S. Stirling: On the Oceans of Eternity

"I get a lot of information through the Sisterhood," Hong said. "Yeah, there are still a lot of the telestai and ekwetai … mmmm… unhappy-especially since Agamemnon… ah… died."

"Shot while attempting to escape," Mittler chuckled. "Classic."

"Jumped off a fucking cliff calling on the God-damned Gods," Walker grated. Which gave him major mojo among the wogs .

The "given sacrifice," they called it. Walker'd had years of clear sailing, while Agamemnon imagined the foreigner he'd raised up was safe , because he didn't have the blood-right to the throne that too many of Mycenae's endlessly intermarried vassal Kings and nobles could claim. Fortunately, dead men had trouble taking advantage of their own baraka , especially when their heirs died with them.

Dumb bastard, trying to break out like that. Hell, even at the end I was treating him well, and pretending that the orders came from him… in public.

Now… he had the New Troops and their firepower, yes, and the crawling terror of Helmut's secret police, not to mention the supernatural dread of the Sisterhood of Hekate, but raw fear was a chancy basis for power. Frightened men were unpredictable. He'd take force over legitimacy any day, if he had to choose one or the other, but it would be nice to have both. Presumably his kids would-legitimacy meant staying on top until nobody could remember anybody else, when you came right down to it. Dynastic immortality wasn't the type he'd have picked, given options, but it was the only kind going.

"And that's why I have to get back to Troy," he said, returning to his swivel chair behind the desk.

The other two looked at each other. "Sir," Mittler said, "your position here in Greece is still unstable. Particularly with many troops being required abroad."

"That's what I've got you and your Section One for, Helmut," Walker said genially. "How did the old saying go? A secure throne needs a standing army of soldiers, a sitting army of bureaucrats, a kneeling army of priests, and a crawling army of informers."

Alice looked at him and gave the faintest hint of a wink; he replied with a smile that barely crinkled the skin around his eyes. And, of course, I have Alice and her little cult to watch the watchmen . Mittler's cold gray eyes caught the byplay, and the ash-pale brows rose slightly.

Dr. Alice Hong was a complete nutter, a sadist in the literal clinical sense of the word-she couldn't get it off without inflicting or feeling pain, preferably both-but very smart. And fully conscious that a woman could never rule Meizon Akhaia in her own right, not in this generation, which made her the safest of all Walker's American followers. Mittler didn't have that drawback in plumbing design…

Of course, Mittler was also smart enough to see that a power struggle at the top might well bring down the whole jury-rigged structure of Great Achaea. And Helmut Mittler wanted to defeat the Republic of Nantucket, wanted it very badly. Partly to keep the wealth and power he enjoyed, and partly to satisfy an old and bitter spite against the people who'd ruined his country and cause. The Nantucketers were the closest thing to the United States around, here in the Bronze Age.

Walkerian Age is more appropriate now , he thought absently, considering, then came to a decision.

There were times when the mushroom treatment was useful, but if you kept your top-flight people in the dark and covered in horseshit all the time you couldn't expect them to make sound decisions. And an operation this big required delegation, absolutely, however much it went against his personal inclinations. So… he'd fill them in.

"I don't have Zeus Pater for a great-granddaddy," Walker said genially. "What I do have is the prestige of victory. Momentum. That keeps a lot of mouths shut and minds obedient that wouldn't be, otherwise. So I need a big, conspicuous win, particularly since we're up against guys with guns now, not just pumping out grapeshot at bare-assed spear-chuckers. So it's back to Troy for the last act there."

"Sir," Mittler said, clicking heels and bowing his head. "I must therefore begin preparations. When Troy falls, we can at least deal with that damned Jew, Arnstein; he has been the brains of their intelligence apparat. Stupid of them to let him be caught there. If I haff your permission?"

"Certainly, Helmut. Keep up the good work," Walker said. You pickle-up-the-ass kraut , he thought behind the mask of his face as the other man left.

There were times when Mittler's eternally punctilious Middle European Ordnungsliebe got on the American's nerves; it was like being trapped with a Commie/Nazi villain from a bad fifties war movie. Ve haff vays to mak you talk . But he was a useful kraut.

Of course, he's built up quite a local cadre who're loyal to him and not me or the kingdom, but it's an acceptable price. For now .

Besides, everyone knows who Helmut is and what he does . That made him too unpopular to rule himself, like Beria, or Himmler.

Alice stretched in her chair, arms over her head and small breasts straining against the thin white silk of her tunic. Walker watched with detached appreciation; sex with Alice was like fucking a humanoid cobra, but it had its points as an occasional diversion.

"If dear, dear Helmut ever has to… go… you really must let me handle it," she said. "He doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does about what the human body can endure."

Walker cocked an eyebrow. "I'd have thought you had some things in common," he said.

"Really, Will! The man has no sense of artistry . He might as well be adjusting the bolts on a tractor." She looked at her watch. "Well, I have to run. We're holding an initiation tonight-quite important. Girls only, I'm afraid… unless you want to watch through the spyhole again?"

"Thanks, but business calls. See ya, babe."

The cult she'd established was a hobby with Alice, and another chance to engage in the sadomasochistic Grand Guignol she adored, but it had tentacles throughout Meizon Akhaia , among women of all classes, and in the medical service she'd organized and taught. These Gods-besotted wogs took religion very seriously indeed, and after the perversions and atrocities of the initiation process the new members felt completely committed, as if they'd severed all links to everyone except the Dark Sisterhood. He vaguely remembered reading that the Mau Mau had used the same tactics. Some of the Haitian bokor brotherhoods, the darker side of Voudun, did that, too-it had been in the Coast Guard briefing papers, when he was stationed down in the Caribbean watching for drugs and refugees coming out of Port-au-Prince.

"Education is a wonderful thing," he mused, pulling another pile of reports toward him.

Crops, roads, factories, schools… there was a hell of a lot more to being an emperor than "inventing" gunpowder, or even just commanding armies. Right now he was sweating blood trying to get a banking system established. Turning this Bronze Age feudal mishmash into something worth running had been like pushing a boulder uphill, even with twenty carefully picked American helpers and the fifty tons of cargo- machines, metals, tools, books, working models-that he'd liberated from Nantucket along with the schooner. And the earliest stages had been hardest.

Satisfying, though , he thought. How had Jack London put it?

"It is the King of words-Power," he quoted to himself, remembering a boy reading in the rustling scented solitude of a hay barn, alone with his savage, bright-colored dreams. "Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."