Gods and Pawns by Kage Baker

started up the hill after Mendoza, who had paused halfway up to retrieve a few buried items washed out by the storms. He was rehearsing a speech, and it began: Look here, I was wondering…we get on pretty well, don’t you think? I have nightmares, and a little glitch or two, and you have nightmares, too, and bad memories, but—we could sort of form a mutual support alliance. I know I’ll never replace your Englishman, but —
    “Oh, look,” Mendoza said glumly, and held up a martini glass. “Ancient visitors from space left us a ritual object. Do you suppose they preferred shaken, or stirred?”
    Lewis took the glass and tilted it so the mud trickled out. “Looks like they drank espresso.”
    “Ugh,” said Mendoza. “Do you realize, this whole time we’ve been living on a mountain of—”
    “Don’t think about it,” said Lewis. “Just don’t. Think about anything else. Fairies dancing in the moonlight. The meaning of Rosebud. The far-off tinkle of little golden temple bells.”
    “Or, for example, my disciplinary hearing,” said Mendoza.
    “What disciplinary hearing?”
    “The one I’ll get when the anthropologists discover what I did. I sneaked into the damn Room of Sacrifice again last night. Gave that boy a dose of medication to kill liver flukes,” said Mendoza, starting up the hill again. Lewis stared after her a moment, then ran to catch up.
    “Bravo,” he said. “Bravo! But it won’t make any difference, I’m afraid. He’ll only be reinfected.”
    “No, he won’t.” Mendoza reached the top and swung around to face Lewis. “Because after I dosed the kid, I went out to the fish ponds. Yanked out every last little bit of watercress. And smashed every damn snail I could find.”
    Her eyes were sullen, her mouth was hard, and Lewis thought he had never loved her more than in that moment.
    “I had to, Lewis. That temple room was the most obscene thing I’d seen since…since England.” England, where a young man had gone willingly to the stake because he believed it was his duty.
    “I know,” said Lewis gently, seeing the tall specter loom beside her, and knowing it would never go away. Nicholas Harpole’s shadow rose with her in the morning, walked with her in all her ways, and lay down beside her at night.
    “It still won’t make any difference,” she went on. “You can bet Dr. Zeus will infect him again, once the Company gets its hands on him. They’ll want to experiment on him, won’t they?”
    “It won’t be that bad,” Lewis said. “The Company isn’t inhumane. They’ll cure him again once they get their answer, and then—well, the Guanikina will learn they’re not gods, and will that really be such a bad thing? Better than living in ever-increasing squalor and—and—”
    “And incest,” said Mendoza. “You’re right, of course.”
    “And who cares what the anthropologists think anyway? We’ve still made an amazing discovery. How often do lowly field operatives discover something about which All-Seeing Zeus didn’t already know?” said Lewis, more cheerfully.
    “That’s true.” Mendoza brightened up a little.
    They waded into the remains of their camp, which was already disappearing under creepers, and began to throw what they’d salvaged into the packing crates.
    “By the way,” said Mendoza, “what was that, that the old man gave you?”
    “A relic of ancient Atlantis, ha ha,” said Lewis. He reached under his poncho and pulled out the bundle. Carefully, he unwrapped rags of colored cotton.
    “Oh,” he said. Mendoza came and peered at the little lidded basket, woven of pink and yellow straw.
    “Talk about cheesy souvenirs,” she said. She lifted off the lid. “Something in there? Those look like somebody’s keys.”
    Lewis reached in and pulled out a bunch of metal tags, all fastened together on a loop of braided cord. They were rectangular, apparently made of polished steel, and engraved on one side. He separated one out from the rest and