Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar-Apr 2013 (16 page)

Condemned to death, she spent a year in the old prison on Hoover Square, most of the time in the dispensary where Andy had recovered so long ago. Then, in consideration of her failing health, the new World President reduced her sentence to exile on the same island where she'd committed her crime.

Since the penal colony had long since been closed down and demolished, she had to live in the village. Joe Aiaiea had recently succeeded the aging George Satawan as Hilo's Big Man, and he reluctantly allotted her a small house to live in and ordered her to work in the communal garden. She was not popular in Hilo—everybody looked at her but no one spoke to her, so that she moved about in a bubble of silence. Even Susan refused to gossip about her, for she said that Connie was nothing, and what nothing did was not worth discussing.

Andy saw her in his capacity as Hilo's general practitioner. He needed no complicated tests to conclude that she was suffering from widely metastasized cancer, probably originating in the ovaries but now invading blood, bone, and brain alike. He asked her why she didn't have the trouble taken care of, back when it was new and curable, and she said that her job always got in the way. Suppose her enemies had found out that she had a serious illness? She'd never have gotten another promotion—never!

Andy went to see Fowler. Not only had the guard survived all the upheavals, but his long, devoted service had won him promotion to the post of resident commissioner for the new world government. He lived in what used to be the warden's house, married to a village woman who made him wash every day in coconut milk to moderate his unique aura. He was friendly with Andy, allowing him to use the official computer to study for his medical degree on the recently restored Worldwide Web. But when Andy informed him that Connie must be evacuated for treatment, he flatly refused.

"I got my orders," he said. "You know, Emerson, I always do my duty, and my orders say she ain't never to leave this island."

"Then she'll die."

"Most people do, sooner or later. That's probably what the big shots want, anyway. She knows too much."

"I don't have modern painkillers. Her death will be slow and agonizing. At some point she'll become demented. It'd be kinder just to execute her."

"I can't execute nobody without a warrant. That's illegal. She'll just have to die the way nature wants, and if it hurts, that's tough shitsky. I don't have no pity for her. Nobody does, except you."

Andy returned to Hilo, sought Connie out—she was doing her washing—and suggested they take a walk.

For an hour they strolled along jungle trails, talking of small matters, jokes they had shared when they were young, people they remembered at New Yale. He asked if she'd ever read
A Tale of Two Cities
, and she said no, she'd never cared for fiction. So he kept to himself the amended line that was passing through his head:
It is a far, far better rest that you go to, than you have ever known.

When they reached the spur of the mountain and began to climb, she panted and leaned on his arm, yet still had to halt every few steps to catch her breath. "Don't worry," he told her, "it's all downhill from here."

The cliff towered to the left of them, the forest of giant ferns bowed and murmured on the right. Showers of gemlike droplets fell. When they entered the tabooed valley, with its little waterfall and the sounds like cries and laughter rising from the ancient fumarole, she whispered, "Do you have to?"

He said, "It's better this way," put his heavy arm around her thin shoulders, and urged her on.

Sean McMullen lives in Melbourne, Australia. When not working for the government he writes, practices martial arts, and has an occasional rooftop adventure. Currently he is working on a short film adaptation of his story "Hard Cases."

Like the first story in this issue, "Lost Faces" features someone who hunts runaway slaves...but Sean McMullen's take on the theme is very different from Deborah Ross's.

ROME HAS BEEN STRUCK down. Only two of us have noticed so far, because there is no barbarian army pouring through its streets, nothing is being sacked, and only my house has been burned. Still, the blow has landed, the wound is deep, and the first blood has flowed. It could be said that I am responsible, but every Roman who owns a slave made it happen, so all of us will pay dearly. It is the tenth month of the reign of Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

The villa of Gaius Maximus Secundus was in the port of Ostia, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, and it was big enough to have a private pier for his ships to dock at. Maximus owned fifty merchant ships and was among the richest men in the Empire. His slaves made a point of not glaring at me as I entered, but I knew what they were thinking. I am a hunter of absconded slaves. Although the distance from Rome was only a score or so miles, Gaius took me straight to his bathhouse to sweat and wash away the grime of my journey. At noon we had a meal out in the peristyle. Maximus ate copiously, believing that a stout body declares prosperity, but I ate little. Sometimes being fast and lean is worth a lot of money to me.

For a time we chatted of this and that as we strolled among the manicured bushes in the autumn sunshine. We were masters of our spheres, not equally rich but equal in renown.

"So what is your worth today?" Gaius asked.

"A hundred thousand sesterces and a modest dwelling in the Sabura."

"I can't understand why you live in that cesspit."

"You'd be surprised how many runaway slaves hide there. I remember faces. Not a day goes past that I don't spot at least two or three."

"But have you no ambitions? What about an estate in the Alban Hills?"

"I have what I want. Respect from masters and fear from slaves. I live to hunt, Gaius, it makes me what I am. I could lose all my worldly goods, yet I would remain the finest of all slave catchers."

"I prefer this villa and my fleet of ships to declare who I am."

"Then we are both content."

"Not entirely," Maximus confessed, now walking with his head bowed. "Sometimes I rise from my bed in the early hours of the morning and walk out onto my pier. As I stare into the darkness I wonder what will remain of me when I die."

"You will become a shade in the underworld."

"But if there's no afterlife, what then? My son Crassus and I are very close, but in fifty years the children of my grandchildren will not even know my name. Only emperors, senators, warriors and philosophers are remembered, Marcus, not merchants. I want my name to live on and I want my family to be respected as well as rich."

"So you will study philosophy?"

"Philosophy?"

"No emperor would name you as his heir, and as for your skills as a warrior, the less said the better. The son of an Aventine tallyman could never enter the Senate, so that leaves philosophy."

"Wrong. I shall impress the emperor with a wonder that will delight him so entirely that he will make me a senator."

"Delight him? Gaius, you would not be allowed within shouting distance of him."

"But I have a scheme to catch his eye, and for that I need your help."

"I just hunt slaves. If you want to see the emperor you should get a senator to speak for you."

"A year ago I was very ill, but a slave woman tended me so well that I was up and walking within days. Now she has absconded and I want her back. Urgently."

"Urgently? Are you sick again?"

"No, but I depend upon her."

"You are in love with a slave, Gaius? That doesn't sound like you."

"I said
depend
. She can provide wonders, Marcus, and I need those wonders. Come along, I'll show you."

Maximus's son Crassus was waiting in the atrium with two slaves holding wooden pails. A long, rectangular pool dominated the room, and beneath the water were mosaics of his grain and slave ships. Maximus went over to one of the pails and gestured down at it.

"This is a navitar," he said.

The thing in the pail was a dull gray fish the size of a carp. It had no head. Instead it was trailing two long strings. At an order from Maximus, a slave lifted it out of the pail, but it did not struggle at all. He put it into the pool and tethered it to a toy boat. The other slave handed Crassus a pottery globe the size of a large apple. Crassus attached the strings from the navitar to it, then twisted something, left and right, left and right, at about the rate of a slow pulse.

The navitar began to move through the water with a rhythmic motion. I could see it expand to suck water at one end, then contract as it forced it out of gill slits all along its sides. This propelled it forward, towing the toy boat behind it. Crassus walked alongside, twisting the little lever on the pottery globe.

"What is that thing?" I asked. "A tame fish?"

"Crassus calls it the swimming machine," replied Gaius.

"Swimming machine?"

"Yes. The thing pulling the boat is both a swimmer and machine. I call it a navitar. Names of wondrous things need to be short and memorable."

"So it's machine? But it's made of flesh."

"Slaves are made of flesh, yet they can row boats that tow barges."

"Barges? Barges are big, and your navitar is as small as a carp."

"Navitars can be made to grow huge, Marcus. Imagine a navitar the size of a whale. What might you do with it?"

"A whale!" I gasped. "I suppose…something like that could tow a trireme into battle."

"Tow a trireme!" Maximus exclaimed, clapping his hands with delight. "I had not thought of that. My idea was to have navitars tow merchant ships out of harbors, whatever the direction of tide or wind. That would save time, and thus money…yet towing a warship is somehow glorious. Thank you, I'll mention that when I meet with the emperor."

The navitar neared the end of the pool and Crassus stopped twisting the lever on the globe. The fish-machine slowed until it was hardly moving at all and just floated, gently pulsing water through its gill slits.

"That thing will need years of growing before it can be harnessed to a warship," I said, fascinated in spite of my doubts.

"But I have another, which has indeed been growing for a year," said Maximus, turning away and beckoning for me to follow. "Come along, look upon the wonder that will make me Senator Maximus."

 
A FISHING BOAT was moored at the villa's stone pier. In front of this was a slate-colored thing that did indeed look very much like a whale. It was harnessed to the boat by thick ropes and was blowing water through its many gill slits. At the boat's bow was a large amphora, which had a lever at the top. Thick cords led down to the water and into the huge body.

"Forgive me for doubting you, Gaius," I said as I gazed. "Were I emperor, I would have you into the Senate so fast that your feet would not touch the ground."

"Do you wish to go for a ride?"

"Me? In that?"

"It's quite safe. I'll stay here; I have work to do."

I stepped onto the boat with Crassus and four slaves. Maximus stood watching on the wharf. Crassus took me to the bow.

"This is the whip that drives the navitar along," he said, gesturing to the amphora from which the lever and two thick, tarry cords emerged.

"What is it?" I asked, because nothing could have looked less like a whip.

"The essence of thunderbolts, according to the Greek slave who writes Father's letters and tallies his accounts. He thinks the Aegyptians devised these things, but who knows? When applied to living animals, the essence makes their muscles flex."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, but it works. When the lever on this amphora is drawn to the right, the navitar's muscles flex mightily and the water is blown out of its gills with ten times the usual force. Move it left, and it draws in more water."

"How is it steered?"

"Like a chariot. The two outer ropes act as the reins of a horse do. If the slave on the right pulls, the navitar turns right. To turn to the left, bid the slave on the left pull on his rein. All the captain must do is call orders—which I must do now, so please excuse me."

Crassus ordered the slaves to their assigned places, then had those on the pier cast off the moorings.

"Caller, walking speed!" he said. "Right rein, pull!"

The slave on the right hauled on his rein and the caller slave began shouting.

"
Draw
, two, three, four, five!
Stroke
, two, three, four, five!
Draw
, two, three, four, five!
Stroke
, two, three, four, five!"

At
Draw
, the lever was moved to the left, and the navitar would take a great gulp of water. The command
Stroke
was akin to a rower pulling upon an oar. The lever was pushed to the right, and the entire navitar contracted and expelled the water within its body, pulling the boat along with an exhilarating surge of power.

"Right rein, slack!" called Crassus, and the slave on the right stopped pulling on his rein.

We were now pointed straight out to sea. From time to time the huge back of the navitar was exposed as waves washed across it. The ride was surprisingly smooth for a vessel so small.

"Timing is absolutely critical," said Crassus. "If the lever is allowed to remain on the right for too long, the beast will suffocate."

"Like if we were to breathe out but not breathe in?" I asked.

"Ah, you learn fast."

"The navitar seems simple to command."

"Yes, but it is strangely delicate for all its enormous power, like a team of chariot horses. These slaves had to be carefully trained in the art of commanding navitars. Caller, take us to canter speed."

The slave began to call a shorter pattern.

"
Draw
, two, three!
Stroke
, two, three!"

"What's all this about walking and cantering?" I asked.

"The navitar is a chariot horse of the sea, so I have devised command words like those for horses: walking, trotting, cantering, and galloping—but don't repeat that in front of Father, he wants people to think the idea is his."