Eric Flint: Pyramid Power

Arachne couldn't help noticing that it was more conscientious and respectful afterward than her own vacuum cleaner had been.

But even cut off from telephones and her laptop, and even if she wasn't spider-bodied any more, Arachne could still pull strings. Her web weaving started with a cup of coffee for the hapless agent watching them. Medea had berated him for being in the way and Priones, the four-year-old, was practicing his lunges with a small wooden sword. Information is any girl's next best friend, after a few hundred cubits of spider-silk. Everyone with any intelligence knew that the more secret a thing is supposed to be, the more certain it is that the hired help knows altogether too much about it. And Arachne would bet that this Agent Schmitt was no exception.

"I'm sorry you have been put on this dull duty, while your fellow nobles are out raiding and warring," she said. "Priones. Stop that, or there will be trouble."

Priones looked at her darkly, and pointed at the agent. "Mummy doesn't like him here. I hope she chops him up and boils him in a pot."

"She probably will, dear," said Arachne urbanely. "Later. Now go and play with your toy soldiers, if any of them still have heads."

He showed no sign of moving, but just went back to, "Mummy doesn't like him here."

Arachne licked her lips. "I haven't eaten a little boy for weeks."

"You wouldn't dare," he said, but he backed off. Medea called from the bedroom, which provided him with the chance to stick out his tongue and run.

"He needs a good hiding," said the agent, taking a mouthful of coffee. He was lucky that Medea hadn't made it. Medea's coffee pot hadn't been any more obedient for being given less grounds, but the sorceress believed that she had to persevere with disciplining it.

"Probably," agreed Arachne, "but I wouldn't try it. Medea really did chop up her half brother. Anyway, Priones is as good as gold with Cruz. But you have sent his new daddy away, so he's cross. He doesn't want you here. He'll probably be a monster until our husbands get back. Will they be away long?"

"As long as it takes to find Harkness and-" said the agent, before suddenly breaking off. "As long as it takes, Miz. I can't and won't talk about it, so stop trying to pump me. And keep that kid away from me."

Arachne smiled sweetly. "I'll do my best." She wondered if it would be easier to bribe Priones to drive him mad or to sic Neoptolemeus onto him. Neoptolemeus had decided he liked her. A seven-year-old can be a very deadly weapon, or at least a pretty annoying one.

And now all she needed was to establish who this "Harkness" was, and why her husband and Cruz were needed to find him. She'd have to find a time to talk to Medea privately. Maybe she'd know. Mac had certainly never mentioned the name, and they'd talked about pretty much everything.

Eric Flint Dave Freer

Pyramid Power

James Horton apparently enjoyed the august title of Assistant Director, Operations, of the Pyramid Security Agency. Jim McKenna hadn't been aware that the PSA even had an "operations directorate." Until the Pissants showed up at Fort Campbell, he'd been under the impression that the PSA was an information gathering outfit, like the National Security Agency. A pure intelligence agency, so to speak, not one that actually did rough-and-ready field work.

He wasn't sure, but Mac had a growing suspicion that this "Operations Directorate" was even more brand spanking new than the PSA itself. That would help to explain the bizarre combination of agents throwing their weight around even with army colonels on an army base-yet seeming to have not a clue about what they were supposedly doing.

If Horton here was their boss, Mac didn't have any trouble understanding the reason. Fortunately, being paratroopers and an elite unit, the 101st generally got good officers assigned to it. But Mac had been in the U.S. Army plenty long enough to know that some officers were pure and simple goofballs. And Horton reminded him of several such goofballs he'd known in times past. Especially a certain Captain Worthington-and how the hell the man had risen beyond second lieutenant remained a mystery to the sergeant-who'd combined incompetence with a "gung ho" attitude that would have been funny except for the misery it put the grunts through.

For starters, Mac was pretty sure that Horton was the origin of this silly habit of PSA agents wearing sunglasses. The screwball was wearing them here-inside a room with no windows and only fluorescent lighting. The other agents had at least had the sense to take them off when they came indoors. Did these guys know just how much they looked like cheap movie government agents? Did they try to look like them?

Most likely, Horton had been inspired by watching the Men in Black movies-and hadn't noticed that they were comedies. And wasn't that a scary thought?

The building they were in lent credence to that theory, now that Mac thought about it. He'd noticed on the way in that it looked like some sort of power plant, located in a rural area not too far from Clarksville.

"I hear you've been treating my operatives with some disrespect," Assistant Director Horton said to the two paratroopers, in a tone of voice he apparently thought was arctic but fell a good hundred and fifty degrees short of any competent drill sergeant.

So they'd been tattling to mommy, probably about being called Pissants. Mac flicked a glance at Cruz. The sergeant had his poker face on. Well, Cruz was a lot more experienced at dealing with trouble than he was, even if McKenna was better at getting into it.

"No, sir, not yet," said Cruz. His own tone of voice made it clear that serious disrespect could start very easily. "Your operatives have obviously not been taught military protocols, and they have disgraced both you and their organization. If you want to confirm that you could try asking my commanding officer. They treated him with disrespect, in the presence of his men and their dependents. We in the military don't like that. I'd like to you to censure them, sir. Then I'd feel that mutual respect could be established."

Mac had to restrain a grin.

Horton's eyes widened. "Do you know who I am, Sergeant Cruz?" He was now striving for a voice the temperature of liquid nitrogen. It was pretty pathetic. "I answer directly to Director Garnett herself."

He said that last the way a man might say "me and Moses consult daily on such matters as parting the Red Sea."

Cruz looked at him with a completely blank expression, as if he'd never heard her name at all. Which would be quite a feat, since Helen Garnett was nothing if not a public recognition addict. Ever since she'd been put in charge of the PSA, her face had been on enough screens for everyone to know it.

"No, sir. These men are from the PSA, so I'd guess that you are also from the PSA. I'd like to know why we've been brought here, and why our families are being held hostage."

Horton slithered away from a direct answer. "You'll be told presently what your mission is-and the term 'hostage' is ridiculous, Sergeant. Your people are simply under protective custody." He leaned forward a bit, apparently striving for a menacing aura. "I just want to clarify one thing before I send you off to be briefed. Even the lowest agent here outranks you. If I hear of any more problems, or disrespect, you could just be spending several years in the stockade at Fort Leavenworth. Do you understand me?"

Cruz didn't reply. His muscles just tensed. For the first time in his military career Mac decided that it was time to bail his senior buddy out. Deflect fire. "Yes, sir. Can we send a message to our families?"

"No. You're strictly incommunicado." He waved a hand at one of the suits. "Take them to Agent Supervisor Megane."