“The governor will, release timber, bronze, cordage, everything, from the royal warehouse,” Reid pressed him. “He only asks for your agreement on feasibility. And it is feasible. I’ve seen craft like this in action?’
That wasn’t true, unless you counted movies. (A world of moving, pictures, light at the flick of a switch, motors, skyscrapers, spacecraft, antibiotics, radio links, an hour’s hop through the air between Crete and Athens ... unreal, fantastic, a fading dream. Reality was this cluttered room, this man who wore a loincloth and worshiped a bull that was also the sun, the creak of wooden wheels and the clop-clop of unshod donkey hoofs from a street outside, a street in lost Atlantis; reality was the girl who held his arm and waited breathlessly for him to unfold his next marvel.) But he had read books; and, while he was not a marine designer, as an architect he was necessarily enough of an engineer for this work.
“Um-m. Um-m.” Sarpedon tugged his chin. “Fascinating notion, I must say.”
“I don’t understand what difference it will make,” Erissa ventured shyly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“At present,” Reid explained, “a ship is nothing but a means for getting from here to there.”
She blinked. Her lashes were longer and thicker, her eyes even more luminous, than they would be when she was forty and fading. “Oh, but ships are beautiful!” she said. “And sacred to Our Lady of the Deeps?’ The second sentence was dutiful; the first shone from her.
“Well, in war, then.” Reid sighed. “Consider. Except for slingstones, arrows, and javelins, you can’t have a real battle at sea before you’ve grappled fast to your enemy. And then it’s a matter of boarding, hand-to-hand combat, no different from a fight on land except that quarters are cramped and footing uncertain?’
He returned his glance to Sarpedon, reluctantly. “I admit that a vessel such as I propose will use more stuff than a regular galley,” he told the yardmaster. “In particular, it’ll tie up a great deal of bronze in its beak. However, the strength of Crete has always lain in keels rather than spears, right? Whatever makes a more effective navy will repay the Thalassocrat ten times over.
“Now.” He, tapped his drawing. “The ram alone is irresistible. You know how fragile hulls are. This prow is reinforced. Striking, it’ll send any opponent to the bottom. Soldiers aren’t needed, just sailors. Think of the saving in manpower. And because this vessel can destroy one after another in a full-dress naval engagement, fewer of its type are needed than galleys. So the size of the navy can be reduced. You get a large net saving in materials too.”
Erissa looked distressed. “But we have no enemies left,” she said.
The hell you don’t, Reid didn’t say. Instead: “Well, you mount guard against possible preparation for hostilities. And you maintain patrols to, suppress piracy. And those same patrols give aid to distressed vessels, which is good for commerce and so for your prosperity. And there are no few voyages to waters where the Minos does not rule and the natives might get greedy. True?
“Very well. This longer hull gives greater speed. And this strange-looking rudder and rig make it possible to sail against any but the foulest winds, crisscrossing them. Oarsmen tire and need rest oftener than airs drop to—a dead calm. What we have here is a ship that’s not only invincible but can out-travel anything you’ve ever imagined. Therefore, again, fewer are required for any given purpose. The savings can go into making the realm stronger and wealthier.
“The governor is most interested,” Reid finished pointedly, “and likewise the Ariadne.”
“Well, I’m interested too,” Sarpedon replied. “I’d like to try it. By Asterion’S tail, I would—! Um, beg pardon, Sister.... But I dare not pledge it’ll succeed. The work’d go slowly at best. Not only because we’ve no large facilities here. You wouldn’t believe how conservative shipwrights, carpenters, sailmakers, the whole lot of them are. We’d have to stand over them with cudgels, I swear, to make them turn out work as peculiar as this.” Shrewdly: “And no doubt we’ll have many a botch, many a detail nobody had thought of. And sailors are at least as hidebound as craftsmen. You’ll not get them to learn a whole new way of seafaring. Better you recruit among young fellows itchy for adventure. The town’ll have ample of those, now when winter’s closing down the trade lanes. However, training them up will take time, also.”
“I have time,” Reid snapped.
Lydra was not about to let him go. And she might well be right, that some such proof of his bona fides as this was needful. Though she’d been strangely hesitant to endorse the scheme—
He added: “The governor doesn’t want your promise that this ship will perform as well as I claim, Sarpedon. Only that it won’t be a total loss—that it won’t sink when launched, for instance, or that it can be reconverted to something more conventional if necessary. You can judge that for yourself, can’t you?”
“I suppose I can,” the yardmaster murmured. “I suppose I can. I’d want to talk over certain items, like ballasting when there’s this weight in the bows. And I’ll want a model made to demonstrate these crazy fore-and-aft sails. But ... yes, we can surely talk further?’
“Good. We’re bound to reach agreement.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Erissa hugged Reid’s waist.
He thought: Less wonderful than I’d hope for. It’ll keep me busy, what times you don’t, my beautiful; and that’s essential, or I’ll go to pieces brooding. It should win me more authority, more freedom, than I’ve got—maybe enough that I can persuade the Minos to save ... whatever is possible. And mainly, it’s one screaming anachronism for me to be aboard, so that maybe I’ll be noticed and rescued by the time travelers who’ll maybe come here to watch doomsday.
For us to be aboard, Erissa?
Christmas approached.
Reid could hardly think of the solstice festival under its right name. Now Britomartis the Maiden gave birth to Asterion, who would die and be resurrected in spring, reign with his consort Rhea over summer and harvest, and fade away at last before Grandmother Dictynna. Atlantis had less need of midwinter rejoicing than they did in the gloomy northlands, Reid remembered. But its people lived close to their gods. They honored the day by processions, music, dancing—in the streets, after the maidens had danced with a bull in the town arena—exchange of gifts and good wishes, finally feasts that often turned into orgies. For a month beforehand, they bustled and glowed with readymaking.
Erissa took Reid around as much as her duties and his shipyard work allowed. The purpose was to sound out prospective crewmen; but in this season especially, he and she were apt to be welcomed with wine, an invitation to dinner, and conversation afterward until all hours. The motive wasn’t only that her presence was considered to bring luck to a house and he was a celebrity—would have become more of one were he less withdrawn, less inclined to sad reveries. The Atlanteans were glad of any new face, any fresh word; their whole spirit was turned outward.
Often he couldn’t help sharing their gaiety and Erissa’s. Something might yet be done to rescue them, he would think. The construction project was going well, and fascinating in its own right. So if several rhytons had eased him, and Erissa sat gazing at him with lamplight soft upon her, and an old skipper had just finished some tremendous yarn about a voyage to Colchis, the Tin Islands, the Amber Sea ... once, by God, storm-driven to what had to be America, and a three-year job of building a new vessel after the Painted Men were persuaded to help, and a long haul home across the River Ocean ... he would loosen up and tell them, from his country, what he guessed they could most easily understand.