Crawling Between Heaven And Earth Read Online Free PDF Page A

with.

    Instinctively, I glanced at the middle-finger of his right hand.

    In the place where an artifact had to display the red ring of his slavery or the black ring of his freedom either permanently embedded in the flesh this man wore a thin gold band. Matching ones adorned every finger of his right hand, even his thumb.

    So, this exquisite creature had been naturally born, not test-tube assembled. Would wonders never cease?

    He looked at me from beneath his artfully lowered eyelids. The corners of his lips lifted in a tentative smile.

    "Living, breathing things to see at last." The fidgety older blonde who sat next to him dug a skinny elbow into his supple muscles. She wore a long yellow silk party dress, singularly out of place. "It will be a relief, after all those dried-up stones at Knossos and all the dreadful bits of pottery in museums."

    He opened startling green-blue eyes and looked at her with the bewilderment of an innocent.

    "But Nary, if you wanted an amusement park peopled with fantastic characters, why didn't we stay in Sea York? They do have those, you know?" His voice would serve a university professor better than a gigolo.

    Which proved nothing, except that natural humans seldom lived up to their archetypes. I wasn't about to believe the demigod had paired with this woman out of love.

    His girlfriend blushed and primmed thin accordion-creased lips. She glanced at me, lifted her eyebrows at my too-regular features. Her gaze found the black ring of a freed artifact on my right hand and she relaxed.

    I was not really human. Didn't count. Not to people like her, I didn't. After all, freed artifacts, though nominal citizens, could neither marry nor vote.

    "Don't be tart, Pol," she said. "Mythos is not an amusement park. It recreates scenes from mythology. It is . . .cultural."

    Pol's perfect lips curled disdainfully. "Ah," he said. "I see. Amusement park for adults. "

    "Pol, you are not irreplaceable."

    I looked away. I didn't want to empathize with his reluctantly subservient position. True, I'd been subservient most of my life, but I hadn't chosen it as the quickest course to an easy life. I'd been born an artifact. I'd been born owned, one of a few thousand people worldwide who had been created because the unique attributes they could be given outweighed the cost of making and training them.

    Willfully abstracting my mind and gaze from the couple and stared ahead where the dark shape of an island rose out of the glimmering sea ahead of the boat.

    "Ladies and gentleman, if you please," the guide said. "Could I have your attention?"

    We swiveled our chairs to face him.

    Dapper and cool in a white linen suit, the guide graced us with a practiced smile. In Pan-America, his position would have been filled by an artifact. But not here. Though he looked just like any of the figures on a thousand classical vases, he lacked the artifact ring. "Welcome," he said.

    The self-piloted ship thumped against the shore, mooring on the white sands of the artificial isle.

    The guide gestured towards land. "Welcome to the fabulous island of Mythos, where you will see marvels to dazzle your eyes." His perfect, white teeth flashed briefly between red lips. "Our first stop is the palace of the Minotaur . . .the fabled labyrinth. For those of you not familiar with the legend, let me tell you how Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, gave birth to a monster, half-man, half-bull. This monster was confined in a labyrinth built by Daedalus. Because he ate human flesh, the city of Athens was forced to send a yearly tribute of seven maidens and seven youths. The Minotaur devoured them all, year after year, until Theseus was chosen. Theseus killed the monster with the help of Ariadne, daughter of king Minos. She gave him a sword to slay the Minotaur and a skein of magic thread with which to find his way out of the labyrinth, once he'd killed the beast. Ariadne and Theseus left together, but later Dionysus fell in love