by Hal Clement
Orestes laughed. "Men do many things, youngster, to win gold or a great name-or just because they are hard to do. You’ll have to decide which of those is true for me and my men."
Gizona looked up at the captain’s face for a moment, and the man grinned back. The young wanderer would have been willing to read an answer to his question in the other’s grin as he spoke, but said nothing more about it just then. He changed the subject.
"May I see the inside of the ship, my captain?" He had heard several of the officers use that form of address.
"Certainly. The more you know, the more use you’ll be to me."
"Do the men know about me? Most of them don’t speak my language, I suppose."
"They have been told. If you want to know anything, ask me or the officers you saw closest to me last night." He named the officers, and described each one well enough so that Gizona could fit each name to the right face in his memory-picture. "Those all speak your language reasonably well."
Gizona swarmed up one of the ropes hanging from the galley’s side without further question, and spent the next half hour examining the big ship. He did not spend much time in any one spot; he simply roamed and looked. When he had covered the vessel from one end to the other he sat down on a coil of rope and tried to fit everything he had seen into a single picture in his mind.
It was not too easy. He could remember anything, but memory and thought and understanding are not the same thing. Gizona had never really had much practice in thinking, and had never faced a situation very difficult to understand. Ropes and rowing-benches, sails and steering-oars, were now dancing around in his head in a maze. Only very slowly did he bring the whole thing into order. His memory worked rather like a jigsaw puzzle, though of course Gizona never thought of it that way; up to now, new pieces had always fit on the edge of the completed part— the things he already knew, such as the village life along the river. Now a whole handful of pieces had arrived which didn’t fit; it was as though he had put together the part of the puzzle along the bottom border, and then suddenly been handed some pieces belonging out in the middle.
New pieces kept coming, too; the work of the crew as they eased the great hull back to the water on rollers, towed it over to a nearby dock, and began loading cargo. That part made sense, of course, but the boy could not see why the galley had been brought ashore in the first place. He finally had to ask; then it was perfectly obvious that weeds and barnacles which grew on the ship’s hull below the water line had to be removed. He could not even then see why they slowed the ship down, but was willing to believe that they did.
Orestes had done one thing with his talk the night before; for the first time, the captain had really brought home to Gizona how much he didn’t know, and stimulated the boy’s natural curiosity. Gizona now wanted to know things; the big blanks in the middle of the jig-saw puzzle bothered him. The result was rather annoying for the captain, since he was almost constantly being pestered with questions whose answers seemed to him to be perfectly obvious. With some difficulty, he avoided showing irritation; after all, he kept telling himself, he had asked for it.
He did manage to secure one period of respite, however; when, finally loaded, they dropped down the river in the darkness of a moonless night he impressed on the boy very firmly that their lives might very well depend on strict silence. As usual, there were Carthaginian galleys in Gades, and the river was not so wide that a voice might not be heard across it in the night time. It was more than likely that the Carthaginians knew of the Greek ship’s presence— Orestes was not the only person smart enough to send out scouts. It was quite possible, therefore, that there would be watchers looking for just such a move as the Proteus was now making.
However, if there were, they saw nothing; the pentekonter slipped out the river mouth and headed out to sea for a safe distance before turning toward the southeast to pass the city which was some day to be called Cadiz— long after the ruins of Tartessos had sunk into the Guadalquivir mud.
"Usually in our own waters we don’t travel at night," Orestes remarked, "since it’s very hard to tell where we are or where we’re going; but sometimes here it’s necessary to take the chance. I know with this wind that we won’t strike land before dawn as long as we're headed this way."
Gizona naturally wanted to know how the captain could tell which way they were heading, since the land had vanished in the darkness around the galley. He learned a lot about stars that night-and it was harder than it would have been twenty-five hundred years later, for Polaris was not such a reliable north star then.
Before the lesson was over, the stars began to grow hard to see. The sky to the east lightened slowly, until the land could once more be seen dimly in silhouette. It was not land Gizona had ever seen before, though of course it was still part of what would one day be called Spain; so he gazed at it eagerly, fixing what he could see of it in his memory. He did not sleep, though the captain saluted the rising sun by rolling up in his cloak and relaxing as well as the galley’s extremely cramped quarters permitted.
The men were not rowing; the breeze was in the right direction and the great square sail spread to catch it. A man whom Gizona did not know was standing near the stern, leaning his weight on a wooden bar which extended down past the gunwale; leaning over, the boy could see that this was the end of an oar, broader than the ones the men had been using. Watching closely, he finally saw that the man was able to control the way the bow pointed by moving this oar; he was the steersman. It was only after he had decided this that Gizona realized he had figured it out by himself, without asking anyone. He was quite proud of himself, and began to wonder whether he couldn’t learn other things without being told. The fact was that he was starting to think, without ever having had much practice at the art.
He did not, however, figure out why the helmsman sent the galley slanting toward the shore as the sun rose higher. He looked at the captain, still sleeping, and wondered whether it would be well to warn him of the course change; then he decided that since none of the other men seemed disturbed, there was probably nothing wrong. Even when the ship was pulled into a small cove where she was hidden from the sea as long as the sail was down he did not remember what the captain had said about the men of Carthage. It was a piece of the puzzle which he had not yet fitted into place.
Not until nearly sundown did the captain awaken, and only then was the boy reminded gently of the danger from pirates. It was safer to travel at night; the only reason they had remained at sea as long as they had was that there was no other good hiding place along this part of the coast known to the captain-there were other coves, but there were people living near them who might be expected to betray their presence. So said the captain, anyway, and Gizona had not learned to doubt a man’s word unless he could find discrepancies in it himself. Everything Orestes said seemed perfectly sensible to the boy.
They went on after dark, navigating once more by the stars, and Gizona found one disadvantage to night travel. He could not see, in anything like the detail he would have wished, the landmarks the captain wanted him to remember. On the other hand, he got to know not only the patterns of the stars but their nightly motions as well, and Orestes managed to explain to him something of their seasonal changes.
He also made a start at learning Greek. His memory was less help here than might have been expected, because while he never actually forgot the meaning of a word he had to stop to translate in his head whether he was listening to the Greek or trying to talk it. That meant that in listening he understood perhaps one word in three while the talk was going on, and had to spend some time after it was over in translating from memory the words he had heard. His own language was a mixture of the Iberian dialect spoken along the river and the Phoenician and Cretan words which had worked their way up from Tartessos with the traders and miners who had visited the uplands for generations past; he had had no particular language trouble in Tartessos when he got there. However, it was several days before he could carry on a conve
rsation in Greek at any reasonable speed.
In a way, it was almost too bad that he spent the time he did on the language; it was all too soon that he found it useless to him.
The pentaconter had passed Gibraltar— even at night, Gizona had seen the mighty rock clearly enough to be awed by it-and were well into the Mediterranean. Orestes had hugged the northern shore; there were Carthaginian posts along this coast, but the city itself was on the African shore. The fact that this side of the sea should be safer did not cause the Greeks to relax their precautions, and eventually their care proved justified. A sailor clinging to the cramped and dangerous lookout post at the masthead gave a call.
Everyone was on his feet instantly. Most of the sailors had been relaxing, as the wind had been favorable. The galley was heading on a long slant toward the shore; day had just broken, and Orestes had marked a cove ahead which he had used as a hiding place before.
"Where away?" the captain called. He knew the lookout would not have called out like that for anything but another ship.
"Almost in the sun’s eye, sir. Heading straight toward us."
"They’re against the wind, then-rowing."
"Yes, sir. I can see the splash of their oars."
"Then they can see us, too; the sun is behind them. We can’t hide in the cove; they’d know where we were and have us cornered. Can you tell her size?"
"Bigger than we, sir. A regular warship. She probably carries three times as many men as we do."
"I suppose she does. She’s a pirate, not an honest trader, and is set up just for fighting. Helmsman, head straight out to sea, across the wind. Oarsmen, out oars. Masthead crew, brail up. Fast!"
Gizona watched in fascination as the great square sail was drawn up against the yard by means of ropes looped around it; he did not envy the men doing the job, though he did not appreciate their position as much as he was about to.
"Why not stay with the wind and sail and row both?" he asked the captain. "I should think we could go faster that way."
"We could, but so could they. This way it’s oars against oars, and we should be able to beat them at that game-for one thing, they’ve already been rowing, probably for an hour or more, and won't be as fresh as we are. If we let them use their sail too, we could lose that advantage very easily. The trouble is, I don’t really know how fast they can sail— I’ve never talked to anyone who could tell me. That suggests to me that everyone who's found out is at the bottom of the sea. Besides, staying with the wind right now would bring us too close to them; they’d cut us off."
"How long will they chase us?"
"Until they catch us or lose us. They won’t give up while we're in sight."
"And if they catch us?"
Orestes shrugged his shoulders and pointed over the side. "Or maybe their rowing benches, if they happen to have use for a few more slaves," he added.
The answer disturbed Gizona; certainly no one would preserve him to use at an oar.
"How can anyone row like this for long?" he asked with some anxiety. He was looking at the straining men on the benches, already sweating with effort. He had tried to lift an oar once or twice, and had some idea what actually pulling one must mean.
"It’s as hard for them as for us," pointed out Orestes. "We have a few extra men, too; we can spell some of the rowers occasionally."
"Won’t they have extra rowers too?"
"Yes, if you must bring up the point. Probably more than we do. Still, I’ve outrowed them before. Come to think of it, we have one more man than I realized-you."
"Me? I can’t row."
"You can do anything if it’s for your life; but I didn’t mean for you to row. Niklos," he called to the man at the masthead, "Come down. Gizona will take your place; you can row when needed."
"Yes, sir." The sailor came down one of the stays in a fashion that made the boy gasp, or would have had his mind not been occupied with the captain’s words.
"How-how do I get up there?"
"You’ve seen the sailors go up. A young fellow like you should be better at climbing than any of us. Hurry up; we could be rowing right into a trap and never know it."
Gizona obeyed, miserably. He could climb, of course; he had climbed trees in the forest and roofs in Tartessos. He had not had much practice on ropes, though, and none whatever on ropes attached to a slender stick that kept swaying back and forth.
"Don’t look down!" the captain’s voice came up to him. He made no answer, but gritted his teeth and kept on.
The galley was travelling across the swell as well as the wind; she was rolling badly, which did not help. For long moments after the boy reached the top he could do nothing but cling frantically to his wildly swinging station. He had not been seasick before, but now his stomach gave up the struggle.
After that he felt a little better, and began to look around-he carefully obeyed the captain’s order not to look down. He could see the Carthaginian galley-no one had bothered for an instant with the thought that it might not be Carthaginian-far off to port and a trifle astern; she had changed course, apparently, and was now heading out to sea in an obvious effort to intercept the Greek ship. She was more nearly broadside on, and Gizona was able to make a guess at the number of oars she carried. As nearly as he could tell, there were twenty-five or thirty on this side; but when he shouted the information down, Orestes remarked gloomily that it was more probably twice that, since it would be hard to tell at this distance whether she had one or two banks.
The question fled from the boy’s mind, anyway, when he let his eyes rove around the horizon a moment later.
"Captain," he shrieked, "Another one!"
"Where away?"
"That way!" He stretched a skinny arm almost straight ahead; and the captain thought fast.
Turning into the wind would bring them back on their wake toward Gibraltar; but that could not be helped for the moment. Any other direction would almost certainly bring the ram of one or the other of his pursuers into the Proteus’ hull. Upwind would also change the rolling to pitching, which would make the rowing a great deal easier. He gave the order to the helmsman, and Gizona saw their original pursuer swing around a moment later to follow the new course. That one was almost straight astern, now, which was some comfort.
The new course put the second enemy to port, and for a short time the boy hoped she had not seen the Proteus; but then she swung onto another heading which left no doubt about the matter.
"She’s trying to head us off, sir."
"She would. Whenever I call, you just point; you needn’t yell-matter of fact, you needn’t point; I can see her now."
"Is it all right for me to come down?"
"No! Keep your eyes open! Carthage has more than two ships!"
Gizona could not deny this, and kept on the lookout. The two galleys in sight took a good deal of his attention, of course; he kept wondering whether or not they were really getting any closer. The one astern, he felt sure, wasn’t; but the newcomer was a different matter. It was abeam with the Proteus, on an almost parallel course, and he felt sure that it was very gradually approaching the smaller ship on a long slant. The boy said nothing, since he wasn’t sure and didn’t see what the Greeks could do about it anyway-the shore cut them off to starboard, and the two galleys to port and astern. There seemed nothing to do but row straight ahead.
At last there could be no doubt; the second galley was closer. Orestes knew it too, and so did his men. The rowers could tell by the stern expression on their commander’s face as he stood by the helmsman.
Whatever they may have thought or feared, not an oar missed its stroke. Even when Orestes nudged the helmsman aside and took the steering oar himself they rowed steadily, though they knew that the enemy must be really close. The thump and splash of their own oars prevented them from hearing any similar sounds from the other ship, and no rower had any chance to look over the protecting shields along the bulwarks.
The men on deck could see, though, and so co
uld Gizona. The boy watched in fascination as the huge bulk of the Carthaginian fighting ship swung a scant hundred yards to one side. He could see her crew clearly-some bending to the oars, many standing at her sides with bows and swords. No arrows had flown as yet, though the distance was so short; the boy could not guess why.
Orestes could, and his face grew even grimmer at the thought. His eyes narrowed as he watched the bigger ship, and he held his steering oar firmly while he waited for what he knew must be coming.
Then it came. He saw the bows bend, and the banks of oars on the side toward the Proteus sent a sheet of spray into the air as they backed water. The ram of the great ship swung toward the smaller one; and Orestes acted.
His vessel, long and narrow as she was, was nevertheless shorter than her opponent; and he was pretty sure he could make a tighter turn. He put his full strength to the steering oar, at the same time shouting to his port rowers to back water. The Proteus came about toward her greater enemy.
Gizona, looking straight down for the first time, gave a shriek of undisguised terror. The two ships were coming at each other head on, with the enemy seeming to tower above him even from his masthead viewpoint. Orestes had no intention of ramming directly, however; he knew that his smaller ship would lose that match. At the last instant he swung his bow to port, intending to scrape along the side of the Carthaginian to smash the oars and kill the rowers. Unfortunately, the African commander had the same idea and turned in the same direction, just a trifle later.