Sunset of the Gods by Steve White Page A

features. The longer Jason looked, though, there was something about him that wasn’t specifically Greek at all, but was ethnically unidentifiable. Unlike most mature men in this setting, he had no beard, and in fact looked like he had very little facial hair to grow.
    Jason took all this in as the man passed them in the opposite direction, headed toward the Panathenaic Way. He thought the man’s eyes—large, golden-brown—met his own for a fraction of a second, but he couldn’t be sure. Then he felt a tug on the shoulder of his chiton.
    “Jason,” said Chantal, in as close to a whisper as she could come and still make herself heard. “That tall man who just passed us—I saw something under his himation. I just got a quick glimpse . . . but it was something that didn’t belong in this time.”
    “Huh?” Jason stared at her. “What was it?”
    “I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have been able to identify it even if I’d seen it for longer than a fraction of a second. But it was some kind of . . . device. And it had an unmistakable high-technology look.”
    “Chantal, this is impossible! We’re the only time travellers in the here and now—and even if we weren’t, nobody is ever allowed to bring advanced equipment. And while that man may look a little out of the ordinary, there’s no possibility that he’s a Teloi. You must have imagined something.”
    Chantal took on a look of quiet stubbornness. “You once told me that I’m very observant. You might as well take advantage of that quality.” A trace of bitterness entered her voice. “It’s the only thing about me that’s been any use so far.”
    Jason chewed his lower lip and looked behind them. The man’s wavy dark-gold head could still be seen above the generality. He reached a decision and turned to Mondrago.
    “Alexandre, follow that man. Don’t reveal yourself, and don’t take any action. Just find out where he’s going, then come back and report. We’ll be over there near the Tholos.”
    “Right.” Mondrago set out, blending into the throng. The rest of them continued toward the Kolonus Agoraeus, the low hill bordering the Agora on the west, with a small temple of Hephaestus at its top and the civic buildings grouped at its foot. To their left was the Heliaia, or law court: simply a walled enclosure where the enormous juries of Athens—typically five hundred and one members—could gather. Just to the left of the Tholos, a street struck off to the southwest, passing another walled quadrangle: the Strategion, headquarters of the Athenian army.
    Landry was staring raptly at a small building—a workshop of some kind, it seemed—tucked into an angle of a low wall across the street from the Tholos, near a stone that marked the boundary of the Agora. “What is it?” Jason asked him.
    Landry seemed to come out of a trance. “Oh . . . sorry. But that building there . . . I don’t know who’s occupying it now, but a couple of generations from now it will be the house and shop of Simon the shoemaker.” Seeing that this meant nothing to Jason, he elaborated. “It’s the place Socrates will use for discussions with his pupils—like Plato and Xenophon.”
    “Oh,” was all Jason said. Inwardly, he was experiencing an increasingly frequent tingle: a sense of just exactly where he was, and what it meant . . . and what would have been lost had the men of Athens not stood firm at Marathon.
    Up the street from the Strategion came a group of men, as Jason had been told to expect around this time of day: the strategoi , the annually elected generals of the ten tribes, who advised the War-Archon. Jason recognized the latter from descriptions he’d heard. Callimachus was older than most of the strategoi , a dignified, strongly built gentleman, bald and with a neat gray beard, wearing a worried expression that looked to be chronic. Themistocles walked behind him.
    At Callimachus’ side, and talking to him with quiet intensity, was one of