Necessity Read Online Free PDF Page A

news. Old Pytheas, Apollo himself. He was one of the Children, and so he must have been eighty or thereabouts, but he’d seemed well enough when I’d seen him singing at the Festival of Artemis a few days before. What did it mean for an incarnate god to die?
    Marsilia patted Thee’s back and made soothing noises. Hilfa went to fetch the cart to get the fish into the warehouse. I began to swing the heavy tubs of fish onto the hoist, to be ready when he came back with it.
    â€œIs this the news or the complication?” Marsilia asked Crocus. She sounded taken off balance. It must be strange to have a grandfather who’s a god. I wondered what she felt about him.
    â€œNeither,” he responded. “Though I should give you my condolences. The news and the complication are the same thing.” Because he didn’t have eyes, I had no way to tell where he was looking. I couldn’t tell whether he was paying any attention to me at all. I looked away from Marsilia and poor Thetis and saw Hilfa coming back with the cart. Dion was helping him push it over the cobblestones, and little Camilla came skipping along beside them. I was looking at them, and moving the tubs on their swivel along the sloping deck, and I almost didn’t take it in when Crocus said: “A human spaceship is in orbit.”
    â€œThat changes everything,” Marsilia said, suddenly all practical, the way she was when we were out with the nets. “Thee, stop crying, it’s un-Platonic. I have to go.”
    â€œMarsilia! You can’t go off and worry about spaceships right after Grandfather has died,” Thetis said, outraged.
    â€œOh yes I can,” Marsilia said. “And Dad will do the same.”
    â€œNeleus is already in the Chamber,” Crocus confirmed. “I came to fetch you for the sake of speed.”
    â€œHilfa says you have a good haul!” Dion said, as he came up. “Joy to you, Marsilia, Thetis, Crocus.”
    Camilla ran to me and put her arms up to be swung onto the boat. I heaved her aboard and hugged her. “Gloaters!” she exclaimed. A human spaceship, I was thinking, recontact with the mainstream of human civilization at last. And Pytheas dead. Everything had changed and nothing had. Hilfa came aboard beside me. I swung the first tub up so that the fish that filled it cascaded down into the cool boxes on the cart in a swirl of red and black.
    Marsilia looked up. “Dion, how lovely to see you. I have a crisis. If I borrow Jason, could you and Hilfa manage the unloading?”
    â€œBorrow me?” I asked, jumping ashore, leaving Hilfa and Camilla aboard. “What for?” I couldn’t imagine how she might need me in dealing with a strange human culture, but of course I was prepared to do my best.
    Marsilia detached Thetis from her shoulder and gave her a gentle push towards me. “Can you take Thee home?” Ah, of course. She didn’t need help with the big problem, but with the immediate human problem. Well, that was more to my scale.
    â€œTo Thessaly,” Crocus interjected.
    â€œYou should come too, Marsilia,” Thetis said. I put my arm around her. Hilfa was already tipping the next tub of fish into the cart.
    â€œI will come, and so will Dad, as soon as we’ve dealt with this crisis,” Marsilia said.
    â€œBut I’m sure there’s a plan for dealing with it, and what does it matter anyway?” Thetis asked. “You can’t put politics ahead of family.”
    â€œThere has been a plan for this meeting since the consulship of Maia and Klio, but the question is whether people will follow the plan in the face of events,” Marsilia said. “This is one of the most important things that has ever happened, Thee. Oh, it’ll be so wonderful to talk to them.”
    â€œPerhaps,” Crocus said, cautiously.
    â€œYou don’t think so?” Marsilia asked, sounding surprised.
    â€œI knew the