The Wizard from Earth (23 page)

They made perfunctories, and Valarion departed. 

The fools
, he thought – with Hadron's disheveled appearance fresh in mind.  Two assassinations by poison in one year, and the second being the Emperor himself! 
They think they can get away with that just by doing it slowly?  They'll ruin everything!   

On escort through the gardens, he tossed the biscuits into the brush and wished he could as easily dispatch the carcasses of the High Priestess and the rest of her meddling Sisters.  Particularly the one who kept breaking his furniture.

26.

That same morning, the household of Archimedes awakened with the rising of the sun.  Breakfast was cold except for a bland porridge.  Matt didn't complain.  It still beat the menu at Palras.

Having so recently been a slave, Matt was sensitive to the status of the 'servants,' whom he at first took to also be slaves.  But as soon as they had prepared the meal, they sat down at the same table with Archimedes, and while they referred to the master of the household as 'sir,' they also addressed him directly, and it was clear they were more fearful of Jaros.

Outside on the streets, however, the Roman word 'servant' seemed to be only a euphemism for 'slave,' given the violent threats that well-dressed citizens gave the bearers of their litters and sun umbrellas.

"We'll first visit a tattooist and have your status tattoo altered from slave to freedman," Archimedes said.  Then he glared at Matt's bare wrist.  "Your tattoo – where is it?"

"I guess they forgot to give me one," Matt said.  In truth, Ivan had faded it last night.

"Right then," Archimedes said.  "Then, I suppose, we'll first visit the true Master of Rome."

They headed west for several blocks, and entered a great plaza, which Archimedes said was called 'Victory Square,' and there they encountered 'The Master':  a massive clock tower so tall that it could be seen from almost everywhere in the city.  They climbed to the top and entered a room behind the clock face that was filled with ratcheting gears as large as they were.  Showing how to find the correct time by sun marks and almanac and then set the clock gears accordingly, Archimedes bequeathed Matt a necklace with keys and declared, "You are now the Imperial Timekeeper of the Roman Empire.  And now I won't have to climb those accursed steps every day." 

After descending the tower and exiting the plaza, next they headed eastward, to what Archimedes described as the 'Artisan District.'  In fact, Matt saw more full-fledged factories than one-person work shops.  Drawing power from subterranean steam and the water wheels that all but covered the Italan River, the factories turned out everything from garments to bricks. 

As imperial inspector, Archimedes could shut down an enterprise for violations of safety, pollution, and quality, but often he caved before threats of friends in high places.  Archimedes explained,  "If you're to survive as an inspector, you play a game similar to one called 'poker,' in which one must know when to hold and when to fold.  Do they have poker in Seattle?"

"I think I've heard of it," Matt said, noting that not all mentor wisdom was esoteric.   

From the Artisan District they returned to the house for lunch, then headed west along the Avenue of Champions to return to Victory Square and inspect the health of the baths.  Then it was onto the Coliseum to review the latest repairs.  Returning along Silver Street, they dropped by the imperial mint.

A single sleepy guard admitted them into a dingy building where printing presses clattered out sheets of imperial scrip, which Archimedes explained was paper money restricted in the scope of its tender to single provinces as a means to 'regulate' trade (though he didn't mention it was also a secretive means of wealth transference as Dran had asserted).  The mint also issued universal coinage, a process in which gold and silver were diluted with alloys and then stamped with the likeness of the Emperor.

Archimedes taught Matt how to inspect scrip quality, while he inspected the engraving plates for the coins himself.  In a sidelong glance, Matt noticed that the plates for stamping silver coins were duller after Archimedes handled them.  Ivan confirmed the new plates were being swapped for older ones hidden beneath the folds of Archimedes' robes.

After that, they returned to Water Street and ascended to the top of Aqueduct Tower.  Despite the climb, Archimedes had no complaints this time.  Matt could see why – literally.  The view was breathtaking, encompassing the entirety of the city and bay to the sea beyond.   

From that vantage, they inspected via spyglass the length of the waterway as it subdivided and poured into reservoirs, pipes, and public fountains. 

“Demand is so great that not a drop of the aqueduct’s water reaches the bay without being first used,” Archimedes said.  “That's why there are already plans for a second, parallel aqueduct.”

Visually ensuring that no illegal taps had been made into the system, they tested for water quality.  Matt was amazed at the sophistication of Archimedes' chemical knowledge. 
Mentors again
, he thought. 

Whatever affection Archimedes had for sewers was more than exceeded by his love of aqueducts.  

"The aqueduct was rooted from the Italan River two centuries ago," he said, "but now we gain the bulk of our flow from the run-off of the Thallian Mountains.  It's fresher and cleaner, another reason that Rome is the most plague-free city in the world.  But sometimes I wonder if I'm winning a battle or merely stumbling along in a race that will go on long after I'm dead.  For it seems no matter how much I expand the aqueduct system, Rome simply swells until it demands even more water."  

"A population explosion," Matt said.

"Explosion.  As with fireworks.  Yes, that's a way of putting it." 

Archimedes had been hard-nosed and practical on the streets of Rome, but atop the tower, gazing over the city from a perch whose altitude was second only to the imperial palace, he waxed philosophical.

"The workings of the human mind are very much like an aqueduct," Archimedes said.  "The number of thoughts we can think at any given time can be likened to the breadth of the channel, while the effort accorded to each thought is likened to the depth.  The speed at which we move from one thought to another is like the speed of water through the channel.  By multiplying breadth times depth times speed, we arrive at the rate of flow, both of water and for thought."

"Huh," was all Matt said aloud.  Privately, he surmised that Archimedes' own aqueduct of thought was broad and shallow and flowed perilously fast.  But it seemed to keep the city in working order.

Matt began,  "Sir – "

"Archimedes."

"Archimedes, I've been wondering.  Are you the only person who's in charge of running the city?"

Archimedes smiled.  "I'm not really in charge of running the city – aside, that is, from doing all the petty things that keep it alive.  But its overall fate is in the hands of others, who have better things to do than provide drinking water and prevent plagues."   

"Like what?"

Archimedes sighed.  "I suppose it's time I gave you a glimpse of the Empire's dark heart.  Come, let us sojourn to the periphery of the chasm."

It was back to Victory Square, but this time Archimedes took him along the rising slope of the Avenue of Champions, pointing out the columns that commemorated the many victories of imperial generals and their armies against the rest of the world. 

"Almost a quarter of these Heroes of Rome were assassinated here in the city," Archimedes observed.  "Rome proved itself a greater threat to their lives than any battlefield.  To me there's no wonder in that.  On the battlefield, the cowards have their armies to protect them, while even bodyguards are restricted in number on the streets of Rome.”

“Why is that?”

“Otherwise, the senators would compete to have the most guards on the street.  There would be inevitable clashes, which would escalate into civil war.”

They turned right onto the eastern half of the square.  The crowds were better dressed, the litters more ornate, the shops larger and more upscale in merchandise.  Constabulary discreetly patrolled the perimeter, acting as a barrier to those of lower class dress.  The police knew Archimedes by name, however.

“And here we are.  The Dark Heart, otherwise known as the Senate.”

The frontal lobe of the well-guarded building seemed almost a skyscraper in height, but the interior was hollow, a giant basilica with mosaics and frescoes and murals and larger than life statues.

"Emperors of Rome," Archimedes observed of the statues.  "While they lived, every member of the Senate conspired to kill them.  Once they're dead, the Senate commemorates them as enlightened rulers."

Matt counted the figures and Ivan zoomed in on the plaques.  "I thought there would be more."

"Rome likes to give the provinces the impression that it's been around forever, but for most of its history it was, as often said, a fishing village.  Also, it had no emperors until about a century ago.”

“What form of government did Rome have before that?”

“It was a democracy.  The ground we stand on used to be an open field where citizens gathered every fortiethday to vote on every sundry issue with a show of hands."

"Archimedes!" a voice echoed across the interior.  A man wearing a white robe with gold tassels and a fringe of purple waddled toward them, a contingent of slaves and bodyguards in tow. 

Archimedes frowned lightly and said, "Greetings, Senator . . . . "

"Rentar.  I have been appointed by my family to replace my cousin Karagas in the Imperial Senate.  We met at his funeral.  Who is this with you?  He looks un-Roman.  Where is he from?"

"This is Matt from Seattle, which is in the northwest of  . . . Espin."

"The northwestern region of Espin?  So tell me, Matt, what do you think of the wines of Turnal?"

It took quick collaboration between Ivan and Herman, and comparison between satellite views and the Fish Lake Atlas, but Matt had already suspected the question was a set-up.  "There are no vineyards in the vicinity of Turnal.  Perhaps you're thinking of Tren, in the south."

"Perhaps I am."  And the senator wandered off.

Out of earshot, Archimedes said, "It's fortunate you know something of Espin.  I apologize, I should have remembered to collaborate on a story about your origins.  If it is learned that you were a prisoner of war, from a province in rebellion – well, there are some here that do not regard even me as a True Roman, though I've been here longer than they've been alive.”

They mounted the steps to a gallery overlooking a circular chamber of gleaming marble.  Scores of men in white robes with purple stripes sat at benches and bickered.  Their voices carried well, and Matt quickly grasped that the bellowing debate was over Britan.  One faction wanted to annihilate the province of every man, woman, and child.  The 'moderate' faction favored the mere enslavement of the entire population.

Archimedes whispered,  "I wouldn't worry much about this bluster.  Roman speeches are about never quitting from battle, but legions have often retreated and withdrawn.  The reputation of Roman invincibility is built on the pretense that every setback is really just a strategic maneuver.  Like what happened in your Britan.  Valarion boasts victory but I sense it fell short of that."

Matt soon had his fill of well-fed plutocrats conniving to loot the world into starvation, and he and Archimedes returned to the house.  Then Archimedes took him to a first-floor workshop where a table was covered with several glass disks about the size of dinner plates. 

"I've been commissioned to build an Imperial Telescope," Archimedes said, gesturing to a writing board on the wall upon which a free-hand diagram of arrows and rectangles included captions like, 'Find formula for designing lenses' and 'Get glass for lenses.'  He held up one of the disks to his face and his enlarged eye blinked at Matt.  "Alas, I'm having no end of trouble shaping the lenses.  I doubt I'm going to get an affirmative, but would you have any experience with grinding lenses?"

Matt didn't, but Ivan had the accumulated knowledge of humanity concerning the grinding of lenses.  Guided by instructional videos in an AR window, Matt deftly set the disk into the grinding machine.  Archimedes broadly smiled.

Using Ivan's low-power 'palm laser' as a monochromatic light source to generate a diffraction pattern, Matt had results that satisfied Archimedes' inspection a couple hours later.  Then servants came and nudged them to dinner.  Half the table talk was about astronomy, the other half about the quality of melons in the markets that day.

When the meal concluded, Matt excused himself and visited the one place he had been wanting all day to see:  the library in the cellar.  One by one he took the books from the shelves, flipping through the pages as Ivan took photos.  A single page was about a megabyte, which gave approximately five books to the gigabyte.  The image files for all the pages in the thousands of books would fit snugly into a terabyte, which was only a tiny fraction of Ivan's twenty-second century memory storage capacity.

After a few score books, Matt asked Ivan for a summary. 

“Most of the books cover technology,” Ivan said.  “Most of the technology is pre-Singularity.  There are abundant texts on the construction of mechanical and electrical machinery, for example, and on the creation of rudimentary electronic components and circuits.  However, I can find nothing on integrated circuits.”

“Doctor Roth thought we relied too much on computers,” Matt said.  “Okay, what about science?”

“Classical physics only, no reference to quantum physics.  Biological science texts reference genetics but there is no mention of its molecular basis beyond simple chemical reactions.”

“In other words, nothing about proteins, viruses, or DNA.”

“Correct.”