Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1)(56)

—Maybe you should leave the speechwriting to others.





FILE NO. 237


INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT COUTURE, UNEMPLOYED

Location: La Fontaine Park, Montreal, Canada

—Please sit down, Mr. Couture.

—We could have gone to my place. It’s cold for a picnic.

—I have tried my best to hide the identity of everyone involved in our project, but after the incident I prefer to discuss this in a public location.

—You’re worried someone bugged my apartment?

—I cannot discard the possibility. Besides, this park is lovely in the fall. Did you receive my message?

—I’m not sure I’d call that a message, but yeah, I received the two words you sent me. It’s pretty cool.

—Define cool.

—Cool is that at some point there might have been more of these giant robots on Earth, eleven more to be precise.

—How…

—How would I know? Well, the first word you sent, tittah, means “big” in Hattic. Hattic was spoken about five thousand years ago in Anatolia, that’s more or less Turkey today. That word was borrowed by the folks living west of there, and in Greek you end up with the word Titan.

In Greek mythology, the Titans are children of Gaia and Uranus. That’s also cool. Do you get it? They’re children of the Earth and the Sky. They must have known where they came from, somehow.

There are twelve of them, six males and six females. I don’t know all their names by heart, but I know which one we found. The other word you sent, dhehméys, looks a whole lot like what we call Proto-Indo-European, which we believe was spoken right around there at the time. If it is PIE, then that “d” will eventually turn into a “t,” and by the time you get to Ancient Greek, you end up with Themis, one of the Titans.

—I am not familiar with the name.

—You’ve seen her a thousand times. She’s blindfolded holding a scale in one hand and a sword in the other.

—Is that who we call Lady Justice?

—More or less. The statues in front of courthouses are fairly modern. They’re usually a mixture of Themis and Iustitia, the Roman equivalent. What’s the saying? Justice is blind. Well, now we know why; she doesn’t have eyes.

I don’t think justice is the right word, though. She represents something bigger, something like divine law. That’s probably what dhehméys meant five thousand years ago already. I’m pretty sure that dharma in Sanskrit is from the same word, and it means cosmic order, what keeps the universe together. Her daughter, Dikē, is the Greek goddess of Justice.

—She had a daughter?

—Well, obviously, she doesn’t have a “real” daughter. I don’t think there’s a minirobot buried somewhere either. Some mythology has got to be just that, mythology.

Can you imagine though? A dozen of these things walking around, all lit up in turquoise. Then again, maybe they glow in different colors. They didn’t even have iron tools back then, let alone electricity. I wish I could go back in time just to see that for myself. One of these things is jaw-dropping today. Twelve of them, at a time when technology was more or less nonexistent? That would have been like coming face-to-face with gods.

I’d like to know why this one was left on Earth while all the other ones went back to wherever they came from.

—What makes you think they went anywhere?

—We pretty much searched the entire planet and we only found parts of this one. If there were eleven more spread around, surely we’d have a couple spare parts, extra hands, another foot, lying in a warehouse somewhere.

Are you gonna tell me what you know or do I have to guess everything?

—I may not know anything.

—Of course not. You just stumbled upon the words tittah and dhehméys while doing crosswords, and you called me for clues so you could finish the grid. What’s a seven-letter word for “full of it”?

—Caution.

—At some point, you’re gonna have to trust someone. If anything, you could get hit by a milk truck tomorrow and there’d be no one left who knows any of whatever it is you keep to yourself.

—You do realize I am essentially a spectator in all of this. I do not come from outer space. I did not build a giant robot. I did not even play any significant part in finding it or understanding how it works. You can therefore assume that 100 percent of the knowledge that I possess was handed to me by other people. If anything were to happen to me, there would be someone left who knows what I know, a lot of someones. I trust that, in the event of my demise, the right information would find its way to the people who need it, as it found its way to me.

—Sure, but why not save us all a lot of time and tell us, so we can, you know, help a little!

—You are helping, tremendously. And part of the reason you are able to contribute so significantly to this project is that you are not burdened by unnecessary knowledge. Some of it might help you, I agree, but some of it would also narrow your options, steer your thoughts in one particular direction, prevent you from seeing all there is to see. Since I cannot know which information would hinder your thought processes, I find it best to provide you only with what you really need to know.

—Really? All this time I thought you were just the biggest micromanager the Earth had ever known. I never realized you were doing all of this for me. How can I ever thank you enough?