by S. J. Ryan
Curious, he said, "I should like to personally thank the rescuers."
"There was only one, sir. I don't know his name. A miner from Shaft Four."
"Can you point him out to me?"
"I, uh, really didn't get a good look at him, sir."
Sensing that the man wanted to stay as far away from the affair as possible, Archimedes went on to Shaft Four. He gave a nod of acknowledgment to the Shaft Four foreman and began his inspection.
He yanked on a shaft pulley and heard no squeak. The latest repair on the hose did not leak. The lamps in the newly carved gallery were angled properly to provide maximum light. The pump chugged so quietly that he almost overlooked it.
The shoring timbers in the galleries had been replaced with fresh timber, and Archimedes could not have done a better job of positioning them.
"Someone knows his statics," he murmured.
He looked at the foreman. The foreman stared blankly. Archimedes thought, The only statics he knows is to slumber. Moreover, it was unlikely that after all these years, he had learned how to do his job properly only in the past days.
Archimedes remembered, and addressed the foreman, "I was informed that one of your miners was involved in the rescue of a miner in Shaft Three."
"I, uh, don't rightly recall the incident, sir."
Archimedes glanced over at Shaft Three. “Did you notice that the shaft next to yours became filled with water? It happened around that time.”
"Uh, I believe the person of which you speak has moved on."
"I . . . see."
An overseer walked past. Archimedes slapped him on the shoulder. The overseer looked ready to snap at the old man whose rough robe was barely a cut above that of one of the slaves, but then he saw the attending warden and guards.
"I understand that a miner here was involved in a rescue at Shaft Three," Archimedes said.
The overseer started to turn toward the foreman, but Archimedes squeezed his shoulder and said loudly, "You are addressing me."
A moment later, the overseer emerged from the shaft with a youth. Archimedes had expected an athletic physique, but the youth looked rather scrawny. Archimedes was amazed that the young man, who had a soft face and was barely more than a boy, had survived even a week on Palras, let alone could accomplish the physical feat being attributed to him.
Then he noticed the blood still caking the boy's hair. It looked as if the boy had received quite a beating. But there were no lumps, bruises, or scars. He had walked without a limp. The alert eyes told of no interior damage to his mind.
Then, modesty permitting, Archimedes observed the boy's attire. The boy's shirt and shorts were little more than white undergarments, but Archimedes had never seen such finely made clothing. As he was watching, the dirt from the mine began to slip off the garment, leaving it so immaculate that even the launderers at the Emperor's palace could not have matched its cleanliness. And where were the seams?
Archimedes became aware of being watched by the prisoners and guards, and realized what they were thinking of his scrutiny of the boy's frame. He refrained from explaining himself. The more he explained himself, the more they would be convinced they were right.
Archimedes cleared his throat, but then he heard:
"Who are you?"
The young man had spoken without being spoken to, which is something that prisoners on Palras learn not to do after the first day. And he was looking directly at Archimedes. Direct eye contact too!
Archimedes replied, "I am Archimedes, Chief Scientist of Rome."
"You! You're Archimedes?"
The boy, unfazed by the horrors of Palras, was staring at Archimedes with wide eyes.
"Don't look at me that way. Someone has to be him. And who are you?"
"I'm Matt."
Archimedes nodded. For all he knew, every other male in Britan was named after the Star Child.
"Well, Matt, thank you for your life-saving rescue."
"Uh, yeah, sure."
Archimedes was not surprised at the boy's puzzled expression. Gratitude was a sentiment seldom seen on Palras.
The rescue in Shaft Three and the improvements in Shaft Four might have seemed unrelated, but (despite Hadron's misinterpretation of what he had been taught) Archimedes had long ago learned to investigate a common source for anomalies that coincided in time and locality.
"I see someone has been making physical improvements to the infrastructure around here. Eh, would you know what the word 'infrastructure' means?"
"Yes."
That in itself was astounding. "So, would you have anything to do with the improvements of, say, the lamps or the operation of the pump?"
Matt shrugged. "I gave some advice, mainly."
Archimedes mused that it would have been quite an accomplishment just to get the foreman to listen, let alone go along with advice from a prisoner.
"Matt of Britan, tell me, are you some sort of engineer by training?"
“I was going to be.”
Archimedes refrained from bouncing with eagerness. Not that the Empire lacked youths of intellect, but one whose aptitude went to practical science rather than political scheming! Could the ideal candidate for an apprentice come from a barbarian land? Archimedes reminded himself that Rome also thought of Kresidala as barbarian.
“Tell me, Matt. What kind of engineering does one do where you come from?”
Matt shrugged. “We make machines.”
“Like what?”
“Well, machines for making things.”
“Like what?”
Another shrug. “Cups, chairs, boats, whatever you want.”
Archimedes chuckled. “A machine that could make such things would need a mind of its own!”
“Sometimes.”
Archimedes was taken aback by the direct gaze. If the boy was serious, then he was also mad. But what if he were merely testing Archimedes, as Archimedes intended to test him?
“Well, Matt. I can certainly understand that you might have windmills and irrigation canals where you come from, but I have it on good authority from a respected public figure who's been there that Britan is a benighted land where naked mobs run barefoot and scream while brandishing clubs and sticks, and it is only the honest hard-working Roman landholders who produce enough food to eat.”
“I wonder why the Britanian mobs didn't starve to death before the Romans came to feed them.”
Archimedes cracked a smile. “Yes, there does seem to be a plot hole in the imperial narrative.”
The boy was sharp, and his spirit was certainly intact (a little too intact, Archimedes was beginning to suspect), but if he was to be considered apprentice material, he would have to pass a test. Archimedes resolved that despite his sympathy at the boy's plight, he would not hold back. It would have to be a riddle so complex, so confounding, that it would truly separate the Gifted from Not.
"Here, boy, I want you to think carefully. I am testing you, and you will be rewarded if you supply me with the answer to this question. So here we go. Suppose I have apples, and spread them in a row of six, and four such rows of six in all do I spread. Upon each apple, I stack another apple, and then another more. These apples I place in a box, and add three boxes filled likewise. How many apples are there in all?"
The boy thought a moment and said, "It depends."
"Depends? Depends on what?"
"On what the reward is. My last reward was a beating, so this time I want to make sure what I'm getting before I get it."
The foreman snapped, "You'll be getting a beating if you don't answer!"
"Shut up!" Archimedes shouted.
Matt smiled at the sight of the foreman shrinking from the old man's glare.
Matt replied, "I'll just tell you the answer. It's two hundred and eighty-eight."
Archimedes slumped. "I'm sorry, that is not correct."
"It is correct."
"It is not, I'm afraid."
"It is correct. Did you remember to carry?"
"Of course I remembered to carry!" Archimedes sensed his irritation with the foreman dissipating, possibly being replaced by sympathy.
"So what is your answer?" the slave named Matt asked.
"Two hundred and sixteen. And it is correct." Archimedes started to turn.
"Oh, I know what you did. When you said 'add three boxes' you forgot that you still had the first box."
Archimedes had a sinking feeling as he recalled his exact wording. He turned back.
The boy named Matt said, "You had one box, then you added three. That makes four boxes in all. Seventy-two apples per box times four boxes is two hundred and eighty-eight."
Archimedes met the cool gaze and scratched on his pad.
"Oh, you're right." He shrugged. "Well, then . . . you'll come with me."
He motioned, and the guards hastily removed the chains and cuffs on the young man's wrists and ankles.
"Where are we going?"
"To Rome for now. You can go anywhere you wish after that. You see, your reward is your freedom."
24.
A little more than an hour later, Matt was standing on the dock next to the sloop. He was dressed in robe and sandals 'lent' by the warden. He had taken a bath and there wasn't a speck of Palras or flake of his own blood left on his skin or hair.
The mines and slaves of Palras were hidden by the hills next to the shore, and with blue skies and crashing surf, the day was almost pleasant.
Just don't think about why there are so many gulls.
"Careful with that! Careful with that!"
Archimedes was shouting at the guards and slaves, who were carrying a large chest that apparently was heavy. They carried it aboard the boat, descended into the hold, and returned with it topside. However, given their more erect posture and lack of grunting, Matt concluded that they had unloaded into the sloop's hold whatever had been inside the chest.
Archimedes sealed the cover of the hold and slapped his hands as if he had been the one doing all the labor.
"All right, Matt! I'll need you to come aboard. Pull the plank after you."
Matt did so while Archimedes snapped the loosened lines off the mooring. They used long poles to push the boat from the dock. The raised sail caught breeze and the bow spun from the island in the north to the open sea in the south. Archimedes took the tiller.
“Matt! See the cabinet at the base of the mast. Take the white flag with the green dots, then the blue flag with the red square – “
The flags were rolled into tiny cubby holes with their designs painted alongside. As Archimedes rattled off the patterns, Matt pulled the flags.
“Now hoist them all quickly, in that order, or we'll be intercepted and boarded!”
With the signal flags properly coded and displayed, the patrol ships granted them leave. Palras became a smudge sinking on the horizon behind.
Archimedes, with tiller tucked under one arm, flipped open his note pad. "Ah, here's a good one! Matt, suppose I have a cone with the following properties, which are that it has a radius of four and a height of seven. What then in the volume of the cone of which I speak?"
Matt paused as if in mental calculation, though Ivan had given him the answer before Archimedes had finished speaking. "Uh . . . about . . . one hundred and seventeen."
"Ah, you're finally wrong! It's only – wait, you're using twenty-two sevenths rather than three as the value of pi, aren't you?"
Actually, thought Matt, Ivan was probably using a value with at least ten decimal places. At any rate, he suspected that the real problem was that Archimedes had made another simple error in arithmetic. Matt had noticed the befuddled looks he'd been getting while Archimedes had quizzed him on the dock, and had decided to stop correcting the old man if he could avoid it.
Archimedes put away his pad. "All right, this one should be easy. Tell me, Matt, does your home village have a name, and if so, what is it?"
"Seattle," Matt said.
"Where is Seattle?"
"It's . . . in the northwest."
"Well, no wonder I haven't heard of it. That's a part of Britan that Valarion's boots have yet to trample."
"Actually, it's – "
Matt wondered what he was doing. Sounding crazy would be a sure way to have the boat turned back to Palras. The people of the Fish Lake believed he had come from the stars because they had seen him fall from the sky and cure their plague. He had no evidence of his other-worldliness to offer Archimedes.
Instead, he decided to change the subject, “Are we the only people on this boat?”
Archimedes threw up his hands. “Why does everyone think that an old man has nothing better to do than – “
Matt didn't know exactly where Archimedes was going with that, but he interrupted, “I was thinking it wasn't very safe for you to sail to Palras on your own, or to go back with a former prisoner you don't know anything about.”
“I know you can solve the Riddle of Apples. That means you're smart enough to know that commandeering a boat on unknown seas won't get you far.”
“If you wish to commandeer the boat at this time,” Ivan said, “I can assist you in navigating anywhere on the planet that you wish.”
“We're going to play along,” Matt subvocaled. “I want to know what this guy is about.”
Left unsaid was that he really hadn't seen much in Britan to interest him. Rome might offer more.
“Matt, come over here. I want you to take the tiller while I tend to . . . business. Keep the angle between sun and bow the same. Uh, you do know what an angle is?”
Matt nodded. Archimedes bowed, turned over the tiller, and descended into the hold. As minutes passed into half an hour, Matt frowned.
“He's been gone a while. I wonder what he's up to.”
“'Tend to business' might be a euphemism for using the toilet.”
“I know that. But isn't a toilet aboard a boat referred to as a 'head?'”
“Yes.”
“And isn't that because it's at the bow of the boat?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he's in the middle of the boat.”
“Perhaps he has designed an elaborate plumbing system.”
“Ivan, don't you have a way to see through walls?”
“I can capture imaging by emitting terahertz radiation bursts. However, even one imaging will deplete my energy reserves and require an hour to recharge. Also, it will cause damage to your cellular structure that will require up to two hours to repair.”
“We've got the time. Go for it.”
“Understood. I will begin reconfiguration of my physical structure for the procedure.”
While waiting for Ivan, Matt said, "I would feel guilty about violating his privacy, except that he's part of a tyranny that has no respect for human rights whatsoever. They're not going to play by our rules, so let's play by theirs."
“Understood.”
“Uh, just the same, look at the picture first, and if he is using the toilet – don't show me.”
“Understood. Please orient your face in the desired direction. Thank you.”
“Ow!” Matt clutched his forehead. “That smarts!”
In the colorless low-res image, Archimedes was holding a hand shovel and hunched over a box. The box had circular orifices at both ends and a small hatch on top. Archimedes was portrayed in mid-scoop, lifting a heap of granular matter out of the hatch opening while holding open a bag that he was looking at, apparently intending to pour the material on the shovel into the bag. There were several other boxes and bags nearby.
Ivan said. “My analysis is unable to determine the purpose of his activity.”
“I know what he's doing. I've seen those boxes before, they're filters on the mining pump intakes. He's taking out the silver dust that was trapped in the filters.”
“Would his motivation have to do with monetary acquisition?”
“Precisely.”
Matt thought about what he could do with the knowledge. Technically, Archime
des was stealing silver that belonged to the Emperor, but as the Emperor was stealing from everyone else, Matt saw no ethical reason to snitch on Archimedes, nor did there seem to be a personal advantage in doing so. Perhaps he could blackmail Archimedes by threatening to turn him in, but that might backfire. Besides, so far he kind of liked the guy.
In conclusion, Matt thought, all I got for being nosy was a headache. Then again, if Archimedes was swapping and cleaning filters with each visit, he likely had considerable financial resources. Matt could see how, in the future, that might prove useful to know.
Matt continued steering toward Rome. Hours later, Archimedes pushed open the hold cover and emerged on deck. He glanced at the sun, then at Matt, and scowled.
"Where are you going? I told you to keep the sun at – is that Rome?" Archimedes squinted ahead, then frowned at Matt. "You are a very good navigator, or very lucky. Either way, good work, Star Child."
Matt had seen Rome in satellite view countless times, but it was far more imposing when seen from the sea: towers and arches and slabs of marbles glistening in sunlight, structures climbing the slopes of a volcano whose high peak emitted puffs of steam.
"No, the volcano will not erupt," Archimedes answered the unasked question. "Well, I suppose it might erupt someday, but it hasn't so far in all the history of Rome. Is your home of Seattle near any volcanoes?"
"A few," Matt said. "Mount Rainier, Baker, Saint Helens."
"Odd names." Archimedes stretched from the confinement of the hold, and pointed to various structures on the cityscape. "That's the Coliseum. Over there we have the main trunk of the aqueduct system. The pillar of rising steam is from the baths. The signal tower and the light house are there, high on the slope, and that unforgivable eyesore beneath them is my greatest architectural crime, the imperial palace." Archimedes gave Matt a once-over and said, "There are members of the patrician class who are convinced that barbarians oft go mad at first sight of the magnificence of our imperial city, but you seem to be taking it in stride. How does it compare with Seattle?"
"Well, I guess the main thing is, Seattle isn't as big."
"Actually," Ivan said, "Seattle has over twice the population that I extrapolate for this planet's Rome. The tallest building I survey here is only one-tenth the height of – "
