The thin rosy fingers of dawn speared the morning sky and Jerry's eyelids. He groaned. He wasn't a morning person. This morning, doubly so. It had been an uncomfortable night on the foredeck of the black ship. He'd managed to convince Odysseus that there were religious reasons for them sleeping on the water—and that the Americans were incapable of stealing the ship. Their language difficulties were making an accomplished liar out of him. The goddess and the Achaean superstition helped.
Still, Odysseus wasn't that trusting. He'd insisted on putting an equal number of his men onto the afterdeck, once the ship had been relaunched. Both groups had been remarkably good at setting little booby traps to try and forestall any sneaky moves during the night. And they'd kept watch, especially after Jerry had recalled Diomedes and Odysseus' slaughter of the sleeping Thracians.
Unlike young McKenna, who still seemed to be laboring under the delusion that modern soldiering gave them the edge, Jerry knew that nearly every piece of nasty military thinking had been around for a long, long time. And whatever the Achaeans lost in physical size, they made up for in environmental and combat hardening. Every Achaean on this ship was a ten-year vet from a really nasty war.
In reality, of course, these Achaeans out of legend were not supermen either. Just, as Cruz put it, "killers." Jerry was getting to like the sergeant, even if he'd never gamble with him. He'd underrated both the man's intellect and perceptiveness.
It was obvious that Anibal Cruz didn't underrate the prowess of the Achaeans. And Jerry got the feeling that the sergeant was as tough as old boots. The others, Liz in particular, tended to underestimate them. He hoped that it wouldn't get them all killed.
Despite sheer exhaustion, Jerry hadn't slept much or well. The talk on "where the hell are we?" and "how do we get home?" had gone on in his head long after they'd all gone to bed—if you could call a piece of deck "bed."
There just were no easy answers. Only Lamont seemed to really understand Jerry's principal point: This place was achronous. The Mycenaean-age Achaeans shouldn't speak classical Greek. Mind you, there shouldn't be monsters or gods either.
It was the last one that really got to Jerry. The inner skeptic was severely troubled. He just didn't believe in ancient Greek gods. It was damned awkward that they seemed to believe in him. The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that this was somehow the product of advanced alien science. It was not just a step into the myths of yesteryear. But it was the why that really mystified him. Unfortunately—no matter what it was, it seemed to be real enough to kill them. And pain seemed real enough too. So did aches from sleeping on a hard wooden deck.
He drew from the last night's divine visitation all that he could: Tyche had said they got here by magic. Well, when it came to Greek mythological magic, your mind turned automatically to Circe. They'd decided on that the night before . . . only the idea didn't make him very comfortable. Like sleeping on the deck, or the knowledge that Odysseus was peculiarly ready to take them to see her. The only person who saw that as a good sign was that ass Salinas.
"Hi. You awake?" asked Liz
"No, I always sit up with my eyes open when I'm asleep," he snapped, his irritation and courage fueled by a total absence of any chance of coffee.
"Ooh! Another one who doesn't like starting the day without caffeine," said Liz. Her voice was dry. The rest of her wasn't. She was down to a T-shirt and skirt. Wet. The wet clothing didn't leave much to Jerry's imagination. The early morning was still chilly, although the clear sky promised that it would be a scorcher later. The chill was having a marked effect on Liz's frontage.
"You've been swimming!" he stuttered.
"No, I just perspire profusely under your hot gaze."
"Well, perspiring is obviously no substitute for coffee either," he said, his dryness matching her earlier tone.
She acknowledged a hit with a small smile. "Yeah. Without coffee and a cigarette my day doesn't start. And I haven't had either. I've only got six smokes left in that packet. I'm saving them for emergencies."
"But why go swimming in your clothes?" he asked.
"If I took them off, I thought those bloody Achaeans might join me. I wanted to wash that monster's blood off properly and I wanted to get something for breakfast." She pointed to a pile of shells at her feet. "Clams. Big, beautiful clams. Hey—I can hardly believe that this is the Med. It is just so pristine."
Jerry's knowledge of seafood was at the eaten-it-when-paid-for-by-somebody-else level. That had been presented on a restaurant plate, not dripping and au naturelle on the deck of a pentekonter.
"How do we prepare them?" he asked warily.
She shrugged, scowled and shivered. "You're asking me? I can't cook!"
It was a relief to find something she couldn't do. "Can I offer you my jacket?" he said, offering the somewhat worse for wear windbreaker.
She smiled crookedly at him. Raised an eyebrow. "And deprive you of your view?"
Jerry had been trying not to stare. But there was something very compelling about that view. He felt himself blush to the roots of his hair. "Um . . . er . . . "
She chuckled. "I'd have taken it off if it wasn't for those goons. Don't worry. I kept my coat dry. You can act the gentleman and hold your jacket up as a view-shield for the Achaeans."
Jerry decided his best move would have been to hold it in front of his own eyes.