Hera watched him go after Thetis and then switched to a private channel. "Apollo, the Director is very angry with you. But I've thought of a way to smooth his feathers. We'll tell him that killing Patroclos was the only way to get Achilles back into the fight. He'll like that. Achilles can then be slain, and the picture will still be saved. Also, I'll make him think it was his idea."
"That's great," replied Apollo, his voice shaky with dread of the Director. "But what can we do to speed up the shooting? Patroclos was supposed to take the city after Achilles was killed."
"Don't worry," said Athena, who had been standing behind Hera. "Odysseus is your man. He's been working on a device to get into the city. Barbarian or not, that fellow is the smartest I've ever met. Too bad he's an Earthman."
During the next twenty-four hours, Thetis wept much. But she was also very busy, working while she cried. She went to Hephaistos, the chief technician, an old man of five thousand years. He loved Thetis because she had intervened for Hephaistos more than once when her father had been angry with him. Yet he shook his head when she asked him if he could make Achilles another suit of armor, even more invulnerable than the first.
"Not enough time. Achilles is to be killed tomorrow."
"No. My father has cooled off a little. He remembered that the Script calls for Achilles to kill Hector before he himself dies. Besides, the government anthropologist wants to take films of the funeral games for Patroclos. And he overrules even Father, you know."
"That'll give me a week," said Hephaistos, figuring on his fingers. "I can do it. But tell me, child, why all the tears? Is it true what they say, that you love a barbarian, that magnificent red-haired Achilles?"
"I love him," she said, weeping again.
"Ah, child, you are a mere hundred years or so. When you reach my age, you'll know that there are few things worth tears, and love between man and woman is not one of them. However, I'll make the armor. And its field of force will cover everything around him except an opening to the outside air. Otherwise, he'd suffocate. But what good will all this do? The Director will find some means of killing him. And even if Achilles should escape, you'd be no better off."