by Dave Freer
Jerry had been trying not to stare. But there was something very compelling about that view. He felt himself blush to the roots of his hair. "Um . . . er . . . "
She chuckled. "I'd have taken it off if it wasn't for those goons. Don't worry. I kept my coat dry. You can act the gentleman and hold your jacket up as a view-shield for the Achaeans."
Jerry decided his best move would have been to hold it in front of his own eyes.
13
We will rock you.
The black ship picked her way along a coastline jagged with bays and sea-spearing headlands. Looking inland from the black headlands and white coves, Liz could see the land dancing a heat-hazed forest green. The sea was deep, clear and dark, with just a slight chop on it. Sometimes flying fish feathered away before the slicing ram. For a while dolphins surfed along the bow wave. To seaward, the skyline lay blue and limpid, unbroken by anything more solid than occasional twists of gulls hanging in skeins above distant fish shoals.
The close-up view was a lot less calming—grumbling Achaean sailors. And her translator was looking decidedly pale, and clinging to the gunwale. Liz never got sick, but the information Jerry had just given her was unsettling. . . .
For hors d'oeuvres, there had been his translation—given only reluctantly, due to her vehement insistence—of the chant the Achaeans had been using to time the oar strokes. A charming little ditty which reflected their cheery view of life.
Kill all the men!
Rape all th'women!
Sell all th'children!
Into sla-ve-reee!
Then, there was the main course.
The symplegades. The "wandering" or "clashing" rocks. And she, the sorceress, was supposed to steer them past them. "How can rocks move?" she demanded.
Jerry shook his head weakly. "How could you have half-serpent, half-fish, half-women monsters?"
"That's a half too many," she said, irritable because she didn't have an answer, and pedantic because of it.
"You know what I mean. The rules are different."
She shook her head. "I don't accept that. Underlying biological and physical principles have to apply . . . "
Jerry looked ahead. "Well, apply them to that," he said grimly, pointing.
They'd entered a long inlet. The water, far from becoming more still, was beginning to peak into little curls of foam. Applying her knowledge of oceanography, Liz realized they must have sailed over a high point somewhere back there. The big open-water rollers here were coming together; reinforcing each other, as peaks met peaks and troughs met troughs. And ahead, in a welter of thundering breakers, lay the wandering rocks. Enormous, sheer-faced, granitic-looking slabs. The gap they'd have to sail into was such a ravel of wild water that she wasn't surprised no ships passed through. It wasn't moving rocks—it was just really dangerous sea.
And then she saw it. A bird winging its way through the gap . . .
With a grumbling they could hear across a mile of water, the huge rocks slithered forward. The meeting was tumultuous. And then slowly the rocks moved apart again.
Liz stared openmouthed. "Oh—shit!"
Jerry nodded.
Odysseus gabbled something. He seemed oddly cheerful.
Jerry translated: "He's saying we'll have to head for Ithaca after all. No way to get through that."
"I think that would be wise," fawned Salinas.
Liz snorted. "We'll be slaves in a heartbeat. Nope. Let's just hold our position, while we think this one out. Tell him to tell them to stop rowing."
Jerry translated her reply. The broiled clams wanted to leave him. And they'd been truly delicious. That had been then. Even the thought of food was repugnant now.
Odysseus bellowed at his rowers.
And they yelled back.
Jerry swallowed, twice, before passing it on. "They say the wind is pushing the ship into the gap. It's pushing us forward faster than they can row."
"Get that sail down!!!" The order rang out in Greek and English almost simultaneously.
Liz peered at the sea. The foam lines suggested a current running counter to the wind. "Sea anchor. Have these idiots got one?"
Again, Jerry translated. It was soon obvious that neither Odysseus nor his men had any idea what the biologist was talking about.
"Ships in this day and age," Jerry explained, "rarely used any kind of anchor. They were usually beached at night."
Liz scowled ferociously. "Legendary fucking seamen, is it? 'Argonauts,' is it? Hah!" Her eyes began scouring the ship, looking for the wherewithal. "I'll show 'em some magic . . . "
* * *
Odysseus looked at the way the vessel was holding her position. Then at Liz. Speculatively. Very speculatively indeed.
"You say she can do goats as well as sea-magic?" he asked Jerry in a quiet voice. "You and I could make a bargain, you know. She'd be none the wiser." He looked meaningfully at the breaker line along the rocky shore. "Or I could toss you overboard. Then she wouldn't know where we were going, eh?"
Jerry looked uneasily at the towering "clashing" rocks. At the rock-toothed shoreline, which at least wasn't moving up and down. Being tossed overboard might be better than losing your insides overboard puking. Still, to survive the surf and ascend those cliffs afterwards . . .
"She'd put a curse on you," he said, with as confident a tone of voice as he could muster. Nonetheless he stepped away from the gunwale, to where Liz, Lamont, and Cruz were preparing little "boats," hastily whittled from a broken oar. Each of the finished ones had a long splinter mast and a paper sail.
Would it work? And what did she hope to achieve by it?
* * *
The answer, Liz was sure, lay in the timing. The wandering rocks had taken seconds to rush forward through the water. They'd groaned their way back considerably more slowly. If it was a mechanical process, then if they could time it right they should be able to sail through. The second bizarre possibility was that the rocks were alive and aware. Well, in this weird place anything was possible. Then the answer might be to tire them out. She tried to imagine what sort of creature the rocks might be. Siliceous? Calcareous? A filter-feeder of some sort, thriving on the detritus? She'd bet that it wasn't a biological niche that had a high requirement for intelligence.
The first of the little ships was launched. It rode, on a slightly less than even keel, toward the gap.
"I've lost it," said Liz, squinting into the water-reflected brightness.
Cruz shook his head. "I can't see it, either."
"There!" McKenna pointed. "Coming up on the crest. In the foam. It's just going into the gap."
"Time it," snapped Liz.
Luck and a ride with the wave enabled them to see the little model ship clearly.
It rode safely through.
"I suppose if they attacked little things like that they'd attack every bit of driftwood," mused Liz, looking down at the pile of miniature boats they'd prepared.
"Can't just be size," said Cruz analytically. "The rocks took out a bird."
She cocked her head at him. "What then? Movement? Or an intelligent decision? If it is movement, we should be able to just drift through. Except—"
She pursed her lips. "If we're wrong. The other problem is—besides taking a chance on being turned into jam—we're going to need Halitosis and Co. to keep rowing to give us headway to steer with. Or we'll just wind up on the rocks anyway."
The rolling and pitching was getting to Lamont. His face was beaded with sweat, and he stared very fixedly at the shoreline. But his brain was apparently working, as sharply as ever. "Wasn't Odysseus a legendary bowman?"
Jerry caught the point immediately. "Let's get him to try it with an arrow."
* * *
They edged in as close as they dared. Odysseus wasn't the only one who thought the idea was daft. The foam-crested waves seemed as high as the mast top to Jerry. From this close they could actually see the texture of the rocks. They looked like they'd had severe historical acne. The
surface was pocked with a myriad of tiny holes.
"Looks more like a sponge than a rock," commented Cruz, as Odysseus loosed an arrow from his bow of ram's horn.
The spongy rocks remained impassive.
" 'Well, it is Ithaca then,' " Jerry translated the ensuing surly remark.
McKenna scowled. "Where's an F-16 with heat-seeking missiles when you need one?"
Liz snapped her fingers. "Heat-seeking! Of course. A dove is warm and moving. That's worth trying. Come on, Jerry. I've been told that if you don't think about seasickness, it gets better. Look at the corporal; he's much better today. Tell them I need some tinder."
Within two minutes, Liz had a piece of brushwood covered in olive oil and tied with a thong to one of her little boats. McKenna was summoned to do his fire lighting. It wasn't easy, but the brushwood burned.
So, unfortunately, did the little sail. However, it pushed the miniature boat far enough forward for it to surf a wave between the rocks. From the crest of one wave, they watched the smoke of the fire go between the rocks and then disappear in a welter of foam.
It didn't matter. Hot prey had been detected. From this close, the grumbling roar of the wandering rocks moving in on their prey was truly deafening. There was also little room for doubt that they were alive . . . and feeding. Long multi-branched ropelike arms ran between the two rocks in a complex network. The trapped water streamed through this and out of the holes on the rock faces.
"My god!" exclaimed Liz. "Those are not just two rocks—that whole thing is a mouth! Those rocks are just 'teeth' to help it filter-feed. That gives a whole new meaning to Jaws."
She wasn't horrified; she was just genuinely fascinated. She was also timing carefully. Part of her mind wondered how come watches still worked in this mythical world—when rifles didn't. The lighter worked also—but the lighter fuel had been transformed . . .
"Right. What I think we need to try are fire arrows," she said. "Get onto Ody and see if he knows what they are, Jerry."
* * *
Seven arrows. And, except for the one that had gone out, the rocks had attacked every one. But they were definitely slowing down.
Liz nodded. "Right. It's getting tired. One more, and as they start going back, it's out oars, and up sails, and the devil take the hindmost."
"Why don't we just keep peppering it with arrows until it's totally exhausted?" whined Salinas.
For an answer Liz pointed to the oar blades biting the water. "The tide is turning. It must be just about slack by now. The sea anchor is not holding us and the wind is pushing us closer, even with oarsmen backwatering. It's go at our own choosing now, or we'll be pushed into it anyway."
* * *
The flaming arrow arced upward against the cerulean sky. Even before it fell they were raising the sail. The coarse cordage cut at Jerry's hands, but he pulled with all his might. They all did. Even Salinas took a hand. The square sail with its emblazoned gorgon's head rose, bellied and filled, as the rocks crashed together. The great mouth began to open again. Odysseus' black ship was already surging forward, slicing through the water, with the rowers pulling as though their lives depended on it. "Row! You godsforsaken motherfuckers! ROW!" yelled Odysseus. He'd taken the steering oars himself, not entrusting this to anyone else.
There was a terrible scraping. The black ship shivered like a harp string and then leapt forward as they brushed across the sinewy "net" that drew the rocks together. Then they were in between them. The rocks were still moving apart, but the black ship had at least a hundred yards to cover. They surfed down the wave front, the oarsmen giving their utmost. The water was shallow and an azure blue here.
And then the grumbling of the rocks making their way inward began again. Jerry knew he was screaming. By the open mouths around him the others were too. But above the tumult there was no hearing it. Fifty yards . . . Thirty yards . . . Fifteen yards . . . And the sinewy net barred their way.
There was no way that the ship could be stopped before the net. They hit it full tilt with the ram. Oars snapped. The mast didn't, quite. It vibrated like a sapling before a gale. Nobody managed to stay upright. But before you could say "fiscal discipline," Cruz had grabbed his entrenching tool. "Hold my feet!" he yelled at McKenna.
The ram had nearly done the job. It had snapped the main sinew. Only a few minor ones remained. Even Cruz's strength and the entrenching tool would have been inadequate otherwise. He slashed away like a dervish as the crushing rocks came closer.
"Row!" yelled Odysseus.
Two of the Achaeans had come to help in the bow, and Jerry saw Eurylochus and an axe going over the side with Lamont clinging to one foot and an Achaean on the other.
With a shudder, the black ship slid forward. The rocks grated on the tail of the vessel, tearing half-inch-deep gouges. And then . . . they were free. Heading out for the open water. Jerry helped to haul Cruz inboard again, amid the laughter and the cheering.
"Why didn't you just give us a feather, Dr. Liz?" chuckled Cruz. "We could have tickled its tonsils on the way past." The stocky, wet sergeant was grinning from ear to ear.
"It's a good thing I was here, all I gotta say," growled Salinas.
Jerry gaped at them both, for very different reasons.
14
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
The MP was finding this a revelation. Maybe it shouldn't be the cops when he got out. Maybe he should go into science. Professor Tremelo was questioning Private Cline in a fashion that police practice would not have allowed. The guy wasn't even a suspect. He was just a witness.
So far, in the process of extracting the tiniest details, Tremelo had stopped short of thumbscrews. Just short. And the professor and his team seemed to find nothing wrong with grilling people mercilessly.
Science was a lot weirder than the MP had realized, when his patrol had encountered the two soldiers who stumbled out of the Oriental Institute. The only ones who had escaped what, so far, was the alien pyramid's biggest disappearing act. Or snatch, as the troops were starting to call it.
These science guys were kind of . . . fanatically relentless. There was a sort of overwhelming assumption of what-we're-doing-is-right about them. These guys would walk into a no-go area and you'd assume they had a perfect right to be there just because they behaved as if they had.
The professor shook his head. "That's by far the biggest group yet—and we still have no idea why. Other than, once again, that they were all in physical contact with each other. That seems to be the pattern when more than one person is taken."
The tall physicist's dark eyes became a little unfocused. "And the fact that—so far—only two of them have come back dead. That's really atypical."
He turned to the MP. "Corporal, I want someone from the Oriental Institute. I need to know just who these two men you ran into were, besides a 'maintenance man' and someone who worked on 'comparative mythology.' And find out if there are any results from the comparison of the bite marks on Private Dietz and the earlier victim."
It was a bit odd being told what to do by a man whose turned-up pajama jacket collar stuck out of a lab coat, and who smelled faintly of fish. But somehow, just by the way the man calmly gave the orders, the MP obeyed unquestioningly. It must be part of the science thing. The MP resolved to look into this High Energy Physics stuff.
* * *
Miggy Tremelo was unaware of the sort of third-degree-interrogation image his team was building with the watching soldier. Not for a moment did it occur to him that the witness could possibly object to being cross-examined by five intent scientists.
So: they'd continuously questioned the man for more than an hour. So: every statement was ruthlessly shredded, and assumed to be false until corroborated. The grilling was similar, if milder, to that which a graduate student would have faced for their oral dissertation. And Tremelo wouldn't have minded if he'd been the witness. In fact, if anything, he was intensely jealous that he hadn't seen it. But it was true that he believed with a
frightening intensity in the rightness of research.
Tremelo sat back. "Right. I think we want to try and establish physical and psychological profiles for these victims, as well as examining their background. We need a team on this. Eddie, you head it up. Phil, how's the gamma ray group getting on?"
One of the others shook his head and grimaced. "Simmons is squalling for more equipment."
"Well, get it for him, then!" Tremelo's eyes grew unfocused again. "But I get the feeling that that avenue of research is going to lead nowhere. There's something about the way this damned thing selects its victims . . . "
He started pacing back and forth slowly, his hands shoved into the lab coat's pockets. "It seems haphazard, but I'm willing to bet it isn't. There's something—something—"
He stopped his pacing. "Especially something about the people in this latest group! Six of them still haven't come back. Why?"
He came to a decision and turned to one of his assistants. "First thing you do, Eddie, is track down the close relatives and friends of those six people. I want to talk to them, as soon as possible."
PART III
First witch: Where has thou been, sister?
Second witch: Killing swine.
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth
15
Killing me softly with their song.
The black ship rode the gentle waves about a mile out to sea. The crew had shipped oars and only the helmsman was at work, using the steady breeze to carry them along the coastline. The cliffs had been left behind and now the coast was the white of sandy beaches and dunes topped with the gray-green of marram grasses.
The seasickness and accompanying nausea had gone and Jerry was wishing he had a horse to eat—or even a bowl of cornflakes. But at least the next stop was Aeaea, where Odysseus had promised to get them a good feasting with plenty of meat and sweet wine from Circe. Tastes had changed a tad from Homer's day, thought Jerry. What he was really craving was a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of coffee. It had been good of the paratroopers to share some of their rations which had survived the transition—but split six ways, and being conservative, it wasn't a lot.
