by Eric Flint
It was no Alexandria and certainly no Miami, but it had docks that would accommodate the ship’s boats. And it had access to oil. Not local, but Tlepolemus could get his hands on it, and was in the Royal Lounge right this minute, selling out Antigonus.
Lars grinned, stepped back from the rail, and went back inside. The Queen had spent the last week and a half right here, while Tlepolemus sent ships to agents in Persia and Susiana to get loads of oil. There were tours of the countryside—read desert—and, among other things, Tlepolemus was profoundly interested in desalination techniques.
And that was another matter. The membranes for the reverse osmosis water purification system had a working life expectancy of around five years, and that assumed adequate pre-filtration with activated charcoal. They were making activated charcoal now. They had all the processes and those processes could be replicated in the here and now. Also, the polymer-membrane canisters, when they did wear out, could be disassembled and the membrane washed, which would extend their working life at the cost of decreased efficiency. But how much it would extend their life was an open question. Sooner or later, they were going to be reduced to what they were about to sell Tlepolemus: evaporative desalination. Saltwater, heated right to boiling, then the steam collected. It worked, but had a very high energy cost. Which was why ships used saltwater for toilets and washing until the reverse osmosis process was developed.
But the problem with the power purification was reflected in other areas as well. The Queen of the Sea was an almost new cruiseliner, six months out of the builders’ quays when The Event happened, just long enough to notice and catch any problems. But The Event was followed by a very tough two years. The Queen was gutted to install factories where they had the electricity, computers, and—almost as important—the waste disposal facilities. Even if sometimes that meant getting out in the middle of the ocean and dumping poisonous garbage, with the excuse that the Queen was just one ship and the oceans were very big. Anyway, the Queen was, in the first month after The Event, converted into a factory ship as well as a cruise ship, a cargo ship, a college, and a floating United Nations.
“Lars?” Marie asked as she walked up to him.
Lars turned and smiled at Marie’s worried expression. “Just thinking about the Queen and the fact that she’s become a floating United Nations.”
“It’s not, you know,” Marie said. “A United Nations, that is. It’s neutral ground, but there is no treaty that everyone has to sign. The Queen can’t condemn the genocide in wherever, the way they were always doing back in the world. In a way, it’s more like a floating Switzerland.”
“Granted. But that wasn’t the part I was thinking about. I was thinking about the future and how we are going to make a ship that has a life expectancy of thirty years when she had dry docks and a support infrastructure last without those things.”
“Now who’s being a worrywart?” Marie said severely. Well, trying to be severe, but the smile was there in the undertones. “The Queen is good for at least another five years before she needs an overhaul. We’ve talked about this. In fact, if I recall correctly, the first time we discussed it was two days after The Event, on our way to Alexandria for the first time. Food was the first issue, then fuel.”
“Food and fuel have both been solved, at least for the most part. There is a refinery in Trinidad now that is making diesel. Not great diesel, but plenty good enough to run the ship’s boats. And we have the resources to buy all the food we could ever need. Why else would Tlepolemus be so willing to bow to Roxane and little Alexander?”
“Loyalty to his father and to the dynasty, plus a desire for stability and good government.”
Lars snorted a derisive laugh.
“No, it’s true. Not all of the diadochi were monsters. It was the situation. I think most of them would have been willing to have either Philip or little Alexander on the throne if they could have been sure that the others wouldn’t use the weakness of the child Alexander or the autistic Philip. Not all of them, I grant. The more I look at it and examine the data available in the here and now, the more I come to believe that Cassander, under the orders of his father, did indeed have a part in poisoning Alexander. Or at least a part in introducing the pathogen that killed him. Part of that is simply that I’ve been able to correlate the information, but part of it is what I’ve learned about how they do things here and now. That hoof that the histories talk about is a fourth century BCE petri dish. A way of carrying a certain class of poison that has been used for the last fifty years or so.”
“Olympias?” Lars asked.
“About the hoof, yes. But she didn’t realize that Cassander was involved. Didn’t understand how Alexander’s last illness could be intentional until we put our heads together. And by the way, Lars, if Cassander or any of Antipater’s children should ever board the Queen, you want Olympias chained in her cabin for the duration of their stay.”
“Noted,” Lars said, then added, “How’s it going in there?”
“Fairly well. Glass-topped troughs with black bottoms a bit inland from the ocean, seawater pumped in, then the sun allowed to evaporate the water. When the sun goes down, the water condenses on the glass and drains into a second channel in the trough so that you get clean water suitable for drinking and agriculture. It won’t turn Carmania into a garden, but it should help them feed themselves. And the glass factory that Tlepolemus will have to build to make the glass for the lids is going to cost a fortune. Which will be paid for by a loan from the federal government. Which Roxane can do, because of the New America alliance.”
Marie leaned on the railing, and since Marie was a short woman, that lifted her arms, and that did interesting things to her chest. Then she continued talking to the ocean, or maybe the port.
“That wasn’t what I came out here to talk to you about. We have new information on the poisoning of Dag and Travis.”
“What is it? And why haven’t you told Daniel about it?”
“It’s not actionable. At least not yet. And Commander Lang is a good cop, but not a particularly good investigator.”
Lars wanted to argue, but couldn’t. Daniel was a good man and a good officer. He was all sorts of good things. But he didn’t read mystery stories as a hobby, and if he saw a bloody body and a bloody knife beside it, he didn’t look much deeper. He was, Lars knew, still convinced that Olympias had somehow been involved in the poisoning, even though all the evidence said she couldn’t have done it.
“All right. What do you have?”
“Cleopatra recognized someone in the…” She told it all. How Cleopatra had recognized the man, how she had found the picture to confirm it, then identified the man as part of Arrhidaeus’ entourage. How they realized that he was part of the cult of Cabeiri, and how they’d sent off for information about him and learned that he once worked for Antigonus.
Lars listened to it all the way through, then said, “It doesn’t track. Why go after Dag?”
“We aren’t sure. We think it may be a shot at Olympias.”
“Pretty stupid if it was,” Lars said. “We eliminated her based on fingerprint evidence and lack of access early on.”
“Not really, Lars,” Marie said. “Remember that the locals’ mindset very much includes magic.” Marie paused, then said, “This is a bit difficult to express. We, you and I, grew up with Sherlock Holmes and all the other detectives. We watched TV with cops who used the motive-means-opportunity triangle. For us, if you’re going to frame someone, the first thing you do is make sure they don’t have an alibi and that they do have the weapon used, or one like it, and that they have a reason.
“But that’s just not how people think here and now. They think in terms of motive, sure enough. But Olympias has a motive to kill Dag, and to a lot of people’s minds an excellent one. Dag is having sex with Alexander’s wife. Widow, actually, but Alexander was Alexander, and Olympias’ son. So most people will look at Olympias and assume she will ignore the fact he’s dead and be piss
ed about the betrayal.
“Then, Olympias is a witch. A famously powerful sorceress and she’s right on the same ship as the victim. That mostly counts as means and opportunity rolled into one. It didn’t occur to them that we would be able to tell who touched the carafe, or that we could eliminate her from the list of suspects based on that and her known location at the precise time of the poisoning.” She shrugged. “Basically, they’re more general in the way they look at crime. Not so detail oriented. No, that’s not right. It’s more a different set of details they look at.” Marie gave Lars a sardonic half-smile. “Some of the things they pay attention to make no sense at all to us. Among other things, Olympias is an accomplished astrologer and knows the way she knows the sun comes up in the east that she has personally talked to Zeus and Athena, as well as Axiocersus, and his son, Cadmilus.”
Lars nodded. He knew by now that Axiocersus and Cadmilus were aspects of the four-part god of the Cabeiri cult. And he was not overly impressed by any of the cults of the here and now, not even the pre-rabbinic Judaism as practiced in the Second Temple.
“Lars…Never mind. Just remember that they believe it, and not just the ‘suckers.’ The high priestesses as well. What I was trying to get at was that it’s not unreasonable for them to think that we would react the same way they would. So it is entirely possible that it was a shot at Olympias.”
“All right, I’ll accept that much. What do you want to do about it?”
“We have a plan to get his prints, but we need to be able to compare them to the print from the carafe.”
CHAPTER 20
Escape and Consequence
Queen of the Sea, Persian Gulf, Tiz
August 10, 319 BCE
Calix knew something was wrong. He was an initiate to the mysteries of the Cabeiri and he understood his feelings in a way no one not an initiate could. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end and he knew that was because Cadmila was warning him. Someone was watching him. Someone who was a threat. Calix was more comfortable with the female aspects, Cadmila and Axiocersa, rather than the male aspects, Axiocersus and Cadmilus.
He set his tray down at his favorite table in the Royal Buffet and went to get a mug of milk. As he moved, he watched.
The mugs were new, ceramic, made in Alexandria using a glaze developed in cooperation with the ship people. The tables were molded plastic, after only a couple of years not even badly marred. And by now Calix was used to the place. He got his mug of milk then went back to the table, feeling more nervous with each step. He looked out the large window to the promenade and beyond it to the coast and the city of Tiz. Perhaps? No. Whatever the threat was, it didn’t come from Tiz.
He looked around the dining hall again, searching for the threat more with his mind and his feelings than his eyes. He couldn’t place it. He knew it was here in the dining hall, but not what the threat was. There was Cleopatra’s ship person, but he wasn’t even glancing in Calix’s direction. He was just eating French toast and drinking papaya juice. And yet it seemed almost as though he was avoiding looking in Calix’s direction.
Maybe.
Calix couldn’t be sure, but he trusted his instincts. There was danger here. Abruptly Calix rose and left the dining hall, leaving his tray on the table.
* * *
Sean Newton didn’t notice Calix leaving. He was too busy not looking at the man. So he finished his French toast and, grimacing, drank his papaya juice. He wished they had orange juice. There were lemon, lime, orange and even grapefruit trees growing in New America, because the cooks started saving seeds almost as soon as The Event happened. But the citrus trees would take at least four more years to produce fruit, and even then who knew how well it would work. The papaya juice was just blah. He finished it anyway, and got up, ostensibly to get another cup.
He managed to glance at Calix. No Calix.
The tray was there. The cup was there. No Calix.
He was sure it was Calix’s tray. Well, almost sure. He went back to his table, picked up his tray, and put it where it belonged. Then he looked at Calix’s table again. The tray was still there. He went over and, carefully avoiding the places on the sides where Calix would have carried it, picked it up by the catty-corners and took it with him back to Cleopatra’s suite. No easy feat that. The trays weren’t designed to be carried that way and he almost dumped the mug of milk twice on the trip.
Queen of the Sea, Cleopatra’s suite
Two hours later
Cleopatra sat in her favorite chair, with Marie Easley on the couch and Sean at the bar fixing a pot of yerba maté.
Marie looked at the tray and said, “There will come a time when we have to bring Daniel in on this.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure that it’s now,” Cleopatra said.
“What we need is a lawyer,” Sean said. “We need to determine the legality of this.”
Marie pulled her cellphone from the case at her waist and called Phyllis Fall, the Queen of the Sea’s chief justice and the criminal court judge.
* * *
Phyllis Fall had been an assistant DA for twenty years and was on her anniversary trip with her husband when The Event happened. Robert Fall, her husband, died three months after The Event, when the drugs that kept his COPD and asthma under control ran out. Now she lived on the Queen and ran the Queen’s court system as well as presiding over the criminal cases that occurred on a ship at sea.
She looked at the tray and then at the three conspirators. “We have a problem and it’s thanks to you folks.” Then she paused. “Was Roxane involved in this?”
“Yes,” Cleopatra said. “It was Roxane who called me in. Olympias went to her to protest her innocence.”
“Then we have an out. Though I don’t like the precedent it would set. Why the heck didn’t you people just call in Daniel Lang?
“Never mind. There are two ways I could look at this,” she muttered, then said, more loudly, “Okay. You, as private persons, have invaded the privacy of another private person, which leaves you liable to a civil action. You didn’t, that I can see, commit any criminal act. Picking up an abandoned tray isn’t a crime. Nor is dusting it for prints, which is what I imagine you’re going to do next. It is an invasion of this fellow Calix’s privacy.”
“What’s the other way you could look at it, Phyllis?” Marie asked.
“That you were acting as agents of Roxane, who is a head of state. That would make you police agents of the United Satrapies and States of the Empire. But I am not going to do that, because it would set all sorts of really bad precedents.”
“What sort of bad precedents?” Cleopatra asked.
Justice Phyllis Fall looked at Cleopatra. “Precedents that might lead to a charge of mutiny on the high seas against Roxane.”
Cleopatra shifted away from Phyllis visibly, and for a moment Phyllis thought she had succeeded in quashing the discussion. But Marie Easley was in the room.
“How on earth can you get there? Even if Roxane was involved, even assuming she was acting as regent of the Alexandrian Empire?”
Phyllis looked over at the small woman and, too late, remembered that never in her life had Marie Easley left a can of worms unopened. She sighed in defeat. “It has to do with police powers and the authority of governments. On the Queen, the captain is the seat of government. It is a ship at sea, which makes it the most dictatorial dictatorship in the history of the world. Captain Floden has delegated that authority to me, to Daniel Lang, to Jane Carruthers, to Eleanor Kinney and others, but he has not, in any sense, given it to Roxane for her to act as a police or government agent in regard to anyone on the Queen. It would be a usurpation of the captain’s authority and that’s mutiny. Because if it’s not, then the Queen is under the authority of the United Satrapies and States of the Empire. And, Marie, before I set that precedent, I will watch Roxane hang from a yardarm if I have to build the yardarm myself.”
Marie tilted her head slightly, as though looking at the situation f
rom every angle. “Very well. We will consider that the actions Roxane took in this matter were as a private citizen, concerned over the welfare of her, ah, boyfriend.”
“Good choice!” Phyllis said.
“Very well. We were and are acting as private individuals not endowed with any police powers,” Marie said.
Phyllis nodded. “Nor acting in cooperation with the police until and unless you have credible evidence to present. Which”—she looked at the tray—“you don’t. Not until you find prints on that tray.”
Queen of the Sea, Calix’s room
Calix paced back and forth in his room. It was a small room, so there wasn’t far to pace in any direction. But this was wrong. He tried to think, but his guts were tied in knots. He could not escape the feeling of being watched…hunted…pursued. He decided to take sabazios, a potion made with certain mushrooms and used to commune with the gods, which was supposed to be restricted while on ship. Not forbidden, but restricted to specific places and ceremonies.
He didn’t abide by those restrictions and using his contacts had managed to get the ingredients of the potion smuggled onto the ship. He locked the door to his room, and dug into the locked wooden box in the safe. It took him almost an hour to prepare the potion. Then he laid on his bed and turned the TV to one of the relaxation channels that played quiet music and displayed moving lights.
He drank the potion and watched the screen, letting himself float in the magic. He dreamed and in his dream he was talking with Cadmila. She stood and walked around the room, looking at the ship people magic. She touched the water glass on the desk. Where her finger touched, the glass was marked with her symbol in flame. “They know the secrets, child, at least some of them.” She turned to face him, wearing a man’s short skirt, one breast exposed, and held out her hand. On each finger glowed her symbol, her secret name. “They understand that everything we touch, we change, and it changes us. The connection remains. If you fail to obscure it, they will find it.” She shook her head, clearly disappointed in him. “You should have been more careful, but you left yourself on the carafe.” She reached behind her and lifted a carafe like the one he had put the foxglove juice into, and on it his name was written in Greek letters as clear as day.
