Pyramid Scheme Read online

  "So this is the group which has all Olympus in a tumult." He didn't look as if that displeased him much. Especially after his eyes fell on Liz's voluptuous figure.

  * * *

  Jerry was determined to confront these "gods" with what he saw as the glaring inconsistency. "How come you can speak English?"

  Pan looked mischievously at him. "I'm not."

  Jerry realized he'd become so used to Medea's translation magic that it had never occurred to him that their latest "divine" visitor might be speaking Classical Greek.

  "Okay. So why are we here and how do we get out of being here?"

  Pan blew a couple of thoughtful notes on his seven-reed pipes, eyeing Liz all the while. "No wonder you disturb Olympus with your direct questioning. I think you mortals have been called into the realms of heroes and gods because we were fading away. There are things afoot that Pan wants no part of. I am a shepherd god, not a god of blood and pain."

  "What is going on that you don't want any part of?"

  Pan blew another trill of high wavering notes. He was silent for a while. "I don't know. Zeus, and the earth shaker, and Hermes . . . they've all been very odd. Very odd indeed. And something has been happening. Our histories are being . . . reenacted. I have been chasing the nymph Syrinx. But it felt to me as if I had done that before. And the more I thought, the surer I was, that I had chased her before, and that Ladon had transformed her into a reed. I played the pipes I made from the river reeds . . . and my mouth and hands knew how to do this. I don't like it. I don't understand it, but I do know you are a thorn in the flesh of whatever is causing this. Therefore I am determined to help you."

  He scowled. "Word is out from Olympus that you must be slain. So: how can I help you? I have soothed the terrible man-eating Cyclops to sleep with sweet music. What other help can I offer?"

  "Send us home? Even the U.S.A. would do," begged the hopeful Henri, treading American sensibilities like grapes.

  Pan knitted his brow. Danced a few steps. Which brought him closer to Liz, Jerry was not pleased to notice. The goat-god's reputation for lasciviousness was notorious.

  "I would . . . if I could. But I don't even know where your home is. It must be a place that is incredibly far from here. Tell me how you came here?"

  Jerry explained. Pan looked puzzled. "Do the herdsmen of your country, those who tend the sheep and the goats in the high and lonely meadows, still worship great Pan?"

  Jerry swallowed. "Er. Not much."

  Pan trilled his pipes sadly. "You mean `not at all.' Alas, then I have no presence there, and no influence."

  "Well, what about some advice?" asked Lamont. "We were heading for Egypt. Is that worth doing?"

  Pan wrinkled his long goaty nose. "I don't know. But in the realm of Egypt you would at least be beyond the hand of Olympus. Nowhere here would be beyond the Olympians. I would go there. The wind is set fair for the coast of Africa."

  "We'd be going just as fast as it would carry us, if it wasn't for the Tritons."

  Pan pulled a face. He seemed to like doing that. "Their idea of music is abominable. Unfortunately, sweet music has no charms to drive them off."

  "Does bad music?" asked Lamont.

  The idea seemed to shock Pan. "It is possible. It would have to be both louder and worse than their cacophony."

  Lamont looked at the group of moderns. "I think we've possibly got a really talented group of failed musicians right here. If we had or could make some instruments . . . "

  The goaty god jigged. "The making of musical instruments is my attribute. Allow me."

  * * *

  Pan worked with small pieces of metal or wood. He could, by what to Jerry appeared to be principles of cohesion, create larger things. Sprites and spirits of trees and waters danced at his command, hammering out bizarre shapes. The bagpipes and the drums were almost recognizable as such. Bagpipes were after all a shepherd's instrument, and the drum was another familiar concept. The guitar was not too wild an idea, although the device was more like a lute. However the attempts at the magical construction of a violin would have had Stradivari turning in his grave. At about 9000 rpm, at a guess. The brass instruments had totally flummoxed Pan's magical construction skills, until Jerry had mentioned a salpinx, a Greek trumpet.

  The work would have gone faster, Jerry noted sourly, if Liz hadn't been there. Pan spent more time ogling her than he did assembling the instruments. It didn't help any that Liz was making no effort to make herself less visible. Rather the opposite, actually. She almost seemed to be displaying herself for the goaty creature, in a demure sort of way.

  The extent to which that aroused his jealousy came as a bit of a shock to Jerry. He was even more shocked when Liz came up to him, after Pan was finally done, and chucked him lightly under the chin. "Oh, relax," she murmured. "I'm really not attracted to hairy types, Jerry, especially when they smell that much. Just keeping the help happy at their work, that's all."

  With a low chuckle, she wandered off. Leaving Jerry simultaneously chagrined, confused—and quite happy.

  * * *

  Pan blocked his ears in horror at the testing phase. Lamont blew a note testing his mysterious and complex brass and reed instrument . . . "I think that's a B flat."

  "Be flatulence, more like," said Jerry with a grin. "Now what are we going to play, guys?"

  Henri lifted a sneering lip. "Parsifal. Or perhaps `Götterdämmerung' would be more appropriate."

  McKenna looked even more confused than the extra valves had any right to make him. "Huh?"

  "Is that one of those old `Abba' songs, maybe?" asked Liz with a perfectly straight face.

  * * *

  Pan had left them. He was not a sea god, and he was determined to gather a few like minds and try to reason with Zeus. And a brief encounter with Liz's handbag was enough to convince him that naiads were more receptive to his charms.

  Besides, he said, the noise was driving him to drink. He had left them with an amplifying spell, and he wanted to be gone before they used it. . . .

  * * *

  In the bow of Odysseus' black ship, the new musical sensation was bickering about the really important stuff. When the gods are out to kill, you might as well be silly. The band needed a name.

  Henri's New York Philharmonic had been rejected unanimously. So had McKenna's The Herb Boys. Argument now was centered on Non-serious Skews or The Gathering Moss.

  The conches sounded. Debate was brought to an end with Cruz leaping to his feet. He hunched over his Pan-made instrument and struck chords. Or something approximately like chords.

  "AAAH CAIN'T GET NO-WOOO . . . "

  "Merde! I do not know how to play this. Is this singing or some kind of fit?"

  "It's just a jam session."

  The Frenchman looked puzzled.

  "Just play as well as you can and try and fit in."

  Henri drew the bow across the semi-violin. A shriek of tortured strings erupted from the device. "I will have to have a fit, too. This will be `raspberry jam' no?"

  But you could hardly hear him above the magically amplified shrill wail of the pipes and flatulent chorus of brass. Jerry, in his determination to give them all something to play along with, regardless of what speed they should desire to play at, thrashed away at the drums . . .

  The Tritons disappeared, flinging conches.

  On the shore, the Cyclops that Pan had lulled to sleep came pouring out of their scattered caves.

  The first rock fortunately fell astern and surfing the wave took the black ship out of range.

  "Holy Macaroni! I'm used to them throwing eggs and tomatoes. But rocks!" said Cruz.

  Jerry smiled beatifically. "I always wanted to be in a rock band!"

  The ship wallowed on a swell. Lamont blew a defiant flat note. "Jerry . . . This is rock and roll!"

  Henri looked triumphant. "I think it was just a question of age. I was simply not ready for the violin. Now I feel it is my natural métier. Shall we give them, how do you sa
y, another number?"

  Odysseus wrung his hands. "Please. The crew says you can have all of their loot. Just no more music. Please. It is too far to swim for shore."

  * * *

  Cruz was sitting in the bow talking to Medea. She was looking a trifle miserable. "It wouldn't have been safe to bring the children. But I miss them terribly."

  "They'll be fine," said the stocky gorilla of a paratrooper, patting her hand gently. "Your aunt and Glauce will take good care of them." He went on polishing the pair of hardwood batons linked with a short section of bespelled chain. Cruz had got the idea for the chain from Pan's altering and "stretching" a cartridge into a trumpet. The chain had once been a few links on Liz's handbag strap, before Medea had got to them.

  "I know. But I can't help worrying." She looked at him with a wry smile. "You don't miss your children?"

  "I haven't got any," said Cruz, feeling as if he might be stepping into deep water.

  Medea shook her head and clicked her tongue sympathetically. "Your marriage is not blessed with children? Fertility magic is one my specialties. I can help you."

  "I'll bet." He grinned. "Actually I'm not married. Never have been."

  She gave him a skeptical enquiring look. The kind that says: yeah, tell me another one.

  His copper skin darkened. "No. Honestly. I had a steady girlfriend for a while . . . but it kind of wasn't going anywhere. And she wanted to get married, settle down and have a family. I wasn't ready for that sort of commitment back then. She got married to one of my buddies, about two years back. Funny. That seems like a lifetime ago now."

  She smiled devastatingly at him. "So, you don't like children?"

  Anibal Cruz knew he was painting himself into a corner. "Erm. No. No, I like kids."

  She backed off hurriedly. "You like goats?"

  * * *

  The Krim device came from a civilization that had been old and decadent before the mythology it was now exploiting had even conceived gods that were more complex than venerated trees. It possessed within it energies and devices that could turn a continent to slag. But of what value to the Krim was slag? The Krim wanted that which they had all but lost. This meant working in the Ur-Mythworlds. And despite the vast powers contained within the force-shielded pyramid, that meant working within the reality framework of each particular Ur-Mythworld too. It meant you had to hire local labor. And it was so hard to get decent help in those days. Really, you'd have thought the primitive Ur-gods would have been glad of the work. But no. Bone idle and far too independent to make good Krim servants.

  But rich in anger. And credulous. Perfect for prukrin manipulation.

  27

  Employees must give

  two weeks' notice.

  "It's not working." That was the second time Miggy Tremelo had heard that exact statement in the last twenty minutes. The first time had been from the head of the insulation-project team. He'd restrained himself from the desire to kick the idiot downstairs. The woman might be an expert on insulating materials but she had absolutely no common sense and was so deeply involved in her field as to be blind to everything else. Of course the polymer spray wouldn't stick to the pyramid surface. If she'd bothered to read the reports or even talk to anyone . . .

  Now it was the turn of the representative from the National Security Council who had replaced Harkness. Tremelo took a deep breath. "What isn't working, Mr. Milliken?"

  The NSC man ran his hands through his once impeccably ordered hair. "Project Poison Pill. The pyramid just pushes the bombs ahead of itself when it expands. Like a bulldozer."

  Tremelo steepled his fingers. "I sometimes wonder why the hell we bother to write reports," he said conversationally. "That bit of information has been available since the first day. Fairly early on the first day, in fact—Colonel McNamara tried it right off. Several times."

  He sighed heavily, biting off further sarcasm. "Any `poison pill' will have to go in with the snatched victims. You'll have to get sufficient new material, and hope the pyramid selects one of your `pill' carriers."

  Milliken stared intently at him. "Will that work?"

  Tremelo shrugged. "I wish I knew."

  "We'll try it!" Milliken rose to his feet. "We'll arrange for new soldiers with heavy weapons. Some of them will be snatched."

  "In the meanwhile, I'm going ahead with a project of my own. At least seven of the victims could definitely have been resuscitated if we'd gotten to them fast enough. We're going to saturate the area inside the cordon with medics. If we can get one more survivor in a better mental state than the last one, we can learn a great deal more."

  Milliken nodded. "That sounds like an eminently effective plan. Just see that you keep me posted."

  Miggy Tremelo stood up, stretching out his lanky frame. "You could try doing that, too. It might save you having to explain more non-working projects," he said dryly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we've been conducting interviews with the next of kin of all the disappearance victims that have not returned. I'm especially interested in the relatives of that one large group that hasn't come back. We're trying to establish just how the pyramid selects people and how this group have managed, presumably, to stay alive. We've only had two returns from them, and that was within minutes of their being snatched."

  * * *

  When Miggy Tremelo met Marie Jackson, he was a bit surprised. Knowing from the files that Lamont Jackson was in his late forties, he'd assumed his wife would be about the same age. Instead, the woman who came into his office was in her mid-thirties.

  She was a very attractive woman. A bit on the short side, with a full figure and an open, pretty face. Her complexion was a lustrous coffee-with-cream, her eyes were light brown, almost hazel, and her short hair had been dyed a faintly red tinge. Tremelo knew that she worked as a waitress, and she was wearing what he assumed to be her work clothes.

  His guess was confirmed by the first words out of Mrs. Jackson's mouth. "I can't stay long," she said curtly. "I got three kids to take care of, you know. Without Lamont's paycheck any more. And my boss said I couldn't take more than two hours off or there'd be hell to pay. And he's just the bastard to ring up the bill, too."

  Tremolo was rather charmed by the slight gap between her two front teeth. Despite the woman's surface belligerence, he sensed the friendliness lurking beneath. "We are in a state of national emergency," he said mildly. "Or hasn't your boss heard the news yet?"

  Marie Jackson snorted. "You think that motherfucker gives a shit? He woulda docked Jesus half a day's pay for taking too long to haul the cross up to Calvary. Sure as hell would have fired him for taking three days comin' back to life."

  Miggy was amused by the woman's vulgarity as much as by her sense of humor. He suspected that she was testing him, in the way that a combative lower-class person will sometimes poke the muckety-mucks, just to see how high they'll jump.

  He grinned. "Mrs. Jackson, you stay here as long as you need to. If that boss of yours gets nasty about it, you just give me a call."

  He made a casual gesture toward the window. The rumble of another Abrams tank turning what was left of Midway Plaisance into mash could be easily heard. "I guarantee I can make him see the light of day. Unless he wants his restaurant inspected by a platoon of paratroopers who don't know anything about the building code and couldn't care less. Just shoot the cockroaches."

  Marie's grin was even wider than his own. "Well, okay then. What can I do for you?"

  The grin faded, replaced by a slight frown. "If you just want to ask me more questions about Lamont, I don't know what I can tell you more than I already told all those—" He could practically see her biting off the profanity "—shrinks."

  Miggy waved his hand, dismissing the idea. The hand wave turned into an invitation.

  "Coffee?"

  Marie peered suspiciously at the coffee pot. The device looked much the worse for wear. "You make that coffee?"

  Miggy nodded. Marie rolled her eyes. "Not a chance. But if you've got
the makings, I'll brew another pot."

  Tremelo laughed aloud. Then, guiding her to the adjoining room where the coffee was kept, he waited in companionable silence while Marie made a fresh pot of coffee. She went about the task with the quick efficiency of long practice.

  When the coffee started brewing, he led the way back to his office and invited her to sit in a chair across from his desk. "I really don't want to ask you anything, Mrs. Jackson. I mostly want to see if you can tell me something."

  "What's that?"

  Tremelo leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. "Why is it, out of hundreds of people who have been snatched by that alien thing, that your husband is one of only a handful who haven't come back dead? Which leads me to suspect that he might still be alive."

  Marie Jackson's eyes teared suddenly. "You really think Lamont's still alive?" she whispered.

  Tremelo shrugged. "I wish I could tell you so, with any degree of certainty. But I really can't. On the other hand . . . "

  He paused for a moment. "The thing about it, Mrs. Jackson—"

  "Call me Marie, please."

  "—ah, Marie, is that none of the people who were with your husband when he was snatched have come back. Except the two soldiers who seem to have been killed almost immediately. That's completely atypical from the normal pattern. Which leads me to suspect—and don't ask me to explain it logically, because I can't—that he might still be alive. Actually, I think they're all still alive."

  Marie started crying. She lowered her head and dug into her purse, coming up a moment later with a packet of Kleenex. "Oh, God," she whispered, "I love that man so much."

  In the middle of blowing her noise, a little laugh burst through the tissues. "Damn if I don't think you're right, Professor Tremelo!"