by Eric Flint
Liz laughed a little unevenly. "Everybody sings better than I do. And there is no such thing as a good pun." She smiled, feeling rather weak with the aftermath of the emotion-storm. "So what do we do now? I really can't think straight."
"That's a first," said Lamont.
"Well, it is the first time I've admitted it, anyway," said Liz.
Lamont stuck his chest out, plainly also infected by the relief. "You just leave it to a sensible man to sort things out, li'l woman," he said, with suitable condescension. "We men know how to do these things. Let me show you how it's done."
He turned to his wife. "Hey, Marie. Where do we go now?"
She shrugged, looking a little puzzled. "I guess a bit farther away, Lamont. Even if it is cold out here, those locals weren't jumping into that damn river for a wash."
"We all look like we could use one of those. But at least it isn't snowing right now."
"At least you have an advantage, being black," said Liz.
Lamont laughed. "Liz, right now, you are too."
Liz couldn't see her own face but to judge by her hands that was probably accurate. "So do we just go on, Marie?"
"Yeah."
So they did. They wound up skirting a low cliff-top until they came out at some scree, and then into a shallow valley. Looking back they could see that the hall they'd come from looked exactly like a hill—except with a huge chimney, spewing black smoke across the landscape.
"If we go over the next crest we can watch it, without being seen. We might have to go back if it gets any colder, later," said Lamont.
Looking at Marie, Liz wondered just how easy that was going to be. But Marie caught that look, and shook her head, just as Liz was about to open her mouth. Well, they could always use those two PSA jerks who were following them like lost sheep. There was no real cover out here, and if there were places to look out from the Norse giant's hill-fort they simply had to be seen. Being coal-dust blackened from head to toe made them stand out against the snowy patches, and the burnished carapaces of the PSA men didn't help either.
The far hill-crest was farther than it looked. By the time they got there, they were all panting and tired. Just over the ridge-line, out of direct sight of the smoke-spewing hill, they flopped down.
Liz found a rock to rest her back against. Now that she'd come this far, she wanted to go back and look for Jerry. It was dangerous there, true, but, looking down the valley they were now above . . .
She grabbed Lamont's shoulder. Marie was lying with her head on his lap. Liz pointed.
There was a black cave-maw near the bottom of the valley. . . . A steaming maw. Something was emerging from it. Something scaly and gleaming in the weak sunlight. Something enormous.
She'd seen dragons before, but Smitar and Bitar didn't look like this thing. It was three times their size, for a start.
"I think we just stay very very still," said Marie, putting a restraining hand on her youngest son.
On the whole, that seemed like a very good idea, especially as a party of Norsemen in their chain mail had just come into view below, in the valley beneath the hill with the smokestack.
Chapter 9
"He's mine!" said Throttler, swaying over toward Agent Supervisor Megane. "Answer, mortal!
"When my first is a task to a young girl of spirit,
And my second confines her to finish the piece,
How hard is her fate! but how great is her merit
If by taking my whole she effects her release!
"Name her!" the sphinx finished. By now her jaws were less than two feet away from Megane's own, which were gaping as widely as hers, in proportion—but it was a very different proportion. She'd snap his head off as easily as a man bites the top off a carrot.
"Huh?" said Megane.
"Wrong answer!" Throttler's jaws gaped still wider, as she started the bite.
"Stop! Stop!" shouted Cruz. "Throttler, you can't eat him!"
She paused, frowning toward the sergeant. "Why not?" she demanded irritably. "I followed the rules."
"Uh . . ." Cruz tried to think up an answer.
Fortunately, Mac's wits were working faster than his. "He's poisonous, Throttler. You'd probably survive, big as you are, even though a bite out of him would kill one of us in a few seconds. But it'll make you really sick."
She drew her head back a little, looking down at Megane with eyes that were a bit crossed. "Really? Humans usually aren't."
Cruz picked it up from there. "He's not actually human," he said, shaking his head. "It's what they call evolutionary camouflage."
"Like some toads in—in—the Amazon, I think," added Mac.
Miggy Tremelo weighed in, using his very best academic
demeanor. "I'm afraid they've got the right of it, Throttler. There's quite a literature on the subject, in fact. This one"—here he gave Megane a disdainful look—"is a member of a species called Securitus cretinii. They grow like weeds in the swamp areas of Washington, D.C.—inside that dreaded zone known as 'the Beltway.' Because of their appearance, they're able to infiltrate jobs where they can mimic human beings. Especially jobs in the Pyramid Security Agency, where it isn't hard to imitate cretins. But, as a last defensive resort in case they get caught, their flesh is highly toxic."
Throttler pulled back a foot or two farther. "Really?"
"Oh, yes. It's quite a public health problem, because they're so obnoxious that people naturally want to gobble them right down when they catch one. We have to give school children special classes on the subject."
Riddles aside, the sphinx wasn't actually the sharpest pencil in the box. So Cruz thought there was a good chance this might work. And since Throttler's next course of action was obvious, he had the answer ready.
"Well, then," said the sphinx, drawing back an enormous—and very deadly looking—lion's paw, "I'll just swat the life out of him, then."
As stupid as he might be, Megane at least had enough sense to finally realize the sphinx was perfectly serious and he was on the very edge of mortal existence. Naturally, though, all he could manage himself was an inchoate squawk of protest and an upraised hand that would have sheltered him about as well as a toothpick.
"No, don't!" said Cruz. "You'll scatter his contents all over the place. Those are even more toxic than the outside."
Blessedly, the lieutenant joined in. "He's right, Sphinx. We get trained in paratrooper school on how to dispose of them. They have to be carefully quarantined first—every part of them intact." Evans grinned. "Then we bury them alive in a special place. It's called Thule Air Base. An Air Force buddy of mine was stationed there for a few months once, on Securitus cretinii disposal duty. The temperature in the winter gets down to forty below zero and they once recorded surface winds of two hundred miles an hour."
He was now giving Megane a look that could only be described as evil. "Yup, that's where this fellow is headed, sure enough." He jerked a thumb at the two other PSA agents who'd also managed to avoid the snatch. They were standing a little ways off, being closely watched by the paratroopers. "These two also."
Throttler was starting to look mollified. "That's pretty good. A bit grisly, actually. It'd be a lot more merciful if you just let me—"
Firmly, Evans raised his hand. "Can't, Throttler. Yes, I know it's a terrible fate. But those are The Rules, when a Securitus cretinii gets caught."
The sphinx had a great respect for The Rules. "Oh, well. In that case, you have to do your duty."
Evans nodded, then gave the Humvee a quick scrutiny. "Don't really have room for all three of them in the Humvee, Professor Tremelo. Not with a proper guard on them. Might I . . ."
"Oh, certainly, Lieutenant. By all means use the limo." He sighed heavily. "Lamont won't mind, wherever he is."
"And where do you want me . . ."
Tremelo tried to figure out the best place to keep Megane and his two fellow agents under detention. That was a tricky question, actually. Whatever black eyes Helen Garnett was goin
g to come out of this with, the woman still had enormous power and influence. Not to mention an instant readiness to use bullying tactics.
Fortunately, the problem solved itself that very moment. Two more vehicles came racing up and screeched to a stop. They both had U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service insignia.
Best of all, Miggy recognized the man who immediately climbed out of the passenger seat of the first vehicle. The director of the service himself, no less, Mark O'Hare. Miggy had never met him personally, but he'd seen photographs of the man. Fortunately, unlike all too many of this administration's appointments, O'Hare actually had real credentials for the job.
He also had a temper, clearly enough. When he came up, he gave Megane a look that was every bit as evil as the one Rich Evans had given—but had not a trace of the lieutenant's humor.
He didn't have much of the lieutenant's protocol, either.
"Is this the rotten motherfucker?"
Megane looked very offended and started to say something, but a growl from Throttler put a stop to that. The sphinx was still not more than ten feet away.
O'Hare gave her a very friendly look. "Hi, Throttler. Sorry about all this."
"Oh, it's okay, Mark. I'm feeling a little sorry for them, actually. Ever since the soldier here told me they were condemned to being buried alive at Thule Air Base. Sounds horrible."
O'Hare now glanced at Evans. "Is that what you told them?"
"Yes, sir. The, uh, Throttler was about to . . . well. Eat him."
The director nodded. "I can believe that." He was back to giving Megane that very evil look. "And you know what, Pissant? Under the law—if you'd bothered to check—she'd not suffer any penalties, either. There's a completely different set of rules that apply to the sphinx"—he glanced at the dragons—"as well as Bitar and Smitar."
Throttler looked very smug, at that point. So did the two dragons. Megane was obviously furious, but he still had enough sense to keep quiet. At least, as long as Throttler was within jaw range.
"I've got a problem concerning custody, Director O'Hare," said Miggy. "Under the circumstances . . ."
"Professor Tremelo, I believe?" O'Hare stuck out his hand and Miggy shook it. "Yeah, I know, it's a little tricky. However, under these circumstances—you should know that I've been in touch with both Senators Abrams and Larsen, and they've been in touch with the media—I've got quite a bit of latitude. The Fish and Wildlife Service does have police powers, and we're not restricted to federal property when endangered wildlife is involved."
Again, he gave Megane that very hard look. "Which it certainly is, in this case—and with the nation's best known endangered species, at that. Most popular, too."
He lowered his voice enough that the sphinx couldn't hear him and growled at the PSA agent, "You stupid, arrogant asshole. You'll be lucky if you wind up reading a thermometer and recording wind speeds at a military base seven hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Did you—or that shithead boss of yours—really think you could get away with something like this?"
Abruptly, he waved his hand. "Never mind, don't answer that. Who cares what you think?"
He gave Evans an appraising look. "I've got police powers, but we're not really set up to keep prisoners. Normally, we'd just take an offender to the nearest police authority and turn them over. However . . ."
Evans smiled. "I'll have to check with the commander of Fort Campbell, of course. But I'm pretty sure the 101st Airborne will be willing—delighted, rather—to provide our fellow federal toilers with the wherewithal to keep these Pissants under guard for the moment."
He transferred the smile to Megane. "You wouldn't believe how popular these fellows made themselves at Fort Campbell. And seeing as how it's officially Fish and Wildlife making the arrest—we're just lending a helping hand, so to speak—I can't see where Ms. Garnett can squawk."
"Oh, she'll squawk," said O'Hare, who was now smiling himself. "But the thing is, right about now I think she's mostly squawking in fear, not fury. Okay, Lieutenant. Talk to your commander and ask him on my behalf if he's willing to put these bums up, so to speak, at the 101st's base. If he wants to talk to me personally"—O'Hare pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card—"this has my cell phone number on it."
Things were moving much more quickly than Miggy expected. So quickly, in fact, that he realized those first calls he'd had Rachel make to the senators had stirred up a firestorm. What else could explain how quickly O'Hare had gotten here? He couldn't possibly have made the flight from Washington, D.C., on that short a notice—not even if he'd been flown in on a fighter plane. He had to have arrived in Chicago already.
Like a shark, smelling blood in the water.
It was easy to forget, sometimes, how an overly powerful agency like the PSA—especially one prone to bullying—could pile up a huge number of enemies. And how fast those enemies could move, once they saw a chance to take them down a notch.
Or ten.
"I've got to get back to my office, people," he said quietly. "I think everything's blowing wide open. And this area's not safe any longer, anyway. With those new absorptions, the pyramid's certain to have expanded again. We'll need to move the perimeter out another hundred yards, probably. Maybe two hundred, with that many idiot PSA agents going in."
"But . . . Neoptolemeus . . ." protested Medea.
"Is in a Mythworld with Dr. Lukacs and the Jackson family," said Miggy gently. "You know Jerry Lukacs and Lamont Jackson well enough, ma'am, and I know Marie Jackson. Your boy couldn't be in better, more careful hands. Now will you all get in the vehicle and get back, please? There is no guarantee that if you got snatched you'd end up in the same place or would be able to help."
A corpse fell from the sky. It was wearing a brass cuirass, and a Greek-style horsehair-crested helmet. A ten inch by five inch piece was missing from its chest. Smoke still rose from the hole.
One of the dragons leaned in and sniffed. "Chargrilled."
Agent Supervisor Megane gaped in horror.
Miggy turned to Evans. "Load that corpse up and let's get out of here, now. Some of your men may be snatchables."
Lieutenant Evans realized that might well be true—especially with a private who'd somehow managed to get himself arrested over pizza. However, he knew the essential trick of military success. Sergeant Cruz might not be part of his squad, but he was the best NCO around. "Sergeant," he said with a nod, which was all that was necessary to say.
"Sir," said Cruz.
A minute and a half later they were all heading out, the Humvee first, one SUV abandoned and the other driven by a paratrooper, the remaining agents under guard in the limo. Megane probably wished desperately that he could call in to his own authorities—but his helmet and those of his remaining "hoplites" had been left behind to talk to themselves.
Chapter 10
Lying in the back of the chariot in the cold, Jerry could only be glad of the body—presumably still alive because it was warm—stacked against him. He wouldn't have minded if the man had not had a cuirass on. Brass seemed to transmit cold better than it did body-heat.
Time passed. In the way of time when you were worried and helpless to do anything, Jerry was sure that it was passing very slowly. It was getting to be a question of whether he froze to death or worried himself to death first. He worried about the others, let alone about his own fate, at the hands of a guy with metal gauntlets and fake beard, and Odin.
He tried to distract himself into remembering as much as he could about Odin. Not all of it was comforting. Yes, Odin was the leader of the Æsir who had hanged himself on the tree for nine days and given his one eye for a drink from the well of Mirmir. He was also—a stray scrap of information in the sea of stuff Jerry had waded through in a bibliophile's life—known by many names, or "kennings" as the Norse put it. They often gave clues to origins and nature of the god in question. This one was known variously as the Allfather, which was a delusion of grandeur from what Jerry remembered, the Wanderer fr
om his habit of wandering about incognito, and Baelwerker—evil worker.
