The Arrows of Hercules
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Arrows of Hercules». Краткое содержание книги:
“Exciting and quite believable adventures.”—Classical World
“Rousing piece of fiction...pace is rapid and unrelenting.” —The Arizona Republic
"What is it like?"
"I'll show you tomorrow."
"I'm eager to see it ... By the way, I notice Ahiram took to you the minute he met you."
"I admit I have a way with children," said Archytas. "What are you going to do with him? We can't ask Rhoda to care for him indefinitely."
"I thought I'd ask for a few days' leave, to take the boy home to Messana."
"Gods on Olympos, don't do that!"
"Why not?"
"First: you just took a few days off without asking leave. The boss took it in good part, but if you demand another leave now it won't sit well with him. Second: Alexis has been ordered to give you back your workmen; but, unless you stick around, he'll sneak them away again on some pretext or other. Next time you might have more difficulty getting them back. Since you faced Alexis clown in public, one needn't be able to see through walls to realize that he'll ruin your project if you give him the smallest opening."
"What shall I do, then? The little fellow is anxious to see his mother."
"Write Korinna at once. Xanthos is rich; he can send a traveling cart to fetch the lad."
"But that way I shan't see my darling again until the gods know when!"
"I thought that's what you had in mind." Archytas patted his friend's shoulder. "Even a god must yield to necessity."
Next morning, Zopyros was pleased to find his carpenters and their apprentices back at their jobs. He had hardly set them to work assembling the catapult, however, when Drakon's errand boy came to tell him that the master of the Arsenal wanted to see him. The impudent look on the boy's face warned him that the interview was likely to be unpleasant.
He followed the boy up the stairs to the gallery. When he reached Drakon's desk, however, the master of the Arsenal was not there. He walked a few paces to Archytas' desk, littered with sheets of calculations. Nearby stood a complicated arrangement of jars and tubes.
"What's that?" said Zopyros. "Your invention?"
"If I can ever make it work," said Archytas. "The big boss said he wanted something to signal starting time in the morning. Well, you know the clepsydra they use in law courts—a jar with a hole in the bottom? They limit speeches to the time it takes the water in the jar to run out the hole. I'm trying to make a clepsydra that shall blow a whistle."
Just then Drakon returned to his desk. Zopyros hurried over. Across this desk, Drakon's gnarled features glowered up. "Who's Arsenal master here?" he snarled in a voice like a rusty hinge.
"Why, you are, sir."
"Then what in Hades did you mean by taking complaints to the President without speaking to me first? Don't you know nothing about organization? Are you trying to kiss the President's arse in hopes of promotion? If—if—" He pounded his desk, incoherent with rage.
"I'm sorry, sir," said Zopyros. "When I saw what Alexis had done to my project, I was too angry to think about—"
"Don't you dare say a word against Alexis! He's a good, bright, hard-working boy. You're jealous of him, because he was promoted ahead of you. Now get out—ea, wait! Where are you going?"
"You said to go, sir."
"Furies take you! You think you can mock me, because you've had a fancy education! I'll show you! I'll—I'll ..."
Drakon subsided into silence. For some time he sat, breathing heavily. At last he spoke in more moderate tones: "Understand, Master Zopyros, that we have certain orderly procedures. People are expected to follow them. One rule is that you shan't carry complaints, proposals, or suggestions to a higher executive until you have at least talked the matter over with the one directly above you, and then with the one over him, and so on. Do I make myself clear in my stupid, uneducated way?"
"Perfectly clear, sir."
"Then you may go."
"Do you really mean it this time, sir?"
"Why—you—get out!" Screaming, Drakon snatched up his bronze inkwell, spilling ink on his papers, his desk, and the floor. Zopyros ran for the stairs.
Lunchtime came. Sitting on the edge of the Spring of Arethousa and munching bread and cheese, Archytas told Zopyros: "The gossip is all about the great Zopyros-Alexis feud. The betting was even as long as it was just between you and Alexis. But, now that you've got Drakon against you, too, they're making up a pool on how long you will last."
"Bugger all feuds and jealousies and intrigues! I'm only trying to get my work done."
"Ah, but in any big organization, there's a scorpion beneath every stone. It's a law of nature. They're gossiping about your feud merely because it's the noisiest one."
"How is it, Archytas, that people always come to you with gossip and never come to me?"
"Why, as to that, I look like the kind of person it would be fun to swap rumors with. I'm overweight and jolly-looking, and I know everybody. You, on the other hand, are tall and gaunt and serious. You prowl around with a preoccupied scowl on your face, like a leopard on the hunt. You walk past people you know without seeing them. They come to me afterwards, saying: 'By Herakles, what's wrong with that Tarentine friend of yours? Is he angry with me, or what?' I have to explain: 'No, it's just the way of these creative geniuses. They are so wrapped up in their own mighty thoughts that the material world doesn't exist.' Then I assure them that you're the finest fellow on earth, when I can get you down off your philosophical cloud."
The great feud, however, was resolved in an unexpected way. A few clays after his outburst, old Drakon took to his bed with a wasting disease. Arsenal gossip said that he had been suffering for some time, and that this fact explained his foul temper in recent months. Although he lingered on for a year before dying, he came no more to the Arsenal.
In his place as Arsenal master, Dionysios appointed Lithodomos, his stocky, peasantlike crony. Lithodomos called a meeting of the Arsenal workers and made a speech:
"Now, boys, I don't want nobody to think I'm putting on airs, just because I'm your new boss. I admit I don't know so much about some of these here technical details as you men who work on them. But I've been around longer than plenty of you young ones, and I've watched the President at his work, and I know a thing or two. In fact, I'm a lot smarter than you might think. And I can tell you we're going to put out bigger and better production here than ever before, see? I've got some new ideas of my own about this. In fact, I'll be disappointed if we don't double our production in the first six months. Now, boys, get in there and produce!"
For the next few days, the work of assembling the catapult went smoothly. Everybody knocked off for an hour to witness the trials of the armored chariot designed by Simon of Kroton, the little man who had been expounding his idea to Dionysios when Zopyros first laid eyes on the tyrannos. The vehicle, looking deadly in its coat of iron scales, towered up from the archery range. Four horses were backed up to it and harnessed.
"Ithi!" cried Simon.
The driver cracked his whip. The horses lunged against their neck straps. The chariot did not move.
"Go on! By the God, stir them up!" shrieked Simon, dancing about. "It must go!"
The driver lashed the horses, which redoubled their efforts. At last the wheels heaved up out of the holes into which they had sunk. The chariot, creaking and groaning, lurched slowly forward a few feet. Then the wheels found another soft spot and settled in again. Shouting and lashing the horses failed to move it. The animals stood exhausted with hanging heads.
Dionysios walked over to the vehicle. He prowled around it, examined the places where the wheels had sunk into the ground, put his shoulder against the rear of the structure, and shoved. He told Simon:
"You seem to have underestimated your weights, man. That thing would require a dozen horses to move it at a decent pace."