Pyramid Scheme

by Eric Flint

  Liz snorted. "Yogurt's got more culture than this lot."

  Jerry shook his head. "I don't think this was atypical. We tend to forget that life was pretty tough for ordinary people throughout most of human history. Power got respect. Pretty little else did." He looked at her speculatively. "Well. There is the sorceress option. Several foreign sorceresses got a fair bit of respect in Greek mythology."

  She pulled a wry face. "I haven't turned anyone into a newt lately. Actually, I can't even do card tricks."

  Lamont narrowed his eyes and looked at the marine biologist. "You don't happen to smoke, do you?"

  "I'm trying to cut down," she said defensively. "It's hard to give up on ships where the whole crew smokes."

  Jerry snapped his fingers. "Gotcha, Lamont! Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court! Can you blow smoke rings?"

  Liz looked puzzled. "Huh? Yes, of course."

  "Well, Twain's hero convinced the guys back in Arthurian legend he was a wizard by smoking. Magic is simply something that you don't understand," said Jerry.

  She snorted. "That'd make men magic, in my book. All right. Let's try it. It's a stupid idea, but at least it is an idea."

  * * *

  Liz fluffed the hair about her face into a wild blond cloud. The roots were going dark but Odysseus' crew probably wouldn't notice that. It didn't take much effort to "Medusa" her hair. It always went like that when the salt spray got into it. She concentrated on looking regal and mysterious as she and Jerry walked calmly between the rowers to Odysseus.

  Nature designs some people to look honest and trustworthy. Odysseus' face was made for politics. It had plainly been a while since he'd bathed, and they were downwind of him. And his breath was something else again.

  Liz willed herself to look imperious to the prince of Ithaca.

  By the expression on Odysseus' face . . . it wasn't working.

  Jerry began to speak. She wished like hell that she knew what he was saying.

  * * *

  "Noble Odysseus, our great sorceress Liz has performed an augury. If you land on the Island of Thrinicia you are surely doomed." Jerry tried to keep a quaver out of his Greek. If only someone else could do this . . .

  "Just what I was saying to Eurylochus here!" The somewhat high-pitched voice didn't go with his princely bearing. Of all the lower forms of life Jerry had had the misfortune to have to deal with, bank managers just about topped his personal list. Jerry decided that Odysseus was natural-born bank manager material. It raised Jerry's blood pressure. That helped.

  Eurylochus didn't place much faith in the pronouncement either. "Sorceress! If she's a sorceress then my penis is rabbit food! She's a peasant. Look at her skin. Even with the funny hair dye I know a peasant when I see one."

  "Not as well as you do when you feel one," said Odysseus with an age-old gesture and a nasty chuckle.

  "Time to start smoking," said Jerry, out of the corner of his mouth. Then he drew himself up and did his best attempt at a snap. It sounded pathetic to him. "My mistress will grow angry! We appeared on your ship by magic—"

  The Greeks were laughing uncontrollably. "Your mistress . . . ho ho ho . . . " Odysseus slapped his thighs and guffawed some more.

  With glowing ears Jerry realized that what he'd said was "the woman who is my master." An absolutely hilarious howler in these parts. It didn't help that she was suntanned as only peasant women were, and he was as pallid as their female aristocracy. Of course in a man that was not a desirable trait. Men in all the paintings are dark-haired and dark-skinned. The glow in his ears spread to his face as he realized that a pale-skinned man was truly the lowest form of life to these Greeks: a wimp.

  Liz revived him with a long smoky exhalation.

  The laughter had died away. Eurylochus backed off. . . .

  Odysseus didn't. He watched as Liz trickled smoke out of her nostrils.

  "She is very angry. When the smoke begins to come out of her nose, it is a sure sign. She will turn you into a . . . a . . . " What the hell was the Greek for "newt"?

  Liz took a deep draw and blew smoke rings.

  Odysseus smiled like a shark. "It's a trick, Eurylochus. She's no sorceress. She sucks the smoke from the smoldering stick, and then blows it out. I can do it too." And he snatched the cigarette out of her hand.

  He sucked at it.

  Hard.

  * * *

  Liz had started smoking as a twelve-year-old, stealing her older brother's cigarettes. He, like many a young soldier of that time, had smoked only the strongest unfiltered cigarettes. You had to, to prove how tough you were. Filter tips were for weenies.

  Liz had broken the habit—once. But when things went wrong she'd gone back to the same old smoking habits. In the U.S. she hadn't been able to find her brand. Bloody cheek. The adverts had had a cowboy! She still remembered her brother trying everything to get a match to strike against his boot.

  Odysseus was a healthy Achaean with good strong lungs. He had sucked that smoke in hard and unprepared. . . .

  It was a joy to watch.

  He dissolved into paroxysms of violent coughing. Smoke erupted from virtually every orifice. Well, possibly not from under his sort of skirt thing. But she'd swear smoke came out of his ears.

  Liz calmly reached down and took the fag from the limp hand of the doubled-up hero. Pah. He'd slimed it. She pinched off the damp bit and took another deep drag. She blew smoke into the goggle-eyed Odysseus' red face.

  "Cigarettes may be harmful to your health. Want another drag, weenie?" she said coolly. Fortunately she didn't say it in ancient Greek.

  * * *

  "Well, all right. Maybe she is a sorceress after all," coughed Odysseus, waving the smoke away weakly. "No mere mortal could breathe the smoke of Hades like that."

  "She says that if you touch the magic herbs of Persephone again she will turn you into a . . . frog," said Jerry grimly. "I am so pale because she turned me into a . . . goat for not obeying her orders quickly enough."

  The Greeks regarded Liz with a bit of trepidation. Several of them edged away. But Odysseus looked suddenly very interested. "This turning people into goats . . . ask the sorceress if we could perhaps reach an agreement. I've a lot more serfs than I need, and a lot fewer goats. I asked Circe, but the nymph won't leave Aeaea. She says her magic only works there anyway. And goats are more valuable than pigs. Circe does pigs best. Tell the sorceress we could do business."

  Jerry turned to Liz. "Look irritated and point at the island and draw your finger across your throat. Talk some gobbledygook."

  Liz complied. Actually, she overdid it, demonstrating on the hapless Eurylochus. Unlike Jerry, she had no self-confidence problems. "This guy is a silly prat. I feel like kicking his balls in."

  "The Sorceress Liz says, beware of your kinsman Eurylochus—he who suspected a trap of Circe, and would have you land on the Island of the Sun, Thrinicia. He will be the one to urge your comrades to slaughter the straight-horned cattle of the sun."

  Odysseus was able to stick to a subject. Especially a subject he considered important. "About the goats . . . "

  * * *

  Liz had been staring at the horizon while Jerry warbled on. She'd spent a fair number of years going to sea in small boats. When the horizon went bumpy like that—it was time to run for port. Especially when the horizon got that gray haze about it. "Jerry. Tell this lot that I'm predicting a hell of a blow."

  * * *

  Jerry dug deep into his memories of the Odyssey. Had it been a wind from the north or the south that had kept them trapped on Thrinicia? "The Sorceress Liz says that the south wind and the storm are coming."

  That was enough for the seamen. They'd been watching the drama. Now they too looked for weather cues. A low moan swept the ship. Well. They had just survived a whirlpool and a monster . . . Now a wind that would drive them back that way was rising. "Row for the island!" shouted someone. But the offshore breeze was already strengthening.

  Odysseus was a son of
a bitch with an obsession about goats, but he was no fool. Within minutes the ship was bearing northwest—quartering the storm, looking for a haven, any haven but the channel that housed Scylla and Charybdis.

  Jerry didn't care that he'd successfully thwarted the myth. He was too busy being sick. Or trying to be. There was nothing left to come up.

  11

  Gambling with the lambs.

  The bay was a deep cookie-cutter bite out of the limestone cliff. Rimmed with a thin white-sand beach, the water inside it was blissfully still. To the south the sky was black, but here above the refuge the last of the sun still burnished the cliffs. Odysseus edged the black ship warily into the channel. Jerry remembered the Laestrygonians' slaughter of Odysseus' squadron. By the way Odysseus and his crew scanned the cliff that wasn't far from their minds either. But there was nothing more threatening to be seen than a silhouette of an umbrella pine clinging to the cliff edge.

  "What happens now?" Lamont asked, looking warily at the scene.

  Jerry shrugged. "Judging by other incidents mentioned in the Odyssey, they'll pull up on the beach, make a fire, eat and drink."

  Liz scanned the cliff. "No water."

  "Wine. Water in those days was stuff that killed you," said Jerry.

  Cruz ground a fist into his palm. "That's when the trouble will start," he said grimly.

  Jerry looked startled. "I thought we'd already dealt with that. I've convinced them that Liz—Dr. De Beer—is a sorceress."

  The stocky sergeant looked at him. Shook his head. "Dr. Lukacs. You know all about the history of these guys. And if you get a chance, I'd like you to fill the rest of us in. It might help. But I know troops. This bunch have as much discipline as a pack of wild dogs. That Odysseus guy has barely got them under control. Get them fed, rested, bored and with a few drinks in them—we've got trouble."

  McKenna nodded. "Always works like that."

  Jerry tugged his wispy beard. "That fits in with the myth, I'm afraid. Against the Cicones . . . "

  "In the meanwhile, we're about to beach," Liz snapped. "Jump over and make yourselves useful pulling the boat up."

  "Won't they kill us if we aren't all together in a defensive group?" asked Salinas warily.

  Liz snorted derisively. "Not until the boat—I refuse to call this thing a ship—is pulled up. Believe me. The sergeant knows soldiers. I know seamen. Nobody is going to touch a hair on your little head until the work is over. Provided you put your back into it."

  Salinas bridled. "You don't need to get smart, lady!" He swelled his chest. Alas, most of the swelling took place lower down. Salinas' belt groaned in protest.

  "I'm an experienced police officer—we're talking about the tough side of Chicago, cookie—and I say—"

  "We're not in Chicago, prat!" snarled Liz. She swelled her own chest. It was a far more impressive sight. "And if you're an example of a police officer, Chicago's crooks have got it easy. I'm not taking orders from you! And that's final!"

  Salinas' glare bounced off Liz like a pebble off a steel plate. After a moment, he broke eye contact with her and looked to his fellow males for support.

  No use. The contest of wills between her chest and his potbelly was a rout. None of the other men so much as glanced at him.

  His shoulders slumped. The belt sighed with relief.

  That little sound finally tore Jerry's gaze away from Liz. Startled, he saw a tiny little figure—a leather sprite, perhaps—clambering out of the belt buckle and leaping to the deck. The sprite, casting an angry backward glance at Salinas, darted toward Lamont and vanished into one of his shoes. Lamont, still staring at Liz, never noticed. But, moments later, his feet shifted a little—as if the heavy work shoes had suddenly become lighter and more comfortable.

  * * *

  Up on the beach, the driftwood was stacked. It was also damp. So, after the encounters with Charybdis and running before the storm off Thrinicia, was the tinder. The grumbling from the Achaeans needed no translating.

  Lamont nudged Jerry. "Time for a bit more of the sorceress spells. Fire-making, Dr. De Beer."

  Liz looked uncomfortable. "I've got a lighter. It smells like mothballs, but it is working . . . but my fires always go out."

  Jerry regarded her intently. "Mothballs . . . naphtha . . . Greek fire—something that was certainly known in ancient times . . . I think I'm beginning to get the `rules' in this place. How are you on fires, Lamont? Or you Sergeant . . . Corporal . . . anybody except me?"

  McKenna grinned. "I'll do it, sir. My brother and me, we spent half our time on the farm making fires. We also carry waterproof matches as part of our gear."

  It was something of a shock to him to discover that his waterproof matches were about as useful and effective as his rifle had been. But Jim McKenna wasn't that easily stopped. "Just lend me the lighter. You wouldn't have a couple of sheets of paper in your bag, would you?"

  "I think we should start calling that thing `cornucopia,' " said Jerry.

  "My ex-husband called it `lethal weapon,' " said Liz pointedly. "Here, Corporal. And you get two pages of my diary, too."

  "We'd better go easy on our modern stuff," cautioned Lamont. "We may need it later."

  Liz shook her head. "We may need it just to get through tonight first. Come, Jerry. We'd better go and put on a show while the corporal does the work. We can do inventory later. Right now it is time for you to get inventive with your translations."

  Liz put on a fine display of impromptu yodeling and turning and bowing while McKenna carefully built a little pyramid of shaved splinters around the paper balls. Fortunately his pyromaniac youth didn't fail them. The Achaeans were suitably impressed. Jerry obligingly didn't translate the gist of the admiring comments about McKenna's body. If he'd understood what they were saying, he'd never have knelt down to blow the fire.

  * * *

  Anibal Cruz stared at the firelight. The flames trailed green from the salt in the driftwood, reflecting on the dark water of the bay. The cliffs were a dark frame to a sky full of stars. Stars. Stars shone down in countless numbers, in a sky as clear as a virgin's conscience. The sheltered cove echoed with cheerful voices. Yeah. Trouble for sure—even if the cheerful voices hadn't been speaking ancient Greek. If all those clay things held wine . . .

  The party of snatchees sat some distance from the fire, listening to the little guy with the wild hair. The—what did he call himself?—mythographer. Anibal fished out a set of poker dice. At least they hadn't changed into anything. The ration packs' containers had . . . altered. Changed into paper-like stuff and bone and leather . . . and broken. The mess in his rucksack really pissed him off, besides making them short of food. Some of it had got onto the set of pics he'd thrust in there. They weren't photographs from that trip to Vegas any more. They were paintings. And in several cases, ruined paintings. But his dice were okay. He hadn't been anywhere without them for ten years. Even had them in Saudi. Over the years there'd even been some people foolish enough to play with him.

  He sighed. That lieutenant was going to cause shit. Salinas' idea now was to try and buddy up to this Odysseus guy. Cruz shook his head. Odysseus reminded Anibal of a street gang leader he'd known as a kid. Deadly as a snake, and with a snake's utterly pragmatic "ethics." Cozying up to someone like that was a sure prescription for disaster.

  * * *

  "We seem to have been put into a Greek myth. The Odyssey, to be specific. But there are several inconsistencies . . . "

  "What I'm really interested in is not where we are, but how we get back," snapped Salinas.

  Jerry regarded him owlishly. "Well. One way would appear to be to die, Lieutenant Salinas. I'm not sure how else. But, as I was explaining, the rules of this universe are different in certain respects. There may be ways to exploit this to our advantage—but first I've got to understand it. If monsters like Scylla exist, maybe other features of the myths do as well. Greek gods for instance."

  "So we should try asking Zeus for a lift home?" Liz ask
ed dryly, pronouncing it "Zee-us" instead of "Zoos."

  "I'd go easy on the naming of names, Doctor," said Lamont quietly. "I think this weird place might have them really listening." He sighed heavily. "I wonder how my Marie is managing. . . ."

  Jerry felt a pang of guilt. He was torn between a desire to get home safely, and the sheer thrill of this puzzle. He'd have said he was having the time of his life, if he hadn't been frightened out of his wits half the time. He didn't like being thrust into having to actually do things . . . but it had been something of a pleasant shock to discover that when he had to, he could.

  But Lamont Jackson, Jerry knew, was a devoted family man. He just wanted to get home to his wife and children. Nobody but his academic colleagues would notice if Jerry Lukacs never came home.

  Jerry's feelings of guilt deepened. In truth, he was immensely relieved that Lamont was there. First, because the man exuded a kind of practical competence. But, even more, because Lamont was a good guy to talk the ideas through with. As far as Jerry knew, the maintenance mechanic had no better than a high school education. But it was obvious, from the puns they exchanged, that Lamont was one of those people with a sharp mind that soaked things up like a sponge. Which, in this situation, was infinitely more useful than another hyper-educated professor. Jerry could talk to Lamont without sliding into automatic academese, and get ideas out without burying them under the passive tense and three uses of the verb "suggest" in every sentence.

  He looked at the rest of the bunch, weighing them up. He dismissed Salinas instantly. If that pompous jackass had anything to offer, he'd be surprised. The South African Amazon seemed quick on the uptake, if as ignorant as a person could be about mythology or even history. She certainly had presence . . . as well as being pretty good-looking in a sort of outdoorsy way.