Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

And then the grumbling of the rocks making their way inward began again. Jerry knew he was screaming. By the open mouths around him the others were too. But above the tumult there was no hearing it. Fifty yards . . . Thirty yards . . . Fifteen yards . . . And the sinewy net barred their way.

There was no way that the ship could be stopped before the net. They hit it full tilt with the ram. Oars snapped. The mast didn’t, quite. It vibrated like a sapling before a gale. Nobody managed to stay upright. But before you could say “fiscal discipline,” Cruz had grabbed his entrenching tool. “Hold my feet!” he yelled at McKenna.

The ram had nearly done the job. It had snapped the main sinew. Only a few minor ones remained. Even Cruz’s strength and the entrenching tool would have been inadequate otherwise. He slashed away like a dervish as the crushing rocks came closer.

“Row!” yelled Odysseus.

Two of the Achaeans had come to help in the bow, and Jerry saw Eurylochus and an axe going over the side with Lamont clinging to one foot and an Achaean on the other.

With a shudder, the black ship slid forward. The rocks grated on the tail of the vessel, tearing half-inch-deep gouges. And then . . . they were free. Heading out for the open water. Jerry helped to haul Cruz inboard again, amid the laughter and the cheering.

“Why didn’t you just give us a feather, Dr. Liz?” chuckled Cruz. “We could have tickled its tonsils on the way past.” The stocky, wet sergeant was grinning from ear to ear.

“It’s a good thing I was here, all I gotta say,” growled Salinas.

Jerry gaped at them both, for very different reasons.

14

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.

The MP was finding this a revelation. Maybe it shouldn’t be the cops when he got out. Maybe he should go into science. Professor Tremelo was questioning Private Cline in a fashion that police practice would not have allowed. The guy wasn’t even a suspect. He was just a witness.

So far, in the process of extracting the tiniest details, Tremelo had stopped short of thumbscrews. Just short. And the professor and his team seemed to find nothing wrong with grilling people mercilessly.

Science was a lot weirder than the MP had realized, when his patrol had encountered the two soldiers who stumbled out of the Oriental Institute. The only ones who had escaped what, so far, was the alien pyramid’s biggest disappearing act. Or snatch, as the troops were starting to call it.

These science guys were kind of . . . fanatically relentless. There was a sort of overwhelming assumption of what-we’re-doing-is-right about them. These guys would walk into a no-go area and you’d assume they had a perfect right to be there just because they behaved as if they had.

The professor shook his head. “That’s by far the biggest group yet—and we still have no idea why. Other than, once again, that they were all in physical contact with each other. That seems to be the pattern when more than one person is taken.”

The tall physicist’s dark eyes became a little unfocused. “And the fact that—so far—only two of them have come back dead. That’s really atypical.”

He turned to the MP. “Corporal, I want someone from the Oriental Institute. I need to know just who these two men you ran into were, besides a ‘maintenance man’ and someone who worked on ‘comparative mythology.’ And find out if there are any results from the comparison of the bite marks on Private Dietz and the earlier victim.”

It was a bit odd being told what to do by a man whose turned-up pajama jacket collar stuck out of a lab coat, and who smelled faintly of fish. But somehow, just by the way the man calmly gave the orders, the MP obeyed unquestioningly. It must be part of the science thing. The MP resolved to look into this High Energy Physics stuff.

* * *

Miggy Tremelo was unaware of the sort of third-degree-interrogation image his team was building with the watching soldier. Not for a moment did it occur to him that the witness could possibly object to being cross-examined by five intent scientists.