The cavernous halls of the Titans on Mt. Ortherys must once have been magnificent. Now they were dusty—and crawling with spiders. Carefully, Prometheus shooed a number away before he sat on the stone seat.
"We can talk here," he said. "Not even the powers of Olympus can spy in this place."
"Besides, they're probably scared of spiders," said Cruz grumpily. Jerry realized that the sergeant hadn't had much private time together with Medea lately. And Medea's mind was on her children again.
Prometheus smiled briefly. "Now, I have asked great Oceanus to try to free Typhoeus. He is a terrible monster but the only one who has ever defeated Zeus. But we cannot rely on this. We must proceed as if we had no expectations of help. And the Olympians will not wait for us on Olympus. Soon they will sally out on Lydia, and find that we aren't there. We must act soon or not at all. . . . Why are you twisting your pretty hair like that, my dear?"
"I'm worried about my children," said Medea. The scene in that temple was still obviously upsetting her.
Prometheus smiled widely this time. "I have sent Throttler to fetch them."
"But—"
"I am called foresight, my dear," explained Prometheus. "She is much faster than the dragons and the children are light."
Medea swallowed. "But won't Throttler eat them?"
"Lamont has threatened to tell the entire world both answers if he does that," said Prometheus soothingly. "Besides, Throttler is at least half human, and female herself. She likes children."
"Right. Fried," said Jerry, but he said it very quietly.
Prometheus gestured at the shadowy halls. "They will be safe here. Or safer than anywhere else in Greece."
Cruz stretched. "Well done, Prometheus. Thank you. But do you want to know what piece of foresight I've got for you?"
Prometheus grinned. Jerry could not help but like the Titan. He was reminded of what Hesiod had said about the reign of the Titans. In those days, men and gods took food together. The Titan was not the toplofty sort.
Well, he didn't really need to be. "Tell me, Cruz. Then I will tell everyone I thought of it."
Cruz took a pull from his goblet of wine. "In any damn military operation, anything that can go wrong, will. The more complicated, the more likely to screw up. So keep it simple, and have lots of backup."
Prometheus nodded. "Wisdom, indeed! So what do you suggest?"
Cruz was rather taken aback. "I'll think about it. I'll come and talk to you in about half an hour."
"Try to leave this to the military as much as possible," said Cruz in their later private council. "Mac and I have got the experience. If need be, we can train soldiers."
Prometheus steepled his fingers. "Firstly, we cannot wait and train. The Olympians will not wait. A straightforward military assault on Olympus with two soldiers, no matter how skilled, has no chance of success. The Olympians defeated the Titans who were their equal in strength, but not in skill at war. They defeated the Giants who were both skilled at war and great in strength. As yet, the only way anyone has got the better of them has been by guile. By strength or even force of arms you will fail."
His eyes grew distant. "So: we are obliged to resort to guile. Let us look at the forces at your command. There is myself. I shall come as fast as I can, on foot from the north. But on my own I can only hope to defeat perhaps two of the Olympians. Oceanus will not come up from his watery kingdom. Remember too that the Olympians cannot be killed, although they can be hurt. Therefore they must be imprisoned. Can you think of any better way to do it than with the spiders? If Bes and I together cannot break this new weave, it will bind any of them, except perhaps Zeus."
Cruz muttered something about amateurs. Then, he sighed. "I don't see any way out of using the spiders, I give you that."
"What I'd like to do is see a way to prevent Arachne going up there," said McKenna. "Yeah. I know, Cruz. She's some kind of freak to you, but she's a nineteen-year-old girl to me. That's what she is, dammit! Not what that bitch Athena made her into."
Cruz shrugged. "I guess I'm just not crazy about spiders. But she's the only one who can control them. We need her right on the scene."
"And we need to transport about a million spiders up there. Warm. Can you think of any other way but the tube?" asked McKenna patiently.
Cruz frowned. "No."
McKenna threw out his hands. "Right. That leaves the others. Let's start with Doc. The little guy is the only one of us that really knows much about these Greek gods—except for Prometheus and Medea. Not to mention that the guy's 'magic' has saved our asses more than once. And when you think about it, he's gotten a lot tougher, too. He started this trip looking like any stiff breeze would blow him over. He looks more like whipcord now."
Cruz shrugged. "Yeah. I don't have a problem with the Doc. He reminds me of that Lagrange kid in B company. You know: the small, wiry little runt who took a lot of crap at first because the guys all figured that he'd be the one to flake out on the physical stuff. Then he turned out to be an Olympic-class gymnast."
McKenna snorted. "I was there for the sit-ups competition. So, we need the Doc. That leaves Liz, Lamont, Medea, and Bes, if you don't include the dragons and Throttler, that you want to count out. Well, you try telling 'Sir' that she's not going. Or Bes."
"Or Medea," said Cruz quietly, with a wry face. "She gets kinda determined. And that temple really upset her."
"So that leaves Lamont. He's the guy—next to you, Anibal—that I'd most like to have with me in a fight." McKenna rubbed his jaw. "I'm sure he was in the service, even if he won't talk about it. And no REMF either."
Cruz sighed. "So what else can go wrong? Besides the whole fucking plan?"
McKenna took a deep breath. "Well, to be honest, there are the parachutes."
Cruz put a hand over his eyes. "Yeah. I just love the idea of jumping using something made by a spider."
"Well, let's give it a test run," suggested McKenna.
"With a big rock. Get your girlfriend to sew us a bag."
McKenna didn't even attempt to argue over the definition of Arachne. "Okay. Then we can go on with that crossbow project."
"And what do you want me to do?" asked Prometheus with a smile.
The two paratroopers stared up at him. Way up. McKenna grinned. Cruz even managed a smile.
Liz was in a pensive mood. She sighed as she wandered through what must once have been the armory of the Titans. No wonder these guys had been outclassed by the Olympians. Their spears and arrows still had flint tips.
"What's wrong?" came a quiet voice.
She hadn't even seen Jerry there. "Hi. I was just thinking. Wondering about things."
"Nickel for your thoughts," he murmured, while fiddling with a bow three sizes too big for him.
"I reckon you'd think you'd been cheated." She smiled all the same.
"I'll take that chance."
She shrugged. "It was just that I was, well, almost enjoying this. Then I saw that town. Those children. And then, when we were talking about the assault, I realized that we could all get killed. That all this was really totally crazy. That maybe we should be out there trying to find the populace, arm them, train them. Persuade them to at least fight back. Fight an ordinary war, instead of this crazy, commando-style raid."
Jerry took a deep breath. "It's not as simple as all that. That's in part what this Krim-monster depends on: That people here at least accept the 'rightness' and the power of the gods. They won't fight. Besides, to be honest, even if we got every human in Ur-Greece, armed them, trained them, and sent them on a frontal assault on Mount Olympus . . . we would probably still lose."
"So why are you doing this, Jerry? Why are you taking part in this?"
He paused. Bit his knuckle. Then said, seriously: "For the same reason you are. Because somebody has to do it. And if I won't, how the hell can I expect Cruz and Mac to do it for me?"
She nodded. "You know, I've realized throughout this jaunt how easy it is to misjudge people. I thought you were one of these little academic arts types. Faint at the sight of blood. Ineffectual. Chicken."
Jerry grinned. "That's a pretty fair description. You just forgot about the 'scared of girls' part."
She lowered her lashes. "Even me?"
His eyes fell away. But only for a moment. "You more than the others. You're rather like my dream girl. A . . . beau ideal woman."
They stood for a few moments in silence.
"I guess I shouldn't have said that." Jerry flushed a little with embarrassment.
Liz smiled broadly. "Actually, it's pretty delightful being told you're somebody's beau ideal. Especially when you've spent your life thinking you're just a big ox and not very feminine."
Jerry smiled shyly. "Well, you got it wrong."
She stuck her tongue out. "My mother told me so. And it's like your assessment of yourself. Way out."
Jerry put his nose up in the air. "I have thirty-six years of experience with my subject matter. How dare you tell me I'm wrong?"
She smiled. "You're an idiot."
"Ah! Now I happen to agree with you about that."
Silence returned. Jerry cleared his throat. Cleared it again.
Liz laughed. "Sure, Jerry. If we get out of this alive, and ever get back to our own world—it's a date."