Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [140]
LIEUTENANT Lake was surprised and, Dave thought, disappointed to learn that he had been in jail on the night of the fire. She said that she understood why he’d been reluctant to explain, but admonished him on the virtues of being honest with law-enforcement personnel.
When she’d left, he called Helen. “Let’s go rescue your boyfriend.”
CHAPTER 43
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang—
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, SONNET 73
“THE question you are really asking, Simmias, is whether death annihilates the soul.” Socrates looked from one to another of his friends.
Simmias was young and clear-eyed, like most of the others, but subdued in the shadow of the prison house. “It is an important matter,” he said. “There is none of more importance. But we were reluctant—” He hesitated, his voice caught, and he could go no further.
“I understand,” said Socrates. “You fear this is an indelicate moment to raise such an issue. But if you would discuss it with me, we cannot very well postpone it, can we?”
“No, Socrates,” said a thin young man with red hair. “Unfortunately, we cannot.” This, Dave suspected, was Crito.
Despite Plato’s account, the final conversation between Socrates and his disciples did not take place in his cell. It might well have begun there, but they were in a wide, utilitarian meeting room when Helen and Dave arrived. Several women were present. Socrates, then seventy years old, sat at ease on a wooden chair, while the others gathered around him in a half circle.
“I don’t see him,” Helen said, seconds after they’d entered.
Neither did Dave. That was a surprise. Shel had indicated several times that he wanted to participate in the final Socratic discussion.
Socrates was, at first glance, a man of mundane appearance. He was of average height, for the time, and clean-shaven. He wore a dull red robe, and, considering the circumstances, he maintained a remarkable equanimity. And his eyes were extraordinary, conveying the impression that they were lit from within. When they fell on Dave, as they did from time to time, he imagined that Socrates knew where he’d come from and why he was there.
Beside him, Helen writhed under the impact of conflicting emotions. She had been ecstatic at the chance to see Shel again. When he did not arrive, she looked at Dave as if to say that she had told him so and settled back to watch history unfold.
She was, Dave thought, initially disappointed in that the event seemed nothing more than a few people sitting around talking in an uncomfortable room in a prison. And speaking Greek, at that. It was as if the scene should somehow be scored and choreographed and played to muffled drums. She had read Plato’s account before they left. Dave tried to translate for her, but they eventually gave it up. She explained that she could get most of the meaning from her prior knowledge and the nonverbals. “When?” she whispered, after they’d been there almost an hour. “When does it happen?”
“Sunset, I think.”
She made a noise deep in her throat.
“Why do men fear death?” Socrates asked.
“Because,” said Crito, “they believe it is the end of existence.”
There were almost twenty people present. Most were young, but there was a sprinkling of middle-aged and elderly persons. One wore a hood. His beard was streaked with gray, and he had intense dark eyes. He gazed sympathetically at Socrates throughout, and periodically nodded when the philosopher hammered home a particularly salient point. There was something in his manner that suggested a young Moses.
“And do all men fear death?” asked the philosopher.
“Most assuredly, Socrates,” said a boy, who could have been no more than eighteen.
Socrates addressed the boy. “Do even the brave fear death, Cebes?”
Cebes thought it over. “I have to think so, Socrates.”
“Why, then,” asked Socrates, “do the valiant dare death? Is it perhaps because they fear something else even more?”
“The loss of their honor,” said Crito.
“Thus we are faced with the paradox that even the brave are driven