Pagan Pa.s.sions.
by Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Mark Janifer.
Adult Science Fiction, with the supernatural making complete sense.
The G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of Ancient Greece and Rome had returned to Earth--with all their awesome powers intact, and Earth was transformed almost overnight. War on any scale was outlawed, along with boom-and-bust economic cycles, and prudery--no change was more startling than the face of New York, where, for instance, the Empire State Building became the Tower of Zeus!
In this totally altered world, William Forrester was an acolyte of Athena, G.o.ddess of Wisdom, and therefore a teacher, in this case of a totally altered history--and Maya Wilson, girl student, evidently had a totally altered way of grading in mind--but what else would a worshipper of Venus, G.o.ddess of Love, have in mind?
This was just the first of the many Trials of Forrester, every bit as mighty and perilous as the Labors of Hercules. In love with Gerda Symes, like him a devotee of Athena, like him a frequenter of the great Temple of Pallas Athena (formerly known as the 42nd Street Library)--dedicated, in short, to the pleasures of the mind--Forrester was under the soft, compelling pressure of soft, compelling devotees of Venus, Bacchus and the like, and in need of all the strength that he and his G.o.ddess, the beautiful and intellectual Athena, could muster to save him from the endless temptations of this new Earth.
And into this sensuous strife strode Temple Myrmidons--religious cops sworn to obey orders without question or hesitation--with a pickup order for William Forrester.
Where he was taken, what happened to him, the truly fantastic discoveries he made about himself and the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses--here are the ingredients that make up this science fiction novel of suspense, intrigue, mystery and danger. For science fiction it is, with the supernatural making complete sense, and fun too, despite the Sword of Damocles hanging by a thread over Forrester"s head!
_by Randall Garrett and Larry M. Harris_
CHAPTER ONE
The girl came toward him across the silent room. She was young. She was beautiful. Her red hair curled like a flame round her eager, heart-shaped face. Her arms reached for him. Her hands touched him. Her eyes were alive with the light of pure love. I am yours, the eyes kept saying. Do with me as you will.
Forrester watched the eyes with a kind of fascination.
Now the girl"s mouth opened, the lips parted slightly, and her husky voice murmured softly: "Take me. Take me."
Forrester blinked and stepped back.
"My G.o.d," he said. "This is ridiculous."
The girl pressed herself against him. The sensation was, Forrester thought with a kind of awe, undeniably pleasant. He tried to remember the girl"s name, and couldn"t. She wriggled slightly and her arms went up around him. Her hands clasped at the back of his neck and her mouth moved, close to his ear.
"Please," she whispered. "I want you...."
Forrester felt his head swimming. He opened his mouth but nothing whatever came out. He shut his mouth and tried to think what to do with his hands. They were hanging foolishly at his sides. The girl came even closer, something Forrester would have thought impossible.
Time stopped. Forrester swam in a pink haze of sensations. Only one small corner of his brain refused to lose itself in the magnificence of the moment. In that corner, Forrester felt feverishly uncomfortable. He tried again to remember the girl"s name, and failed again. Of course, there was really no reason why he should have known the name. It was, after all, only the first day of cla.s.s.
"Please," he said valiantly. "Miss--"
He stopped.
"I"m Maya Wilson," the girl said in his ear. "I"m in your cla.s.s, Mr.
Forrester. Introductory World History." She bit his ear gently.
Forrester jumped.
None of the textbooks of propriety he had ever seen seemed to cover the situation he found himself in. What did one do when a.s.saulted (pleasantly, to be sure, but a.s.sault was a.s.sault) by a lovely girl who happened to be one of your freshman students? She had called him Mr.
Forrester. That was right and proper, even if it was a little silly. But what should he call her? Miss Wilson?
That didn"t sound right at all. But, for other reasons, Maya sounded even worse.
The girl said: "Please," and added to the force of the word with another little wriggle against Forrester. It solved his problems. There was now only one thing to do, and he did it.
He broke away, found himself on the other side of his desk, looking across at an eager, wet-lipped freshman student.
"Well," he said. There was a lone little bead of sweat trickling down his forehead, across his frontal ridge and down one cheek. He ignored it bravely, trying to think what to do next. "Well," he repeated at last, in what he hoped was a gentle and fatherly tone. "Well, well, well, well, well." It didn"t seem to have any effect. Perhaps, he thought, an attempt to put things back on the teacher-student level might have better results. "You wanted me to see you?" he said in a grave, scholarly tone. Then, gulping briefly, he amended it in a voice that had suddenly grown an octave: "You wanted to see me? I mean, you--"
"Oh," Maya Wilson said. "Oh, my goodness, _yes_, Mr. Forrester!"
She made a sudden sensuous motion that looked to Forrester as if she had suddenly abolished bones. But it wasn"t unpleasant. Far from it. Quite the contrary.
Forrester licked his lips, which were suddenly very dry. "Well," he said. "What about, Miss--uh--Miss Wilson?"
"Please call me Maya, Mr. Forrester. And I"ll call you--" There was a second of hesitation. "Mr. Forrester," Maya said plaintively, "what is your first name?"
"First name?" Forrester tried to think of his first name. "You want to know my first name?"
"Well," Maya said, "I want to call you something. Because after all--"
She looked as if she were going to leap over the desk.
"You may call me," Forrester said, grasping at his sanity, "Mr.
Forrester."
Maya sidled around the desk quietly. "Mr. Forrester," she said, reaching for him, "I wanted to talk to you about the Introductory World History course."
Forrester shivered as if someone had thrown cold water on his rising aspirations.
"Oh," he said.
"That"s right," Maya whispered. Her mouth was close to his ear again.
Other parts of her were close to other parts of him once more. Forrester found it difficult to concentrate.
"I"ve _got_ to pa.s.s the course, Mr. Forrester," Maya whispered. "I"ve just _got_ to."
Somehow, Forrester retained just enough control of his faculties to remember the standard answer to protestations like that one. "Well, I"m sure you will," he said in what he hoped was a calm, hearty, hopeful voice. He was reasonably sure it wasn"t any of those, and even surer that it wasn"t all three. "You seem like a--like a fairly intelligent young lady," he finished lamely.
"Oh, no," she said. "I"m sure I won"t be able to remember all those old-fashioned dates and things. Never. Never." Suddenly she pressed herself wildly against him, throwing him slightly off balance. Locked together, the couple reeled against the desk. Forrester felt it digging into the small of his back. "I"ll do anything to pa.s.s the course, Mr.
Forrester!" she vowed. "Anything!"
The insistent pressure of the desk top robbed the moment of some of its natural splendor. Forrester disengaged himself gently and slid a little out of the way. "Now, now," he said, moving rapidly across the room toward a blank wall. "This sort of thing isn"t usually done, Maya. I mean, Miss Wilson. I mean--"
"But--"
"People just don"t do such things," Forrester said sternly. He thought of escaping through the door, but the picture that arose immediately in his mind dissuaded him. He saw Maya pursuing him pa.s.sionately through the halls while admiring students and faculty stared after them.