Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (8 page)

"Yes."

"They're volcanoes."

"Like the one behind Pompeii?"

"And on Sicily, and in the Greek islands. Now over there are fold mountains."

"Fold mountains?" Gaius frowned.

"On Earth, there are a number of giant slabs of land that move around. We call them plates, and where they bang into each other, they can slide over each other, in which case we often get volcanoes, and at other times they push land up, and you get fold mountains, like the Alps at the northern part of Italy. Can you understand that?"

"Not entirely," Gaius frowned. "If giant slabs of land banged into each other . . . Wait! You'd get earthquakes?"

"That is why you get earthquakes. Planets that don't have these moving plates in general don't have earthquakes."

"But how can the land move? Isn't it solid?"

"Yes, it is, but below the planet's surface, although the rock is still solid, it moves like liquid, only very slowly."

"I thought that it was liquid underneath volcanoes," Gaius admitted. "Liquid rock is supposed to come out of some volcanoes, and . . ."

"Certain rock can separate out magma that liquefies," the Tin Man said, "and that gets squeezed out, which is why you get magma that flows out of some volcanoes."

"I thought volcanoes have water below them," Lucilla offered, then she turned towards Gaius and said, "I've seen steam come out of a volcano."

"Many do," the Tin Man said. "The heat below can vaporize the water, and the pressurized steam may cause a very violent explosion, throwing rock, steam, everything out with considerable force."

"So why does the rock move?" Gaius frowned. "Where do the forces come from?"

"That is a little more complicated," the Tin Man said. He then broke into an outline of angular momentum, using a geometric argument where the area of a rectangle had to be constant, although the sides could change length. Gaius made a big effort to follow the explanation, because he was convinced that if he were ever to get back home, he had to get the attention of important Ulsians. Accordingly, he accepted the "area of the rectangle" argument, although as he admitted later, it was mainly on the grounds that the Tin Man did not lie. He looked around and smiled. Lucilla and Vipsania had long given up on this conversation, and were chatting about something on the other side of the room. Klendor was watching with interest, yet he was saying nothing. He, or whatever Klendor was, seemed interested in the outcome of this exchange. "So, this angular momentum, or whatever . . . speed times mass times distance from the centre, is constant. What's that got to do with ocean currents?"

"You know why the sun rises in the east on Earth?"

"Because the Earth is spinning," Gaius said. "The land goes from west to east, so it seems as if the sun goes the other way."

"Is the land always travelling at the same speed?" the Tin Man asked.

"It would fall to bits if it didn't," Gaius smiled, then he paused. "Wait!"

"Well?" the Tin Man asked.

"All parts go around once a day," Gaius said cautiously, "otherwise it would fall to bits, but the parts at the equator have to go a lot further, so they go faster, and land at the poles is, well, nearly stationary."

"Then imagine a piece of water at the equator, going around at the required speed and suppose it has to head south, and with constant mass has to maintain its angular velocity. What happens?"

"It travels east, and goes faster . . . well, faster than the rock underneath, the further it gets south," Gaius replied, "and . . ."

"And what happens to water from the south that goes north to replace it?"

"It can't keep up, so it heads west, and . . ."

"And?"

"I guess everything goes around in a circle." He paused, then added suddenly, "At least it would do that if there was land on both sides running north-south. I suppose without the land the stuff going east would always go east and . . ."

"So you see, just from that you get sea currents, with massive amounts of water moving, and that comes simply from the fact your planet is spinning. We can add a complication when we realize water at the equator is warmer than water near the pole, and cold water is denser than hot water . . . Do you understand what I mean by density?"

"The mass per unit volume?" It was good that once before Timothy had shown him Archimedes' Principle. But then he realized something. "You should know that I know that, if you had Timothy's memories!"

"Timothy would say that he was just checking, to see if you had forgotten."

"Yes, he would. Go on."

"Well, the cold water is denser, so it goes to the bottom, and warm water tends to slide over the top. This can lead to some significant further complications, as does the shape of the land. Anyway, the very simple case is an example of a force that is generated just through the application of geometry to the pre-existing motion. Such forces get fluids to move."

"And that would drive the winds?" Gaius offered, then after some thought, added, "That can't be right."

"Why not?"

"The winds would all come from the same direction, and they don't."

"There're a few complications."

"There would be," Gaius muttered.

The Tin Man considered this response for a moment, then said, "Where else can air go?"

"I don't know," Gaius shook is head.

"Then where does hot air go?"

Gaius just stood there, then finally offered, "Up!"

"And what makes you say that?"

"Thinking about it," Gaius replied, "I've never seen smoke go downwards."

"Yes, it can go up if it's hot, and if it goes up, it sucks air in from somewhere else. And as it goes up, it gets cooler, and as it gets cooler, it often forms a fog . . ."

"Clouds?" Gaius asked.

"Clouds, and if enough water comes out, rain. Then unlike the oceans, there's air all over your planet, so there's nothing like land to shepherd it into big circles. The forces that drive your ground plates to move are similar; the Earth spinning, the ability of liquids to go up and down, and also heat generation. Now, that's enough for now." He paused and almost examined Gaius' face. "I don't understand," he said.

"You don't?" Gaius frowned. "You don't understand what?"

"Why did you cut your face?"

"I didn't do it on purpose," Gaius laughed.

"Then why?"

"One of the curses of being a man," Gaius said, "is that I grow this hair, and I want to keep it down. The knife I've got slipped, and . . ."

"I'll make you get something better to deal with that," the Tin man nodded, "once we get down to Ulse. In the meantime, if you look down below, you should be able to see large circular motion in the way some of the clouds form and flow. It's all to do with what we were talking about, including heat, and it's a bit more complicated than what we were just discussing, because air can go up or down, and like water flowing in a river, you get eddies, with enclosed circular motion. All the same, from up here you can see circular patterns in the cloud formations."

"My!" Vipsania taunted Gaius, after the Tin Man had walked away. "Aren't we the scholarly one."

"I think it might be important," Gaius replied.

"Oh? Why?"

"There's a big difference between a barbarian and someone who has not been taught."

"Doesn't know, or doesn't want to know," Vipsania nodded. "And you think the Ulsians won't be interested in those who don't want to know?"

"That's the message I'm picking up," Gaius said.

"Why should they be interested in us anyway," Lucilla offered in a dull tone.

"They may not be," Vipsania said, "but if they're not, there's not much we can do about it."

"I think it's important when we get down there," Gaius said, "that we try to learn as much about the place as we can. There'll probably be some interest in us initially, and they'll probably offer some help, but if we ever give the impression that we aren't interested, there's a real danger we'll be left to our own devices."

Vipsania nodded. By now she was anything but convinced that they had made the right choice in coming. On the other hand, she had to agree with Gaius that in reality they did not have a choice, and all that was being discussed was their degree of willingness. As Gaius had pointed out in private, once they had captured the enemy ship military discipline would have forced Klendor to go to Ulse. At that point they had two choices: volunteer to go to Ulse, or to be taken to Ulse.

"If nothing else," Lucilla agreed, "we've got to find out how we get the stuff we need, like food, clothes, and . . ." She stopped. She was going to add 'how to get to places where other people were' when it suddenly came back over her that there would be no other people. "We're going to be very lonely," she added, and stifled a tear.

"We shall have to make friends with some Ulsians," Vipsania said, and turned to give Lucilla a comforting hug. "I know you're missing Quintus, but . . ."

"I know," Lucilla replied.

"You mustn't think you're alone," Gaius added. "The three of us are, in a sense, alone, but we've got each other, and that's . . . well, important, anyway."

Lucilla suddenly grasped both Gaius and Vipsania, and gasped, "I'm frightened."

"So am I," Gaius said, as he tried to comfort her with a hug.

"What's going to happen to us?" Lucilla asked, almost begging for a comforting answer.

"I don't know," Gaius said slowly, "but I do know one thing. We're going to have to do a lot of things for ourselves. And there's another reason why we're going to have to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can."

"Which is?"

"Gives us something to do," Gaius said. "The most depressing thing that'll happen is when we realize time has passed and we're no further ahead. Look at it this way. The more you learn about Ulse, the more likely it is we'll find a way to get home."

"Somehow," Lucilla countered in a depressed tone, "I don't think it'll make much difference."

"Maybe you're correct, but you can be absolutely certain of one thing," Gaius said evenly. "If we sit around and do nothing down there, ten years later we shall still be sitting around in the same place doing nothing. That will be hell."

"You're right on that at least," Vipsania nodded. "We have to do something."

"It might even be interesting too," Gaius added.

Lucilla stared at him, and finally gave a weak smile. In one way, Gaius was right. Here was a world where people with the power of Gods lived. That had to be of some interest.

* * *

They eventually found that Ulse could produce something that was quite familiar to them: bureaucratic inertia. They had been orbiting the planet for some time without any sign of progress, and eventually Gaius confronted the Tin Man and requested an explanation. The excuse was given in the usual flat tone, and as Vipsania noted later, having a Tin Man was just the thing for delivering unpleasant news.

Their arrival had, it appeared, initiated a record number of committee meetings, and there was no consensus amongst them, in fact it was very difficult to find any such meeting that had produced any conclusion at all.

The problems were clear for all to see. They were representatives of a civilization considered too primitive for them to be permitted on Ulse, therefore they must be returned to their home planet. They were representatives of a civilization that had not reached appropriate space technology, therefore it was forbidden to return them to their planet. They had been given assurances that they would be well received on Ulse; a military officer empowered to give the assurance had given the assurances; therefore Ulse was bound to accept them. However, the 'anti-espionage' regulation passed while that officer was away from Ulse overturned all laws permitting aliens to land on Ulse. The war was going so badly that no ships were available to send them to some different planet, so they had to stay on Ulse. They had captured an alien ship intact, the Ulsian military wished to study this, and accordingly they had carried out a service that, under ancient Ulsian military law, made them Ulsian citizens by right, hence they could not be refused landing rights. That law had been overturned through the millions of years of peace. No, that was incorrect; it had become redundant because the capture of an enemy warship/town/transporter of class 4 or above was impossible under peace, but the re-emergence of war meant that military law took precedence again. Gaius stared at the Tin Man as the recital went on and on, citing case after case to exemplify points, and wished he had not asked.

"Can't they come to a decision?" Gaius asked.

"In this case," the Tin Man said, "they are taking time, but not an unexpected amount of time."

"But suppose this was a more important issue?"

"Oh! It would take much much longer," the Tin Man said.

"I'm afraid you've struck one of the aspects of Ulsian civilization that you will find rather frustrating," Klendor offered. "Ulse requires all its citizens to agree."

"And if they can't?"

"They sit in their committees until they can."

"Even when at war?" Gaius asked incredulously.

"I am afraid that war does tend to stretch the system," Klendor said, "although when all information received is several hundred years old when it arrives, the need for speedy decision is not that apparent."

"But . . . but . . ." Gaius spluttered, "you could be attacked!"

"In which case the decision is already taken," Klendor assured him. "There is a standing rule that if attacked, the military must mount an immediate defence, under the direct control of whoever is appointed commander in chief at the time."

"Well, that's assuring," Gaius muttered.

"So, in the meantime, we wait up here until they decide."

"Marvellous!" Lucilla shook her head.

"It's worse for me," Klendor explained, with what they were beginning to recognize as an Ulsian grin. "I have an automatic right to go home, but I can't because you lot are keeping me up here."