Vectors (19 page)

He nodded to the skinny priest to proceed. "Melos, you worked in Afshar's artificer's shop, correct?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Do you deny that you uttered incantations there? Answer carefully, and know that we have witnesses."

"Not incantations, Lord." Melos sighed. "I am fluent now in this language, as you hear. But I still use my native tongue for three things: for counting, praying, and cursing. Because the work in the artificer's shop was hard, complicated and sometimes dangerous, I'm afraid I did a good deal of all three."

A ripple of amusement ran through the audience. The thin priest frowned at the disturbance and went on. "But incantations or not, you engaged there in heathenish and forbidden rites. I refer to the drinking of blood."

That had the effect he wanted. A wave of revulsion now passed though the watching crowd. Melos remained calm.

"Not drinking, Lord. Tasting blood, and that only once and for a definite purpose." He hesitated. "How shall I explain? You know, Lord, that the swords from Damascus exceed all others in the quality of their metal?"

The priest shifted uneasily in his seat. He did not care for the reversal of roles of questioner and questioned.

"I know that, Melos; it is well known."

"Then perhaps you know, Lord, how that fine temper is achieved?"

"I have heard—only heard, mark you—that the sword is heated to red heat, and then—" He stopped, reluctant to go on.

"—And then, Lord," picked up Melos, "it is plunged with suitable rituals into the body of a young male slave. Correct?"

"So it is said." The priest gave reluctant agreement. "But the rituals are pagan and they can have little effect."

"I agree, Lord. It is the combination of the heat and some property of the blood that causes the temper.

"I tasted the blood for only one reason. To try and determine which parts of its composition might cause the tempering effect. This may seem like a trivial occupation to you, Lord—but to a slave an alternative method of tempering is very desirable."

Again there was an appreciative laugh from the crowd. The priest's thin face darkened with anger. Before he could go on, Darius stepped forward again.

"If I may speak again, Sirs. In Susa we tempered a sword using the mixture of salts and warm animal blood that Melos described to us. It is here."

He held up to the audience and the priests a shining two-edged sword.

"In tests by the warriors in Susa, this weapon cut as well and took and held as fine an edge as the best from Damascus."

"And you employed heathenish and pagan rituals?" snapped the angry priest.

"Yes. For one purpose only. As Melos guessed it, those rituals used fixed words spoken in a certain way during the tempering to fix the length of time that is needed in certain stages. The timing of the process is vital to the temper. Other words would do just as well—if they took the same time to utter."

The priest had lost the support of both the crowd and his fellow priests, but he fired one last shot.

"Melos, you deny demonic possession. But what about that devil's engine that led to Afshar's death in the galley? Where did the knowledge come from, if not from the world of devils?"

Melos smiled serenely. "From Alexandria, Lord. Afshar and I saw an engine using steam force there, soon after he bought me." He paused. "Alexandria may indeed be full of devils, Lord, but they behaved very like merchants to my eyes."

The laughter was now out of control. Pale with rage, the thin priest returned defeated to his seat. After a few minutes of discussion in private among the group of priests, Cyrus and Melos were declared free, cleared of all charges.

Cyrus was a popular figure. The city settled in to an evening of celebrations.

* * *

"I had a few bad minutes at the beginning, Darius, and I don't mind admitting it. I didn't know how the questions would go, or what you would say."

Cyrus was holding his own private celebration. In his banquet room, Darius, Cyrus and Damon reclined at ease, while Thais served them with wine chilled with snow from the northern mountains.

Darius laughed. "We were lucky. Nearly everybody was on your side anyway. They fortunately asked just the right questions for us, and I told them the exact truth—but not the whole truth—about Melos."

"I was in the audience in the hall," said Damon, "and your statement sounded complete to me. What was missing from it?"

"Oh, a number of things. I said that when Melos came to Susa he could not read or write. That was true. I did not tell them that he can now read and write with ease. He learned in days. I did not say that he learns everything at a rate that I have never seen before, or that he seems to forget nothing.

"I did not tell them that he makes the mathematicians at Susa seem like children. That he computes areas and volumes using methods that no one yet understands. That geometry—especially the conic sections, which he had never seen before he came to Susa—filled him with such delight that he was sleepless for two nights, looking at all we know and adding discoveries of his own.

"By the way, he says that our constraint of straight edge and compass for constructions is rigid and nonsensical. Not too modest, our Melos.

"Shall I go on? There's plenty more. To the priests, these things would just be proof of demonic possession."

"Then Melos is a philosopher?" asked Cyrus, leaning forward eagerly.

Darius shook his head. "There's the paradox. No. Philosophy as we know it, the philosophy of the Greeks, of Socrates and Plato, do not interest him. His passion is all for the natural world. Lightning, the movements of the planets, the nature of light, the nature of heat, these are the things that absorb him completely.

"Melos is not a philosopher. He is something new to my world, and I am very glad to see him free from the trial—to see both of you free."

Cyrus leaned back again in his couch. "For what you did for us today, Darius, I can never thank you sufficiently. Money could not be enough, I can never repay you."

Darius sipped his wine contentedly, a mischievous look on his old wrinkled face.

"Repay me, Cyrus? You've repaid me already. Think, now, I've been here many times these last ten years. What have I left behind in Susa that I have always brought with me before? There's a riddle for you."

"Darius, you know you never bring more than your clothes. There's no riddle because there's no answer."

The old man chuckled with pleasure. "Wrong, Cyrus. There is an answer—my reader! He has accompanied me these last ten years, since my eyes began to fail for close work.

"Now, thanks to your barbarian slave, I have this."

He pulled a smooth oval of quartz from his robe.

"Why, it's Afshar's firemaker!" said Damon.

"More than that. Look through it, and letters seem to be five times as big. Melos explained how it works to us, but I think it's fair to say that none of us understood him." He fondled the lens lovingly. "I have eyes again. Now, could we let a slave like that be impaled or crucified for demon-raising?"

"Slave!" Cyrus struck his brow. "I swore I'd free Melos the day of the trial. Thais, find him and bring him here."

The tall slave came in as calm as ever. Neither the ordeal of the trial nor the free-flowing wine after it seemed to have had any effect on him.

"Melos, I am ready to make good my promise. You will have your freedom, and I will apply for your citizenship tomorrow."

Cyrus watched the slave expectantly but no reply came.

"Melos, didn't you hear me? Have you no words of thanks?"

Still the slave hesitated, looking for a way. At last he said, "Pardon me, Master, but my words will offend you. Even so, I must tell you the truth.

"If you could give me freedom as I think of it, I would accept it gladly. But Master, what you have yourself is not freedom. To me, freedom is leisure. Leisure to think, simple food, a bed, shelter for my head.

"Master, from morning until night you are busy with a thousand responsibilities. This household, city government, law-making, your duties to your friends and to your slaves. I have seen these eat up your days and your nights.

"I am a slave. But when the given duties of the day are done, I can do as I choose. Even in Afshar's household, the most harried slave had four times the leisure that you have. To think, to eat, to sleep, to make love—but always, time of his own.

"Master, I do not want freedom as you have freedom. Let me remain a slave and serve you as a slave."

Melos stopped and stood motionless, the pale eyes troubled. There was a stunned and unbelieving silence in the firelit room. Cyrus felt disappointment and rage rising within him. Before he could release his anger on Melos, Darius put forward his hand between them.

"Melos has had his say. Before you answer him, I demand my right as an old man to have my say also." He smiled. "It is often my lot to tell people things they know already, but bear with me.

"First, Cyrus, remember that philosophy—and all creative activity—is a lonely, time-consuming toil. I assure you that great thoughts are conceived only in private, and only after long and exhausting preparation. It is very difficult to combine the great responsibilities of household and government with deep research. Melos, I have said, is not a philosopher. But he is something else that requires the same total concentration of effort if it is to be successful. The responsibilities of freedom and citizenship would hinder him on his lonely journey.

"We scholars are a luxury, carried through the world on the shoulders of responsible and understanding people like you.

"Second, Cyrus, you have said you want to be a philosopher. What is a philosopher? You are one already. Philosophy is a view of life and of the world. Following the work of Melos is just one small part of that, and it is a philosopher's duty to see all the different parts of life in their correct perspective and live accordingly.

"Third, let me remind you of the old story of Ranos and the god Mitra. When Mitra was wounded and lost on Earth, Ranos helped him, cared for him and led him at last to the flame at the Gate of Heaven. Mitra went on through and assumed his godhood, but Ranos was mortal and could not enter. He remained in our world, to work, to suffer and at last to die a mortal.

"Mitra is a household god, and has his feast days. But it is Ranos that we hold closest in our hearts. We tell our children about him at night, and set him as the pattern we would like to see in our sons."

Darius leaned forward, his eyes bright in the flickering firelight.

"Consider this well before you answer. Would you be Ranos or Mitra?"

Cyrus was silent for a long time while the others looked on expectantly. Finally he shook his head and sighed.

"Darius, there is only one Darius." He raised his goblet to the old man. "I drink to you."

He smiled, but his eyes were full of sorrow. "We read that Socrates the Greek was irresistible in debate and reduced all his opponents to helplessness. It is clear that you are his disciple and inheritor of his skills.

"I had hoped to be Mitra, you are right. But if the gods have chosen to make me play Ranos, that is more than I have any right to expect or hope for."

He turned to the slave. "Melos, you will remain a slave, and I your Master. Now, I must give you your duties.

"You will go with Darius to Susa and remain with him. Your time will be your own. You will have no other duties, except to preserve the honor of my household by your works. Each year, you will come back here and hold symposia in this house for one month.

"Now go, Melos, with my blessing—and Melos, please, no weapons of war, and no more infernal machines!"

A wistful look came over the face of the slave. Now he was thoughtful. In the pale eyes glowed the memory of the great cylinder, the hissing steam, the moving metal bars, the churning wheels. Then the look faded and he too sighed. He walked forward and knelt at Cyrus' feet.

"Yes, Master."

 
Afterword.

I first sent this story to Jim Baen, at Galaxy. He said, "It's well-written and interesting, but I just don't have that much belief in the powers of the mind. Why don't you send it to Ben Bova at Analog? He's got faith."

I sent it to Ben Bova at Analog. He said, "I like it very much, but I think it's not quite right for us. Why don't you send it to Ed Ferman at Fantasy and Science Fiction? He'll buy it in a hot minute."

I sent it to Ed Ferman. He rejected it in a hot minute.

I sent it to George Scithers, at Isaac Asimov's Magazine. He said, "You couldn't build a steam engine with the technology available at the time of which you write. And anyway, ancient Persia wasn't like that."

(I disagree with both those comments, and I've spent a lot of time in Persia, but that's another subject.)

I finally sold it to Ted White, who published it in Fantastic Stories.

So how do I view it after that checkered history? I'm very fond of it. To me, it makes a fundamental point, not about steam engines, but about the meaning of freedom; namely, freedom is not an absolute concept. One man's freedom is another man's bondage.

Chronologically, this is the first story I wrote that sold (not the first story I sold or published, but the one that was written earliest). Reading it now, I have to resist the temptation to change it here and there. But I'd probably make it worse—better to leave it alone and write another story.

SKYSTALK

Finlay's Law: Trouble comes at three a.m.

That's always been my experience, and I've learned to dread the hand on my shoulder that shakes me to wakefulness. My dreams had been bad enough, blasting off into orbit on top of an old chemical rocket, riding the torch, up there on a couple of thousand tons of volatile explosives. I'll never understand the nerve of the old-timers, willing to sit up there on one of those monsters.

I shuddered, forced my eyes open, and looked up at Marston's anxious face. I was already sitting up.

"Trouble?" It was a stupid question, but you're allowed a couple of those when you first wake up.