? Isn’t it true that we all resurrect, since the pattern of our hypostatic soul exists in spacetime, fitting and tailored to our own character and demands?  Isn’t it true that we all resurrect, since the universal subject exists which is necessary to observe the universal object? And how could we imagine and picture this resurrection, maybe as a cinematographic removal of a great stone and an ascension of a vibrating image into the heavens? You, yourselves, declare that ‘God is spirit and the faithful should do obeisance to Him in spirit and truth’. Resurrection is spiritual, not corporeal, neither the muscles nor the moustaches will resurrect, but the intelligent tendency and inclination”.

“Greek man, who are railing from myth to reason, what is the use of rationalizing what exists? Certainly, both action and means of God contain some logic, but we are interested more in Her/His logic and schedules. And Her/His schedules may concern each of us separately or just an individual in all the universe. It matters, if you manage to help even one person; that is why Christianity but also Islam as it simplified version will never cease to appeal and inspire, and the message of the Evangelium will never get old or extinguish. That is why I am hereby escaping from the theoretical discussion, to which you are trying to confine me, and I am proceeding to ask you about your family. I use to address this question to all members of my flock during confession, because ultimately family is the superlative institution; when someone returns home after the turbulence of daily routine or when one comes back jovial to begin one’s vacation or when one quits one’s job and seeks solace or retires and searches for the telltale quietness with dignity, what finally matters is what awaits him/her behind the house’s door or, to stop the hide-and -seek of the concepts, even if you, Greek titans, could be infested by foreign words, what plays an essential role is what one finds when one closes the door of one’s house”.

“I have nothing new to report, father. The wife wants me to install a telepathic implant, while the children do not consider it necessary and they don’t mind their father being an independent lighthouse in the luminescent torch relay of New Arcadia”.

“Yes, because the father is always the anchor and the safety valve. They know within their natural inclination for safety that if Icaromenippus prevails or if you manage to solve the mystery of Arete’s murder, they will have the opportunity to stay here in a safeguarded environment, where the grass is greener. But if nothing of these things happens, they know that they will return to the crowded arcologies of Earth, where only their titan father has the means to defend them. Alas, the price for a fully industrialized society is the full collapse of the civil, cultural and moral principles, the formal autonomy of the individual particularities, as a savant said, which is the domination of individualism and subjectivism. On the decline of Earth relies New Arcadia, the population of which heeds the measure and offers additionally the orgiastic fusion of the souls as an alternative prospect to the chaotic independence, where the abuse of democracy leads.”

“But I still have my issues, father. My wife thinks that the symbiotic solution of New Arcadia is the recipe for absolute happiness. Probably the kids prefer that too, since she submits them to brainwash every day. For my part, I don’t care where I am going to live, because ‘the entire earth is the sepulcher of prominent (wo-)men’. I have reason and ‘know thyself’ as an impenetrable breastplate. Yet I understand but for those who experienced the chaotic Caucasian chalk circle or the Caudine Forks of the Earth’s urbanization, this artificial environment of the orgiastic, but also ecological polypod in combination with the fusion and the eventual immortality of the souls seems to be an invincible paradise. Beyond all disagreeable or ambiguous matters ascertained by me, there is here much that one can admire and adopt. What moral education, what spiritual fulfilment can compensate for the unimaginable riches that New Arcadia offers abundantly? Which is the proposition of Islam- Christianity in my case? Should I leave voluntarily New Arcadia? Should I stay for the sake of my children? Should I install a telepathic plasmodium? What the hell should I do?”

“I am not sure what I am supposed to advise you, my son. I was one of the first who came in this technological paradise, and I devoted myself and my efforts for the meaning of Christian solidarity not to be forgotten. Since then, I have seen that this damned telepathic plasmodium has rendered the role of the good shepherd obsolete. The inhabitants of New Earth have each other and they have developed a sincere unspurious symbiosis which fills them entirely. Their telepathic affinity makes them autarkic and distances them from God, because they do not need Him. As you have ascertained, the main argument and advantage of Christianity throughout the centuries is that people needed it. If they don’t need it anymore, it is terrible, we are doomed, there is nothing to hold on anymore, no pastoral crozier…”    

“But isn’t positive, father, that people will become independent at last, that they will not need Gods, since as Epicurus says: ‘Elementary reason dictates that I detest all gods’, and ‘not the one is unholy that questions the gods of the many, but the one who connects the opinions of the many to the gods’.”

“No, because it is hubris, as you yourselves, the titans, say.  I cannot and it is not permitted to me to consent to God’s denial. That is why, in the final analysis, I say: take your children and leave, after you persuade them that life here will be void and shallow…”

At last, the masks had fallen and the priest showed all his expected aversion and revulsion against the achievements of science. The telepathic plasmodium was a nail and a spike in his eyes, it was doubting of God’s domination and arbitrariness, which he could never condone or accept on the grounds of his profession. What gave him the right to judge what others had created and offered to humanity? All prejudices and reservations against the blind religious dogmas bilged in Hyperion’s esophagus like a bitter pill trapped in his vocal cords.

“Father, I think that at this point the Holy Inquisition surfaces which hides as the last resort behind every confession and any supposed dialog. You make me be grateful to God for never having confessed. Why should I recognize as a judge someone evidently more narrow-minded than me? I think that the greatest strike of the Greek (wo-)man to you, father, is exactly that. I refuse to confess to you, I don’t consider you worthy of learning my secrets; most of all, I consider a despicable arrogance, a foolhardy haughtiness on your behalf to presume that you can forgive me!”               

      “But this is exactly the worth and the redemption of confession, namely, to ask humbly forgiveness from the worst peasant, shepherd or pigsty. But why do I bother? I just remembered that your family is holographic. A holographic- photonic family, if this is not the world’s doom, I don’t know what it is. It’s a bestiality and a monstrosity of modern times! Vade retro, Lucifer with your cold light, who is doomed to stay always dark and dismal. Within the inhuman conditions of our era, I lost my faith and that’s why I will commit suicide. I know that suicide is a sin within a god-fearing world, but it is a brave act of protest within a godless world. I rest my case and am satisfied that you will never be able to explain or justify this action of mine. Because all of you, scientists, theoretically progressive, immured in the dictatorship and absolute tightness of your causality, do not embrace will. So, behold the will that created the universe, you unfaithful one!”

He had already put his head into some invisible incandescent monofilament thread. And after he departed, he hanged himself or rather was automatically decapitated. Because that was what he wanted.

1. CHAPTER TAU: TORGOS TRACHELIOTOS

Enter: Torgos Tracheliotos; what was he exactly? His primal property was the commercial one, his secondary one was that he acted exclusively on his own account, i.e. he didn’t represent other planets like Diotima of Mantinea. He was a lonely eater and petty exploiter. His worldview was entirely materialistic. Of course, he neither delved into the essence of matter nor scrutinized it in depth; protons, electrons and all this stuff seemed to him very theoretical and didn’t concern him. His methodology could be characterized as cognitive- theoretical realism. It consists in staying on the surface of things plus the additional explanatory clarification that only the spectrum of reality is available to humans, which they can perceive with the five senses, usually with eyesight. More or less: what is visible through naked eye is also real. The telescopes and the microscopes were merely destined for the crazy scientists or some weird, affected looney-ticks who became metal cases in the end. Is it possible to deny what you have in front of you and search for something other, supposedly hiding behind? So, only visible and tangible things were important. On the other hand, although he could not explain the difference of value concerning objects that seemed similar to his eyes, he knew how to exploit it for personal profit. He knew, for instance, to distinguish after years of mistakes and errors, i.e. from experience the antiquity, the provenance, the artistic variegation, the conditions of demand, the uniqueness or not, the simplicity or the complexity of any merchandise, even the attraction or the repulsion that it emitted. The last distinction was hard especially regarding women, for whom he could not exactly understand why they considered a product attractive or qualitative and vice versa could not grasp the reason for which they condemned it to hell as shallow, spurious, cheap, kitch, uncultivated or garish. But he managed with the use of beautiful words to bluff them into purchase too, thus compensating for every lack of esthetics. 

When we say that Torgos Tracheliotos was a materialist, we really mean it, as his name also witnessed: torgos- vulture- + trachelium -useless gristle and fat around the neck – + ota -ears, which means a crested vulture. One way or another, it was never unusual that one takes in account only the visible objects. Maybe, “qθ” out of “ρ” (99 %) humans think that way. Yet he proceeded beyond that, because all artefacts which he could not exploit or were generously available to all people, which means that he himself didn’t need to exercise special effort to obtain, were entirely indifferent to him. E.g. atmospheric air, the sea and the sun to the extent that they still existed in the space era, in short the common things or those destined for public use were at the disposal of all people, since, as the Christians said, “God makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous”. So, they held no interest for Torgos Tracheliotos, since they were not worth pursuing.

The bitterly conquered experience had taught Torgos Tracheliotos that the easiest way of collecting goods was to take them packed up from the others. From the moment, however, that the societies punished theft or robbery, the next best thing was to attach himself to great leaders, because only they were in position to provide you with what your heart desires and without mediation or presupposition at that, with only requirement to kiss their ring and declare allegiance to them. So what? Big deal, why not? This way was much more effective to access the goods than the “ifs, ands or buts” and the wishy- washy doublespeak of the titans, who have puffed up our bollocks with the hot air of education, skills, values, principles, ethos, meritocracy for Pete’s sake!! On the contrary, the leaders gave you everything and demanded nothing in return, i.e. devotion and dedication, abstract concepts which equal absolute zero. Torgos Tracheliotos failed to grasp the obvious, the most evident conclusion of the ancient world that there are no benevolent tyrants. You will allow us to write this sentence twice: There are no benevolent or good-intentioned tyrants. Or if you prefer, we could mention to you the other stereotype, which is the same, bitterly verified by experience and relentlessly proven by logic, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.      

To make a long story short, Torgos Tracheliotos wanted to free Zeus and the Olympians, counting on amassing immediate profits from them. Beyond that, within his troubled mind he had connected the Olympian gods to the subversive movement of New Arcadia, with whom or which he had extensive commercial transactions according to the presage: the enemy of my commercial associate is also my enemy. Opponents were always the titans, who dictated a lot of presuppositions or requirements for any activity and did not allow freedom as a spectrum of infinite choices to prevail. So, to avenge the binding of their imprisoned leader on Caucasus, without even to consider that the death sentence of Prometheus and his exposure to the gourmandizer vulture who liked liver appetizers were a sort of mercy and vote of confidence to the … plucked, pinched, nipped and stinged that someday he would regret, repent and declare allegiance to the great Zeus, these godforsaken titans crushed impiously the gods under gravitational forces and condemned them eternally to the torment of devastating pressure. Every time they attempted to be reborn again like Foenix out of ashes, the gravity of Mega planet crushed them again, leveling them like decalcomania, transforming them into liquid quicksilver, being a boa constrictor obstructing them from recovering ever again. The Olympians had become this so much impressing red spot on the surface of Mega planet, a melted stepped on stain, a blot of edible colonial Lycopersicon- tomato, covering an area of ιστΜ (160.000) kilometers.

Torgos Tracheliotos was a classic example of big-sized Caucasian male, sparse-haired, wide-faced, broad-chested, muscular, thick-naped, bestial -beasty, stern, grim, sullen, malicious, ignorant and savage, from those that level cities during the wars, plunder churches, slaughter and disembowel pregnant women and throw babies into the fire, so he was a sort of Nemesis for Prometheus, who always related and recounted his sufferings on Caucasus.  “For all who draw Caucasus will die by Caucasus”! He was the perfect minion and subordinate for anyone bloodthirsty bloodstained and bloodsucking tyrant or great popular leader.

Torgos Tracheliotos was always prepared for the missions he undertook and whoever underestimated him was simply defeated by him.  He had the flexibility to perceive that there were some immaterial things that had, not exactly value, but usefulness, without being able to understand in depth why that was the case. Value, worth or usefulness, please, do not tease or torment Torgos Tracheliotos with abstract concepts, you ‘d better give him a good hiding and let him freeze in the breeze! Nevertheless, he knew that in the universe of the titans the knowledge of one object or of some procedures was not enough to elicit a reaction in the sensible world, but also some ritual was needed, a hymn, a troparion, a recite, all those curious things favored and appreciated by the titans. Regarding this, they were no different than the Christians, who also wandered around chanting byzantine hymns: “your birth, Christ and God, has risen in the world the light of cognition” or “today, the virgin gives birth to the above- being and Earth provides the inaccessible one with a cave- safehouse”. So, he had acquired and ensured the appropriate hymn to wake up the sleeping gods and initiate world historical events. Never underestimate Torgos Tracheliotos, because you are going to lose! So, he chanted now the hymn of Cleanthes towards Zeus:

Most honored immortal, many-named one, omnipotent ever,

Zeus, prime mover of nature, steering all things by your lever,

Greetings! It is proper for all mortals to speak to your highness:

For we all descend from you, bear our share of your likeness

We your acolytes alone, of all mortals live and move in light,

So, I shall make song of you and sing forever of your might.

Truly, this whole universe, spinning around our genes’ pool,

Obeys you wherever you lead, willingly submits to your rule;

Such is the servant you hold in your unconquerable hands,

A double-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt over the lands.

For all the works of nature happen by its strikes and stings.

By it you direct the universal reason, which pervades all things

Intermixing with the great and small lights of the firmament.

Because of this you are the one who binds with ligament.

Not a single thing that is done without your permission,

Neither in the divine sphere nor on land, nor fusion nor fission,

Except for what bad people do because they are crooked.

You know to make people conscious of what they overlooked.

How to bring order to the disorderly; to console the sad

For you joined all things into one, the good and the bad.

That they all share in a single unified everlasting reason.

It is shirked and avoided by all the wicked committing treason,

The wretched, who never long for the getting of good things,

Neither see nor hear God’s universal law, ruler of beings,

By which, if they obey, they could share a good fate

But instead, they chase after this and that, always late,

Some in their aggressive zeal for glory and fame,

Are disordered and obsessed by profits without shame,

By others, indulgence and pleasures the body spoil and wear 

They desire the good but are carried off to what isn’t fair.  

All the while in zealous pursuit leading to the beast’s lair.

But bountiful Zeus, shrouded in clouds and ruling the thunder,

Protect human beings from their ignorance and blunder.

Scatter it from our souls, grant that we might obtain

True judgment, on which you rely all things and sustain,

So that, having honor, we offer on your shrine a whopper,

Constantly singing of your works, as it is proper

For mortals to do. For them there isn’t any greater goal

Than to make everlasting song of law and justice for all.

Translated by Stephen Hanselman, rhymed by me

According to the immortal presage “with Athena move your hands too”, he had together with him a powerful magnet with such magnificent energy, that it could raise the whole red spot from its pedestal and foundation or from whatever took hold of it. And indeed, he activated it.

Although we agree that Jupiter consists of gases, hydrogen, helium, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and other vapors etc., given its colossal gravity caused by the accumulation of materials, the absence of a hard core of liquid or even solid elements is unlikely, a core that would include hydro-methane, coal, metallic hydrogen, even some silicon. So, the lowest layers of Jupiter are a sort of coherent quicksand, from where a magnetic lance or probe or bolide of certain configuration can draw up whatever is trapped beneath by the ruthless gravitational compression.

On an area so vast, that stating a number would be meaningless for our story‘s foreshadowing, the Red Spot began taking shape and forming a sort of rhombus with a diameter of unimaginable proportions. Progressively, the rhombus folded towards up, gained the third dimension of height, swelled and became a sphere. Of course, the sphere shifted and transformed successively from a convex to a hollow lens, just like a coelenteron reversing suddenly its belly to the outside for feeding cheating the eye with a sophisticated optical deception. And from the reversed belly a smoke or a steam seemed to arise through convection drifts and knots. Then, a troubled sea was prepared like a viscous egg yolk and lemon sauce or vomit of various ingredients or stagnant phlegm of spittoon and was on the verge of rising like something huge was moving in the Tartaros and wished to emerge from the inert undulation- oscillation. It was something inconceivably detestable coming slowly to the surface, like a volcanic island after a monumental explosion, an organic creature, a whale, a supernatural dolphin, an ocean snake, a sea monster.

His figure and color had eidetic similarity with a giant brain. The tissue was wine-colored with a red hue, which gradually brightens like incandescent embers becoming lubricant and rust manifesting the classical helices of the gray matter embroidered and dotted by bulbs of a panoptic hundred-eyed polyhedrally visioning Argos. From beneath, however, tentacles emerged, each with a different number of fingers or rather nails, protruding like sea- anemones swimming in cold streams, voluminous hands, wormlike, corpselike, white, full of larves, grubs and wrigglers sprouting from long stems on both sides of the sunk hollow eyes, as the creature of the deep lifted itself to the higher levels of the Mega planet’s atmosphere.

The huge being moved like a crab among the nebulas, slipped through the glitchy muddy sand. Envisaging this chaotic collective being and organ, Torgos Tracheliotos squinted and wondered if that could be the father of the gids and the humans Zeus or if it contained also others in its all-encompassing membrane. And he would be right if he cared to place a bet where his predilection lay and put his money where his mouth was.  

The climb to the upper layers of the atmosphere continued. As the dark bulk, red in the beginning and then grey, approached the Torgos Tracheliotos’ ship, which was “Cradean Dionysus” (“crade” was something between walnut tree and heart, fig by Aristophanes, generally a fruit which one brandishes and it falls), the floor of the ship began to liquify, to turn into a lake of foamed and boiling ectoplasm, where the structure integrity of the walls was barely kept together through the energy shield surrounding the ship. A cold breeze started invading the apartments, while Cradean Dionysus submitted a terraforming, transformed gradually into a swamp or a shallow lagoon just as the environment of this bulky creature was on Jupiter. Through this, first of all, sucking, gluing, whiplashing twinkling, diphtheroid hairs and then crooked claws as endings of tentacles were drawn, crawled and hooked in every nook or niche; in the end, a black mass emerged from the bubbles, a monstrous creature trying with much effort to fit into the confining deck or hangar and adapt it for its purposes.

The orgiastic pantheon as the collective of the Olympian gods led its swarm like a gigantic living subject into the depths of the ship absorbing every ounce of warmth or remaining vital energy of its space. It was a strange conglomerate as a rat- king of many members and tails bound together, a central mass from which irregular cylinders and spindles emanated. It was obvious that the most energetic members of this joint mixture, represented by the tentacles and the protrusions, tried to disengage from the rest of the mass and to constitute separate subjects again.

It didn’t require much time for the protrusions to progressively take human shape, which was the figure of the Olympian gods, a little bigger in size and by far taller than the average (wo-)man. The psychopomp, conciliator, negotiator Hermes, the warmonger father of the martial arts Ares, the plentiful provider Demeter, the protector of ancestral traditions Estia, the frowned and thoughtful Athina, the trident-bearer, sea master Poseidon, the whit-armed jealous suspicious spouse Hera, the archer of the woods Artemis, the light-bearer and music lover Apollo and the erotic, sensual, callipygous and steatopygous Aphrodite together with her limp husband, the chiseler and forger Hephestus. Above all stood the mighty omnipotent cloud stirrer Zeus- pater (Jupiter). As the gods were shaped, the surroundings adapted immediately to their needs. The swamp or the soggy bog, from which they invaded, became again a sterilized floor of a spaceship, the temperature was restored, the escaped air replaced, the hole on the energy field of the vessel mended like a crust or a wound scab after applying of a pectin ointment.   

“What vessel is this?”, said Zeus who recovered almost instantly from the dizziness and the languor of the collective situation brandishing here and there his characteristic beard.  

“Master”, answered Torgos Tracheliotos eagerly and respectfully, but also gratefully, because Zeus paid attention to him. “It is ‘Cradean Dionysus’, and I took the initiative to baptize it with this name to honor the…”

“I don’t give a shot how it’s called. What kind of vessel is it, what capabilities does it have?

“It is a former modified cruiser. Of course it is disarmed…”

“Apparently, it has a warp drive”, Zeus interrupted him again, being in no mood for small talk.

“Yes, majestic one”, said T.T. servilely. “It is a good ship. And I, as your humble servant, am gratified to place it at your disposal”

“Whatever comes into my possession is at my disposal, wherever I tread with my foot and I raise my flag, the place is considered as already annexed by me, you contagious worm”.

“Of course. Forgive me for my insolence, cloud-gatherer. It goes without saying that the ship is yours now. One more offering by me, my humble self Torgos Tracheliotos. Remember me, Lord, now that thou comest into thy kingdom and please take in account, beyond the sponsorship of the ship, the very act of saving both you and your joint chiefs of staff, that is that my magnet and I -sorry for the ‘I’- eh… saved you, thou…” 

Zeus directed his gaze for the first time to T.T., because up to this moment he scrutinized greedily the spaceship.  

“Roger that. What is your name?” As soon as the words “Torgos Tracheliotos” began being pronounced, the impatience of Zeus could not take more punishing: “Or rather drop it. Certainly, you are somebody and have also a name, but that plays no essential role in the large picture of things. You may be the delightful dust, through which the gods will succeed their purpose. But surely, you want some reward for your services, isn’t it so, you Tragic Troll?” The tone of Zeus’ speech implied that he wanted to settle quicky and expediently the liability of the servant that has executed his errand.

“Yes, master. Of course, I don’t want to force your hand; to start with, I will be completely satisfied and honored to watch from close quarters your campaigns, to cheer and celebrate with you your impending victories. In the end or soon enough or rather when it is convenient for you, you could reward me with rare earths or…”     

“I will do something even better for you, convenient and useful louse. I will allow you to worship me forever until the end of days. I will catasterize you, paying you the highest conceivable homage. I will expel and catapult you from the ship, just as all great leaders do, so that you may become one more satellite of Mega planet, rotating around my cite of exile praising and glorifying me for all eternity. Such is not a small reward. Hey, T.T., surely you hava accomplished something!”. 

And with the executive snap of the fingers, the body builders Podeidon and Apollo Ποσειδών snatched T.T. and placed him into the airlock, in anticipation of his being catapulted into space, and closed the airtight iris communicating with the ship, before they open the other one envisaging infinity.

“No, I don’t want to die…”, Torgos Tracheliotos prompted to say before he was slingshot screaming and weeping into the void becoming one more satellite of Mega planet, enlisted in the good company of Amaltheia, Pasiphae, Sinope, Lysithea, Carme, Ananga, Leda, Thebe, Adrasteia, Metis, Callirrhoe, Themisto, Megaclite, Taygete, Chaldene, Harpalyke, Kalyke, Iocaste, Erinome, Isonoe, Praxidike, Autonoe, Thyone, Hermippe, Aetna, Eurydome, Euanthe, Euporia, Orthosia, Sponde, Kale, Pasithea, Hegemone, Mneme, Aoide, Thelxinoe, Arche, Kallichore, Helice, Carpo, Eukelade, Cyllene and Kore, not to mention the famous moons of Galilei.        

The literature canon would require that the chapter of Torgos Tracheliotos should end here, but it remains still to see what plan the cloud- gatherer Zeus would provisionally devise, when he quite unexpectedly obtained the command of a vessel, equipped with warp drive and speed, i.e. Cradean Dionysus.

“Colleagues co-gods, it is imperative that we act fast, ‘time and tide wait for no (wo-)man’. This piece of junk may not possess guns, but it has a warp drive. If we also take in account the kinetic, ballistic power that it has as a swiftly moving celestial body, we conclude that it is already a global killer, if it happens to crush on a planet”, said Zeus.

“Just a minute”, said Poseidon. “Quite unexpectedly, through the naivety of some fool we saved ourselves from a very tricky and ominous situation, almost irreversible for us. Not only that, but we also found ourselves in possession of a spaceship or rather a starship It is as if someone falls from the Acropolis and finds a wallet as well. We could easily escape to all directions of Creation and live like kings, merely by cashing in on our reputation. We have also the choice to return to our own universe through the black holes and enter from there a reality, more favorable for us. Why should we insist on a battle or rather a war which is already lost? One way or another, we had precalculated that in some creations we would be defeated by Prometheus and his pirate bunch. So, let us accept that we dodged a bullet and got easy off this time and be grateful for our good luck, let us go to a quiet and nice ocean of planets…”

  “Shut the fuck up, you, imbecilic brother”, Zeus interrupted him with the gaze of a looney-tick. “I am the one to decide if a war has been lost. Am I to lose from this inferior being? From a pariah, an invalid, an inferior, a frightened common man, an insignificant subordinate, an acolyte by definition, a fan, a lackey, a nobody who has no extraordinary or supernatural property. I will be cursed if I let that happen. A mighty leader like me to be dragged to concessions, forget it!  At least, East, where I started one day making a reverse journey compared to that of Alexander the Great, a posterior of mine, initiating an unrepeated mythological expedition and propagating along with the traditional linguists Indo-European language from India to Europe through the Pamir mesas, that continent with all its sea of people which Dionysus once reconquered belongs to me by right. In the process I extinguished or subjugated Cyclopes, Ellopes, Hecatoncheires, titans, mutes and one-eyed jacks, Scylla and Charybdis, physiological beings and monsters. So, let Prometheus and his sloppy wishy-washy softies with their memoranda of understanding take the barren rocks and the scattered frozen peninsulas of the West”.

“Again, sharing of the world?”, said the limp and totally contorted from the one side Hephestus. “I am one of those who suffered the most in these wars and my half face is burnt by the torching nuclear weapons you make me build. Now, I can predict again what’s on your mind. The absolute holocaust! Again, thunders and burns, gun-smoke anew, carnage and contortion of faces!”

  “If you cohabit with a limp, you will also learn to lame”, as the Greek proverb says, answered Zeus. “Naturally, that is what I intend to do! We will fall upon their heads like thunder with the power of countless megatons and we will burn them with a thermos-nuclear explosion, the likes of which the planet has never seen. We are already psychae- energy organisms and we are not going to be affected, while the titan humans or human titans will die like flies. In zero time we will reconquer Olympus of Earth, which is less guarded than the corresponding Olympus of Mars, and reinstate our kingdom.  As time goes by, people will be born again from the primordial primary organic soup, who will be loyal servants with festive worshipping thyrses and servile laurel wreaths to crown us and it will never again cross their minds to rise or rebel”.

Hephestus tried to say something again, but Ares interrupted him, and when Are spoke, Hephestus silenced for many different reasons, the most aggravating of which, heavy as the Priapus’ system of twin testicles, was the crucial decisive archetypic and confounding fact that Ares was the lover of his wife.

“If the once sodomite, but nowadays according to politically correctness called homosexual, queer or androgyne is right at some point, is that we have an obsession to use Olympus as headquarters, while we could hit directly Sirius, the bastion of Confederation, inflict a devastating strike into the heart of the titanic heresy, whereby they will not have anything to oppose us other than fart on our testicles at the most: as the Christians say: we shalt bruise their heads and they shalt bruise our heel”.  

“Now, warmongering and bloodthirsty Ares. I cannot quit Olympus. I am the one who will dictate the terms of the game and of the war and I choose Olympus for me and Caucasus for him, nectar and ambrosia for me and foie gras for his vulture. The titans are having their eye on Olympus, they are flirting with Olympus, you, hateful to humans and obnoxious personally to me Ares, because they know very well that their parched crispy planet is geopolitically inferior to Earth, since the catasterisms are performed from there. So, let them roast like steaks in Sirius along with their scorching dog days and come with me to conquer the highest mountain top since when we left behind Chionos Laes (Himalaya- stones of snow)!  So, set a course to Earth. Today the dinosaurs die again and from their ashes the superior of all is born, Olympus, Olympian, Olympiakos!”.

At that moment, Hermes came forward, being himself a skillful bootlicker, to contribute a small pebble into the mosaic of the conference and deliberation for things to be done.

“Cloud -gatherer Zeus, let us not forget that we have at our disposal this powerful magnet of that operetta’s figure- the scampering, skipping skipper, with which he drew us up from Mega planet. We could use that as a weapon against Earth”.  

“Have you lost your marbles or are you a sandwich short of a picnic? Do you propose that we activate a magnet of such magnitude and turn it against Earth, against this miserable lump? The magnet will suck it, as if it were a hoover vacuum cleaner. It is like fishing small fry with dynamite or typing with boulders or throwing anchors in a shallow cove.” 

Tell us now, reader, how would you develop further the plot. Simply enough, once more, the renowned and fully competent, being of sound mind and legal age Leto had infiltrated Cradean Dionysus, since Torgos Tracheliotos -probably the last time we mention his name, alas for all things there is a first and a last time in life – was included in the list of suspects for the murder of Arete. And once again the Titanis was involved in a different case than the one assigned to her.

Leto advised the titans in detail through communicator about the sloppy crude plan of Zeus to fall upon Earth like a lethal meteor brandishing Cradean Dionysus and causing vibrations beyond any fantasy. Hyperion acknowledged the sequence of events white like a sail, because, even before Leto realizes it, he had reached the inevitable, unavoidable conclusion that Leto should be sacrificed. There could be no alternative, but it took some moments for the technocrat titan to accept, not just with guile and intention, but also with premeditation that he was about to order a close associate of his to die. Tears almost flowed from his eyelashes, which were trained for years to stay dry.

Leto, when she realized that Hyperion remained silent, understood reluctantly where her compass was about to show or even worse that her destiny was sealed.

“Supervisor”, she said, “you can’t mean of course that I should… or rather it seems that you mean it”.  She leaned her head on the wall as if it was a sack of flour, as if she was a ragdoll or a football full of rags and her countenance oscillated between protest and distrust.  

“To die after so many missions, I wouldn’t deem it possible … I learned to enjoy the victories, to be thrilled even by the defeats …I didn’t expect you to order me to die, me, who always took your side”.  

“You’ll never know how much sorry I am. But it cannot be helped. You must blow up the spaceship before it reaches Earth. There is no one either in the race of the humans or in the regiment of the titans who would tell you something different. We don’t have a choice… you don’t have a choice…”

“I overdid it, always infiltrating spaceships as a spy. I knew that I was good at hiding and seek, that they couldn’t find me. But this… this eluded me… that you would ask me to sacrifice and take with me to oblivion the whole ship … I don’t deserve this fate… I always did what the chain of command asked from me … I did my job and I was good at it…”    

“That’s why you are the proper person, perhaps the only one who are in the position to do what must be done”. The voice of Hyperion was crumbled this time, flayed and skinned, metallic.

“I always agreed with the chain of command and expected my reward… and now you all expect me to die… you are ordering me to die…you want to persuade me to die …”. Her voice was broken, had become childish, scared, but at the same time savage, as if a girl was pricking here and there with a fork, risking revealing her hiding place. “But I did nothing wrong, I don’t deserve death… I don’t want to die here, alone… among enemies…” 

“It’s not like you think. No one would wish this to happen, if there was any other conceivable way for something different to be done, unless it were to be some alternative… but there isn’t. This mental case will fall upon Earth and will leave nothing undestroyed”.

 “One way or another, these bastards are already souls and they cannot die”, objected Leto in her despair, although- alas- she knew the answer.

“Yes, but they need a spaceship to move, to carry their overestimated wisdom through space. Or else, they will be trapped like dots in the infinity of the cosmos, swimming half a meter with each hand stroke and let them cover this way the distance to Earth”.

“Yes, but I am afraid, gentlemen, I don’t want to die, as Torgos Tracheliotos said. I want to live, you, the big brain and brass, should figure out an alternative for me to live, engage your prominent intellects and think. It reflects badly on me that you have accepted so easily my sacrifice and you hurry to proceed with your life, as if nothing is amiss. You don’t care, esteemed dignitaries, you don’t care for your subordinates, who are your responsibility. The position you fill equals not only to office and money, but also to obligations and liabilities …”

“No, it is not true that we don’t care”, Hyperion apologized. “Prometheus is watching breaking news and is devastated, all your previous fellow combatants and co-warriors attend this dialog and suffer together with you… all would like to be in your shoes instead of you, to spare you this predicament … or so they say… at the same time everybody wouldn’t like to be in your position, because only you are so brave to see it through …”

Leto remained silent for an hour.

“Leto”, whispered Hyperion hesitatingly, “as long as you delay, the vessel is approaching Earth. Fortunately, they are not so crazy to activate warp speed faster than light within a solar system and they are crawling and creeping praising and enjoying their freedom and success. So, please…”

“I want to speak to my father”, asked Leto as a last wish.  

The circumstances were very critical, and the titans were very organized, just as they should be to be able to face the superpower of the twelve gods, and the helmsman Koios came quickly to the microphone.

“Leto, my Leto, I feel devastated…”

“Don’t be, father, I don’t want you to feel like that …. I just wanted to talk to you, not hurt you …”, Leto managed to whisper from the pedestal of human dignity.

Yet her sob, which she tried to hide or withhold, drowned in her neck and finally emerged to the surface.   

          Don’t cry, daughter”, said Koios with deep commotion. “We are all going to die sooner or later and our life is but a grain of sand in the universe. Your name, however, will be mentioned for centuries, because you always manage to interweave your destiny with that of Zeus, deceiving him or spying on him. So, everything went well, if you contemplate it from the view- angle of the things that need to be done within a Creation”.

Her lip was trembling and she bit it. “Father, enough is enough with the big ideas, I only wanted to say goodbye…”

“Yes, of course, daughter, I am not lecturing you, this is not the proper moment, I wouldn’t like for you to remember me as a father- Mr. Know-all … I really don’t know what to say … I am seeing Hyperion beside me, and I am feeling the urge to attack him, to make short work of him, to hit and strike him … but perhaps he is not to blame… Why, you, nepotist pig of favoritism, why do you assign all the difficult tasks to my daughter?” 

“Father, do not accuse my superior officer. He always tried to mobilize and engage my abilities and skills and held me in great esteem. But if you think highly of someone, then you consequently assign him great responsibilities. I see that now. I am the proper titan in the proper position… Ah, father, if mother were alive, I would ask you to kiss her, I wouldn’t like for the one to blame the other for my demise, but that you all live together peacefully ever after, just I like to remember you…”, said Leto wiping and trying to dry her tears on her wet sleeve– wet is an understatement, it was soaked.

“Yes, yes, don’t worry, I report often to Phoebe, I have a relationship with her, although she had died, as I will have with you…We will be always together, tell our jokes, comment the conduct of our superiors, make fun of the public service’s bureaucracy, delve onto the paradox of human existence…”

Hyperion intervened again, because it was necessary.

“Leto”, he said pleadingly, “if Zeus switches on the warp drive, he will arrive to Earth instantly. He seems to fear the repercussions of awakening and mobilizing a vast force within a small space, but on the other hand one can expect anything from him…”

   “Father, the time of analysis has past and now is the time for action, as you always said in our games … So, I will leave you at that. The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our way, – I to die, and you to live. Which is better only God would know. (Socrates, Apology).

 It would be more decent for the dialog to end at this point, but Leto said something more, something human, all too human.

“Let us greet, father, but not bit farewell. Maybe, I will come back to your dreams with my hair tied in braids to weep because my stuffed plush bear has died. Maybe, I will be dew or frost whispering a story at its passage, an evening aura, a window that creaks. I will be something not visible, yet near you, beside you, a little farther perhaps, in close quarters, in an imperceptive phase shift. Thus, I want you to remember me, my loving sweet papa! Adieu!” Her voice was liquified into tears and the connection was interrupted. She never learned if the repeated ‘adieu’, the desperately emitted greeting, which echoed like a monotone garrulous rattling tinkering    cymbal, was a reiteration of her own words or perhaps Koios’ forced dimmed discouraged answer like a piece of chalk scribbling, scratching and screeching on a blackboard.  

Leto proceeded into action with the only thinkable manner in such cases. She stopped thinking or rather stopped conjecturing, interrupted the communication between the mind and the limbs of her body and kept active and alert only the half- automatic involuntary part of her brain corresponding to an ideo- kinetical movement of her extremities. Because certainly, turning her ray gun or her communicator into a bomb presupposes some sort of thought, but mechanical, technical, not connected to the existence or the ego. Such an intellectual procedure or process is at most pondering or stochastic with the old meaning that it refers to an aim, but it is surely not syllogism, since anything tending to the cancellation of existence, any existence, is not entitled to contain the word stem logos.   

                    Then she implemented the most tested and proved method of terror, self- incendiary. If someone possesses an explosive device and detonates it in one’s pocket or just besides, who can overtake or prevent one from doing so? An internal explosion, so close to the chamber confining the energy crystals and the warp drive, caused a lateral declension and structural collapse of the petri-dishes and the pebbles of the system, as well as disturbance of the sensitive balance of the crystals, regulating and controlling with their complicated intricate alignment and the backup redundant safety valves the matter-antimatter reaction and interaction. The voids were filled rapidly, the crucial distances were cut short and abbreviated abruptly, the magnetically hovering antimatter molecules touched the wall, fell on the floor or hit on the ceiling. Protons and antiprotons, electrons and antielectrons extinguished and cancelled each other within a reaction releasing instantly and violently, fortunately for one moment only, energies so dense, that are observed only in Big Bangs. The explosion was sensed as far as Alpha Centauri. And as far as Leto is concerned, she turned mercifully and compassionately into dust, whereas, dear reader, if you concentrate hard enough, you may be able to see even today the Olympian gods roaming and swimming desperately somewhere within the asteroid belt, otherwise front- crawling or backstroking to come a little closer to Earth.        

• CHAPTER (H-) YPSILON: HYPERION- HIPPARCHIA

The human race is the dynamic drawing of billion timelines and biographies, which in the end deposit their material coverings and their fancy colors, so that only the shapes and the vacuum diagram remain behind.

In the new reality, a single, mere voyeurism was left. The various pandemics or murrains of modern life and collateral microbiophobia lead necessarily to the so-called social distancing, where everyone would perceive the other as a simple image or- to use a word from the future generations- as a hologram. This was foreseen initially by Isaac Asimov in the “Naked Sun”, where according to the narration people had learnt to avoid physical contact due to the diseases and to rely on robots for their sustenance. Everybody sent his hologram to the living room of the other for chat, so that the instinctive urge towards society may be satiated and the primordial need for communication may be fulfilled. Under those circumstances the murder of our story was committed. But how could that be possible? Don’t let me spoil your entertainment by giving away the end of the story though, you’d better read it.   

We just perused a situational condition, where everyone, even in the stage of biological life, ends up seeing the other as an image. Here we face nothing less than the change of an epistemological paradigm. But such circumstances aren’t so bad, on the contrary they are compatible with man’s urge to become gradually a pure spiritual being. Platonic love is interwoven with the culture and the education of the eye. In such a manner one prepares himself for the afterlife, where the only means of perception would be vision not as a retina device, but in the sense illustrated by Dionysios Solomos, national poet of Greece, in the sense of soul’s open eyes. So, let us have courage, because the reduction of all senses to mere vision couldn’t be so bad after all, it is rather an unavoidable step of progress.

At this point I expect severe reaction. I am ready to hear the usual sermon about being conservative, the tirade and the libel that I underestimate the frenzy of touch, the irritability of smell and the fever of the flesh. Continuing and following up this thought, the first sensation connected with passion and suffering, oscillating in waves, which one endures proclaiming pain as the privilege of the sensitive natures, is the ability to hear and its vibration; The latter registers the inflicted pain and protests for it, initiating in its turn its own wave-reaction and urging the subject to exclaim a voice or a distinctive cry. The olfactory sense and the taste filter and distill the air and absorb the nuggets of the bodies’ attrition that rub one another, just like the careless who choose to ignore the threat of coronavirus. Epicurus used to say that the bodies communicate through rubbing and scratching, but these are also a broadcast of information fitting to previous obsolete times. As far as touch is concerned, it is connected to the rhizome of earth, its gravity and heat, and suffers ungrudgingly the tortures inferred. It is obvious though that all senses tend to wrap around and describe the shapes of the objects, they perform scouting, drawing, sketching, tracking, tracing of somebody else’s type and gestalt, therefore they involve some kind of spiritual – intellectual vision. Even someone who gropes blindly has only one purpose: to see and perceive!  

          In the brave new world of the voyeurism to what the others do, of the voyeuristic admiration of a foreign show or display, of the research for an external factor or agent who could impose her/himself on humanity, guide it  and save it, man/woman had become a consuming using up being, had reached admirable quota of consumption, languor, and debility up to a point, where the definition of poverty and wealth in the end changed. In the titanic “civilized” world, the people sat all day long supplying their precious hind with nourishing substances provided by A.I., watching spectacles, organized by A.I. Even the definition of wealth and poverty had been reversed. The aristocracy of the planet ate furthermore healthy food without gluten and lived a frugal ascetic life in huts of agrotourism cultivating ecological products. On the contrary, the plebe, the rabble devoured juicy hamburgers, whereby the saps flowed and ran down from the edges of the lips, resided in super luxurious domiciles with a thousand needs, condemned to pay constantly all kinds of workmen and craftsmen, because once in a while the tablet or the circulator of the  combustor or the furnace was broken, sometimes the circuits or the relays of the boiler, occasionally the laundry or the refrigerator, now and again the computers or the electronic plates, the solar  water-heater or the radiator, one time the one another time the other. Rich were those who could still work and draw satisfaction from the formation, fabrication and special construction of their artefacts, having only a few possessions, where they could still mirror and picture themselves, while the poor bought continuously without mercy and redemption, accumulated goods that overflowed, squashed, and crushed them; The latter fought everyday with indescribable stress to spend their discount coupons and their huge salaries that- surprise, surprise-  could only be liquidated in the money-changing market of their own companies and employers. The only advantage of the humans in comparison with the A.I. was that they had the assets and the capitals, they enjoyed the lucrative pensions of the past on the grounds of obsolete, still unchanged unabolished rules and regulations; as a result, they were the only ones well off and in position to invest and to finance the programs and the miscellaneous activities of the robots. Otherwise, they were completely decommissioned, rolling, and driving like a modern Sisyphus their carts in the huge domed vaulted corridors of the supermarkets, checking off one by one the purchased items on their shopping list, burdened by the choice between sophisticated, impossible products, from soup to nuts, as the saying goes. In this era, everyone was jostled by crowds of lower-class people in miserable blocks, in atrocious slums, where Cyclopean walls stood next to Erechtheion and Parthenon and chapels of other religions; gingerbread marred every facade; no building was without its brilliant signs and flare-lights. Pulses of light and color are reflected upon their magnificent walls and luminous advertising movies and tags cover every corner of their edifices in an imperial phantasmagorical style. They have built big domes, where suggestive and impressive images are projected from the very top. They had an inclination for the imposing and the majestic. Wherever they dwelled, they were overshadowed and protected by tall and extensive as well as depressing ceilings reminding every individual of its insignificance in comparison with the whole.

As we have pointed out elsewhere, the ingenuity of the titans had conjectured the opposite arrangement compared to classic communism, which suggested and implemented individual property and privatization of the production means and socialization- nationalization- community in relation to products or goods. This way the economy is powered henceforth by labor, creation, and artwork. The workers or the employees acquire a strong motive, because property and its perpetuation after death is a viable option only regarding the components of production. On the other side the abrogation of inheritance and heredity prevented the accumulation of wealth, because possession was only possible, if one elaborated and refined the actual product combining the productivity with his very life, in the absence of which no transition or transaction could be achieved. Thus, the whole world could be fed (see previous paragraph).

While the enlightened titanic administration was characterized by politics of subvention, attempting to distribute to the crowd the wealth and the surplus value that the machines produced, people, as it usually happens, wanted more and were never satisfied or satiated. The all wanted to be creative, to become businessmen or entrepreneurs. Although they weren’t anymore classic workers in the traditional sense, but they took or were supposed to take initiative either as programmers or as caretakers, janitors or supervisors of the various A.I. systems, they all dreamed to assume governmental positions, to rule the titanic world, to replace Olympus’ gods, to terraform, to catasterize, to distribute the wealth, to open new horizons of creative activities, to distinguish themselves as leaders.    

Consequently, the demonstrations, even the violent ones, were in daily order. In the overpopulated arcologies of Earth, things were much worse, but even in the high society of New Arcadia, the confrontations between the government and the governed people were quite often. And of course, as expected, the displeased did not realize exactly what their problem was or what precisely they coveted, and they burst into vague and indefinite invokes of justice, liberty, equality, brotherhood and other unmediated concepts. Leader of the generally protesting mass was in the frame of our story, Hipparchia of the Cynics.

Since we are referring to a past or future world affected by ancient Greece, there was a little more logic and a little less suspicion than average, and despite the adversities the faith was still strong that education could change people, make them better. So, Hipparchia organized tragedy presentations as public events, through which she endeavored to educate the participants of the corporations and the associations towards a logical series of actions, through which they could improve their position. Something like didactic tragedies or educational inspirational dramata of real existing socialism.   

After the death of Leto, Hyperion had a lousy mood regarding all things. After so many chapters, which we perused, he had forgotten the reason for his presence here. He had summoned Anchiale and Metis as substitutes, but they could only succeed, not replace Leto.  Hipparchia, for her part, cherished and appreciated the veteran warrior, since, as we have pointed out, it was an age of respect or anyway more respect than ours. So, Hipparchia drew inspiration from Hyperion, since, as she wittily mentioned, she rode under the beginning (arche), while Hyperion exceeded the limits, as his name indicated. While he crossed one of the most untidy and unproductive periods of his life, Hipparchia, seeing in the face of Hyperion the chance of her life, hired him as an artistic councilor of her synonymous drama “Hyperion”. Who would be best at giving useful suggestions for the theatrical play “Hyperion” than Hyperion himself? A thousand working (wo-)men constituting the theater-loving public, gathered to watch the play, because in the world of the titans the unshakable faith still dominated that art cultivates (wo-)man and leads it to higher domains, makes her/him morally, psychically and intellectually armored to achieve his/her goals completing the pyramid of personality “idea- moral (ethos) strategy”, not like today, where an unwrought voice of protest just pushes one to an indefinite vindication and a dubious claim.

Hyperion came sad and downcast to attend the performance, due to social nobility, kindness and urbanity among others, since it was in his honor. As we have already said, the other day he was reduced to idleness, decay, untidiness and self- negligence. He had lost his faith in the titanic ideas, he had ceased to be the creaseless, impeccable, stainless and irreproachable officer and had started an affair with Phaenarete. You will object, should our hero decline and go south to finally proceed to a commitment? Maybe, this is more likely a sign of prudery than morality. Bit for the giggling details of the affair with Phaenarete, you will be constraint, reader, to wait for the next chapter. At the side of Hyperion, the local authorities took place; first of all Theano Thuria, who wanted to exploit in many ways the theatrical performance, both to receive good advice for her administration as a responsible leader and to learn what the lower decks of the station, the working class thought about her. Present was also Percnopterygus, who had the strongest relation to power, being the quintessence of a hypocrite politician with the undefined expression behind the beard and that monumental insensitivity, boasting of being able to adapt to any circumstance, but in fact consolidating and dispersing around the vulgarity of indiscreet evening, equalizing, leveling and steamrolling all things.  

 The performance started with Cronus mourning the loss of his power that Zeus had taken. In any case, it is well known that the ancients did not need to invent new heroes for their literary works, they drew up from Mythology the already elaborated ethical characters and the mind structures, and their creative activity lay only in the infinite combination thereof, in the deepening into the motives of will and the various versions of psychology. Thereupon, Theia leads Cronus where the other titans sit, crying for their sad fate and wondering if they could counterattack the Olympian conquerors. Fancy Hyperion seeing his own wife starring in the play. This was the price of being a celebrity, especially in those days, when values were duly recognized. Followingly, old Oceanus and Clymene declared their wish to concede their authority to Poseidon and Apollo on the grounds that they were handsomer than them! Yes, there were periods, when the titans were so immerged in self-doubt and introversion that they had developed inferiority complexes compared to the attraction and the blinding beauty of the Olympian gods, such beauty that it hurt, as Clymene said. Alas, However, to add a little Christianity into our concoction, beauty is evanescent and transitory or else survives only if it is risen on some level of encyclopedia and objectivity, a museum’s exposition that can endure the centuries.

Then, the action transfers into the palace of Hyperion, where with a natural awkwardness and bashfulness, agitation and ambiguous psychical approach Hyperion envisaged the actor impersonating him. Uranus encourages him to assist the other titans and cooperate with them to overthrow the Olympian gods. As Hyperion felt psychically elevated through the politically incorrect motto: “birds of a feather flock together”, the thread of Ariadne snapped once more, the director Endymion cut Hyperion and brought again Apollo on the stage, who whipped himself on the beach, doubting if he could exploit fully his potential, while Mnemosyne told him that he must believe in himself and in his skills. What was that unexplained attraction that the Olympian gods exercised το people throughout the ages? Whatever their faults or misdemeanors were, whether they lost the struggle of domination or won, they always had a place in the people’s heart. It is the attractiveness of the social climber, the aspiring yappie, the upwardly mobile recognized and successful person calling all to emulate her/him and to score some hits themselves! How could democracy confront self-conceit and ambition, since the only one it can oppose to the dream of absolute domination is merely the humble concept of jurisdiction, i.e. that one should simply do one’s job and find joy in the task? 

Finally, the titans decide to teach people good faith and why not? love. To love our superiors and supervisors, to love hierarchy, social articulation and structure. Only articulated people can thrive.  If anarchy and leveling equalization prevails, then one cannot even go to the kiosk to buy a newspaper. As a waitress in a restaurant said, once the rallying demonstrators had destroyed and devastated the whole area, but admirably and unexpectedly left her establishment still intact: “If they smash also this one, who is going to feed them?”          

So, a subordinate with a mask of indefinite and fleeting features presents himself and says to his superior:

“INITIAL GOOD FAITH

 Enlightened leadership, productive company erection

You offer us roof, food, protection (Savvopoulos) 

I regret that I have despised you which let us proceed  

Because freedom is to feel the antinomy of need,  

Otherwise, you lose heaven and all granting,

And you will have an unpleasant crush-landing.

You are good at administrating and ruling things, 

That’s why you deserve love of me and all beings,  

Show me your mercy and I will confess,

I will apologize for my sins, either more or less, 

I will improve my life in a realistic way,

Make hell and Tartaros withdraw, fade and sway.  

Think that when hatred leaves and retreats,

The soul becomes innocent, in pure white clear feats. 

The soul learns to encourage or scare herself,  

To appease, charm or tidy the library’s shelf.  

She knows both the will and the way,  

To thrive and progress wherever she lay,  

As much as the wind howls and as a wolf roars, 

As much as the boats sink and lose all oars.”

In the end, the subordinate says to the superior:  

“I love you!”

Her/his figure is still undefined, dark, vague, plastic like a primary dough. The body consisted of gristles, instead of bones, had a marengo, bleached and pale color, was sacked like a pear with lean, thin, skeleton, dried extremities and plated feet soles. The skin was blistered, budded, grained, buttoned, knotty, bulbous, where every one of those spherical balls could side each other to new formations. The armes were awkwardly designed like claws and the eyes were mauve.    

“Love me too, let us work together!”  

Slowly, the body of the subordinate, of the one submitted to a status of dependent work began to transform itself according to the presumed wishes of the boss and acquire proper symmetrical analogies. To become carved, voluptuous, inflationary, sensitive, pleasurable, erotic with a rouge hue, just the one a breeze can give the face. Formation of front and nose like porcelain, eyes pleading with elegant eyelashes, swollen voluminous zygomatic bones, like the “blond nation”, sturdy stocky chin, broad shoulders and white alabaster arms, conic rocketlike breasts, the chest outward, the belly inward, long legs capable upon the lover’s wish of restricting or stretching even more.  

“I love you. Love me!”   

The public united asks form the present authorities to accept the offer, the stretched hand of the working class like in the “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang, where finally employers and workers proceeded together like siblings to the destiny of the future. The identification of the spectators and the prominent figures thereof with the protagonists of the play was annoying and the leading citizens shook their heads in disclaim, twitched at their collars and spit contemptuously to exorcise and ostracize this conceived by poetic license similarity. Yet the people addressed themselves to them and pleaded: Accept, accept!

Implicitly, the director Endymion tried to focus the interest of the people on the scene and channel its rage against Zeus and the Olympian gods who didn’t condone any reconciliation or offsetting with individuals, inferior to them! The Zeus of the performance already shot thunders towards the employees accusing them of hubris, that they would like to be equal to the gods, which is unthinkable!

A mayhem without precedent dominates, since the stadium bleachers are nervous and upset, the atmosphere bursts of static electricity, which is gathering dangerously on the verge to detonate.

To ease the spirits a bit, the chorus comes to the stage and is singing:

“IDEOLOGIES

Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave

A paradise for a sect, the savage too

From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep

Guesses at Heaven; pity they have not

Traced upon vellum or wild Indian leaf

The shadows of melodic utterance.

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;

For poesy alone can tell her dreams,

With the fine spell of words alone can save

Imagination from the sable charm

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,

‘Thou art no Poet- mayst not tell thy dreams’?

Since every man whose soul is not a clod

Hath vision, and would speak, if he had loved,

And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

Whether the dream now purposed to rehearse s

Be Poet’s or Fanatic’s will be known

When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave” (Keats).    

But the people could not endure postponements, delays, suspensions, prudent contemplations, interlocutions- deliberations and such. The spectators united shouted slogans that the establishment should give something – they didn’t know exactly what- concede some kind of privilege that they lacked and the governors possessed. The wealth and the money in the era of the three-dimensional printers, matter replicators and C.H.O.N. mines had no intrinsic value. Since, however, the vision of “aristos” in the Homeric era was not considered evil like today, but it continued to inspire the real existing titanism and since (wo-)man had always the tendency to confront magnitudes bigger than her/him and achieve deeds and considering that creativity is the only way for one to pastime without suffering a depression or getting seriously sick, the next unnegotiable public demand was the slogan “we want salary, not subvention”. Another slogan was “to each his/her own”.

They didn’t mean of course that it was possible to press a button after the body’s or the spirit’s labor and to receive automatically the exact remuneration of your effort, but I claim that the unequal comparison between the toil and its fruits will become stable and symmetrical, once the distribution- mechanism is subjected to human control, so that all may get their due. If the organization- frame of contribution – remuneration is based on the will of the employer, then an undefined variable enters the problem, which can take on different values, so that the result of the equation shifts constantly.

At that point, the public averted temporarily the gaze from the power-hungry Thuria and Percnopterygus and turned to Hyperion as its last chance inciting him to challenge the gods with the property of the titan and claim the primordial but -alas- deceptive dream, the absolute equality all towards all.

“Hyperion, you should vindicate from the gods a new position for (wo-)mankind!”.

The orchestra leader of the performance Endymion was fermented and familiarized with the interaction of the ancient theater, equivalent only to the powerful cry and protest of the Greens and the Blues I the hippodrome of Constantinople, was used for the spectators to jump and make the play take off, that’s why he had great adaptivity and could weave script verses out of nothing, while the actors have learned to improvise mercilessly according to the public demands. So, he endeavored to enlist the famous spectator in the texture of the performance.

“Hyperion, what do you say about all this, reply to your fans”, he asked the Atlantic one, construing and expressing the will of all present.

Hyperion was in a very bad mood, but he had enough titanic love of honor not to be able to ignore those who addressed him and hang on his lips.   

Director Endymion and other friends: I want to apologize why I am not in the mood and in the proper psychological constitution to be able to enjoy to the full extent what you are generally offering me. Unfortunately, also on other occasions, when they ask me to participate in any team play, I exhibit negativity and self-isolation that I cannot explain. Perhaps the reason is that in all these years I had constantly superior officers – something that you, honorable spectators, never experienced, although you have an undefined tendency to integrate yourselves to the joints of power. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority my superiors were women who have poked, dug and broadened my asshole so much that I cannot accept not even the slightest, real or putative, aggravation, when I am not on duty. Fortunately, in our era the movement of the politically correct awakening culture is not particularly developed, so I have still the opportunity to express such viewpoints. Or else, we will come to the point, where even the word ‘man’ will be considered sexual harassment”.  

Endymion as an experienced servant of theater and participant of such bright psychographic dramas had delved deeply into the characters, the dispositions and the temperaments, “many cities of men he saw and learned their minds” and understood immediately that the problem of Hyperion were not the sometimes  depressingly present forewomen – superiors, but rather the absent protegee woman -Leto- perhaps the only one regarding whom our hero sensed superiority.

Endymion replied: “’Through a woman came forth the baser things,’ said the young emperor referring to sin, but Kassiani promptly responded by saying: ‘And through a woman came forth the better things.’ Please, know, you, venerable fighter of democracy, that we all here participating and coexisting in this performance are standing next to you and mourning equally what happened.” Addressing the actors he said: “Guys, let’s recite what we have prepared in loving memory of Leto”.

The actors adapted instantly to the new data that came forward from the effortless spontaneous interaction of the performance.

„LETO

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,

Bright eyes, accomplished shape and languorous waist!   

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise-

Vanished unreasonably at shut of eve,

When the dusk holiday -or holinight-

Of fragrant- curtained love begins to weave

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;

But, as I’ve read love’s missal through today,

She’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

 The living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights,

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm’d -see here it is-

I hold it towards you”.  (Keats)

Hyperion cried unrestrainedly with tears thick like plums, because he appreciated pretty much this honorable gesture of the director and of the audience towards him.

“I thank you all”, he said. I stay always sworn at your service, so that we may once more claim the flame from the gods, walking on the footsteps of our forefather, the great Prometheus!”

Jubilations shook the firmament; hats catapulted to the heavens. Altogether, chorus and spectators sang what they already knew from an earlier performance of the same play or perhaps Endymion gave them something in writing – I don’t know what exactly happened at that moment, belonging to a so distant and unapproachable date, star date ‘go figure’!  

“CLAIM

 Thou art a dreaming thing;

A fever of thyself – think of the Earth;

What bliss even in hope is therefor thee?

What haven? Every creature hath its home;

Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,

Whether his labors be sublime or low –

The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct:

Only the dreamer venoms all his days,

Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve”.    

The vindication now is raging, rampaging, cavorting like Bacchus or Korybant. The trampling, the stamping, the noise, the wild turbulence, the oscillating frenzy swells to a rabid waving wintered sea. Since the approach of love was deflected and rejected by the Olympians, the crowd gets indignant, feels that it is within their rights to outrage. Now, the masks have fallen, and the battle is fought in the streets, – if you stand your ground, you are lost already, if you run for your life, they have just done you in, nevertheless.  If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you.  You will run, but you will not escape. You will fight, but you will not survive. In front of the dung of the dead, you will gather yourself together; around the tombstones a new movement is created, since it has been comprehended what survival in the jungle means, namely that every combatant will become an even more relentless and voracious predator. The rebels take the distorted figure of the oppressors, a countenance reflecting such malice, such bottomless hatred that even the first teachers of the doctrine, the fore(wo-)men and union bosses express the quandary, how their face was capable in the first place to utter and inspire such conscious bestiality, such banded and conspicuous callousness!  So, then, the protestors – vindicators- avengers are shouting their lungs out: “I hate you!”      

“I HATE YOU

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid

Under this cradle hood and coverlid

My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle

But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill

Whereby the haystack- and roof- levelling wind,

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;

And for a hour I have walked and prayed

Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,

And under the arches of the bridge, and scream

In the elms above the flooded stream;

Imagining in excited reverie

That the future years had come,

Dancing to a frenzied drum,

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea” (Keats). 

   But the ruthless battle, the collision at any cost, the complete absence of reconciliation and dialectic understanding leads only to new hecatombs, slaughters and carnage like hanging meat in the marketplace. Something is wrong at a fundamental level, things are derailed in opposite directions, some sort of mediation must be invoked as unity of the opposites. That cannot be helped or else the only alternative is the universal disaster!

“CLASS STRUGGLES

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood -dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity”. (Keats) 

Yes, the human being cannot exhaust oneself only to vindication and class struggles. From the moment that one is not hungry (and only oneself knows that), one ought to come forward and help others! The class struggles alone are not enough; the whole wealth of human history cannot be summarized into the abstract that the working class should eat the Bourgeoisie. The moral attitude of the individual regarding the sequence of events, the relationship of subjects to each other is always significant and necessary. Hyperion is called again to provide an ethical timber treasure trail, on which people might orientate. But Hyperion is disappointed by the strikes of the rubble, the costly repercussions, the multi-sacrificing Pyrrhus’ but also dead-end rage, the irrationality of the protests without any specific institutional request and the catastrophic mania directed against righteous and unrighteous punishing the innocent along with the guilty, the highest justice that becomes the highest injustice, when the pure of heart are crushed or killed within the millstones!

“HYPERION ENRAGED IN HIS TENT

I know you, ghosts, you are mine, get lost and sway,

But please don’t come closer, forgive me or at least stay away

I implore you give me space, it’s not yet Judgment Day. (Solomos)

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight, somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep    

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (Keats)

But temper and rage will not sway me, since I know

That they don’t build institutions, don’t the field plough,

Neither summon the people nor its plebiscites stow. (Giakoumis)

So, ye ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise

My head cool-bedded in flowery grass;

For I would not be dieted with praise

A pet lamb in a sentimental farce!

Fade softly form my eyes, and be once more

In masque- like figures on the dreamy urn;

Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

And for the day faint visions here is store;

Vanish ye phantoms! From my idle sprite,

Into the clouds, and never more return!” (Keats)  

The audience are crying with tears in their eyes:

“Hyperion, don’t leave us. It is impossible for democracy to disappoint its people, not to provide any solution! Shiny splendorous Hyperion, proceed and march forward. Honorable titans, lead the people, make Greece great again!”    

“HYPERION MARCHES FORWARD

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,

The soul recovers radical innocence

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self -afrighting,

And that it’s own sweet will is Heavens will;

She can, though every face will scowl

Ana every windy quarter howl

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

Anon rushed by the bright Hyperion;

His flaming robes streamed out beyond his heels,

And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,

That scared away the meek ethereal Hours,

And made their dove -wings tremble. On he flared…” (Keats)

The solution is for one to enjoy what one does within its margin of authority, to exercise fully one’s profession, which means to each his/her own, that one’s got to do what one’s got to do, the bastion of the defender, the circle of duties, where anyone carries out one’s assignment, where one excels, as the Aristotle’s moral prescribes.    Then, the cunning of reason manages that, while one thinks that one favors oneself through the development of a personal strategy, the final order of things promotes and upgrades the whole as a resultant of conclusive actions of the many or rather of all. No improvement can be achieved from the outside through enforcement, but only from inside through self- suggestion!   

“SOLUTION

In the agora of democracy there are many things to assess

‘What is our world and who is ruling it, with what process.

How it is that no one stays in the city for one instant,

Without somebody’s instance who binds all not distant?     

Can it be that magnificence and beauty cannot stand

Without administration, government over the land?  

What connects us to the leader, what competence, mandate,

Is there any relation among us and the ruler of our fate?’

These questions torment the few who decide,   

Of course, there is only concern, by what people abide,

Because it may not apply to you or take your side.

Only some conscious citizens worry and regret

That the merchants dictate the terms and set. 

Even the beasts, if they had voice, would the people mock

If they had brain, they would tell their flock, 

That while one sees only the fence, the food and the chow

The main thing is how the master shares loot and dough”.

(Epictetus, Diatribes)

The spectators are rising and jubilating in a frantic frenzy. They begin howling and ululating in ecstasy “competence – com-pe-tence”; of course, you will agree that this is hard science fiction, reader, can you imagine a group of people to shout this moderate lax lukewarm slogan? And yet, such memorable things happened in the miraculous universe of the titans, because quite simply they had solutions, where we don’t have any or else, subsidiarily, we have forgotten them!

Hyperion stood up and embraced Endymion:

“Illuminated, enlightened director, you have given me back my faith to people, and the motive to go on. Since I came to this godforsaken, highly technological environment of New Arcadia, no one seemed to appreciate the qualifications of a veteran, to hold something in esteem that the previous generation can teach. At last, someone takes seriously what we have been preaching, we, the heavily burdened representatives of mankind, throughout the centuries! Actor means light, Endymion, but director equals sun. You gave me the appropriate push just the moment I needed it! I am grateful!”

Then, he turned to Hipparchia.

“Hipparchia, thank you. It is comforting and encouraging to see how the employees of our era embrace the proper idols. Surely, to break the carapace of mutual distrust between governors and governed, someone should finally put one’s cards on the table and reveal one’s true intentions. You have a difficult task, because, if I have figured out something in this station, it is that a game of chess or backgammon is played by deceitful, treacherous tacticians. Nothing true exists in this station, nothing ‘durian’ in the Geek sense of genuine wood, nothing that deserved not to be forgotten, as the term ‘aletheia’ indicates.” 

• CHAPTER PHI: PHAENARETE

For those who believe that in any roman what we call “gossip” or “fame”, as Socrates would call it”, must have its place, we should present summarily the love story of Phaenarete and Hyperion, an illegitimate affair, as the old ones would say, since Hyperion was already married to Theia’s hologram.   

Of course, the reason for the beginning of this erotic adventure was the ongoing interrogations about Arete’s death. Hyperion conducted henceforth such interrogations more out of obligation as out of optimism, since in fact every citizen of New Arcadia had motive to assassinate Arete! There were so many interests around the program of New Arcadia, the telepathic implant ensuring contact with biotechnological intelligence, the seed of planets, the Lemnian Earth, that in every analysis the number of the murder suspects multiplied geometrically. If one introduced to the equation also the non-logical causes, for which a murder could have been committed,   i.e. the passion of a disappointed lover, whom Arete had by the kilo, and if one were to add also the eager holograms or the discontented subordinates, whom Arete extracted the holy anointing oil of their own christening from, to use a characteristic Christian expression, then the number of suspects raised to infinity and the equation acquired countless X- factors, so that nobody was able to solve it.

Within this unprecedented confusion and panorama of suspects, Phaenarete reserved a special place, since in the past she has been Arete’s guineapig and as such she was a trained hetaera, either she wanted it or not. So, she had also motive and larger than the others at that, to eliminate Dr. Frankenstein, who had created her for vindictive reasons.

So, in the frame of the endless investigations, Hyperion once more visited Phaenarete in her home in town, some night, when she had completed the daily custody and caretaking of Didymion and he had leant his invalid flesh on the bed in view of the terrible night tremors plaguing the cynical geneticist during his waiting for the next redeeming morning to come. It is worth noticing that Phaenarete was principally Asian in origin, but as a product of genetic modification and augmented selective biotechnology possessed miscellaneous racial features that made her irresistible. Under the high Asian cheekbones lurked fleshy African lips, while her face quite unexpectedly was wreathed by hyperborean blond hair. She was in fact the boldest genetic intervention – adaptation that could be applied to a human, so, we’d better call it a genetic art.

Phaenarete welcomed the inquisitor with a silk gown, showing boldness and confidence, but also contempt for the social titanic conventions, and simultaneously, taking the bridles of the situation in her hands, given that no one could reprimand her, since after wall she was in her home.  Hyperion, who of course should expect such revelation of thighs inflated with assimilated gluten, overwrapped with satin, but chose to deceive himself by reciting titanic ethicology, pretended to be surprised, to not having seen it coming, and he made an admirable effort to present a professional aura. In vain, of course, since Phaenarete knew very well her influence to men, that is why she entertained a mien of satiated distance or distant satiation towards men, which could be also under circumstances turn into generous arrogance or arrogant generosity, leaving a window or a backdoor open to underline that any ostensibly unfeasible wish was finally feasible!

“Phaenarete… eee…. good evening… what’s the rumpus? Have you put your great mentor to bed, so he may rest?  

“Yes, ironical Hyperion, but if by this you mean that the my -despite his own will and forced by external circumstances- employer is but a weak cripple, I advise you to revise your position. I remind you that Didymion was the one who in Arete’s funeral left her dust flow between his fingers according to the titan’s habit, as he emptied her amphora or lecythus against the wind”. 

Beautiful and very witty too! So, God, your Creation is very unjust. Some are at the same time handsome and good and smart! Others are ugly and bad and stupid!

          If Hyperion thought that the silky almost see-through garment of Phaenarete constituted the ultimate measure that she took, not to reveal her virtue, as her name said, but at least to keep it, then he was indeed very wrong. Phaenarete had the mettle and the resolve to continue her life and her daily routine, as if she were alone and no one was present.   

“You will allow me to take a bath (balneum- balanos- glans penis), because, while it is true that Didymion possesses a glamorous and unrivalled spirit, his secretions and filths are no different than the ones of a common mortal”.  

 With a gracious movement she got rid of her etheric cobwebbed robe.

“Do I make you feel uncomfortable, valorous warrior?”, she whispered sensually raising artfully a procedure parallel to the main dialog, which operated at another level, on the surface and the desktop of instincts.

“Eh… I don’t mind”, said the polishing officer as sincerely as he could. The nurse went under the shower along with her heavy sexual equipment, where at least the opaque glass interposed to protect the virtue of the veteran from the quite different virtue and the other general qualifications of the showering beauty.        

        The real torment began after the exit of the Eastern beauty from the showering chamber, as she asked the bulb-eyed officer to hand her the big body towel. The trembling hand of the officer moved uncertainly towards a cylinder, where absorbing cloths for sweeping and drying hung.

    “Eeeh… the towing body… the blowing tower… the towel of blow, eh blower… just wait to hind… a find a body, to touch, to go to …»

        “Not this, the other one”, said the ruthless woman, “not the one with the yellow flowers of helichryse, but the one with the red blossoms of amaranth».   

       “The bosoms… the blot… the big boobs … the bred…the breastfed… the bellow…”, stuttered the polishing titan. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for an unexperienced in erotic matters man to resist an experienced woman, peritus in the art of seducing, so much so that the tinder of the seduction came from such a symmetrical and harmonical body.

       The old story of Moses, which the titans recounted to mock the Christinas came again to the mind of Hyperion being more than actual. As Moses descended from mount Sinai, he carried two stone tablets, where the ten commandments were carved, and told the people assembly: “I have good and bad news. The good news is that after a fierce negotiation with God I managed to reduce the commandments only to ten. The bad news is that he didn’t even consider deleting the ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’!”

       Phaenarete wrapped the cloth around her body and tied it with a classic female skillfulness around her hips, while the drops still flowed and polished her chest and breasts.

     “Does my nudity cause a sensation to you, constable? Because you seem a little tense and tight”. She repeatedly asked the same question, aware of her power. It is the quandary that the experienced enchantresses, whisperers and matrons always ask the relatively inexpert men, when they want to involve them in an erotic intercourse (oaristys). That is why, this is usually escorted by control through hands’ rubbing, where the overlord woman gives the ultimate diagnosis: “your legs are like dry twigs, they do not bend, and obviously you need something to loosen up”. She pulled the mass of her hair forward and started to dry it up.

    Hyperion searched deeply in the chest of his classical education to find something fitting for the circumstance at hand, regaining at the same time his composure and his dignity. “Mom, my lady, your beauty is of such magnitude that it gives prestige and makes your answers valid and conclusive. I feel like the telltale judge, when Phryne presented before him and revealed her magnificent bosom. ‘What we need witnesses for?’, Hypereides would say, ‘how can such a creature be accused of impiety; on the contrary, it is impiety for us to accuse it, an impiety towards the maker, faber and creator God’!”        

      Again, an eloquent silence intervened, which Hyperon decided to break, admitting in essence his lack and hysteresis and begging the yonder present superior sexual organism for mercy.

       “Venerable mistress, please, pity a man who dedicated his life to war and struggle on account of others or all. You are very much aware of the influence you exercise on the other sex, so, please, allow me to keep the dignity of the warrior. It is not ethical to use your training as concubine to break the spirit of a Starfleet warhorse”.  

    “I see that you did your homework, shiny one. You have read my file; you know my past”.

     “One doesn’t need to study your file to ascertain your absolute competence and specialty to upset the men. But what interests me above all, and you should have already disclosed to me, to shake off suspicions, is that Arete had trained you as ‘woman prostituting for money’, teaching you the oldest profession on Earth. She changed your genetic features, transformed your countenance, improved your metabolism, augmented rapidly your intelligence. It is a real parthenogenesis, where Arete played the role of the supreme mother. Shouldn’t you on your own initiative refer to this basic parameter, which is so incriminating for you?”

     “Come on now, contemplating thinker of limits and boundaries, unfathomable policeman, as you have already ascertained, three out of four station’s tenants had the motive to kill Arete. So, what, should they come forward and apologize preventively?”

   “Surely, Arete would have been surprised to see you at the side of Didymion. She probably thought that since she violated every legal provision about biotechnological ethics, modified you genetically and sold you to the higher bidder, she would never see you again, but you appeared instead with a very different authority and profession to haunt her. And mind you, she had no need at all to experiment on you. Her research about the huge organisms replacing on a tangible material level the once invisible immaterial subroutines and the visualized representations of the internet were served better through installation of electrodes into the temples of mice than through toying with your genetic code. And I leave aside the possibility that the experiment could go south turning you into a sewing together of miscellaneous meat chunks. And let us not talk about the immorality of the contracts signed with delegations of lawless planets and failed states that you would be used as Lais, as Aspasia, as Thais, as Phryne, as Erpyllis for the administrative councils of the doddering old lechers, and that’s why she bestowed the beauty of Helen of Troy on you. And it pains additionally to think that she could easily dispense with and absolve from these contracts, since they were null and void according to titanic law. But her evil distortion, perversion and bad habit made her continue her impermissible experiments and the nefarious debauched agreements. Yet even her posterior success as well as her engaging in the program of New Arcadia was due exactly to the fame, which she had grown, that she was ready and eager for all and did not hesitate to do what was needed. A fame which she had gained at your expense, exploiting you and your sisters.”

      “What a torrential speech by a basically taciturn titan, who now is leaking an overflowing diarrhea of words as if she had swallowed a blubbering jukebox! What do you mean by all this is that I had a motive to scare or intimidate her. I don’t deny that on a few occasions I confronted and provoked her in the main atrium, but she turned ostentatiously her face and ran away, but of course nobody knew how she felt deep inside. In the beginning I got upset when I saw her, but then I understood that she was more shocked than me during our random encounters, and the sword of hatred was lifted in a peculiar way from my heart”, said Phaenarete inflating her bosom vigorously.

       “Allow me, you overqualified miss, to insist a little longer on the chapter of how Arete managed to destroy your life. First, it is extremely immoral that the ungodly one that animated you with the breath of life at the same time determined with the most cynical way the evolvement of your life condemning you to be a sexual slave. But her most serious crime against you is that she made you smarter than her through her constant experimentations. How bitter it was to see the toothless old men agonizing, panting and gasping upon you, while you were aware that you were richly qualified for much more spiritual, meaningful and creative occupations. I cannot even imagine what you have gone through looking at the various deformed clients who had the audacity to fold your legs, your aversion towards the scoundrels whom you were forced to tolerate and for the maltreatment that reached conclusively the point where you could not enjoy an orgasm henceforth…”  

        “You, unnatural unsuitable policeman”, said with a sardonic smile the beautiful but also bitter Mir-jam, sorry, Phaenarete. “We’d better start from the end to avoid endless rumination. You wish to accuse me of Arete’s murder; isn’t it so?”        

      “You, the caretaker of the old ones, the wannabe social worker, you, who as a healer and a therapist could only specialize in psychology, you, who have such an ambiguous and dubious past intersecting emphatically the one of Arete, put your hand on your heart and declare if there is someone more suitable candidate as murder-suspect with a more likely motive, so that I may put her/him at the top of the suspects’ list!”                                      

       “Well, I reckon that the best tactic, ‘an excellent omen’ under the given circumstances is just the formulation of plain truth. If I had encountered Arete in a dark alley, on an old and deserted road with only undefined shadows as companions, I would have torn her apart with my nails until she would lose all her blood. Through your keen sight, noble ordinance of Prometheus, you perceived that the high IQ, with which Arete provided me, was the greatest malice or more accurately a seduction, a rejoice and a pleasure coming from torturing and infliction of torments. Despite your understanding, however, not even you can imagine how detestable and despicable was my life, so much so that I had full awareness that my body succumbed to things my mind abhorred, even worse that it was beside the point if I disagreed and that there was no escape from these distorted transgressions or extreme tribulations. Ignorance, not chastity, stupidity or idiocy or full noetic retardment would be a bliss and a friendly gesture under these circumstances. I would be carefree if I was the stupid blond of the anecdotes, instead of being punished with high IQ and lots of brain. Does it result from your famous files, through which methods of pedantic and organizational perversion the cheery disposition of a young girl can be broken, so that she may fulfil undistractedly her genetic destination or rather exercise the god-pleasing profession of hetaera, pretrained in spiritual, exciting dialogs? Suffice to say that they left me illiterate, intellectual but uneducated, which is in fact the most hideous criminal and conscientious bestiality. My first contact with literature was when I memorized by heart the instructions for use of an electronic game and compared the sound and the meaning of the oral recitation with the written characters! Later, I put two and two together analyzing shapes and connections and understood gradually the significance and the charm of letters, I cherished the words, as they separated or united! A few months later, I could read and write”. Henceforth, she contemplated the infinity provoking it through her upright, tight and tense shoulders. For very tear flowing on her cheek, a remorse glued like a decalcomania on the fried melted melanoma within the helices of the inquiring interrogating mind.        

          “From all this playful, but agonizing, double-edged, double- tongued and double- natured gluon the one who saved me was not someone of you, titans, who profit from and exploit relentlessly the trademark and the patent of morality, but the law-abiding Asian Didymion. In the beginning he was a customer but then appreciated my worth and value. It seemed reinvigorating for him that a simple hetaera perceived the scientific concepts, not as abstract with capital letters, but as dialectic and mediated. One would say that he loved me in an intellectual and spiritual way. Some day after our acquaintance, he asked my employers to transfer me to him, concede me to his custody. The system, if I were to talk like that, although the proper word is establishment, complied to his wish, because Didymion was a very serious asset, a great investment component, a rich motherlode, a favorable benevolent star, a bonanza for the modern society. So, he took me under his wings.”

          “How exactly did you succumb to the guardianship of Didymion?”

         “One of my pimps came from a developing planet of Confederation, where they applied only ecological agriculture. You know, he was one of those extreme ecologists who don’t even use fertilizer for their plants. And even that is an understatement, an embellishment or euphemism or simplification syndrome – litotes- as you, the educated titans, would say, in the sense that the fundamentalist ecologists of the planet didn’t use any technical means, neither industrial nor handicraft ones, not even paper clips, hairpins or spools. They drank wine from cups made of enemy sculls like Krum the Fearsome did, they ate salmi game along with quails and pigeons as salad and shitted on mud or bran to save water. They hunted pheasants, just as the kings of France, and sent their subordinates to collect the fruits of the earth. They exercised the very old arts of mankind, they were food-gatherers, carcass-eaters and scavengers. During the sexual act, they never used condoms and consequently considered all sexual perversions as ‘living according to nature’. People were savage and primitive and the most soft and delicate thing they ate was tenderloin and raw fish. Didymion was a fierce supporter of that program and that mentality, and he got to know me under those circumstances. Besides, you can fathom what his name means, it originates from the twin testicles and in fact it shows no respect but rather contempt towards Greek culture, which Didymion despises above all.”   

           “Hm, so here, we are not talking exactly about the system but about the fringe being fueled and evolved ostensibly at the system’s borders but essentially jumping over onto its nucleus. And it is true that the core of the system is the oligarchy of wealth, the plutocracy of well-being and advertising propaganda. As we said, the system exploits people like Didymion for the realization of its purposes, while vice-versa the elite or nomenclature- to use not Greek expressions, which Greeks do not approve of-, tolerate the system to profit from the benefits and the advantages offered by it. But tell me, how could a man so energetic, vigorous, robust and powerful, who cherished his health, ended up in a wheelchair, becoming a hospital case?”

        Phaenarete remained silent for a while. “You know… the abuses, some substances… If your whims lead you to the inference that narcotics are natural substances, then you convince yourself that you may consume them without sustaining side-effects …”

       “So, since then you are at the side of Didymion, at least facing someone constraint to exhibit human behavior. Furthermore, I cherish some respect for the far -east philosophy. These people have certain values…”

     “Yes, indiscreet inquisitor. Later, of course, my new employer studied my personal file, saw who I used to be, accepted me for it and had the courtesy to express his seething rage for the fact that a much promising life like mine was thrown into the garbage. Through his counseling, his supervision and our discussions, Didymion has reborn me in spirit and I am grateful for this. I love him unconditionally…”

       “Wondrous, marvelous unsleeping beauty, it goes without saying that through your own words, you are fueling the impression that you are guilty …”

        “Supremely misled investigator, if I am guilty of something is that I haven’t reached the level of spiritual clarity, where Didymion tries through the years to elevate me. I will never be an acolyte worthy of his legacy, because I hate pathologically, just as the working class in Endymion’s play. I hate Arete of Cyrene to such a degree that I stand consternated and I am ashamed of myself.   But that is exactly the reason, for which I wouldn’t kill her under any circumstances”.  

      “Please, if you could elaborate and analyze more this point of your testimony …”

      “You, ostensibly ignorant, but in fact deeply suspicious policeman, you know very well that Arete suffered from hepatic cirrhosis in terminal stage. She had still some months to live and my first, best hope would be for her to experience the pain in her body to the fill extent and intensity until she rots! This is what my beloved Cho- Singhai or Tsinghai calls karma! It would be nice for Arete to suffer until her last moment, and it served her well, because she was an egoistic, sociopathic, psychopathic, inhuman and perverse monster. Since she considered herself as strong-willed and competitive, while in fact she was a spineless boozer and an addictive junkie, she would allegedly fight her symptoms and consequently prolongate them with the physicians’ help. If I could even today save her head from the humiliating pulpefaction, I would do it gladly, so that she might experience in her skin the relentless judgment and the punishment of God until the end, drink the bitter poison down to the bottom. Arete did not deserve such a clean neat death, as the pulpefaction of her head was, and whoever committed this nefarious act deprived me of my revenge”. Uttering those words, this magnificent miraculous creature started to sob, cry and weep.

        Then, Hyperion acting like an automatic Tanagra’s doll, hung and remote-controlled by wires and reins, without even realizing what he was doing, took her spontaneously in his embrace, while she trembled and wriggled convulsively at the mere touch. Her skin was lean and soft and emitted simultaneously both warmth and humidity. The goddess responded, pressed her body tighter into the titanic arms and her open mouth searched blindly for the one of Hyperion. Then, they kissed with painful penetration of the one tongue into the other. In this way those things happen, reader, as I have been informed by valid sources!

           Afterwards, a scenery follows, where parent discretion is advised, but nevertheless we are honored to convey to you, reader, referring to the personal log of Hyperion: “She sat on me sovereign, master and mistress and I looked at her from down below astonished as she lifted with both hands her lion-mane victorious, triumphant, conqueror, dominatrix. Her hair was a curled tufty fringed dome of silver thread, a rotating ice-cooler filled with uncorked campaigns, which centrifuge their foam all around, a candelabra of a dance-ball of waltz practicing messmates and table-companions, surrounded the face like a nimbus shining in the universe like a torch or a black star or luminous crown around the moon after a total eclipse or like the evaporation of a comet in the most distant curve of aphelion. Ebony-like, flourishing, thriving, oscillating, untamed they boosted in the wind’s blow, took the color and the countenance of a woodfire touched by the rose-fingered sunset, roared when the weather was angry and settled into tall, peculiar marble-shapes when the wind subsided, reacting decisively to the homogeneity of the comb. A whole of a curly fan or an extended peacock- tail, a proud, impeccable, and untamed relief, being at the same time tender and pliable to the touch had such a fierce naturality that rendered every hair-wash or hair-grooming unnecessary and every comparison with any hairstyle or coiffure ridiculous. Indeed, in the presence of this sunflower with the black petals paled the overheated with steam and hairdryer-flame swallow-nests of the aristocratic ladies and the painted hairs dyed repeatedly with various colors. 

                     She stood before me with her arched ribbon eyebrows and her green eyes, well not exactly green, because from their center emerged a flower of fire like an anemone or a tulip, exceeding the edge of the pupil, expanding slowly, inflating towards the plains of iris, singeing the subsequent chlorophyll-veils, the crops of the fresh wheat, incinerating them with a slow-burning persistent flame, rather honey-colored than reddish, a peculiar crossing through successive gradual nuances of violet like a reflection from the playful faces of a topaz. It was as if two galaxies exploded sending to the universe a wavelike colorful outer surface or nested into one another layers or Polycrates rings. They were two circles with equally numbered small wheels of lava like rotating yarn-balls.    

          Underneath, inside the wet eyelashes reminding swords of a Tatar moistened by the steam of the czar- messenger’s tears a feline nose with curved crookedness or hooked curvature began climbing like a Himalaya- mountain range reflecting bright light and reaching the top of the world, wrinkling during the yawning, heavily built, well-posed, cutely rising at the beginning and plunging like a plummet at the end, carved on a magnificent archaic pillar with meticulous detail, broad at the edges and narrow at the mountaintop, covered with thick smooth impeccable shining skin in sheer contrast to the tangible dampened darkness of the symmetric microscopic twin caves as the final stroke of an intriguing architecture. From elegant nostrils wrapped, invested, overcoated with rich leather, cool due to the dew of vapors escaped a sluggish breath, witnessing a calm heart, caressed lazily and delightfully the superb mouth of the uniform pearl-teeth. The upper lip shaped like a calligraphic circumflex, somewhat extended, hung by two intense vertical lines, proceeding from the nasal cavities, represented a light discreet challenge. The meaty lips, baptized in Phoenician purple, absorbed, and assimilated greedily the mauve lipstick, presenting not a clumsily superficially daubed surface, coated only with dry, droughty, and flaking off color, but a watered by crystalline frost-drops, fertile and malleable two-folded crease, being refracted slightly and joyfully at the contraction of a smile. The persistent penetrating gaze required a playful tone as it narrowed through the rising of the eyelash, underlined by two or three decorative wrinkles, a notable exception to the pristine face, which however provided the young and magnetic adventurous mien of undetermined age with a kind of maturity, forged by suffering and waste-laying circumstances. The cunning look invited you to a temporary pleasure, but this wrinkle as a trace of a pointed pendulum dragging in the thin sand was the guarantee excluding every fear or hesitation, the confirmation that one could plunge unhesitatingly into the vertigo of the genital commotion without to be devoured by a carnivore siren, by a maenad frenzied in ecstasy or by a praying mantis consuming its own jockey. Under the Dionysian seduction of species attraction, which imprisoned you like a spiderweb and lured you like a magic flute into the wonderous lair of the female, the indisputable master of the issues of the heart since the dawn of time, there was the human warmth, the reassurance of the friendship, the promise that you are not only the indispensable accessory to a sensual game without rules, but also the receiver of an unpredictable fertilizing tender affection, the companion in the happiness, the other pole of an invigorating communication. Under the gluttonous rawness of the glimpse hided the reassuring caress of the wrinkle. Around the metope of the eyes and the triglyph of the mouth stretched the panoramic luminous frieze of the face, that only on the way to the willful abundant cloven-hoofed chin-bow as a cornerstone with an omphalic incision and a transversal reception dulled the edges and curved gracefully.

          What a countenance this shape was, carved in a column-capital, a glorious sample of three architect- techniques? It possessed something Dorian, perhaps the austerity of the pride, but also a clear Ionian tone, maybe the artistic apportionment of the features. But when the laughter blossomed, one would chastise himself as a fool for not seeing the Corinthian portrayal of prosperity and joy of life on the tight rosy peachy cheeks heating in the fire and being bashful in the cold.

          Just as every capital of a column relies on the supporting pillar, under the noble assembly of facial features with the brilliant spiritual aura extended a pigeon white neck of alabaster starting from a flexible lazy atlas like a collar of a scrupulous dancer, which held the scull always to an upright vertical position and rotated it slowly but steadily like a periscope of a scout submarine, not hastily and viciously but lazily and leisurely with the confidence of the individual grace perching and drowsing in the slow pace of drudgingly self-towing harmony. What I mean by that? That this woman with the tasteful and elegant decoration overshadowing and revealing the curves of her nimble body ruled over the orderly conduct of the universe. Just as the symmetry of the world unfolds slowly and is molded leisurely, the gentleness of Phaenarete manifested with the magic of a sluggish slow-motion film.      

          Then, lower than the enviable pillar of the neck began her body, an endless valley of smooth, sensual, aromatic, dense-textured, milk- and honeyed skin. The torso was planned and designed through specific decisive geometric lines, somewhat rectangular (this woman was the entelechy of a square), compact, erect, majestic either in sitting or in upright position, fitting for a human, who according to his Greek designation (Anthropos) is made and destined to raise the head and stretch his vertebras upward. Upstairs lay the chest, not too big, only enough to stress discreetly, to camber and to embroider the graceful blouse, to balance the monotony and shapelessness of the cloth through the gentle curvature and artistic sculpture of the chest. But if her breasts didn’t hump so intensively to offer the dazzled spectator a show of holographic projections, they nevertheless expanded towards the dimension of breadth. They formed two distended oval-shaped coherent pillows, stuffed with thick duck-plumage or fat of a pheasant, where everyone would give ten years of his life to place and drive in his head, sinking carefreely into the reposing yieldingness of the foamy natural sofa and the blessed by the Bible tenderness of the sparrow.

          In the middle there was a narrow corridor dividing the two flesh- clashing Symplegades, the two naughty pigeons of happiness and the sensual veil of the black velvet Wonderbra eased on the shy low-looking tits, the mysterious unimaginable nipples, hinged not from the shoulders but only by the side, giving the impression that it is ready to fall, retracted like the violet curtain of a theatre or an embroidered handkerchief of a magician, revealing to the thunderstruck spectator the eighth wonder of the world, the marble-vest of Aphrodite, the hot from the bra, steamy due to the blood-pressure, shiny because of the secreted sweat, longed for like unbitten plums, dense-woven to the touch, swelled and inflated like shot bombshells of a canon or irritated itchy volumes or puffed up skin-bags of a blower, flooded at the inhalation, ebbed at the exhalation moons of Phaenarete, the barricades of love, the unsurpassed walls of cupid. Underneath near the navel existed a black blot like a tiny heart or a ripe pear (I don’t remember in this body-heat), which you wished to lick gluttonously or rather swallow without chewing, to never be hungry again. A dark sunless islet in the ocean of the shining white reflecting skin, just to torture and tempt the eye, as if all other qualifications were not enough, as a cradling buoy or a hollow lens attracting and focusing the looks like a blackhole of the universe, dragging everything back to an insatiable crucible.

          Then the arms, cornered between them and the torso stiflingly and incommodiously the curled perfumed from sleep hairs of the armpits, so that a fluffy chain-towing rustle of protest was to be heard, feminine elbows with muscles covered by a thick subcutaneous layer of milky tissue, susceptible to squeezing pressure in the summer-nights, comfortable for the interrogative male bulbous voyeur-eye, which almost exited the cavity overwhelmed, but then dismounted the desire-horse and perched in the spot benumbed. The forearm (radius) opposite the plump upper arm was sturdy, well- and round-shaped, full of vigor. When the fist tightened and contracted, the neuron under the elbow swelled, as if the muscles puffed up from anger. Thus, the unspoiled and unstained chicken-meat and the frothy bread-crumby dough either succeeded or replaced alternately a visible bundle of neuropathways with gristles and knots of veins and hand-corns of a cargo-loader, where the lever of the capture- organ ends. From the shoulder to the hand, she was a combination of Narcissus and Salmacis, an inventive and creative synthesis of the beautiful and the strong, a coexistence of the Renaissance ideal and the torrential vigor of the young.

          Beyond the wrist extended the palm of the dreams with the most rich and abundant touch that I have ever experienced. When you caged your hand there, you felt it secured within a heavy protective blanket, a thick leathered winter-glove, where instead of the handicraft outer wrapping there was the irritated itchy due to the dew and the frost skin-surface, which despite her cold touch conveyed mysteriously to the enclosed hand a relieving warmth, a sweat caressing coziness, a dazzling idyllic and outworld reassurance as if one were exposed alternately and harmlessly to the wind-calmness of heaven or the burning embers of hell. In continuation of the diligently overcoated joints of the wrist and the midcarpal bones were installed five plump fingers, symmetric and equally wide like slightly blunted rectangular parallelepipeds.

          I am not going to speak for the mount of Venus, the lemon-tree-wood of the wet dreams with the maelstrom in the middle, where the universe warps and disappears, because my molecules were paralyzed from the electric- shock of megatons and the procedure inside the engineering level of life eluded me, I was unable to measure with accuracy the pulses of the silent automatic and palindromic movement, could not hear the anguished panting of the greased piston as it drowned in the steaming and sweating springs and fountains, which secreted lubricating factors as if they were stopcocks, faucets and derricks of an oil platform, this holy moment, where the rotating screw deepened and intensified its action into the knowledge-tree of good and evil

Under the round, well-shaped generously overcoated with meat and fat loins there were the plastic sturdy thighs, not lacking luminescence equal to Rafael’s and abundant cover of shining polished flesh, sketched and traversed a run of an impossible curvature, capable of making even a eunuch lose his mind.          

        In the continuation of a powerful, well-structured knee stretched the arrow of the tibia and the fibula and the bow of the leg, absorbing and emitting flashes and blushes, hertz-waves and signals of a volcanic passion either of an old-man or of an adolescent, waving and rocking with a slight deviation at the step of the high heels.

          As the leg extended to the ground, it narrowed progressively like an Euboean-sea, being pushed and forced by a relentless and violent shore-bed to jam and fit into the Euripus -canal, as if it was constructed from successive multicolor-circles in a prismatic analysis, where the lower one had gradually smaller circumference in relation to the higher one until the required narrowness was accomplished for the connection to the tarsus-joint to follow. This mild encounter, however, didn’t shape the classical corner as in most feet, but the metatarsal structure came as continuation or extension of the tibia. It is impossible to describe this smooth transition from the steep descent of the leg to the oblique down-rabbling declivity or slope of the walking foot, where if one was shrunk and tiny, was tempted to slide over the lower tarsus-bones starting from the artistic elegant ankle down to the surrounded with ample pastry frothy fingers.

          Beside the controlled downhill-rushing of the tarsus, the strict orthopedic arch between the fragile Achilles-heel and the light-walking sole of the foot radiated and ex-rayed an aura of grace, reminding us of the light-footed Hermes or of a sprinter at the hundred -meters race-start.

          Her secret weapon however, the tool of the invincible seduction were indubitably the fingers, the spectacular finish of the imaginary explorative Lilliputian- sprinter’s descent, where a total recall to the world of square was conducted after the temporary prevail of the curvature. Their perfect geometric design was expressed by their accurate and analogic size-diminishment from the bigger to the smaller, as if it were an arithmetic sequence or a progressive classification of mathematical elements.

          Without being equal but following a decreasing sequence in relation to their dimensions, they had nevertheless an apparent symmetry and a genuine similarity between them, as if one were in front of a sweetshop vitrine, where the same pastry in many sizes is displayed. Indeed, these fingers were like savory pies, Easter- candies or marsh-mellows of a great feast, causing an unrestrained appetite to be devoured. Upon them eased the respective nails like cherries in rich cream or rubies embedded in a necklace, all of them more gracious than those of Alcibiades, hard like thin slices of a gem, shiny and mirrored in the light with the reflection of a golden crown, camouflaged with the diligence of a cat, so that they would not hurt, but also exposed with charm, so that they would irritate, reddish like calm surface of a lake during sunset, desirable and sensitive to the touch as the cold feeling of the marble, relieving and alleviating to the taste like the prickling swallowing of a lentil stew after the torture of the desert.

          Love is like the voice of a dolphin. An ostensibly simple but multi-significant, encrypted, and coded sonar-cry, the deceitful white of the Newtonian disk that blends and insinuates an iridescent spectrum of nuances.  The dislocation of the waters and the fluids  is so powerful, that it penetrates the eardrums and shreds the intermediate pride of the malleus and the incus, and from a drastic phenomenon it becomes a metaphysic secret, a space-tale circulating in the atmosphere like the apparition of the Flying Dutchman, a whispering whistling lullaby for the seals, so that the hypersonic invasive silence explodes and the frequency of happiness declares itself propelling its decibels up to the end of the horizon. The white color is frugal, plain, and concise on the unfeigned virgin’s dress like the humble tunics of the Ionian women and the silk robes of the youths in the furnace. It can be analyzed into a Freud’s labyrinth and complexity with colors of fluid lava and sprinkles of a recanting wave, chlorophyll -thorns of jealousy and self-luminating gold of a sun-nimbus, scenery of a suffocated gun-smoked cabaret or perhaps of a sodomizing caulking whorehouse of the East within the depths of a girl’s brain, drenched by the fantasies of the night.

          The white color is so humble and despised, shameful and prosaic when it floods with a sticky secretion the fingers of the sweated youth, forming a membranous duck-or bat-hand, where the muscles contract or the saliva can no longer be controlled, but at the same time causes the summer-shining of the mind and the rock-overthrowing cave-undermining tempest and  the careless flow of the suntan onto the flesh, while the sun immortalizes itself in the reflection of the retracting wave. The thought sinks into a lazy sleepy sunset and the circuits of consciousness fry when instinct roars and the perineum empties itself. Love is so simple as the curls of the pubis meet with the angry tuft of the adolescent, the barrel of the Danaids, on whose depth life after death glares along with the dolmen and the menhir of secular ecstasy and eternity, along with the spraying basil and the incense lulling the catacomb of the senses, the safest ark of the species.

          At the same time love is complicated and multifold as it hurries to lubricate the protruding splinters of reality, so that the person in love would not bleed due to rumors impregnated and produced by the conventional society, overfed, and exaggerated by gossip and inhibited pathetic complex- personalities, but he would confront the devastating incriminating evidence with the abstraction of unshakable faith. Love is unexplained, unfathomed, as it blankets the truth with oblivion, gleans nuggets from the past, sweetens the memory, revives the present, cancels time, as if one lived in the planet Jupiter, where seasons don’t change, or in Olympus, where gods don’t get old. It is beyond every knowledge or naïve pursuit of complete scanning, because it is satisfied with the instant repose of the head on the reversed palm to reconstruct the space and replace the picture of a dull road, where the salesmen bake and bathe in the sun, with the transparent slides of stranger places, where the hanging cliffs of priapic urges gape and the scattered magic fetishes of pagan worship lie around and the journey in the stage-coach to the kingdom of rainbow begins. The invincible in battle son of Venus, the archer Eros, who spends the night in the soft cheeks of a girl and shoots the arrows of a poisoned quiver, educates the eye, clears the shapes with suspension-drops, wipes out the wrinkles with aromatic ointment, fills up the absence, sharpens the nocturne night-vision nyctalopic abilities, gleans and vivifies the facts, captures the mysterious ethereal echo of the essence, breaks the barrier of the senses and pours an inner extrasensory perception into the environment. He presents desire as the only remarkable constant, where the mind ceases to consume the combustible essence of the experiences and feeds on his own feedback and representations.  This reflection of the incoming irritation, this leak of personal substance and extract, this exhuming erosion of personal fertile soil, that turns   upside-down like a sock the inward self and delivers it redeemed to the outer world, causes necessarily a homeostasis. The change of perception carries along the metamorphosis of the subjects. The individual disposition along with its impressions becomes bread for the teeth of the lover, make-up for the cheeks, stressing, accentuating, and intensifying the face paleness of the Lady of the Camellias. Instead of the innate or implanted ego, the venerable smile of Madonna and the shape of the favorite Adonis lurking beside the eyes of the devoted odalisque with the mature excessively used breasts invade the empty neutralized neuro-paralyzed scull of the admirer. These invaders are not alien entities but the transubstantiation, alteration, rebaptism of our identity, our flayed scalp which becomes vivid skin again, the legacy of our intimate heart-buds, the cabinet of the world’s wool -combing. Love is the flower vine, the shooting sprout, the excrescence of our inner self, that’s why we show to it the same understanding, that we reserve for our own actions, the infinite sympathy, by which we support the uncompleted acquaintance with our own thought. This jumping over to the parallel universe of the most beautiful and weaker sex through a burning magnetic field, the mirroring of our soul on the heterosexual screen or reflecting monitor of the other, albeit an effect, supersedes and shoots ahead of its generative cause, the relationship itself, which follows with panting breath and cancerous pace. The flower comes forward in a preposterous way before the cultivation is completed. Love needs no previous work   experience, because it’s the most pre-arranged bet in history with a predetermined outcome, “the last event, by which all previous circumstances are judged”, as Demosthenes would say. It proceeds to the fusion and the crucible of the two participants within the high temperature of the ecstasy -furnace, where the acquaintance of the characters and the mutual approach of the views is performed causally, necessarily, and compulsorily, with an urgent procedure, obliging the lovers to whisper incessantly in the white nights, so that the formalities are fulfilled and the … rocking part begins. They narrate, verbalize their passion, they babble and talk at length accumulating details, although the cohesion and the true meaning of the talk don’t really matter. The content is of no significance, only the statement of facts no matter what, the exposition of heroic men-deeds or of female sensibilities, the verbalistic reiteration of monotonous erotic confessions, entirely opposite to the complication and the intricacy of the scientific codes. Every word brings lovers closer, because they are ready to share, accept and forgive everything.

          The warp of carnal love as an unfeigned go-between from the colorful variety of the co-roasted medium-rare or crispy brains to the simple and concise act of sexual intercourse is hard proof that the purpose of the existence is signified and symbolized through the water-stain and the hemoglobin on the pure whiteness of the bride-dress. What would be the use of the anguished taxed life led by rotten and inactive carbon-hydrates with the expected double-chin without the decent blush of the virginal cheeks and the audacity of the playful obscene dance? This is the case not only for the bachelor or the spinster but for every uncoupled and unloved mate, who when standing alone is pitiful, but when combined with other heteronyms produces offspring and fruits of general policy and politics, flowers of melancholy and concentration or endoscopic inspired masturbation, artworks of unrestrained extroversion and unlimited culture of the naked bodies.”  

        As they lay side by side, Phaenarete confessed:

        “I haven’t done this in the last twelve years. Don’t entertain false impressions, you, great Hyperion. You see an elegant female figure with an impeccable outline and proud bearing, and you assume that she is enjoying a full erotic life, but you can understand that a woman with my past has a hard time to enjoy love …”

          “I also haven’t enjoyed love for years…”, Hyperion was shocked himself at his own words, completely inappropriate and unfitting for a titan Starfleet officer.  

     “In the past I have never chosen the men, with whom I was going to sleep. But now, fate favored me and indulged that the shiny, splendorous Hyperion would be the first man chosen freely by me according to my undisputed unassailable preference…”

          “Yes, but I ought to confront my conscience. I have been taught Despotic science to rule my subordinates, Marriage art to irrigate the little shrubby tree of my family, so that it may not wither, and to renew the interest of my wife, Children-bearing and rearing to raise my children and all the other arts and sciences described by Aristotle in his Politics, and I suddenly feel that I have betrayed everything carried away by your beauty”.  

             “Hyperion, I do not wish to spoil your happiness with your handsome hologram. Please, don’t be so strict with yourself. Relax a bit, you are too tight, you are in New Arcadia for God’s sake, a step before paradise…”     

              Hyperion withdrew mentally for a while to analyze the situation, because he had learnt to do so during so many years as a Starfleet science officer.

         “So, here, we developed the feeling of love, as the Christinas say?”

          “My emotional Cupid, isn’t it enough that we feast on each other existence? At this moment, we are quite right and proper for one another. Why shouldn’t we enjoy this perfect moment, whom have we obligation to answer to? The magic of New Arcadia is precisely that people open their hearts to each other with sincerity and ingenuity”.  

          “You never miss the chance to praise New Arcadia one more time”.

           “Why? Don’t you feel what I am saying? Don’t you live the flair of the moment, its fragrance and taste?”

        “To comply to the duty of truth, with which you task me, the only issue I now think of is that I could be your father, if age is a consideration”.  

        “A young father. But under the regime of New Arcadia, you could be not only my father but also father of my child, if you had fertilized me sooner or- to use a titanic terminology- if a zygotic eucaryotic cell had been shaped by our heterosexual gametes”.

        “Please, that wouldn’t be for me a viable situation… but not worry, in any case, I will assume responsibility. Perform rapidly but avoid promises, the Delphic precepts demand. I have no guarantees to give you, but you should know that I will find a way to fulfill my obligations and reinstate the kid that will possibly be crescent from our union through paternity recognition. Besides, I am fully aware that this awkward sequence of events that is dangerously close to dereliction of duty happened in my watch and …”

             “Please, relax, you, most erudite of all titans! As you can understand, after twelve years of abstinence from sexual acts, my first priority could not be contraception. Let us envisage laxly and magnanimously what the future reserves for us. We are both adults, both responsible, bound to find solutions”.

          “It seems that ‘it never rains but it pours.’ My mourning for Leto made me lower my defense and now I am about to confront an unwanted … eh cumbersome, unmanageable pregnancy, difficult to handle …”

          Phaenarete stood up, conscious that the discussion was guided to another level.  

          “And yet, now that I come think of it, it seems to me even more a splendid idea. On the one hand, I am positive that I conceived, because the vagina was so spread- open like a rose, receptible and susceptible, and I felt the stuccoing touching my intestines. Besides, do not underestimate the various fertility gadgets that New Arcadia provides, she, who watches, controls and coordinates the actions of us all. And I can disclose to you now that New Arcadia has blessed our union, having animated my uterus through medicines and other preparations. I already feel new life being born in me and the titanic gene taking roots. A new life who will live in an entirely brand new and pure environment, in a civilization being surveilled by the miraculous organism of New Arcadia according to the legacy of my spiritual father Didymion. And she/he will live a double life, like double and triple are the testicles of Didymion.  A life enlisted in the noetic communication of our society, after she/he is equipped with the telepathic implant, which will allow our kid to be in constant contact with the other organic members- siblings, while after death he/she will be even more glorified, because almost in reverse of the usual chronic sequence she/he will be integrated into the eternal matrix of the station, remaining there until the end of days. This child, offensive Hyperion, will be forever free from pain and fragility of the human flesh, replace the cheap materials of which we are made with the coarse and resilient skin of Lemnian Earth, he/she is going to be one of the most prominent specimens of a new generation of (wo-)man.”

          “It seems that I will pay a very high price for this fleeting moment of carelessness, when I persuaded myself to surrender forgetfully and momentarily to pleasure; I should talk to Theia- Euryphaessa about this matter …”

           “Brave Hyperion, above all do not leave your wife, whom you love so much …»

          “At this moment I don’t feel brave, but very coward, dishonorable and irresponsible, an unworthy and insignificant bastard with a spurious objective liability…”

      “I say that again, I have ascertained that you love your wife very much. Just go home, stay with her, embrace her, she doesn’t need to know anything. It was never my intention to raise claims on you. Such egoisms are neither necessary nor desirable in our brave new world. Neither to assume responsibility is needed, all these are archaic and useless social conventions belonging to the age of dinosaurs. If a child needs a father figure, this will be provided by New Arcadia. As far as I am concerned, do not worry, because the weeds and the cockroaches never get wasted. I will find another lover and will probably marry him. I just understood that I like kids very much and New Arcadia is the ideal place for bearing children. Of course, your wife and children you are welcome to share with us our continuous happiness…”

     The up to now quasi numbed Hyperion seemed to wake up suddenly.

       “Ah yes, the telepathic community, where there are no obligations, but only rights, where anyone can acquire instantly easy happiness and a cheap immortality, but the foreign seed is confiscated and used afterwards to blackmail the inseminator… And of course, how could I press charges against New Arcadia if my child lives there, how could I press charges against the ones in charge for the program of the telepathic link, if they black mail me with my own child …”

         The titan stood up rapidly and headed for the external membrane of the apartment.

    “Cobbler Hyperion”, Phaenarete shouted from behind half-ironically, half- seriously. “Stick to your last”.

22.CHAPTER KHI OR CHI: CHEIRISTARCHES

     The time had come for Hyperion to leave New Arcadia. Possessed by guilt, since he cheated on Theia, he proceeded to negotiations, whether the members of his family would follow him.

       “Hyperion, let us not make fun of your own selves”, said Theia. “What we have is not a relationship, but a travesty, a ridicule Muppet show, since I need to materialize through due proceedings to make love with you… I know that you have honor, that you intend to stay with me, because of your kindness and your loyalty… That is why I hereby absolve you from this devotion and allegiance. You are a man at your prime, with muscles, strength, vigor, powerful and sturdy, and it is a pity for you to get wasted together with a living dead, with a fucking zombie. You are still at reproductive age, and you can father other descendants non-holographic. The kids and I should stay here. We need the life-support systems of New Arcadia to survive … “

           To the point where things had come Hyperion had no definite answer. Neither could he commit himself for the rest of his life one way or another. What was imperative is that he should gain peace after his failure to solve the riddle of Arete’s murder.

             Eos and Selene came to the room crying:

            “Father, don’t go…»

             “Girls do not cry. I am greeting you temporarily. Please, know that I will come back soon enough. Daddy is just going to Sirius for professional reasons. You have any interest in remaining here, because the holographic systems of New Arcadia do not even compare either to those of Earth or to those of Sirius. It is in your best interest to remain here, because the holographic systems of New Arcadia cannot compete either with those of Earth or with those of Sirius. You must be happy being telepathically connected to this admirable community of thoughts and feelings. It is observed that the common children of Earth, who do not possess an instant automatic internet connection until the age of ten being deprived of the information pools and the learning curves of a central server, end up being deficient compared to their coevals telepathically linked. And those youngsters who do not connect to the network until twenty can hardly function in modern society and behave like retards. On the contrary, you, because of your holographic nature, are integrated deep into the network as much as possible. You will lead always a full life, even if your reality is virtual, besides who knows anymore in our troubled era what is real and what isn’t. For anything that is valid in the world of inert matter, there is something corresponding in the cobwebbed and lacy sub-particle world of thought. According to Plato the external and offspring of the good sun corresponds to the internal idea of good. And what is for nature the countenance of the things, is for the intellect the true or verisimilar (which means worth mentioning and unforgettable) assumptions, the science and the knowledge. The visuals of nature correspond to the noumena of the mind. There is, my children, in the Creations an ascent of the noetic categories and determinations which one may recognize: a) in the beginning are the shadows, the pictures of fantasy and the conjectures, b) then the faiths of the visible follow, because one should believe what one sees, and then we proceed to c) the abstract assumptions and hypotheses for the outlines and the geometrical figures and we end up d) in the anypotheton (unconditional) which is the beginning of everything. Within this hierarchy we are all enlisted in different levels, whether physiological or bio-inherent, physical or holographic, living or dead and in this sense no one’s existence is superior to that of another …”

     “Please, father, stay and recount us all this beside our pillow, when we are trying to sleep…”

       “Your night readings and bed lectures will come back soon enough, I promise you that will return very soon”.

       Hyperion would regulate the flow of his tears all alone. Fir the time being, he left carrying his few luggage.

        The megaphones shouted already themselves hoarse: Ithyleia is departing for Earth, Proxima Centauri and Sirius. Passengers are kindly requested to the main entrance of the spaceship”.

       At that time somebody came and gave the titan a telepathic Bluetooth that one could adapt to one’s ear, destined for communication to those not possessing a bio-inherent connection. It was Didymion on the phone with obvious intention to make fun of his dialog partner.

       “What is happening, craftsman?”, he whistled at his ear like a snake “Couldn’t you shed light on the case?”

        “In a way I did. In some Creation there was a writer of police thrillers named Acantha of Chris. In a novel called ‘Eastern Railway’ she presented a plot, where in the end every passenger on the train was guilty of the same murder without exception. The same is valid also in Arete’s case. I never faced in my life more extensive distortions than those that I lived in your station. Offhand, I would like to enumerate the lies I experienced during my investigation, which you pretended to assign to me, while from the beginning you were quite determined to guard your secrets like Cerberuses. a) It is a lie that New Arcadia knows everything happening in the station. On the contrary, it doesn’t know anything, because there are a thousand methods to conceal data from it. You can isolate yourselves from the telepathic connection at will fortressing your home and guarding your personal life even more than the non- bio-inherent physiological people. Your systematic thought- hiding is transferred also into a material level, since all material objects are recycled in the walls of the habitat, resulting in the disappearance of fingerprints and the crime exhibits, murder weapons or other inconvenient evidence. b) It is a lie that the noetic communication of New Arcadia renders all its members happy, self-sufficient and balanced. On the contrary, many individuals of your perfect society have other goals of their own, which are not exhausted in the noetic communication of spirits. E.g. Mnesipemon, who had created a universe of his own within ours, extremely dangerous in its extension and inflation, and you had no idea, or if you had, it is even worse for you, because it means that you hide a lot of skeletons in the cupboard. c) It is a lie that the combination of the planet spore, which created New Arcadia, and the telepathic connection of its members are a stable and safe self-sufficient system. Bitterly we learned that it relies on the Jupiter medusas’ genocide and this adheres to your biotechnological system an eternal disgrace. d) The movement of Icaromenippus that you presented as New Arcadia’s Liberation Front was nothing else than the fantasy and the illusion of a looney tick, behind which though obviously another organization of independence and autonomy is carefully hidden, while poor Icaromenippus being only a simple cover-up. Should I continue?”

      “Well-done, you, defamatory brain of hatchet jobs, you’ve thought of all this, ha?” Didymion continued his relentless mocking, “I congratulate you for your conclusions except that they didn’t help you solve the case, which means that all those syllogisms may have not such a great value.  You muzzle and shovel it, impertinent and audacious intellectual, that you, physiological people, cannot compete with the biotechnological organisms. We are using huge conductors through which tons of thoughts are transmitted, while you limit yourselves to the insufficient, delicate, pale and poor synapses of your taxed multi- seasoned brain and the breakable receptacle of the body. Soon enough, your meat will betray you, you, arrogant, bigmouthed, insolent, self-conceited titan. The coming of old age gives you, of course, perception and wisdom, but costs you strength. Don’t you feel already your feet buckling? How can you compete with omnipotent eternal organisms tailored to live in space? How can you compete with A.I., which conducts a trillion calculations per second? What have you to offer, you, the brazen, audacious and presumptuous doubters and disputers of gods, to your own audience except old age and death, a life condemned to fear, reluctance and effeteness lest you make something inconsiderate and forfeit your tiny existence, animated merely by the only fear greater than death, which is the fear of life? On the contrary, you, curmudgeon, grumpy, malodorous, asynartete, drooling, gregarious, gadget and trinket seller, junk dealer, I have lifted the curse of finiteness and temporariness of god’s creatures, I have cracked the prison of the soul that your Plato mentioned, I have found new steel receptacles, not out of titans, but out of titanium, through which I can convey my thoughts and memories. And when I die, I will channel my spirit into this superior organism and live forever! I summoned you in vain to join me in this transcendence; you, the petty, trivial, overparticular, caviling, censorious faultfinder, are unable to grasp the grandeur of the articulation that I suggested.”

         “O, my God, what absolute supremacy”, said Hyperion, while during the Didymion- Cheiristarches’ prattle he had confirmed his flight, had entered and Ithyleia and fastened his seatbelt sending at the same time messages via communicator to his associates Eurybia, Anchiale and Metis to meet him on Earth, where a sort of regrouping and redeployment of the investigators’ team  would take place.

        “Ha, ha, God, what a silly obsolete fossilized concept. The time of God or gods, either one-faced or multi-faced, either Christian or Moslem or national or pagan has long and irreversibly gone. Our lives belong to us now and we can upload them to whatever mechanism we deem fit. You made a serious mistake, you, mournful and sad, languorous and flabby comedian, to deny my generous offer for ascension in New Arcadia’s skies. In any case, your wife and daughters have already taken my side, and this gives me surely enough satisfaction. So, stay alone, you, lonely knight of rueful countenance, you don’t deserve any better.  

        “Do you know what you will never be able to compensate, all you, the diabolical technicians, fabricators and technocrats, majestic Cheiristarches? Human experience. You keep feeding your machine with data, which are ‘garbage inside, garbage outside’, namely your machines, no matter if they are constructed from hard or soft material, in essence they reproduce and repeat what you have already said to them. You will never be able to share them the experience of (wo-)mankind, which developed new sciences and arts to face the challenges of the environment: α) Τheology and Ontology, β) Physics and Biology, γ) Soul and Soulless- Genetics, δ) Despotic science, ε) Conjugal – Marital art, στ) Children -Bearing, ζ) Acquisition and Possession, η) Xerotrophic, Hygrotrophic method (eating dry and wet food)  θ) Making Titbits,  ι) Hunting, ια) Polemic and Predatory skill, ιβ) Administration of the household and Economics, ιγ) Pragmatistic, Commercial and Trafficing, ιδ) Monetary science, Exploiting and Profiting, ιε) Practice and Knowledge, ιστ) Contention and Antilogic, ιζ) Mandatory art or Critics, ιη) Psychology,  ιθ) Self – obliging and Morals,  κ) Law and Politics, κα) Tactics, Strategy, Administration, κβ) Mathematics and  First Philosophy, κγ) Literature and Poetry, κδ) Music and Pedagogics (s.s. reader, please, notice that they are as much as the letters of the Greek alphabet). All these sciences and arts present the itinerary of (wo-)man on planet Earth and elsewhere, leaving their trails everywhere, on nature as a wound and on humans as a painful incision on the skin. They remind us how hard and cruelly the elements of knowledge are conquered. ‘No pain no gain’. The machines will never feel the above, no matter how soft the materials they are made of are, since they are diving into the well of data unhindered, unobstructed without to face difficulties or be tormented.”

         “It seems to me that you are delirious, confused, erudite but non perspicacious, hypotensive and hypochondriac Hypo- Orion, Inferion, Under-Orion, Underrated, I sense that you no longer know what you are saying. You present as a qualification of humans what exactly they tried desperately to eliminate with their sciences. So, I wish you good-riddance and a lousy journey from New Arcadia and, if we never see you again, it will be too soon. In any case, it doesn’t matter, because I will come and find you, when my biotechnological organisms will spread to the whole universe and the A.I. will dominate ‘urbi et orbi’”.                  

    At this point, Hyperion is closing the chapter with an enigmatic insinuating implication, the range of which cannot yet be assessed to its full extent.

           “Cheiristarches, you are trying to play a role unfitting to you in the present comedy. Because you are not the sarcastic scoffer but -alas- the arrogant sciolist of the fairytale!”

• CHAPTER PSI: PSEUDO-LIES

Starfleet center, Saint Franciscus, Earth

Present at the meeting: Prometheus, Hyperion, Eurybia, Anchiale, Metis

            PROMETHEUS: Dear colleagues; I don’t know if my presence is useful in this meeting. My friend Hyperion insisted on me being present, obviously accustomed to and addicted to our old clerks’ hierarchy of service. But now I am pensioner and…

          HYPERION: Prometheus, don’t even mention it. Even if you don’t utter a word today, only the atmosphere of these deliberations we had once onboard NAOS Venovinda irritates my grey cells in a determinate and conclusive way, so that I may myself understand the intricate manifolds of this case …

        PROMETHEUS: Well, OK, begin your lecture, pedantic Hyperion, because Celaeno has assigned me to go shopping and I don’t want to be late.

       HYPERION: The data on the case have not changed dramatically, as is well known. If I dared lift any stone in New Arcadia, I would see deception and corruption underneath. There is nothing in this goddamned place that is as it appears. In the end, I also went astray and I had an erotic affair with Phaenarete.

      PROMETHEUS: Un- ac-cep- ta- ble for an agent. At this point, I want to be categorical, Hyperion, and not make any concessions or allowances. You exceeded your jurisdiction and you failed to operate institutionally. You ridiculed the institution of marriage, and I don’t care if your family are a bunch of photonics. What will you say to Theia- Euryphaessa, when you meet her on the next Creation?

     The seasoned Eurybia laughed:

      EURYBIA: Chief overseer, a latent opinion is for the minion. Unconsciously, you didn’t refer to the holographic Euryphaessa, whom Hyperion deceived, but to the physiological, who had died years ago. This means that you allow yourself to discriminate the photonics, as if they were to blame, poor lads, for depending on the roof that projects them.  

        HYPERION: About that I would like to report the following. Yesterday evening, I accepted a very strange visit, oh oldest of titans- now that Oceanus had left us. As I tried to concentrate on my meditation, the room began to brighten and there was a fluorescent glow, sparkling at the edges with a fine gold glitter. And yes, it was Theia who began reciting: «Δεινόν γαρ που, εί πολλαί τινες εν ημίν, ώσπερ εν δουρείοις ίπποις, αισθήσεις εγκάθηνται, αλλά μη εις μίαν τινά ιδέαν, είτε ψυχήν, είτε ό,τι δει καλείν, πάντα ταύτα ξυντείνει, ή δια τούτων οίον οργάνων αισθανόμεθα όσα αισθητά». (It is fearsome if we accept that in the inner self of every (wo-)man, as if in a Trojan horse, multiple senses are installed without to concentrate on something as a united whole, whether we call it soul or else. Through this soul, using the senses as organs, we feel the perceivable things.”

        PROMETHEUS: Elementary, my dear Hyperion. Plato, Theaetetus, the greatest epistemological treatise of the titanic era. The above has a double meaning in your case. On the one hand, you cannot alienate or sever the sensual sensation from your entire personality, i.e. you are not allowed to do what the “Criminal of the Lost Honor” by Schiller did who didn’t recognize himself in his crimes, and on the other hand that behind all particulate corruptions or embezzlements that you experienced in New Arcadia there must be a common uniting headquarter, a common denominator, where all these originate from and are coordinated.

        HYPERION: Yes, I know, you are implying that behind all this, Cheiristarches is hiding. Yet I want to go there through mathematical equations and not begin from the end and declare someone guilty, only because he repeatedly insulted me. Indeed, no one in my whole career has treated me with such humbling and condemning way.  Imagine that during my departure from the station he saw me off almost with vernacular invective words. And truly my instinct roars that Didymion – Cheiristarches represents the absolute evil.

      Metis placed her nosy nose into the print of the nails.

     METIS: Boss, with all due respect, even your erotic affair was orchestrated by Didymion. You are not the type who messes around with women. Obviously, Didymion throwing Phaenarete at your path wanted to have a leverage to blackmail you knowing how touchy and prickly you are, but also that such a conduct would cast long shadows on you considering the ethical and moral environment of the titans. 

       Hyperion remained silent for quite a while. Then he said:

     HYOERION: About my despicable relation with the dis… sorry with Phaenarete…, I would like to confess something that perhaps elevates my misdemeanor into felony. I would like to persuade myself that I slept with her merely to comfort her for all unconceivable tortures she had experienced, and I know that according to her CV she was exposed to all kinds of brutality … but the truth is that, should that were the case, she wouldn’t be able to have sexual intercourse with me.

     ANCHIALE: Why do you say that chief? Maybe she found in you a gentle soft presence, who was exactly what she needed after years of sexual molesting and harassing.  

      HYPERION: Now, I am telling you that I cannot express it so easily. At first sight, she appeared to enjoy love so much as if she did it for the first time with invigorating surprise, sinful tension and unbridled pleasure. It is impossible for a woman with such deep wounds, with a past of rapes and all sorts of anomalies to rejoice love with the enthusiasm of a virgin. At that time, I want to confide in you that I am a little rusty as a lover due to the interaction with the holographic projections, I am not an Adonis or Plautus’ Pyrgopolynices, a boasting bragging soldier, so the ecstasy of this lady as if she were a rookie, as is she were a virgin, cannot be explained … On the other hand, her orgasm was much too noisy and boisterous, showing no joy or exultation. It was somewhat mechanical, as if somebody is passing closely by the preprogrammed and pretrained result, but doesn’t want to admit that missed the target by an inch. And is like what your name indicates, Anchiale, I felt that she was near the shore, but never wetted her feet, never dived into the waves. Can it be that the reason lay in me? But again, I had the sensation that this entire procedure, all this gasping and panting had nothing to do with me… it was distant, it was remote, it was an echo… a reverberation within a cave …

        ANCHIALE: Overseer do not underestimate yourself, but anyway just to play the devil’s advocate, let us accept that you are right. Could her participation in the bio-inherent network cause some diminishment or augmentation of her pleasure? Perhaps nothing thereof is the case, and maybe the bio-inherent network has nothing to do with all this. What all the naïve lady men and imaginary Don Juans insist on ignoring – present company excepted – is that women often pretend to feel climax, when they wish to gain something. If you mean that she was acting, this is compatible with her traumatic experiences, so rather she executed commands and instructions of her employer.  

               PROMETHEUS: Here we have the problem of a performance within a performance. If we accept that Phaenarete was ordered by her employer to pretend, she surely could do that perfectly on the grounds of her erotic experience. And yet the – not so womanizer -Hyperion ascertained that she was pretending. As if Phaenarete did not know how the real orgasm was. But even if she had never felt a true orgasm because of her psychological traumas and the rapes she submitted, a woman with her ingenuity and sensuality would be able to emulate it persuasively, that goes without saying. If even Hyperion, who is no sexual pretrained performer – sorry that I took the shovel and buried you, subordinate-, understood that the Mrs. played a theatrical role, what can I say! It means that the “fallen into many sins” woman was since the beginning severed from her rightful domain, i.e. her sexual genetical kingdom, the empire of the senses! This leads inevitably to the conclusion that after her enlistment in the symbiotic network she can’t feel anything anymore, neither regarding the past nor the future.

     EURYBIA: Let us extend your line of thought a little farther, padrone. So, Didymion alleges that through the system of telepathic implant, which he installs, everybody sends messages to anybody.  To come back to you, padroninno, what new do we learn from that? Didn’t you narrate just before a moment that Euryphaessa sent you a message from the other world, where she instructed you to reduce your ostensibly incoherent experiences into one and only unifying source? The telepathic messages between people, the threads among emitters and receivers, even between dead and alive, were always there. So, what new has this network that Didymion proposes and advertises? Nothing at all!

          PROMETHEUS: Well, that’s it. As the Pythagoreans say, referring indirectly to the ratio of the radius to the periphery of the circle “God the great is always using geometry”. God has also His own technology of instinct, empathy, intuition and remote communication and has implanted it in our brains after years of evolution. Didymion, instead of stealing the technology of God and give it to the people, as I did, puts his own chip replacing in fact the technology of God with something much inferior- by definition.

        HYPERION: This fake exaggerated pleasure declaring shallow feelings or lack of inner sensation, which I ascertained during the intercourse with Phaenarete, is maybe an indication that the bio-inherent device of Didymion is incompatible, uncoalescing, incommensurable and irreconcilable to the physiological and natural function of the brain. It is not a supplementation, but it induces restart and reboot, registration from scratch and replacement of the memories with new ones. It is as if you re-write on used paper the same text a little more provisorily, a little more hastily, without the hedonic pressure of the pencil on the papyrus, the parchment or the scroll. If one removes from a person the taste of reality, the odor, the smell, the flair of the moment and leaves one’s memories sterilized and castrated, can this person remain the same? Then, the memories become selves of a library covered with dust of barren pedantic dullness and numbness, which he/she dusts and brushes off in vain, trying to restore them in their previous splendor and glory.

          METIS: This of course doesn’t mean that the equipped with the implant has the faculty to understand the difference with the situation one lived before. One just wakes up next morning throbbing and vibrating with cheery disposition, whistling hilariously and joyfully, envisaging a cloudless and careless continuation deprived -alas- of anxiousness and hope, feeling a basic contentment -never again happiness –  not possessing empathy or compassion -and this is the most criminal part of the whole story – he or she is no longer her/himself but a misprinted copy, a simulacrum, a facsimile of her/his own self. In fact, it is the same problem that existed in the primitive teleportation, where instead of channeling the essence of (wo-)man through the infinite corridors of subspace, merely another simulacrum was transferred somewhere else, and we had all obtained twins, triplets, quadruples etc. Indeed, maybe this is the significance of the name “Didymion”. But at least then, everybody knew that they stood in front of a copy, while here the acolytes of bio- inherence don’t know that and this is a sort of murder. In that sense, the symbiosis through interconnecting implants could be also characterized as genocide.            

    HYPERION: Yes, that’s all there is, that’s why I thought there was something fishy about it. This is the mega-lie, the greatest pseudo-lie that I experienced in New Arcadia. All this majestic plan conceived by Arete, Percnopterygus and Didymion bore from the beginning a wound on the temples, the snake had already invaded into the fantasies of the techno- Buddhist. Supposedly, his holistic consensus and consensual holism through internet symbiosis would replace the traditional deliberating democracy. The members of the community were supposed to decide instantly, while New Arcadia implemented almost simultaneously the result of the common consent with no need of executive power. Under the aegis of Didymion, a new kind of state succeeds the generally accepted statutes of Aristotle, a state which regulates all common issues in half time and with tenfold efficiency. The neural substrate and underfoot of New Arcadia has at its disposal an astronomic calculative power, not only sufficient but also overflowing and exceeding by far the requirements of the regulative or distributive administration. Beyond that, the vision of Didymion excels also in the respect that New Arcadia is entirely impartial and completely incorruptible. A non- bribable, non-bureaucratic administration, the dream of countless generations of the past. All these components constitute an attractive set, which has only one inherent flaw: it is false! Because nothing can replace the classic deliberation and debate of democracy, where every member of society contributes its own input into the common resultant.

       ANCHIALE: Since my name contains the prefix “anchi”, which means proximity to something, is it possible that we are nearer to the solution of the crime than we believe? It is known that the discovery of a persuasive motive is a necessary and sufficient condition to reveal the identity of the perpetrator in most cases. I already can discern two motives directing our suspicions to Didymion. One is the vast lie that we have just scouted. If Arete had the purpose to reveal that lie to the people, wouldn’t have our Asian friend the perfect motivation to eliminate her? Something else also arises from your meetings with the techno- Buddhist, chief, namely that this particulate scientist always underestimated Greek culture propagating the corresponding one of his multi-crowded but introverted land. It was always an intellectual challenge for him to underline the superiority of imperial or communistic China against “si- la”, the small intense light coming from Greece.

         HYPERION: Yes, but why would Arete be willing to reveal the indirect murder taking place by the implantation of a chip or a plasmodium? I any case, she and Didymion oversaw the same program and had same interests. In the final analysis, they both had the same materialistic mentality.  

      PROMETHEUS: Ha! They may both be materialists, but that doesn’t mean that their materialism was identic. The materialism of Didymion derives from Far East, is the worship of Mithra, of Sun God, the reverence of nature, wet earth, troubled sea, flowers and stars, it is the deep conviction that nothing except experience and the scenery of nature can be of importance. The materialism of Didymion is theoretical, sublimated, methodological, scientific and epistemological; in his own perception “hyle” is a philosophical category. On the contrary, Arete’s materialism tended to pleasure and debauchery, was sensual, vulgar from a philosophical point of view, I repeat -from a philosophical viewpoint – to avoid misunderstanding. Arete didn’t have any higher purpose, nor did she have some other ambition than enjoy and press the grapes of life until the last drop, she was after all Cyrenean. She had a crowd of lovers, women, men, physiological, bio-inherent, holographic, she made no exception, nor had she other pursuits in daily life, “unless it were to be a moment merry”, as lord Byron would say. Arete didn’t believe, perhaps even she mocked the mechanistic constructions of Didymion. Nor was she moved or intrigued by some afterlife or else she had grasped that the posthumous existence, which her homologous promised, was a shameless deception, a ridiculous Halloween pumpkin. So, I am siding myself with Anchiale. Their wolf’s friendship and the communality of interest were not enough to bridge their fundamental differences. They were enemies and this enmity could easily lead to murder!              

           HYPERION: Diabolus, I forgot the science of symbolism, semiotics and semiology! Of course, just now I felt my eyes exfoliating, dropping the scales of ignorance and willful blindness! Arete left behind multiple messages likely anticipating her murder, but I ignored them. What, am I a complete captain dunce or something? It seems that this ingenious versatile lady, who didn’t know how to spend her spare time, was intrigued and delighted to send messages, thrilled with the conundrum and the quandary if the receiver could decipher them. I remember that, when I searched her office, she had let three clues, indicating that she was a fan of “Icaromenippus” and New Arcadia’s independence: The isolated table – facsimile of the space station in the center of a desert and  vast hall, the hole in the schematics of the solar system and the “cathodic automaton”, where New Arcadia appeared with the dimensions of Jupiter. Naturally, the reasons for which Arete endorsed independence were different than those of Didymion. She just wanted to stabilize and cement her political power, and she didn’t have in mind some grandiose enterprising plan. But now… that I come to think… of it … the greatest indication is…

           (At that moment Hyperion took a deep breath or rather uttered a heavy sigh).

        HYPERION: On the first days that I had been shipwrecked in the dark waters of New Arcadia, I had a very negative psychology because I had quarreled with my wife and daughters. On some evening, maybe the same day or the one before my encounter with poor priest Scandalomorus, I slept in Arete’s home. Indeed, I remember characteristically that the next day I was unshaved and my armpits emitted a stench. But I slept on a bed! It was the only item existing in the house, inside the perimeter and the red ribbon surrounding the crime scene. All the other objects that possibly preexisted in the house were hygienically absorbed by the walls in the frame of total purification, cleanness and sterilization. But not the bed. It had stayed behind, an unfeigned testimony about who has killed its possessor. The bed referred obviously to Endymion, whom my Selene left in some Creations sleeping forever, so that he may not grow old. 

      METIS: Do you mean Endymion the art director?

      HYPERION: No, that is a simple name coincidence. Please, do not demand the absolute perfection of script! It is obvious that Arete pursued to implicate that Didymion was the guilty part, not only because of the sound’s similarity, but also denouncing him as not entitled at any point to represent the number “two”, because he fails to offer a double world, one upon earth and one in the heavens, nor can his A.I. support people as a second nature, on the contrary every mechanical uploading alienates (wo-)man. (Wo-)man is condemned to one’s unified combined psychical and somatic hypostasis, the oneness! (Wo-)man can be submitted only to one nature, her/his nature!   

    METIS: Yes, but how was the murder committed? Hard to explain…

     HYPERION: What are you saying! Now that we have found the culprit, the way of the murder’s performance is a child’s play!

• CHAPTER OMEGA: ORA DI ANDARE MA…

          The fleet of Sirius besieged New Arcadia by order of the Titans’ High Council, honorable Uranus and Tethys presiding, but also Prometheus had a very powerful position and influence.

          At that moment, the veteran of Caucasus watched the space station from the main screen of the titanic vessel “Golden Fleece” together with his eternal companion Hyperion, since Venovinda, our beloved “Ventistos Vethylos”, was placed in mothballs.

        “The time of final countdown for the battle against Cheiristarches has come”, Prometheus said. “Are you ready?”

      “As ready, as I will ever be”, answered Hyperion. “Until now I faced opponents on the battlefield, against whom I could prevail through technological tricks and achievements, but never a nemesis so demonic and intellectually enhanced, with such knowledge of natural and theoretical sciences. I wonder if he is better, i.e. more informed and inventive than I”.

       “He may be a genius, but there many gaps in the mosaic of his knowledge. He considers 90 % as 100 %. He doesn’t understand that science is not only knowledge but also will. He doesn’t grasp that there is a logical reversion as far as the designation of sciences is concerned, namely that the theoretical should be called positive and vice versa. He thinks therefore that numbers are somehow registered in universe, while they are own construction, a potential for sure which is adapted to the texture and the ambience of the   environmemt. Therefore, Cheiristarches does not combine objectively external data which he extracts and digs out with his ax in a mine, but in fact he profits from what some others made, according to the evolution rules and to what some others in essence dictate. He is used to finding the data available and accessible in a well just as his biotechnological organisms do, without even trying to suspect the experience and the struggle of centuries, which were undertaken by all creatures of nature for those data to occur. He doesn’t understand that all ostensibly intangible and unreal like duty, self-esteem and struggle for improvement are finally the most real ideas. For him, morals, customs and culture of the titans enduring for centuries is but hot air of a balloon or a fart in the wind.  He thinks -who knows from what age- that he has reached the top and refuses to learn, while your life, curious and inquisitive Hyperion, was always a constant learning and growth and the tendency to infinity”.  

        “How do you manage to say always the right thing, unsurmountable therapist, psychologist and trainer Prometheus? What would the tormented (wo-)mankind become without you?”, wondered Hyperion sincerely impressed and sentimentally charged.

        After the greetings and salutations, image and sound came from New Arcadia. In the headquarters were gathered Theano Thuria, Philogene with his new assistant Nisaetus, Percnopterygus and of course Didymion who according to all possible evaluation lists and all conceivable hierarchy belonged to the prominent and notable citizens. And he showed his hegemonic tendencies saying:

     “Potz blitz, I see here a sizable assembly of pensioners. What are these decommissioned spacecrafts and their drooling doddering paralyzed captains doing around our New Arcadia?”   

    “New Arcadia”, said Hyperion. “I am broadcasting to you the conclusions and the decisions of the Titans’ High Council as well as the Network Assembly of the people of Earth. Effective immediately, the program of New Arcadia is considered illegal, pending an investigation by an independent scientific committee of the telepathic implant’s compatibility with the noetic structures of the human brain in general and specifically of the subconscious. I am afraid that, if Socrates were telepathically connected, he wouldn’t be able to see that wonderful dream, his visit to the beautiful Phthia! Within twenty-four hours, whoever physiological one wishes it, is called to abandon New Arcadia. Mainly, the bio-inherent ones will stay, who are necessarily, inseparably interconnected and entirely dependent on the central synthetist of the biotechnological space station. New Arcadia is declared as a forbidden planet; it is not allowed to anyone to approach it until the side-effects and the repercussions of telepathy, as well as of the integration of the individual consciousnesses into the space hyper- organism are clarified to the molecular level”.

           Theano Thuria protested.

        “What does this space blockade mean? Earth and Sirius, you are making a serious mistake if you think that we are defenseless. We have at our disposal the vast energy and the inexhaustible sources of the Mega planet and we can rise to any challenge … Your ridiculous blockade means nothing, I can order meteors and meteorites to direct themselves with vertiginous speed towards Earth…”

         “Theano Thuria”, said Hyperion, “you have done a great job to bring New Arcadia to the big fraternity of the civilized countries. What would you say, if I told you that at this moment you are co-deciding at the top level along with a common killer, which is Didymion? Unsuspicious, lotus- eater, lotophagus Thuria, your administration is so flawed and failed that you allowed the snake to invade the ranks of the space station’s visionary founders. By the way, I am announcing to you formally that I concluded the investigation of the case assigned to me. I hereby summon you officially to arrest Didymion for the murder of Cyrenean Arete”.

            “What are you talking about, craftsman, are you out of your mind?”

           “Don’t you dare to call me craftsman ever again. I am a high-ranking officer of Starfleet, while you are under arrest. Security guards, be careful because this man is not an invalid… Philogene, if you believe in our cooperation in the cases of Mnesipemon and Pyrisporus, if you recall how we worked together with accord, unity and almost automatic responses despite our different origins, if you trust me after all we did together, if you remember from our discussions that the word ‘trust’ is the quintessence of the titans’ culture, but also that surprise action is the epitome of policing art, give a kick on Didymion’s wheelchair now!”.

          Philogene, who after so many adversities, calamities and adventures had learnt to respect Hyperion’s instinct and intuition, hit with his foot

        The wheelchair overturned upside down but his holder stood with an admirable reflex automatically on his feet, while the blanket slipped from his lap to the ground.

     “Ha, ha”, laughed Hyperion, “it is a classic trick of the criminals to pretend to be cripples. The specific stratagem was analyzed by Acantha of Chris in her novel ‘Curtain’”.

       The face of Didymion was contorted to a mask of hatred and infinite wickedness, whole his eyes shone like fire-hot coals. He dropped of course to the floor, but it was too late to remedy and revoke the first impression.  

       “I grasped it”, Hyperion continued to confess and analyze, “when Phaenarete hesitated to answer me about the cause of Didymion’s supposed invalidity. But I want to ask you something, you, who ambitioned to be the opposite of Aristotle. Does your protegee Phaenarete know that you killed Arete?”

       Didymion remained indecisive and double- minded for a moment, laying on the ground as he were and embracing his knees.

       “I could even now deny everything, but one of my qualities is that, when the opponent has surrounded me with valid scientific methods, I consider it beneath my value to underestimate her/his intelligence. So, you are right, Hyperion, I never told her, because I always tried to protect her from the unfavorable and adverse series of conditions which she endured as young. It is a mistake that all fathers do, and I want you to believe that I consider Phaenarete to be my daughter. At the beginning, of course, I also committed lewd acts on her body, a circumstance that I am going to regret for all my life …to violate this impeccable stainless alabaster or rather ebony castle … But I am grateful to whom? … to my own self for her development. A glamorous charmer, vulnerable and triste, beautiful but also biller like Myriam, mother of Jesus. It is a true miracle that from this ruined existence a full and perfect woman emerged! I detested the possibility of befouling her again, pushing her into the quicksand of her youth.  I don’t expect you to understand that- you, technocratic misinformed Greek-wise clock-, but it is what we Buddhists call Dana. You, the exotics, know and mumble only over Karma and Nirvana with a little bit of Dharma. Yet Dana means the mercy, which someone offers without expecting something in return”.

     The people both in New Arcadia and on Starfleet remained aghast and consternated by the unforced confession of Didymion.

     “But how did you figure out that it was me? I thought we had agreed that every citizen of New Arcadia one way or another had both motivation and opportunity to eliminate Arete”.

     “Surely, no one liked her, neither Mnesipemon nor Pyrisporus nor Icaromenippus nor Philogene nor Lasthenia nor Hipparchia nor Theano Thuria nor anybody else. She was a complete materialist, and she didn’t believe not even in idols, not even in the soles of her own shoes. The program of New Arcadia was an intellectual experiment for her, ensuring privileges and recognition as well as domination over others. Yet in a funny way the motives of all afore-mentioned suitors … for the murder were not intensive enough to justify it. The parallel pursuits of the prominent players of New Arcadia, consisting in a New Universe, the exploitation of Jupiter’s beings for an improved version of Lemnian Earth, the independence of the space-station, the resistance of the Earth and Sirius, the contraband, the condemnation of the telepathic implant according to the doctrine of the Pope- Patriarch etc., all this was perfectly served through the presence of Arete and could optimally go on under her banner. But you had specific and particulate motives that opposed to the very existence of Arete. α) because she knew that your precious chip was incompatible with the dreamworld and subconscious possibilities of the human brain, that it was a kind of the subject’s death or its mechanical reduplication and had no inhibitions whatsoever to admit that publicly. β) Because your obsessive plan to present something opposite, yet equivalent and perhaps superior to Greek civilization was obstructed by Arete, who knew very well the potential but also the deficits of the evangelized by you telepathic connection. γ) Because you, yourself, believe in the afterlife of all receiving the holy communion of the implant and the Laveran plasmodium and you didn’t want Arete be part of it! Arete was Hubris, Atis, Nemesis and Tisis, a woman with whom you disagreed fundamentally and irrevocably, since it made you a grievous impression that she had no purpose, she just aimed to have a good time, which you could never accept. You knew of course that Arete suffered from liver cirrhosis and that she was going to die in a few months. According to the covenant and the contract of the bio-inherent, she was also eligible and prone to be included, transferred and copied into the neuro-substrate of New Arcadia. But that would be a catastrophe for you own hegemony within the neuronic network of this immense planetary organism, since this goddamned egoist had the faculty to antagonize you and reign in this valuable neuro-phytic and biotechnological fief! That is what forced your hand to crush her scull in a definitive and irrevocable manner, so that no neuron of her brain could escape and survive for a future restart in another digital environment. You should smash, trample, stampede her brain like an oakum or sandpaper to deprive her of immortality or anyway of the sort thereof, which yourself have patented as a copyright or a trademark.”

      Didymion looked at infinity and monologued.

      “We do not give much account to the subject, like you, phobic, touchy and prickly Hyperion, we are neither so egoistic like you, the centrals of the map, nor so cocky to ascribe an immortal soul to the cosmically insignificant dot of our existence. The ambition of every Oriental is to merge with nature, the sky, the sun, the trees, and all that firmament, where fate tasked us to live, so why shouldn’t I unite with something much more personal, which I have made for myself to enthrone him inside? Beyond the danger of the revelation by Arete regarding the somewhat mechanical character of the posthumous integration into New Arcadia’s substrate, that eventually only a static image of personality would be transferred into her huge capillaries and her monstrous synapses, since the dynamic procedure is -alas- unable to summarize and to recapitulate, there was also some other thing quite undesirable.   Due to her condition, she was expected to die before me, having probably also predesigned her transfer to the neuro-phytic complex or substrate of neuro-emitters and neuropeptides knowing its full potential. You would ask, why would she do that? A woman of her psychology was fully capable to do that just for laughs or to undermine me. And if she did that, she would establish an empire, where she and only she would decide on whom she was going to bestow the gift of afterlife; she would have the paramount power a person could have, she would inaugurate a secluded tyrannic priesthood. Instead, I, as a conscientious scrupulous Buddhist, would provide all applicants with the opportunity of this a bit rigid or static immortality Even the proposal I made to you to follow me into the inner core and the psychical depths of New Arcadia, you, disdainful and snobbish Hyperion, was good-intentioned and honest in the frame of the aforementioned Dana. And this opportunity I still offer and am willing to hand over to all people of New Arcadia. No matter how you underestimate my research and calumniate the telepathic implant, you will never be able to cancel the scope and the range of this discovery. Is it a discovery or an invention?  Well, that is an entirely other matter. At that point, I choose to forget the titans and refer only to you, governor Theano Thuria. The murder of Arete is something for which I will be judged, but I am still in position to direct from prison the program of New Arcadia and manage from there the perspective of afterlife. Please, know that I could arbitrarily and peremptorily forbid the transfer to the neural substrate of whoever I didn’t like, but I won’t do that. I am not a dictator like Arete; I am committed by the belief of Dana. To control the flow, the channeling and the sluice of the afterlife, I should be the first to reach yonder, don’t you understand?  Murder was just a means for an incredibly broader and higher purpose. Only with me sitting in the throne of distributor, would I be certain that this divine gift of mine would be shared equally with no one being excluded from my divine providence. I would be a benevolent tyrant; furthermore, I had taken measures that this chairmanship, this uncontrolled power of me should be only a transitory period, not everlasting, because gradually through the addition of new personalities into the neural substrate we would become a single unique pantheon, a collectiveness of spirits being constantly renovated a enriched in a prolix and orgiastic augmentation of immortality!’

        Theano Thuria watched with awe and opened mouth the delirium tremens of the unfortunate psychopath- sociopath. In general, a shameful silence prevailed in the hall of the New Arcadia’’ directorship.       

    “The goal does not justify the means, it rather colors and determines the means to be just like it, to be same with it; on the other hand, there are no benevolent tyrants. This is titanic teaching syllabus of elementary school”, Prometheus whispered to Hyperion.  

    “It is an opportunity to learn everything, if we keep him in dialog because now his mouth opened like the barrel of the Danaids and stays open”, answered Hyperion. 

     To Didymion he said:

   “So, you are confirming unshakably that Arete was not the proper person to distribute or award immortality”.

    “Are you mocking me now, mocker? Your inquiry surely revealed to you the real person of Arete. A woman who prostituted her own image and likeness, i.e. Phaenarete! A woman who does not respect her own body and exposes it to all kinds of debauchery! Who does not tolerate in any case views deviating from her own! Don’t expect me to believe, happy-go-lucky Hyperion, that you would entrust such an individual with the foundation of a new civilization! In fact, metaphysics did not interest at all this vixen. She was one of those enjoying more natural life than life of the spirit. The only plan that appealed to her was a sort of Icaromenippus, which was the political independence of New Arcadia, to have at her disposal a tax haven, where she could relish her hidden income and the unbridled consumption, this detestable dream of globalization”. 

           Hyperion didn’t need to pose the crucial question, someone else overtook him and came to that quandary spontaneously and inevitably with the impossible verisimilitude characterizing this story: “How can the murder of Arete be explained in such a well- protected environment like her home was?”

          Didymion smiled bitterly. He didn’t even flinch towards whom has asked, he directed his eyes only to his intellectual opponent, Hyperion. The shining of the old unshakable self-confidence and limitless arrogance illuminated again momentarily his eyes.  

         “You are doing well, craftsman. Maybe, I underestimated you just a little bit. I thought that I found appropriate ground to extend my irony, but the ironic teaser and kidder is you, since you know much more than you let others guess through your unexpressed stone face. S, since you seem to know everything, tell us, how did I do it?”

        “As all police investigators know, once the motive has been found, fathoming the way of the murder’s execution is quite easy. You had cultivated for many years the impression of being invalid, knowing that this gave you additional possibilities and faculties including the advantage of the surprise attack. You asked Arete to transport your hologram in her room, which you guided from afar. The mechanism transported automatically your hologram as an exact copy of your body, thus without the invalidity, the non-existence of which no one had either reason to suspect or cause to search for. So far, so good. Following this, you said to her that there was some problem with the Lemnian Earth material. Maybe you had along some flash -light or a data recorder or another instrument that lent verisimilitude to your intention to ascertain or indicate something in the basic material, from where all sensors, electromagnetic plasma conduits and all the optical fibers of the New Arcadia’s data network pass. You told her to release a material chunk from the wall for inspection and maintenance check. Then you told her to materialize your hologram, so that you may touch and handle the matter in question.  Arete had a general suspicion regarding you, you had become indubitably a sort of obsession to her, because she knew that you were her basic opponent in New Arcadia, mainly from an intellectual point of view. Perhaps that was the reason why she left her bed unassimilated by the walls every day. It was a reminder, a knot on the finger that you were her main concern, a constant reminder of her nemesis, as it was the ‘Despot, remember the Athenians’, a phrase, which Darius had assigned a servant to repeat to him every day, so that he won’t forget it. She didn’t have any cause, however, to doubt your invalidity, it was one of the constants one is habituated to and considers self-evident Once you took in your hands the detached lump of the wall, you stood up magically from the wheelchair and smashed her head with repeated and simultaneously vengeful hits, just as a moving, heavy and blunt object affects, when it strikes a stationary, softer and more flexible, in particular bony surface. You knew if course that all the evidence concerning the holographic projection would be absorbed automatically through the established procedure of hygienic interment and ecological recycling by the organic mass of the house and no incriminating element would remain.”

       “I did that, didn’t I? You know at that moment you are not permitted to hesitate, you must strike with decisiveness”, said again Didymion continuing his monolog.

       “Cho Singhai or Tsinghai, alias Didymion, who like also to call yourself Cheiristarches, you are under arrest for the murder of Cyrenean Arete”, Philogene said, applying the classical handcuffs to his hands. “You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can be used against you in a titanic penal court of law”.

        Enough time of awkwardness and silence intervened, although the communication circuit continued to stay open along with the image transmission between New Arcadia and the ships of the naval blockade.

        “Governor Thuria”, Hyperion finally interrupted the silence, “what do you intend to do with the procedure of the supposed posthumous integration into the body of New Arcadia?”

    “This is a hard question, torch-bearing Hyperion, because it connects with our nature as bio-inherent now and in the future. In any case, we depend on each other and all together on the central synthetist of the station. The experiment succeeded but has also side-effects and repercussions! Did it succeed? All we, the bio -inherent, who wanted to create a new sort of (wo-)mankind of total accord and absolute interaction, are we alive or have we committed suicide without even knowing it, when we posited the telepathic chip? Here, not even New Arcadia is sure that she is alive, this mighty organism surrounding us and lending us the feeling of security. We must explore and know better ourselves and the new condition of our existence. If our experiences have become mechanized and digitized inert pictures, maybe it is still within our power to live new more vivid and thrilling episodes. So, even if it is a little terrifying, when New Arcadia devours an asteroid, is it not also an experience having all the savagery and the delight of the human ones, or does her fast rotation in the universe not contain a night breeze? Only one solution exists, to compromise with our current selves and have our eyes and senses open and susceptible to all things future and nice!”

      “In that regard, I wish you luck. Let’s go, Hyperion, I would tell Iapetus to beam us up, but he has also retired by now. We are going back to Earth”.

     Hyperion, however, stayed immovable and speechless.

  “Let me guess”, said Prometheus. “At the time all physiological guys leave New Arcadia, you instead are planning to stay there”.

      “I don’t have any alternative, old buddy. The portraits of my family live there and we, titans, are always looking after our icons. I have an obligation even to the reflections of Euryphaessa, Eos and Selene; We, titans, have learnt to function this way and our constitution is generous enough to include all marginal figures, the bio-inherent or the photonics, even the mechanical Talos, as long as they exercise their scheduled authority and do not threat or raise demands against humanity. Humanity, however, under titanic leadership has the power to stay independent and free against its own creations, and what else could one expect? But beyond that, do I not have an obligation towards Phaenarete, from the moment that I had this biotic relationship with her? And wouldn’t it be a desertion and the behavior of a lesser man, of a cowardly custard or a rabbit-foot, if I were to avoid the conflict, contradiction and incompatibility between her feelings and those of Euryphaessa? Such is the nature of us titans, we never dare to claim rights, if we haven’t before bled and torn our capillaries and veins fulfilling our obligations; and you never know when a titan can be useful! Here, the heavily afflicted by fate, bio-inherent fallen on the box ring’s floor, endeavor to build a new society, although they watched today their arrogance being crushed, the same fundament of their existence shaking and trembling, their very life being questioned. I am the only one, knowing better than anyone that the new society being shaped is already stained and stigmatized, and that knowledge increases my responsibility. The paradise of New Arcadia gestates the snake that will destroy it. Only I can reveal to the children playing in the gardens that they are naked.”

         Prometheus got blues and a tear almost shaped where usually only dripping discharged rheum exists.

       “You are going to face the wolf alone, you fearless and unrepentant supervisor and caretaker of humanity. I assume from the details of your plan that we are not going to see you again. The plays, the movies and the romans usually do not end like that. Normally we should be able to say that the story we lived is the beginning of a new friendship, not the end of it”.

     “Let us not talk about peremptory goodbyes in our high-tech era. Friendship has by definition no end but is always a new beginning, a continuous inception both in this and in the next Creations.”  

       And the great Hyperion marches again forward possibly to glory, probably to self-awareness and always through the mediation of others.  

CONTENTS

1. Α: ARRIVAL
2. Β =V: VIABLE OR INVIABLE, MORTALS OR IMMPORTALS 
3. Γ =G: GENESIS
4. Δ: DOMUS
5. Ε: (E-)NVESTIGATION  
6. Ζ: ZOE (LIFE)  
7. Η = ΑE: AERA (CHUFF)  
8. Θ = ΤH: THURIA
9. Ι: ICAROMENIPPUS

10.Κ=C: CAPITANO

11. Λ =L: LASTHENIA  

12. Μ: MNESIPEMON

13. Ν: N.A.O.S. VENOVINDA  

14. Ξ = X: XENOS

15. Ο: OARISTYS

16. Π = P: PYRISPORUS

17. Ρ =R: RHOE, ROW  

18. Σ =S: SCANDALOMORUS

19. Τ: TORGOS TRACHELIOTOS  

20. Υ = H: HYRERION, HIPPARCHIA  

21. Φ =PH: PHAENARETE

22. Χ = CH: CHEIRISTARCHES

23. Ψ = PS: PSEUDO- LIES  

24. Ω = O: ORA DI ANDARE MA…

ΒΙΒΛΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ

Benford Gregory, Cosm

Clarke Arthur, Medusa

Dick Philip, Colony

Pohl Fredric, The Gateway Trilogy