“And if it doesn’t?” Frede asked, with a veteran’s skepticism.
“I’ll come and get you,” I said.
She gazed into my eyes. “Who in the name of the seven levels of hell are you, Orion?”
“A soldier, just like you.”
“Dogshit you are.”
I grinned at her. “I’ve just been around longer. I know more tricks.”
“You’re not coming back to Loris with us?”
“No, I’ve got another problem to tackle,” I said.
She frowned slightly, then stepped up to me and, throwing her arms around my neck, gave me a very unmilitary kiss. “Thank you,” Frede said. “Thanks for our lives.”
I felt slightly flustered. The rest of the crew was grinning at us. I called them all to attention, then sent them back to Loris. They disappeared from the forest of Paradise as if they had never been there.
I took in a deep breath. The real test was facing me now. I translated myself to the city of the Creators.
This time I went right into the heart of the city, into its magnificent central square, bordered by temples from the highest human civilizations: a Sumerian ziggurat, a Mayan pyramid, the Parthenon in all of its original graceful beauty. The sun shone brightly through the shimmering golden energy dome that encased the Creators’ city; I could feel the breeze from the nearby sea wafting by.
They were all there, waiting for me, all of them in perfect glowing health. All of them in splendid robes, a pantheon of human physical perfection, the men handsome and grave, the women stunning and equally solemn. All except Anya.
“Where is she?”
The Golden One stepped forward, regarded me somberly.
“Where is she?” I repeated.
“All in due time, Orion. We have other matters to discuss first.”
My left hand snapped out and I seized him by the throat, pressing my thumb against his windpipe, forcing him to his knees.
“Where is Anya?” I thundered. “What have you done to her?”
The one I called Zeus snapped at me, “Release him at once!” I saw burly Ares and several of the others advancing upon me.
I tightened my grip on Aten’s throat. “Take another step and I’ll snap his neck.”
“What good would that do?” Zeus asked. “We will simply revive him.”
“You’ll copy him,” I said. “This one here will never know it. He’ll be dead.”
Aten’s eyes bulged up at me.
“Yes, I know your tricks. I know about matter transmission and the discontinuities you’ve created in the continuum. I know that you regard mortal humans as less than the dirt beneath your feet.”
“That’s not true, Orion,” said green-eyed Aphrodite. “We care for our creatures.”
I flung Aten to the ground. What was the point of killing him? They would simply make another.
But a murderous anger was surging through me. “Gods, you call yourselves? Liars! Imposters! Murderers! You’re nothing but a pack of ravening madmen.”
“You go too far,” Hera said. I remembered when she styled herself Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, the woman who engineered the assassination of her husband, Philip, king of Macedon.
Aten glared up at me with a fury in his eyes to match my own. “If you want to find your precious Anya,” he croaked, rubbing at his throat, “you will have to settle with us first.”
“What is there to settle?” I demanded. “The war is over—unless you godly murderers start it up again.”
“The war is over,” Hermes agreed, his gray eyes flicking to Zeus before he added, “We have settled our own differences; there’s no need for further fighting among the humans.”
I looked at Hermes, then at Zeus and Hera and all the others. My gaze finally returned to Aten, climbing back to his feet, glowering pure hatred at me.
“You must speak to the Old Ones for us,” he said, his voice already healing from my throttling.
“Must I?”
Zeus said, “It is important that we establish friendly relations with them. Vital.”
“Why?”
“The ultimate crisis, Orion!” said Hermes urgently. “It’s here! There’s no time to waste.”
“You can travel across time and yet you say you have no time to waste? I don’t understand.”
The Golden One almost put on his old smugly superior sneer, but Zeus spoke before he could. “We are facing a crisis that may be beyond our power to solve. No matter how we move across the continuum, all the time tracks, all the geodesies are being warped beyond control.”