Pyramid Scheme Read online

  He dressed his scrawny body by guess, and with some difficulty. He was trying to read at the time—Jerry was usually trying to read at any time—and the clothes kept getting in the way of the book. It was only with great reluctance, and great haste, that he tore his eyes away from the print from time to time to finish his vestmental chore.

  Finally, he was clad in clean jeans, unmatched socks, a shirt and a windbreaker. The prerequisites of not being arrested for public indecency being fulfilled, he wandered into the kitchen for a cup of black coffee and a bowl of cornflakes. He was still reading as he went. But, since he was familiar with the layout of his apartment, he did manage to avoid bumping into corners. Or, at least, to turn head-on collisions into glancing encounters.

  Once in the kitchen, alas, he discovered that there was almost no coffee left. And, while there was a full box of cereal, there wasn't more than half a cup of milk left in the carton. Jerry was as absentminded about grocery shopping as he was about getting dressed.

  He peered peevishly at the note pinned to the refrigerator door with a small magnet. Must buy more milk. Really must. Coffee too. Razor blades.

  Jerry sighed. Then, steeling himself to necessity, he set the book down on the counter—carefully marking his place with a fork—and set to work. Fortunately, long experience had inured him to such hardships. He rather fancied himself a kitchen survivalist, in point of fact.

  Old coffee grounds with a spoon full of new coffee on top will work, after all. And this wasn't the first time he'd turned insufficient milk into impromptu skim milk by simply adding water to his cereal. As he ate his breakfast, the reopened book propped against the laid-flat cereal box, Jerry even congratulated himself on improving the healthfulness of his diet.

  * * *

  On the flight from Washington, Tom Harkness complained about not having real cream for his coffee.

  * * *

  Jerry Lukacs headed out for the Oriental Institute. Most people had long been at work already, but, well, he was pretty near nocturnal.

  His progress was slow, of course, since he was still reading the book. Fortunately, with the honed skills of a rabid reader, Jerry had an almost instinctive sense for when he was approaching an intersection. A quick glance was enough to check the traffic light. Green, he marched across, still reading. Red, he waited. If he was lucky, and someone else was also waiting at the corner, he didn't even have to glance up to see when the light changed. He just started walking whenever he sensed the person next to him go into motion.

  As usual, therefore, he missed the scenery of the University of Chicago's rather charming environs. As one of America's older universities, the U of C had grown up inside a city rather than on a set-aside campus. Except for the central quad adjoining the Oriental Institute, the university's grounds were intermixed with the city's Hyde Park neighborhood. The end result was a kind of cosmopolitan pastiche of staid old college buildings and far less staid commercial establishments.

  But Jerry, this day as on most, didn't notice any of it. He also, of course, failed to notice the unusual number of police vehicles cruising the area. He was far too preoccupied with his dissection of this idiot thesis! advanced by Professor Kilmer concerning the origins of the sphinx mythology prevalent throughout the ancient eastern Mediterranean.

  The Oriental Institute was only two blocks away from the Regenstein Library. By the time Jerry reached the steps leading up into the Institute, the population density of police vehicles resembled an ant hill. But Jerry was oblivious to it all.

  * * *

  As Jerry Lukacs walked through the entrance to the Oriental Institute, Lamont Jackson opened up his toolbox, down in the air handler room of the same building. It was a noisy place, buried in the middle of the large edifice. Lamont was one of the university's mechanical repairmen. He was usually the one sent to the Institute whenever a job needed to be done. He was the acknowledged expert on all aspects of maintenance in that particular building.

  To a large degree, the reputation was due to Lamont's general level of skill. But Lamont also engaged in shameless self-promotion whenever repair work needed to be done at the Institute. Lamont was fond of working in that building, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, over the years he had found himself becoming fascinated with the work they did there. In his own eclectic way, the maintenance mechanic had developed a level of knowledge concerning ancient history and mythology which would have astonished the academics who worked at the Oriental Institute.

  Well, except one—Jerry Lukacs. Which was the second reason Lamont was looking forward to the day's work. The absent-minded Dr. Lukacs, Lamont had discovered, was not given in the least to putting on professorial airs when talking with a mere repairman. The visiting professor seemed to find nothing odd in Lamont's interest. The fact that a man with no better than a high school diploma should be both informed and curious about mythology didn't seem to strike Dr. Lukacs as odd. He seemed to assume everyone would know the Gilgamesh legend and the tales of Homer. Well, he obviously wasn't born and raised in Chicago's south side! And the professor shared Lamont's own enthusiasm for that lowest of all literary art forms: the pun. Later that day, Lamont would wander up to Dr. Lukacs' office on the third floor. They'd enjoy a few minutes' worth of punstery. Since their last exchange, Lamont had thought up several new wordplays. Ancient names and terminology gave you a lot of scope.

  For the most part, however, Lamont enjoyed working in the Oriental Institute's air handler room for another reason. He could play music—to which he was even more devoted than puns—and play it loudly. The air handler room was isolated from everything else, as well as being noisy in its own right. So nobody could hear the music and complain.

  Lamont had always found that Tina Turner and a nice collection of jazz improved any work environment immensely. So, pulling out his tools, he began his day's labor with a willing spirit. Five minutes later he was oblivious to the outside world. The demands of the job itself, and the loudness of the air handler room, isolated him. So did Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain, played at a respectable level.

  * * *

  Dr. Elizabeth De Beer, sitting at her desk in the nearby building which headquartered the University of Chicago's biologists, was also completely oblivious to the rest of the world. The cause, in her case, was grief.

  It was a quiet kind of grief. More in the way of melancholy than anguish. Liz had long known that her marriage was gasping its last breath. So the final gasp, coming over a restaurant table the night before, had come as no surprise. Nor could she even say it came with any real regrets.

  Still . . .

  She remembered a day once, in her native South Africa, when she had worn a wedding gown instead of the utilitarian work clothes she was wearing now. The sun had shone so brightly that day, it seemed.

  So, at least, she remembered. True, it was not a memory she particularly trusted. Looking back now, she could easily see how foolish she had been to think that a marriage with such a self-centered man as Nick would ever work.

  Still . . .

  She remembered another day, and was oblivious to the present one.

  3

  Anyone causing a disturbance within the library will be

  asked to leave.

  Ten hours after its arrival, the object just sat there. True, the team of scientists (which had now grown to seventeen) found the manner of its sitting there very impressive.

  Harkness, who had just arrived, did not. You'd have thought that this bunch of supposedly high-powered scientists could have come up with something better. That black pyramid wouldn't fool anyone with common sense, least of all him.

  Harkness' lip curled. What fools these so-called scientific experts always turned out to be. Fancy being suckered by what was an obvious hoax. The thing didn't even do anything. Well, their asses would flame out, when the "UFO" proved to be a fake.

  Harkness turned to study his prey: Professor Tremelo. One of Harkness' assistants was busy with background security
checks right now. Harkness didn't like Tremelo's attitude. Not one damn bit.

  He decided to turn on the pressure. But first—

  He turned to the Chicago police officer who had attached himself to Harkness' group. A classical ass-kisser by the name of Lieutenant John Salinas. Harkness recognized the type perfectly.

  "John, I can't abide this crap." He waggled the packet of powdered creamer and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket. "See if you can find me some real cream somewhere, would you? I can't think clearly with my mouth tasting like mud."

  It was a staged performance—Tom Harkness would have cheerfully stirred turpentine into his coffee if that was the preference of his own superiors—but it helped to establish control. Nodding eagerly, Salinas took off at a half trot.

  Harkness turned to the swarming scientists, fiddling with their electronic toys. "Tremelo!" he said loudly. "Come over here. We need to talk." The tone said that it wasn't going to be a nice talk.

  * * *

  Those who knew Miggy Tremelo well would have been running for cover. Academics are easygoing about titles—among their peers. Chairs of departments are small tin gods within their own firmament. And generally speaking they stick within that firmament, believing all else to be of lesser virtue. This former head of High Energy Physics, otherwise known as HEP, was one step worse. He was a big platinum god. As a consultant for certain very secret Department of Defense projects at Nellis proving grounds, he was a big platinum god with the Pentagon too. As it happened, he had a higher security clearance than Tom Harkness. And he was totally unused to a lack of respect.

  "That's Professor Tremelo to you, whatever-your-name-is." The professor didn't let the fact that his pajama jacket was sticking out of the top of his lab coat stop him from giving the NSC representative a glare that had withered many a bumptious colleague.

  It nearly made Harkness' piggy little eyes pop out of their sockets. "Now see here, Tremelo! You don't take that tone with me . . . "

  * * *

  Lieutenant Salinas was returning to the scene, triumphantly carrying packets of real creamer he'd found in a refrigerator in an adjoining lab, when he heard Professor Tremelo erupt like a volcano. Salinas was still an entire corridor's length away, but the verbal imitation of Mount St. Helens stopped him in his tracks. The tall gray-haired physicist had one of those piercing voices which, when raised in anger, can carry for an incredible distance.

  "God grant me patience, you mindless idiot! What do you mean—A FAKE? If I ever had a student as stupid as you, Harkness, I'd flunk them all the way back to the second grade. No substance absorbs all energy. That material is harder than diamond, it absorbs laser with no effect, it—"

  The violet discharge from the apex of the pyramid cut the diatribe short. Tom Harkness got his wish. The device had finally done something. It made Harkness disappear.

  Professor Tremelo found himself leaning over empty air.

  Lieutenant Salinas would have described the next few seconds as being full of screaming and running, if he hadn't been too busy to notice. He was busy both screaming and running. Well, nearly everybody was. He found out later that one of the remaining FBI agents stood his ground emptying nine-millimeter rounds ineffectually at the pyramid before fleeing. The rest of them didn't waste that much time.

  Three of the NSC team had vanished, including Tom Harkness. Two of the six FBI agents had disappeared too. So had one of the scientists . . . as abruptly as a promised Christmas bonus.

  * * *

  It was just as well that all the survivors ran like hell. A few seconds later the pyramid expanded once again. It didn't just topple bookcases, it sent entire stacks sailing like so many missiles.

  Miggy Tremelo knew that slowing down to look back was plain foolishness. But he had to. Therefore he saw the ceiling above the pyramid shatter explosively as the object trebled in size and drove right through it.

  "RUUUUN!" he yelled.

  That bellow saved a good many lives.

  The floor did not succeed in resisting the pyramid's sudden expansion either. When the debris finally stopped falling, the black pyramid was now resting on the ground floor. It emerged from the cloud of dust, amid the tumult of falling masonry. Oddly, no dust clung to the sides of the pyramid. It gleamed as slick as new-cut metal. An academic confetti of thousands of volumes fluttered gently down amid the bedlam of crashing shelving and shouting people.

  When it was all over, the interior of the library's west wing was a gutted ruin.

  * * *

  In his visiting professor's office on the Oriental Institute's third floor, Jerry Lukacs was supremely unaware of all this. Actually, in his ardent pursuit of the genii-sphinx linkage in the disparate mythologies of the Near East, Jerry was as near to being absent from this world as you can be—outside of a coma or death.

  * * *

  In the air handler room two floors below, Lamont Jackson was now enjoying some Coltrane. His only concern was whether he could reasonably milk the job long enough to spend the whole day at the Institute. It was a cheerful sort of concern. Lamont's skill at overstating the difficulties of a job was not much less than his skill at the actual repair work itself.

  No sweat, he told himself. Think I'll play Thelonious Monk next.

  * * *

  In her office, less than two blocks away, Liz De Beer finally began shaking off her sorrow. Yesterday was yesterday, she reminded herself firmly, and today is today. Besides, she had work to do.

  4

  I don't think so . . .

  Major Gervase pointed at the map stuck up on the wall. "Radio is being intermittently interrupted again, so we'll be using telephone linkage as much as possible. The SITREPS coming in are confused as hell." His lips quirked slightly. "As you might expect, given the—ah—unusual situation."

  Sergeant Anibal Cruz swallowed. He was the leader of first squad, second platoon, B company, so part of his mind had paid close attention to the details of evac zones, aid stations, LZs. Another part of his mind was still shrieking: Aliens? He glanced to the northwest, as if he could see the pyramid and the wreckage inside the Regenstein Library almost half a mile away. Then, he forced himself to concentrate on the major's words.

  "To summarize," Gervase was saying, "we have two mission objectives here. Firstly, the MPs will assist with the setting up of a perimeter cordon. You will be liaising with Chicago Police Department, who are here in—ah—force." A little gesture was enough to indicate the hundreds of policemen who were now swarming the University of Chicago and its immediate environs.

  Gervase frowned at the MPs. "You are not responsible for evacuating the area. Let the police deal with any civilians. I want to remind everyone that under the Posse Comitatus Act, soldiers of the United States Army are not permitted—"

  As the major continued with his summary of the legal complexities involved, the officers and NCOs of the two companies under Gervase's command listened attentively. None more so than Sergeant Cruz. There was still, of course, a bit of an air of unreality about the whole thing. The heavily wood-paneled room exuded an aura of sedate, staid, scholarly decorum—quite out of keeping with the soldiers and military hardware which had piled into it.

  But the major himself quite obviously took the situation dead seriously. And his men were in the habit of taking him the same way.

  "Okay," Gervase concluded. "Captain Marcus will continue your detailed briefing. Follow him."

  After the MPs had moved off, the major turned back to the map. "We'll be setting up a staging area for the troops which are coming in just south of us. Here"—he pointed to a spot on the map—"in Midway Plaisance. But, at least for the moment, HQ will remain here in Ida Noyes Hall."

  He gave the assembled officers and NCOs a hard look. "Let me state something clearly. We are not going to assault this thing. The Pentagon just wants accurate and reliable SITREPS for the moment. That is all. Unless aliens emerge from the device. Then—if fired upon—we may return fire. But only then. Is that und
erstood?"

  * * *

  The center of the University of Chicago—with live ammunition. Aliens!!! Cruz swallowed. His sensei had been right. You can never train for everything.

  A tall red-headed corporal standing nearby grimaced. Tapped his head. Cruz scowled faintly. That McKenna kid was heading for trouble. Mind you, it looked like they all were. . . .

  The major was now talking about containment. Containment! Cruz was a bit of a science fiction fan. If David Drake and David Weber were anything to go by, that thing might be beyond the ability of two paratrooper companies to handle. Still, there were more troops on the way. According to the major, backup from the 82nd would start arriving in forty minutes. After ten years, Cruz knew what that meant. On time, possibly; late, probably.

  * * *

  Liz De Beer looked out from the window of her office in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. They were running around like mad ants down there, swarming in front of the huge library across the street. She shook her head. She'd been in America for less than two months and she was still confused half of the time. There were just too many people. It was even worse than Jo'burg.

  Looking out at the lanes of milling vehicles, almost all of them police cars and paddy wagons, she finally reached her decision. She was going home. Well, back to Cape Town anyway. Screw this post doc. She'd only come here because of Nick, and that was all over now.

  A helicopter came over, low and fast. Military. Jeez. Maybe something really was going on after all. She shrugged and turned away from the window. It would probably turn into a storm in a teacup. Americans seemed to count as "disasters" what people in Third World countries regarded as daily life.

  If the visiting South African biologist had continued to watch, she'd have seen what happened when the helicopter flew into the pyramid's selection-perimeter zone. That would have changed Liz De Beer's mind about the seriousness of the incident.