Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

“I thought Mikalos was playing far better than he usually does,” commented Arachne.

“That wasn’t Mikalos,” chuckled Prometheus.

Jerry’s eye’s narrowed. ” . . . lest ye entertain gods unawares!”

“Indeed.” Prometheus grinned. “They love pretending to be musicians or seers. But they can never bring themselves to do it badly, the snobs. Such vanity! Now, we’ve hopefully got rid of Artemis’ owl. And I think that was Hermes. So let us plan quickly. The music will make it difficult to eavesdrop.”

McKenna nodded. “Then afterwards we can go for a little walk under the trees and repeat a few things.”

“What?” Prometheus asked, a smile teasing his face.

“What we want them to hear, of course.”

Prometheus gave a shout of laughter that almost brought the tent down. “Ha! Not only has he got hair my color, but brains like mine too! I like it.”

“Somebody has to,” said Liz dryly.

“Now. What do we have for allies? My brother Titans are lost in the void. Only Oceanus was not sent there. And Typhoeus is trapped beneath the smoking mountain.”

“Oceanus seemed well disposed,” said Jerry. “He sent Proteus to help us.”

Prometheus smiled. “Excellent. I need a river—or even a stream. The Naiads, Limnaids and Potamids owe allegiance to the river gods, the sons of Oceanus and Tethys.”

Mac shuddered. “There’s a naiad in the stream.”

Prometheus clapped. “I will stick my head in and talk to her. I think we will get Zeus to call Poseidon home to Olympus, if he’s worried enough.”

McKenna shook his head. “That naiad was quite keen on keeping me. Arachne managed to save me. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.”

The Titan chuckled. “Her kind are tricky in their own stream. But they owe me. It’s time to call the favor due. I need word taken to Oceanus.”

* * *

Two hours later, somewhat drunk, or at least apparently so, the Titan, Bes, and the snatchees held an impromptu council of war under the edge of the trees. “Well, with any luck they’ll attack us again,” Bes chuckled wickedly. “Have we ever got some nasty little surprises for them from Egypt. Destroy those pyramid-Krim utterly and turn these gods to minced meat.”

“They’re not likely to be that stupid, surely?” Jerry spoke with excessively dramatic artlessness, having spotted the large owl in the tree.

“If they won’t come to us, then we will go to them!” replied Liz loudly. Her own thespian “talents” were every bit as overdone as Jerry’s. She even shook her fist at the sky.

“But if they see the balloon, surely Zeus will just blow it out of the sky with one of his thunderbolts?” asked Medea, clapping one hand to her forehead and throwing out the other in a gesture of despair.

The method school of acting was now in full retreat. Cruz turned retreat into rout.

“I’m sure he would—except there won’t just be one balloon! Ha ha! The Olympians did us a favor and saved us time by shredding the balloon. The fools! Each shred can be reanimated by the magic of contagion into another balloon.”

His own fist-shaking was prolonged, even by the standards of professional wrestling. “We’ll launch tens of thousands of balloons! Ha ha! Which one will we be in? Who knows? Who knows? They can’t destroy them all!”

He began a little war dance. Well, not so little. “Olympus will be destroyed! Ha ha!”

Cruz’s description of the ruin of the gods went on and on and on . . .

And on and on and on . . .

“I didn’t realize he was a Wagner fan,” muttered Jerry.

* * *

The real final discussion was held over bits of paper.

“It’s insane, Mac!” Cruz looked at the diagram with disbelief.

McKenna nodded. “Yeah. Liz thought of it.”

“Does it work?”

“On the scale that we’ve been able to test it . . . yes.” McKenna didn’t explain what that scale had been.

“It’s crazy, Mac!”

“Point is, it’s something they do naturally.” McKenna spoke with a confidence he was far from feeling.

“And the ‘chutes?” asked Cruz dryly.

“Stake my life on them, Sarge!” McKenna crossed his fingers behind his back.