Pyramid Scheme

by Eric Flint

"That's the point. If Bes can break free, then indeed, the Olympians can," said Jerry.

  Liz looked at the three-foot-six hell-raiser. "You've just acquired a job in destructive testing of materials, Bes."

  The dwarf looked suspicious. "What does that mean?"

  She smiled at him. "It means you get to try and break things, Bes dear."

  He grinned broadly back at her. "Oh, good. Fun."

  Jerry grinned. Bes was infectious. Even Pan was looking a little less down in the mouth. "Test them quickly," said Jerry. "I want to go and break some unbreakable chains, and I reckon you're the Bes't breaker around. I think it's time we went to free Prometheus."

  "Who is this Prometheus guy, anyway?" asked McKenna.

  "A Titan. He's called `the friend of mankind.' He took the side of man against Olympus. I'm hoping he's still inclined that way, even though it got him in trouble. How do you feel about visiting Colchis again, Medea?"

  Cruz had more of a grasp of the geography than anyone else there. "Doc. That's about a thousand miles away."

  Jerry took a deep breath. "Yes. It's going to take some time. And I want us to split up. Some of us have to stay here and prepare some kind of glider. Something we can pack ourselves, a Titan, and about a million spiders into, to tow behind Throttler. Or am I asking the impossible?"

  There was a silence. "Build a plane? I don't think so," said Mac, shaking his head.

  Liz narrowed her eyes. "What about a hot-air balloon?"

  Mac nodded. "Yeah, could do. But what can we use for material?"

  "Talk to your spider girlfriend about silk," said Liz.

  Arachne looked startled. Whether it was at the idea of her providing silk, or of the girlfriend comment, was uncertain.

  Medea sighed. "My father Aeëtes will not be glad to see me back. In fact, he will do his best to kill you. He is a magician of note. He draws his powers from Helios. My own, as high priestess of Hecate, are small by comparison."

  Lamont snorted. "Back down to magic. Pan, you don't feel like endowing me with some powers over your secondary sprites, do you?"

  Pan looked up. "No. You are already in the service of another. But I will place my blessing on one of you."

  Liz shook her head. "Better be you, Doc. I don't understand this stuff."

  Lamont snorted again. "You can say that again."

  "Anyway the magic of Pan-Priapus sits ill with a female votary," said Goat-features.

  Jerry hastily changed the subject. "Where is Throttler, by the way?"

  "She said she was just nipping out for a quick riddling," said Bes cheerfully. The dwarf was striking up quite a warm relationship with the sphinx.

  Jerry looked alarmed. Throttler seemed quite content, indeed pleased, to eat cooked food with them. Her dietary history hadn't worried him. "But she said she was stuffed."

  Bes shrugged. "She wanted to test her riddling. Even when she can't eat them, she likes to practice. Catch and release, she calls it."

  * * *

  Sitting on the high gray-white stone outcrop beneath whispering pines, Jerry listened to Pan play his pipes, bittersweet and full of mourning. Jerry spent the better part of the night being introduced to the mysteries. More precisely, the names of the myriad sprites and lesser genii that owed fealty to Pan. His hand ached. He'd written as phonetically as possible, but why the hell did it have to be by moonlight? The moon was nearly down, but Pan was finished.

  Well. It was magic of a sort. If Jerry ever got back, he'd be able to make a fortune out of curing erectile dysfunction for starters. And then he could make himself a fortune as a trophy-hunter guide . . . if that was his scene. Not to mention the stuff about sheep. And sudden and illogical alarums. And it was great for musical instruments, and employing the principles of contagion and sympathy . . . Which were not infectious diseases and grapes and cards for the poor victims.

  Contagion meant things which were once in contact remained in contact and could be drawn together again. Sympathy meant that like produced like.

  He looked at the list. Well, at a guess he'd have five or six days' flying time to the Caucasus in which to memorize all this stuff.

  * * *

  Mac smiled, with a confidence he was far from feeling. "You worry too much, Doc. I'll be fine. And I won't lose it with Henri. The guy is sick."

  It was true. Henri had developed a hacking cough, either from the water inhaled in the lake of Sebek or the high flying. He was pale and even turning down food—a sure sign of extreme unwellness for the French gourmand.

  Arachne produced a small, golden, silken parcel. "Do you think this will do?"

  It was a perfect miniature balloon, complete to the basket underneath, woven from grass stems. "It flies," said McKenna proudly. "We tested it."

  "Well done," said Jerry. "If I recall correctly, the silk used to be varnished."

  "What is `varnished'?" asked Arachne.

  "Hey, Lamont! What goes into varnish?" asked Jerry.

  "Spirit varnish is resin and spirits," replied that repository of miscellaneous information.

  Arachne looked a little puzzled. "Spirits? A magical compound?"

  Mac chuckled. "No. Alcohol. I can do a bit of distilling and we'll cook some up. If you've got resin?"

  Arachne looked a trifle put out. "Colophon is famous for it. Our Colophonium is known throughout the Hellenic world. Which barbarian land do you hail from, that you have not heard of Colophon's resin?"

  Medea raised her aristocratic nose. "They come from the distant island of America. It is a wondrous place. The men there all cook and wait on the women." She sniffed. "Although I notice that lately the local habits are starting to infect them."

  * * *

  The diminished party drifted on a fine following wind across the Anatolian Plateau. The comfort of the net-nest of the twin-dragon dirigible was somewhat enhanced with some fine woven blankets and two light struts with padded ends, to keep the dragons apart. The few support ropes also meant that they didn't all end up lying on top of each other as they used to.

  The dragons complained about it. "It makefs ufs look like beafstfs of burden," muttered Smitar.

  "Yefs. Beafstfs," agreed Bitar.

  They were also laden with the gastronomic delights that Colophon had been famed for. But the dragons didn't moan about that at all.

  * * *

  Medea stretched. In-flight movies consisted of the occasional bird going by. There was nothing to do but relax and enjoy the view. And talk. But learning Cruz's language was more fun with privacy and tickling. She felt the fabric of the garment that Cruz had traded for with Arachne. The spiderwoman had a peasant's interests in money. She, Medea, loved fine things. But this money-grubbing was all a little sordid. She sighed. Her princess upbringing had not couched her in habits of economy. She'd tried with Jason, when they'd lived at Ephyra. But he'd been more spendthrift than she was, and had found it even more irksome than she had. The metal Anibal carried suggested that he was a wealthy man. But he didn't behave like one. . . .

  She sighed again. She was getting used to the way he behaved. It was different but nice. Actually, very nice. He cared about her . . . first. Maybe that was worth more than all the rich estates he must have.

  "What's up, beautiful?" he asked, smiling at her.

  "Just thinking about the future. How big are your estates and how many serfs are there to call you master back on your America?"

  * * *

  Cruz swallowed. She was a damn princess, according to the Doc. She obviously put him fairly high up the ladder. Well, given the way she misinterpreted the U.S. that wasn't really surprising. But what princess would want anything to do with a lifer with years to go? Shit. Best to tell the truth, even if he wanted to lie, really badly. But he got the feeling Medea had been lied to quite enough.

  "I don't have any estates," he said abruptly. "And there are no serfs in the U.S. Not officially, anyway."

  Medea looked dumbfounded. "But—you carry arms. You are a warrior."


  "I'm a soldier, yes." He floundered, mostly at the hurt in her eyes.

  "But . . . but . . . all the cunningly wrought metal, the fine-woven cloth . . . "

  "Belong to Uncle Sam," said Cruz, determined to leave no stone unturned in his attempt to bury himself.

  Medea smiled dazzlingly. Cruz felt himself melt. She twined her fingers in his. "Ah. Then we will kill this wicked uncle together. He must have usurped your lands and even your throne, no?"

  Anibal Cruz began to realize that being eaten by crocodiles might just have been the soft option compared to taking Medea back home. "No. It, um . . . doesn't quite work like that."

  39

  Besida spida.

  The catamaran dragon balloon drifted off towards the horizon. McKenna sighed. He'd hoped that Lamont would stay. But the sphinx had made it very clear that her pact was with Lamont Jackson. Where he went, she did too. And while the sphinx did little more than steer, when the wind was helping the twin-dragon dirigibles along, they'd need more help if the wind turned against them. Mac found it scary to be on his own, except for Henri. And the Frenchman sounded like he might be leaving this world by coffin soon.

  "Well," he said to Arachne. "We'd better get down and get to work."

  "And what work do you intend to do?" Her voice was curiously neutral.

  "Whatever needs doing," McKenna grinned. "I can turn my hand to anything. Hey, I mean back at Circe's castle I ended up being chief helper to the cooks. Otherwise I'm real good for heavy lifting. I want to make a still, to sort this varnish out. But you tell me . . . I do it."

  "You're a very odd sort of aristocrat," Arachne said, sounding impressed. "Or is this the way of the princes and nobles of this America?"

  "Well," said McKenna dryly. "There aren't any princes and nobles in the U.S. of A."

  Arachne stopped dead. "Your home is a Timocracy, too?"

  "Er. We're a democracy," he said.

  "What's that? Rule by the people?" She seemed amused by the concept.

  McKenna was mildly offended. "Yeah. Pretty much. Look, it originated here in ancient Greece."

  She shook her head. "Well, I never heard of it!"

  What was it that Doc had said—democracy was about the fifth century B.C.?

  "What year is this?" he asked.

  Her answer simply confused him further. "Look. I think the reason you haven't heard about it, is, well, it may not have happened yet. Doc said that Odysseus was long before democracy. You see . . . we're sort of from your future," he said, expecting more bemusement.

  She was silent for a while. And then she truly amazed him. "Well, well, well . . . that has a lot of commercial possibilities. You and I could become very rich. I know how things do work here now and you know what things will work. Like this balloon. I wondered where the idea had come from. It's got a lot of possibilities for the Timocracy of Colophon."

  "What's a Timocracy then? Rule by the timid?" he asked with a grin.

  The spiderwoman raised an eyebrow and dimpled. "Close. We're traders. Not warriors. Fair Colophon is ruled by those who have wealth."

  McKenna shook his head. "That doesn't sound right or fair to me."

  "Elsewhere it is rule by the nobility. In Colophon we don't have to claim to be descended from the by-blows of philandering gods. And the result is that Colophon is rich. You must have read of us in your history?" she asked, obviously proud of her city.

  McKenna was embarrassed. And also in an awkward spot. If he hadn't heard about it, chances were the place hadn't made much of a mark or had been wiped out. "Uh. No, but the Doc has heard of you. But it sounds like you Colophon guys would get on just fine in the States. It's not who you are born as, but how you use your head and how hard you work."

  Arachne raised an eyebrow. "This `states' you talk about. Is it several islands like this America you hail from, each state following this `democracy'?"

  McKenna grinned. "Well, I dunno where Medea got this `America is an island' story. `The States' is short for `The United States of America.' It's a goddamn sight bigger than Greece. Got two hundred fifty million people." He sighed. "I'd love to get back there. Anyway. Let's get on with making balloons and varnish."

  "Yes. You can tell me more while we work. It sounds quite unbelievable," she said curiously.

  * * *

  McKenna tramped back up the hill to the mountain meadow where the teams of spiders were weaving. He was glad to be alone with his thoughts for a bit. That was quite a kid. A real go-getter. She hadn't let being turned into half a spider stop her. Also, well, she was having an interesting effect on him. Normally his mind was more on any pretty woman's body, than on what she said.

  Only Arachne's body . . . well, it didn't exactly turn him on. She had nice legs. Eight of them. But she was just at his wavelength. He could talk to her so easily. Sort of "natural." He'd joined up to get off the farm, do a short hitch and go to college. Only he wasn't sure what he'd do in college when he got there. So he'd ended up telling a half spider/half woman about it. They'd talked, just talked, into the small hours. Jim McKenna couldn't remember ever doing that with any girl, ever. Maybe if Arachne had as pretty a body as she had a face, he'd never have done it with her either. But he was really glad he had. What a nice kid! If he ever met this Athena bitch . . .

  Arachne was already in the field. "Hey, Mac!" There was pleasure in her voice. "I've got a joke for you. How many gods does it take to change a lampwick?"

  * * *

  After he'd finally gone to bed, so had Arachne. But sleep had been a long time coming. And finally she'd cried herself to sleep. It was the first time in a long time that another human had treated her just as if she were human. He was a bit weak in the head about business, but there was nothing that solid female sense couldn't see him through. And he had to look like Ganymede, too! If only she'd still been the favored daughter of the great dye-master. She wanted the American. Cursed gods! She wanted him so badly her spiracles hurt. But he wouldn't even look at her in that way. And she was revolted by the idea that, like some of her spider-sisters, she might want to eat him afterwards. She determined to avoid him henceforth as much as possible.

  But when he came whistling up to the meadow the next day, she called to him with that silly joke, a joke that was old when Zeus was a boy.

  He laughed. It was like daggers stabbing her heart.

  "How is Henri this morning?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "Still coughing, poor man. He is not looking any better. The potion Medea left for him does not seem to be helping him a great deal. He still has no real interest in food."

  McKenna pulled a wry face. "He needs a course of antibiotics. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a dicey ticker too. Fat. Unfit. That sort of age."

  "A ticker? What is that?" she asked.

  Mac put his hand on his chest. "Heart."

  "Ah. I wish I knew more about the healing of them," said Arachne quietly.

  Mac nodded. "Yeah. But I think it is pretty well out of reach of the medicine of this time. Listen, I've got some of that varnish I'd like to try. Although it seems a waste of good brandy."

  She made a face. "Pah. I do not see how you can describe that terrible firewater as `good' for anything. But you say it is a good solvent. That I can believe. I thought it would dissolve away my innards."

  * * *

  Several hundred miles away, Jerry was called away from memorizing Pan's minions to deal with another misunderstanding across the ages.

  "Jerry. Please tell Medea I'm not just being squeamish," said Cruz. "That she simply doesn't understand."

  "What's the problem?" asked Jerry sympathetically.

  The humor of it had finally gotten through to Cruz. "Medea wants me to kill off our wicked Uncle Sam so that I can get back the estates and serfs which are rightly mine, and become king. I showed her my pictures of Vegas, and she thinks it's my palace with all my serfs."

  Jerry took a deep breath. You either start at the beginning—or take the direct route. C
ut to the chase. "Medea. Jason left you to try and gain a throne. What would you rather have? Someone who wanted power and position or someone who wanted you?"

  Medea was looking flushed and quite angry. But Jerry's reminders had obviously struck a chord. "Someone who wanted me, of course. But we've got to live somewhere, Doc Jerry, and on something. Is it within your gift, as a Doc, to grant us estates?"

  Jerry shook his head. "Medea, one of the things you're just going to have to accept is that the life where we come from is just unimaginably different from here. Believe me, by the standards of your time, Anibal can support you in the lap of luxury. Liz, help me here. How many dresses and skirts do you own?"

  Liz looked up from where she was gazing out over the hills. "I'm a bit of a pack rat, Jerry. I can't bear to throw anything away. I boxed up most of my stuff when I came over to the States. I don't know. Seventy or eighty outfits, I suppose?"

  Medea gaped. In a time when every garment was handmade, all the way from spinning the thread, that was more than a queen would have owned.

  "And no, we don't have serfs and servants, but we have . . . sort of Golem-servants. Machines," said Jerry, hoping he had kept a straight face. "There is `dishwasher' that cleans and scours kitchen utensils, `vacuum cleaner' that with a mighty roaring wind clears dirt, and `automatic washing machine' that washes clothes."

  Medea was silent for a bit. "And cook?" she asked.

  "Ah!" said Cruz. "Microwave and TV dinners!"

  "Are they as good as you, Anibal?" Medea asked.

  "Um. Not really," he said cautiously.

  She smiled at him again. "Well, you will just have to teach them, dear. But I am not so sure about living in a country with no nobility. How does anyone know where he or she stands? Who do you look up to?"

  Bes swung himself in from the dragon's neck. "Stand on your feet. And look up to those you can't knock down. Stop worrying, woman."

  Lamont clapped. "Bes, you'd fit right in."

  The dwarf grinned widely. "Why? Have you got a lot of dangerous pests for me to fight?"

  "Oh, lots!" Lamont rubbed his hands. "Let's start with the Internal Revenue Service . . . "