Pyramid Scheme Read online

  "I think," said Liz, "that he's trying to tell you he isn't Salinas." She turned to the larger, sleekly-fat, white porker. "Come, Lieutenant, let's make a man of you . . . such as you are. I'm sure you'll be ecstatic. We've got hardships, dangers and privations to face. Mortal peril. Companions to stand by. Women to defend . . . "

  The large pig retreated into the far corner of the sty, where it stood with bared teeth. Pigs have quite awesome teeth.

  "I'd say that Landrace is definitely our lieutenant," said McKenna, the only one of them that would know one pig breed from another. "And I'd also say he's very happy as a pig right now. He's in no danger. He can get both feet in the trough and he's bigger than all the other piggies around."

  Circe nodded, while smearing salve onto the little pig, which was now mercifully still and quiet. "Besides, I've been using him to improve the quality of my broodstock."

  The bristles of the little pig began to fall away. The person who stood up from the smelly mud of the sty was not unlike the piggy from whence he came. If Jerry recalled the Odyssey correctly, the pigs that became men again were supposed to be younger, handsomer and taller. The imagination boggled at what the previous version must have been like—if this was an improvement . . .

  The plump gentleman with the very Gallic moustache and goatee stepped gingerly up to the gate. "Mon dieu! This is the most terrible affront of the dignity. Un cochon! Given," he shuddered, "acorns to eat. Only in America could this happen to one. In France we treat our visiting botanists with greater respect. The management of the University of Chicago will hear of this."

  He bowed to Circe. "Thank you. I will not say enchanté."

  "What did he say?" Circe asked.

  "He said `thank you,' " said Liz, sparing the Frenchman a possible return to pigdom.

  Circe looked him up and down. "You know, he was more attractive as a pig than as a man. He was quite cute as a pig. He was an excessively greedy guest. But at least he is polite."

  The botanist turned to Liz. "Mademoiselle. You are conversant in the language of the lady, yes? Please tell her I am desperately hungry." He looked woefully at his hands and clothes. "Indeed, the only thing I desire more than dinner is a bath."

  Jerry grinned. "You might get the bath. I could use one myself."

  The Frenchman blinked. "Forgive me. My manners are most remiss. I have not introduced myself. I had despaired of finding anyone with whom I could converse in a civilized tongue." The slight hesitation which followed indicated some doubts as to the accuracy of that characterization of English. Then: "Permit me to introduce myself. I am Professeur Henri Lenoir, of the Sorbonne. Forgive me if I do not shake you by the hand, but until my hands are washed . . . "

  22

  You can go to Hades.

  " . . . so," Jerry concluded, "we were hoping you could send us home."

  Circe shook her head. "I am a sorceress, and a minor goddess. But my powers are small. I don't like to admit this, but Odysseus—a mere mortal!—overcame me on his first visit."

  She took a deep breath. "But the part I find exceeding strange is the fact that to you we are creatures of legend. That you, Doc Jerry," she bowed respectfully, "have read of our deeds . . . even about things which we have not yet done. It is as peculiar as this feeling of . . . I feel I have done all this before."

  Jerry had been unable to convince the aristocracy-bound mythfolk that "Doc" was not his hereditary title. He had been able to convince them he knew the details of the myths and legends. Some of that knowledge had nearly been bad for his health. Medea, the original victim of bad press, was still nearly incandescent.

  How dare those Hellene bitches put the blame onto her? They'd cut up their own father and boiled him! And then said that she—Medea—had tricked them into doing it. Ha! The barefaced cheek of it! What kind of idiot would believe—

  Halfway through her tirade, Jerry began muttering to himself. "Somebody—or something—is playing games with us. Using us. There are small inconsistencies . . . Medea is achronous with Odysseus . . . We also encountered the Theban sphinx. Something is wrong."

  Circe overheard him and began nodding. "I was forewarned of your coming. Hermes came to tell me that barbarians who must die were coming." She seemed troubled.

  Medea snorted. "Typical Greek gods! Hermes told me a `safe place' to land. That nearly resulted in Bitar and Smitar eating them."

  Lamont shook his head. "I don't understand it. Something brought us here. And now that same something is trying to eliminate us. And it has, at the very least, Hermes playing its games."

  "Maybe it is sort of . . . destructive testing," said Cruz, flexing a forearm.

  "Maybe. But let's be honest, it has picked some of the most appalling physical material, like me," said Jerry.

  "Maybe it is the mind that it is wanting," said Lenoir, venturing his first comment.

  "Salinas' mind? The man who is happy to be a pig? Or," said Liz, pointedly looking at Jim McKenna, who was winking at one of the attendant nymphs, "the mind of a randy paratrooper who can't keep his thoughts above his belt?"

  Circe shook her head. "Whatever it is that is happening, it is a dark and evil thing. Yet if Hermes is involved you can bet the father of gods is in on it too. I think you should venture into the lands of Persephone, to the grim Halls of Hades, and consult the lost spirit of blind Teiresias the seer."

  Jerry frowned. "Do you really think that'll help?"

  Circe laughed her musical laugh. "Perhaps not. But it got rid of my last lot of troublesome guests, and sooner or later the dead know everything."

  "So we sail a black ship into hell . . . " said Jerry.

  Circe pulled a wry face. "I'll give you directions."

  "Don't you mean: `Don't think of lingering on shore for lack of a pilot'?"

  "How did you know I was about to say that?"

  "It's a direct quote," said Jerry grimly.

  * * *

  Whatever else Circe might do or not do, her curative magic was first-rate. Jerry could hardly believe that his ankle had been agonizingly painful. He tested it and turned to Medea, who was organizing the necessities for the trip. She seemed to be even more "organizingly inclined" than Liz.

  "You really don't have to come along, Medea. We'll take Odysseus' ship. He's been there before."

  Medea, as was her way, simply ignored the part of the statement she didn't want to hear. "Yes, we'll have to take the black ship. We won't all fit into the chariot, and anyway Bitar and Smitar need a rest."

  "We'd better inform Odysseus and his merry men we're sailing a black ship into hell again," said Jerry, accepting the inevitable.

  "Well, at least I've got something for the fleas this time," said Liz.

  "What? And why have you been keeping it to yourself?" demanded virtually every modern, scratching instinctively.

  "An herbal remedy of my mother's: wormwood, fleabane and rue, with added magic from Medea. Would you all like some? Every one of you looks as if you need it."

  "And I'm going to try my hand at distilling. That son of a bitch Ody tries to get us smashed again, I'll spike his drinks for him," said McKenna.

  "And I'm going to get a good night's sleep for a change," sighed Jerry. "Clean, full, safe, dry, and not on a ship."

  * * *

  The Krim device manipulated the prukrin threads of the Ur-universe's belief strands with skill. Already the reactivated long-moribund universe was nearly ready for the masters. And while the gods of this thread of Ur-universe were difficult to work with and unreliable in the extreme, it was also a valuable find. This species generated emotional intensities that the Krim would find delightful. The Ur-universes were intense and rich in the emotional flavors that the Krim relished. And it was all proceeding well. Krim-delighting rituals were being enacted faithfully . . .

  Except for that one group! They were an irritation. A tear within the mantle of prukrin reality. Here they were, in a place rich in sorrows and misery and fear. And they were laughing! At ease! T
he masters would be furious. They would have to be eliminated, if they could not be turned to belief. Well. It would try using the darkness that lurked within this species' soul. It would tweak the legend. Human sacrifice was not unknown. Odysseus himself was believed to have insisted on the sacrifice of Iphigenia.

  23

  Cam' ye o'er fra' France?

  "We insist on seeing him!" demanded someone from the outer office, speaking accented English. An exaggerated version of the Queen's English, in fact.

  Hunched over his desk, painfully working through another psychological assessment written in the specifically turgid jargon of that branch of academia, Miggy Tremelo found himself almost grinding his teeth. It was not the interruption in his train of thought which annoyed him. Truth to tell, that was a relief. Even by academic standards, Miggy found "psychologese" particularly aggravating. It was the inevitable—

  His new secretary started booming her response. Professor Tremelo is not to be disturbed; you have no appointment; procedures must be followed—

  Miggy did find himself grinding his teeth. If there was a more unlovely sound in the universe than that voice, he couldn't imagine what it might be. His new secretary, shoved upon him by the National Security Council because she apparently had a higher security clearance than God Almighty, reminded him of something out of the Grimm Brothers. A troll, composed of equal parts red tape, officiousness, petty self-satisfaction with the exercise of petty power, and—last but not least—monumental stupidity.

  As the row in the outer office continued, Miggy tried to block it out. But the noise was too loud.

  Miggy sighed. He almost knew to the last word what the visitor would say next. I'm-not-leaving-this-office-until-I-see-him!

  He snorted. Fat chance, lady. This much he granted: at least the troll kept unwanted visitors from bothering him. And Miggy couldn't think of a single person from England that he wanted to see at the moment.

  Right on cue the woman made the predicted statement. Upper-class British accent. Shrill.

  Suddenly a new voice entered the fray.

  "Please, Mevrou," a man said, his voice pleading, gruff and heavily accented. A familiar accent. One Miggy had heard recently, listening to a female marine biologist. "We've come all the way from South Africa."

  Miggy was on his feet and at the door in a moment. He yanked the door open, revealing the appointmentless visitors who had managed to get all the way through the security cordon. Actually, he was a bit amazed they had gotten that far. Looking at the big man and the blond, exquisitely coiffured and made-up woman, he realized it was probably easy enough for this couple. What the big guy couldn't simply bull through, she would arrogantly slice apart. The man looked grim, the woman angry.

  Miggy smiled reassuringly at them. "Come in. Is your name De Beer? We've asked the South African Consulate to contact you."

  The big man had a hat in his hand. A hat, in this day and age. He was twisting it. "Those mamparas, they're too busy worrying about cell phones and BMWs to do any work, Myneer. We tried to contact Liz when we saw the news on CNN. Got the first flight over here when we heard that she'd gone off to be with some of your military. I've come to take my daughter home, Myneer. I lost my son," the big man swallowed, "in our army. My daughter comes home. Get an American to do the job."

  Miggy Tremelo took a deep breath. Damn whichever incompetent deskwarmer had let him be the one to break it to them. "I'm afraid, sir, that your daughter is missing."

  The big South African went pale under his tan. He sat down abruptly in a chair in the outer office.

  His blond wife was unfortunately not similarly affected. Her cultivated English accent did go to hell in a handbasket, though.

  "Then you bleddy find her, you dumb American bastard. Trust Elizabet! Silly girl should have stayed at home and got married like I wanted her to." She glared down at her husband. "But no, Jan! You had to let her go to university. You encouraged her. You let her marry that American. This is all your fault, you hear me! Your fault!"

  She went on. And on. The big guy just twisted his hat to ruination. His face was almost collapsing, in the way that a man who does not know how to cry wishes he did.

  * * *

  Well, that was no help, Miggy thought bleakly, about an hour later. Between the woman's outrage and the man's grief, neither of them had been able—or even willing, in the mother's case—to tell him anything about their daughter that he didn't already know.

  Tremelo stared down at the psychological assessment report in front of him. This one claimed to be an assessment of Lamont Jackson.

  "Assessment, my foot," muttered the physicist. "There's nothing here but the shell of a man, carefully constructed to deal with a none-too-friendly world. I need to know him."

  Again, he sighed. Now that Mr. and Mrs. De Beer had finally showed up, Miggy had personally interviewed almost all of the close friends and relatives of that largest party of abducted people.

  None of it had been very useful.

  Jerry Lukacs had no immediate family left. A single child, his parents had died years earlier in an auto accident. He had a number of colleagues, many of whom considered themselves to be (and undoubtedly were) his "friends." But the friendship involved had been so curlicued with typical academic one-upsmanship-combined-with-qualifications that their accounts of Lukacs had been more useful as guides to them than he himself.

  The young corporal's family had been large and helpful. Helpful, at least, in their attitude. But—nothing. Just a tale of a young farm boy, ambitious in the way that such boys are. A nice kid, it seemed, if perhaps with more in the way of an "attitude" than most. But—nothing, really.

  Cruz's family had been even larger, and less helpful. Not because they were hostile, but simply because they were heartbroken. The sergeant's father had died when he was only a boy, and Anibal Cruz had become the man of the family—a position he had apparently fulfilled very well indeed. Miggy winced, remembering a wizened grandmother weeping softly in one of the chairs in his office. Nothing.

  Cruz's fellow soldiers had been a bit more informative. Slowly, under persistent questioning, a certain picture of Anibal Cruz had emerged. Miggy began to smile, remembering. The world-renowned physicist, born into a branch of Mexico City's elite and then transplanted to the United States in his infancy, suspected he would have enjoyed the company of another of Mexico's many offspring. Even though Cruz had been born and raised in an environment about as different from that of young Tremelo as could be imagined.

  Thinking about Lieutenant Salinas, Miggy's incipient smile vanished. Oh, well, he thought philosophically, such men can be found in every race, color and creed. He snorted. Nobody seemed to have much use for John Salinas. Even his wife had been far more agitated over the fact that the life insurance company was demanding proof of death than her husband's actual fate.

  That left only—

  Bracing himself, he went back to the door to the outer office and opened it. The troll looked up from her desk.

  "Sir?"

  "Still no word from Mrs. Jackson?"

  The troll's lips grew pinched. Well . . . the thin crevasse where lips were normally to be found on a human face vanished completely. She sniffed. Well . . . she uttered a sound through her nose which reminded Tremelo of—

  He shied away from the thought hastily.

  "In a matter of speaking, Professor Tremelo. The Jackson woman did call early this morning. But when I informed her that she was required to appear at your office in order to pursue the preliminary psychological assessment—"

  Miggy stifled a combined groan and snarl of fury. The struggle was ferocious enough to cause him to miss the next few words.

  "—could not believe her insolence. Can you imagine? Those people—!"

  Even the troll realized she was treading on thin ice. "Well, in any event. You can be sure I informed her that under no circumstances would the United States government make good her so-called `lost wages.' And of course when she—"<
br />
  "She's a waitress, you insufferable creature!" bellowed Tremelo. The fact that the physicist rarely lost his temper was compensated, perhaps, by the volcanic results when he did. "The United States government hiccups that much money for—for—"

  He clamped his jaws shut, stymied by his utter inability to think of anything the U.S. government spent so little money on.

  The troll was ogling him, as pale as a sheet. Even she, apparently, had been intimidated by the famous Tremelo Tremor.

  "She wanted her tips made good, too," squeaked the creature.

  Tremelo's fury was instantaneously transformed into almost hysterical laughter.

  "Good for her!" he managed to get out. After a moment, when he'd brought himself under control, he stood fully erect and pointed at the telephone. The long finger bore a close resemblance to a wizard's wand of wrath.

  "You will call Mrs. Jackson. You will apologize for your rude conduct this morning. You will—"

  Abruptly, he shook his head and advanced upon the telephone in question. "Never mind," he growled. "I wouldn't trust you to invite a crocodile to lunch. What is the number?"

  The troll's thick fingers fluttered their way through the notes on her desk. Garbled explanations followed. It seemed Mrs. Jackson was rarely at home . . . children being taken care of by the grandmother . . . long hours at work . . . longer than ever, now that her husband had vanished . . .

  Miggy sighed and began punching numbers into the telephone. "Information? I need the telephone number of the South Side Cafe, please."

  * * *

  The telephone was answered on the third ring by a harried-sounding voice, rich with the accent of Chicago's south side. "South Side Cafe. Yeah, I'm Marie Jackson."

  "Mrs. Jackson," said Miggy evenly, "this is Professor Tremelo. I just discovered that you were treated very rudely this morning. Please accept my sincere apologies."

  For perhaps half a minute, Miggy listened to the voice on the other end. And a pungent half a minute it was, too. By the time the voice came to a halt, Tremelo was bestowing a wintry smile on the troll.