Vectors (16 page)

The healthy vegetation there, producing oxygen for use in the Station, was also producing—under Katuki's guiding hand—four acres of top-quality taliza plants, for shipment to Earth in return for liquor and other luxuries. Waldo's own knowledge of botany, as a deep hypnoprobe verified, stops at mixed vegetables.

Waldo was given an award by the grateful Space Federation for breaking the taliza ring. And Katuki's repeated attempts to get to Waldo during the trial and kill him with his bare hands proved pretty conclusively that Waldo had never had any part of the drug ring. But evidence or no evidence, Waldo never during the course of the whole trial received anything but a negative vote from President Dinsdale.

 
Afterword.

At the end of 1976, I attended a NATO Advanced Research Institute meeting in Bermuda. When I went there, I felt very conscious of the fact that Shakespeare's "The Tempest" is set on an island very like Bermuda—Shakespeare had of course never been there, but he had heard descriptions of the place. It must have formed part of his inspiration.

While I was there, what emerged was not much like "The Tempest." It was the unsavory tale you have just read. Make of that what you will. Myself, I blame it on the changes that have taken place in the island since 1613.

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT

"So we now group all the World into six classes of essence. First, and lowest, the rocks and earth; second, all plants; third, all animals; fourth, mankind; fifth, the corporeal spirits that abide in water and air; and sixth and highest, the pure spirits of the gods, who rarely assume earthly shapes.

"Now we can divide these groups further. First—"

"Cyrus! Hey, Cyrus!"

He peered through the arch to his left, then back to the podium. Luckily, the lecturer didn't seem to have heard the loud whisper. Cyrus waved his hand feebly, trying to banish the purple robe and grinning face without attracting attention. No good. Damon was beckoning, and all set to try again at higher volume. Damn the man! He put on his sandals and slipped silently out of the auditorium.

"What are you playing at, Damon? Don't you know Cambyses came all the way from Persis to give these talks? I want to hear him!"

"Wordy old fool. Who cares where he came from? It's no use to come from the Tin Isles, even, if you talk rubbish when you get here . . ."

Cyrus sighed. As his hair turned grey, his own respect for age and wisdom grew, but Damon had all the impatience of youth and royalty.

"It's not rubbish. He's a great philosopher—and
I
want to hear him. What were you kicking up that fuss for—couldn't it wait a while?"

"No. You said I'd have a chance to win back that wager any time I wanted to. Well, I want it now. Come on, quick, let's go."

Outside in the hot sun, he threaded the way quickly down the hill from the lecture hall, ignoring Cyrus' protests of age, lack of breath and arthritis, and stopped before the hanging barrel of the vintners.

"They're tapping the big tun of white wine, into the little barrels for shipping. I want to bet on it. I'll bet I can get nearer than you can on the number of little barrels it fills. Double or nothing—if you win, you get the other mare; if you lose, I get the first one back."

Cyrus stood in the courtyard and scratched at his beard. A wager was hard to resist, but there was something odd here. Damon's bets ran more to the number of teeth of a whore, or the color of a horse's droppings. He hesitated, squinting at and assessing the big tun and the little barrels.

"You've not been cheating, now, have you? No talking to the tellers?"

Damon's grin was suspiciously broad. "Haven't talked to a teller, haven't seen a measuring table. Now, what's your bet?"

"Never seen one like this tapped before?"

"Never."

"We-ell, all right then. I bet—six score."

"—And I bet—eight and a half score. Nearest is the winner. Come on, let's count. They'll be finished before dark."

One hundred and seventy four barrels—and a lost mare—later, suspicion approached certainty. Cyrus sat on the warm marble bench in the forecourt and looked up at Damon's triumphant face.

"A bet's a bet. So, you won—now, tell me the secret."

Damon sat next to him and laid a brown hand on Cyrus' shoulder.

"It's not a secret really. You know One-Ear Afshar came back a month ago from a merchant trip to the Mid-World Sea? Well, he bought a slave in Alexandria, a big, hulking barbarian from the ends of the Earth. He got him cheap, because his old owner said he was a useless idiot who couldn't be relied on to watch a fire without letting it go out.

"He really is an idiot, too. I've talked to him. But he's possessed. Sometimes when you ask him something, you can see the spirit take him, and he's gone for a while. Then at last he gets his body back.

"Anyway, I found out that this demon answers questions about
numbers.
I asked about the tun and the barrels this morning, and he gave me the answer—between eight and nine score. Wasn't really cheating, was it?"

"Not far off it." Cyrus looked down the hill to the blue, salty lake. "A devil who can calculate, eh? Now there's a new one. I've heard of devils who give a man the strength of ten, and even of devils who tell the future. But devils who calculate? Wait now, maybe there's an answer here. He saw in the future how many barrels they would get, and told you that. Maybe he answers number questions by seeing ahead."

"Maybe. Ask him if you like. He's been standing over by that well for a while, doing absolutely nothing." Damon raised his voice. "Hey, Melos. Come over here!"

The figure by the well was motionless for a long moment, before he looked around him.

"Here, over here on the bench."

Close up, he towered over them, much taller even than Damon. His hair was a pale, fine mop, and Cyrus saw that his eyes were not brown, but a cold blue.

"Yes, Lord?"

"Melos, how many barrels like this one in the great tun?"

"As I said, Lord, between eight and nine score." The words were strangely accented but grammatically perfect. A frown spread across the pale features and he looked puzzled. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing wrong," Cyrus broke in. "Melos, I am sure that is not your original name. What were you called in your country?"

The reply was a broken mixture of rough gutturals. Cyrus raised his eyebrows, then smiled.

"I think I'll have to call you Melos. I won't even try and pronounce the other.

"Melos, there is no problem. But suppose I had used, say, this drinking horn to empty the great tun. How many horns to empty it then?" He turned to his companion. "There, Damon, that should answer any question of seeing the future. No one will empty the vat with that."

The slave looked at the complex curved shape of the horn, and at the simple cylindrical barrel. He hesitated. "Lord, forgive me, but I cannot . . . unless . . ."

The face muscles slackened, the jaw dropped and all expression went from the eyes. The fair hair blew in the breeze over the empty mask of an idiot.

"There, see, Cyrus—possessed. I told you so. Now if you wait a minute, he'll be back."

Melos stood motionless. After a long pause, the mouth closed, the eyes focussed, and he said, "One moment, Lord."

He took the horn and small barrel over to the well, drew water and filled the barrel using the horn. Then he returned. "Between sixty-two and sixty-eight score, Lord."

Cyrus' eyes were alight with excitement. "Damon, do you know what he did—or I think he did? Well, never mind. Melos, before you were a slave, were you a teller and measurer?"

"No, Lord. A sailor."

"Then how did you know how many horns would be needed to empty the tun? Come, speak up, don't be afraid."

Melos hesitated. "I am not afraid, Lord. But I do not know how to explain. It is many things. It is measurement, and counting, and—other things for which I have no words."

"See," Damon nudged Cyrus. "Possessed, clear as crystal, just as I said."

"No, Damon, there's more to it than that. Damn it, I'll have to talk to One-Ear Afshar, if I can."

"Why don't you? He's just down the hill."

"I'm not sure he'll talk to me. It was before your time, and I don't talk about it much, but it's my doing that he's called One-Ear. I was the one who caught him cheating on his weights. They lopped off an ear. Long ago, but he's never forgiven me.

"I'll talk to him anyway—in the morning."

He looked back to Melos, who stood motionless and expressionless. "That's all, Melos."

"Yes, Lord." The slave did not move or speak further as Cyrus and Damon went on down the hill towards the stables.

* * *

"He's an idiot all right—most of the time. What do you want with him, Cyrus?"

Afshar, spade-bearded and powerful, looked slantingly up. "Like him for a boy friend, maybe, would you? I don't think Thais would be too fond of that idea. Still, he'd be a nice big armful, I'll give you that." He smiled, showing a graveyard of rotting teeth.

"Of course I don't want him for that. Look, Afshar, you know my interest in philosophy and scholarship. Well, I think Melos is something more than you know."

"You'll never make a merchant, Cyrus. Show your interest and up goes the price. You want to buy him then, do you? And how much will you pay?"

"Forty pieces of gold—forty five even."

Afshar sucked a breath past the ruined teeth. "Would you, eh? Now that's a lot of money. Why would you offer five times the value of an unskilled laborer? Know something I don't know, perhaps?" He rubbed a smooth piece of quartz between his hands, then polished it on his robe. "Want to do me out of some money, do you?"

"Of course not, Afshar. I want to try an idea. I want to send Melos over to see old Darius, in Susa. I think there may be the makings of a philosopher in him. If so, he shouldn't be a slave, he should be a freeman and a citizen."

"A philosopher, now—in a barbarian slave." Afshar crowed softly. "You're a fool, Cyrus, and you always will be. There's value in Melos, all right, but it's not philosophy. Come outside with me and I'll show you something."

He led the way into the cluttered sunlit courtyard. He took the smooth shaped oval of quartz and held it above a heap of shavings on a marble table.

"Watch now, watch there."

A bright spot appeared on the shavings. After a moment, a wisp of smoke; a moment later and the shavings were alight, burning pale in the sunlight.

"See, Cyrus, Melos made this when he was possessed. There's his demon in the quartz, locked up, and he can trap the Sun.

"I'll be selling sun fires now—pure and lucky, because there's a piece of the Sun in them." He looked slyly at Cyrus. "Think I'd sell you a slave who can do that, do you?"

"Afshar, I'll pay you sixty pieces of gold."

"Not for ten score pieces, not for twenty score." He rubbed the red stump of his right ear. "To you, Cyrus? Never. It's enough to know you want him. Good day to you, and I'll be pleased if you'll leave my courtyard."

He started back in, but paused at the door of the house. "Maybe I'll be kind to you, Cyrus. Melos will be yours—for nothing. The day I die, and not before. If you want to send him to Susa now, you may. It will cost you one gold piece for every day you rent him. I'll be here if you want to accept my offer. Now, go."

Leaving the courtyard, Cyrus passed the giant, silent figure of Melos, leaning against the outside wall.

"Melos." Again, the empty eyes came back from far away, before the reply.

"Yes, Lord?"

"Your Master showed me the quartz and said you put a devil in it. You told him that?"

The slave sighed. "No, Lord, there is no devil. It is in the shape of it alone, that brings together the sunlight. But Master prefers my devils to my words."

A gleam of humor showed in the pale eyes. "If the Master thought that shapes would sell better than devils, I think perhaps my words would be heeded more."

"And do you believe in gods and devils, Melos?"

"Of course, Lord. Many things cannot be explained without them. But many can. I would not waste a god or a devil on something that does not need it."

All the way back to his own house, Cyrus tried to make up his mind. A gold piece a day, for, say, thirty days in Susa. And at the end of it, what? If Darius' views agreed with Cyrus, that would be just the beginning. There would be training, analysis, discussion. And at the end of
that?
Perhaps, a mind to show new visions. But perhaps nothing.

Thais felt his distance that night. Everything was physical, the mind elsewhere. Afterwards, little by little she teased out the story. When Melos' name was mentioned she nodded her dark head vigorously.

"Damon is right, Melos the slave is possessed. The other slaves in Afshar's house fear him. You know he drinks blood? Human and animals. One of Afshar's concubines has seen him do it."

"Thais, I think you're worse than Damon for collecting gossip." He laughed and lifted a heavy loop of scented hair from his bare chest. "Drinks blood, does he? Does he breathe fire too?"

"Cyrus, don't joke about it. You know, Afshar's slaves say Melos likes to remain in the artificer's shop all night long. He sleeps very little and he keeps the others awake with his incantations. He is making spells and conjuring demons there. The others have heard them, hissing like snakes."

"Like snakes, eh? I'd like to know more about that, too. But Afshar isn't likely to invite me in to watch. If Melos is conjuring demons, I wonder why Afshar lets him. All he's interested in is increasing his store of gold."

When Thais was told about Afshar's proposed rate of one gold piece a day, her reaction was so violent that Cyrus dropped it at once. She shook with rage.

"So much money on a slave! Cyrus, I am a slave and I never ask for money. Already you pamper your slaves. Who else serves fresh fruit and meat to the rowers in the galleys, and who else allows them possessions and women of their own? Why do you think of wasting money on that big barbarian oaf?"

"Thais, my dear, I think that 'big barbarian oaf' can already do things that I cannot do. If he could become a true philosopher, he should be a companion, not a slave, and he should rightfully have the finest gift that I can offer: the gift of freedom and the right of citizenship.