Eric Flint - Pyramid Power

Again, he gave Megane that very hard look. "Which it certainly is, in this case-and with the nation's best known endangered species, at that. Most popular, too."

He lowered his voice enough that the sphinx couldn't hear him and growled at the PSA agent, "You stupid, arrogant asshole. You'll be lucky if you wind up reading a thermometer and recording wind speeds at a military base seven hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Did you-or that shithead boss of yours-really think you could get away with something like this?"

Abruptly, he waved his hand. "Never mind, don't answer that. Who cares what you think?"

He gave Evans an appraising look. "I've got police powers, but we're not really set up to keep prisoners. Normally, we'd just take an offender to the nearest police authority and turn them over. However…"

Evans smiled. "I'll have to check with the commander of Fort Campbell, of course. But I'm pretty sure the 101st Airborne will be willing-delighted, rather-to provide our fellow federal toilers with the wherewithal to keep these Pissants under guard for the moment."

He transferred the smile to Megane. "You wouldn't believe how popular these fellows made themselves at Fort Campbell. And seeing as how it's officially Fish and Wildlife making the arrest-we're just lending a helping hand, so to speak-I can't see where Ms. Garnett can squawk."

"Oh, she'll squawk," said O'Hare, who was now smiling himself. "But the thing is, right about now I think she's mostly squawking in fear, not fury. Okay, Lieutenant. Talk to your commander and ask him on my behalf if he's willing to put these bums up, so to speak, at the 101st's base. If he wants to talk to me personally"-O'Hare pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card-"this has my cell phone number on it."

Things were moving much more quickly than Miggy expected. So quickly, in fact, that he realized those first calls he'd had Rachel make to the senators had stirred up a firestorm. What else could explain how quickly O'Hare had gotten here? He couldn't possibly have made the flight from Washington, D.C., on that short a notice-not even if he'd been flown in on a fighter plane. He had to have arrived in Chicago already.

Like a shark, smelling blood in the water.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, how an overly powerful agency like the PSA-especially one prone to bullying-could pile up a huge number of enemies. And how fast those enemies could move, once they saw a chance to take them down a notch.

Or ten.

"I've got to get back to my office, people," he said quietly. "I think everything's blowing wide open. And this area's not safe any longer, anyway. With those new absorptions, the pyramid's certain to have expanded again. We'll need to move the perimeter out another hundred yards, probably. Maybe two hundred, with that many idiot PSA agents going in."

"But… Neoptolemeus…" protested Medea.

"Is in a Mythworld with Dr. Lukacs and the Jackson family," said Miggy gently. "You know Jerry Lukacs and Lamont Jackson well enough, ma'am, and I know Marie Jackson. Your boy couldn't be in better, more careful hands. Now will you all get in the vehicle and get back, please? There is no guarantee that if you got snatched you'd end up in the same place or would be able to help."

A corpse fell from the sky. It was wearing a brass cuirass, and a Greek-style horsehair-crested helmet. A ten inch by five inch piece was missing from its chest. Smoke still rose from the hole.

One of the dragons leaned in and sniffed. "Chargrilled."

Agent Supervisor Megane gaped in horror.

Miggy turned to Evans. "Load that corpse up and let's get out of here, now. Some of your men may be snatchables."

Lieutenant Evans realized that might well be true-especially with a private who'd somehow managed to get himself arrested over pizza. However, he knew the essential trick of military success. Sergeant Cruz might not be part of his squad, but he was the best NCO around. "Sergeant," he said with a nod, which was all that was necessary to say.

"Sir," said Cruz.

A minute and a half later they were all heading out, the Humvee first, one SUV abandoned and the other driven by a paratrooper, the remaining agents under guard in the limo. Megane probably wished desperately that he could call in to his own authorities-but his helmet and those of his remaining "hoplites" had been left behind to talk to themselves.

Eric Flint Dave Freer

Pyramid Power

Lying in the back of the chariot in the cold, Jerry could only be glad of the body-presumably still alive because it was warm-stacked against him. He wouldn't have minded if the man had not had a cuirass on. Brass seemed to transmit cold better than it did body-heat.

Time passed. In the way of time when you were worried and helpless to do anything, Jerry was sure that it was passing very slowly. It was getting to be a question of whether he froze to death or worried himself to death first. He worried about the others, let alone about his own fate, at the hands of a guy with metal gauntlets and fake beard, and Odin.

He tried to distract himself into remembering as much as he could about Odin. Not all of it was comforting. Yes, Odin was the leader of the?sir who had hanged himself on the tree for nine days and given his one eye for a drink from the well of Mirmir. He was also-a stray scrap of information in the sea of stuff Jerry had waded through in a bibliophile's life-known by many names, or "kennings" as the Norse put it. They often gave clues to origins and nature of the god in question. This one was known variously as the Allfather, which was a delusion of grandeur from what Jerry remembered, the Wanderer from his habit of wandering about incognito, and Baelwerker-evil worker.

There were lots more, but those were the ones that came to mind. Odin was known to be fickle with his favors and had fathered a fair number of children on women other than his wife, Frigg. About normal for a boss god, in other words. There seemed to be more of an element of sneaky cunning to him than was typical of someone like Zeus, though.

Jerry knew less about the other Norse gods. A stray memory brought up Geirrodur the troll king and bars of white-hot metal being flung around, but Jerry was almost sure that myth had been about Thor.

Finally, a group of Norse warriors came past, and then Odin on horseback. An eight-legged horse. The man with iron gauntlets came and got into the cart.

"Well, I'm not carrying him down from there myself. He can sober up and get himself home," muttered the man sulkily. "Damned Einherjar won't do anything I tell them. But if he says it, then they jump."

He kicked the two prisoners aside, took up his stance. "Tanngnjost, Tanngrisnir, away!"

Nothing happened.

Iron gauntlets swore. "Move, damn you, goats!"

Jerry had put two and two together now. This was Thor's goat-pulled chariot-only it lacked the ornamentation you might expect of a thunder-god's chariot. This English-speaking person was also a pretty poor stand-in for Thor.

Odin returned with a double-clatter. "Tanngnjost, Tanngrisnir, Bilskriner!" he snapped, walloping the goats with his spear-butt.

The goats and the chariot took off like a rocket ship heading for orbit. Fake-Thor landed hard on Jerry as the chariot leapt and bounced down the rough track at terrific speed. The goats seemed to want it airborne, and the chariot didn't have springs of any sort.

It was a hellish journey and the charioteer's efforts to slow it down were met with no success. Neither did his efforts to stand up. To add to the joy of the journey, icy sleet showered down on them. Jerry could only be grateful, when, after an eternity, the bone-shaking slowed and then stopped, pulling into a barn made of rough rocks.