by Eric Flint
Marie had given those people who were interested a quick rundown of the wars of the Diadochi, the generals, and clearly Dag had been looking stuff up on his own. Marie tried to explain what was going on.
“You should have talked to the captain before you said anything, Professor Easley,” Dag said. Eleanor Kinney was looking daggers at Marie too.
“Does Captain Floden have a doctorate in ancient history that I’m unaware of?” Marie asked.
“He’s the captain,” Dag insisted.
“His authority on board this ship is based on the law from two thousand and more years in the future, and his expertise. He knows how to make the ship go where we need it to go. I would never dream of questioning his decisions on things like when to drop anchor or how many points to port we should turn. But he is not an expert on this time. I am! This is a political decision, and even in the twenty-first century his authority would not extend to that.”
“I’m going to have to report this,” Dag said.
“Go right ahead, young man. It won’t bother me at all.” Marie smiled, then turned back to the locals while Dag made his phone call.
“General Gorgias, what do you plan on doing with the information that I gave you?”
“Professor, is it?” he asked and Marie nodded. “The answer is, I don’t know. On a personal basis, I respect Antigonus One-eye as a brave commander. And as little use as I have for Peithon and Arrhidaeus, I have to respect that Antipater is the ranking officer in the Macedonian army. I think I will wait until Ptolemy gets here.”
Marie noticed a look between Crates and Atum, but didn’t ask about it. And Gorgeous George was still talking. “I was surprised to hear that the future thought so well of Alexander’s scribe. He’s won some battles, but I assumed it was mostly luck. He’s not general material.”
“History is quite favorably inclined to Eumenes,” Marie said.
“History written by Greeks. Eumenes is a bookkeeper and the son of a wagoner,” Gorgeous George said, and both Crates and Atum rolled their eyes.
House of Atum Edfu
September 20
“Who can you contact?” Crates asked.
“That’s less the issue than what to say. I have friends among the merchants and an army is always in need of food.”
“Then Attalus, I think. He’s the one with the money, so he will be in touch with the merchants,” Crates said.
“Fine. I will send a message to a merchant I know, and have him talk to Attalus. But what should we say? I don’t like Antipater, and I am not all that enamored of One-eye either. But do we really want to put Perdiccas’ family back in power?”
“No, but that’s not what I think will happen.”
Atum looked at Lateef, then back to Crates. “What do you think will happen then?”
“I think that it’s all going to come apart, no matter what we do. That being the case, I think we should encourage it to come apart quickly so that Egypt doesn’t get hit by the flailing parts of Alexander’s empire again.”
“So what message? Remember we are limited by the signal codes and the time it will take.”
The signal fire network that used bronze mirrors in the daylight hours was owned by Alexander’s empire and maintained in each province by the satrap of that province. So the messages of the government would go first, but after that the private merchants could use it by bribing the men manning the signal fires. All of which meant that if they wanted to send a message, they could, but it couldn’t be too long, and there was a good chance that a copy of anything they sent would be sold to anyone willing to buy it. The merchants were used to the system, so they used codes. Unfortunately, the codes weren’t robust and focused on matters of business, so sending something political would be more challenging.
Atum tried to explain. “It would be easy enough for me to tell Cleisthenes that a shipment of wheat flour would be delayed or arrive early, but telling them that Antigonus is going to steal Antipater away from the army with the help of Seleucus…that’s going to be harder. Even with the signals, it will be two days before today’s message gets there.”
“I know,” Crates agreed. “The message we sent when the ship arrived will probably be received in Triparadisus about now.”
CHAPTER 5
Triparadisus
September 20
Eurydice sat on the couch, leaning against one arm and listening to the soldier read out the report from the signal fires. She knew that someone had gotten the size wrong. There was no way a ship could be that big. It wasn’t possible. Philip, though, was mumbling and Eurydice slid over to listen. He was muttering numbers as he often did. Philip wasn’t stupid, whatever the others thought. He just thought differently. He didn’t understand the value of a drachma and he never looked at people directly, but he read everything he could get his hands on and was constantly doing calculations. It was more than simple counting, what Philip did. He understood the world through numbers, shapes and vectors. So she listened carefully and began to wonder. Philip seemed to think it was at least possible.
Once that was out of the way, Eurydice got up and moved over to Roxane, who was sitting in state across the room. Philip would be busy with his calculations for a time. “What do you think?”
Roxane sniffed dismissively and Eurydice wanted to slap the spoiled bitch, but managed to restrain herself. She waited, and after a moment Roxane said, “With the army in the state it’s in, it could mean anything. Remember, Antipater is on his way, and will be arriving in no more than a week.”
“I’ll deal with the old man,” Eurydice said.
Roxane looked back at her. “Don’t underestimate him. Your hold on the army is weak, and Antipater has the rank. These are soldiers, Eurydice. Unpaid and angry, but soldiers. They are conditioned to respect rank.”
“They killed Perdiccas,” Eurydice insisted.
“No. Peithon and Arrhidaeus killed Perdiccas, and the army let it stand. And that only after the idiot had lost a third of the army trying to march them across the Nile.”
Eurydice didn’t like Roxane, but had to admit that the woman was astute. She understood politics, even if she lacked the guts of a Macedonian. Now Eurydice considered what that would mean for herself. Roxane was probably right about the reverence that Antipater was held in by the common soldiers, especially since they hadn’t had to deal with the old man for decades. Antipater wasn’t fond of Eurydice, and Eurydice didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust any of them. But old man Antipater despised anything that wasn’t Macedonian, and despised women even more than he did Greeks. Until now, Eurydice had been planning to continue her bid for the regency, or at least a real place on a regency council. But with Antipater running things, that seemed a lot less likely to succeed. She would need to push the sub-commanders so that the old man didn’t get to use his rank. “Do you want to be left in Antipater’s hands?”
“Do you think we have a choice?” Roxane hissed at her, her eyes slitted. “Disabuse yourself of the notion that we are queens, little girl. We are no more than bargaining chips in the game of power that the generals play now.”
“Is that what you want?” Eurydice hissed back. “To be a playing piece?”
“It’s—” Roxane started in what was almost a shout and suddenly everyone in the room was looking at them. Roxane looked back and they looked away, then she continued much more quietly. “It’s not a matter of what we want or don’t want. It’s a matter of what is.”
“But the ship,” Eurydice insisted. “It changes things, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe. If it’s real, and not some plot. At this point, how it changes things is anyone’s guess.”
Eurydice turned away from Alexander’s beauty and went back to Philip. The woman’s perfume was giving her a headache.
Reliance, Alexandria Harbor
6:23 AM, September 21
Joe Kugan saw the bulk of the Queen of the Sea rise out of the horizon with a mixture of relief and resentment. He’d had plenty of
time to think as he made his slow way across the Mediterranean Sea. Everything was left back in the future. His wife, his sons, the company…everything. Meanwhile, he and his crew had been left behind by the Queen as she rushed off to Alexandria. They could have gone slower. They could have waited, but they didn’t. Well, fine. If they were going to be that way, so was he. The Reliance was his ship, and the fuel oil on her was his fuel oil. His and his crew’s.
“Radio message, Captain,” Michael Kimball said. “They want us to pull up on the starboard side of the Queen and prepare for fuel transfer.”
“We’ll go ahead and pull up to the side, but not a drop of our fuel oil is going to leave the barge till I have a few things settled with Captain Queeg over there.”
“Fine by me, Captain,” Michael said with a grin.
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“The Reliance confirms that she will pull up alongside, but says that refueling will have to wait until a price and a medium of exchange are established.”
“Fine.” Lars Floden rubbed his eyes. He had been in meetings almost nonstop since they reached Alexandria. Meetings with the cooks and the engineering staff as they tried to come up with ways of separating the wheat from the chaff and grinding the wheat into flour suitable for making bread. Fortunately, there was yeast in the bakery. By using some of that, they had established a good colony of twenty-first century yeast, which they might be able to sell to the locals because clearly the Queen’s bakery turned out better bread than the locals. Then there were the meats, which often had tapeworms and other parasites. For right now, that was being handled by cooking everything well done. The vegetables were of indifferent quality and it was all expensive.
In spite of the amount of the provisioning problems Jane handled, a load of it had made its way to the captain’s desk because people didn’t like the answers Jane gave them. “Set up an appointment with Captain Kugan and the staff captain.” Lars felt himself smile. “And include Congressman Wiley. If he wants to be involved so much, let him tell Joe Kugan that the oil in Barge 14 is owned by all the passengers in common.”
“Yes, sir.” Doug smiled and pulled up the captain’s schedule. It was—unsurprisingly—full. It would be the next afternoon before the captain, staff captain, and Congressman Wiley would all be free at the same time.
Royal Lounge, Queen of the Sea
September 21
“Not at all, Captain Kugan. I agree completely. You and your crew own the Reliance and the fuel on board her as well.” Al Wiley smiled generally around the room and even snorted a laugh at the captain’s expression. “You always knew I was a Republican, Captain Floden, not a communist. I am simply concerned that all the, er, found wealth be shared out in a reasonably equitable manner. The people on the Reliance own the Reliance. The people on the Queen of the Sea own the Queen of the Sea.”
By now Kugan was looking smug, Floden was looking pissed, and Dahl was looking ready to chew nails and spit tacks. Which was pretty much what Al had been going for in all cases. “You and your crew have a valuable ship there, Captain Kugan, and a valuable cargo. However, it’s a very limited cargo too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t have machine shops on the Reliance. You can’t fix anything that can’t be fixed by hand. You don’t have food, water or the means to get any of those things on your own. Perhaps most important of all, you don’t have someone who can speak to the locals to allow you to negotiate with them directly. And even if you could, what makes you think they would negotiate in good faith?”
Royal Palace, Alexandria
September 21
“We need to learn their language,” Dinocrates said. “I don’t like the idea of everything we say going through that woman. There’s something odd about her. For one thing, I’m sure she’s much older than she looks.”
Atum suppressed a grin when Ptolemy looked first at his hetaera, Thaïs, then back at Dinocrates.
“There are options, Philos Dinocrates,” Atum said. Philos was a court title roughly on a par with the later “count,” and had been given to Dinocrates by Alexander when he was given the job of overseeing the construction of Alexandria. Ptolemy reaffirmed the title when he was made satrap of Egypt by Perdiccas at Babylon, just after Alexander’s death.
“What alternatives?” asked Ptolemy.
Atum bowed. “They have a sort of magic slate.” He waved to Dinocrates and Crates, as well as Lateef. “We’ve all seen them.” Atum was referring to the e-pads and phones with their gorilla glass fronts. Something that you really had to see to believe. “Please withhold your judgment on our sanity until you have had a chance to see them. In any case, there is a demon or ghost they call a program that can be placed in the slates, and it can translate, if not well. Its Greek is barely understandable, and it speaks no other tongue known in this time.”
“I thought they knew Egyptian in that future,” said Thaïs.
“So, apparently, did they,” Lateef said. “The language of my home has changed even more in the intervening centuries than Greek has. What about Latin, Atum? Didn’t Marie say something about the translation ghost having Latin?”
“I’ve heard it. It sounds a little like Latin, but it’s hard to tell. Perhaps I should have said ‘it speaks no other civilized tongue.’ The point I was trying to make is that if we can get one of their magic slates, we can use it to learn their language.”
“Will the slates work for us?” Ptolemy asked.
“I asked about that, and if I understood the answer, they will for a time, if we are given the spell to unlock them. But they run out of life force and must be fed their vibrant force. They call it ‘e-lek-trik’ I think, and it is made of the same stuff as lightning.”
Dinocrates, Crates and Thaïs all nodded in support. Some of the Greek philosophers had experimented with the same power. No one in the room knew the distinctions involved. The experiments they had read about had been with static electricity, and to a lesser extent with bioelectrical sources, like the electric eel. Direct current and alternating current would be new to them, but not completely unfamiliar.
“Then we should see about gaining one or more of the magic slates and some means of providing them with the ‘e-lek-trik,’ you mentioned,” Ptolemy told Atum, “and learn how they are fed. I hope it can be done like the experiments discussed in works, and doesn’t require sacrifices to their gods.
“What can you tell me about that other ship that arrived this morning?”
“I was on the Queen when it arrived,” Atum said. “It is a fuel ship, loaded with the refined naphtha they use to power the larger ship. That’s all I know, but I got the impression that Dag was less than pleased with the crew of the Reliance for some reason. He didn’t say why, and I didn’t want to ask.”
“Yet another reason we need one of those magic slates.”
“It won’t be cheap, Satrap. I bought one of their ‘flashlights,’ and it cost a thousand pounds of wheat. The ‘L-E-D flashlight’ is a relatively simple device, so Dag explained to me, and I saw the same thing in their gift shop.”
Ptolemy’s expression went dark, and Atum lost any urge to smile in response. “I will send messages to Memphis for more grain and foodstuffs,” Ptolemy said. “And I don’t doubt that I can handle the expenses. But I don’t like these merchants trying to bargain with me in my own harbor.” The satrap of Egypt grimaced, then continued. “In the meantime, get me a slate.”
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Gorgias looked at Ptolemy as the others left the audience chamber. “It can be done, Satrap. I have been aboard the ship and seen both the strengths and weaknesses of it.”
“And what are they?”
“The great strength is simply the size of the thing. That, you can see from here. It would be a climb and we would take losses making it. The ship is like a mountain fortress.”
“And the weaknesses?”
“The people on board that ship are sheep for the shearing. Many of them are old, and all of
them are fat. If there are two hundred soldiers among the five thousand people on that ship, I’ll eat the excess. That is the largest single weakness, but almost as great is the lack of weapons. They wear on their belts a device that is apparently something like a slingshot that throws a small oblong pellet. I doubt they would stand up against bows, even if they had a lot of them. And they don’t. They have twenty, perhaps twice that. I didn’t want to seem too curious, but they are, at the core, unarmed oldsters off on a jaunt.”
“What would be the best way to take the ship?”
“Subversion of the crew, I would think.” Gorgias considered. The crew were basically servants, though not slaves. Certainly not war captives. They were paid for their work and under normal circumstances could leave their service. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and Gorgias was convinced that the laws that held them in check had been left behind in that place or time they came from. Gorgias wasn’t convinced it was truly the future, though he was starting to think it might be. He brought himself back to the question. “Failing that, or perhaps in coordination with it, an attack by galleys, ropes and ladders thrown up to the ports to get our troops in. Once we are in, there won’t be much to it. But we will lose men getting in, possibly a lot of men.”
Ptolemy nodded, and then said, “Make your preparations, but quietly. And take no overt action until I tell you to.” There was a half-smile on the satrap’s face. “Such a ship is rulership of the Mediterranean Sea and all the lands surrounding it. If Alexander had had such a ship, he would have indeed ruled the world. And if Perdiccas owned it, I would be dead now. At the very least, we cannot allow it to fall to Antigonus or Seleucus. Attalus would be almost as bad. Hades, even old Antipater would be dangerous with such a weapon. If for no other reason than that Cassander might inherit it when the old man dies. Even Cassander would be brave from aboard such a ship.”
