The Far Arena (46 page)

'I'm sorry,' said Lew. The Colosseum.' He had used the patient's term, the proper name for the Flavian amphitheatre, which of course the patient would always call the Flavian, for his divinity, his emperor, the man he knew almost two thousand years ago, the man whose father had built it.

Lights played off the Colosseum - a shell of what the patient had known, just portions of the bare understructure without the statues in every opening to the street, or the fine marble skin. Auto traffic scurried around on new, soft asphalt, at a dizzying pace. Lew told the driver to stop.

They probably never had night games here, thought Lew, such as he had known. He had played in the first night game of his college, and it had drawn much excitement. He remembered running into the stadium with the banks of light shining down and after the first hit, not feeling any difference. You were so tired at the end of those games you could have played them at the bottom of the ocean and happily drowned for the relief of knowing you didn't have to go on.

He had been afraid of that first night game because it was new. Just as he had been afraid of his first college scrimmage, just as he had been afraid so recently of a managerial post in a delicate situation.

He remembered that first practice. There was a halfback from Santa Fe, who was five foot three inches tall and had been famous in high school for scoring more touchdowns than anyone in the history of that city.

There were wind sprints in the first practices, testing speed. Lew and the little fellow were matched, and they ran ten-yard wind-sprints together. When they had gone the hundred-yard field, he could see shock on the little fellow's face. Lew McCardle out of North Springs was six foot three and a half inches tall, two hundred and fifty-eight pounds, and every bit as fast as the smaller halfback. What had been sufficient for high school ball was
woefully inadequate for college, because when there was so much money involved, you could always find a good big guy who was better than a good little guy. That was the law of money, and that was the law of athletics.

Lew McCardle clapped his hands and let out a Texas yahoo that could have awakened the ghosts of Domitian and Nero themselves. He had found it He had found the flaw.

He had been thrown off by the size of Romans. Eugeni was the perfect size for the average Roman. But not for the arena, not to be the premier gladiator during his time. That size would be more appropriate for Plutarch, the arena slave who kept being mentioned in Olava's notes, the one who was supposed to have been crucified and was supposed to be inadequate for the games.

While Romans were rarely over five feet by average, a foremost gladiator had to be at least the size of Plutarch, maybe even as big as Lew himself. There was just too much money involved. Too much.

He looked for the last time at the Flavian. This was the smaller arena, and it was so big to centuries of men who came afterwards that they copied this misnaming of the Flavian for their stadiums, calling them 'coliseums', not even knowing they referred to a statue that was no longer there.

Too much money. Too big. Eugeni, too little. Had to be.

Back at the hotel, Lew found his professor drinking sherry and reading some Latin poetry.

'I have something for you to do. It's sort of a rush project, which I will explain later, but you are not to tell anyone you represent us until later. Right now, you are just doing research for yourself.'

'Why, thank you.'

'We are interested in the finances of the games, their effect on the economies of the provinces and how far they reached, and how big financially they were.'

"The greatest testimony can be borne by the European lion,' said the professor, somewhat confused but very happy at this moment.

'I've never heard of a European lion,' said Lew. The professor grinned wickedly at his little joke. 'Of course you wouldn't. With only spears and swords and nets the Romans made more species extinct with their games than we have with helicopters and guns. The European lion was just such a one.'

'One more question. A gladiator wouldn't be trained as both a pugilist who could throw a killing blow and a swordsman who could use, let's say, a spatha.
’

'Absolutely not,' said the professor. 'Your common gladiator was a trained slave. No lanista - an owner of gladiators - would invest money in training a slave in something he wouldn't use. No more than a coach would train one of your football players, Dr McCardle, as a tackle suited for some other position - one of those other fellows.'

‘
A halfback, said Lew. 'Or a cornerback. You know, back home people watch a lot of football on television. And they see these little corner backs running around so quickly and getting hurt against big fellows. Those little fast cornerbacks are usually six feet tall.'

'Fascinating,' said the professor.

'In my studies,' added Lev/, 'I never read about sizes of gladiators, that is, of their fighting according to sizes, like our current boxers.' "

'Of course not This was life and death. They weren't going to see someone disembowelled and then worry about his weight. Gracious. They had them fight animals with their teeth. You're thinking of the Marquis of Queensberry, not Rome. Weights. By Jove, never.'

Twenty Two

Semyon Petrovitch got his answer early and from a computer. He knew what had happened, and why a man could walk alive two thousand years after he had been frozen.

An American computer had told him. An American system had helped, and he had heard Americans did their election returns like this, by early projections. He knew his work, and what he discovered very early and by calculations was what he did not want to discover.

He had farmed out certain experiments with the glycerol solution to universities with which he had liaisons - such projects as the effect of the solution on organs, cells, et cetera, in variations of thermal reduction speeds and temperature levels.

He often shared experiments. Those who carried them out, of course, did not know what the larger meaning was. He set up a programme for the computer to receive this information, which was very much akin, although on a more complex level, to his programme for measuring oxygen disbursement in thermally deprived tissue. It was the burning oxygen experiment on a larger scale.

He did not want the answer that quickly, on just eight experiments. But there was the projection with the results; he understood.

What they had accomplished was saving a perfect human specimen from poisoning. The scientific process was akin to pumping out someone's stomach, with the action of the harmful product delayed by thermal reduction.

Was it a breakthrough? Semyon Petrovitch asked himself. The glycerol substance was still too unstable for human use. He had several dead animals whose corpses would testify to that. The substance, since it could easily kill, had been used as a poison. How often things had been used for destruction, when they could have been used to save, Semyon Petrovitch did not know.

But Petrovitch did know his great discovery was not all that great a discovery, in that new knowledge for mankind would follow as a result. Given a perfect specimen - the gladiator - with an uncontrolled substance at a certain temperature, body functions could be delayed and started again.

Which was the theory, before a thought had crossed the patient's mind, two thousand years after its last one. It could be done. But they always knew it could be done someday when the state of the art was more advanced. And that was exactly where they were now with this supposed breakthrough. They had learned nothing from the body other than that it could be done.

If they were to take ten thousand healthy people now willing to
risk death, they could, or might, with many experiments get five who would recover, possibly one as well as their subject.

To control this substance was like creating a car powered by atomic energy and ensuring that its reactor would not leak in the event of a crash. It was simply beyond the state of the art. It was a thing for tomorrow.

Dr Semyon Petrovitch had supervised a medical accident and a physical rarity. It was no big thing at all. Perhaps the beautiful Sister Olav was right that me miracle was life.

Still, it had been done. Something worthwhile could be gained, if only in establishing the limits of this substance and establishing what further controls would be needed. And, he realized, he would need even more scientific rigor to define those subtle limits.

At this time he was grateful he was not back in Russia, because there would be someone from some bureau ready to blare out to the world that Soviet science had raised the dead, and it would go along with the two-headed dog and psychic phenomena into the circus of scientific entertainment.

It was not a final conclusion Semyon had reached, but a projection he believed. He felt it his duty to tell Olava and Lew.

Olava. What a beautiful name, he thought.

She was in the room and the room was dark, and he saw her blink when he opened the door. A nurse was with her.

He signalled her.

'I was just watching him sleep,' she said.

'I have some news for you,' he whispered.

‘
What?' she asked. And her lips were so pale and fine, Petrovitch momentarily couldn't think of anything else but how fresh and clean and beautiful she was standing close to him in the hallway, not moving, within reach of his arms, so close. And he was kissing her. He had his arms around her and was kissing her.

But she didn't kiss back, and he felt her spin away and wipe her mouth.

^‘
You should be ashamed of yourself,' she said.

'Olava. I love you.'

'You don't even know me.'

'You are beautiful.'

'You had no right. You should be ashamed.'

'I want you. I loved you from that first moment. I think of you whenever my mind wanders.'

‘
What a stupid, stupid thing to do. A man of your stature. A man of your intelligence. A doctor.'

‘
A man, Olava,' he said mournfully, the smell of her body still with him.

'You may have cut my lips,' she said, running a forefinger across the lip and blinking with pa
in. 'Let me see,' said Semyon. ‘
No.'

'I am a doctor.'

‘
I know,' she said crisply. 'Silly man. I have not led you on. I haven't, have I?' 'No.'

'I didn't think so. You are such a renowned physician. I am disappointed.'

'So am I, Olava. Do you love that, in there? With the muscle?'

'Of course not.'

'It tortures me to see you waste your life.' 'I am not wasting my life. I am investing it.' 'What if there is no God, then what have you done with your beauty?'

'Lived with it. What should I do with it? Serve it with paint and perfume, and let my mind and spirit die? I do not worship my beauty, Dr Petrovitch.'

'I must look at your cut. Hold on, don't move.'

'I am sorry. I tried to be as scholarly as possible. I am sorry,' she said, staying still while the physician examined her lip.

'I am sorry,' said Petrovitch. It was only superficial.

‘
I did not want to make you sorry. I am ashamed now.'

'I am more sorry now,' said Dr Petrovitch. 'Do not tell Lew McCardle.'

'I would be most happy to forget this and consider you still a man worthy of respect. One cannot help one's passions at times.' 'I come with bad news, Olava.' 'Yes?'

The breakthrough in cryonics may not be as massive and clear-cut as we thought. So much further work remains in cell permutation that we have raised more questions than we have answered.'

'Yes?'she said.

'What we have discovered is not a method of suspended animation, but a proof that we sho
uld consider in our research.' ‘Yes’

'It's far short of what we expected. Medically, my action was in stopping the effects of a poison. Still, I am glad I was there because I doubt many doctors could have done what I did. I am glad I saved the man. Yes. I am glad.'

That's so nice,' said Sister Olav, with withering condescension. 'But let me tell you some good news. Today he made an oblique reference to Martial'

'Yes?'

'He used in his speech one of the epigrams of Marcus Valerius Martialis.' 'Yes?'

The epigrams. From the Silver Age of Latin poetry, itself.'

That's nice,' said Semyon gloomily and heard her asking if he wanted to hear the epigram and heard himself answering that he most certainly did and waited until she was finished before he returned to his office to look for the bottle of the boy who pissed expensive scotch whisky.