Robert Sheckley - Agamemnon's Run

"Our slain companions," Pyliades said. "Achilles, our beloved leader."

"Now that is really a laugh," Sallices said. "Your companions were there for the booty, and Achilles was there for the glory. Furthermore, he made his choice. It was prophesied he'd die gloriously at Troy, or lead a long inglorious life if he stayed home.

No one had to die for poor Achilles! He made his choice to die for himself."

There was silence for a while. Then Doctor Strepsiades said, "It must all have seemed different at the time. Men's choices are not presented to them in a reflective space. They come in the clamor and fury of the moment, when a choice must be made at once, for better or worse."

"Is it the same with you, Doctor?" Agamemnon asked. "Or are you alone blameless among us?"

Dr. Strepsiades was silent for a long while. At last he said, "My motives were not entirely humanitarian. I might as well confess this to you, since I will have to tell it to the Judges of the Dead. Queen Clytemnestra sent a herald to our school of physicians on Cos, imploring us for help with the plague, and offering a recompense. I was able to buy a nice little house in the city for my wife and children before I embarked."

"Clytemnestra!" Agamemnon said. "That murderous bitch!"

"She was trying to look out for her people," Strepsiades said. "And besides, she had her reasons. We have it on good authority that you sacrificed your daughter Iphigenia to call up a breeze to carry you and your men to Troy."

"Now wait a minute," Agamemnon said. "There's another version of the story in which the goddess Artemis took Iphigenia to Aulis, to be high priestess to the Taurians."

"I don't care about your face-saving version," Strepsiades said. "It was probably inspired by political reasons. In your heart you know you sacrificed your daughter."

Agamemnon sighed and did not answer.

"And not only did you do that, but you also involved your son, Orestes, in matricide, from which came his agony and his madness."

"None of that could be predicted at the time," Agamemnon said. "Charon, what do you think?"

Charon said, "We have been doing this ferrying for a long time, my father, my brothers, and I, and we share all the information we pick up. We have some questions, too, first and foremost about ourselves."

Charon took a drink of wine from a leather flask lying in the bottom of the boat, and continued.

"What are we here for? Why is there a Charon, or a Charon-function? Are we anything apart from our function? Just as you might ask, Agamemnon, whether you are anything apart from the morally ambiguous story of your life? A story which, for all intents and purposes, has no end and no beginning, and which in one guise or another is always contemporaneous, always happening. Do you ever get any time off from being the Agamemnon-function, do you ever have a chance for some good meaningless fun? Or do you always have to operate your character? Can you do anything without your act proposing a moral question, a dilemma for the ages, ethically unanswerable by its very nature?"

"What about the rest of us?" Strepsiades asked. "Are our lives negligible just because they don't pose a great moral question like Agamemnon's?"

"You and Agamemnon alike are equally negligible," Charon said. "You are merely the actors of old stories, which have more or less significance as the fashions of the times dictate. You are human beings, and you cannot be said to be with or without significance. But one like you, Agamemnon is a symbol and a question mark to the human race, just as the human race is to all intelligent life in the Kosmos."

A chilling thought crossed Agamemnon's mind. "And you, Charon? What are you? Are you human? Are you one of those who brought us the lottery?"

"We are living beings of some sort," Charon said. "There are more questions than answers in this matter of living. And now, gentlemen, I hope this conversation has diverted you, because we are at our destination."

Looking over the side of the boat, Agamemnon could see a dark shoreline coining up. It was low, like the one they had left, but this one had a bright fringe of sandy beach.

The boat made a soft grating sound as Charon ran it onto the sand.

"You are here," Charon said, and then to Agamemnon: "Don't forget you owe me payment."

"Farewell, Commander," said Pyliades. "I hope for a favorable judgment, and to see you again in the palace of Achilles, where they say he lives with Helen, the most beautiful woman who ever was or ever will be. They say the two of them feast the heroes of the Trojan War, and declaim the verses of Homer in pure Greek. I was not a hero, nor do I even speak Greek; but Achilles and Helen may welcome people like me—I have a cheery face now that death has removed the plague from me—and can be counted upon to applaud the great heroes of our Trojan enterprise."

"I hope it turns out so," Agamemnon said. It may be a while before I come there myself, since I am still alive."

The others said their farewells to Agamemnon, and assured him they bore him no ill will for their deaths. Then the four walked in the direction of the Judges' seats, which were visible on a rise of land. But Agamemnon followed a sign that read, "This way to the Orchards of Elysium and the Islands of the Blest." For these were the regions where he expected to find Tiresias.

He walked through pleasant meadowlands, with cattle grazing in the distance. These, he had been told, were part of Helios' herd, which were always straying into this part of Hades, where the grass was greener.

After a while he came to a valley. In the middle of the valley was a small lake. A man stood in the middle of the lake with water up to his mouth. There were trees growing along the lakeshore, fruit trees, and their branches hung over the man in the water, and ripe fruit drooped low over his head. But when he reached up to pick a banana or an apple—both grew on the same tree—the fruit shrank back out of his reach.

Agamemnon thought he knew who this was, so he walked to the shore of the lake and called out, "Hello, Tantalus!" The man in the water said, "Why, if it isn't Agamemnon, ruler of men! Have you come to rule here in hell, Agamemnon?"

"Certainly not," Agamemnon said. "I'm just here for a visit. I've come to talk with Tiresias. Would you happen to know where I might find him?"

"Tirisias keeps a suite in Hades' palace. It's just to your left, over that rise. You can't miss it."

"Thanks very much, Tantalus. Is it very onerous, this punishment the gods have decreed for you? Is there anything I can do?"

"Good of you to ask," Tantalus said. "But there's nothing you could do for me. Besides, this punishment is not as terrible as it might seem. The gods are relentless in decreeing punishment, but they don't much care who actually does it. So a couple of us swap punishments, and thus get some relief from the same thing over and over."

"Who do you trade with, if you don't mind my asking?"

"By no means. A bit of conversation is a welcome diversion. Sisyphus, Prometheus, and I from time to time take over one another's punishments. The exercise of pushing Sisyphus' boulder does me good—otherwise I might get fat—I tend to gorge when I get the chance."

"But to have your liver torn out by a vulture when you take over for Prometheus—that can't be much fun."

"You'd be surprised. The vulture often misses the liver, chews at a kidney instead, much less hurtful. Especially when you consider that here in hell, sensation is difficult to come by. Even King Achilles and Queen Helen, each blessed with the unsurpassed beauty of the other, have a bit of trouble feeling desire without bodies. Pain is a welcome change to feeling nothing."

Agamemnon set out again in the direction Tantalus had indicated. He went across a high upland path, and saw below a pleasant grove of pine trees. There were a dozen or so men and women in white robes, strolling around and engaging in animated conversation.