The big over easy

even he would stoop as low as this. I just wonder what he’s going to try next.”

“You mean he can do more?”

“He’s Guild, darling. Those guys are capable of almost anything.”

“What about Humpty? Figured out who did him in?”

“Not even close. I’m not so sure anymore that Grundy had him killed — and Spongg had more to lose than gain by Humpty’s death.”

“So who does that leave?”

Jack sighed. “An ex-girlfriend named Bessie Brooks.”

“Well,” she said, “if it helps putting it all into some perspective, Stevie’s got a new tooth.”

“Top or bottom?”

“Top.”

“Thanks,” he said, and held her tight.

“Are we interrupting anything?” said Pandora, who had just walked in the front door with Prometheus.

“No,” said Jack as Madeleine returned to the kitchen. “Where… where have you been?”

“To the flicks,” replied Pandora. “They’ve got a Lola Vavoom retrospective at the Coliseum. We saw a Lola triple bill: My Sister Used to Keep Geese, The Streets of Wooton Bassett and The Eyre Affair. Prometheus and I are big fans of Lola’s.”

Prometheus nodded agreement, and they walked into the living room.

Jack watched them go and then ran into the kitchen.

“Madeleine!” he breathed. “Pandora and Prometheus have just been to the cinema — together!”

She didn’t look up from the photo magazine she was reading. “So? She’s twenty — she can go to the pictures with whoever she wants.”

“She’s almost twenty, yes — but he’s older than her!”

“You’re eight years older than me. What’s the big deal? Maybe she prefers older men.”

“Four thousand years older?”

“If you could hear yourself! He barely looks over thirty, and he’s really nice — and think how it will improve her Greek.”

“That’s not the point!” he muttered, glancing out through the open kitchen door to make sure they weren’t listening. “He’s the lodger. I can’t have my daughter… you know, with him… sort of Titan, immortal… thing.”

Madeleine laughed, and he stared at her.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. You’re funny. Daughters grow up. They don’t stay all hair band, My Little Pony and ‘Wheels on the bus go round and round’ forever, you know.”

“I know,” he said as he calmed down a bit. “I’m a father. I worry about my daughter. That’s what fathers do.”

“Well, don’t make a fool of yourself.”

“I won’t. I’ll be very open-minded. But they’re not sitting together at dinner so they can hold hands under the table or anything.”

“Put them opposite each other, then.”

“So they can play footsy-footsy? I think not, thank you very much.”

Ben walked in reading a copy of Conspiracy Theorist.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Ben,” Jack replied, still looking out the kitchen door, where he could see Pandora laughing at something Prometheus had said. “How’s it going?”

“Welsh cattle mutilations are at an all-time high,” he muttered without looking up, “but ball-lightning incidents have dropped. Alien abductions hold pretty steady — although the aliens deny they have anything to do with them.”

“I can’t imagine Constable Ashley kidnapping anyone,” said Jack thoughtfully.

“You have an alien working for you?” asked Ben incredulously, then added with annoyance, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jack shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important.”

“Tsk!” said Ben. “Grown-ups.”

“Can I help?” asked Prometheus, who had just walked in.

“Ah. Yes… you could lay the table. I thought I’d put you at that end and Pandora at this end — ”

“Phone,” said Prometheus, a moment before it rang.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“That thing when you say something and it happens almost immediately?”

“Do I?” asked the Titan, his brow furrowing in bewilderment. “I don’t think I do. It’s your mother, by the way.”

Jack picked up the phone. It was his mother.

“You’ve done it again!”

“I did?”

“Oh, never mind. Hi, Mum, how are things?”

Jack listened while his mother prattled on at some length about the beanstalk. It was now forty feet high, and she still had no plans to get rid of it. It seemed the British Horticultural Society was sending an expert to view it on the following day. Quite a few people had made special trips to see it, and she had entertained a score or two of them, offering tea and a scone with a guided tour at five pounds a head. She had made a tidy sum and wondered whether Prometheus could come around and help out the following day.

“Yes, okay,” he said before Jack had asked him.

“So how’s the extradition fight going?” asked Madeleine as soon as they were seated and they all had some dinner in front of them.

“Okay, I think,” said Prometheus, pouring some gravy. “Zeus’ lawyers are preparing for the case. They claim my punishment was entirely just under Mount Olympus law.”

“Hardly fair, is it?” put in Pandora from the other end of the table. “Zeus is Mount Olympus law. He makes it up as he goes along.”

“Well,” continued the Titan resignedly, “they also claim that Heracles went beyond the boundaries of his jurisdiction in releasing me and that destroying the chain that bound me to the rock was technically criminal damage.”

“Three thousand years chained to a rock with your liver being picked out every night,” said Jack, shaking his head at the thought of the punishment. “Do you really think it was worth it?”

“Stealing fire and giving it to mankind? I still maintain it was the right thing to do. I also gave mankind the fear of death. Did you know that?”

They didn’t. It wasn’t generally known. It was a delicate subject that Heracles had thought was better kept quiet lest it turn mankind against his client.

“No, why did you do that?” asked Jack, pouring Prometheus and Madeleine some more wine.

“Yes, please,” said Ben.

“One’s your lot, sunshine.”

“So you could value your own life,” replied the Titan. “Before that you were under the gods’ thumbs, doing their bidding without caring if you lived or died. When you could see that life was worth living by your fear of the unknown that was death, then you could really make things happen. I gave you lot the wisdom of architecture, astronomy, mathematics, medicine and metallurgy. Look at you now. The pyramids, nuclear fusion, CAT scanners, space travel, the Internet, computers, escalators, the La-Z-Boy recliner and cable television. I get to watch 65, Walrus Street every night. If I miss an episode, it’s repeated the following evening on Channel WXZ-23-Reading. You lot truly amaze me, and yes, I think it was all very worthwhile.”