Ilium by Dan Simmons

guests before lunch and our trip to the pour site?”
    This time she went first down the ladder.
    Luncheon was served outside on the northern patio by floating servitors and Daeman chatted amiably with some of the young people—it seemed that several more guests had faxed in for the evening’s “pour”—whatever that was to be—and after the meal, many of the guests found couches in the house or comfortable lounge chairs on the shaded lawn in which to recline while draping their turin cloths over their eyes. The usual time under turin was an hour, so Daeman strolled near the edge of the trees, keeping an eye out for butterflies as he walked.
    Ada joined him near the bottom of the hill. “You do not use the turin, Cousin Daeman?”
    “I do not,” he said, hearing that he had sounded more prissy than he had intended. “I’ve accustomed myself to the things after almost a decade, but I don’t indulge. You also abstain, Ada, my dear?”
    “Not always,” said the young woman. She was twirling a peach-colored parasol as she strolled, and the soft light gave her pale complexion a beautiful glow. “I check in on the events now and again, but I seem to be too busy to become as addicted as so many are these days.”
    “Turins do seem to be ubiquitous.”
    Ada paused in the shade of a giant elm with broad, low branches. She lowered and closed the parasol. “Have you tried it?”
    “Oh, yes. It was all the rage halfway between my Twenties. I spent some weeks enjoying the . . . excess of it all.” He could not completely strain out the tone of distaste at the memory. “Since then, no.”
    “Do you object to the violence, cousin?”
    Daeman made a neutral gesture. “I object to its . . . vicariousness.”
    Ada laughed softly. “Precisely Harman’s reason for never indulging. You two have something in common.”
    The thought of this was so unlikely that Daeman’s only response was to flick away dead leaves on the ground with the point of his walking stick.
    Ada looked up at the sun rather than calling up a time function on her palm. “They will be rousing themselves soon. ‘One hour under the cloth equals eight hours of turgid experience.’ “
    “Ah,” said Daeman, wondering if her use of the cliché had been in the form of a double entendre. Her expression, always pleasant but bordering on the mischievous, gave no clue. “This pour thing—will it last long?”
    “It’s scheduled to go most of the night.”
    Daeman blinked in surprise. “Surely we’re not bivouacking down at the river or wherever this event is to be staged?” He wondered if sleeping out under the stars and rings would improve his chances of spending the night with this young woman.
    “There will be provisions for those who want to stay all night at the pour site,” said Ada. “Hannah promises that this will be quite spectacular. But most of us will come back up to the manor sometime after midnight.”
    “Will there be wine and other drinks at the . . . ah . . . pour?” asked Daeman.
    “Most assuredly.”
    It was Daeman’s turn to smile. Let the others stay for this spectacle, he would keep pouring Ada drinks through the evening, follow up on her “turgid” line of suggestive conversation, accompany her home (with luck and proper planning, just the two of them in a small carriole), pour the full force of his not-inconsiderable powers of attention upon her—and, with only an added bit of additional luck, this night he would not have to dream of women.
    By late afternoon, the twenty or so guests at the manor—some babbling about the day’s turin-experienced events, going on and on about Menelaus being shot by a poisoned arrow or somesuch nonsense—were gathered together by helpful servitors and everyone departed for the “pour site” in a caravan of droshkies and carrioles. Voynix pulled the vehicles while other voynix trotted alongside as security, although—Daeman thought—if there were no tyrannosauruses in the