Pyramid Scheme

by Eric Flint

  "I thought I'd never see you again," he said weakly.

  The spidergirl kissed his cheek. "We must get you warm."

  They carried him to a cave, as Arachne informed him that the farm's houses were destroyed. He was amazed to be greeted by enthusiastic clapping and cheering from the assembled people. His wet clothes were stripped off without any attention to decorum; he was wrapped in a warm blanket and put in a prime position in front of the fire. Somebody thrust a goblet of hot mulled wine, full of honey and herbs, into his shaking hand.

  "Arachne," he said, as soon as he could speak, "thank you. I didn't know how cold I was. I guess I'd just been getting slowly colder." He still felt cold. He vaguely remembered the lectures on exposure. Once your core temperature starts dropping, then it is lassitude down into death. He hadn't quite been there yet, but insidiously it had been creeping up on him. You can die in cold water just as easily as you can in minus-zero air. It just takes much, much longer.

  "We were as quick as we could be. We had to dam the stream higher up. We knew it was the only way. No one can defeat a naiad in her own stream."

  He managed a smile "I'm just glad that you managed to save me."

  She dimpled. "I said `trust me.' I just didn't expect the naiad to want to keep you. I was very angry with her."

  He took another sip. "Why does everyone look so happy?"

  She dimpled again. "Because nearly everyone is alive. And because we poked the gods of Olympus in the eye. And we are alive to laugh about it."

  "But . . . the balloon is in shreds," said McKenna. He'd seen the remains on the way to the cave. "Your farm has been destroyed."

  She shrugged, which is very expressive in a spider. "We have Hera's chariot. The iron axletree alone is worth three farms. The gold on it would buy another two!"

  Arachne was full of good cheer and great satisfaction. "And the balloon, we can make again. But the prestige of the gods is in tatters. Mere mortals whipped their asses and taunted them—and got away with it! It's never happened before. Never."

  She pranced about gleefully. "The tale—indeed, every word!—of Henri's taunting of Zeus is spreading across Lydia like wildfire. The story will be repeated a thousand times, getting bigger every time."

  McKenna digested this. "I never thought about it that way. I guess I'm glad the Frog got to be a hero. He deserved it. I kinda misread the guy."

  She patted his knee with a gentle pedipalp. "You are a hero, too. My hero. And you do not understand what this will mean to the people. The Olympian gods are feared. Now it will be known that they can be thwarted."

  "Yeah," McKenna nodded. "It's doing it the first time that's the hardest."

  Arachne smiled. "That's what my mother said, too." And then with no explanation at all she burst into tears.

  Mac did his clumsy best to comfort her. The more he tried, the more she cried.

  * * *

  She had suddenly taken a deep sniff, gotten control over herself and gone away. To effect repairs, judging by the refreshed facade when she reappeared some ten minutes later. She was bright and cheery with just an undertone of brittleness. Mac, more to try and get her away from whatever subject was upsetting her, asked her what she thought he should do when he'd finished his hitch in the army. It seemed as far removed as possible a subject from the destroyed farm, which he thought must be what was upsetting her.

  "You are not going to return to the farm?" she asked in surprise. "You said you had grown up on a farm."

  McKenna shook his head. "No. I enjoy the farm. No two ways about that, but I like the bright lights, too."

  She cocked her head. "The bright lights?"

  "The city." McKenna wished that he had one of those photos-turned-pictures from Cruz's Vegas trip to show her. A picture could explain so much. "You know, lots of people, things to do."

  Arachne sighed. "Oh, I understand perfectly! I miss Colophon, for just those reasons. Father sent me out to the estate for my safety after . . . Athena did this to me. I used to wish I'd been born a man. I would have become the richest man in Colophon!" She smiled. "Sorry. I gather that wealth is not so important in your homeland."

  McKenna laughed. "You're wrong there. There are no kings and stuff back in the U.S., but money is really how most people work out who counts."

  "It sounds very like Colophon," she said.

  McKenna nodded. "Yeah. It's amazing, really. Everywhere else has been so different. Except it sounds like women still got a raw deal in your city."

  "What do you mean?" Arachne was slightly affronted.

  "Well, like you were saying, that you wished you were a man so you could get rich. Can't women get rich?"

  She thought about it. "Yes. It is more difficult. It must be done through male intermediaries, and when a woman marries, her wealth passes to her husband."

  "Well, in the U.S.A. there are plenty of women who are pretty damn successful and rich. I'm not saying they don't complain about men getting it easy, but they can get rich there. And you don't have to get married to do it, and even if you do, you can get to keep what's yours. Well, that's the idea, anyway . . . "

  "I wish I could have been born there." Her tinkling voice was full of yearning.

  "Come back with me." It was said on the spur of the moment. But when he said it, Mac knew that he meant it.

  "Oh, I wish I could." A tiny tear started in the corner of her eye. She brushed it away. "But I'm half a spider, Mac."

  "I don't think you'd be any worse off there than you are here. And I'd look out for you. We could go into business together. We could give a whole new meaning to `the worldwide web.' Soon we would get to be so rich that everybody would treat you with respect." He spoke with a conviction he didn't really feel.

  She sniffed. "I wish I wasn't a half-spider. You're quite the nicest person I've ever met."

  He sighed. "According to Cruz, I'm a no-brain plankhead. But I certainly think that you're the bravest and nicest kid I ever met. Not many girls could even start to deal with being turned into half a spider."

  Her eyes were misty. "I still wish I was just a woman."

  McKenna agreed, but he left the words unspoken. Instead, he concentrated on the commercial possibilities for spider silk.

  * * *

  It was a bright morning. Mac was feeling much recovered today. Even the thunderbolt-torn field had no power to depress him. "The doc was right! The way to beat these gods is by outthinking them. The next time they come here, there'll be so many booby traps they won't even get to throwing thunderbolts."

  Arachne shook her head. "Next time they will come in disguise, or send spies first."

  "So we need to work on disinformation."

  He didn't even have to explain the concept to her. One thing about Arachne, she was as sharp as a tack.

  "They're back! They're back!" yelled the lookout.

  Mac anxiously surveyed the horizon. And then, breathed a deep sigh of relief. The lookout was perfectly correct. Of course, he should have said who "they" were.

  The huge golden balloon was unmistakably Arachne's handiwork. It was just very much bigger. It had to be, to carry dragons, a sphinx and humans, all towed by a striding Titan.

  45

  Spies, lies and delusions.

  Council was held in a tent full of song. The tent had been, until very recently, a balloon.

  It was all Prometheus' idea. "Planning later!" he bellowed, so that the hills shook. "First we party! Song, drink, dancing! I have a fancy for a roast bird or fifty! Send your people to shoot some birds. I don't care if they are pheasants, eagles or owls, bring them. Pluck them and roast them! I have a grudge against all birds."

  This was said with a wink. There was a hasty flapping in the trees.

  The Titan shrank. True, he was still twice the size of a man but no longer so visible . . . or so loud. He seized the deflating balloon. "Let us make a tent for our party." He attempted to pull the fabric apart. Veins stood out on his forehead as he strained. "Gnnnnn. What
is this stuff? It is as strong as the very chains of Hesperus!"

  "Spider silk," said Arachne with great satisfaction. "It can be cut."

  So, out of half of the balloon they fashioned a tent, in which several relatively inept musicians were playing their hearts out. Well, they were all inept except for one fellow. He was good . . . and Prometheus grabbed him by the ear. "Out! Until you can learn to keep a tune!" he bellowed. He followed it up with a kick in the nether end. "Here, Bes. I name you bouncer. Toss this tuneless bum out."

  Bes grabbed the angry and struggling lyre player and tossed him out of the doorway. Bes could really toss someone hard and far. There was the sound of breaking branches and then a splash.

  "I thought Mikalos was playing far better than he usually does," commented Arachne.

  "That wasn't Mikalos," chuckled Prometheus.

  Jerry's eye's narrowed. " . . . lest ye entertain gods unawares!"

  "Indeed." Prometheus grinned. "They love pretending to be musicians or seers. But they can never bring themselves to do it badly, the snobs. Such vanity! Now, we've hopefully got rid of Artemis' owl. And I think that was Hermes. So let us plan quickly. The music will make it difficult to eavesdrop."

  McKenna nodded. "Then afterwards we can go for a little walk under the trees and repeat a few things."

  "What?" Prometheus asked, a smile teasing his face.

  "What we want them to hear, of course."

  Prometheus gave a shout of laughter that almost brought the tent down. "Ha! Not only has he got hair my color, but brains like mine too! I like it."

  "Somebody has to," said Liz dryly.

  "Now. What do we have for allies? My brother Titans are lost in the void. Only Oceanus was not sent there. And Typhoeus is trapped beneath the smoking mountain."

  "Oceanus seemed well disposed," said Jerry. "He sent Proteus to help us."

  Prometheus smiled. "Excellent. I need a river—or even a stream. The Naiads, Limnaids and Potamids owe allegiance to the river gods, the sons of Oceanus and Tethys."

  Mac shuddered. "There's a naiad in the stream."

  Prometheus clapped. "I will stick my head in and talk to her. I think we will get Zeus to call Poseidon home to Olympus, if he's worried enough."

  McKenna shook his head. "That naiad was quite keen on keeping me. Arachne managed to save me. I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her."

  The Titan chuckled. "Her kind are tricky in their own stream. But they owe me. It's time to call the favor due. I need word taken to Oceanus."

  * * *

  Two hours later, somewhat drunk, or at least apparently so, the Titan, Bes, and the snatchees held an impromptu council of war under the edge of the trees. "Well, with any luck they'll attack us again," Bes chuckled wickedly. "Have we ever got some nasty little surprises for them from Egypt. Destroy those pyramid-Krim utterly and turn these gods to minced meat."

  "They're not likely to be that stupid, surely?" Jerry spoke with excessively dramatic artlessness, having spotted the large owl in the tree.

  "If they won't come to us, then we will go to them!" replied Liz loudly. Her own thespian "talents" were every bit as overdone as Jerry's. She even shook her fist at the sky.

  "But if they see the balloon, surely Zeus will just blow it out of the sky with one of his thunderbolts?" asked Medea, clapping one hand to her forehead and throwing out the other in a gesture of despair.

  The method school of acting was now in full retreat. Cruz turned retreat into rout.

  "I'm sure he would—except there won't just be one balloon! Ha ha! The Olympians did us a favor and saved us time by shredding the balloon. The fools! Each shred can be reanimated by the magic of contagion into another balloon."

  His own fist-shaking was prolonged, even by the standards of professional wrestling. "We'll launch tens of thousands of balloons! Ha ha! Which one will we be in? Who knows? Who knows? They can't destroy them all!"

  He began a little war dance. Well, not so little. "Olympus will be destroyed! Ha ha!"

  Cruz's description of the ruin of the gods went on and on and on . . .

  And on and on and on . . .

  "I didn't realize he was a Wagner fan," muttered Jerry.

  * * *

  The real final discussion was held over bits of paper.

  "It's insane, Mac!" Cruz looked at the diagram with disbelief.

  McKenna nodded. "Yeah. Liz thought of it."

  "Does it work?"

  "On the scale that we've been able to test it . . . yes." McKenna didn't explain what that scale had been.

  "It's crazy, Mac!"

  "Point is, it's something they do naturally." McKenna spoke with a confidence he was far from feeling.

  "And the 'chutes?" asked Cruz dryly.

  "Stake my life on them, Sarge!" McKenna crossed his fingers behind his back.

  "It's not you staking yours that bothers me," grumbled Cruz. "It's me staking mine." He tossed the diagram into the fire. "Oh, well."

  * * *

  In the small hours of the morning, as soon as the moon was down, Prometheus set off. No ship could bear his great weight, even when he drew his body into its smallest volume. He would have to cross over to the Greek mainland across the Hellespont by himself.

  Liz was dying to cut him up, stick him under a microscope and see how he worked. . . .

  She shook off the idle thought. She had to see to a sea party. With an escort from Oceanus, they would be sneaking across from island to island to mainland Greece, heading for the ancient halls of the Titans on Mt. Ortherys. With a crew of spiders, and a cargo of balloon fragments.

  * * *

  When their ship arrived, they found that Greece was a place of smoking devastation. On the march up to Ortherys they passed through the remains of a town.

  In the colonnaded and painted temple, the altar still dripped red. Yet not even the bloody sacrifice of their children had saved the people. Devastation and fire had been their reward. Liz stopped to be sick. Medea comforted her. But the sorceress' eyes were hard. "There will be a reckoning," she said quietly. That quietness carried more force than any shouting or anger.

  Lamont stood there, his hands flexing, but his face impassive.

  Jerry stared at the grim scene, fixing it in his mind. Fixing it in his determination. "Yes," he said quietly. "There will be a reckoning for the Krim."

  46

  As ye sew, so shall ye reap.

  The cavernous halls of the Titans on Mt. Ortherys must once have been magnificent. Now they were dusty—and crawling with spiders. Carefully, Prometheus shooed a number away before he sat on the stone seat.

  "We can talk here," he said. "Not even the powers of Olympus can spy in this place."

  "Besides, they're probably scared of spiders," said Cruz grumpily. Jerry realized that the sergeant hadn't had much private time together with Medea lately. And Medea's mind was on her children again.

  Prometheus smiled briefly. "Now, I have asked great Oceanus to try to free Typhoeus. He is a terrible monster but the only one who has ever defeated Zeus. But we cannot rely on this. We must proceed as if we had no expectations of help. And the Olympians will not wait for us on Olympus. Soon they will sally out on Lydia, and find that we aren't there. We must act soon or not at all. . . . Why are you twisting your pretty hair like that, my dear?"

  "I'm worried about my children," said Medea. The scene in that temple was still obviously upsetting her.

  Prometheus smiled widely this time. "I have sent Throttler to fetch them."

  "But—"

  "I am called foresight, my dear," explained Prometheus. "She is much faster than the dragons and the children are light."

  Medea swallowed. "But won't Throttler eat them?"

  "Lamont has threatened to tell the entire world both answers if he does that," said Prometheus soothingly. "Besides, Throttler is at least half human, and female herself. She likes children."

  "Right. Fried," said Jerry, but he said it very quietly.

>   Prometheus gestured at the shadowy halls. "They will be safe here. Or safer than anywhere else in Greece."

  Cruz stretched. "Well done, Prometheus. Thank you. But do you want to know what piece of foresight I've got for you?"

  Prometheus grinned. Jerry could not help but like the Titan. He was reminded of what Hesiod had said about the reign of the Titans. In those days, men and gods took food together. The Titan was not the toplofty sort.

  Well, he didn't really need to be. "Tell me, Cruz. Then I will tell everyone I thought of it."

  Cruz took a pull from his goblet of wine. "In any damn military operation, anything that can go wrong, will. The more complicated, the more likely to screw up. So keep it simple, and have lots of backup."

  Prometheus nodded. "Wisdom, indeed! So what do you suggest?"

  Cruz was rather taken aback. "I'll think about it. I'll come and talk to you in about half an hour."

  * * *

  "Try to leave this to the military as much as possible," said Cruz in their later private council. "Mac and I have got the experience. If need be, we can train soldiers."

  Prometheus steepled his fingers. "Firstly, we cannot wait and train. The Olympians will not wait. A straightforward military assault on Olympus with two soldiers, no matter how skilled, has no chance of success. The Olympians defeated the Titans who were their equal in strength, but not in skill at war. They defeated the Giants who were both skilled at war and great in strength. As yet, the only way anyone has got the better of them has been by guile. By strength or even force of arms you will fail."

  His eyes grew distant. "So: we are obliged to resort to guile. Let us look at the forces at your command. There is myself. I shall come as fast as I can, on foot from the north. But on my own I can only hope to defeat perhaps two of the Olympians. Oceanus will not come up from his watery kingdom. Remember too that the Olympians cannot be killed, although they can be hurt. Therefore they must be imprisoned. Can you think of any better way to do it than with the spiders? If Bes and I together cannot break this new weave, it will bind any of them, except perhaps Zeus."