by Eric Flint
The important point from Lars’ point of view was that with a fuel depot at Suez, or better yet, at the mouth of the Red Sea near the Gulf of Tadjoura, the range of the Queen would be greatly extended. It would be a major step to getting access to India and China.
Queen of the Sea, passing through the Strait of Gibraltar
The party was in full swing and the captain’s table in the Royal Icon Restaurant was full. Roxane was there with Dag, and Menelaus was there with a Greek woman named Bethania; Marie was there as Lars’ guest, and so was Staff Captain Anders Dahl. He was there stag. Anders had not gotten over the loss of his wife and family to The Event.
The tablecloth was white linen and had been made in a Trinidad factory from flax grown in Egypt. The wine was a Carthaginian red with overtones of strawberry. The waiter came over with a tray of Atlantic tuna steaks. Lars was served, but Marie had ordered super turkey lasagna.
Once the guests were served and the waiter left, Bethania “call me Beth” asked, “Why are you so anxious for a fuel depot in the Red Sea? From my reading, the Queen of the Sea couldn’t even get there. The Reliance could, but it would use half its fuel doing it.”
“We are better off than earlier cruise ships in the matter of fuel and range,” Anders said. “Since we have flex-fuel engines, we have tankage based on fuels with lower energy densities. So using the semi-refined fuel oil from Trinidad, we have greater range than we might. We can go almost ten thousand nautical miles from full tanks.”
“But around the Horn of Africa is almost eleven thousand of your nautical miles, is it not?”
“You’re quite right, Beth,” Lars agreed. “However, we are attempting to establish a string of fueling stations across the Atlantic, on islands that are unoccupied. We don’t want to steal anyone’s land.”
“Are there such islands?”
“Yes. There are several we know about from our twenty-first-century references. The Ascension Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé, and Príncipe, which are near the coast of Africa. St. Helena, where Napoleon died. We are working on determining which of those options to use.”
“In any case,” Dag added, “we are almost certainly going to end up needing a fueling station near the Horn of Africa. Cape Good Hope or Madagascar. Also, weather stations. The more of them we have, the better able we will be to predict the weather, and that’s going to be important to everyone.”
“Yet you still want my brother to ship hundreds of tons of fuel oil overland to fill a fuel depot on the Red Sea?” Menelaus asked. “What for?”
“India,” said Roxane.
“You are still trying to use the Queen to attack the satraps of the eastern empire then?”
“Not at all,” Roxane said just a little too quickly, with a glance at Lars and Marie. “The issue is the India trade. Cotton, tea, sugarcane, all sorts of things. And, for that matter, the China trade. Silk and spices. Pepper from India.” Roxane stuck a fork in a pepper from Venezuela that was not quite a jalapeno and lifted it. “Black pepper is incredibly expensive once it winds its way through the southeastern empire.” She was referring to those parts of Alexander’s conquest that were east and south of Babylon. They were the overland trade route from India to the Mediterranean.
Marie gave Lars a look, then looked at Roxane and back. Lars got the signal. Whatever Roxane was saying to Menelaus, she did want at least the threat of the Queen bringing forces to attack the southeastern satraps and kingdoms from the rear.
The dinner went on and the discussion moved to the choice of islands in the Atlantic. St. Helena, according to Wikipedia, had a forest but no humans and no domesticated livestock. There was almost certainly animal life on the island, but the Wikipedia article didn’t specify what sort of trees or animal life.
“Our best guess,” Anders said as he set his wineglass on the table, “is that it has birds and reptiles, possibly land crabs of some sort. But mammals are unlikely.”
“Why?” Beth asked.
“Because, while there are exceptions, mammals mostly get to islands by being carried there by men. Birds fly, even if they later become flightless, and reptiles and amphibians swim.”
Menelaus agreed to talk to his brother about the oil transports.
Alexandria, Egypt
January 5, 319 BCE
Sitting in the open room in the satrap’s palace in Alexandria, Ptolemy read the letter from his brother with interest. A warm breeze off the Mediterranean brought the smells of the sea to him, but they were far enough from the harbor that it wasn’t overwhelming. He was almost sure that most of the letter had been composed by Bethania. Thaïs, who was sitting beside him, was completely sure.
“Do you think she’s right about the islands?” Ptolemy asked his confidante.
“No,” Thaïs said. “Oh, I am sure she has her facts straight, but she underestimates the difficulties.”
Ptolemy lifted an eyebrow and Thaïs pointed at a map on the wall. “The Atlantic Ocean is a big place. A very big place. And in that big ocean, an island is a very small thing. We have compasses now, and decent clocks that will work on shipboard, but still, loading up a ship and founding a colony on St. Helena or even Cape Verde would be a risky undertaking, and what would we gain? Nothing but the annoyance of the ship people. If we occupy one, they will just choose another and resent our interference. No. Your original plan was best. Take the Red Sea from Suez to Tadjoura. If you can take the Gulf of Aden beyond it as well…perhaps Dioscorides…”
Ptolemy winced. “Have you ever been to Dioscorides?”
“No. I know Alexander established a colony there after taking Egypt, but I never had occasion to go there.”
“I spent a horrible year there one week on the retreat from India. The place is all desert, with snakes and bugs and not much else.”
“Sounds like a perfect place for a fuel depot. Take the oil by road to Suez, then by ship to Dioscorides.”
“Except I’m not sure I want them to be able to skip Suez.”
“That makes sense. Certainly, make them pay for it if they want a depot at Dioscorides. But the islands in the Atlantic…leave them to the ship people and New America. If nothing else, you don’t want to get involved in the ship people argument over ‘pristine natural environments’ and the exploiting of them.” Thaïs rolled her eyes.
Fort Plymouth, New America
January 6, 319 BCE
Anna Comfort pounded a hand on the table. She was the least comforting person that Al Wiley had ever met and as a politician he had met a lot of nut jobs before and after The Event. Somehow—Al didn’t understand how—she had gotten herself elected as the representative for northern Trinidad. “The environments on those islands have evolved for millennia without the interference of man. Now you propose to repeat the environmental atrocities perpetrated by the Portuguese in our timeline before there is even any such nation.”
“Yes,” said Lacula, quite genially. He leaned back in his chair, and for a moment Al was afraid he was going to stick his feet on the large oblong elephant-ear wood table. “That’s exactly what we propose.” He waved at Al and the Congress.
Like so much of Fort Plymouth, even the constitution, the table came from many sources. The wood was provided by the Kalaki Nation from northern Venezuela. It was cut and cured right here in Fort Plymouth, using saws made by the Queen of the Sea’s modified and expanded machine shops, and finely carved and finished by native and Carthaginian craftsmen.
Even with the addition of the rest of Trinidad and several small territories on the coast of Venezuela and up the Orinoco, the Congress of New America was still not much bigger than a glorified city council. Part of that was because the first Congress had invoked citizenship and residency requirements which, while not as stringent as those back in the twenty-first century, still meant that seventy percent of the people living in New America were not yet eligible to vote. That would change over the next couple of years, but for right now the franchise was only held by ship pe
ople and three of the tribes on Trinidad.
“Unlike you ship people,” Lacula continued, “we have lived our lives in the environment. We know it and its cruelty well. And I don’t accept that a cougar has a greater right to live than my children.”
“That is a completely false analogy. I am not proposing that dangerous predators be released into New Plymouth. I’m simply arguing that we have a moral obligation to protect those pristine environments that have not been encroached on by man.”
Al let it wash over him. It was Fort Plymouth, but along with her other unattractive characteristics, was Anna Comfort’s propensity for renaming things to suit her prejudices. Fort Plymouth was militaristic and therefore evil, and New Plymouth went with New America. The damned liberal nut job would run down eventually. She didn’t have the votes to stop the island project.
“Actually, Anna does have a point,” said Yolanda Davis, and Al stared at her in shock. Yolanda was part of the cleaning staff on the Queen before The Event and had married George Davis, a pipefitter who was on his annual vacation. She had strong support among the former crew and the Kaluga tribe, which occupied a good part of southwest Trinidad and were possibly the most Americanized of the locals. Still, Al was shocked to hear Yolanda mouthing liberal doctrine.
Then she added, “We may find things of value in those environments. Remember the nut potato. It had been lost over the centuries between now and the founding of the first America. So had many of our peppers and spices. Peppers and spices that are bringing an excellent price in Europe. I recommend that we send an environmental expert with the expedition, to see what can and should be saved of those pristine environments. Don’t do it willy-nilly like the Portuguese did. Use the twenty-first-century knowledge of the ship people to see what can be profitably exploited and to save and document the unique life on the island.”
“That’s going to increase the cost of the project and the project is already expensive,” Lacula said.
“Not that much, Congressman Lacula,” Yolanda said. Yolanda always called Lacula by his full title. “We are already planning a repeater station and a weather station on Saint Helena, as well as the fuel depot.”
“That’s not the point and we don’t have an environmental expert to spare. We only have Michael Lockwood, who has a BS in environmental studies, and we need him here,” Anna interrupted. “An island like Saint Helena is the sort of pristine environment that needs to be studied carefully and only by experts.”
“Kai Mumea has an interest in environmental studies. He’s been working with Bob Jones on integrating local plants into his farm,” Yolanda said. “And he’s willing to go.”
“That’s exactly the wrong approach,” Anna said, and suddenly Al was having to work to suppress a smile.
He looked at Yolanda and for a moment considered the possibility that he was looking at the next president of New America. Not for years yet, but that was a smooth move. Anna Comfort was never going to get her way, but she had enough support to delay things and possibly extort concessions to get her to shut up. But Yolanda had seen the problem coming, and by offering a compromise she’d cut the legs right out from under Anna. All Anna’s support was going to switch to Yolanda’s camp, and a fair chunk of Lacula’s as well. Which meant that her friend Kai was going to get a post on the expedition to Saint Helena as soon as they could get the Reliance to make the trip. And that was going to garner Yolanda extra support, especially if Saint Helena, Ascension Island, and Tristan da Cunha became a state in New America. There was virtually no chance that so little an area of land would become multiple states, not if Al Wiley had anything to say about it.
And that’s how the debate went. By the time it was over, the Congress had decided that the first mission would be to Saint Helena, and that they would take a sailing ship—a small sailing ship—on the Reliance. Most of the Reliance’s deck space would be taken up with disassembled fuel tanks. Basically large—very large—wooden barrels that would be placed on the island.
214–216 12th Street, Fort Plymouth, Trinidad
January 6, 319 BCE
Stella Matthews sat in a wicker chair in the upstairs living space, reading the paper aloud and eating breakfast. Carthalo was listening as he ate his super turkey egg and bacon breakfast sandwich. Carthalo, for all his skill and native intelligence, couldn’t read. Not even his native Phoenician. He spoke some Greek and was picking up English at phenomenal speed, but his attempts at writing were first grade or maybe kindergarten.
“The radio station among the Kalaki reports that there is a cold front coming down from Mexico and we can expect cooler, drier weather tomorrow and probably the next day.” She took a sip of her cocoamat and grimaced at the bitterness, then went back to reading. “The Reliance will be bringing precut wooden barrel parts from Egypt when it makes its return trip.”
“Someone took—” Carthalo interrupted in his shattered English, “Egypt barrels shit.”
“Crap,” Stella corrected absently. “Egyptian barrels are crap. Anyway, it’s expected to lower the price of barrels in Port Market.”
She glanced at the second page. “They have busted glass for fifteen bucks a pound.”
“Clear, colored?” Carthalo asked.
“Clear or colored,” she again corrected absently. “The ad doesn’t say. So probably colored.”
“Clear or colored,” Carthalo repeated. “Forget then. Need clear.” He got up, tossed his yesterday’s newspaper sandwich wrapper in the trash and headed for the stairs. “Must start melt.”
The trash would be picked up and sorted for paper, food waste, and anything else of any possible use. Recycling was very in in Fort Plymouth. Not out of any environmental concerns, but because everything was too expensive to waste.
Stella spent another half hour on the paper, then went downstairs to the shop and got to work on the lens-polishing machine. She would get that bastard to work if it killed her. It wasn’t like they could buy one of those from Egypt.
Reliance, Mediterranean Sea, en route to Alexandria
January 7, 319 BCE
Captain Adrian Scott sat in his comfortable chair with his laptop computer on his lap and read the radio message on his screen. The laptop was hooked into the Reliance’s Local Area Network, which saved on paper and the much more important printer ink. The message was from Fort Plymouth. Adrian would have preferred to lay in his bunk and read it, but paper was expensive in the fourth century BCE, and ink was very expensive, even though the Reliance’s laser printer was now in Fort Plymouth and had been replaced with a dot matrix printer that used an inked cloth tape. So Adrian sat in his chair and read through Al Wiley’s plan to set up a combination fueling station and small colony on Saint Helena Island in the Mid-Atlantic, thousands of miles from anywhere.
On balance, he rather liked the proposal.
In theory.
In practice, the Reliance was already working harder than a one-armed paper hanger taking fuel and cargo back and forth between New America and Europe. Once he had read through the darn thing, he got on the horn to Dan Neely. “You want to come down to my quarters and have a look at this?”
* * *
Adrian laid on his bunk while Dan used the computer to read the message. Then Dan turned the chair around. “Can’t do it, Skipper. Much as I’d like to, just two ships—us and the Queen—crossing the Atlantic is not enough. Take one of us out and the whole economic house of cards that Eleanor Kinney has built up could come tumbling down.”
“Not going to happen, Dan. It’s a gold- and silver-backed system and the Queen has storerooms full of refined gold and silver coins to back it. No, what worries me is that almost every damn thing we ship is vital. Even stuff like bales of cloth make a tremendous difference in the everyday lives of people from Carthage to Babylon.”
“We still need more ships crossing back and forth, Skipper. Not less. Not because we took one of the two ships that can make the trip out of action for weeks while we set up fueling statio
ns that won’t be used for who knows how long.”
Poseidon’s Beard, Strait of Gibraltar
January 7, 319 BCE
Captain Yabac gripped the rail firmly as Poseidon’s Beard heeled over onto a new tack. The name of the ship was a reference to the white-foam wake the sharp bow produced. A common expletive was “by Poseidon’s foamy beard.” Carthage was a maritime power and adopted gods from all around the Mediterranean. Often they had several gods or versions of gods active in the same area and getting in each other’s way. That was the case here. Melqart was often preferred as the sea god by Carthaginians, but the Carthaginian version of Melqart didn’t have a beard, so the ship was named for Poseidon.
Yabac looked up at the sails and they looked wrong. For one thing, the Poseidon’s Beard sported sails, not a single square sail amidships. There were now two masts and a bowsprit. She was also fore-and-aft rigged, rather than the traditional square rig. All of which made the Beard heel over much more than she did when she was square-rigged with two rows of rowers. Yabac didn’t like it. He was often in danger of seasickness and the deck’s angle was often greater than he liked.
Tubanic slid over to Yabac, grinning like an idiot and showing a broken tooth. “We’re doing at least ten knots by my eye, Skipper, and not an oar in the water. Isn’t it marvelous?”
Yabac tried to grin back but he doubted he did it very well. His hands were still white-knuckled on the railing and getting stiff from the force with which he was holding on. Tubanic was right. With sixty-four rowers to feed and water, the range of Poseidon’s Beard was perhaps two weeks at sea if they were going to carry cargo of any worth. This rig required only a quarter the crew, so could sail four times as long. And rowers could only row so long at a stretch. They had been doing ten knots or better for the last three days since they left Carthage. An Atlantic crossing was possible now, as a practical matter.
