Titans of Chaos

The goddess was coming. She was not so fast as I was, not so fast as her own dogs, but I could seethe winding strands of energy reaching into the past and future. I was gripped with the sick,sudden certainty that, in the same way that Mavors the Warrior could not be defeated in melee,Phoebe the Huntress could not lose her prey.

Cloud. The dogs had the internal nature of clouds. They were made out of cloud. An atmosphericphenomenon.

I could not reach escape velocity. Orbital velocity is a different thing. But...

The air should have been too thin for speech, or life, at this altitude, but the free air blanketing us,and Vanity's imposition of more Aristotelian laws of nature that did not worry about concepts likefriction and air pressure, allowed us to talk.

I put my mouth to Vanity's ear and shouted. "Call your ship!"

She yelled back, "It's a ship, not a plane!"

"Call your ship! That's an order!"

"There is no water up here!" she said in a voice of misery.

The dark world was underfoot. The pattern of city lights followed the coastlines of England and,across the channel, Normandy. A curving red line of fire defined the distant dawn to the east. Toeither side was thin stratosphere. And still the pale, blind dogs chased us. And overhead:..

The shadowy form of Quentin pointed with an ebon finger. "I see a river," he said. By some trickof his, the words were clear and close within our ears, despite the raging noise of our terribleacceleration.

Vanity's eyes followed where he pointed. There, mystical, wondrous, were the milliongem-gleaming stars of the Milky Way, a stream of light.

Silhouetted against the jeweled splendor of the Milky Way was the slender silhouette of a Greektrireme. The solemn eyes painted on the prow were looking at us.

I said, "She has to match velocities with us, because we need to remain geosynchronous above theroom. The dogs will have a chance to attack when we board. Um, everyone, if my bubble offree-willed air around us breaks when we cross to the ship, you'll get an attack of flatulence. Let itout, Chaucer-like, if you know what I mean, or else your internal organs might get damaged.

Colin! I am counting on you to kill and slay and maim like Cuchulainn, or one of those heroesfrom your ridiculous Irish epics. Once we board, Vanity looks for a secret compartment that isairtight; Colin and I saw her find a trapdoor leading into a hold, so maybe she can find apressurized cabin. And then, um, and then..."