Titans of Chaos

I sat down on the little bench of silver cushions in the stern of the ship.

Colin said, "If you want to appoint a second and third in command, Dark Mistress, you can take abreak if you want..."

I said, "No, no. I feel okay. I guess the game isn't nearly over. Lamia is still looking to kill us, andBoggin still has some method of finding me, I guess at any time he wants, and Mavors can find usany time our lives are imperiled. We have not escaped yet. The Olympians have let us out on aleash. It's a long leash, but it is still a leash, and we are not free until we get the collar off."

Victor said, "We also know from your experience with Sam the Drayman that the Olympiansroutinely erase memories and falsify evidence to hide their presence from the human beings,whom they regard as cattle. I suppose we can expect to see headlines in the news about theaccidental sinking of the Queen Elizabeth II some time within the next few days. I am sorry aboutthat. We already speculated that there may be a spell or 'fate' in place to prevent the humans fromseeing evidence of people like us. If so, any use of our powers in front of human witnesses maytrigger an alarm, just in the same way Mavors gets an alarm when we are threatened withdeath."

Quentin said, "This ship, the Argent Nautilus, also can be detected when she moves, or whenVanity calls for her."

Colin said, "Yep, but apparently-correct me if I am wrong on this, guys-apparently only Mestor orsome At-lantans have a whatchamacallit-"

"Magic lodestone," provided Vanity.

"-magic lodestone to find the ship in motion. If Lamia had one, she'd have come to get us all bynow, right? Mestor hasn't come for us, because Mavors told him to let us run around till Lamiashowed up to kill us."

Quentin said to me, "Leader, our experience on the ocean liner shows that we endanger anyhuman beings we are around. I suggest we just turn around and find some deserted islandsomewhere."

I looked at the beautiful, tall buildings, towers made by human hands, human minds, works of fineengineering. Built by free people, who explored and conquered the new world not so very longago. People in a land where women owned property, carried guns, ran businesses, worked inlaboratories, became astronauts. People like what I wanted to be like.

"Live like Robinson Crusoe? For how long?"

Quentin spread his hands. "Tell me what our long-term goals are."

I said, "Well, gosh, I assume we all have different goals. I want to be the first woman on Mars.