The image on the TV switched to an outside view, from a different camera. Two giant winged snakes—dragons?—were being fed by a line of hotel employees bearing platters. A huge sphinx was practically mobbed with tourists, tossing the monster candy bars when they failed to answer its riddles properly.
"Quick, Marie!" hissed Tremelo. "The President'll have to invoke the Endangered Species Act, too."
Marie was watching the screen now. Her little gurgle of happiness turned into a riotous laugh.
"Yeah—but which species is being endangered?"
* * *
After she left, Tremelo shook his head. "Damned if I know. Oh, brave new world, that hath such people in it."
One of Miggy's assistants was staring at him. "What're we going to do, Professor?" He pointed at the TV screen, which was now filled again with the face of Jerry Lukacs, resuming his lecture. "If that guy's right, we can't touch that damned pyramid."
Tremelo shrugged. "Do about it? Get us all on a priority flight to Nellis Air Force Base, for starters. We can talk about it on our way to Las Vegas."
He burst into laughter himself, now. "What the hell? We'll live with it, I imagine. Just another illegal alien, that's all."
Miggy grinned at the TV, which was now showing an image of the Krim pyramid. "No, that's politically incorrect! Let's call it the undocumented interstellar probe. Frustrated because it can't find a job."
Acknowledgements
First and foremost this book owes its existence to my wife, Barbara—proofreader, idea test-pilot and authorial panic tolerator extraordinaire. Between her, Kathy Holton, proofreader of infinite patience, and Eric, whose idea all of this was in the first place, they guided my vague and wandering steps through this mythological mazurka. . . . As usual, Eric and I worked closely and argued mightily about this book. The erudite bits are Eric's. The weird and silly bits are mine.
For her sin of choosing to take her honours in classical Latin and Greek, my sister Helen was endlessly plagued about everything from mythology to pronunciation. And on the rare occasions my odd questions were too bizarre for her or she'd managed to sneak away from a telephone, there was Pam (Pogo) Poggiani, the Baen author's fantastic reference system.
My thanks to Judith Lasker and Ron Kohut for their wine help, and Judith for the photographs of Las Vegas, which inspired the final solution and scene.
I must also thank Fred Geisler, Andy Mendes, Buz Ozburn, John Ringo and Mike Spehar for their attempts to explain the U.S. military to me. I'm still confused, alas. The errors remain mine, the accuracy theirs. Mike, an expert on the subject, provided us with a draft of the HASTY RECEIVER EXECUTE ORDER which appears in Chapter 14.
Eric has also asked me to acknowledge several institutions which figure in the novel, for their cooperation. The characters who appear in the novel are all fictitious, of course, but the depiction of the physical setting is as accurate as we could make it. We especially want to thank:
The Oriental Institute, particularly Tim Cashion and Emily Napolitano, respectively the Director of Development and the Membership Coordinator. Tim gave Eric a guided tour of the Institute, and suggested the air handler room as the logical place for Lamont Jackson to begin his part of the story. The Oriental Institute's Museum, for those not familiar with it, is one of the world's great museums for the art and archaeology of the ancient Near East. The gigantic Assyrian Bull, before which Jerry Lukacs and Lamont meet in Part I, is worth the price of admission alone. And, over the years, Eric has purchased for his wife Lucille any number of fine items of jewelry from the Institute's excellent gift shop, the Suq.
The Regenstein Library, especially its Entry Control Supervisor Mark Davis, who very kindly provided Eric with a day pass so that he could study the exact location where the Krim pyramid materializes.
Lieutenant James F. Stasik, watch commander for the University of Chicago Police Department, who took the time from a busy day to explain their procedures to Eric.
Various departments at the University of Chicago, including the Department of Ecology and Evolution, High Energy Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics Center, Enrico Fermi Institute and the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research. Special thanks are due to Professor Nien-chu C. Yang.
Finally, the management of the Luxor hotel and casino, especially their publicist Paul Speirs. When Eric visited Las Vegas and the Luxor, in order to get a good picture of the setting at the end of the novel, Paul was very friendly and helpful.
On the subject of nuclear devices and science in general, Conrad Chu once again came to this poor biologist's rescue. He also crystallized into words an opinion I have long held, which forms an intrinsic part of this book. I quote: "In the face of an unknown, governments have been known to act irrationally. If this unknown scares them, then the government's reactions have tended to be even more irrational and often uncharacteristically destructive without regard for the consequences. As long as the people in charge have little respect for science, scientists or engineers, I can image all sorts of stupidity, including the use of nuclear weapons and even biological attacks under the guise of `trying to accomplish something.' "
Scary, but in my opinion very true.
Dave Freer
Eshowe
KwaZulu-Natal
South Africa
APPENDIX
Note: Mythology is by its very nature a vague and contentious subject. This book is no way intended to be a serious study of it. Myths often appear in various guises and opinions differ widely. Actually, even spellings differ widely. Those myths or mythological characters described in this appendix are simply the versions used in what was intended to be a lighthearted adventure novel. This is by no means an exhaustive or detailed listing, and we have often simply taken one form of an enormous number of myths.
Hellenic and Pre-Hellenic:
Aeëtes: Medea's father. A magician and king of Colchis, son of Helios.
Aeolus: The Ruler of the Winds. He gave Odysseus the windsack in which all the inclement winds were contained. Supposedly, Odysseus' men opened the bag because they were curious at the contents which they supposed to be rich treasures. So, at least, Odysseus later claimed—as always, blaming others for his misfortunes. (See Odysseus, below.)
Apollo: Greek god. Young, handsome and "insanely arrogant" (Homeric hymn).
Arachne: Daughter of Idmon of Colophon (a city in Lydia), a weaver of great renown, who had a run-in with Athena. In the weaving competition between them, Arachne wove as her theme the philandering and sordid tricks of the gods. Her weaving was flawless. Athena—with the justice, generosity, and nobility of spirit which was characteristic of the Olympians—tore the work in shreds, destroyed the loom and turned Arachne into a spider, doomed to weave forever and draw her thread from her own body.
Argonautica: The quest for the golden fleece in which Jason meets and later marries Medea. See Medea.
Ares: The god of war.
Athena: Warrior goddess, and perhaps the champion sore loser in all of mythology. She took the side of the Achaeans against the Trojans because she lost a beauty contest. As usual with the Hellenic deities, a mortal took the blame for the ensuing carnage—Helen. In much the same manner, Arachne was turned into a spider because Athena lost the weaving contest. She was particularly disgruntled, according to some versions of the legend, because Arachne's weaving was not only superior in form but in content: the insolent girl had the nerve to accurately depict the sins of the gods—which were legion.
Circe: The sorceress from the Odyssey. The daughter of Helios and sister to Aeëtes, and aunt to Medea. She lived on the island of Aeaea, attended by four nymphs, in a house or castle of well-built stone. In the glades around the castle roamed wild beasts: boar, wolves, leopards and lions—all apparently tame. She turned the first greedy group of Odysseus' sailors into swine. But because of the intervention of Hermes, who gave Odysseus the protective herb "moly" (possibly garlic), she failed to transform him as well.
Gaea
: "Deep-breasted Gaea" was the Earth herself.
Hades: Hades was the king of the netherworld, often also referred to as Hades. The underworld was not the equivalent of Hell for the punishment of sinners, nor was its ruler the devil.
Hecate: While the name has become associated with witch-crones, originally Hecate was an earth-goddess from Asia Minor. Hesiod makes her one of the Titans, who sided with Olympus against the giants. She was associated with the moon, spells and the dead. Through her role as an earth-goddess, she later became the goddess of spells and charms.
Helios: The sun-god—a charioteer who drove the sun across the sky.
Hera: The sister and wife of Zeus. Possibly an original matriarchal goddess who was absorbed by the invaders from the north and married off to Zeus. Saddled with an unfaithful husband, and children for whom she seems to have had no affection, it seems to have been the original miserable marriage. She plainly resented Zeus' endless sexual adventures, and spent a great deal of time being spitefully cruel to her "rivals" and their children. Zeus, a charming fellow in his own right, beat her (and her lame son Hephaestus, when he tried to aid her) and chained her up when she tried to punish him. So she confined herself to acts of vengeance against the objects of Zeus' amorous adventures, many of whom were outright rape victims.
Hermes: Envoy, herald and messenger of Zeus. Not above deception and treachery. Has winged sandals and a winged helmet.
Jason: The husband of Medea, who put her aside in order to marry Glauce, daughter of King Creon of Corinth. As Medea was not a Hellene, his oaths were not considered binding.
Lotus-eaters: People encountered by Odysseus on the coast of Libya. The lotus-fruit or cakes were reputed to have the property of making one stop remembering the past or caring about one's home, or future, and remain content to stay and browse on the lotus forever.
Medea: One of the most villainous characters described in Greek Mythology. Medea the sorceress was a princess and priestess of Hecate, living in the kingdom of Colchis (on the Black Sea, present day Georgia). She fell in love with Jason, leader of the Argonauts, and it was only with her help that Jason was able to accomplish the "impossible" tasks set by her father Aeëtes and gain the golden fleece. In return, Jason promised to marry her. According to legend, in their flight from Colchis, Medea and Jason were trapped by Absyrtus, Medea's half brother. Under the flag of truce Medea and Jason murdered Absyrtus, and subsequently delayed Aeëtes by casting the pieces behind them for the king to gather up for burial. On their route back to Hellas, Medea and Jason stopped at Aeaea, the isle of the enchantress Circe, who was Medea's aunt and sister to King Aeëtes. Circe gave them forgiveness for the blood-debt. On their return, Medea is supposed to have contrived the murder of King Pelias by his daughters (by convincing them that the aging king could be restored to youth by chopping him up and boiling him with certain herbs). After living for some time with Jason at Ephyra, and bearing him two children, Jason told her he was going to set her aside and marry Glauce, the daughter of the king of Corinth. This was perfectly permissible as she was a non-Hellene and had no rights. Medea is then supposed to have contrived the death of Glauce (with a dress of gold cloth and a coronet), accidentally killing her father too. Medea is then supposed to have killed her children and fled Corinth in a winged chariot drawn by
dragons.
In short, Medea is both the all-time Wicked Woman as well as the all-time Wronged Wife. Given that the surviving legends are Hellenic in origin, and obviously self-serving, we cheerfully decided that Medea must have been slandered and set the story straight. Oceanus: The Titan Oceanus married his sister Tethys. Father of the Oceanids and all the rivers, ruler of the waters, Homer regards him as inferior to none but Zeus. Nonetheless, the Olympians established their empire over the water under Poseidon, and Oceanus was banished to a distant retirement.
Odysseus: Known as "cunning Odysseus," the prince of Ithaca. Odysseus is frequently lauded for his resourcefulness, strength and courage—and by no one more than himself. Less well focused on, but nonetheless clearly shown in the text, is the fact that Odysseus was in poor control of his men. His ability to captain them at all is called into question firstly on a freebooting pirate raid against the Cicones, then in his men's behavior with the windsack, and finally with the killing of Helios' cattle on Thrinicia, in direct defiance of orders. Odysseus' boastfulness after his blinding of the Cyclops incurred the wrath of Poseidon. His rare captaincy insured that covering a distance of less than 500 miles took ten years; and that, of the 600 original voyagers, only one
survived.
Not surprisingly, this one was the captain, who also recounted the stories in which he appears as a hero. Everything that went wrong was entirely due to his men's folly. The year spent on Aeaea wining and dining and enjoying the sexual favors of Circe was, of course, a necessary break after spending ten years away in Troy. Later Greek and Roman authors, perhaps working on material no longer available to us, paint a far less flattering picture, showing Odysseus as a ruthless and self-serving politician. Even within the Odyssey, much is made of the need for Odysseus to return home. This is not because the kingdom requires his wise governance, or because he has been away from his wife and child for twenty years. No. It is because the suitors for his wife's hand are consuming his wealth.
Odyssey: An epic poem ascribed to Homer dealing with the return of Odysseus from the fall of Troy to his native Ithaca.
Olympians: The Olympian pantheon, a hierarchy under Zeus, comprised the twelve great gods and goddesses: Zeus himself, Poseidon, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, Apollo, Hera, Athena, Artemis, Hestia, Demeter and Aphrodite. Gods, though prone to all the moral weaknesses of the flesh (to put it mildly), had none of the physical problems. Their blood was replaced by a more fluid substance, ichor, which kept their bodies imperishable and incorruptible. Wounds—no matter how serious—would heal, and they stayed forever young. All in all, they are perhaps the perfect example of the old saw: there ain't no justice.
Pan: An ancient goaty god associated with goatherds, shepherds and flocks . . . panics and musical instruments. The Pan of Mysia in Asia Minor was Priapus . . . a phallic gentleman.
Persephone: The wife of Hades, king of the underworld. She created winter. Also called Kore, when she wasn't being wintery.
Poseidon: The Olympian sea god who replaced the Titan Oceanus. Poseidon was brother of Zeus and Hades. As well as the sea, he also had responsibility for earthquakes. He was married to blue-eyed Amphitrite, but this didn't stop his sexual adventures with other men and women for an instant. He was a vengeful, spiteful piece of work.
Prometheus: A Titan. Possibly the most attractive of Greek mythological figures, he was called variously the friend of mankind and the champion of mankind. Prometheus means "foresight." The Titan made something of a habit of getting the better of Zeus, for mankind's benefit. Zeus did not take kindly to his thefts, trickery, and raising of mankind above the animals. First, he had Pandora made and sent her to try to seduce the Titan. Prometheus refused her, but his brother Epimentheus took her in. She carried with her a gift from the gods—a vase full of all the woes of mankind. Once again bent on godlike behavior, Zeus sent a great flood to kill off mankind. Prometheus, however, had had his children construct an ark. Zeus then had the Titan chained to a pillar on Mount Caucasus, and sent his eagle to feed on Prometheus' liver every day. The Titan endured for thirty thousand years before he was freed—in the original legends, by Hercules.
Proteus: The old man of the sea. A son of Oceanus and Tethys, he lived on the island of Pharos off the Egyptian coast. The seal-shepherd had the gift of prophecy and the ability to change his shape at will.
Scylla and Charybdis: Charybdis was a terrible whirlpool which swallowed ships. Scylla was a monster with six long necks and six awful heads each with triple rows of teeth. Ships passing through the strait between them were doomed either to be swallowed by the whirlpool or lose six rowers.
Selene: Moon goddess. Various representa
tions show her with a chariot, horse, white mule or bull. The mule transported the moon.
Sirens: One of the perils faced by Odysseus was passing the Sirens, who lured sailors to their deaths with their sweet singing. Odysseus and his companions survived this, by them tying him to the mast and having their ears stopped with wax. The early descriptions are of half bird/half women, sitting in a green field piled with human bones.
Sphinx: The Greek sphinx was depicted with the head and chest of a woman, enormous eagle wings and the body of a lion. Associated with combat and death. The most famous Greek sphinx was the Theban sphinx, renowned for her riddling and eating of travelers.
Tempe: The valley between Mt. Ossa and Mt. Olympus.
Thrinicia: An island on which the sun-god Helios kept his cattle. After surviving Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus and his crew made landfall here. Despite warnings from Circe and Teiresias, when they were trapped there by stormy weather his crew slaughtered some of the cattle of Helios. As a punishment the black ship was sunk and all but Odysseus lost their lives.
Throttler: The name of the Theban sphinx.
Teiresias: The blind seer of Thebes, whose spirit Odysseus went to consult in Hades.
Titans: The children of Uranus and Gaea who held sway before the Olympians. Godlike, there is no record of them being worshiped. To the contrary, they seem to have encouraged egalitarian behavior. The Titans took up arms against the Olympians, but were defeated and banished with few exceptions.
Triton: Son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, he had the head, shoulders and arms of a man and the scales and fins of a fish. He rode a chariot pulled by crayfish-clawed horses. He was renowned for frightening giants with the sounds he made by blowing his conch—a shell adapted to be a very crude and noisy trumpet. Also marine genii of similar appearance.
Tyche: The goddess of chance. Her attribute is abundance, and she is the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. One is prompted to wonder if this is why fishing and luck should go hand in hand.