Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

She sighed again. She was getting used to the way he behaved. It was different but nice. Actually, very nice. He cared about her . . . first. Maybe that was worth more than all the rich estates he must have.

“What’s up, beautiful?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Just thinking about the future. How big are your estates and how many serfs are there to call you master back on your America?”

* * *

Cruz swallowed. She was a damn princess, according to the Doc. She obviously put him fairly high up the ladder. Well, given the way she misinterpreted the U.S. that wasn’t really surprising. But what princess would want anything to do with a lifer with years to go? Shit. Best to tell the truth, even if he wanted to lie, really badly. But he got the feeling Medea had been lied to quite enough.

“I don’t have any estates,” he said abruptly. “And there are no serfs in the U.S. Not officially, anyway.”

Medea looked dumbfounded. “But—you carry arms. You are a warrior.”

“I’m a soldier, yes.” He floundered, mostly at the hurt in her eyes.

“But . . . but . . . all the cunningly wrought metal, the fine-woven cloth . . . ”

“Belong to Uncle Sam,” said Cruz, determined to leave no stone unturned in his attempt to bury himself.

Medea smiled dazzlingly. Cruz felt himself melt. She twined her fingers in his. “Ah. Then we will kill this wicked uncle together. He must have usurped your lands and even your throne, no?”

Anibal Cruz began to realize that being eaten by crocodiles might just have been the soft option compared to taking Medea back home. “No. It, um . . . doesn’t quite work like that.”

39

Besida spida.

The catamaran dragon balloon drifted off towards the horizon. McKenna sighed. He’d hoped that Lamont would stay. But the sphinx had made it very clear that her pact was with Lamont Jackson. Where he went, she did too. And while the sphinx did little more than steer, when the wind was helping the twin-dragon dirigibles along, they’d need more help if the wind turned against them. Mac found it scary to be on his own, except for Henri. And the Frenchman sounded like he might be leaving this world by coffin soon.

“Well,” he said to Arachne. “We’d better get down and get to work.”

“And what work do you intend to do?” Her voice was curiously neutral.

“Whatever needs doing,” McKenna grinned. “I can turn my hand to anything. Hey, I mean back at Circe’s castle I ended up being chief helper to the cooks. Otherwise I’m real good for heavy lifting. I want to make a still, to sort this varnish out. But you tell me . . . I do it.”

“You’re a very odd sort of aristocrat,” Arachne said, sounding impressed. “Or is this the way of the princes and nobles of this America?”

“Well,” said McKenna dryly. “There aren’t any princes and nobles in the U.S. of A.”

Arachne stopped dead. “Your home is a Timocracy, too?”

“Er. We’re a democracy,” he said.

“What’s that? Rule by the people?” She seemed amused by the concept.

McKenna was mildly offended. “Yeah. Pretty much. Look, it originated here in ancient Greece.”

She shook her head. “Well, I never heard of it!”

What was it that Doc had said—democracy was about the fifth century b.c.?

“What year is this?” he asked.

Her answer simply confused him further. “Look. I think the reason you haven’t heard about it, is, well, it may not have happened yet. Doc said that Odysseus was long before democracy. You see . . . we’re sort of from your future,” he said, expecting more bemusement.

She was silent for a while. And then she truly amazed him. “Well, well, well . . . that has a lot of commercial possibilities. You and I could become very rich. I know how things do work here now and you know what things will work. Like this balloon. I wondered where the idea had come from. It’s got a lot of possibilities for the Timocracy of Colophon.”

“What’s a Timocracy then? Rule by the timid?” he asked with a grin.