Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

Jerry nodded. “If you read between the lines, Odysseus’ bunch were pretty much freebooters. And rather brutal. Actually, even in the Iliad—”

Liz interrupted his lecture on the realities of life in ancient Greece. “So, they’re a load of scumbags. Tell me something that wasn’t obvious. But what are we going to do about it, gentlemen? Fort up in the bow here, and try and hold them off with oars?”

Lamont shook his head. “Maybe Lieutenant RaRaRa has got something. Maybe we can talk our way out of this one, Jerry? Convince them that we’re messengers from their gods or something. You know all their myths.”

The mythographer shook his head. “Really, my field of expertise is the Middle East. But one thing is pretty well common knowledge: non-Hellenes were barbarians, one and all, even ones from more advanced cultures. Of course these people are not what we call ‘Greeks.’ They’re the people the later Greeks or Hellenes displaced. However, the culture seems similar.”

Liz snorted. “Yogurt’s got more culture than this lot.”

Jerry shook his head. “I don’t think this was atypical. We tend to forget that life was pretty tough for ordinary people throughout most of human history. Power got respect. Pretty little else did.” He looked at her speculatively. “Well. There is the sorceress option. Several foreign sorceresses got a fair bit of respect in Greek mythology.”

She pulled a wry face. “I haven’t turned anyone into a newt lately. Actually, I can’t even do card tricks.”

Lamont narrowed his eyes and looked at the marine biologist. “You don’t happen to smoke, do you?”

“I’m trying to cut down,” she said defensively. “It’s hard to give up on ships where the whole crew smokes.”

Jerry snapped his fingers. “Gotcha, Lamont! Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court! Can you blow smoke rings?”

Liz looked puzzled. “Huh? Yes, of course.”

“Well, Twain’s hero convinced the guys back in Arthurian legend he was a wizard by smoking. Magic is simply something that you don’t understand,” said Jerry.

She snorted. “That’d make men magic, in my book. All right. Let’s try it. It’s a stupid idea, but at least it is an idea.”

* * *

Liz fluffed the hair about her face into a wild blond cloud. The roots were going dark but Odysseus’ crew probably wouldn’t notice that. It didn’t take much effort to “Medusa” her hair. It always went like that when the salt spray got into it. She concentrated on looking regal and mysterious as she and Jerry walked calmly between the rowers to Odysseus.

Nature designs some people to look honest and trustworthy. Odysseus’ face was made for politics. It had plainly been a while since he’d bathed, and they were downwind of him. And his breath was something else again.

Liz willed herself to look imperious to the prince of Ithaca.

By the expression on Odysseus’ face . . . it wasn’t working.

Jerry began to speak. She wished like hell that she knew what he was saying.

* * *

“Noble Odysseus, our great sorceress Liz has performed an augury. If you land on the Island of Thrinicia you are surely doomed.” Jerry tried to keep a quaver out of his Greek. If only someone else could do this . . .

“Just what I was saying to Eurylochus here!” The somewhat high-pitched voice didn’t go with his princely bearing. Of all the lower forms of life Jerry had had the misfortune to have to deal with, bank managers just about topped his personal list. Jerry decided that Odysseus was natural-born bank manager material. It raised Jerry’s blood pressure. That helped.

Eurylochus didn’t place much faith in the pronouncement either. “Sorceress! If she’s a sorceress then my penis is rabbit food! She’s a peasant. Look at her skin. Even with the funny hair dye I know a peasant when I see one.”

“Not as well as you do when you feel one,” said Odysseus with an age-old gesture and a nasty chuckle.

“Time to start smoking,” said Jerry, out of the corner of his mouth. Then he drew himself up and did his best attempt at a snap. It sounded pathetic to him. “My mistress will grow angry! We appeared on your ship by magic—”