Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

The older woman asked in a carefully artless voice. “And just whereabouts is this ‘America’?”

Cruz gestured vaguely. “It’s quite a long way to the west.”

Half an hour later they set off up the mountain, warmly dressed and certain they were heading in the right direction. That much the Colchian hill people could tell them. The Titan was up there. Up where no man ever went, but the snow lay eternal.

An errant snatch of wind brought voices up the mountain.

“And where will we go now, Mama?”

“First back to your Uncle Sebatia, Timmi. Then we are going west.”

Cruz halted. Looked guilty and all set to turn back downhill. “I didn’t mean it like that . . . ”

“Leave it,” said Lamont. “I don’t think you can explain—or that she’ll believe you.”

Liz gave a wry grin. “And in the long run you might just have planted the seed for a place not unlike the U.S.”

Cruz shook his head. “They’ll never reach America.”

Jerry shrugged. “America the continent probably doesn’t even exist in this Ur-universe. But what they may get to is a place where the rule of brute force isn’t all that there is. And if not, they’ll make one of their own. They know it is possible now. The dream exists.”

Lamont pulled a face. “And they might find the U.S. a bit of a letdown, compared to the dream.”

“Compared to this? I mean, I’m not saying the U.S. is perfect . . . ” Which, coming from Liz, was a bit rich. It would have been even funnier from Henri.

“Well, at least they have much wealth now,” said Medea.

Lamont chuckled. “A herd of killer sheep and some ponies?”

“No, the golden fleeces,” said Medea.

“They looked like bundles of sheepskins to me,” said Cruz.

She frowned. “They are sheepskins. They peg them into the stream beds to gather the heavy grains of gold.”

“That’s what a golden fleece is?” asked Jerry, fascinated.

Medea looked at him as if he were a slightly mentally deficient child. “Of course. What else?”

Cruz, with thoughts about having to support a princess and her two children, looked at Lamont. Lamont, with thoughts of the constant battle to pay rent, never mind the bills, looked at Cruz. “Oh, Lord. Gold. No wonder they thought we were crazy!”

The golden subject returned to democracy, a concept that puzzled both Bes and Medea severely, as they continued up the mountain.

Jerry finally realized the truly amazing thing about it all. He was actually talking while walking up a thirty-five-degree slope. Either Pan’s spells had some kind of bio-enhancement effect, or he was getting fit.

42

La Mort du Francais.

The three medics in the patrol had had four partially and brutally dismembered bodies that morning so far. The guy with the goatee and singed moustache was at least still in one piece, even if some of his clothing was on fire. The medics had rolled him, smothered the flames and started with cardiac massage and mouth-to-mouth within ten seconds. The third one was already sprinting for the nearest outpost. A chopper pilot with scant regard for his personal safety saw to it that Henri Lenoir received his second massive electrical shock for the day, within four minutes. This one started the heart beating erratically instead of stopping it.

It was only later when the nurses in intensive care were removing Henri’s clothes, something he would have far preferred to be conscious for, that someone found the notes in his top pocket.

When Miggy Tremelo arrived fifteen minutes later, he found out, in precise longhand, just what the largest group of survivors had been up to.

* * *

Milliken stared at the copies. “It can’t be genuine. It simply can’t.”

Miggy Tremelo pursed his lips. “It may be hallucinations, but it certainly is a genuine recital of what he experienced. There is categoric proof. Lenoir was nowhere near the large group when he was snatched. Prior to that he cannot even have seen the paratroopers. He mentions them each by name, and describes them with remarkable clarity.”

The phone rang. The hospital had, true to its word, called the moment Lenoir became conscious.