The locals hadn’t exactly rushed up to the Mycenaean raider. Still, they hadn’t run away yet either. And some fresh food and a chance to stretch their legs on a surface that didn’t move would be good.
* * *
Odysseus watched them go ashore with satisfaction. The dragons were gone. And the fools hadn’t even made them take the oars out of the leather slings. He slipped the folding boarding pike out from under the rowing benches. “Pass it down. Cut that rope and we’ll be away from here. It’s a pity that they’ve taken their bags, but tonight we’ll slip in when they think we’ve gone. Cut their throats. Best thing to do with sorcerers. Anyway, we can pick up a few good slaves from among the locals. Also we have this chain! Did you ever see such a magnificent piece of workmanship. Worth a king’s ransom.”
The leather hawser didn’t last long. “Right. Push her off quietly. Then churn the water, boys. We’ll get free of the chain once we’re well clear.”
* * *
The splashing made Jerry look back. “Look! Odysseus and his gang are taking off!”
“How sad,” said Medea, looking anything but.
“Oh dear. They’re still chained,” said Liz cheerfully.
* * *
Odysseus smiled triumphantly. “Right, men! All together now. A-one, a-two, three! I felt it move! Again! A-one, a-two, THREE!”
Odysseus’ crew fell over each other as the chain’s attachment came free. The crew cheered.
“Pull it through the leg loops.”
“Come on, move it up!”
Odysseus had already climbed onto the stern railings. “Hear me, you Americans—and you, evil sorceress of Colchis. I, the wily Odysseus, the son of Laertes, Sacker of Cities, Conqueror of the Cyclops, the Symplegades, the Sirens, and even the mighty Tritons, have outwitted you! I have stolen your great chain! I gloat!”
“Here, Odysseus.” Eurylochus handed him the chain end. “Get it through your legs. We need to set a course to lie up in those reeds till tonight.”
“What’s this on the end of the rope?” Odysseus looked at the large wooden plug with a loop of hammered brass set into it.
Eurylochus shrugged. “Whatever it was tied to. . . . ” His eyes went wide. Water was already flooding up between the rowing benches.
He grabbed Odysseus by the throat. “VERY wily Odysseus!” he hissed.
* * *
From across almost seven hundred yards of water, the party of snatchees heard the taunts of Odysseus. And then saw the black ship being frantically rowed towards a mudbank. It didn’t look like the Achaeans were going to make it.
“I think he’s just pulled the chain,” said Jerry with a straight face.
“Do you think he’s feeling flushed with pride?” asked Lamont.
Liz groaned. Still, it had been worth going swimming in the dark.
“It is his own fault. Fancy referring to me as ‘American.’ Pah. He was totally lacking . . . ”
As Mac scowled at Henri . . . the view blurred.
It wasn’t just the wind escaping from the windsack either.
* * *
Egypt! The Thunderer was just so lazy! He was the only one of the gods who had interfered much in Egypt. And that had been in the fight against the Titans. But right now Zeus was more concerned with the unrest in the ranks of the Olympians than in obeying the Krim device’s commands. Well, they had put themselves into the geographical sphere of another Ur-Mythworld. Let them go there. The masters had now had word about the place the Krim device had prepared for them to play in.
It needed to eliminate the disruptive element. Let them go to Egypt. Let them rot there. The Ur-Mythworld of ancient Egypt was proving exceptionally difficult. He had Set. He had Sekmet. And he had Sebek. But that little dwarf had told the Krim probe to go fuck itself. It had been a novel idea to the sexless device. Anyway, the whole Ur-universe was only partially reanimated. A few of the primitive aliens taken by the Ur-transfer device had been put there, to help with the reanimation process. The image in their cellular memory helped. But this was all annoying in the extreme. The Krim had not encountered such independence in the Ur-universes of the other species they’d parasitized. Let the problematic unbelievers go and rot there.