CLEOPATRA 7.2

ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

CLEOPATRA 7.2

Copyright © 2004 by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Text design by Kristin del Rosario.

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First edition; December 2004

ISBN: 0-441-01206-X

This title has been registered with the Library of Congress.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For my mother,

Betty Scarborough,

with love and thanks

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Lea Day for inspiration and the use of books from the huge Egyptian section of her personal library, as well as for scouring Powell's City of Books for me for specific references. I would also like to thank Dusti Day for excavating her guest room so that I had a place to stay when I visited Portland on research trips. To Rick Reaser and Andy Taylor, as usual, I owe many thanks for the food for thought and the food on their table and for suggestions and advice on the story. Robert and Sheryl Bronsink and Beverly Berggren have my undying gratitude for coming to my house one day when I had been stuck for a month or two and sitting in my living room and letting me read more than two hundred pages aloud to them with only pizza and pop to sustain us. Dr. Susan Wilson, as she was during the writing of Channeling Cleopatra, was tremendously helpful with practical details about Egypt and Egyptians. Eileen Claire was again generous with her personal recollections of Alexandria and her many photographs and maps. And I would very much like to thank my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, and my editor, Ginjer Buchanan, for their support. Most especially I would like to thank the copy editors, Bob and Sara Schwager, for their considerable contribution to the process of making the manuscript into a book.

CLEOPATRA 7.2

PROLOGUE

The Book of Cleopatra's Reawakening

Herein do I, Cleopatra Philopater, Queen of Upper and

Lower Egypt, the seventh Cleopatra of the ruling house of Ptolemy, set down the circumstances pertaining to the discovery of my tomb. This I do at the behest of my soul's companion in this life, Leda Hubbard, who asks it so that a play may be made of it and the story told to all the world thereby. For this we are to be endowed with, if not a queen's ransom, at least the price of a modest palace.

To begin with, I was awakened from the dead.

This was done by means of a magic uncommonly known even in these years of miraculous happenings. Quite simply, a portion of my body still connected to my ba, or body spirit, was used to connect my ba to another body, that of Leda Hubbard, a woman of low birth but high intellect. This magic is called a blending. Leda and I first blended as we dreamed. I learned that she, like myself, grieved for her father and had suffered betrayal. I knew of her love of books and words, her search for knowledge. But I also knew, even as she slept, that we were in immediate mortal danger. We awakened to our peril aboard a ship owned by our enemy.

With the aid of Leda's allies and our combined strengths, we prevailed and vanquished our enemy.

When we were safely ashore in what had once been my beloved Alexandria, I began to understand that, although I once more breathed and tasted, saw and smelled, was able to touch and to feel touch, the life I had ended with the cobra would in no way continue. No longer would I be concerned with the fate of the Egypt I knew, for it was either gone or buried beneath many generations of sand and captivity.

Octavian, who continued his dominion of both my lands and his as Augustus Caesar, this viper who murdered Caesar's own son, my Caesarian, is dead. That Marc Antony is lost I knew before my own death. His son, my Alexander Helios, was murdered like his half brother by Octavian. My other children, Selene and Ptolemy Philadelphus, were banished from Egypt and died in foreign lands without the benefit of an Egyptian burial. Thus I had no hope that they might enter into this afterlife as I have with the aid of that odd little magician, Chimera.

Alas, Leda's body is not capable of childbearing so there will be no more children for me, even if there are in this new age men worthy of fathering them. All that I loved, all that I lived for, is gone. Thus is my life ended, and so it begins again, without husband or children, title or lands or wealth of any consequence, great beauty or great power.

Still, Leda's loyalties are as strong as my own, and I find some comfort that the people whose fates concern her do seem to be worthwhile.

However, she has not been a queen and was not reared believing she was born to greatness. Her goals are as modest as her means, and this I must change.

We made a beginning by changing history as Leda's contemporaries have known it. We had no tension within us at this time, for our thoughts and longings were in unison. Both of us wished to revisit my tomb and learn what remained.

I imagined I would be able to go straight to it. During my lifetime, I had visited it clandestinely for years, secreting the most precious of the scrolls I saved from the burning of the great library. Later, when Antony gifted me with scrolls looted from the library in Pergamum, I had them copied and personally deposited the originals in the vaults within my second tomb.

Why a second tomb? Leda asked. But she answered her own question almost immediately. Grave robbers, of course, were the first reason I chose to have a secret place of interment as well as my public mausoleum. Anyone who has strolled through the marketplace has beheld the property that was supposed to be taken into the afterlife with long-dead pharaohs and other people of substance. Their tombs were built more for grandeur than for security. Looters broke in and stole their funeral goods and dismembered the mummies so carefully and expensively laid to "eternal" rest. I value my privacy and my dignity far too much to allow that to happen to me.

So, though no one knew but myself and one old childhood friend who became my most trusted priest, there was concealed within my mausoleum an underground passageway.

I have now watched many films and read many books and articles that claim to be about my life. Some of them say that I am a traitorous and disloyal person. They base their evaluation on the evidence that I had my brothers and sisters killed, disregarding the fact that my beloved sibs would have done the same for me had I not, as Leda says, "beat them to it." The truth is that I have always been a very loyal person and a true friend to those who do not try to murder me or betray me.

And Anoubus was always, if unobtrusively, loyal to me. He understood my true nature. I wonder what became of him under Octavian?

Ah well. Anoubus and I discovered the passageway and the tomb when we were children of perhaps eight and six years. It was within the palace quarter, naturally, or I would not have been allowed there. We found it while playing in a disused part of the harem. Father did not keep as many concubines and wives as his forebears, perhaps because he loved wine and song far better than he loved women, with the possible exception of me.

The passageway was exciting for us, a secret to be shared, but even more exciting was the tomb at the end of it. I knew in my heart it had been one of the early tombs of my own ancestor, Alexander. Of course, it was empty then, but by the light of our lamps the marble walls still gleamed, and the spaciousness of the rooms rivaled that of my father's own private chambers. We scuffed away the sand to reveal a fine mosaic on the floor, the colors of its tiles bright even by our flickering lights.

Throughout my childhood, I escaped there often from my older sister, who hated me because Father preferred me, and my brothers. When I thought of it, I held my breath, fearing that some new building project would clear the entrance to my private haven, but this did not happen. When I assumed the throne, I myself cleared the area and had my mausoleum built over it, under the supervision of my friend.

As intimately as I had known it, when Leda and I tried to find it again, I doubted we ever would. My beautiful white-columned city, with its wide streets and its great monuments, might never have been. Now it lies buried beneath tall and ugly buildings, short and ugly buildings, and the streets are filled with noisy machinery, tearing along at speed far greater than that of any chariot or natural animal I have ever seen in all the life I knew before I awakened with Leda.

I knew approximately where the palace quarter had been only from the shoreline of the Eastern Harbor, and even this was much altered. Leda and I pored over maps from many time periods. None was more than someone's guess at the layout of the city of my birth, my youth, my reign, the city I gave to Caesar and to Antony, the city whose people, treasures, institutions, customs, and monuments I protected with every skill and wit I possess.

Leda showed me the artifacts retrieved from the harbor when it had been drained for excavation. Soon the sponsors of this excavation and the current government will attempt to reconstruct the shoreline as I knew it, to rebuild some semblance of my palace and the monuments of the time. This will be done not to house a new pharaoh or even a president, but for foreign visitors called tourists. It is a worthy project and I approve of it and mean to have Leda and myself consulting so that we may instruct the builders on the correct installation of each feature and structure.

But I digress. We examined these artifacts, most of which were large chunks of stone that were mere suggestions of the intricately carved and colored statuary and columns, building blocks and fountains that had once adorned my home. These items, more than any other thing, including the monstrous modern city, made clear to me how much time has passed since last I walked these streets. Not that I can walk them now without risk of being crushed by one of the speeding conveyances.

I saw a blunted and waterworn statue of myself I had commissioned as a gift for what we hoped would be Caesar's coronation. The cheeks were pitted, the tip of the nose and part of the chin chipped off. The details of hair and crown, clothing and jewels were mostly lost, however. It looked, it was, thousands of years old. Many pieces of the colossal statues of my Ptolemy ancestors whose images had lined the harbor and stood sentinel beside the great Pharos Lighthouse hulked among the cases and explanatory plaques. The bones of my past.

They saddened me, caused me to shudder. Though I had coolly faced the enemies who were my kin and the enemy who was the death of my family, as well as the cobra who was my ultimate deliverer, I was shaken with disorientation, with vertigo. How strange it was to be there viewing the scene of my former life as if from the wrong end of a telescope that saw through the distance of time rather than space.

Even so, another part of me, the part my father had trained in the ways of all of the pharaohs and satraps before us, was reading the plaques. I mentally restored and replaced the objects to their original installations. Seeing where they had been found from the maps and plaques, I calculated how far they might have tumbled during the mighty earthquakes that were my city's ultimate conquerors.

Leda showed me where she found one of my canopic jars. It had arisen from the seabed like Aphrodite from the sea following an earthquake. The simile is not inapt, as the discovery of this jar was responsible for my rebirth.

We spent many days and nights, accompanied by Gabriella, Dr. Gabriella Faruk, a close friend of Leda's and the director of Antiquities for the Biblioteca Alexandrina, poring over old books and records stored in the new library. At last I identified the area where I had once lived and approximated the place where I caused my mausoleum to be built. Using miraculous tools available to us through Leda's employers at Nucor, we located the site on a block of land containing a European-style hotel. Wolfe, who is to Nucor what we would have called a king, quietly purchased the building. We did not tear it down, but excavated the basement from within its walls.

Although Nucor (now calling themselves Helix) brought in their own teams to dig under our direction with the borrowed authority of Gabriella's position, it took every ounce of royal command I could pour through Leda to make those people disregard possible damage to the extant walls and floor of my mausoleum. I insisted they use whatever was necessary to remove the floor of the basement. "Jackhammers," Leda said. "Use jackhammers."

By the artificial floodlights and the muted roar of the generator, I goaded these on with a promise of the real treasures beyond. It went against all of their training, this I knew from Leda's inner wincing, but I was as relentless in this as I once had been in gaining Caesar's attention and regaining my throne. The building's walls in this section retained the heat, and it was close, the air stagnant and still.

Perspiration poured from us all. Leda's heavy hair was soaked through, and salty sweat poured into her eyes and dripped from her chin. Everyone stank like rutting goats. I thought of bringing incense to the site, but Leda tells me we are allergic to perfume.

When the jackhammers started, we were all forced to wear masks or choke on the dust.

All the time we worked, I feared we would never find it, that the passageway might have totally collapsed, the entrance lost for all time. I feared that all of my treasures, despite the careful preparations surrounding their storage, had been damaged by earthquake or water.

I prowled the mosaic floor of my death house like a caged leopard, although we were tortured by the pain in Leda's arthritic knees and back. Truth be told, Leda was not always there in spirit. Other bodily ailments also infringed upon her ba, and it had to absent itself for periods of rest before forced by the intensity of her curiosity to return. That was when I first realized that at times I might be alone in the body and in sole charge thereof.

Some of the excavators feared me, thought me mad. But I will tell you, of the ones who heard the rumors that it was Cleopatra Philopater's spirit seeking her last resting place, none who saw or heard me then doubted it. And at last, because it was there, where it had always been, once a broken column or two had been removed, I found it. The section of floor counterweighted to slide down into the passage when a certain sequence of tiles was pressed had not moved of its own accord.

Leda's ba was back within us when I touched the first of the tiles. Our finger could not seem to hold true to its target, so hard were we trembling with anticipation. "Let's get a grip here," Leda said. "This may not even work after all these centuries. There will probably be a lot more digging to do, because the passage is bound to be blocked, right?"

At first I feared that was the case, for though I pushed the correct sequence, I am sure, for I could never forget it, at first the floor lay static and motionless as it had since my burial. Twice more I pressed it, feeling the restlessness of the workers behind me. I felt like cursing them all for witnessing my helplessness.

'Sorry," Leda told me. "But no, we cannot have their tongues and hands cut off. They are all under nondisclosure contracts, however, on penalty of forfeiture of vast sums of cash, and Wolfe …"

'There!" I said, feeling the merest hint of a drop beneath my finger as I punched the last tile. "There."

'I think we may just need some WD-40," Leda said, and, turning to the nearest gawking digger, requested that some of the aforementioned, which seemed to be a magical potion, be obtained and brought to us. It was nothing but common oil. Olive oil would have worked as well. We squirted it from a metal can into the spaces around the tiles concerned. They drank it into them. I pressed the sequence again and nearly fell into the hole that gaped below my outstretched torso where a moment before the tiles had been.

'No actual cave-in," Leda said, after we examined the hole with an ingenious cold torch called a flashlight. Like many modern things, it is dependent upon captive lightning for its function. "At least not here."

The descent was not as gradual as it had been the last time I was aware of entering the passage. The earthquakes, no doubt, had shifted the passageway from the entrance so that we had to drop down into the earthen gap before we entered the part I remembered. It was a tunnel carved from the living stone of the earth. Many times we had to stop to dig away sand and earth to make room for us to continue. It took us two nights to clear the passage, though I had been able to traverse the passage in minutes and seek the solace of the deserted tomb, before I became its occupant.

At last we set foot on the first stair down into the antechamber. It was made of slabs of alabaster from Upper Egypt, stone much employed in my palace. Having been made for my illustrious ancestor, this portion of the tomb was Grecian in nature. As we entered the inner chambers, the flashlights illuminated the wall paintings illustrating my accomplishments and interests, my cartouche, my marriages, my children. We had to break into the next chamber, for it was sealed to protect its contents. Now two sets of two lights, each seeming brighter than Ra himself, were brought forth from above.

'No evidence of grave robbers, at least," Leda noted as we examined the seal.

I felt satisfied. My friend had chosen his confidants carefully, and apparently none had betrayed me.

The rest of the team was horrified that we would use pickaxes to break the wall, but I was not afraid of losing valuable evidence. I knew what lay beyond that wall and what was of value there.

As we finished widening the hole enough to permit us to insert a flashlight to see the interior, I gasped with dismay. The light reflected against the gleam of water on the floor. The sarcophagus appeared unaffected, but amphorae and caskets had been swept from their intended positions and settled into the shallow water covering the floor. Casting the beam so that it lit each section of the tomb, we saw that the wall paintings had been much damaged, and the ceiling bore a long, jagged gap that narrowed at the top. My canopic jars had been stored, at my direction, upon a shelf close to the ceiling. None now remained.

'The earthquakes," Leda said. "The pressure must have extruded the jar I found through all of the layers of earth. The water would have come from when the dam broke. But it looks as if the chamber resealed itself enough that the water that did get through seeped away."

'Yes, yes," I said. "But we must break into the adjoining chambers and see what damage is done there."

'Why?" Gabriella asked. "Your sarcophagus is here. Surely the mummy of Cleopatra is the most momentous item in her tomb."

'No," I told her. "There is the treasure."

'But your jewels were taken by Octavian before your death, according to historians," Gabriella said.

'Yes, that is quite true. The greedy pig would have left me naked had he not realized it would cause him more problems. The Romans did not love me, but my own people benefited by my rule. Octavian would have had difficulty controlling them had he publicly humiliated me in Egypt as he planned to do in Rome." Since I am part of a more literal "we" within the same body, I seldom use the royal "we" when speaking of myself in this incarnation. "However, jewelry was never my most valuable treasure."

Leda knew, of course. She was as excited as I was and as alarmed to see the water in my tomb. We struck the first blow to the sealed door between my body and the treasure I had caused to be collected and interred with it.

I believe some members of the archaeological team actually wept, though I could not distinguish tears from the sweat that covered us all as we broke into the chamber. To our great relief, the room did not appear to be touched by water. The vaults lining the walls were dry, and their contents appeared to be intact.

'Jars?" Pete, Leda's former lover, who was the engineer for our project, asked. "Your treasure is vaults and vaults full of jars?"

'They're really big jars," Leda said, teasing, as is her custom. "And jars hold stuff."

Pete continued to look puzzled until I reached into one of the vaults and with some effort, since the urn I chose had settled well and truly into the soft stone floor of the vault, removed it.

'Please don't break it open here," Gabriella moaned. "We have really done so much damage already."

'I just want to make sure the documents survived," I told her.

'She's right," Leda said to me privately. "With all due respect, Cleo, being as how this is your property and everything, since your death we've learned a few things about caring for these ancient things and preserving them. Wait until we can get them into a temperature-and-humidity-controlled room, and the scrolls will have a much better chance of being removed intact."

This vexed me, but since I could see that the urns remained sealed against the elements and that they appeared to be unbroken, I conceded.

Instead, I returned to the main room to inspect my sarcophagus. There, too, the seals appeared unbroken. "I suppose you'll insist that I refrain from opening my own coffin as well?" I asked Leda.

'Absolutely," she said. "Besides, I'm not sure you're going to want to see yourself in this state anyway. You won't be looking your best, you know."

I decided her argument had merit. If beholding the ruins of statues I had known in their full glory upset me, how much more would viewing the ruins of the face I had last seen in my own mirror? I was fifteen years younger than Leda when I died, and though grief and anxiety had taken its toll, I was still an attractive woman. Then. No, Leda was correct. I did not especially wish to see my mummy. At least, not yet.

So it came to pass that my unopened sarcophagus was removed to the Museum, along with the scrolls, my great treasure, preserved from the Alexandria Library and including the originals of the most important works from the library of Babylon, a gift from Antony.

All that I speak of did not occur in one night only, but events did unfold much more quickly than would have been the case had I permitted the team to dawdle and exercise the "proper fieldwork technique," they continually mourned.

Really, you would have thought it was their profession that lay dead in my tomb instead of me!

I did supervise the removal of my scrolls and the few other treasures I possessed, including my mortal shell. Working with Gabriella Faruk, I learned that it was she who had intended to house my ha before Leda took it into herself. Although Leda did not truly regret her choice to host me, she began regretting denying the benefit of my wisdom and knowledge to her friend. "If it wasn't for that little misunderstanding over her being responsible for my dad's death, I would never have blended with you to keep her from it," Leda told me. "Now it looks like we will be stuck in the basement of the museum translating your scrolls for the rest of our life because nobody else is qualified." I reminded her that my mummy had been recovered and that it would contain the necessary cellular material. Thus it came to pass that a second part of me was blended with a second woman of this time. Gabriella and my second ba within her can do the menial tasks, since Gabriella is employed to do them anyway. We will, of course, assist from time to time when it pleases us to do so.

But Egypt has grown poor. It has been conquered and ravished many times since Octavian ended my reign. The world beyond seems to have become very large. Much of it is rich beyond anything I have ever known. A poor woman past her first youth has no chance to gain ascendancy in this time.

So if we are ever to regain power in this barbaric world where royal blood has little meaning and thrones of a sort are to be had only in deference to wealth, it behooves us to acquire some. Leda has no opposition to wealth. On the contrary, she loves acquiring objects and bestowing largesse upon her friends and family members. However, she does not use riches to gain more riches. She humorously calls herself a "power weasel," but the sort of power she refers to is the power of a courtier currying favor. She has very little experience at being the person whose favor is sought.

She will learn. Fortunately, we share a sense of drama, and I can work with that. My little scenarios, as Leda calls them, won me the hearts of both Caesar and Antony and kept me on the throne of Egypt. I daresay such episodes can be useful in other areas as well.

CHAPTER 1

Cleopatra awakened to her third incarnation. Since she had been in her mausoleum when she died, she was not surprised to be there still when she revived. For the most part, it appeared as it had when last she looked upon it. The leopard skins softened the marble floors. The frescoes on the walls depicted, Egyptian style, her accomplishments and favorite occupations. The high, deep windows allowed the light to flood the floor of the anteroom. Through one of these apertures she and her handmaidens had hoisted her poor wounded Antony so she might embrace him once more before he died. And yes, there was the overturned urn that had once held the cobra that killed her. All of these items were as she recalled them.

What she did find surprising was that she now had company. Instead of the single couch upon which her look-alike handmaiden Charmion had lain, clad in Cleopatra's regal robes to deceive Octavian into burning the wrong body, there were two gold-inlaid ebony couches draped in silks and furs. Each of these contained a woman. Neither of them was Iras or Charmion, and neither was herself. This gave her pause. She viewed the scene from a detached perspective, seeming to look down, which made her think that she was her own ba, the spirit that stayed close to the body after death. However, though the setting was the same, the players were totally unfamiliar. Besides the two sleeping women, there was a small, dark-haired, black-clad person with features of an Asian cast. This person had a priestly air and tended a vertical object that appeared to be a scrying glass of a type unknown to Cleopatra.

And then came the voice, her voice and yet a voice apart, emanating both from inside her and beside her.

'Greetings, Cleopatra Philopater, Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt. Welcome to your new life."

'Who are you?" she asked.

'You know the answer to that. I am also Cleopatra Philopater, Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt," her own voice answered. "Think on it! There is one of us for Upper and one for Lower Egypt. Unfortunately, we are no longer in power."

'Ahh," Cleopatra VII, the third incarnation, said. "I was afraid of that. It was no mere nightmare, then, the death of Antony and the triumph of Octavian? I most distinctly recall the cobra's bite. Even with the ill turn our luck had taken, surely we could not have chosen for the instrument of our death the only impotent cobra in all of Egypt."

'No, the cobra bestowed its fatal blessing upon us. We died, and our subsequent burial in our secret tomb was carried out by our loyal priests as planned."

'And now we awaken? And why is it, if we are the same person, that the part of me that is you knows all of this, and the part represented by me must be enlightened?"

'I preceded you. My hostess, Leda, refers to me as Cleo 7.1 and to you as Cleo 7.2."

'She sounds impertinent. Hospitality aside, you really should have her strangled."

'That would be inconvenient since I live within her body."

'You speak in riddles. I fear that having just awakened from death, I am not as witty as usual. Could you be a bit clearer, do you suppose?"

'I will try, though once you bond with your own hostess, you will learn much more of these matters from her, as I had to learn of them from Leda. In rather a hurry, I might add.

'You may be reassured to learn that the ancient priests were partially correct. It was indeed necessary to keep our bodies at least somewhat intact, so that there would be what is now known as cellular material remaining. Although our original flesh is dead, this cellular material from the remnants of our body has made a home for our ba lo these many centuries."

'Centuries ?" Cleopatra 7.2 inquired.

'We have been hmmm, how shall I put it ? dormant for several hundreds of years. Presently it is a time of much change, many miraculous events and objects of great curiosity. Wizards, scholars, and scientists have devised the means of reviving our ba and embodying it in the flesh of our hostesses."

'If they can do all that you say, why have they split us in two?"

'Because each of us could be revived from a few of our former body's surviving cells. Since that body contained many more cells than necessary for one revival, and since there is another hostess who urgently wishes our guidance and counsel, I determined that we - you, that is - should be joined with her, and thus quickened to life. So each of us is a complete Cleopatra but within a separate hostess. Mine is called Leda Hubbard, who is not Egyptian, is not royal, is no longer young, and suffers from several complaints of the body."

'And mine?"

'Yours is young and strong, her lineage Grecian, as was ours, but also Egyptian. Though she is not descended from Alexander, royal blood of a sort flows in her veins. However, she is no queen or princess. Her royal antecedents have been deposed."

'And yet she lives? Sloppy of the usurpers."

'Indeed. Very careless. For though she has no political power, still she seeks to help some of her people. She has been trying to improve the lot of women."

'Ah, yes, the gift and curse of leadership is not easily ignored, even when it would be safer to do so. We trust she will benefit from our example and experience. It may be useful to such a person."

'Our thought exactly. You are fortunate that we have preceded you into this day to which you are awakening. We have done what we can to ease your way. At our direction, this replica of our mausoleum was prepared for your blending. Also, at my suggestion, both Leda and Gabriella accepted the necessity for sleeping draughts so that you and I might converse freely before the blending sleep begins for you."

'Most considerate of you, sister," Cleopatra 7.2 said graciously, though she wondered precisely what the blending sleep might be.

'An interesting choice of address, since we are not sisters but one and the same. Were that not so, we would not be silently conversing with our two selves as we are now. It would allow the company's priest to know that an error had been made, and the blending would not continue. However, I see that all is well, that you and I are as two aspects of the moon.

'Therefore, sleep, my other self. Dream deeply of Gabriella, and she shall dream deeply of you. Leda and I within her body await your waking."

'Who is the funny little priest?"

'That is Chimera, one Leda says is a great scientist, and who I will tell you is the wizard who has made our new lives possible. Now you must join Gabriella, and I rejoin Leda. Sleep well, twin of my spirit."

Within moments after the pharaonic welcome wagon business was completed, Leda Hubbard's sleeping draught wore off. Her inner queen tucked safely back in the royal quarters of their now mutual brain, Leda arose languorously from the faux leopard skin draped across her equally faux ebony couch. She stretched and looked around her. Gabriella was still zonked out in the blending sleep. Chimera had disappeared, but a lab tech, or at least an earnest-looking young woman in a white coat, stood vigil over the blending device.

'You going to be here for a while?" Leda asked the tech.

'Until Dr. Chimera returns."

'Okay then. Tell Chimera I'll be back but I have to go see a payroll clerk about a check."

Exiting the darkened chamber, she stepped into the simulated daylight of the corridor outside, took the lift up four floors to the old crusader castle that housed the ground-level offices, and strode toward Wolfe's office.

If he wasn't otherwise engaged, it would save time to ask him to correct the mistake that had delayed her money a good week past when it was due. Why talk to a minion when the CEO of the corporation was an old school chum? Of course, she could have e-mailed or phoned about the check before but she'd been busy. It wasn't easy being two people at once, each with a separate agenda. There was all that constant inner negotiating interfering every time she started to do something. And then she had spent several days at Gabriella's villa while trying to prepare her friend for the second blending of Cleopatra. Besides, she had known she was coming to Kefalos with Gabriella for the blending and thought it would be easier just to pick up the check in person. She hadn't spent a lot of her own money since coming to Egypt so she'd had enough to get by, but there was supposed to be a lot more than she had gotten in the most recent pay packet.

Wolfe had a new receptionist, a guy who looked up from his computer screen impatiently, as though he was the head of the company, not Wolfe.

'Can I help you?"

'Is Mr. Wolfe in?"

'He is not," he said in crisp BBC English. "You have an appointment?"

'What does it matter if he's not in?" she asked, not liking the guy's tone. "If he is in, please tell him Leda Hubbard would like a brief word with him. I think he'll see me."

'He is not," the fellow repeated. "But possibly Dr. Calliostro can make time for you." He buzzed. "Leda Hubbard popped in, wanting to speak to Mr. Wolfe." A pause, then, "Very well. Dr. Calliostro will see you."

She started to say she didn't want to see Dr. Calliostro, whoever the hell that was she wanted to see Wolfe. But she did need to clear up the pay packet thing, and, besides, she was curious. Who was Calliostro anyway? She didn't believe she'd heard that name on previous visits.

The second question that occurred to her, as Mr. BBC opened the door to Wolfe's office and motioned her in, was what was Calliostro doing in Wolfe's office?

A petite redhead with a pert nose and a dress that probably cost more than Leda was expecting in her extra-large pay packet rose and came around the desk, extending her hand.

'Ah, Dr. Hubbard! The discoverer of Cleopatra's tomb!

I am pleased to meet you at last. I was hoping you would be here for Dr. Faruk's blending, as we have a few matters to clear up."

'Her smile reminds me of my sister's," Cleopatra told Leda without an ounce of sentimentality. "You would be safer shaking hands with a crocodile."

'Oh, then you know that I haven't been paid my finder's fees yet for discovering the tomb and the DNA? Not to mention my regular check."

'Yes, of course."

'I'm relieved," Leda said. She wasn't. She could tell from the woman's tone that there was nothing to be relieved about, but she was fishing for information before she did or said anything drastic. "I should have known Wolfe, Mr. Wolfe would be thoughtful enough to let you know what to do about it in his absence."

'Not exactly," the woman said. "You see, Mr. Wolfe will not be returning to this facility. I have replaced him as director of this project while a new CEO for the parent organization is being elected by the board."

Leda strove to keep her voice level. "When did this all happen? I heard nothing about it."

'We don't normally send memos to former employees, Dr. Hubbard."

'Former?"

'Well, yes. Your employment was temporary and rather irregular at that. And while admittedly you did find the original DNA sample as you were requested to do by Dr. Chimera, you did not, in fact, deliver that DNA to us. In fact, you administered the blend to yourself, which is entirely against the stated policy of the project. Although your later contributions were certainly noteworthy, and we do appreciate the new specimen from the royal mummy, well, I'm sure you can understand our position."

'Not at all," Leda said. "Please do explain it to me."

'Why, it's simply that in blending yourself with Cleopatra's DNA, you availed yourself of a priceless company commodity that more than cancels out any wages or bonuses owed to you."

'If you'll read my report, you'll learn that I did it under extraordinary circumstances, to keep the material from falling into the wrong hands."

'You mean the late Mr. Rasmussen? I did read the reports of yours and others submitted to my office and I'm afraid I can't see your objection to acquiescing to Mr. Rasmussen's request. Both you and Dr. Chimera seem to have become extremely possessive of what is essentially corporate property. As a board member and major shareholder, Mr. Rasmussen had rather more right to the specimen than you did."

'Stop referring to me as a specimen, woman," Cleopatra said from behind Leda's clenched teeth.

'Mr. Rasmussen had kidnapped Dr. Chimera, Dr. Faruk, Mrs. Wolfe, and several other people, Miss what was your name again?"

'Doctor. It's Doctor Calliostro. Mr. Rasmussen was far too ill to have done any such thing and died during your so-called rescue. He can hardly defend himself, can he?"

'So that's what all this business about you replacing Wolfe relates to," Leda said. "Friends of Rasmussen's wanted him out as some kind of revenge."

'Oh, really, Dr. Hubbard. It doesn't take some conspiracy of Mr. Rasmussen's allies to see that this project needs new management. It is one of the most costly of our operations, but even with what we are charging for each blend, the process has not proved to be cost-effective. Therefore, dead-wood is being removed so that we can move forward."

'Deadwood meaning Wolfe and me?" Leda asked.

'No need to take it so personally. You are welcome to remain until tomorrow's flight for the mainland. Your return ticket is paid for after all. I don't believe we have further need of you at the moment, so feel free to seek other employment." "Banished?" Cleopatra asked. "We are being banished?" Leda smiled her father's vulpine smile, the one he'd used just before he cuffed a criminal. "Don't worry about us," she said, half to Calliostro and half to reassure Cleo. "After all, I'm a forensic scientist, and there's always a demand for someone who knows where the bodies are buried."

Cleopatra's third incarnation settled into the body awaiting her. The sleep was deep, though not so deep as death. Images and memories alien to her paraded through her being, and she answered each with images and memories of her own. The memories began with the most recent, the happy discovery of Cleopatra's tomb and Gabriella's part in it, Cleopatra's death by cobra, followed by Gabriella's first rescue of a woman being stoned for the crime of having been raped, countered by Cleopatra's allegiance with and love for Antony. Deeper and deeper into the past they journeyed. None of Gabriella's illegal, if noble, activities bothered Cleopatra's conscience even slightly, and to the queen's satisfaction, Gabriella understood perfectly why Cleopatra had needed to have her siblings slain. Thus it seemed that the most traumatic parts of the past had been broached without difficulty.

And then came the part where they began to awake, and the sensations of Gabriella's body flooded Cleopatra's awareness. She was young, strong, with all of her teeth and good hair, but something else, something very important to any woman, let alone one of Cleopatra's lusty inclinations, was missing. "By the gods," she groaned. "We're gelded."

All hell had broken loose by the time Leda returned to the blending chamber.

Chimera hovered near Gabriella, who moaned, whimpered, twitched, and cried to the gods in Greek, French, and an old Egyptian dialect that Cleo 7.1 refused to translate.

'What is wrong with them?" Chimera asked. He told her about the sudden change in Gabriella's demeanor and her crying out about being gelded.

'Oh, God," Leda said. Her own problems suddenly seemed a bit trivial. Not that they were. But they seemed that way compared with what her friend had lived with most of her life. "I—uh—it never occurred to me to mention to my Cleo about Gabriella's so-called circumcision. Her aunt told me about it. It's one of the kind that cuts away darn near everything that makes you enjoy being a girl, shall we say. I guess the blending triggered a flashback."

Chimera nodded, weary sadness washing over his-her-their androgynous features.

The most extreme Egyptian "circumcisions " involved subjecting young girls to genital mutilations it usually took a seasoned sadistic serial killer to invent.

'Why?" Cleopatra within Leda demanded. "Gabriella Faruk is a wealthy young woman of royal lineage, a scientist and scholar. Why was such a thing done to her? What crime did she commit? Was she a prostitute? Did she steal the husband of some powerful woman?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. Her stepfather had it done to her when she was a little girl."

"A punishment? An extreme and cruel one not even my own family ever devised."

"No, it's not supposed to be a punishment. It's a custom some of the people here still follow. It's supposed to be a precaution."

"Precaution? Against what? Having children? Do they not wish their daughters to be mothers?"

"Oh, they can still do that. They just won't enjoy any part of it until at least after the baby is born. I think the theory is that if the girl doesn't have what it takes to have fun in bed, if sex hurts her

in fact, then she won't go doing the nasty behind the backs of the menfolk. After she's married, it's supposed to keep her from straying, I guess because putting up with one guy is tough enough, why take on extra hardship? That's how it's supposed to work anyway."

'But then she is never a willing consort, never enjoys "

'Exactly. Only the guys get to enjoy it. And some of them probably get off on hurting the girls as much as they do making babies. But that's not what they say, of course. They say that the—er— operation—protects family honor. Whatever that means."

"And you did not think to mention this atrocity to me?"

'Well, we've had a few impending atrocities of our own to deal with, and frankly," Leda added with a shudder, "it hurts to even think about it and it makes me mad and we get all red in the face and our blood pressure rises, which is not good for us, so I just tried to repress it."

Gabriella's agitation dissolved into occasional sobs.

'Should we wake them?" Chimera asked.

Answering, Leda's voice took on the more formal tones of her inner Cleopatra. The queen habitually used Leda's husky lower register tuned to a melodious alto when she spoke. "No. It is very sad, but we should allow them privacy to mourn the loss. Gabriella perhaps has grown accustomed to her misfortune, even as a eunuch might, but the fresh awareness inflicted by my twin's reaction is surely painful to her. And as you heard, my other self is dismayed, to put it mildly. In our time, Rome considered us a great whore who gained power over Caesar and Antony with our wanton lustfulness. It seems none of them ever stopped to wonder if my husbands gained power over me by similar means…"

Her voice grew thick, and Leda felt her receding, retreating into her own memories.

'Ahem?" Leda said.

'Oh? Excuse me," Cleo said to Chimera, continuing. "I meant to observe only that because of Gabriella's injury, such avenues of influence will be less open, if not closed altogether, to her and to my other self." She gestured gracefully toward the adjoining couch, sighed, then added wryly, "However, we Ptolemys are not unused to having horrors visited upon us by relatives. I—she—the ba—will adapt."

Chimera was called away from the chamber and seemed relieved to go. "We are still supervising the new practitioners of the process," the scientist explained apologetically. The small body drooped slightly, frailer, thinner, and wearier than Leda ever remembered seeing it. Frazzled was the term her grandma Hubbard might have used. Losing control of the blending process was bound to be hard on Chimera. And Leda knew her friend was wondering if blending Gabriella and the second Cleopatra had been a mistake.

But before she awoke, Gabriella first settled down, then seemed to be absolutely enjoying herself. She was still moaning but in a good way.

When she opened her eyes, the younger woman wore a bemused expression, full of wonder. And some embarrassment.

Leda felt a smile playing on her own face, compliments of Cleopatra 7.1. "Aba! I believe my alter-ba has already done her hostess some good."

"Gabriella does look a little like the cat who swallowed the canary. What's that all about anyway?"

'Can you not guess?" Cleopatra asked. Suddenly Leda was swamped with an entire Louisiana bayou of emotions and sensory impressions that were almost but not quite unlike anything she'd ever experienced before.

She was delightfully tangled in an embrace in which strong arms held her tight against the muscular torso of a man who was very obviously glad to see her. She looked up into a deeply tanned, ruggedly handsome face topped by curly brown hair. Her nose was so close to his that his eyes looked crossed, but they were very pretty chocolate-drop eyes with long, curling lashes and little crinkles at the corners. She and the hunk were sharing a bawdy chuckle, never mind about what, maybe just high spirits at being together for their mutual pleasure again. Also, they were a little drunk both with wine and with each other. She was happy, happy, happy. Which was odd enough. But even odder was that she knew for certain that he loved her—cared for her in a way that was completely different from anything she'd felt before. The way he was looking at her, however blurrily, the way he held her both as if he was afraid he'd break her and as if he was afraid she'd leave told her more than words or other quite compelling physical evidence impressively pressing against her groin. He loved her. He made her feel young and free, and he saw who she really was beneath her title and her beauty, and most certainly her clothing. The thought made her all juicy and flushed, and she clung to him.

Oh my. Somewhere along the way he'd lost his armor and that cute little skirt that showed off his very nice legs. The rest of him wasn't bad either, and at least one part was truly excellent. He used his teeth to pull the pin that held her garment together. They proceeded to blend as closely as they could without the benefit of DNA technology, demonstrating their mutual passion repeatedly in a variety of highly entertaining and satisfying ways. It was so great that she was sorry she had given up smoking because she couldn't roll over and light a cigarette between rounds. She was sorrier still that cigarettes hadn't been invented yet.

Then somewhere in the midst of all the sweet sweatiness of it, the memory changed, and the sweat became blood. He was in her arms still, but dying there from the wound he'd dealt himself, like Romeo, thinking she was dead.

Leda came back to the present, bummed to be left with nothing but the ashes of a few one-night stands and the affair she thought was true love until he cheated on her. It didn't matter. She knew now what it was supposed to be like.

Gabriella's sly smile said that she did, too.

'Oh. My. God," she thought. "She's vicariously lost her cherry! All the gravy and none of the grief. That was really sweet of-—er—both of you, Cleo."

"Antony and I had a very special love. Private. Personal. Except of course from Iras and Charmion, my handmaidens, and I expect the closer friends among Antony's officers. Such passion is too overwhelming to keep entirely to oneself. We were mad for each other."

'1 can well imagine," Leda said. "You'd have been mad not to be."

'1 gather that your historians now choose to see me as a good but tragic queen, but I was really extremely fortunate that political necessity led me to bed the two men who became my great loves. Caesar was my mentor, my first love, my husband, my teacher. But Antony was—well."

'He certainly was," Leda agreed.

"But there was no reason until now to share such memories. You have your own to keep you company I know, though you have never confided in me."

"They're not much by comparison. Girl A meets boy. They get together. Boy meets Girl B, and they get together before he breaks up with Girl A. Girl A throws his faithless ass out. In other words, the sorry son of a bitch cheated on me."

"Antony cheated on me, too. He married the sister of the man who ultimately killed us."

"I guess I knew that. But you forgave him?"

"I extracted a price for the very public humiliation of his betrayal, but yes, I did. After all, the marriage was politically expedient for him, and I understood that all too well. It was easier for me to take him back because politics forced us together again. But it was the passion that kept us together until the end."

Leda sighed.

Gabriella, her smile gone, got to her feet. When she spoke it was in a voice calculated to carry through the vastness of a palace's throne room as the pharaoh delivered a proclamation, though her words sounded a little more like a formal prayer. "We give thanks for this blending that has revived our ba and renewed our life."

'Hi," Leda said. "I'm Leda. You would be the queen. I believe you've already met my uh my queen."

Gabriella grinned a charmingly impish grin that was almost the same one Leda had seen her wear before. This one had just a touch more calculation to it and a little less mischievousness. "Ah yes! Our own special tomb robber."

Chimera reentered the room and seemed pleased to see Gabriella on her feet again.

'This is Dr. Chimera," Leda said. "But I guess you knew that."

Cleo 7.2 nodded Gabriella's head graciously. "You are a very great magician from what Gabriella tells me. Despite some discourse with the part of me that dwells in Leda Hub-bard, I am at something of a loss to know why you chose to revive me in this fashion. Perhaps you were not aware of it, Doctor, but a great harm has been done to our physical vessel. Gabriella acquainted me with the circumstances of her maiming and feels that with my assistance, we may prevent future atrocities and avenge other women of our realm who have been so denied."

Chimera murmured something noncommittal. The blend had been requested by all parties concerned, including the DNA's donor, which was highly unusual. The scientist for once had not been particularly concerned with why a second sample of Cleopatra's DNA was being blended.

Cleopatra continued, using Gabriella's lower register, charmingly accented. Gabriella's own accent was rather different. "But in the meantime, there is another boon we would ask of you, Dr. Chimera."

'Yes?" Chimera said.

'We wish you to bring back Marc Antony." This request ended with a rather girlish gusto that was all Gabriella.

Leda's heart went out to her. It was sort of an occupational hazard for archaeologists, falling for people who had been dead several thousand years. Cleo's memories were not going to do anything to help.

CHAPTER 2

Chimera's head shook regretfully. "We have no sample of Marc Antony's DNA. Nor has anyone requested him for a blend."

'Perhaps Pete" Cleo suggested.

Leda quickly vetoed the nomination of her old boyfriend for Antony's new incarnation. "Not on our life. Besides, Pete's gone now. He's down near Aswan, consulting on the flood release project."

Cleo said, "Ah well, you know better than I if he would be a worthy vessel. Not every man would. Marc Antony was a lion among men and of great prowess and size."

'Besides," Leda said cautiously, feeling as if she were about to tiptoe into an emotional minefield, "the memories—the idea of the original may be a lot better than a blend. Especially because of your—uh—you know," she said to Gabriella, who had begun glaring at her.

Leda met her glare with a hopeless shrug, spreading her hands to say "hey, it's not my fault." Gabriella's shoulders slumped and she looked far less aggressive and much more doubtful than she had moments before.

'You queens may have created a monster," Leda told Cleo 7.1. "Even if there was a host who could live up to your Antony, Cleo 1.2 couldn't do much about it in Gabriella's body. At least, I don't think they could experience what was just advertised. And frankly, I'm not sure we're a whole lot better. I know this body couldn't get into some of those positions anymore."

Rather to her surprise, Cleo 7.1 agreed. Aloud she said, "Great passion of the sort Antony and I shared is perhaps easier to remember than to continue or to duplicate. We, Leda and I, look forward to future pleasures as yet unknown. To try to repeat past ones may ruin them."

'Is that the real reason, or do you fear that one Antony and two Cleopatra’s might present a dilemma?" challenged Gabriella's new guest.

Chimera had been looking from one to the other as if watching a tennis match. Now the scientist interjected, "This may not work, the blending of the same DNA with two different hosts, for a number of reasons. We consider it an experiment, and a timely one at that. Helix wishes to perform future blends more—indiscriminately—and will be anxious to learn the effects on all parties of having two hosts blend with the same entity. Other notable historical figures will have many who desire to blend with them. But we urge you to avoid rivalry over any of the past—assets—of your donor." The small Tibetan sighed. "The process is supposed to provide insight into the past and other people, not create discord."

Chimera might as well have been silent.

Gabriella's hand suddenly flew to her throat, her fingers patting the skin as if feeling for a piece of jewelry she'd lost. "Where is it? Do you have it?"

'What's that?" Leda asked.

'Our amulet containing a lock of Antony's hair and a scrap of cloth soaked in his blood from his mortal wound. We gave our priests specific instructions that the amulet must be interred with us."

'Well, that would be on your mummy, I imagine," Leda said reasonably. "Gabriella, don't you recall seeing something like that in the casket? We were lucky to be allowed to take the sampling of DNA out of the country. The other artifacts belong to the Egyptian government. They'd be with the mummy and the scrolls back at the museum in Alex."

'We must have it back so that Antony may be revived to rule at our side when we take our rightful throne once more," Gabriella's Cleo declared.

'We wish you luck, then," Leda said. "We've got a one way ticket back to the States and no severance pay. Our services are no longer needed."

But Gabriella didn't seem to hear, or if she did, to care. She had turned her attention inward and was presumably engaged in an internal dialogue.

Leda addressed her own inner queen. "Who is this blended entity anyway? Your evil twin? I thought you'd clued her in about your—our—all of our—role, or lack thereof, in your country's political structure? Any attempts on our part to take over the government of Egypt would be very much frowned upon."

"You think it was not before, when our siblings waged war against us for the crown? Mere frowns are of no consequence to us, Leda Hubbard."

'Maybe not. But you had a right to the throne then that I think would be a little hard to enforce now. Besides, I don't want to be stuck in a throne room all the time. I'm allergic to all that perfume you used to splash around. I kind of thought what with your linguistic ability and all the books that had been written since you di—since your last life—you and I could haunt the libraries of the world when you're not helping locate other sites where promising DNA samples might be obtained, such as Alexander's tomb. Speaking of which, why didn't you mention your mummy was sporting DNA-enhanced jewelry? We could have pinched it before the

government got into the act, at least long enough to liberate Marc Antony's relics."

'I forgot to mention it in all the excitement. If you will recall, our joining was completed under circumstances more distracting than these idyllic ones our other self enjoys. Our urgent concern upon awakening with you was with maintaining your status as a living host for my ba."

'I see your point," Leda agreed, recalling the life-and-death struggle for Cleopatra's DNA that had resulted in her blending with the queen herself. "You do seem to have different priorities than Cleo 7.2, though, you have to admit. She seems determined to make up for lost time."

Leda was surprised to see dawn breaking over the

Mediterranean when she, Chimera, and Gabriella emerged from the underground labs into the courtyard of the old Crusader castle. The castle crowned a volcanic crater at the center of the corporately owned Greek island of Kefalos.

Graceful white houses with blue-painted window frames and red-tiled roofs cascaded down the sides of the cinder cone to the intense blue-green horseshoe-shaped bay. Small sailing craft, several yachts, and a couple of company freighters dotted the harbor. One stretch of the white beach was paved with white-painted concrete that served as a landing strip, chopper pad, and motor pool for the Helix compound.

The air was still slightly cool with early breezes, and gulls coasted on the currents overhead.

Leda gave the vista from the citadel a last regretful look. Chimera motioned the women to board the company golf cart and drove them down to the landing strip. The place was even more of a hive of activity than it had been on Leda's previous visits. The changing of the regime was evident in the number of items being loaded onto and off of small aircraft.

When Gabriella climbed out of the golf cart, Leda followed and started to give her friend a farewell hug.

'Bye, Gabriella. Stay in touch."

'Of course," the Egyptian girl said.

'We will always be a part of each other," her voice added in huskier tones.

Leda felt an answering "yes" from within her.

With a playful bilateral air kiss Gabriella skipped away to board the chopper that would take her back to Alexandria.

Wordlessly, Chimera climbed back into the cart.

Leda cast a last look at the gangly, dark-haired figure climbing aboard the helicopter.

'I wish we were going to be around to keep an eye on those two," she told Chimera, turning away from the field and continuing toward the villa. "I'm a little worried about them."

The state of Chimera's villa announced his departure. Formerly, the rooms had been uncluttered but comfortable, elegant in a minimalist less-is-more way. Now, except for packing boxes, the whole place was virtually bare.

'I hope you didn't pack my beer yet," she said.

'No need," the scientist said. "We will not be taking the fridge." She grabbed one of the beers as Chimera opened a large white cardboard box and pulled out a tall glass. This was filled with iced tea from the pitcher that was the only companion of Leda's imported beers.

They dragged boxes out onto the piazza to sit on and another for a table. Sipping their beverages and perched on boxes, each gazed at the sea.

'So where are you going then?" Leda asked, after the beer was a third of the way gone and the nice chilly sweat on the bottle had long ago run down her arm and evaporated, so the glass was warm in her hand.

Chimera looked directly at her for the first time since they'd left the blending chamber. "We are taking a sabbatical, then returning to the lab in Norwich to do further research."

Leda said. "So how's that going to work? Calliostro told me Wolfe is gone, I gathered from the entire company and not just the project. You and he have always done the screenings and follow-up interviews when necessary, not to mention the blending."

'We have been told that we have been too restrictive in our choices, too discouraging of potential hosts and too discriminating when deciding which donor DNA to seek." Chimera gave a little wave of the hand. "And so we have trained new assistants. A team of psychologists, led by Dr. Calliostro, will be screening the clients. All of this causes us much concern, Leda."

'I can well imagine," she said. "My mind fairly reels with scenarios in which a badly handled blend could ruin the world or at least the life of the client and maybe all of their friends and relatives, too.

'We begin to fear that our happiness was bought at a very high cost to others, Leda," Chimera continued. "That is why we decided to accept the invitation of the Padma Lama and seek enlightenment in the mountains for a time."

'The Himalayas?" Leda asked.

'Oh, no. The Rockies. The Padma Lama established a monastery in Vail, Colorado, after he fled Tibet. The Himalayas are much too risky, with the Chinese government constantly harassing anyone coming into them on the Indian side."

'Well, it's good you'll have a vacation, then. I'm glad you were here for Gabriella's at least. Now she can decipher the scrolls while we go see the rest of the world. I do wonder about something though, Chimera. I only bring it up because if you're going to do more research, you may want to look into it. It seems to me that Cleo and I are more mixed than blended."

'So we've observed. Although it does seem to us that your accent and hers are sometimes mingling in each other's speech. Also, the timbre of your voices is more alike than it once was. And perhaps it is simply a sign of her growing familiarity with our times, but Her Majesty seems occasionally to employ some of the slang and occupational jargon unknown to her original time."

'Really?" Leda and her inner queen asked in the same voice but with two attitudes. Cleopatra was somewhat pleased at how quickly she was learning, though chagrined to think she might be lowering herself somewhat by adapting to Leda's distinctly plebeian ways. Leda wondered how differently others might see her and treat her if she was more queenly. It could be a good thing, provided it didn't go too far.

Chimera continued. "Some blends are completed almost at once, and with others, truthfully, we do not know if completion is even possible. It seems to depend on many variable attributes in the host as well as the traits encoded from the donor DNA. Gabriella's version of the donor noticeably varies from your own."

'She takes after the Ptolemy side of the family more than we do," Cleopatra said. "The part of us that desires power and conquest and to carry on the dynasty. It's very stimulating and exciting, you know. However, it can be tiring and leave little time for reading and recreation." She yawned, and Leda realized they were both very tired.

'We'd better turn in. Got to get up at o-dark-thirty to catch our chopper for the mainland in time to meet the flight back to Portland. It's only been a year since Daddy was killed, but the law enforcement community, after much political back and forthing, according to my brother, Rudy, who is also a cop, are finally holding a memorial service for him. Dad and Gretchen are coming of course. Daddy isn't about to miss his own funeral."

Chimera sighed. "Soon we will all be out of Dr. Calliostro's path so that she may implement the board's plans. She says she is sure that no matter what reservations Helix may have, the blending have great value."

Chimera actually made a face.

'Ewww," Leda said. "So she's going to be the one to make something of it, is she? Now that you've made the little contribution of inventing the whole process. With you and Wolfe out of the way for a while, she can probably convince everybody it was all her idea. Of course, she'll welcome you back in time to share the blame when someone hosts Hitler or Charles Manson so the company can make a profit."

'True. That is why we will be doing more extensive research on how the process can be reversed reliably at any time. We also wish to learn if we may tailor the donor DNA to blend only those parts unlikely to cause harm to the host."

Cleopatra nodded Leda's head wisely. "That must suffice, I suppose, since it seems the hosts will bear even less scrutiny than they have heretofore. I ask only that if you learn someone is blending with Octavian, you give us enough warning that we can either have the samples destroyed or strangle the host during the blending sleep."

Chimera's personal belongings were few. Some books, a week's worth of clothing, an album of wedding pictures, and a laptop computer no larger or heavier than a standard-sized notebook. The information that was too complex to store in the scientist's head, field notes, plans for the design and construction of both stationary and portable blending devices, and other data, was on computer disks stored in miniature on X-ray-proof microchips that slipped easily into a small, beaded amulet bag Chimera always wore as a pendant, concealed beneath a shirt. Since the information technically belonged to Helix, they had custody of the original hard disks and hard copy, but Chimera carried the data as well for security's sake.

The boxes sitting around the villa were Helix property, so all Chimera needed to board the copter to Athens was a single checkable bag plus a briefcase containing the computer, now loaded with games, a change of clothing, the wedding album, and a used novel to read aboard the aircraft.

The copter landed in Athens, and Chimera walked to the main terminal. The walk was invigorating. After so much time shut up in an underground lab, or with one's nose to the microscope, a cornflower blue sky padded with puffs of white cloud, fresh, if somewhat jet-fuel-scented, air, and a long, flat place to stretch the legs felt wonderful.

By the time Chimera entered the terminal, a fine sweat beaded the scientist's skin. The sensation of the air-conditioning gently evaporating the sweat to a new coolness on every exposed pore was a pleasant sensation.

The lines at the ticket counters were so long, they merged into a combed crowd of people, all shuffling and twitching and trying to sit on their luggage. Chimera thought gratefully how convenient it was that the company helicopter crew could transfer the single suitcase needed for the trip.

Oddly, it was the suitcase the scientist first spotted through the crowd instead of the people pulling it. The reason it was odd was that Chimera's suitcase was rather ordinary except for the Helix company logo stamped on both black cloth sides in scarlet-and-gold letters. If one was accustomed to looking for the logo, it was quite noticeable. But not as noticeable as the two shaven-headed maroon-clad Tibetan Buddhist monks towing it behind them, looking through the crowd until one of them met Chimera's inquiring gaze.

“Yo, Doc!” one of them called, before bowing over his steepled hands.

“Yes?” Chimera said, but was drowned out by the crowd. The monks made a beeline for the scientist, however.

'Greetings," said the monk who had not already spoken, bowing over his steepled hands. This monk spoke with a Tibetan accent much like the one Tsering and Chime had had when they came to Europe. "You are Dr. Chimera, are you not?"

'I am," Chimera said, barely remembering to use the singular among those not initiated into the secrets of the blending process. "And I must say that you are the most unusual baggage handlers I have ever encountered."

“We're not “ began the first monk, a handsome young black man. "Oh, I get it. That was a joke, huh, Doc? We're not baggage handlers. We're here on behalf of our Dorje Rimpoche, the Padma Lama."

'I am of course delighted to see you, though I had not thought to do so until I got off the airplane in Colorado."

'We're here to head you off at the pass, Doc," the African-American Tibetan monk said. "Dorje Rimpoche really wants to connect with you, but the thing is, he's not in Colorado anymore."

'No?"

'No. There was an avalanche, see, and the monastery was at the bottom of it. Three of our brothers are progressing toward their next lives as a result, but Dorje Rimpoche has settled for a more earthly journey to Dharmsala. He asked that we reroute you to join him there. He believes he can arrange for an audience with the Dalai Lama. Cool, huh?"

'I am distressed to hear of your disaster," Chimera said, also bowing over steepled hands, "but am grateful that Dorje Rimpoche survived and took such pains to see that I do not miss my chance to consult with him." Then the scientist's security-ridden recent past on Kefalos revealed itself. "I hope you won't mind showing me some identification?"

'Oh, yeah, sure," the American said, flipping out a passport with his picture in his robes, proclaiming him to be Meshaq Karim Shakabpa Jones of the Padma Monastery in Vail, Colorado.

The Tibetan monk also displayed an American passport. He was Lhamo-Dhondrub also of the Padma Monastery in Vail, Colorado.

Chimera smiled and bowed again. "Thank you for saving me a long journey in the wrong direction, brothers. I place myself in your hands." But as the scientist said this, a voice inside belonging to neither Chime nor Tsering warned that this was not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.

CHAPTER 3

Leda tried to sleep on the way home, but it was her first transatlantic flight since her blending. Cleopatra, who was well versed in mathematics and other sciences, asked a great many intelligent and difficult questions about the plane, the sky through which it traveled, and the lands and waters beneath its wings. Leda answered as best she could for the twenty hours it took to fly from Athens to Portland, counting a lengthy delay in Frankfurt because of mechanical problems. Cleopatra very badly wanted to leave the airport in Athens to explore the city. Though she, like all the Ptolemys, was Macedonian Greek by birth, she had never visited the capital of the country from which her family originated. She pressed Leda's nose to the windows leading to the parking lot as if she were a kid in a candy store, and her pleading was downright pitiful.

'Look, we have a few things to sort out, then we'll come back and take a grand tour, I promise," Leda told her.

'How can we?" Cleopatra lamented, her tones inside Leda's head throbbing with the tragedy of the lost opportunity. "We

are penniless, the powerful people we know have been deposed, and we have been banished."

'Not exactly banished, just temporarily minus the funds to return on our own," Leda said. "And things can change. They can always change."

'Yes, I know!" Cleo wailed from within her. "Queen one moment, captive the next."

'They can change for the better, too," Leda said. "For instance, you were dead for a while, and now you're alive again, sort a."

Cleo was not convinced but contented herself with asking many questions, most of which Leda responded to with, "I don't know right offhand. We'll look it up when we get home."

In Frankfurt, Cleo once more bombarded Leda with questions that required her to review mentally what she knew of the First and Second World Wars and the German economic recovery since then. She'd read a lot of military history and the subjects had been of great interest to Duke, so she'd always felt she was pretty well prepared. It was embarrassing how much she didn't know. And you couldn't bullshit someone who lived inside your own head.

She finally was able to stop the geography and history quiz long enough to place a call to her sister Rusti to tell her about the delay. "Oh, great! Your cats are driving me crazy, you have a stack of mail three miles high, and a ton of phone calls from all sorts of people. Lots of them are complaining that you haven't answered their e-mails, and some woman from an outfit in L.A. has been calling every other day wanting to know if I know when she can get a hold of you. You want her number?"

'No, I'll catch up when I get there," Leda said, feeling tired already with the catching-up she'd have to do. "Oh there, our flight's being called. We should be there in another twelve or thirteen hours or so. And we'll have to go through customs, of course."

'Don't worry," Rusti said.

She spent the rest of the flight writing down Cleo's questions as fast as she could. She dearly missed the laptop computer the company had issued her when her lab computer was lost in the recent earthquake. She had filled up her notebook, the unused pages of her address book, and the margins of every magazine on board by the time they reached Portland. Plus her hand throbbed like a sore tooth from writer's cramp.

Rusti was not at the waiting area outside the security barrier in Portland, nor was she at baggage claim. Finally, as Leda was looking for a phone (her cell phone, also company property, was history), Rusti sauntered through a distant door, her ear glued to her own cell phone.

'At least she's easy to spot," Leda said. "/ just look for someone who looks like me."

'She does indeed bear a strong family resemblance to you," Cleopatra said. "The same heavy dark hair, the same nose, a body of much the same shape. Can we trust her?"

'If it doesn't involve being on time for something, yes," Leda told her other self. "And no, we will not have her assassinated. Sheuhamuses us."

'Oh, hi, Leda, there you are!" Rusti cried, finally sticking the phone in her purse and enveloping Leda in a hug. "Good flight?"

'Not especially. Great to see you, though. How are the cats?"

Cleopatra said, "I see nothing amusing about her so far, but she seems pleasant enough. Are you quite sure she isn't plotting to kill you?"

"You're confusing her with Mother. She'll be at the funeral. But we can't kill her either. Too many cops around, including my brother. He might understand, but he wouldn't cover for us."

Rusti said, "Sorry it took me so long, but I got another call from someone with a German accent named Gretchen. She sort of acted like she knew me, but she said to tell you she'd arrived and would meet us at the church tomorrow. Who is she? Maybe another stepmother nobody knows about?"

Cleopatra 7.2 was thrilled by the short flight home from Kefalos to Alexandria. The pilot handed Gabriella a headset when they boarded, and she sat in the copilot seat. They flew into Alex over the huge cofferdam, repaired following the earthquake eight months before, once more holding back the eastern harbor. Below them anthropologists crawled around the sea bottom seeking the ruins of Cleopatra's palace and other royal structures that had crumbled into the waves during the ancient earthquake that destroyed the Pharos Lighthouse.

The absence of the lighthouse was the first thing Cleopatra noticed. "I thought that would stand forever. It seemed immortal as the gods."

Gabriella explained about the earthquake and pointed out the changes in the coastline from Cleopatra's day.

'Astounding. The lighthouse, the royal compound, the statues—all gone. Even the water in the bay."

'That's only temporary. They'll let it refill when they've reconstructed the coastline as it was in your time." Gabriella was glad she could promise that something would be what the queen considered normal again someday. Cleopatra's chagrin and disorientation were painful.

"The last time I saw this bay it teemed with Roman ships and the crippled remnants of my navy."

'Perhaps we will find the wreckage as we excavate the ocean floor," Gabriella said.

Cleopatra granted her the image of a slightly pained smile, "Somehow I do not find that comforting."

'I'm sorry," Gabriella said. "It's hard for me to realize that events that are ancient history to me must seem to you to have happened only yesterday."

'Hard indeed. We have much more to impart to each other if we are not to go mad," Cleopatra said, and thereafter confined her questions to the operations of the cell phone and the aircraft until they landed. She had already explored the wonders of golf carts before they left Helix's Greek island base.

Mo's taxi, a minivan, stood baking on the airstrip beside the Quonset hut occupied by Helix's combination air traffic controller and customs officer. An entity that invested as much in other lands as Helix did enjoyed the status of a sovereign nation within the host country's borders, and as such was responsible for its employees' international travel.

Mo opened the door of the taxi and slid into the driver's seat.

'/ am still not clear on how these conveyances move without the benefit of horses or servants… or birds, in the case of the last one," the queen said, casting an awed look back at the helicopter, which was lifting off again.

"They have combustion engines. Actually, automobiles were invented while people still rode in carriages pulled by horses so the engines that power the cars are said to have 'horsepower.'' ^:

'Ahh," Cleopatra said, considering. Then, "/ do not understand. "

"Yes, well, I have arranged to take leave from my regular work to conduct research for another week. During that time we will read a great deal and watch a lot of television. I hope that will help me explain a great deal more to you."

"Very well. And then we must find Antony's hair and take out the cellular material so that we may lodge him inside a worthy recipient. Then I can help as you explain this life to him."

The cab turned south. "Are we not going into the city?" Cleopatra wanted to know.

"No, first we will go to my home. I have some responsibilities to take care of there."

"Ah, you have a villa on the lake? I see we are heading in that general direction."

But when they came to Gabriella's family compound, which sat along the portion of the mudflats and marshes still unoccupied by industrial factories, Cleopatra exclaimed. "But where is Lake Mariut?"

'That's it," Gabriella told her. "That's how it's been for many years."

"But this is a swamp! Where are the lake's harbors? They are as important to us as the maritime harbors for bringing goods into the city from the rest of the country, and taking goods into the country from the city and from Greece and Rome. Mariut and its mate Edku all but make an island of Alexandria, surrounding it on the south, whereas the sea encompasses the northern shore, and the Canopic Channel of the Nile is to the east."

Gabriella saw the images Cleopatra was remembering. They were far more awesome than any artist's sketch, taking in clear green waters, sparkling blue skies, flocks of seabirds, and men pulling shining fish from the waters. A few large homes of white marble guarded the shore well away from the busy docks. The visual picture was wonderful as was the smell of the air, the feeling of the breeze that cooled Alexandria like no other place in Egypt. But most surprising to Gabriella was that except for the voices of people raised in speech or song, the sound of hammers and chisels ringing against stone at some remote building site, the thump of cargo nets hitting the docks as ships were unloaded, everything was remarkably quiet. No motors of any kind, no planes overhead, no cars on the road, no radios, televisions, cell phones, air conditioners, or appliances. Primitive, perhaps, and inconvenient. But quiet.

'Not any longer," Gabriella told her gently.

'What happened?" Cleopatra wondered. "Was this also the work of earthquakes, that the water was swallowed by the desert?"

"We're not sure, but the Canopic Channel apparently changedcourse or dried up at some point. Without the Nile to feed it, the lake has dwindled to what you see before you."

It was easy enough for her to try to imagine the past from accounts in historical documents or computer simulations. But in Cleopatra's day, Gabriella's time was unimaginable. The Queen of the Upper and Lower Nile had probably never given much thought to what her home would be like over two millennia in the future. Even if she had, she would have had no basis for visualizing planes, trains, crowded motorways and high-rise apartment buildings, and roads that would have thrilled the Romans. And quite appalling ugliness.

"I do not understand. How can people live here without water? How are the cisterns filled if the Nile no longer flows here? Are you able to drink seawater in this age?"

'More motors," Gabriella told her. "They power huge hydraulic pumps that bring the water in through pipes—like the aqueducts." She tried to visualize the city's water supply but found it difficult. She didn't actually know all that much about the modern conveniences most of the city enjoyed. And she found what she did know conflicting with the images Cleopatra held of the deep, vaulted cisterns underpinning the entire city since it was first built by her ancestors from the plans of Alexander the Great. "Your cisterns serve no more purpose than to attract a few scientists and some visitors who marvel at them. My colleagues have mapped only a few, though tales are told of many more. During the wars, when bombs were dropping"—she visualized planes dropping bombs and felt less incredulity than she would have thought from the queen who had known Greek fire—"they were reinforced, and people went below to shelter in them. They are mostly empty now— you can stand in the water if you want to risk schistosomiasis or worse. They've been filled with silt in some places and collapsed in others, but they're still like magnificent underground cathedrals, vaulted temples that never see the sun and no longer touch the Nile."

'Yes," Cleopatra said. "Very much like temples. Not Egyptian temples in design, perhaps, but I have always felt that the scale on which they were built owed something to symbolism as well as practicality. Our people were very much intrigued by the underworld. Alexander planned one for them in the very design of the city. But I am surprised that you say you have mapped only 'a few.' The cisterns contain many cells, but these are built along grids, and the grids intersect. I have signed orders and approved plans for their repair and improvement, and it is essential that they be accessible to one another. How else would our city's workmen maintain them? How else would the water settle evenly throughout ? "

'Yes," Gabriella said. "Privately, some of us have discovered that. But there is no funding for the officially sanctioned exploration needed, so my allies and I have found different uses. I think you'll approve."

'I'm intrigued. I also wonder before you found the cisterns, did you find my Alexandria? Even from here I can see there's very little of it left."

"As you saw, the royal quarter was totally destroyed, and whatever remains still lies in the bed of the bay. That is why it's empty now. We are hoping to resurrect your city as it was and make an exhibit for visitors from all over the world to see. Your help with that will be invaluable."

'I look forward to it already," Cleopatra said as politely as if they were meeting at a dinner party instead of inside the same skull.

"Much of the rest of the old city has been subsumed in the building of the new. In the late twentieth and early years of the twenty-first century, my predecessors in this area concentrated on what they called 'rescue archaeology.' When a new road or large structure was constructed, or old structures were torn down, if the contractors ran into anything indicating an ancient site, they were required to allow us to excavate the site first. There was little time to do it and less money, but much of what we know about the ancient city nowwas either discovered or verified at that time. I can show you much of what they found when we go to the Biblioteca next week."

"And my tomb ?"

"Leda and your counterpart made rather a mess of that site, so some of my colleagues are now gathering more information from it. The bulk of the work, examining your mummy and the papyri we found with it, are ours to investigate at least initially."

"That is fitting."

Gabriella's home was humble and, though the queen did not express it that way, funky, compared to the palace, but it had effortless comforts the Lady of the Upper and Lower Nile had not enjoyed, at least, not without employing a lot of servant power, like hot and cold running water and lights in every room, not to mention the water closet. Cleopatra liked that very much. They had had toilets of a sort in her day but not like the ones invented by Thomas Crapper.

Gabriella made a point of visiting with each of her resident "relatives" and mentally introduced the queen to them. "This is the current Auntie Jasmin. She is supposed to be mute because actually she's Syrian."

"How is it that your aunt is Syrian? And why is she current?"

"My aunts are well-known to be very traditional Muslim ladies who wear heavy face veils in public. Therefore, I have an extra aunt or two who can change depending on who is staying with us at the moment. No one is the wiser since no one besides us ever sees this aunt unveiled."

"Ah."

The food was simple, but it did not give heartburn, and the bed was luxurious indeed. They fell asleep, thinking to dream of Antony, but actually they dreamed about Portland, Oregon.

For the first day or two, Gabriella toured the city, particularly the dig sites showing remnants of Cleopatra's day. She slipped in with a group of tourists to see the virtual-reality re-creation of the temple of Heliopolis that had been at Abu Qir. They stood on a platform and looked out into an empty room that turned into a great temple, the white pylons carved and painted with hieroglyphics and pictures of the gods.

Cleopatra was astounded. "What magic is this? May we enter now?"

"No, because it isn't really there. It's not magic, though. If we tried to step off this platform, we'd find that the first step could be our last."

"Ah, the temple is a mirage, then? I thought so."

"Yes, but it's a man-made one. A computer simulation projected holographically onto the space in front of us."

"But it is not magic?"

"No. Although I admit it seems like it. I can do some of this sort of thing myself, though on a much smaller scale."

"Show me!"

"It is rather tedious, actually. Let's wait until we return to work. So, tell me about Heliopolis. The people who discovered the underwater ruin think it disappeared around the same time that your reign ended. Is that true? Did you worship there?"

"More properly you should ask was I worshiped there. And no, I was not. I know that it once was there, but not during my life nor, I believe, during my father's."

Their touring was cut short by a message from Gabriella's contacts, informing her that she was needed to travel to Port Said to rendezvous with a certain lady from the Saudi royal family. The lady wished to escape her illustrious family and seek asylum in the West. Once Gabriella met her, the lady would be disguised in a full burkha as Gabriella's maidservant while the two of them traveled to the isle of Delos. A large part of the island was owned by Gabriella's aunt and coconspirator, Contessa Virginie Athene Dumont. Virginie, Ginia to Gabriella, would arrange the Saudi lady's passage to Western Europe or America. All of this Gabriella imparted to Cleopatra as they traveled.

'It is good that you are being introduced to my other work at such an early stage in our relationship," Gabriella told her. "I wanted to blend with you as much for this, for your strength and ingenuity, as I did for your knowledge of the scrolls."

'I also think it is good," Cleopatra agreed. "This aunt of yours, you trust her? In my experience, sharing a blood relationship constitutes no high recommendation."

Gabriella bit her lip, considering. "The truth is that she did betray me. But she was blended then, and it seems that the aberration was caused by her blended entity. She had the process reversed. Never, before or since, has she shown any other sign of untrustworthiness. She has always been as passionately devoted to this cause as I. And so, so—/ choose to trust her. I place my life and those of the women we serve in her hands. Besides, she is well placed to transfer the women, and we have a good cover. I cannot do this alone, or even with you. It takes many bodies in many places to snatch these women from the claws of an unjust system. We do not all know each other, but it is necessary, here, that Ginia and I work as a team. So, yes, I trust her. I more or less have to."

On the trip to the port, Cleopatra exhibited considerable curiosity. "You say the woman is royal. What harm would befall her if she is unaided? Is she competing with her siblings for the throne? I can well sympathize with that!"

"No. In our time, in these lands, women don't have thrones, though sometimes they have titles. This lady is a princess, actually, but she is still pretty much a prisoner most of the time in her own home."

Cleopatra lost interest at that point, her voice no more than a quiet musing that to be royal was to be a prisoner.

Driving along the coast, however, Gabriella saw mirages at sea. If she forgot to blink, barges and battleships, yachts and cruise ships were replaced in her vision by primitive sailing ships with banks of oars on either side. That would have been interesting if she could have stopped to enjoy the historical vision she was being treated to, except that the road also disappeared if she did not maintain strict conscious control over what she saw. As they neared the ferry to Port Said, the traffic became thicker, and Cleopatra became rather agitated. "What is that body of water?" she asked, looking south toward the Suez Canal. "When did this city come to be?"

But at last they reached the rendezvous point, and Gabriella gave the Saudi lady the new papers that had been prepared for her. The lady almost blew it at the duty-free shop, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be a servant and therefore not able to buy every luxury that caught her fancy. To make things more difficult, Cleopatra was curious about each thing the woman eyed and demanded interior explanations before causing Gabriella to laugh uproariously or admire extravagantly, drawing unwanted attention to herself and her "servant."

The customs inspection was more rigorous than usual. Though the agents expressed little interest in Gabriella and the Saudi lady once they reached the checkpoint, it took them over two hours standing in line to pass through the gates and meet Ginia's yacht.

'What's the holdup?" she heard a tourist ask another one.

'There's been some trouble with some characters trying to blow up the canal," replied a red-faced man. "Seems they found the explosives before any damage was done but didn't catch the terrorists."

Gabriella was more annoyed than alarmed. Someone was usually trying to blow up the canal, it seemed. They boarded the yacht without incident, and the lady was duly deposited on Delos. It was quite late when they arrived, so they spent the night. Cleopatra was curious about the island. She was of Greek heritage, but although she had spent time in Rome, she had spent almost none in the land of her ancestors. Ginia said, "Perhaps you—two—would like to come with me when I feed the cat colony, Gabriella. That would allow you some new perspective on the island. Afterward, I can have the copter return you to Alex."

'When did you start feeding cats?" Gabriella asked. 'Around the new year. I had one neighbor who used to do it, but she died over the holidays. One can't just let them starve. Come, you'll enjoy it. They're wild, but they became quite used to her and are coming to know me as well." Gabriella and Cleopatra were both charmed when Ginia led her niece to the ruins of an ancient temple. They were suddenly surrounded by cats of all sizes and descriptions. Though some of the cats had tattered ears and battered coats, most appeared sleek and well fed. Both Ginia and Gabriella had carried sacks of food up the hill to the ruins, and now Ginia gestured Gabriella to go away from her. "Feed the smaller ones and the kittens while I distract the big handsome brutes," she said.

The cats purred ingratiatingly and regarded their server with large round amber eyes. Cleopatra purred within Gabriella. "// is fitting to be welcomed back to the world of the living by the acolytes of Bast," she said, stroking cat heads with her knuckles while her palms dispensed largesse. "One can learn much from cats. Grace, dignity, playfulness, independence of thought and action while appearing to acquiesce to those stronger. Unfortunately, most of my illustrious royal ancestors never got past the stage where they ate their young."

Later that morning, as Ginia's private helicopter lifted up over the island, Gabriella looked down to see a single black cat sitting atop a column, as if awaiting worship. Its fellow cat colonists might never have existed.

By the time they landed, Mo, who was actually named Mohammed, had returned to Alexandria with the taxi and picked them up at the airport, then returned them to the villa in time for the afternoon meal.

Gabriella said to those around her, "And now, I must return to work. The queen awaits my personal attentions." It was a little joke on more than one level, and Gabriella's Egyptian aunties smiled and nodded and urged her not to tire herself, she'd get wrinkles.

Mo again drove her in his taxi. She told Cleopatra that her cousin always stopped work to eat with the family and returned to the main part of the city afterward. Since he owned his own cab, he set his own schedule. Cleopatra approved of the private driver, even though he was a relative.

As prearranged, a message was left at a certain souvenir stand in the souk, inside a particularly cheap and gaudy vase. When the customer for the vase bought it, he passed it on, and the person to whom he passed it also passed it on until finally it was read. "It is done. She is two. They are four in three."

CHAPTER 4

It was a stirring service. The remnant of Duke Hubbard blended with Gretchen Wolfe didn't know whether to be embarrassed or pleased that Gretchen kept bawling every time someone eulogized him.

She wasn't alone. Four of his ex-wives showed up, as well as all of his kids and his grandkids. The street outside the church looked like a parking lot for cop cars, and a mounted unit directed traffic in the church's lot. Representatives from every law enforcement agency in the state were there, most of them guys he'd worked with in some capacity or another. Even the sun darted out briefly from behind the clouds in honor of the occasion.

The sheriff told a funny story about watching him subdue a prisoner. The minister delicately skirted the issue of how many wives Duke had had and anything about which children he had by them, and concentrated on his widow and grandkids.

'Hey, Frau Doktor, dry up. You're drowning out the preacher" he finally said to Gretchen. "Look there, that's Cherie, my widow. Cute, huh?"

'She dresses as if she is going to a party, not your funeral," Gretchen sniffed.

'Well, it's not a funeral, remember? Just a memorial service. And she knows how much I liked seeing her in blue …"

Rusti and Leda sat with the family in the pew in front of Gretchen's.

When Gretchen began crying again, Rusti blew her nose and whispered to Leda, "So you never told me who Gretchen is anyway. Another of Daddy's conquests?"

'Oh no, she's happily married to Wilhelm Wolfe, my— used-to-be—boss. She and Daddy are—were—very close, though—I mean, before he died. Not like the rest of his women. Gretchen's a real soul mate." Leda caught the look Duke/Gretchen cast at them and winked. Tearfully, but it was a wink.

Then a friend of Duke's got up and started telling everyone about the Officer Hubbard coloring book he had written and illustrated in Duke's honor. He talked about the times Duke rescued pussycats from burning buildings and all the kids he'd befriended, even after he busted them.

Gretchen howled.

'What's the matter?" Duke asked her. "They haven't told any of the embarrassing stuff yet."

'Nein, nein, it is how they love you, how they respect you. To think I almost refused to help you, and you are such a good man— were such a good man."

"Yes, well, now I'm part of a good woman and a fine physician. It could be worse."

Afterward there was a ten-mile motorcade to the veterans' cemetery, with highway patrol blocking the entrances to the freeway between the church and the VA hospital at the extreme diagonal end of Portland. No one was letting a little thing like the lack of a corpse deter them from giving him all the pomp and ceremony of an officer-killed-in-line-of-duty funeral, even if it was a memorial service. They were going to plant a headstone so everyone could come and visit. That was nice. There was some advantage to having your services take place eight months after you died. People had time to prepare to do things right.

Even Duke choked up a little—or choked Gretchen up—when the police pipe band played "Amazing Grace."

By then the rain was splatting down by the teacupful upon the roof of the little stone grotto where Leda joined the family to stand in line to receive condolences. Cleopatra, shivering as the goose bumps rose on Leda's skin, complained, "Your father could have died a second time by drowning had he been here. We should have worn a cloak."

Leda said, "Nab, he was an Oregon native. He knew how to swim and walk at the same time. A cloak would have looked suspicious. People are gobsmacked enough to see me in a dress." Rusti had bought a purple-sprigged white number for her especially for the service.

As folks filed away and before Gretchen could open her/their mouth, Duke latched on to Leda and Rusti. "Let's go get something to eat at the Peking Palace. I'm starving," he said.

'And you, liebchen," Gretchen added to Leda, "You look as though you need feeding. You look so cold, and you have lost weight. You are getting enough sleep, ja?"

'I try," Leda said. "But my body can hardly keep up with all the activity in my head, and when I do sleep I wake up, well, let's say less than rested. But do you really think I've lost weight?"

'Ja, yes, I think so, yes."

Rusti said, "That's real nice of you to invite me, too, ma'am, but if it's all the same to you and Leda, I'll pass. I'm on nights, so I need to grab a quick nap then get to work."

'You can't pass," Leda told her. "I'm riding with you, remember?"

'No problemo, kid," Duke said, then corrected in

Gretchen's voice, "Liebchen. We are having here an international driver's license,/^"

'Portland can be tricky," Rusti said, sounding concerned and guilty.

'We can manage—with Leda's help."

Rusti seemed a little freaked out and almost burst into tears again when Gretchen threw her arms around her in a hearty bear hug. "You know, for a little bit of a blond thing, you hug a lot like my daddy," Rusti told her.

Gretchen smiled Duke's smile as Rusti dashed up the hill, carrying her purse over her head to keep the rain off, and scrambled into her car. She caught Gretchen's fatherly smile as she adjusted her mirror. Her eyes widened, then she shook her head and returned the smile with a weak and watery one of her own, waggling her fingers in farewell.

Once in the car, Leda said. "I feel shitty for not telling her. But I don't think she'd understand anyway."

'Besides," Cleopatra added aloud, "she might betray us. You never know with family."

'What a thing to say," Gretchen clucked.

'Yeah," Leda said. "Cleo's family's even crazier than ours. Although they believed in giving each other quick, comparatively painless deaths instead of lifelong torture like we do. But the last thing she remembers, she lost a war, had her husband die in her arms, and committed suicide. Then when she joined me she found out her kids had been killed. It's enough to upset anybody. On top of which, we're now broke."

'Ja, I know. It is a terrible thing, what the board of directors has done. Wilhelm is beside himself with worry and anger. To be treated so, a man of his experience and contribution to the company! They are mad, the board, to do this to him and to Chimera."

'They sure are. What will he do now?" Leda asked. She hadn't really thought twice about Wolfe.

'Oh, they have sent him to a seminar—remedial management or some such nonsense. It is humiliating for him, but he agrees to it so that he maybe can help you or some of the other blended people if they need him. So foolish are the people in charge now that they may expose blends sometime in the future."

'Surely not? After all they've done to keep it a secret?" Leda asked, but not incredulously. Helix was starting to make the U.S. Navy, from which she was retired, look sane and logical by comparison.

'First we eat. Then I will show you already what is happening. Is there somewhere we can go that is secure?"

'Yeah. Rusti's deck. It's got a roof over it, so we'll be fairly dry. If the rain isn't enough to drown out any bugs, there's the dog next door. He never stops barking as long as someone is out there. Although why anyone would want to bug me when I was just fired, I don't know."

'Even if Fraulein Doktor Calliostro doesn't realize your importance, there are those who will," Gretchen told her. The voice was Gretchen's, but the concerns and priorities sounded like Duke's. "So, we will go to Rusti's deck where the dog will bark and we may pet your Katzen. Your papa, he misses his Boris."

'I hope Cherie is taking good care of the old rascal," Duke's voice said, just before they got out of the car. He'd have to keep quiet while they were in the restaurant and remember to let Gretchen speak for them both. His voice coming out of a petite blonde was bizarre enough to attract unwanted attention.

'Rusti says Boris sleeps in your chair and smacks anyone else who tries to. Cherie has not let him ride your bikes however."

'He's a safe enough rider, but his claws are hard on the upholstery," Duke said.

'How many Katzen do you have, Leda?" Gretchen asked.

'Two who feel like forty," she replied.

'I actually had forty living in the palace," Cleopatra said. "More or less, depending on the crop of royal kittens and the number who left us to bless other homes. They were closely associated with Ra, as you know, Leda, and kept down the vermin, though alas, only the varieties with four or more legs."

Michael Brody Angeles did not find the sniper who ended his boss's hegemony over a portion of the Mexican drug trade, nor did he stick around long after the murder to ferret out the shooter. Leave that to the police and the federates. Hell, it could have been the federates who offed Espinosa. The job was not one Angeles planned to put on his resume anyway. It was a stopgap between the revolutions, juntas, and other paramilitary operations that he joined to make use of what he considered to be the only real skills he had.

It was not a way of life guaranteed to make you a real happy, trusting sort of person, but he chose Egypt for a new base on the strength of a newscast and a long-ago unconsummated love affair. He was old enough and experienced enough to know that it was a flimsy thread on which to hang his future, but he had a sentimental streak that would probably be the death of him.

He needed to get the hell off the American continent altogether. It wouldn't take Espinosa's old friends long to gather intel on him and his past connections to U.S. law enforcement, nor would his fellow bodyguards fail to remember that he had been very unhappy about the way the last operation went down. He was going to take the blame, like it or not. He had to get away fast if he was going to survive. Espinosa's business had long tentacles.

Back to the States was not far enough. Besides, he had to work. Being the bodyguard of a drug lord in Mexico was one thing. Working for organized crime in the States in any capacity was not something he cared to risk.

All of this had gone through his head in about two seconds as he stood at the airport counter while everyone else was busy looting Jefe Espinosa's body outside. That's when he recalled seeing Leda on a TV newscast. She was a big shot archaeologist now, actually the one who had discovered Cleopatra's tomb. A lot of time had passed since they'd been on shipboard together, but she might be able to help him for old time's sake. If not, the Middle East was certainly a market for mercenaries. And from what he'd heard, so far Egypt wasn't anywhere near as bad as Iraq, Iran, or Syria.

So he bought the ticket for Cairo and caught a train to Alexandria, hoping she'd remember her old shipboard almost lover.

Almost because the Navy frowned on that kind of thing, not that it had mattered much to him. But while Leda was funny and offbeat, she was disciplined about all the little rules he liked to test. Especially when he drank. So after several memorable evenings together, they went their separate ways. He was dropped into the South China Sea on a mission. She wasn't. It was that simple.

They didn't meet up again. And after he spent seventeen years in the Navy, won three silver stars and a Purple Heart as a SEAL in 'Nam, he was dishonorably discharged as a liberty risk because he drank. The little prick who brought the charges against him that ended his naval career was too young to have been in a real war. Hell, he hadn't even been to Saudi freaking Arabia.

Once he got to Alex, he asked around, but the word was that Leda had already gone back home.

So there he was in a country he'd visited only briefly in the past, with no connections and a limited visa. What he really wanted was a drink. He'd slept on the plane, and that had kept the urge under control.

He'd stopped drinking and gone to his first meeting the day he left the Navy—or it left him. Just on principle. They said he didn't seem to be able to stop, and he had to prove to himself that he could. Now, wanting a drink, he set about finding a meeting.

Used to be he had to go into a bar to get the right contacts for a new job, but nowadays, with everybody so health-conscious, even guys who faced lead poisoning or worse on a regular basis, a twelve-step meeting worked just as well. The same people you used to meet in bars were at the meetings. What was left of the same people. The ones who hadn't stopped drinking were mostly dead.

He stopped at the American Express office and used the courtesy computer to find the time and location of the next meeting near his hotel—10:00 p.m. at the Palais Ptolemie conference room. If he hustled, he could still make it.

The tough part was crossing the street. Alexandria traffic was almost as good as a junta for getting the old adrenaline pumping. He'd been here once before on another mission, several years ago. Now he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and strode across the street as if he owned it. Nobody braked for him, but the cars somehow dodged around him, and the donkey carts slowed until he passed. By the time he stepped into the door of the Palais Ptolemie he was sweating despite the comparative cool of the evening.

The chairs set up in the conference room were about half-full, which wasn't bad. Not entirely to his surprise, most of the members were male, his age or younger. Most were foreigners like himself. He guessed that quite a few of them were armed. He was not. He'd had to leave in too much of a hurry to pack. His favorite sidearm was in an airport trash can in Mexico City. He probably could have taken it past the security guards but it wasn't worth attracting attention to himself. He did not wish to be detained in Mexico.

He took a seat next to a suit, a guy maybe in his late twenties, early thirties, good-looking, good manicure, swarthy, dark aggressively curly hair that hadn't seen a barber lately. Mike remembered when he had looked kind of like that, young and hot instead of just burned-out. During the formal part of the meeting, which was conducted in English, the guy introduced himself as Galen. He had a little tic at the corner of his left eye.

Mike didn't see any of the mercs he remembered from his previous gig in Alex, though he did notice one Arabic-looking guy who didn't introduce himself. Nor did the leader of the meeting ask him to. Which was real strange. Mike filed it, but he was there to make contacts, so during the social part of the proceedings, he asked, "So, Galen, you from Alex?"

'Me, no! I am from Athens. My boss died unexpectedly while we were conducting business on his yacht in the western harbor. He died before—you would say payday?"

'Bummer, man. I'm out of work, too. My boss is also recently and suddenly deceased."

'A wonderful thing, these meetings," Galen said. "We all have so much in common. My boss, though, it wasn't sudden. He was old and had been sick a long time. It was a near thing for me really, that he died when he did. It wouldn't have been worth having all his money to have that old crocodile inside me."

'That kind of business, was it?" Mike said, backing off slightly. "I'm straight myself, but hey…"

'I do not mean he wanted a homosexual relationship with me," Galen said stiffly. To Mike's amusement he even seemed a little shocked. "No, it was something else. Very strange. You probably would not believe me if I told you, but actually, I can still go to a certain place and request that some famous dead person's spirit be implanted in my body along with mine."

'Do tell?" Maybe Galen wasn't gay, but what he was saying didn't make a lot of sense. Not that it was unusual for Mike to meet people who said odd things that didn't seem to make sense.

'You don't believe me." Galen sighed and shrugged. "Not at the moment, but I'm willing to be convinced," Mike told him. "How about a cup of coffee after the meeting, and you tell me all about it?"

'You are buying?"

'Oh yeah. My boss was more considerate than yours. He didn't get killed until after payday. So tell me, any leads on a new job?"

'Maybe one. Let me speak to someone, and perhaps he will meet us later."

That was how it usually worked with the small jobs. With the big ones they just came in wherever you were working and recruited you on the spot. So this was probably some two-bit deal, but Mike couldn't afford to be choosy. A new job would do more than provide him with income. He ought to be able to score a firearm and a new cover out of it as well. He would feel better when he had both, even this far from Mexico.

CHAPTER 5

The Chinese restaurant was as gilded and dragon-ridden as Leda remembered. They sat down in a booth still wet from the clothes of the previous occupants. Genuine carved wind dragons presided over the red vinyl cushions. The authentic speckled Formica table was streaked from where it had been hastily wiped, and smelled faintly of disinfectant. Some people liked greasy spoons. Duke's style had always been greasy chopsticks.

Gretchen ordered Duke's and Leda's favorites for them all and when the mounds of food arrived, dug into it with relish. After six or seven mouthfuls though, she laid the sticks across her plate, looking very sad.

'What's the matter?" Leda asked between bites of kung pao chicken and pork fried rice.

'It does not taste good with Gretch—mein mouth. She— I—have never cared for Chinese food. It tastes bitter to me. This is apparently a matter of the body chemistry instead of simply preference."

'Poor thing," Leda said. She finished quickly, and they drove toward Rusti's.

'I am still hungry," Gretchen declared. "We will stop at the market for some snacks,"

Leda wasn't hungry but she was always interested in snacks, so she splashed into the store, too, and waited at the checkout stand while Gretchen gathered her goodies.

She almost wept at being in an American grocery store. It was so full of all kinds of stuff to eat, most of it bad for you, but also, there at the checkout stand was a rack full of magazines including her four favorite tabloids.

With fond anticipation, she read their idiotic headlines. MARILYN REBORN AS 450-POUND SUMO WRESTLER. Hmmm, they were reaching for it even more than usual these days. FINALLY I HAVE ELVIS INSIDE ME! CRIES FAN. IF JFK RUNS FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN, WILL HE WIN EVEN THOUGH HE'S NOW A CHINESE-AMERICAN DRAG QUEEN AND A REPUBLICAN?

Not as enjoyable as usual, these headlines. She bought all of the magazines, sagged against the wall opposite the checkout counters, and read the last paragraph of each story. Yep. Just as she thought. They were all about supposed blends who wanted to exploit the past fame of the blended guest. They didn't go into detail about the process or where it came from, but they were describing blends, although sometimes in hokey magical terms. Yuck. She hoped Chimera didn't read tabloids, because these would not make the scientist happy.

Once they were in the car again, she told Gretchen about the articles. Frau Wolfe shrugged. "Ja. We know. Wait."

They pulled into the driveway at Rusti's during a lull in the monsoon. Her cats, Newt and Zul, started yowling before Leda could unlock the door. "They're starving," Leda said, opening the door and turning on the light. Two cats, one black and sleek and one fluffy orange tabby, both well fed to the point of pudginess, sat calmly blinking up at her. "Hi, guys, miss me?" she asked.

Gretchen bent and scratched the orange one behind the ears.

'Don't make a pest of yourself, Zuley," Leda said. As she bent to pet Newt, she accidentally brushed the mountain of mail Rusti had stacked by size on her desk. Leda had been too tired even to look at it the night before and didn't even want to think about the phone messages filling an inch-thick pile of Post-its. Her past correspondence sins of omission had caught up with her. Starting with the graduation invitations and ending with the junk-mail catalogs, the envelopes avalanched to the floor. The cats were delighted and began pouncing at the cascading paper, catching credit card solicitations in their paws and playing them like mice, shredding catalogs, and generally making a mess of Rusti's entryway. Leda bent and picked up as much as she could carry, ripping her Archaeology Today from Newt's claws.

She carried the armload of mail to the glass wall with the French doors leading to Rusti's deck. More of the missives showered the cats as she tried to open the locked doors without using her full hands. Gretchen finally got the hint and came to her rescue. The two of them slipped through the doors and out onto the deck without any cats escaping, mainly because the cats jumped in the air and ran down the hall when they heard the dog next door begin his alarm. The deck's roof dripped beads of rain in a steady curtain, too thin and not noisy enough for privacy.

Leda's dress was soaked and the afternoon chilly. She stepped back inside and grabbed the horse-patterned woven tapestry from one of Rusti's easy chairs.

Gretchen didn't seem to mind the weather. She sat down on the step leading to the covered hot tub and opened the

lid of her laptop computer, which Leda hadn't actually noticed her carrying before.

'You're going to check your e-mail?" Leda asked. "For that we need to listen to Fang next door?"

Gretchen grabbed the hem of Leda's dress and pulled her down onto the step, then pointed at the screen. One by one she clicked on the messages, which looked to Leda like spam.

'Young and Gorgeous" the subject line read. "But nobody took me seriously until I got an amazing personality transplant. Instantly I became more intelligent and interesting, and a better conversationalist…"

'Increase Your Charisma! You too can be fascinating simply by hosting one of hundreds of exciting historical celebrities!"

'Important People Want to Get to Know YOU!"

'THIS is how they're advertising a process that cost me every cent I made in Egypt?" Leda asked.

Gretchen shook her head. "These messages do not come from Helix. We were able to trace the messages to contract employees for several other major international corporations, however, some of them owned by Helix board members."

'Hmmm," Leda said. "Sounds like the board members took the process out of Wolfe's hands so they could pirate it."

Gretchen's word choices, if not her actual voice, were Duke's when she replied. "Yes, it does. But so far as our sources can tell, no one else is actually performing the blends. They're sure advertising them though. And what's even weirder is that these messages are coming from some of the same sources."

'Protect Your Individuality! Don't allow others to steal your precious DNA codes. Following these simple procedures and using our patented device, you can ensure that your hair and nail clippings, bodily fluids, and other code-bearing personal discards are destroyed immediately…"

'Need More Money? Part-time work as a motel maid at select locations can earn you Big Buck$$ for simply using our kit to collect trash your guests dispose of!"

'What?" Leda said. "No advertisements for grave robbers and body snatchers?"

Gretchen dismissed this by snapping the computer lid shut. "Already Helix has done this since the process was developed. It is nothing new. However, what is new is that some of the people who have been blended have disappeared."

'How can that happen? The people who get the blend are mostly pretty high-profile, just because they have to be rich enough to afford the process," Leda said. "Why hasn't there been more in the media about it?"

'A good question. Each of them is supposed to be away on a holiday, or a business trip, but when the place is contacted, they are not there. Their cell phones, faxes, and e-mails go unattended. And yet, no one seems concerned. Decisions are made by underlings or 'instructions' are supposedly sent from the missing person, but no one actually sees this person, not even paparazzi."

'If the paparazzi can't find them, then they're really missing," Leda agreed. "Maybe you ought to go keep Wolfie — Wilhelm—company at that business seminar he's taking."

'So we have already decided," Gretchen agreed. "Although Wilhelm is not blended, he is a logical target. Fortunately, our blend was never official, so no one in the company now knows of it. Not even Wilhelm. So! We have arranged for people we trust to track our movements. But also we wanted you to know of this. You have all of our numbers. If you cannot reach us by any of them on any given day, contact this number. And be very careful yourself. We have no clear idea what is happening or why."

'You got it," Leda said. "And on a less dramatic and more practical note, I have to ask for a small loan. Calliostro left me high and dry."

'That is definitely my kid talking," Duke's unaccented voice said. He laughed. "We were prepared though. We'll just dig into Gretchen's magic pocketbook here."

'That's definitely my dad talking," Leda said, nostalgia roughening her voice. His women's purses had always been a source of extra funds for Duke, whether to treat the children and later grandchildren or to buy a new motorcycle.

'A thousand dollars U.S., this is enough, ja?" Gretchen's voice asked.

'It will help. I guess I'd better start looking for a new job."

Gretchen departed, and Leda looked after her feeling troubled and sad. Sure, Daddy was blended with Gretchen, but it wasn't entirely the same. And despite the occasional flash of clear communication from her dad, Duke and Gretchen increasingly seemed to her to be truly blending as Chimera intended people to do rather than staying distinct personalities, as they had at first. Oh well, Daddy had always got himself all wrapped up whenever he had a new wife—even though in this case it was someone else's wife—so it wasn't as if it was anything new.

She sighed and was trying once more to wrest her mail away from the cats when Rusti's phone rang.

'Hello, this is Iris Morgan from the Osiris Agency again. Has Dr. Hubbard returned as yet? I need to speak to her very urgently, as I've mentioned."

'This is Leda Hubbard. How can I help you?"

The woman on the other end said, "I am so happy finally to speak to you. As to how you can help us, I am calling on behalf of the producer of a new series for Edge TV. You've heard of Edge?"

'No, I've been out of the country," Leda said. Jet lag was making her stupid now. Some of what the woman said didn't register. "Is this Edge a new cable channel? If so, you're wasting your time. It's no good talking about signing me up for any new cable service now. I haven't found a place to live yet…"

Iris Morgan laughed a laugh that reminded Leda of Billie Burke's as Glinda the Good in the old Wizard of Oz movie. "Dr. Hubbard, I assure you I am not a telephone solicitor. Edge is already available on most standard cable and satellite hookups both in the States and in the British Isles. But I'm not calling to sell you anything. I'm trying to arrange a meeting between you and Roland Bernard, the Emmy-award-winning producer of the upcoming series he wishes to discuss with you."

Leda gulped and told herself to be cool. "I suppose this relates to the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb?"

'Yes, indeed. Mr. Bernard is in Kennewick, Washington, at the moment, meeting with one of our consultants. He would like me to arrange a dinner meeting with you as soon as possible. Is tomorrow out of the question for you?"

'I had a hot date with my sister at Burgerville, but I'll see if I can get out of it."

The Billie Burke laugh again. "I'd say to bring your sister, but she'd probably be bored with the business end of it."

'She's working evenings this week anyway," Leda said, not that the woman was interested or really needed to know. "Where does he want to meet?"

'We'll send a car to pick you up about seven. Is that okay?"

'Sure."

'I'm so glad to finally get to speak to you, Dr. Hubbard. I look forward to learning more about your work. Good evening."

'You, too," Leda mumbled, distracted by Cleopatra in the background moaning, "What will we wear? You have no gowns, no jewels, not even cosmetics!"

'I've got this dress," Leda said, looking down at the purple-sprigged number which by now looked as if she had worn it on a campout instead of to a funeral. Cleopatra's silence said as much. "It'll wash!" Leda told her. "And I have lots of jewels. They're out in Rusti's garage somewhere. Packed. Besides, it's not a date, it's business."

"So was meeting Caesar. So was meeting Antony. Business, both meetings. I did not dress to please myself. I dressed to impress upon those I was meeting that I was a wealthy and formidable queen whom they would do well to impress. Has Rusti any milk?"

"Why? Got cookies?"

She opened the refrigerator door, revealing rows of bottled water and beer.

'How about beer?"

'To bathe in?"

"Oh, puh-leeze! Forget it! We're lactose intolerant! We'd probably get hives or something. And Cleo, about the wardrobe, getting ourselves rolled up in a rug is out of the question, just so you understand. "

CHAPTER 6

Mike and Galen easily found a beachfront coffee shop with a view of the excavation in the eastern harbor. The excavation somewhat marred the ocean view farther out because it was lit with floodlights. These were not only to keep looters at bay but also illuminated the area for the evening crew of archaeologists who prowled the scaffolding on the ocean floor like a particularly sophisticated ant colony.

Mike admired the pragmatism of the folks in hot climates who were neither mad dogs nor Englishmen. They sensibly retired indoors during the hottest part of the day and to compensate extended both work and social activity late into the evening.

A waiter arrived carrying a water pipe. Galen looked inquiringly at Mike.

'Never touch the stuff," Mike said. "My late boss—well, to tell you the truth, Galen, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel there. Working for the boss of a drug syndicate is just not me, though no offense if that's what you were doing."

'My boss took many drugs. He was a very old, very sick man," Galen said. "I would not say he was above trafficking in them, but that was not his business when I worked for him." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and extended it to Mike, who waved both palms in a negative gesture.

'No thanks, I don't do that anymore either. I may have failed to die young, but I figure if I keep off the booze and smokes, I might still stand a chance at making a good-looking corpse someday."

'If you disapprove of drugs, what did you do for this boss of yours?" Galen asked casually, though Mike knew he was deliberately probing with something in mind. The kind of mercs who attended the meeting where Galen was were not casual people.

'Oh, bodyguard stuff. Not my kind of thing. Usually dull, and you have too high a profile walking beside the big man all the time. The cops take an interest that reflects badly on your character if you know what I mean. Also, if your boss takes the bullet, and you don't, there's always some ally or enemy ready to correct the shooter's mistake. Which is my present problem. The law is actually the least of my worries right now. I was hoping to find something that would get me out of sight, let the regime change without me around to, uh—influence the investigation into the gentleman's death."

'Ah, I understand. My boss's business is now being fought over by my former associates. Me, like I said, I wanted no part of the old man's proposal."

'You've got me all curious about that, buddy, I have to tell you. What is this about the boss wanting to get into you in other than a uh—loving—way?"

Galen tapped his cigarette lighter on the table, corner after corner, rotating it in his fingers and sucking on the cigarette as he considered the question. "My boss was like many rich old men—he had everything except his youth and health. He thought he had found a way to attain those and live on in one of us. There were three others and me he had handpicked. I do not believe he picked us because he thought we were the most worthy to succeed him, as he said. He picked us more on the basis of our youth and looks and—endowments, if you will pardon my immodesty."

Mike raised both eyebrows. "More power to you, man."

'We attended a very strange meeting with him at a company called Nucor. He was on the board of directors. Even so, this company had very strict rules, so he spent a great deal of money to be sure that we could be present at the meeting. He had to buy us each what they call a 'blending.' What he wanted was for them to take his DNA and blend it with one of us, whichever of us decided we would accept both his presence and his empire—"

'Whoa, whoa, back up there, Galen. How does this thing work, this blending? How would the guy's DNA get into you anyway?"

'They have a machine that makes it so that the DNA can enter your brain through your eyes. It implants the memories and personality characteristics of the person whose DNA you get on your own—consciousness, I suppose you would say."

Mike gave a low whistle. "Very sci-fi."

'Yes, but it's true. I know he was interested in Cleopatra but not for himself. No, he admired no one enough to take them into him. He wanted to join one of us. Creepy, is that the term?"

'Very creepy indeed. Cleopatra huh ?" Under his breath he muttered, "Goodness gracious shit oh dear, it certainly is a small world."

'Yes, he even kidnapped a couple of women and the head scientist at that company. And some old fellow, a security guard, the father of one of the women, ended up dead. I think that was an accident, but it was a big mistake.

The daughter unplugged my boss's life-support machines. That woman brought the world down on the old man's schemes with everything from the police to the curse of the pharaohs."

'What did she look like, this woman?"

'Nothing special. She had hair like a Grecian or an Irish girl—very thick and dark, but she was American. The other woman was Egyptian. The doctor was from Tibet, I think. Why?"

'If she brought down your boss, I want to make sure and avoid her." Changing the subject, he said. "So, are you going to go have yourself—what is it?—blended?"

'Absolutely not, though I could. I have their card. I can think of no one I wish to inhabit my body with me. Can you?"

'Not offhand. Seems a shame though. You could maybe get the DNA of one of the old pharaohs, find out all the secrets, where treasure is buried, that kind of thing. You'd never have to work again."

'Maybe not. But I like to work."

'Yeah, me, too. So, how about it? You got something going?"

'Hmmm, yes, maybe. A Muslim group, not all of them Egyptian but all Middle Eastern. Unlike a lot of the organizations, they don't seem to have any problem hiring Europeans. I can put in a word for you, tell them you're interested. My contact is bringing more details of the first assignment to the meeting next week."

'Yeah, that'd be great. You're a pal."

'Where are you staying?"

Mike told him, and Galen shook his head. "Pricey. Your money will not last long there. I know a place that has room and is cheap, with a maid, too."

'Cool. Lead on, brother."

Everything was great till they crossed the street. This time of night, around eleven, traffic was not as thick, but because there was more room to move, the vehicles went a lot faster. The coffee shop, being on the beachfront, was on the water side of the Corniche, the main drag running east to west, separating the water from most of the city. Galen moved into the street with assurance, obviously used to it. Mike was taking a deep breath, getting ready to brave it, when the lorry came barreling around a corner. Galen was on the other side of it, and Mike didn't see his prostrate body getting further mashed into the pavement by other oncoming vehicles, so he figured his new buddy had made it.

Then he saw him leaning with his head against a street-lamp, his arms hanging at his side in apparent limp relief.

Mike seized an opening in traffic and sprinted over to him. "Hey, man, that was a close one! You okay, Galen? Galen?"

Galen had nothing to say for himself. Mike touched him, and Galen fell forward, which was when, by the silvery glow of the streetlight, Mike saw the big dent in Galen's forehead and the weird angle at which his once-sculpted nose listed. His eyes were wide-open and already starting to glaze over.

'Damn, buddy, you didn't have to take it so hard," Mike said, and pulled Galen's arm around his own shoulders, dragging him into an alley as if he were passed out drunk. He checked to make sure they were unobserved. A lorry that looked very much like the one that Galen hadn't dodged drove by the alley's entrance. It was going fairly slowly compared to the rest of the traffic. Mike ducked back behind a pile of rubble and other stuff he didn't even want to think about. All he could see, between the darkness of the evening and the shadows in the lorry's cab, was a reflection off a pair of eyes watching the side of the street instead of the road and the glow of a cigarette tip. Then it was past.

Mike dragged Galen back a little farther to make sure they were well concealed, and rapidly searched through his clothes. He had to hope that his radar was off and the lorry driver hadn't just done a hit on Galen. If Galen was on someone's shit list, then his death would have been in vain, at least as far as Mike was concerned. But the man was between jobs, for one thing, though past grievances weren't out of the question. However, the lorry hadn't exactly plowed over him and backed up. It just knocked him headfirst into a pole. Nobody was that good at making something look like an accident. Of course, that could be why the driver came back, if it was the same one.

Mike considered the risk for a moment, then shrugged and continued collecting Galen's effects. What the poor guy no longer needed, Mike sort of did. Like a wallet containing a passport, international driver's license, a small amount of Egyptian currency, Mike wasn't sure how much, just offhand, three business cards and oh, joy! A sidearm and shoulder holster. A nice little Beretta Model .380 caliber fully loaded with fourteen rounds of Glazer ammo. A bit on the antique side but plenty of stopping power. The blue-tipped Glazer rounds, hollow points filled with lead BBs, could do as much damage as a .357 Magnum. He put on the shoulder holster and Galen's suit jacket to cover it, though it was hotter than hell even in the cool of the evening. Stuffing the other items into his own pockets, Mike propped the body up until he located the nearest manhole, which was, fortunately, almost at the entrance to the alley. Then he dragged Galen to it and shoved him in.

He went back to his own hotel and studied the documents. With a few items easily found at a copy shop, he could doctor the ID to be his very own. He and Galen were similar in height, weight, and coloring. He would have to cover up his own white hairs and act more—boyish?—to make up for the age discrepancy, but otherwise he could use it all. He turned his attention to the business cards. Abdul Mohammed, Antiquities Consultant, Abdul Mohammed, Antiquities Consultant. Two of them. This was no doubt the dude with the job. The third said simply, Chimera, Nucor, and an address on a corporate Greek island. He started to toss it, then stuck it back in the wallet. He'd hang on to it, just for grins. You never knew what might come in useful.

He found the address of Galen's lodgings stuck inside the passport and moved his stuff over there after seeing that nobody was going to question him. The Egyptian bohab, sort of a combination security guard and caretaker at the apartment building's gate, seemed to just assume a new European was moving in and he had somehow missed the going of the last one.

Mike altered Galen's papers while waiting for the meeting. When the time came, he returned to the Palais Ptolemie conference room and looked around. The guy who hadn't introduced himself was there again and again there wasn't a peep out of him while everybody else stood up and said, "Hello, I'm so-and-so, and I'm an alcoholic." Sometimes friends came along, too, but they usually identified themselves as such. This guy just pretended to be invisible. After the meeting was over, the fellow was still hanging around, looking a little puzzled.

Mike walked up to him and said, "I'm taking a wild guess here, but are you Abdul Mohammed?"

His eyes narrowed at Mike. "I am. And you are Mike, I heard you say. However, I was expecting that Galen would be here again."

'That's why I wanted to meet you. It was Galen who suggested I contact you about the job. I'm afraid he had to go underground for a while—quite a long while."

Cleopatra's Narrative:

Rather than spending the day in preparation for our momentous meeting, as I counseled, Leda declared that we were out of some medicine she required and must "take the bus to the VA."

It would have taken less time to cross the desert on a camel! The bus—a large rectangular vehicle holding far more people than any conveyance I had previously encountered, save only the airplane—was not entirely to blame for the length of our journey. We arose early and walked to the clear wall of glass, parting it to step out into the new morning. The rains of the previous day had been replaced by sun and only a little wind to chill our Egypt-warmed blood. Having ascertained that we would not be rained upon, we instead drenched ourselves with water in what Leda refers to as a "shower," washed and dried our hair, dressed in one of the dowdy ensembles she has worn since first I joined her, and walked briskly to the place the bus was known to frequent.

When it arrived, we stepped into it and put money into a container. We did not even get to sit down but, because of the crowd, stood all the way, clinging to seat backs and hand straps when the bus's passage was less than smooth. It stopped many times during our journey, to dispense and admit various people. We crossed a broad river on a ribbon of gray stone containing many, many other conveyances, all wheeled and all roaring.

This bridge of stone was one of a family of such bridges lacing the river like a Roman sandal. Looking down the river, one could see them all clearly arching across, the traffic parading now steadily, now erratically, back and forth across the waters.

At long last the bus climbed a steep hillock atop which sat two palaces larger than any I had ever occupied. These were also joined by a bridge. This city is very fond of bridges, it seems, even to span dry ground.

We entered one of these buildings. Leda said this is where military people go when they are no longer serving but require the attentions of doctors. For soldiers who needed doctors, these people appeared to be remarkably healthy and whole to me! Most had the majority of their limbs still firmly attached. Many were quite old, a condition seldom seen in soldiers of any nation in my experience. They sat around the corridors like so many courtiers awaiting the pleasure of their pharaoh. We made our way to a line of people, and stood behind the last of these. Moving gradually forward, at last we came to an opening in a wall where two people stood receiving the people in the line. Leda submitted her request for the medicine she desired. Instead of handing it to her, the people merely acknowledged that she had spoken. She accepted this and walked into what appeared to be a banquet hall. We sat at a table and read from a book she brought along for that purpose. It contained a fantastic tale of a land preserved by dragons from periodic rains of what seemed to me to be Greek fire. The dragons communicated with each other and their riders in somewhat the same way that Leda and I communicate, except, of course, that a dragon and its rider did not share a body. I thought this might be an entertaining place to visit and wondered if this land was far and whether or not it had a library where we might study.

Every once in a while, as we read, Leda would look up at a screen set high above our heads over the doorways. The names of people appeared there. When one's name appeared, one's medicine had been prepared, and one might return to the window and accept it.

By the time we received the containers of medicine, the dragons had flown to the star dispensing the Greek's fire, we had imbibed two cans of a sweet "soda," devoured a bag of salty vegetable chips and two bars of chocolate. We had also made three trips to the lavatory. But at last we had the precious pills and returned to the street to once more "catch the bus," though no catching was required as it stopped at its accustomed resting place.

This bus traveled past many shops with colorful garments in the windows. Had I had my way, we would have disembarked and used some of Gretchen's money to purchase a suitable raiment for the evening. However, Leda would not move from her seat.

We returned to Rusti's by five in the evening, to a house silent except for the mews of greeting from the cats and the barking of the dog from the adjoining house.

The purple-sprigged gown was in Rusti's washing machine. Its background had been white. However, before her departure, Rusti apparently decided to toss in some new facecloths she had recently purchased. They were of a special manufacture, imported from China, and yet they bled their colors onto our one good dress.

'That settles it," I said. "Rusti must die."