Gary Corby - Death Ex Machina

The road passed on to the Naval Dockyards, the third and final bay at Piraeus. Athens has almost three hundred triremes in the fleet, but only twenty or thirty were anchored in the bay. All the rest were out on missions.

I raised my hand against the rising sun to see the reserve fleet of Athens. Each boat was a low, long, thin silhouette on the water. On each boat, a few men walked, looking like stick figures, back and forth across the decks, picking up and putting away, getting ready for the day.

Only one trireme was tied up at the naval dock, and this one was moored at the stern. It was Salaminia and she waited for us. She shone in the sun. In fact, she gleamed so much in reflected morning sunlight that we had to shield our eyes as we approached.

The moment they saw us I heard shouted orders. “Out oars!”

Long oars appeared on both sides, which was possible because Salaminia was rear end to the dock. They were poised to go. All they needed was us.

I jumped off the cart and handed down Diotima.

“Can’t I come too?” Socrates said.

“No,” I said firmly, to stop him getting any ideas about jumping aboard. “Keep searching the records room.”

Socrates looked unconvinced and unhappy.

I left him that way. Diotima and I walked up the gangplank. Diotima went first. A sailor grabbed her hand to lead her over the edge and onto the deck. I followed without assistance. The moment I stepped off the gangplank, the trierarch called, “Pull!”

The starboard and portside rowing chiefs echoed his command. The aulos player began a high-pitched tune on his pipes and the singer beside him began a rhythmic song. The oarsmen bent their backs to the first laborious pull, the helmsman turned his tiller, and Salaminia , the fastest boat in the world, began to move. The gangplank fell into the water and would have been left behind had it not been tied on with a rope. The sailor who’d helped Diotima hauled it up as the ship gathered speed.

The trierarch walked over to me. “Good morning- kalimera -I believe our destination is Rhamnus?”

I nodded. To my surprise I saw that it was the same trierarch who had commanded Salaminia the last time I’d been on board.

“I know you!” I said.

“Yes. Kordax of the deme Oa at your service. The last time you were with us I was a complete beginner. I’m pleased to say I’ve learned something since then.”

That had been three years ago. I said, “What are you doing still here?” Then, realizing that sounded rude, I added quickly, “I mean, I thought trierarchs only held the post for a year.”

The captains of the Athenian Navy win their position by supplying the boat. A wealthy man funds a warship for a year, and in return he gets to call himself trierarch , which means captain. Most men are happy to pass on the command and the cost at the end of their year. To see the same man three years later was extraordinary.

Kordax smiled. “I discovered I liked it. I volunteered to serve another two terms.” Then he lost his smile. “This will have to be my last year though. The cost has almost bankrupted me.”

I wasn’t surprised.

“What will you do then?” I asked.

“The problem is I’ve become addicted to speed. I love it. Do you know I’ve traveled faster than any man who’s ever lived?”

“How so?” I said, confused.

“ Salaminia is the fastest machine ever built. Therefore the men who travel on her have traveled faster than any man alive.”

“I see.”

“Last year we had a mission to carry dispatches to Egypt. On the return journey we were blown by strong winds.” Kordax gestured to the mast and its squared crosspiece. “The men wanted to shelter but I ordered sails up. Then Poseidon threw everything he had at us. Not much rain, but squalls and following waves. The helmsman said we must broach, but I took the tiller with him and we held fast and got soaked to the skin.

“The men said I was mad. They said the mast must crack. But it held and we surfed those waves until the wind died. All the old sailors agreed it was the fastest any boat has ever sailed.” He laughed. “I love that feeling of speed across the water.”

Three years had changed him. The last time we’d met, Kordax had told me he was only doing this for the glory, that he strutted the deck while the helmsman made all the important decisions. Now he had the faraway look of a sailorman in his eyes. Kordax was a deeply sunburned man who confidently overrode his helmsman in a squall. Somewhere along the line this gentleman of Athens had turned into a man who could command a major ship of the line.

“You’re going to miss it,” I said.

“Yes, but I have a plan,” he said. “When I retire out I’ll start my own shipping line.”

“Cargo boats?” I said.

He gave a moue of distaste but nodded. “They’re slow, but they make the money,” he said. “The real fun will be the passenger ship.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve studied everything there is to know about how Salaminia is put together. I’ll build a quarter-size version and hire her out to men who need to go somewhere fast. I’ll command her personally.”

“Is there money in that?”

He shrugged. “Who cares? As long as I get to fly across the sea, that’s all that matters. But yes, think of all those merchants who want to beat each other to a deal on some remote island. One of them will pay me to get there first.”

I noticed that Kordax’s idea of “nearly bankrupt” meant he could only afford a small shipping line. I couldn’t even afford a horse.

Diotima had listened in on the conversation-she kept well away from the sailors-and now she asked, “Captain, we were told that the machine used at the theater is like the ones used for boats. Is that true?”

“I know nothing about the theater,” Kordax said.

Diotima described the god machine, at which Kordax nodded and said yes, it sounded much like the dockside cranes used to lift heavy cargo.

“What I wanted to ask is this,” Diotima said. “Is it possible for a man to handle the rope at the arm end and work the machine at the same time?”

Kordax was plainly puzzled by the question. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked.

Diotima described the difficulty that Socrates had discovered, of using a crane to hang someone single-handed.

“Ah, I see your problem.” Kordax called over the steersman. He explained the situation and together the two sailormen discussed lines and pulleys and weights and bending and belaying and all manner of nautical terms, until I felt myself going cross-eyed. I think even Diotima lost track of what they were saying.

Kordax and the steersman were clearly enjoying themselves. There were animated hand movements to describe various arcane rigs that might be employed, exotic devices that might be fashioned to overcome obstacles, tricks of cordage that made the eyes water. When they were finished they turned to us with a definitive, unanimous answer.

“It’s impossible,” Kordax said.

“I had a feeling you might say that,” Diotima muttered. “This complicates our problem.”

“You say they have this machine in a theater, lady?” the steersman asked.

“They use the god machine all the time,” Diotima said.

“They should put us sailormen in charge of their effects,” the steersman said. “We could do a much better job.”

Kordax had promised speed and he was true to his word. We stepped off onto the primitive wharf at Rhamnus that afternoon.

“Thank you,” I said.

Kordax shrugged. “That was too simple. Give us a harder problem.”

Behind him, three rows of exhausted men were slumped over their oars. The lips of the aulos player were puffed up red and the singer clutched a sore throat.