The Wizard from Earth (33 page)

The servant returned with an older, very fidgeting man.

Valarion beamed and said,  "Ah, Landar!  Have you met the Lady Inoldia?"

36.

Over the following days, Archimedes kept Matt preoccupied with a flow of projects.  Their relationship seemed on the surface not to have changed.  Archimedes was as cheerful as ever (in his crusty way) and never mentioned the airship.  Or so Matt thought at first.  Then he noticed that Archimedes was giving him assignments that could have 'alternative' applications.

Project #1:  "I need you to implement a way to increase the strength of iron.  The ancients called it 'steel.'  And by the way, do they have in Seattle what the Mentors refer to as 'aluminum?'"

Project #2:  "Provide a table of temperature and pressure versus various mixtures of alcohol and air when ignited within a containment of metal."

Project #3:  "Riveting.  What do you know about riveting, Matt?"

Project #4:  "I want you to redesign this tooling machine for greater precision.  It's for the production of more efficient . . . sewer pumps."

At first Matt was happy to oblige, relieved there had been no permanent rift with someone he consciously admitted he was coming to view as a father figure.  But slowly it dawned that he was being asked too often how to radically lighten parts that didn't need to be lightened if they were indeed intended to sit on a factory floor.

Then one day he was asked to build what Ivan identified as a very large spark plug, one just the right size to fit into the engine that Prin had mentioned was being constructed on Steam Island. 

Matt started to lose enthusiasm.  He slowed in his work, and Archimedes began to replace crustiness with testiness.  Matt excused himself by pretending various ailments, but Archimedes saw through that too.

“You seem to be having a lot of stomach pains lately,” Archimedes observed.  “Perhaps you should visit a physician.”

Matt knew that given the state of medical science on Ne'arth, that might be more lethal than any ailment.  But he nodded feebly and hobbled away.  Shortly, he was standing in the courtyard by a ventilation shaft to the basement, and heard the sound of a hammer against metal coming from below.

“Wasn't there a god who made weapons in a cavern?” Matt asked.  “Vulcan, wasn't it?”

"The Greeks called him Hephaestus," Ivan said.  "He made armor and arrows for the gods."

"Well, Archimedes has him outclassed.”

Matt returned to his room, flopped on his bed, and resumed ceiling-staring mode.

“This isn't working out.”

Ivan conducted a contextual analysis.  "You mean, being an assistant to Archimedes."

"It's not like I'm good and he's evil.  He really wants the best for the world.  Well, so do I.  He may be older than me – in physiological age, I mean – but I have more historical knowledge.  Centuries more.  I'm not wrong, am I?  About not introducing air war to this world, I mean."

"I have a suite of generic battle simulation programs that could be adapted to analyze warfare between airships."

"That won't help by itself.  We'd have to gather accurate data on the status of technological development for all the nations on Ne'arth, then simulate an arms race and see whether it would lead to arms control negotiations and a balance of power, or to an international crisis and global war.  But we don't have that kind of data, it would take years to gather, it would be of questionable quality – and then chaos theory says there are so many unknown variables that we shouldn't have bothered in the first place.”

"I do not have an arms race negotiation simulation program in my archives.  It would have to be developed from scratch."

Matt sighed.

"Here we go again, talking about altering the course of a world's history.  That stupid program would probably say I'm being narcissistic again."

He was lost in thought when he heard a loud knock on the wall.  It was Carrot.

"Come quickly!" she said.  "There's been an accident!"

Then she was gone, darting down the stairway at mutant-speed.  Matt followed and when he  reached the kitchen, he found the women clustered around Nilla, who was weeping and clutching a red and moist rag around her left hand. 

"I'm going to lose it!" she cried.  "I'm going to lose it!"

Matt saw the knife on the cutting table, the half chopped onion, the copious amounts of blood. 

Carrot said to him, "This is beyond me."

"Let me see," Matt said.

Nilla unraveled the rag.  The cut on her thumb was deep, but it would not have been outside even twentieth century technology to heal, albeit with a scar.  With what passed for medical care on Ne'arth, though, she could well lose her thumb to infection.

Matt subvocaled, "Tell me what to do."

Ivan directed him to grasp her thumb and press the severed flesh together.  Ivan's microscopic tentacles infiltrated her wound and Nilla ceased to moan.  After a minute, Ivan retracted his tentacles and Matt released her hand.

"There's not a scar!" Mola exclaimed. 

“No scar!”  Mola said.  “Your hand was bloody, girl!  What happened to the blood?”

The household staff stared at Matt.

"The, uh, injury, wasn't as bad as it looked," Matt said. 

They continued to stare.

Nilla laughed and held her thumb to Gwinol.  "Look, Gwin – it feels perfectly fine!"

Gwinol eyed Matt.  "How much do you charge?"

"Nothing, free of charge."

"Thank you, Matt!  It's just like Carrot said – you are a wizard!  Oh thank you!"  Nilla continued to admire her thumb.  "The Sisters of Wisdom would have charged a fortune!  But I would never go to them, not after what happened to Zula!"

Matt frowned.  "Who's Zula?"

"Zula is the friend of Drila, who is the friend of Balil, who is the friend of – "

"Okay," Matt interjected.  "What happened to Zula?"

"Didn't you hear?  It's all over town.  She was slashed to ribbons in an alley off Dan Street, just blocks from here!"

Matt thought of Carrot going out at night armed with dagger.  But no, he knew Carrot now, and she would not doing anything like that.  And when he studied her face as she stood in the kitchen listening to Nilla, he saw only shock.   

"Drila says it's disturbing because Zula was doing so well," Nilla said.  "She was deaf from childhood, but the Sisters cured her.  Then, so suddenly, she was hired into the Emperor's household and all seemed to go well.  And then – slashed to ribbons!"

"You sounded before like you were connecting her death with the Sisters of Wisdom," Matt said.

"Drila says Zula was always at their temple – and then the constables found her body in the alley right next to a rickshaw boy who used to wait outside the temple.  He was slashed to ribbons too!  They say these things sometimes happen to those who cross the Sisters.  Poor Zula, what could she have done to make them so angry?"

Carrot walked out.  Matt bowed to the servants and followed.  Carrot, her complexion ashen, was pacing in the courtyard.

"What do you know about this?" he asked.

"Why do you think I know anything?" she replied.

"You're upset."

"Is that what your Little Man tells you?"

"I don't need Ivan to tell me that."

"Nilla was bleeding, that's why I'm upset."

"You've seen worse in battle.  You were concerned, but you didn't act upset until she told that story about the other girl.”

She seemed ready to stalk off, but then she gestured to the bench.  They sat.  She looked into his eyes and squeezed his arm a little too tight. 

“My mother was killed the same way.  Slashed to death.”

She had informed him that her parents were dead, but this was the first time he'd received details.

“You want to talk about it?”

“I see your look.  Don't be troubled.  It was years ago.  I'm over it now.”

He doubted that.  "Is it all right to ask what happened?"

"I was only a child.  We were gathering flowers by – " She paused, as if to swallow words.  "We were attacked.  I have no memory of the incident.  But I do remember the scent just before it happened.  I thought for many years that it was only a trick of mind.  Then . . . I smelled it coming from Boudica."

"Boudica?"

“Back in Britan, the day of the battle, when the battle was about to begin, I scouted ahead.  The wind changed and I gained her scent.  She looked directly at me.  I have since learned that Boudica was no queen of Britan, that she was an agent of the Romans.”

“Have you smelled her since?”

“I'm getting to that.  The other day, after you and I spoke, I was down by the waterfront – and it was the same scent!  She's here!  The Agent of the Romans – and Pandora!”

“Pandora?  You mean, what we discussed, the name of the AI who controls the seeder probe.”

“Yes, I am sure of it.  Pandora made me, who else could?  And she made this creature too, who else could?  And then Pandora sent the creature to kill my mother, and now it's after me.  Here in Rome!” 

Comprehension dawned.  “And now you go out at night to hunt for the creature.  Or Boudica.  Or – what are you hunting for, Carrot?”

“You are right to wonder what, Matt, for I am sure that it can change its physical form.  When I listened to Nilla's story, I knew instantly what happened.  The creature rode with the carrier to the alley and killed him and took his form, then went back and got Zula to ride with it to the same alley, where it killed her too.”

“I think there's a logical leap in there.  I don't know if shape shifting is even possible.”

“Your people did it long ago.  Ivan showed me how they would turn into chimera and back.”

“Well, of course, but that's with machines and lots of nanotechnology.  You're talking about someone who can shape shift on their own, at will.  That's not science, it's magic.  I mean, it's not possible.”

She said quietly, “I know it's possible, because I can do it too.”

“I've never seen you do it.”

“Because my mother warned me not to.  She said it would change our souls as our bodies.  That we would become evil.  So she never did it and she made me swear I would never do it.  But you've seen how my hair will change color when I lose control of my emotions.”

“Carrot, you've always given the impression you're a skeptic about things.” 

“There's good reason for why I was, Matt.  There were times when I was fighting in the Leaf, when I had a vision of a beast of claws and fangs who could kill ten men at once, and I felt if I said yes to this thing inside me, I would become that beast.  It would help me defeat the Romans in battle, yes, it might help me defeat half a legion – but after, could I change back to human form, and even so, would my soul then be trapped in beast form?  How do you cope with such thoughts, Matt?  I told myself such things weren't true, they weren't possible.  Then I met you and Ivan and – now I know it's all true, everything my mother warned, it's waiting inside me.  All I have to do is say yes
once
– and my soul is lost.” 

Matt stared across the courtyard at the roses.  He remembered fearing that Carrot might be a monster in disguise.  He had never considered that she feared the same thing.

She said in a lowered voice,  “You knew about the hunting.”

“The other night, you ditched the knife but Ivan spotted the sheath.”

“Tell your Little Man that he is very clever.”

“Yeah, well, the ninja pajamas were a giveaway too.”

“The what?  Oh, Matt, you and Ivan have to help me!  It's been after me for years and now it's loose in the city and killing people.  I find its scent in places, yet I cannot locate the creature itself.  If Ivan could tell me why!”

“I'll ask, Carrot.”

Ivan soon reported,  “Based on simulation studies of shape-shifter physiology conducted during the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries, it is possible that a shape shifter would have a unique scent when it is in its natural form, and a completely different scent when it is in a transformed state.  It is possible that Carrot has smelled one but not the other.“

Carrot was watching Matt's face.  “What is he saying?”

“Ivan says it's got more than one scent.  One for natural state, one for transformations.”

“Of course!  I have to wait until it transforms!”

“Carrot, in natural form this . . . being . . . probably looks just like an ordinary human.  He or she could walk past you in Victory Square and you'd never know until it was too late.  That's why you've got to stop hunting.  You could easily end up being the hunted.  You'd lose a confrontation before it began.”

“Tell it to stop hunting me!  Tell it to stop hunting servant girls and rickshaw carriers.  And what if it comes after you, or Gwinol, or Archimedes?  It knows what I smell like, it's known ever since it killed my mother – so it knows to find me here, and it will goad me to come fight on its terms.  Well, before that, I shall fight it on my terms!”

“Carrot, if it wanted to goad you, don't you think it would have done so by now?  For whatever reason, it's keeping a low profile.  And maybe you shouldn't provoke it.”

“One of the things we learned in the Leaf, Matt, is if the Romans aren't bothering you today, it's because they're readying to bother you tomorrow.  How can you be so dense about how evil works in the world?”