"At night the sailors steer the boat into shore and run the bow on the beach so they can get out to stretch and sleep, but they leave us in the boat with a couple of guys with spears to see we don't try nothing. After a coupla days we come to the Peiraieus. I'm all the time waiting to wake up from this horrible dream, but I don't. They take us to a place where they sell slaves — nobody told me but I figured it out. They take off our clothes and make us stand on the block like in the movies while guys bid for us.
"When my turn comes I stand up feeling kinda funny on account of there's a coupla broads watching, but these Gricks is all nudists, see, and don't make no never-mind. The auctioneer pokes me and hollers to look see how strong I am. He even raps me on the silver plate I got in my head on account of I was in an automobile accident a coupla years ago. I don't like it, but there's a big mean-looking guy with a whip just in case.
"By and by a jerk comes up and talks to the auctioneer and then asks me something. I don't get it, so he does sign language of shooting a bow and arrow. I never shot no bows and arrows since I was six, so I shake my head. But since that means 'yes' among the Gricks, the jerk thinks I can shoot. So he goes into a huddle with the auctioneer, and next I know me and two other guys is being marched all the way to the police barracks in Athens.
"When I get onto the language a little, I find out the jerk is a police commissioner sent down to buy three new cops for the force. Good thing he thought I said 'yes' because if he hadn't, I'd either been sent to the silver mines at Laureion and worked to death, or sold to a private buyer as a household slave — and what happens to them, I'd just as soon be dead.
"The first days is rugged, on account of the old-timers put us through the jumps. I make like I don't mind on account of I know if I blow my top and slug one of these farstards, they'll beat me to a bloody pulp. All the time I'm trying to pick up a little Grick. And I figure I better learn to shoot quick or it's the silver mines for me. So I watch the boys practicing on the archery range, and when everybody that ain't on duty is asleep after lunch, I sneak out and shoot some. Got my knuckles skinned at first, but at least I don't look like I never touched one of the things before.
"Since then I been trained and put on regular patrol duty like any other cop. As slavery, it ain't too bad. So that's my story. I musta been here nearly a year now. What's yours, gents?"
Bulnes told their story, ending, "We're delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Diksen, but we should still like to know a few things. How did you know us by sight?"
"The whiskers. Either you better cut 'em off or stay out of sight for a week until the rest of your hair grows out, see?"
"Otherwise?"
"You mean what would happen? I dunno, but there's something funny about this whole setup.''
"The prize understatement of the year. Go on."
"I mean, what is this? It looks like we been dumped back in one of those ancient times they used to tell us about in school. What I wanna know is, what's the deal? The gimmick? They can't really put us back in some other time. It ain't logical."
"Precisely what we've been trying to figure out," said Bulnes. "Do you know of any other cases like ours?"
"Well, one of the boys on the force was telling about another guy, a few months ago, who showed up in modern clothes. I didn't see him myself, but they say he got sent to Laureion."
Bulnes finished his last onion. At least, now, he'd stink like all the others.
"What do we do next?" he asked.
"Well, us modern men got to stick together, see? I thought maybe I'd get next to some guy who knows what it's all about. And how can we get the hell out of here?"
"Why?" said Flin. "Don't you like it?"
Diksen gave a sharp howl that made the other customers look around. "Like it! My God, you just try being a slave and see how you like it!"
"But as a slave you have rather a good position. Athenian slaves were treated the most leniently of any ..."
"I still got to do like I'm told. If the job was twice as good, I still wouldn't like it, on account I can't quit."
"Suppose you were a free man. Would you like Athens then?"
"Hell no!" said Diksen. "You can keep your pretty statues. I'll take flush toilets and glass windows and electric lights. There ain't nothing in this whole place we'd call necessary for human comfort — even in the rich citizens' houses. Living here's like — like camping out without no modern camping equipment, see? Give me good old Yonkers! Look, professor, you gotta get me back! You gotta, before I go nuts!"
Bulnes said, "We'll try. We, too, have been wondering whether this was the real ancient Greece or a modern imitation."
"How can you tell?" said Diksen. "I never studied no history, so I dunno if it's the McCoy or not."
"For one thing, assuming time travel is really involved, we don't know whether we're back in the whole ancient world or only a part of it."
"Come again, Mr. Bulnes?"
"How shall. I explain it? Suppose we started walking north from here. We should pass through Boiotia and Thessalia and so on. Now, in the modern world, there's a force wall around Greece and adjacent areas which the Emp set up to keep people out while he performed his experiments. Do you follow me so far?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Well then, in walking away from here, should we eventually come to the force wall again — the same one we penetrated on our way in — or should we just find more and more of the ancient world no matter how far we went?"
Diksen scratched his head. "I dunno. I couldn't start on no hike like that, on account of the epheboi watch the borders to see no runaway slave don't sneak through."
Flin asked, "How about a free man, or somebody who could pass as one?"
"I suppose he could get through, except they tell me it's rough out in the sticks. Bandits and lions, and if you can't take care of yourself, nobody else ain't gonna do it for you."
Bulnes asked. "D'you know how far this piece of the ancient world does extend?"
"Lemme think. Most of us archers comes from what would be the Balkans. They was all farmers or sheepherders living in little one-room shacks, and none of 'em ever heard of the World Empire or longevity treatments or rockets to Mars. No, I don't think Bulgaria and Romania is inside the force wall, on account of my ticket took me to Sofia and Bucuresti. So we must be back in the real ancient world, two-three thousand years before we was born."
"Not necessarily. This experiment has been going on for less than a dozen years, yet we see middle-aged and elderly men all around us, all convinced they're authentic Athenians."
"How do you mean?" asked Flin.
"If there's some system of introducing a false memory into a man's mind, so he thinks he's spent the fifty years of his life in ancient Athens, the same treatment could be given Mr. Diksen's fellow-archers, regardless of where they actually came from. Is there a real Sparta too, Mr. Diksen?"
"Must be," said Diksen. "Coupla months ago they ordered us out on special duty because a gang of ambassadors came from there to dicker over some treaty with the big shot. Bunch of sour-pusses with long hair, and even dirtier than the Athenians, which is pretty dirty, see? Well, the Athenians ain't got no use for Spartans on account of they got no brains, no manners, and no art, so the big shot ordered us to escort these ambassadors in case some wise guy heaves something at them. But everything went off okay and the big shot got his treaty."
"Who," asked Bulnes, "is the big shot?"
"The boss — the general — the head, strategos. Perikles."