how to kill the creature when Creon put an arrow in its throat.'
'You were afraid!' Medea said.
'I was not afraid!'
He carefully walked in a wide circle around the dragon and approached the tree. He stretched his arm out to pull down the fleece, but it would not budge. He grabbed it with both hands and pulled again. It moved a little, but still remained draped over the tree limb. With a curse, he put all his weight on it and the fleece abruptly came down. Jason fell and the golden fleece came down on top of him, pinning him to the ground. He struggled to get up, but could not move.
'Fabius! Creon! Help me!'
Delaney bent down over the fleece. 'Jesus Christ,' he said. 'It weighs a ton!' He grunted and pulled it off Jason. 'I'll be damned,' he said, looking at the fleece. 'It really is gold!'
'Yes, exquisite craftsmanship, wouldn't you say?'
Steiger spun around. 'Who said that?' The voice had spoken in English and there was something about it that was unpleasantly familiar.
A tall figure in a long, hooded cloak came out from behind one of the stone altars on the far side of the clearing. A plasma pistol was held in his right hand. With his left hand, he reached up and pulled back the hood which concealed his face. His dark complected Slavic features were handsome, marred only by the long scar that ran from beneath his left eye, across his cheekbone and down to the corner of his mouth. A thick shock of curly black hair gave him a Byronic aspect and his bright green eyes stared at them mockingly. 'Drakov!' said Andre.
'Who are you?' said Medea. 'Where did you come from?'
'That need not concern you,' Nikolai Drakov said to her in her own language.
'It concerns me!' said Jason, moving toward Drakov with his sword raised. Drakov fired a plasma charge at the ground in front of Jason. The white hot blast burst into blue flame on the rocks. Jason leaped back with a cry.
'Think twice before you raise your sword against a god, Jason of Iolchos,' Drakov told him. 'That was merely a warning. I have no wish to harm you, but if you attempt to interfere, the next ball of fire will not miss you.' He looked at the agents, smiled and switched to English. 'The same applies to the three of you, of course.'
'I should have known,' Delaney said. 'I should have known we'd be running into you again.'
'Yes, we do meet in the oddest places, don't we, Mr. Delaney?' Drakov said. 'By the way, allow me to convey my belated condolences on the death of Lt. Col. Priest. He was a worthy adversary. A pity I was cheated of my chance to kill him. However, I see his place has been taken by my old friend Martingale. Or is it Sharif Khan? Tell me, am I allowed to know your real name or will you present me with yet another alias?'
'It's Steiger. Col. Creed Steiger.' Drakov smiled. 'All the time we've known each other and we're only now being properly introduced. It's fortunate I let you live when I had you at my mercy in the Khyber Pass. If I hadn't, I never would have known whom I had killed.'
'A situation you're finally going to remedy, I suppose,' said Steiger.
'What, kill you, you mean? Indeed, not. It would upset my plans somewhat if I were to kill you now. Besides, it wouldn't be very sporting with you three armed only with those primitive weapons and dressed in those silly skirts, although the costume looks most becoming on you, Miss Cross. No, your lives are safe enough,' said Drakov. 'At least for the time being.'
'What's this all about, Nikolai?' said Steiger. 'What the hell are you doing here?'
'Conducting a rather interesting experiment,' said Drakov, 'of which you three have been an integral part. When I sent the centaur through the confluence, I had an idea you three would be the ones to come. Of course, it didn't have to be you, but I'm rather pleased it was. It's made it all a great deal more amusing.'
'So it was a plot to draw us here right from the start,' said Delaney. 'But why? What do they hope to gain that could be worth the chances they're taking?'
'By 'they,' I assume you mean your counterparts in this timeline, the Special Operations Group,' said Drakov. 'The S.O.G. has not been entirely responsible for what you've seen. In fact, they will think you were responsible, which is not surprising as I have gone to a good deal of trouble to encourage them in this belief.'
'Whose side are you on?' asked Delaney.
'My own, of course. Admittedly, I was forced into collaboration with the Special Operations Group when I first stumbled into this timeline, but I have managed to improve my situation considerably since then. I intend to finish what I started, in spite of your previous interference. Only now with two timelines vulnerable to disruption, the odds of creating multiple timestream splits have increased exponentially.'
'Now everything falls into place,' said Andre. 'Small wonder nothing about this scenario made any sense. There was a lunatic behind it.'
'You do me an injustice, Miss Cross. From my point of view, it makes a great deal of sense. I have succeeded in playing both ends against the middle and in doing so I have managed to develop my plan sufficiently to escalate it into its next stage. My creatures have performed rather well, wouldn't you say?'
'Your creatures?' asked Delaney incredulously. 'Whoever made those androids had to be a genius. Somehow I don't think you qualify.'
Drakov pretended to look hurt. 'I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of me, Mr. Delaney. However, you are quite correct, in at least one sense. My creatures are indeed works of genius. I did not create them, I merely provided the necessary inspiration and the funds. In fact, you have already met the man responsible. You will recall the old blind king? He was neither very old nor was he blind. He was most anxious to see how his harpies would respond in a field situation. But you are wrong in thinking them androids. They are the products of rather unusual genetic engineering.'
'I don't believe you,' Steiger said. 'Those women at Lemons were androids. I saw the series stampings on them.'
'Prototypes, Mr. Steiger, or may I presume upon our previous relationship and call you Creed? I must say I like that name better than your others. It seems to fit you.'
'Prototypes of what?' asked Steiger.
'An entirely new form of temporal weapon,' Drakov said. 'Their creator calls them hominoids. They are genetically tailored beings made from cloned human cells and gestated in artificial wombs, then surgically and cybernetically augmented at various stages of their natural development. We use time travel to allow them to mature to the various necessary stages, then bring them back at optimal growth periods so that we may progress to the next developmental stage. They are natural beings, yet I suppose you could also call them supernatural, in a sense. Cybernetic implants make them completely programmable.
'The Lemnos women were part of a very primitive, early run of prototypes created under the auspices of the Special Operations Group. It was their intention to create an army of totally expendable temporal soldiers, but they lacked imagination. They were content merely to create an unsophisticated sub-race of humans that would have been little more than cannon fodder. They were afraid to create what could become a competitive species. I, on the other hand, offered their creator a chance to let his imagination run wild and to test his talents to their limits. What scientist could resist such an opportunity? You have seen the results being tested in the field, partially by yourselves. The Lemnos women were only the first generation. The titans were the next, followed by the harpies and the centaur. Each new generation has proved more successful than the previous one. The next generation is even more impressive.'
'And I suppose the Special Operations Group is merely going to stand by idle while you disrupt their temporal continuity with your hominoids,' said Delaney.
'No, Mr. Delaney, I don't imagine they will. However, the Special Operations Group believes that your people are responsible. They believe that a small commando strike force carried off a successful assault on their Project Infiltrator laboratory complex and captured its director, along with a substantial number of Infiltrator prototypes and genetic culture samples. They think the Temporal Intelligence Agency is now in possession of Project Infiltrator. I imagine they will probably launch a massive preventive strike against your time-line before you can bring Infiltrator hominoids of your own on line in a significant strike against them. And there we have the beauty of this little situation I have engineered.'
Drakov smiled. 'My plan has threatened your timeline with a strategic temporal strike. The only way you can prevent this strike, or at best delay it, is by helping me complete my operation here. Because if you successfully complete your mission, you will have added your disruptive influence to mine to create a significant temporal
