The Macedonian Hazard

by Eric Flint

  “I know, but the precedent is what’s important.” Thaïs stood and walked to the map. She drew an arch with her finger from the Port of Suez along the south coast of the Red Sea to Socotra. “It will strengthen our claim on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. We already have envoys in Ethiopia looking for coffee.”

  “Not looking for. Have found,” Ptolemy corrected, joining her at the map and pointing to a place on the northeast coast of Africa. “There is a tribe in a place the natives call Dassi where they are familiar with the tree. Some people chew the beans for energy, but it’s not a particularly common practice because the beans are bitter. However, according to his letter, Amir is confident that he has found the right plant, and he has seeds. They bear in the dry season, which is just ending. He has three sacks full of the seeds. Even some seedlings that he brought back.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Suez.” They had named their port Suez after the ship people name for the same place.

  “All the more reason for us to establish ownership or something like sovereignty over the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”

  Ptolemy shook his head. “They won’t accept that. We don’t own the Red Sea. Not even much of its western shore. Much less the Gulf of Aden. It’s not even part of Alexander’s empire.”

  “That makes it better. We aren’t rebelling against the central government or attempting to seize additional satrapies, just extending our territory and therefore the territory of the empire. Eurydice will probably support us, as long as we don’t go after other satrapies. And Roxane might. Besides, it will give us major trade goods for sale to New America.”

  Sally’s Bar and Party Palace, Fort Plymouth, Trinidad

  Tubanic looked at the stage where the girls danced in synchronization and nothing much else. They were all natives from around here, none of them ship people, but the dance was supposed to be a ship person dance called the cancan. He looked over at Drakos, a crewman from the Beard, and grinned. The music was strange, with a pounding rhythm that reminded Tubanic more than anything of the beater on a trireme calling the rowing cadence. But it was complicated by other rhythms that flowed through and around the main beat, and the music came from a box that was called a speaker, not a group of musicians.

  There were times on the trip from Carthage when he wondered if the trip was a good idea. Especially as they made their way south, island-hopping. The winds had kept them north of where they wanted to be, making the trip longer. He no longer felt that way. This was possibly the most successful trip he had ever been on.

  After the dance ended, he called over one of the dancers and made arrangements in pidgin American. They proceeded upstairs.

  A sailor with money in his pocket.

  For now.

  Capitol building, Fort Plymouth, Trinidad, New America

  “I told you!” Anna Comfort insisted hotly. The woman, with her face framed in dark brown hair, straight and parted in the middle, waved toward the window where the sound of music was audible. “This city is turning into a den of iniquity.”

  Al agreed with her, as much as he hated agreeing with the loony-liberal congresswoman. He was uncomfortable with the blatant sexuality of the locals, even if he doubted that it was the women being exploited and the men doing the exploiting as Comfort insisted it must inherently be. “I don’t disagree, Congresswoman. You know I supported the bill to outlaw prostitution, but we lost. The vote was overwhelming. So there is nothing we can do about it.”

  Poseidon’s Beard wasn’t the only ship in the port. The Argos arrived a day after the Beard, and the port bars were already packed with natives from all over the north coast of South America. There were ships from as far north as the Manguea states, where Mexico was in the twenty-first century. The trips up and down along the coast by the Queen and the Reliance let the people know what was here, and trade was picking up. However, the Beard and the Argos represented a major potential expansion because the radio system had already reported back to Carthage and Sicily that the ships had made the trip successfully. More would be coming. Many, many more. So Comfort was going to get worse.

  If only there were a Boston to ship her off to. Someplace where she could complain, and he wouldn’t have to listen.

  Peninsula Port, Guayaguayare Bay, Trinidad, New America

  March 6, 319 BCE

  The Reliance pulled up to the pier and ran out a hose to connect to the pipe. Most of the pier was wood, but they were importing concrete from Rome now. Not in large amounts, but someone was also working on producing portland cement. So that was going to change. The pumps weren’t all that efficient either, so it was going to take two days to fill the Reliance’s holds.

  Adrian Scott started the two-hour process of disconnecting the tug from the barge.

  * * *

  The Reliance tug pulled away and turned for Fort Plymouth. “Get me a link to the Queen, Dan.” The link went through the large station at Fort Plymouth, and was then bounced off the ionosphere using frequency-hopping to insure the bounce. It was an automated technique implemented since The Event, handled by the computers and mostly transparent to the user. But the Queen was now approaching halfway around the world from Trinidad so there was a noticeable delay. Adrian reported that they were refueling and would be spending a couple of days here before heading back. The Queen of the Sea gave their position, which was on the west coast of Madagascar, where Morondava was, back in the twenty-first century.

  Morondava, Madagascar

  March 10, 319 BCE

  Dag looked around at the tropical wilderness. This was a nice place to establish a fishing village, and they had explored the area over the last few days. There was no one here, nor any evidence of prior habitation. That wasn’t proof that there was no one on the island, but it certainly supported the notion that any people who might be here were not in large numbers.

  The trees around here were mostly baobab trees. They were old, too. The biggest in sight was sixty feet tall and almost thirty feet wide by Dag’s rough estimate. There were a couple of hundred green fruit in the high branches, again by Dag’s rough guess. They were green, furry, and about three quarters the size of a coconut. According to Wikipedia, they were edible or would be when they ripened in another few months, by which time they would be the size of coconuts.

  According to the Queen, it was raining on the far side of the island, but the mountains in between had removed much of the moisture from the air. The day was hot and a bit humid, but not bad.

  “Look over there,” Makis said, pointing.

  Dag followed his finger and saw the biggest bird he’d ever seen. It was eleven feet tall, and it made an ostrich look like a fashion model. It was an elephant bird and not the first Dag had seen, but this was the biggest yet. The elephant bird had become extinct sometime around the seventeenth century in the original timeline, but they were common here. They had dark brown feathers instead of the black feathers of an ostrich, but the big difference was the size. Elephant birds were thought to have weighed about a thousand pounds, but Dag suspected that that estimate was on the low side. The monster was blithely ignoring Dag and his escort of Silver Shields. They weren’t the biggest animal on the island, but they were one of the biggest and much larger than any predator, so they didn’t run away as ostriches in Africa did.

  “That would be a lot of meat?” Makis asked hopefully.

  Dag was tempted, but not because the Queen was low on food stuffs. It wasn’t. But these birds had the potential to be a useful source of all sorts of things. “You want to carry that sucker back to the boat?”

  Makis shrugged. “We could send for a wagon.”

  “You have a point.” Dag pulled his phone from the specially added pocket in his shirt and opened the wooden protective case. He turned on the phone and called the ship. He discussed the possibilities with Eleanor Kinney, who promised to send a wagon and a butcher.

  “Okay, Makis. You have a go.”

  Makis searched the area for a good
place, walked over a little way and lay on the grassy ground. He took careful aim with the caplock rifle, and BANG.

  The bullet, a fifty-caliber minié ball, cut the spine of the elephant bird like it was an ax.

  The bird staggered around for a couple of seconds, then collapsed.

  Dag and the rest went over and examined the bird. The musculature was impressive. Depending on how these animals responded to domestication, they might turn out to be a significant resource. Dag, as an environmental officer, knew quite a bit about environmental studies. And one thing he realized long since was that one of the best ways to survive as a species was to become a domesticated food and/or draft animal for humans. The surest route to extinction was to be a danger to man. With their modern knowledge, it was entirely possible that they could save the elephant bird from extinction by turning them into a food animal. Considering the culture of the world at this time, any other course as far as Dag could see led to extinction.

  Dag turned to Sharon Thigpen, who was a manager of a jewelry store, and was now going to be the head of the Madagascar mission, the weather station, and the radio system. “Well, Sharon, it looks like meat is going to be available. Put someone on studying the life cycle of these creatures. If we can, I would like to ship some to other islands for domestication.”

  “Sure, Dag. We don’t want all our eggs in one basket, even if it is almost the size of a continent.”

  There were twenty-three people, mostly locals, some from Europe, some from New America, who would be staying on in Madagascar. They would do some farming, but for now, at least, would mostly live off hunting and gathering. It was a dangerously small colony, and to get the volunteers Captain Floden was forced to promise that the Queen would come by at least once every six months and the government of New America was required to promise them massive personal land grants. Everyone in the colony owned at least a square mile of land. Including little Janel Thigpen, all of one year old, Sharon Thigpen, and her husband Tony’s youngest child. Not to mention their older kids, Tegan and Nyssa.

  The discussion turned to the station. Nine prefab buildings, none all that large, an oil derrick–style construct to support the antenna, and where all those things were to go. The station had a generator that ran off a low-pressure steam engine with a boiler made on the Queen. Compared to the folks at Jamestown in the original timeline, they were well supplied. But they were one hell of a small colony on one heck of a big island.

  “When do you think we will hear from the locals?” Sharon asked, because Dag was the “expert” on locals.

  “According to the last radio message from Ptolemy, he’s sent a mission along with the oil ship. We’ll meet it at Dioscorides. They have amphorae of that Egyptian beer you like and quite a lot of grain. Figure a month, maybe two. Long enough for your locals to do some hunting and for you to process the stuff into samples. Besides, we’ve left you enough freeze-dried food to last you six months, even without what you hunt and fish for here.”

  “Mostly it’s the extra colonists I’m looking forward to, Dag. More than the food or the beer, you need people to make a colony.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Rolling Snake-Eyes

  Nenet’s Dream, Red Sea

  March 14, 319 BCE

  Abial smiled up at the rigging of Nenet’s Dream. Then he looked over at the Cockle Shell and frowned. Nadaka was a snooty bastard, and Abial would just as soon be nowhere near him. Besides which, Cockle Shell was carrying amphorae of beer, sacks of grain, and passengers, while he was loaded down with nothing but hundreds of amphorae of naphtha. Also, adding the supplies for the expedition had delayed them for a week, which was why he was still in the Red Sea.

  “Do you think it’s real, Skipper?” asked Hambid.

  Abial knew what he meant. No one on the Nenet’s Dream had ever seen the ship people ship, the Queen of the Sea. Ptolemy’s governor in the new town of Suez said he had seen it, even been on it. But Abial was half convinced that the damned arrogant Greek was playing with the provincials. A ship the size of a mountain or the Great Pyramid—another thing that Abial had never seen—that was just not believable. “We’ll know in a few more days. The new way of rigging the sails works, so at least they weren’t lying about everything.”

  That was true. The Nenet’s Dream was doing eight knots in a light breeze off the port quarter. Even if she was heeled over more than he liked.

  Nenet’s Dream, Gulf of Aden, near Dioscorides

  March 20, 319 BCE

  “Land ho!” shouted the lookout. Then…“Gods preserve us. Captain, it’s real.”

  Abial’s eyes followed the lookout’s pointing finger, and on the horizon he could see a small bump rising out of the sea. But Abial was an experienced seaman. He could tell that the smallness was distance. “Two points to starboard. And adjust the sails.”

  * * *

  It was huge. “I have to go see the pyramids someday,” Abial muttered. For the great white mass exceeded what he had believed possible. Maybe the pyramids did too.

  Queen of the Sea, Gulf of Aden

  March 22, 319 BCE

  Dag watched as the last of the amphorae was emptied into the pot and ordered the pumps to start again. It took them two solid days to transfer the oil from the amphorae on the Nenet’s Dream to the Queen’s tanks, through a combination of pumps and manual labor. Something that would have taken the Reliance about an hour.

  And still their tanks weren’t full. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not really. It was just that the Nenet’s Dream was tiny even compared to the Reliance and carrying fuel in amphorae wasn’t the most efficient way to do it. Between being topped up at Saint Helena and the fuel they had here, the Queen had enough fuel to get back to Saint Helena and a little left over, but not a lot.

  Dag picked up the phone and called the bridge. “All done, Skipper,” he said once he got the captain on the line. “Give me twenty minutes to get the fuel lines retracted and we can be on our way.”

  “Maybe by the next time we get up this way, there will be a real fuel depot here,” Captain Floden said, sounding tired.

  “There should be, Skipper, now that the locals in this area have a better idea of what we need. And what we can pay for it.”

  Queen of the Sea, Royal Lounge

  Captain Abial took another bite of elephant-bird steak. It was well done at the captain’s request. Half-cooked food wasn’t popular in a world where much of the meat carried parasites of one sort or another. On the other hand, Abial was entranced by the flavor, like the finest quality beef, but different. The wine was strawberry wine from Carthage and the vegetable was something called a nut potato from the other side of the world. All served on white ceramic plates and in glass goblets. It was the fanciest and quite probably the best meal he had ever eaten in his life.

  “How do you like your steak, Captain?” asked Dorothy Faubion.

  Dorothy was a dark-skinned woman like some of the tribesmen Abial had dealt with in his career, but she was clearly one of the ship people. She spoke the ship people tongue and used the small devices to translate for her. And that was a magic that still made Abial uncomfortable every time he saw it.

  “The steak is excellent and the…everything is excellent. But I do wonder why you’re going to such trouble over a minor ship’s captain.” It was a good question too. Three tables over, Cleopatra, a sister of Alexander the Great, sat dining with another ship person. Captains of cargo ships didn’t dine in the same room with royalty, and they weren’t asked by wizards how they liked their meal. Not outside of stories.

  “Because we want you to make some changes in your ship,” Dorothy said. Or rather, the device in her hand said. It spoke in Egyptian too, not Greek.

  “What sort of changes?”

  “We want to convince you to transform your ship into an oil tanker.”

  “What? I just brought a massive load of oil to you here. My ship is an oil carrier.”

  Dorothy picked up her phone and tapped the fron
t of it several times. The phone spoke. “I’m sorry. We have a translation problem.”

  Another tap. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

  She got up, walked over to Cleopatra, and spoke for a few moments. Then Cleopatra stood and came toward the table where Abial was seated.

  Abial stood quickly and tried to bow, though he was sure he made a mess of it. Abial wasn’t used to bowing and scraping. He didn’t deal with royalty. The minor nobility was bad enough.

  Cleopatra waved away his bow, and said, “Do not trouble yourself. I am not here as a Macedonian princess, but merely as a translator. The ship people want you to convert your ship into a ship that is specifically designed to carry oil in large containers. Not amphorae, but containers so large that they cannot be lifted out of your holds. They will have to be built into your ship, and sealed with a special sealant they will provide.”

  “With all respect, Highness, that is insane. If the tank is built into my ship, how will we get the oil out?” Abial had a good idea how it would be done from his experience with the refueling of the Queen of the Sea. What was honestly of greater concern was how such tanks would affect his ship in regard to other cargo.

  Cleopatra asked Dorothy something and Dorothy consulted her phone. Then the phone spoke in Greek and Cleopatra explained. “They will use pumps of the same sort that they used to empty the amphorae you carried.”

  “Yes, but I have no such pump.”

  “The ship people can sell you a pump.”

  “I don’t think so,” Abial said. “How would the conversion be done?”