Strata

down to the shingle, then shied back noisily as, with the crew in their seats smirking like demons, Silver dropped over the side and ran the boat up the beach by herself.
    There was a glassy-eyed dragon head roped to the prow.
    Leiv led them into a long high-roofed hutthat made Kin wonder whatever happened to Grendel. But, of course, Grendel was slinking alongside her, swinging his too-many arms and eyeing the crowds for possible assassins.
    When her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom inside she saw an open fire in a pit and, beside it, a man sitting on a rough stool. One leg was stretched out in front of him. He was redheaded, and bearded.
    He rose unsteadily from his stool and embraced Leiv, both men holding themselves as if there was just the faintest possibility that the other might attempt a stabbing. Then the younger man spoke.
    It was a lengthy saga. After a while the older man was taken outside and shown what remained of the dead dragon. He was introduced to Silver, and hobbled several times round Marco, who looked at him sidelong. He grinned at Kin in a way that expressed horizontal desires.
    Encouraged by this display, other inhabitants turned up. Kin’s attention was drawn to two men in black robes. One of them was looking at Marco fearfully and reciting some sort of incantation.
    Silver’s head swivelled round.
    She spoke a sentence in the same language.
    From then on Silver did the translating.
    ‘The tongue is Latin, the Remen tongue. Except that these men refer to Rome not Reme.’
    Kin considered it. ‘Romulus and Remus,’ she said at last. ‘The founders of Rome. Ever hear the legend?’
    ‘I think I recall it in a folklore anthology.’
    ‘So on the disc Remus won the naming privilege. What else did they say?’
    ‘Oh, quite a lot of gibberish about demons, the usual primitive world stuff. Ever heard the word
troll
? They keep looking at Marco and saying it. There’s also a lot about gods, I think.’
    Kin looked around. These people were either primitive or superb actors. Perhaps the gods were the disc builders.
    ‘Ask about them,’ she said. A long conversation followed. Sometimes the older of the men would point to the sky. Leiv and his father watched carefully.
    Finally Silver nodded and turned to Kin. ‘Let’s see if I get this right, now,’ she said. ‘There’s a whole lot of gods about, but the top god is called Christos. The high priest lives at Rome. There was also another kind of god who created this world in six days. Anticipating your questions,’ she said, raising a paw to interrupt Kin, ‘I asked for more details. This creator-god has a lot of minor assistant gods with wings, and there’s another lesser being called Saitan who sounds like an agitator. There’s a lot of other usual, religious stuff too.’
    ‘Six days is too fast,’ said Kin. ‘It’d take the Company six years even with prefabricatedparts. Frankly, I’d put it all down as a myth.’
    ‘It’s unusually straightforward,’ Silver pointed out. ‘In most myths the world is usually made from the supreme being’s step-father’s pancreas or the blood of the sacred beetle or something.’
    Kin frowned. Earth had plenty of religions, and had exported as many as she had imported. For every sect of humans engaged in complicated Ehftnic time rituals there was a group of saffron-dyed shandi drumming and chanting through the frozen Shandi streets. Generally Company people, being in the creation business, didn’t bother with religion or went along with something basic and non-controversial, like Wicca or Buddhism.
    Kin had drunk of many cups in her time, just out of curiosity. Stand up, kneel down, climb a mountain, chant, go naked, whirl, dance, fast, abhor, gorge, pray – sometimes it was enjoyable, but it was always introverted, unreal.
    Leiv’s father spoke at length to one of the priests, who spoke to Silver. Silver laughed and replied.
    ‘He wants to buy the Valhalla oven,’ she translated.
    ‘The what?’
    ‘The dumbwaiter. He says that he knows that in Valhalla all men eat and drink endlessly and now he knows it is because they have these ovens that grind out food and drink.’
    ‘Tell him it’s not for sale.’ She looked directlyat Eirick Raude. Red Eric. Back on Earth there was a worn mound in the heart of Valhalla where the water from the five inland seas spilled over into the Long Fjord. Eirick’s Beard, they called the water. Red Eric had been buried in the mound. It was a big