The Seven Hills(49)

The glittering official, his uniform the brilliant blue and gold of the Egyptian royal house, glanced at the seal and then at the two Greeks. His golden breastplate and helmet, Zeno thought, would not have withstood the assault of an angry bird.

"You two don't look much like Romans," he noted idly.

"All the Romans are busy fighting Carthage," Zeno told him.

"So one hears. Well, your documents appear to be in order. You may proceed to the royal wharf. The palace is hard to miss. Someone will lead you to the quarters where the Romans stay."

"What is that?" Zeno cried, staring upward. The two Greeks gaped, all philosophical impassivity forgotten for the moment. Above them soared something beyond the speculations of Aristotle: a winged thing that was clearly no living creature, but rather a fabrication of wood and cloth, with batlike wings and a great, wedge-shaped tail. So bizarre was this apparition that at first they did not notice the man hanging just below it like the prey of a great, flying hunter.

"But this is marvelous!" Izates said, apparently finding nothing Cynical to say about it. "A man flies!"

"Yes," said the official, "and no good will come of it, I assure you. This is the sort of behavior that draws the wrath of the gods. Flying men, boats that travel underwater—what next? Men should not aspire to the power of the immortals."

As if to show his contempt for such cavils, the flying man swooped low, almost knocking the gilded helmet from the official's head. The official's Greek polish abandoned him and he cursed at the flyer in native Egyptian. The crowd of idlers gathered along the waterfront cheered.

Zeno and Izates proceeded to a wharf and climbed the steps to the huge palace complex. A chamberlain examined their credentials and led them to the suite of apartments occupied by the Romans. There they found a man seated at a desk. He rose as they entered, extending his hand.

"Welcome to Alexandria, my friends. You've brought me dispatches from the Senate?" He had the Roman look, but he was a shade less martial in appearance than most others of his class they had encountered. He clearly was not as obsessed with physical fitness, being just a bit soft around the middle, his jaw and cheekbones not defined with quite the razor sharpness so noticeable in the others. "I am Aulus Flaccus, aide to Marcus Cornelius Scipio."

They introduced themselves.

"I am so pleased that the Senate has for once sent men capable of intelligent conversation and interests beyond war and conquest. Gabinius must be behind this. Only man in the Senate with more brains than ferocity. Please, sit down and I'll have some lunch brought in. You must tell me all about how Rome of the Seven Hills is progressing. It was a wasteland when Marcus and I passed through."

"It was Gabinius, indeed," Zeno told him. "He has become our patron and hospes in Rome. A most remarkable man." He looked around the room and saw the many models of machines being developed at the Museum. Some were clearly catapults and so forth. Others were utterly mysterious. "Remarkable as I have found the resurgence of Rome, however, developments here in Alexandria have been equally stunning. We saw a flying man when we arrived."

Flaccus smiled. "Yes, Marcus has become enthralled with military toys."

"I would think that a flying man has greater significance than the merely military," said Izates.

"I suppose so. At the moment, however, we are at war and surrounded by enemies, so military applications have pride of place. No doubt you've heard of the underwater boats. They are developing new ways to propel vessels, and people are doing amazing things with mirrors: ways to see over walls and around corners, directing light.into dark mines and galleries. And now lenses."

"Lenses?" Zeno said.

"Yes, they are pieces of shaped glass with strange properties. Glass is a Babylonian invention, and the purest glass is still made by artisans from that part of the world. Actually, the Egyptians have been making glass for a thousand years or more, but they only use it for things like perfume flasks and other frivolous uses. Anyway, there is a man here named Aristobulus who has a workforce of these glassmakers who turn out lenses of varying properties. They can make small objects appear large and vice versa. He uses arrangements of these lenses to make distant objects seem closer. Other glass objects, too—prisms, he calls them. They cast a very pretty beam of many-colored light, like a flat rainbow."

"Very interesting," Izates muttered. "Not as impressive as a flying man, though."

"That is true. They seem to have the flying gadget under control now. A number of slaves got killed getting it to work, but now they have free men using them. Makes sense when you think about it. I mean, give a slave a flying machine and you've lost your slave, haven't you? The flyers have grown insufferably arrogant, though. They swagger around the city as,if they're a superior breed of men."