The Glory That Was

Chapter Six

"Yes, said Bulnes. "Who are you, if I may ask?"

The youth advanced with hand outstretched. "My name's Diksen, Roi Diksen, from Yonkers. The Gricks calls me Pardokas."

Bulnes and Flin identified themselves, the latter adding, "What are Yonkers?"

"A town in the U.S.A. You guys English?"

Bulnes said, "Flin is. I am by adoption only."

"Where'd you come from originally, huh?"

"I'm technically Spanish, though by descent I'm a little of everything."

"You talk kind of like an American."

"I went to school there. How'd you hear about us?"

"Triballos told me, so I came down from Athens to find you. Been hunting all over the Peiraieus."

"How'd you get off from duty?"

"This is my off-time. I'm on night patrol work.

"What you two up to? Changing your dough into this Grick stuff?" .

"Yes," said Bulnes.

"How much they giving you?"

"The last banker there said he'd let us have half an obolos for one pen. How does that sound?"

"Pretty fair. I dunno how you done it — these Gricks is full of tricks. But say, when you get done, ain't there some place we can talk?"

"How about a place to eat? We haven't had breakfast, and it must be nearly noon."

The young man's face took on a look of disgust. "A-a-agh, these Gricks don't know nothing about real breakfast. They stick a hunk of bread in their lousy wine and call that a meal. What wouldn't I give for a good old plate of ham and eggs ... But you guys want lunch. Okay, I know a joint."

Flin had reached the head of his line. Since this banker offered a rate of exchange a shade over those of the preceding two, Flin and Bulnes disposed of all their silver and copper. The aluminum coins, Bulnes knew, they were stuck with.

"Lead on," said Bulnes to Roi Diksen.

The "Scythian" conducted them out of the Deigma. The spring day had turned clear and cloudless. Diksen stopped at the Agora and directed his companions to buy what they wanted for lunch.

"... on account of these joints'll cook grub for you but they don't carry it themselves — you gotta bring it with you. Ain't that a hell of a way to run a business?"

They turned in at an inn where they sat on benches facing each other across an elongated table.

"At least," said Bulnes, "it only stinks to low heaven here."

The meal that Diksen had assembled comprised a huge piece of bread, onions swimming in. oil, and wine. Bulnes tasted the wine. "Phew!" he said. "Essence of pine cones!"

"You get used to it," said Diksen, "like you get used to the way they soak everything in olive oil. O Kallingos!" He spoke to the proprietor in broken Greek and handed him the onions.

Bulnes said, "Now, Mr. Diksen, what's your story?"

"Well, it's like this, see? I save up the dough I get working for Kaplen's Hardware Store in Yonkers so I can take me a trip to Europe on my vacation. My girl thinks I need Culture. Of all the ... Anyway, everything goes fine till I get to Beograd. I'm walking through that big cathedral with the other trippers listening to the guide spout ancient history when everything goes black and I wake up at sea."

"What sea?" asked Bulnes.

"Dunno exactly — somewheres north of here. I'm in this boat with chains on my wrists and ankles, see, and a lot of other poor devils with me. We're in a kind of a pen at the bow, and the rest of the ship's full of guys pulling on long oars. I ask the nearest one what gives, but we don't understand each other's languages. These Gricks is all pretty ignorant — there ain't a one of 'em speaks English.

"At night the sailors steer the boat into shore and run the bow on the beach so they can get out to stretch and sleep, but they leave us in the boat with a couple of guys with spears to see we don't try nothing. After a coupla days we come to the Peiraieus. I'm all the time waiting to wake up from this horrible dream, but I don't. They take us to a place where they sell slaves — nobody told me but I figured it out. They take off our clothes and make us stand on the block like in the movies while guys bid for us.

"When my turn comes I stand up feeling kinda funny on account of there's a coupla broads watching, but these Gricks is all nudists, see, and don't make no never-mind. The auctioneer pokes me and hollers to look see how strong I am. He even raps me on the silver plate I got in my head on account of I was in an automobile accident a coupla years ago. I don't like it, but there's a big mean-looking guy with a whip just in case.

"By and by a jerk comes up and talks to the auctioneer and then asks me something. I don't get it, so he does sign language of shooting a bow and arrow. I never shot no bows and arrows since I was six, so I shake my head. But since that means 'yes' among the Gricks, the jerk thinks I can shoot. So he goes into a huddle with the auctioneer, and next I know me and two other guys is being marched all the way to the police barracks in Athens.

"When I get onto the language a little, I find out the jerk is a police commissioner sent down to buy three new cops for the force. Good thing he thought I said 'yes' because if he hadn't, I'd either been sent to the silver mines at Laureion and worked to death, or sold to a private buyer as a household slave — and what happens to them, I'd just as soon be dead.

"The first days is rugged, on account of the old-timers put us through the jumps. I make like I don't mind on account of I know if I blow my top and slug one of these farstards, they'll beat me to a bloody pulp. All the time I'm trying to pick up a little Grick. And I figure I better learn to shoot quick or it's the silver mines for me. So I watch the boys practicing on the archery range, and when everybody that ain't on duty is asleep after lunch, I sneak out and shoot some. Got my knuckles skinned at first, but at least I don't look like I never touched one of the things before.

"Since then I been trained and put on regular patrol duty like any other cop. As slavery, it ain't too bad. So that's my story. I musta been here nearly a year now. What's yours, gents?"

Bulnes told their story, ending, "We're delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Diksen, but we should still like to know a few things. How did you know us by sight?"

"The whiskers. Either you better cut 'em off or stay out of sight for a week until the rest of your hair grows out, see?"

"Otherwise?"

"You mean what would happen? I dunno, but there's something funny about this whole setup.''

"The prize understatement of the year. Go on."

"I mean, what is this? It looks like we been dumped back in one of those ancient times they used to tell us about in school. What I wanna know is, what's the deal? The gimmick? They can't really put us back in some other time. It ain't logical."

"Precisely what we've been trying to figure out," said Bulnes. "Do you know of any other cases like ours?"

"Well, one of the boys on the force was telling about another guy, a few months ago, who showed up in modern clothes. I didn't see him myself, but they say he got sent to Laureion."

Bulnes finished his last onion. At least, now, he'd stink like all the others.

"What do we do next?" he asked.

"Well, us modern men got to stick together, see? I thought maybe I'd get next to some guy who knows what it's all about. And how can we get the hell out of here?"

"Why?" said Flin. "Don't you like it?"

Diksen gave a sharp howl that made the other customers look around. "Like it! My God, you just try being a slave and see how you like it!"

"But as a slave you have rather a good position. Athenian slaves were treated the most leniently of any ..."

"I still got to do like I'm told. If the job was twice as good, I still wouldn't like it, on account I can't quit."

"Suppose you were a free man. Would you like Athens then?"

"Hell no!" said Diksen. "You can keep your pretty statues. I'll take flush toilets and glass windows and electric lights. There ain't nothing in this whole place we'd call necessary for human comfort — even in the rich citizens' houses. Living here's like — like camping out without no modern camping equipment, see? Give me good old Yonkers! Look, professor, you gotta get me back! You gotta, before I go nuts!"

Bulnes said, "We'll try. We, too, have been wondering whether this was the real ancient Greece or a modern imitation."

"How can you tell?" said Diksen. "I never studied no history, so I dunno if it's the McCoy or not."

"For one thing, assuming time travel is really involved, we don't know whether we're back in the whole ancient world or only a part of it."

"Come again, Mr. Bulnes?"

"How shall. I explain it? Suppose we started walking north from here. We should pass through Boiotia and Thessalia and so on. Now, in the modern world, there's a force wall around Greece and adjacent areas which the Emp set up to keep people out while he performed his experiments. Do you follow me so far?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well then, in walking away from here, should we eventually come to the force wall again — the same one we penetrated on our way in — or should we just find more and more of the ancient world no matter how far we went?"

Diksen scratched his head. "I dunno. I couldn't start on no hike like that, on account of the epheboi watch the borders to see no runaway slave don't sneak through."

Flin asked, "How about a free man, or somebody who could pass as one?"

"I suppose he could get through, except they tell me it's rough out in the sticks. Bandits and lions, and if you can't take care of yourself, nobody else ain't gonna do it for you."

Bulnes asked. "D'you know how far this piece of the ancient world does extend?"

"Lemme think. Most of us archers comes from what would be the Balkans. They was all farmers or sheepherders living in little one-room shacks, and none of 'em ever heard of the World Empire or longevity treatments or rockets to Mars. No, I don't think Bulgaria and Romania is inside the force wall, on account of my ticket took me to Sofia and Bucuresti. So we must be back in the real ancient world, two-three thousand years before we was born."

"Not necessarily. This experiment has been going on for less than a dozen years, yet we see middle-aged and elderly men all around us, all convinced they're authentic Athenians."

"How do you mean?" asked Flin.

"If there's some system of introducing a false memory into a man's mind, so he thinks he's spent the fifty years of his life in ancient Athens, the same treatment could be given Mr. Diksen's fellow-archers, regardless of where they actually came from. Is there a real Sparta too, Mr. Diksen?"

"Must be," said Diksen. "Coupla months ago they ordered us out on special duty because a gang of ambassadors came from there to dicker over some treaty with the big shot. Bunch of sour-pusses with long hair, and even dirtier than the Athenians, which is pretty dirty, see? Well, the Athenians ain't got no use for Spartans on account of they got no brains, no manners, and no art, so the big shot ordered us to escort these ambassadors in case some wise guy heaves something at them. But everything went off okay and the big shot got his treaty."

"Who," asked Bulnes, "is the big shot?"

"The boss — the general — the head, strategos. Perikles."

"Oho!" said Flin. "Now we're getting our period narrowed down. There isn't any war with Sparta right now?"

"No. There was some talk about it, but that died down."

"Then we must be before the Peloponnesian War. How old does Perikles look?"

"Hard to say, on account of people got old so much faster in the old days. If he was a modern man, I'd say he was around a hundred or a hundred and ten, but if he's a real ancient Grick, I say sixty maybe."

"When does that date us, Wiyem?" asked Bulnes.

"In the 430's — perhaps as close as 435 to 432 b.c. The Peloponnesian War should be just about to break out. Wish I could remember the details of the opening of the war."

Diksen gulped. "You mean we got a war on our hands, too?"

"If history follows the same course it did the first time. That was the war that ruined Classical Greece. If I'd known what I was getting into, I'd have brought a copy of Thucydides."

"How ja know this ain't the first time, Mr. Flin?"

Bulnes said, "That, my dear friends, is what we're trying to find out. Could we check by geography?"

"How?" inquired Flin.

"Let's say by changes in the coast line, or the degree of erosion of the hills."

"I don't see how. We have no very exact information on the state of such matters in Classical times. Even if we did, we have no precise maps or other data to guide us."

"Well, for example," persisted Bulnes, "is the Corinthian Canal in existence? It is in our times but not, I believe, in the fifth century B.C."

"It ain't," said Diksen. "Least, they got a boat-hauling service there for pulling ships on rollers over the isthmus. One of the boys on the force was telling me."

"That should settle it," said Flin.

Bulnes said, "My dear Wiyem, you're determined to make this phenomenon real at all costs. But if the Emp could restore all of Classical Greece down to the last temple, he could fill in the Corinthian Canal."

"Well then," said Flin, "how about animal life? Mr. Diksen said something about lions, but there haven't been any wild lions in Europe since Classical times."

"They got 'em in Thessalia and Makedonia," said Diksen.

Bulnes said, "That wouldn't do either. Vasil could stock the country with lions from some African game preserve."

"I have another idea," said Flin. "How about some form of life now extinct? Like the aurochs? How about that, Mr. Diksen?"

"What's an auroc?"

"The aurochs was the wild ox that used to roam the forests of Europe."

"You mean that big black wild bull with the long horns? Yeah, they got them too. We got the skull of one on the wall of the barracks."

"There you are!" cried Flin. "Not even Vasil's resources can bring an extinct species back to life. Hence this must be the real Periklean Age."

"Wrong again, I'm sorry to say," said Bulnes. "The aurochs was brought back to life by some zoologist back in the twentieth century. Forget the man's name."

"How in the name of heaven did he do that?"

"He crossbred various strains of domestic cattle partly descended from the aurochs and kept picking those most like the ancestral aurochs until he re-established the original stock. There's been a small herd in existence ever since. You can see some at the London Zoo."

"I never knew that," said Flin. "Too bad there isn't some species like the mammoth that would really settle the question."

"How about language?" asked Bulnes. "Do the pronunciation and syntax of these Greeks match those of the real ancient ones?"

Flin spread his hands. "How can I tell? Nobody made phonographic recordings of the speech of the time of Perikles, so we have to guess at their pronunciation, more or less. It sounds all right to me, but there's no way of checking it."

"I got an idea," said Diksen. "I once read about how the position of the stars keeps changing, so after a coupla thousand years the Big Dipper'll look like a frying pan."

"That's it!" exclaimed Flin. "You know astronomy from your navigating experiences, Knut. How about it?"

"Won't do," said Bulnes. "The change wouldn't be enough to settle the question. But you do give me an idea."

"What?" said the other two at once.

"The North Celestial Pole."

"What's that?" said Diksen. "The place right overhead?"

"No, the point in the sky around which the stars turn. It changes its position continually, making a complete circle in — I forget exactly — something like twenty-five thousand years. If I could find an astronomer with some simple instruments, I could determine whether the Pole is now near Alpha Ursae Minoris or Alpha Draconis, or what. Not even Vasil the Ninth could change the inclination of the earth's axis for purposes of historical research. Who's an astronomer, Wiyem?"

"Oh dear me. I'm supposed to be a Greek scholar and all that rot, but without my reference book; I don't know the ruddy subject as well as I thought. Anaxagoras might still be alive, and let's see — there was some other chap trying to reforn the calendar. Can't think of his name. Not Myron that's the sculptor, but something like that. Could you look into it, Mr. Diksen?"

"You want I should find an astronomer with a name something like Myron, huh?"

"That's it."

"Meanwhile, my dear friends," said Bulnes "there's the little matter of making our livings, because this Athenian silver won't last forever."

"In the stories," said Flin, "the chappie who's tossed back in time makes his fortune by teaching the natives to add or inventing the airplane."

"I wouldn't try that," said Diksen. "These Gricks ain't got no idea of the usefulness of machinery so long as they got a lot of poor shmos to work as slaves. When my beat was on the Akropolis, I thought I'd save 'em trouble and get in with the right guys by suggesting wheelbarrows to haul their loads. What thanks do I get? 'Barbarian, you keep your goddam nose out of what don't concern you. We Gricks is the only people can think, and we don't need no advice from no low-down slave. Now get going.' Boy, I coulda wrapped my bow around that guy's neck. Bigshot architect, name of Iktinos."

"We seem to have a complete cast of characters in any event," said Flin. "D'you know Aspasia?"

"Yeah, sure — that is, I know who she is."

"Sokrates?"

"The funny-looking bald guy, always picking arguments in the Agora? Yeah."

"Protagoras?"

"Nope."

"Kleon the Tanner?"

"Maybe I heard of him. Not sure."

"Pheidias?"

"Nope."

After Flin had gone through several more names, most of which Diksen did not know, Bulnes said, "The question of making a living remains unsettled, but I think Mr. Diksen is right, that we should get nowhere trying to invent ourselves into affluence. I certainly couldn't invent the airplane. I have neither the engineering training nor the tools nor the materials."

"I don't think it's important," said Flin. "If I find Thalia, I'll jolly well set out for the nearest frontier and take my chances on getting through."

"Until we get some personal security I don't see how we can hunt effectively for your wife, even assuming she's in this time stream or whatever you call it. Don't they keep the women shut up in harems here?"

"Yeah, they do," said Diksen. "Like they used to do in them Oriental countries."

"What's your suggestion, then?" said Flin.

Bulnes said, "If need be, we shouldn't be afraid of manual labor."

"Slave competition would keep wages down to the starvation level. However, if you become reasonably fluent in Classical Greek, why shouldn't we set up as sophists?"

"You mean those guys that lecture?" said Diksen.

"Absolutely. They were big business at the time, and were laying the foundations for higher education as we know it. We could give the people the Copernican system ..."

"It seems to me," said Bulnes, "they used to feed hemlock poison to sophists who taught radical new ideas."

"Oh, we shall have to be careful."

"I think perhaps you've hit it," said Bulnes. "Mr. Diksen, how would it be if we hid out here a few days while our beards grow and we practice our Greek? Meanwhile you can hunt up this astronomer fellow."

"Sure. This guy here's Kallingos, and for a Grick innkeeper he's almost honest. I'll drop back down in about a week. If you want to look me up before then, come to the barracks on the Areopagos when I'm off duty." Diksen yawned. "Got to catch up on my sleep. So long!"