Titans of Chaos

Then, a break in the trees. There was a narrow strip of grass, and then a cliff. I could see thetexture of the trees far below, like green cumulus clouds. There was a line cutting through thetrees. A highway? In the distance, in the horizon, a gray smudge was gathered around a long lineof blue haze. The sea? I did not see how that could be Los Angeles-the terrain looked too greenand hilly. On the other hand, I did not know what the city looked like from the landward side. Idid not even know what planet this was.

I saw a group of maenads break free of the tree line about a hundred yards, maybe two hundred,to the left of me.

I stood still, hoping they would see the uniform and conclude I was an Amazon. But they were notfooled. On they came.

One of them laughed and simply jumped off the cliff to her death. The others screamed likefalcons and ran toward me. Trees behind me swayed and toppled, and hundred-feet-tall cylindersof timber began raining over the cliffside. My armor stiffened once or twice as splinters as long asmy forearm, shooting through the air at the speed of sound, bounced off the high-tech Amazonianfabric.

It knocked me sliding off the cliff. Before I fell, the last thing I did was chamber and shoot ananti-psychic round into the cliff face half a yard away from me.

The recoil tore the rifle out of my hands. But since the energy-pulse from the shell negated, for amoment, whatever it was the maenads were doing to me to compress me, I merely reached outwith a tendril and organized the world-path of the falling rifle so that it jumped immediately backinto my hand.

On wings of silver and red shining stuff, I soared down the cliff face. Reality blinked, and I was afalling girl. I shot again. I was a soaring four-dimensional angel-thing. Blink again: 3-D girl again,falling. Shot again: 4-D angel. Blink: 3-D. Shot: 4-D. You get the picture.

Twenty yards up from an inviting patch of grass, and I was out of that particular type of ammo. Ihad given Antiope my spare clips, after all. Blink: 3-D again. The girl falls.

The armor, which stiffened on impact to protect against rifle shots, also stiffened on impact whenI fell. This meant no absorbing any shock with my legs, no clever tumbling, no rolling-just a bad,bad fall.