with her and compelled Theseus to abandon her while she slept."
He cleared his throat. "Our engineers have recreated the labyrinth and the Minotaur in all particulars," he went on. "Of course, the Minotaur does not eat meat and has the mind and manners of a well-behaved seven-year-old. As for the labyrinth, do not be afraid of getting lost. If you become disoriented, just remain still. Sensors on the walls will allow rescuers to find you anywhere. Now, follow me to the country of myth."
We rose. Pol helped his companion stand, offered her his arm. She gave no sign of being charmed. Perhaps familiarity truly bred contempt.
His muscled chest glimmered with suntan lotion. I wouldn't mind getting familiar with him. But I would have no chance. He was the wages of fortune and no doubt of natural birth.
Reserved for nats only. No artifacts need apply.
The guide led us down the automatically-lowered gangplank to the shore.
If I hadn't known Mythos had been built by an international conglomerate less than twenty years ago, I would have thought it was just another Greek isle. It looked ancient and weathered another volcanic islet. The only difference was that this one didn't show any signs of ever having been inhabited, much less of the creeping overpopulation that crowded every other isle with massed houses and unsightly high rises.
In Mythos, the white shore rose slowly to a plateau where no building glimmered. Up the white shore, we tourists went scrambling.
The first to reach the summit, I removed my light wrap and stowed it in my ever-present belt-pouch while I waited for the others. Under it I wore a sleeveless short dress, adequate after walking. Even the guide had been left behind by my trot , not surprising, considering what I'd been created to do.
The sun showed itself now, pale but warm. A heated breeze blew. The day would be a scorcher.
On the other side of the beach, at my back, green countryside stretched inland, cut here and there by groves of gnarled, twisted olive trees.
Another party of tourists walked through the middle of a field, stopping to take their tiny cameras to their eyes and snap holos of the view.
The rest of our group finally joined me, one by one and two by two. The guide came first, and accosted me with a buoyant, "You're a fast walker."
Then he looked at the ring on my finger and looked away, towards the approaching party. It took some people that way. As the other tourists arrived, he talked to them, instead, discussing the sea and the heat, the sand and recreated myths. But I'd ceased existing.
Pol brought up the rear, supporting his less decorative companion.
She leaned heavily on him, and no wonder, since she wore five inch stiletto heels in shiny, rock-hard dimatough. Not the most adequate shoes for walking on sand, and what could have possessed her to wear them?
I wondered how money, or even social prestige, could keep a thinking man in thrall to such a fool. Then, of course, I was assuming that Pol was a thinking manna stretch of the imagination.
Turning away from him, I concentrated on following the guide and not overtaking him as he led us on the same route the other group had followed, up a convincingly weathered narrow path and through a grove of trees.
Flawlessly sensuous nymphs danced with faultlessly goat-legged satyrs for the amusement of yet another group of tourists.
I looked away, counting my blessings. Other than exceptional strength and agility and the eidetic memory and sense of direction necessary for my erstwhile job as a courier, I had no modifications that distinguished me from natural humans.
Oh, my features might be a little too perfect, as designers would make them if they got the chance. And I wore the black ring of a freed artifact. But those didn't matter. It could have been worse. Much worse.
A hundred steps past the grove, a seven-foot-tall stone wall rose. A panel of dimatough, inexpertly made to look like wood, covered a narrow
He cleared his throat. "Our engineers have recreated the labyrinth and the Minotaur in all particulars," he went on. "Of course, the Minotaur does not eat meat and has the mind and manners of a well-behaved seven-year-old. As for the labyrinth, do not be afraid of getting lost. If you become disoriented, just remain still. Sensors on the walls will allow rescuers to find you anywhere. Now, follow me to the country of myth."
We rose. Pol helped his companion stand, offered her his arm. She gave no sign of being charmed. Perhaps familiarity truly bred contempt.
His muscled chest glimmered with suntan lotion. I wouldn't mind getting familiar with him. But I would have no chance. He was the wages of fortune and no doubt of natural birth.
Reserved for nats only. No artifacts need apply.
The guide led us down the automatically-lowered gangplank to the shore.
If I hadn't known Mythos had been built by an international conglomerate less than twenty years ago, I would have thought it was just another Greek isle. It looked ancient and weathered another volcanic islet. The only difference was that this one didn't show any signs of ever having been inhabited, much less of the creeping overpopulation that crowded every other isle with massed houses and unsightly high rises.
In Mythos, the white shore rose slowly to a plateau where no building glimmered. Up the white shore, we tourists went scrambling.
The first to reach the summit, I removed my light wrap and stowed it in my ever-present belt-pouch while I waited for the others. Under it I wore a sleeveless short dress, adequate after walking. Even the guide had been left behind by my trot , not surprising, considering what I'd been created to do.
The sun showed itself now, pale but warm. A heated breeze blew. The day would be a scorcher.
On the other side of the beach, at my back, green countryside stretched inland, cut here and there by groves of gnarled, twisted olive trees.
Another party of tourists walked through the middle of a field, stopping to take their tiny cameras to their eyes and snap holos of the view.
The rest of our group finally joined me, one by one and two by two. The guide came first, and accosted me with a buoyant, "You're a fast walker."
Then he looked at the ring on my finger and looked away, towards the approaching party. It took some people that way. As the other tourists arrived, he talked to them, instead, discussing the sea and the heat, the sand and recreated myths. But I'd ceased existing.
Pol brought up the rear, supporting his less decorative companion.
She leaned heavily on him, and no wonder, since she wore five inch stiletto heels in shiny, rock-hard dimatough. Not the most adequate shoes for walking on sand, and what could have possessed her to wear them?
I wondered how money, or even social prestige, could keep a thinking man in thrall to such a fool. Then, of course, I was assuming that Pol was a thinking manna stretch of the imagination.
Turning away from him, I concentrated on following the guide and not overtaking him as he led us on the same route the other group had followed, up a convincingly weathered narrow path and through a grove of trees.
Flawlessly sensuous nymphs danced with faultlessly goat-legged satyrs for the amusement of yet another group of tourists.
I looked away, counting my blessings. Other than exceptional strength and agility and the eidetic memory and sense of direction necessary for my erstwhile job as a courier, I had no modifications that distinguished me from natural humans.
Oh, my features might be a little too perfect, as designers would make them if they got the chance. And I wore the black ring of a freed artifact. But those didn't matter. It could have been worse. Much worse.
A hundred steps past the grove, a seven-foot-tall stone wall rose. A panel of dimatough, inexpertly made to look like wood, covered a narrow
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