for the next move. Tonight a technician will implant a post-hypnotic suggestion in Achilles that he send his buddy Patroclos, dressed in Achilles' armor, out to scare the kilts off the Trojans. We'll generate a panic among the Trojans with a subsonic projector. Then we'll arrange it so Hector kills Patroclos. That is the one thing to make Achilles so fighting mad he'll quit sulking...."

"Patroclos? But the Director wants to save him for the big scene when Achilles is knocked off. Patroclos is supposed to put Achilles' armor on, storm the Scaian gate, and lead the Greeks right into the city."

"Accidents will happen," said Apollo. "Despite what the barbarians think, we are not gods. Or are we? What do you say to my plan?"

"If the Director finds out we've tampered with the Script, he'll divorce me. And you'll be blackballed in every studio from one end of the Galaxy to the other."

Apollo winked and said, "I'll leave it to you to make Old Stupe think Patroclos' death was his own idea. You have done something like that before, and more than once."

She laughed and said, "Oh, Apollo, you're such a heel."

He rose. "Not a heel. Just a great script writer. Our plan will give me a chance to kill Achilles much sooner than the Director expects. And it'll all be for the good of the Script."

That night two technicians went into the Greek camp, one to Achilles' tent and one to Agamemnon's. The technician assigned to the King of Mycenae gave him a whiff of sleep gas and then taped two electrodes to the royal forehead. It took him a minute to play a recording and two to untape the electrodes and leave.

Five minutes later, the King awoke, shouting that Zeus had sent him a dream in the shape of wise old Nestor. Nestor had told him to rouse the camp and march forth even if it were only dawn, for today Troy would fall and his brother Menelaos would get back his wife Helen.

Agamemnon, though, who had always been too clever for his own good, told the council of elders that he wanted to test his army before telling them the truth. He would announce that he was tired of this war they could not win and that he wanted to go home. This news would separate the slackers from the soldiers, his true friends from the false.

Unfortunately, when he told this to the assemblage, he found far less men of valor than 

 Prev. P 6/14 next