by Eric Flint
Eumenes looked at Adrian and started to laugh.
“He reads all the time,” Eurydice said. “Erica Mirzadeh is charging us enough money for a company of infantry, just in paper and ink for printouts for Eumenes here.” She looked at Eumenes and added, “Captain Scott is English, not American.”
Eumenes thought. “World War II, then. He is not Patton or Montgomery. More Bradley. He does not lack courage, nor is he frozen by overestimation of the enemy’s power, but neither is he a bull to be enraged by a slap on the nose. He won’t seek revolution, but will attempt to get as much as he can at the negotiating table and be satisfied with that.”
“Unless he becomes convinced we are weak,” Eurydice disagreed. “I don’t read as much as Eumenes or my husband, but I know the world.”
“It’s a big world,” said Philip. “In five dimensions.”
Philip was always near Eurydice, but usually silent, drawing his mathematics on sheets of parchment.
“Five?” Adrian found himself asking. “I would have thought four. Or maybe eleven.”
“Maybe eleven,” Philip said. “But at least five. Two timelines, which requires at least two temporal dimensions.”
Adrian was now totally out of his mathematical depth and dropped the matter. “If you say so.” Turning back to Eumenes, he said, “I think I agree with your assessment of Ptolemy, especially with Thaïs to advise him.”
“What about the murder attempt on Dag?” Eurydice asked.
“It seems to be stalled for now. I did talk to Dag the last time that we were both in port together and he seems convinced that Olympias is innocent.”
“That’s what Roxane says, but I don’t believe it. Why is there no evidence?”
“With all respect, I didn’t say there was no evidence. I said the investigation was stalled. There is evidence. They have a fingerprint off the carafe of cocoamat, but that fingerprint didn’t match Olympias or anyone on her staff. It’s possible that she bribed someone on the serving staff, but even there we know that it wasn’t anyone who was supposed to be there. They volunteered their fingerprints to a man and all have been eliminated from suspicion. Which only leaves about four thousand possible suspects.”
“Four thousand?” Eumenes asked.
Adrian smiled and shook his head. “It’s a little complicated. Before The Event, the Queen had room for five thousand in relative luxury, or at least relative luxury for the passengers. But since The Event, almost half the passenger rooms have been converted into factories to make use of the Queen’s power plants. That knocked the Queen’s capacity down to around three thousand passengers. Maybe a few less. But also since The Event, several of the staterooms that would have held a single passenger have been converted into bunk rooms that hold six, and sometimes eight. But that only brings them back up to approximately five thousand people on board. Of those, we already had fingerprints for at least some of the passengers and many of the crew. Since the incident on the Queen, it’s been required that all the Silver Shields be fingerprinted as part of their induction, just like anyone who joined the military was back in the world before The Event. Together that eliminates about a thousand people for whom they have fingerprints on file. None of them match the prints on the carafe, leaving around four thousand people that were on the Queen who haven’t been eliminated.”
“Very well.” Eumenes agreed. “Four thousand. How will you trim that number to something more reasonable?”
“That’s why the investigation is stalled, Strategos. We have rules in place to protect the rights—”
Eumenes held up his hand. “Yes. The Bill of Rights of the empire is based in large part on the Bill of Rights of your United States.”
“Not my United States. I’m a Brit,” Adrian said, smiling again. “But we had the same basic rights, even if they were ordered a bit differently. The point is that those rights are respected on the Queen and in New America. They aren’t things to be put aside when they become inconvenient. That is one thing that Al Wiley and Captain Floden agree on. So do I, for that matter.”
Eumenes leaned back in his chair, unconvinced. But it wasn’t Eumenes who had the last word, not this time.
Philip III of Macedon, for the very first time Adrian had ever seen, looked someone in the eye. Dead in the eye. “You will violate the rights laid out in the empire’s Bill of Rights over my dead body.”
Eumenes stood then, and bowed profoundly to one of the kings of the Alexandrian Empire.
CHAPTER 14
Poisoner?
Reliance, Abdera, Thrace
May 3, 319 BCE
The Reliance turned sharply to port as it left the Bay of Abdera. It was empty of oil and the decks were piled high with wool, soap, and anything else that the locals could come up with. Al Wiley, under pressure from the isolationists in the New American government, declined to use the Reliance to transport troops. In compensation—and very quietly—the government of New America did cosign a note to the Queen of the Sea Bank that would almost double Eumenes’ drawing account. Commodore Adrian Scott left the bridge and headed to his flag cabin, his mind running over the situation.
Roxane and Eurydice’s government would have to pay the money back, but not until after the war. And by then they ought to be able to do so quite handily out of the profits of the various industries that Erica Mirzadeh, Tacaran, Eurydice, Eumenes, and—through Erica—Cleopatra had started. A very conservative estimate was that the production of cloth and most metal goods would double over the next two years. But that was the least of it. Even now trade and production were both up from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.
It wasn’t one thing. No magic bullet named “Tech.” It was tech, but tech wasn’t one thing. It was a thousand thousand things, some mechanical like the shape of a hammer, the function of copper wire in carrying electrical current, the interaction of lye and fat. Some social, legal, political, or economic, like representative democracy or fractional reserve banking. And, most of all, it was the interaction.
The introduction of carding machines and spinning wheels, making the production of thread easier and less expensive, and the new automated Jacquard-style looms lowering the cost of making cloth even more, while at the same time fractional reserve banking increasing the money supply drastically. So more people had the money to buy cloth. Most of all, the knowledge that an economy could expand was still just starting to sink in around the Mediterranean. The common perception in the fourth century BCE before The Event was that the world was a diminishing place, with each generation the same as the last or maybe a little worse off. The common perception in the twenty-first century was that the world had gotten better and was going to continue to do so.
Now, slowly and doubtfully, the fourth century BCE was starting to accept at least the possibility of improvement. That there were other ways of getting rich than stealing it from your neighbors. It wasn’t the first time that Adrian Scott had thought about that, but now, as he walked slowly across the tug and climbed the stairs to the deck of the barge portion of the Reliance, he took the thought a step further. That was the difference between Eumenes and Cassander, Antigonus, or the rest. Eumenes wanted the world to be the way the ship people saw it. Cassander, Antigonus and the rest of Alexander’s successors didn’t. They had spent too many years wading through too much blood in Alexander’s wake to accept that there might be a world where their actions were not justified by grim necessity. What must it be like to wade for a decade through the blood of your victims to carve out an empire, then learn that there was another way?
Adrian reached his flag cabin, a building built onto the deck of the barge portion of the Reliance. The New American Marine sergeant at his door saluted, right fist to left chest, and Adrian reminded himself that he needed to regularize salutes and drill and ceremony in general for the Navy and Marines.
Queen of the Sea, Mid-Atlantic, on route to Alexandria
May 5, 319 BCE
Calix sat in the Royal Buffet,
drinking Carthaginian strawberry wine, and watched Olympias across the room. He wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or deeply offended that Olympias had simply failed to recognize him. He was not involved in the investigation into the attempt on Dag Jakobsen’s life. He offered, but his offer was declined. It didn’t appear he was even a suspect, though, and most people looked at Olympias with deep suspicion.
Then First Officer Navigation Elise Beaulieu came in with her two guards. They were a belowdecks crewman of the ship people and an Indian from Venezuela. And they were all armed. Elise with her famous pistol and the other two with post-Event-made cap-and-ball revolvers. There was a swagger about them. A swagger that Calix noted Beaulieu didn’t share. She talked with them casually and waved hello to people in the dining hall as she made her way to the line and selected her meal. It was only a few minutes past dawn and, in spite of his best efforts, Calix’s eyes followed her as she collected scrambled eggs, bacon and rolls. Calix noted that while she got her tray and one of her guards did the same, the other waited until they had both reached a table before he went back to the line to get his own tray.
Then Cleopatra came in with the ship person Sean Newton, and Calix hid a grimace. The cult of Cabeiri was not pleased with Olympias, but it was even less pleased with the ship people. They denied the gods. If they were to be believed, didn’t even remember the gods. There were political reasons to disrupt relations between Roxane and the ship people, but for Calix that was almost beside the point. To have the royal house of Macedonia marry into the ship people was a betrayal of the cult and Cabeiri. And Cabeiri would punish Macedonia and the royal house.
Then things got worse. Cleopatra, with Sean Newton, walked over and sat down with her mother. Olympias spoke cordially to Sean Newton, who responded with apparent cordiality.
* * *
Sean suppressed a frown. He believed Cleo when she insisted that her mother hadn’t tried to murder Dag. But the things Cleo admitted Olympias had done were enough to make her a war criminal back in the world. They were not going to get back to the world, however. It wasn’t going to happen no matter how much he might wish otherwise.
“What is bothering you?” Olympias asked, then gave him a careful look. “You miss that other world, do you not? The world you came from.”
Sean felt his mouth fall open and snapped it shut. How could she know? He looked at Cleo, and she was looking smug. Her mom might be a mass murderer, but she was not slow-witted. Sean looked back at Olympias. “Got it in one.”
The old woman smiled with red-lipsticked lips, and Sean suppressed a shudder. “What did you want to see me about?” he asked.
“I understand that you are advising my daughter in matters financial.”
“I guess you could say that,” Sean acknowledged.
“I have access to certain funds.”
She did too. Over the next fifteen minutes or so, they went over the process to invest Olympias’ ill-gotten gains in new businesses. Then Sean and Cleo got up, shook hands, and left. On their way out, they said hello to Elise, and then—for just the briefest moment—Cleo froze.
* * *
Cleopatra had just turned away from Elise when she saw him. He was looking at her with a sour expression and she wondered. She knew him. She wasn’t sure from where, but the Greek man at a corner table was someone she had met before. And he had been looking at her the same way, with disapproval sprinkled with lust. The fragment of memory froze her for a moment, then it was gone.
* * *
Cleo was moving again and Sean moved with her. But even as he did, he scanned the room, trying to think what might have upset her. The Royal Buffet was around three-quarters empty at this time of the morning, and Sean tried to figure out who had been in Cleo’s line of sight when she froze. There were four possibilities, and while trying not to look like it, he took note of them all.
* * *
Calix noticed Sean Newton looking at him, then noticed the same careful examination of the other people in the room. But he was distracted as one of Elise Beaulieu’s guards got up and the small, dark-haired ship person woman said something in English.
* * *
Sean leaned over and spoke into Cleo’s ear as they left the Royal Buffet. “What was it?”
“I’m not sure. It was the Greek with the sideburns and the oiled hair,” Cleo said as they walked along the Lido Deck by the swimming pools.
“I saw him. What about him?”
“I’m not sure. He seemed familiar.”
“More than familiar, I think. From your reaction.”
“What do you mean by that?” Cleo was starting to sound irritated.
“If he had just seemed familiar, you would have gone over and greeted him. Instead, you froze for a moment. It wasn’t much,” he hastened to reassure her. “Just an instant. I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t had a hand on your arm. But you froze and covered. So somewhere in the back of your mind, you saw him as a threat.”
“You sound just like my mother,” Cleo said, and Sean wasn’t at all sure how to take that.
He thought for a moment and asked, “Is it someone associated with your mother?”
“I don’t know.” Cleo sounded frustrated, which didn’t bode well for his prospects of a pleasant day. A happy, relaxed Cleo was a lot of fun. A frustrated Cleo wasn’t at all.
So Sean started looking around for a distraction, then suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t cover it nearly so well as Cleo had. It took him at least a second or two to recover.
“What?”
“Poison,” Sean said, watching her face. Then he said. “Cabeiri?”
“That’s it!” Cleo said. “Something to do with the Cabeiri.”
Carefully, Sean asked, “Cleo, could he be working with your mom?”
He waited, watching her face, while Cleo thought it through, then said, “No, I don’t think so. If she was involved, he’d be dead by now. First, because he failed. And second, because she wouldn’t want the loose end out where it might be found.”
“I understand, but that’s a pretty hard sell to a jury, love. ‘My mom didn’t do it because she’s such a frigging sociopath that if she had, and she had used him for it, she would have already killed him.’”
“I know, but it’s true, anyway.”
“I think we should talk to Marie Easley.”
“Why Marie?”
“Because Daniel Lang will pull him in and start questioning him. Then what happens?”
“They take his fingerprints and compare them.”
“Not without arresting him. And he can’t arrest him without probable cause. And you vaguely remembering that he was with the Cabeiri at some point in the past is not evidence.” Sean considered. “In fact it’s almost worse than no evidence because of separation of church and state.”
“Okay. But why Marie Easley?”
“Because I want to know who this guy is before we do anything else. If he’s a merchant or a student that’s one thing. But what if he’s someone important?”
“If he were someone important, I would know him,” Cleo said. And Sean knew it was true.
“Yes. But I’d still like to talk it over with Marie Easley.”
Cleo looked at him and for just a second Sean was sure that she was going to tear into him. But she didn’t. Instead her expression went from angry to considering, then she nodded. “All right, Sean. I’ll trust your judgment.”
Queen of the Sea, Deck 9, computer room
Marie repeated the Etruscan word, then turned to Thana, the young Etruscan woman she was working with.
Thana nodded and pointed to the papyrus scroll and made an oo sound as in school but just a little bit different. Thana spoke Etruscan, Latin, and Greek. She also read Etruscan and had brought a small library of the history of the Italian peninsula from the Etruscan point of view. A view that described Romulus and Remus as a pair of bandit chiefs who had been raised by a she-wolf only in the sense that their mother was a rea
l bitch.
They were working together to develop an Etruscan lexicon for the translation app. One that would be able to understand spoken or typed Etruscan and translate it into Greek or English.
There was a polite tap and Marie looked up to see Sean Newton and Cleopatra.
“Do you have a moment, Dr. Easley?” Cleopatra asked.
Thana stood up and bowed, then exited quickly. Not quite running. Thana was from a minor noble house located in a small Etruscan city. She was not the sister of Alexander the Great and was acutely aware of the difference in rank.
“Apparently I do now,” Marie said, not entirely pleased with the interruption.
“Sorry, Marie,” said Sean, “but it is fairly important, though I’m not sure how urgent it is after this long.”
Marie turned her chair a bit more so it faced Sean and Cleopatra more directly. “What’s this all about?”
They took seats at Marie’s table and explained about Cleopatra’s almost recognition and Sean’s hunch. After she heard it, Marie wasn’t at all sure that there was anything there. In fact, she thought it more likely than not that, whoever it was, it was just someone who had a passing resemblance to someone that Cleopatra had met. And even if it was someone she’d met, and someone who had been, or even still was, a member of the cult of Cabeiri, that didn’t mean he was the poisoner of Dag Jakobsen and Travis Siegel.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
More vague explanation followed, and Marie was forced to agree that Daniel Lang wasn’t the best person for this. Daniel was a cop at his core. A good cop, but mostly a beat cop and administrator, not a detective. But even more importantly, he was a cop and restrained by the rules that cops worked under. If he got evidence, he was going to have to act on it. Whereas, if this was anything more than smoke, they needed to know a lot more before they acted.
