Envoy Extraordinary

They were silent for a while, standing on tip-toe to inspect the crab. It was a spreadeagled mass of lead and iron, its claws resting on blocks of stone to keep them from cutting through the deck. It was as strictly utilitarian a mass as could have been found anywhere in the Empire, for its sole use was to be dropped through an enemy's bilges and sink her outright: but the same impulse that had made the brass on the keg into a butterfly and stood a Boreas on the safety valve had been at work on the crab too. The makers had indicated the eyes and the joints of the legs. It had a kind of formal significance and the slaves were tending it-cleaning the claws-as if it were more than metal. Other slaves were swinging the seventy-foot yard round, were centring the hoist over the ring.

Mamillius turned and looked along Amphitrite's deck.

"Life is a perplexing muddle, Phanocles."

"I shall clean it up."

"Meanwhile you are making it dirtier."

"No slaves, no armies."

"What is wrong with slaves and armies? You might as well say, 'No eating or drinking or making love'.

For a while again they were silent, listening to the roar of the port and the shouted orders from the trireme.

"Ease her down. Handsomely!"

"This evening the Emperor is going to try your pressure cooker. The one you made for him."

"He will forget all that when he tries Amphitrite."

Mamillius squinted up at the sun. It was not so bright, but he still fanned himself.

"Lord Mamillius-has he forgiven us for the improvised cooker?"

"I think so."

"Sway back. Take the strain. Walk. One, two. One, two."

"And, after all, without that experiment I should have never known that a safety valve was necessary."

"He said that a mammoth was too much to begin with. Blamed me."

"Still?"

Mamillius shook his head.

"All the same, he is sorry about the three cooks and the north wing of the villa."

Phanocles nodded, sweating. He frowned at a memory.

"Do you think that was what he meant by a 'Sense if possible of peril'?"

The slave who had been firing the furnace climbed to the deck and they watched him idly. He threw a bucket over the side on a rope's end, hauled up water and tipped it over his naked body. The water flowed along the deck, carrying snakes of coal dust. Again and again he laved the filthy harbour water over himself. Phanocles called to him.

"Clean the deck here."

The slave touched his smeared forelock. He drew up another bucketful, then shot it along the deck so that water splashed over their feet. They started up with a shout of annoyance and there came the sound of a rope breaking under strain. Amphitrite ducked under them, sidled and made a loud wooden remark as though she had crunched one of her own timbers with metal teeth. There came a dull thump from the harbour bottom, then a huge cascade of water fell on them from the sky, water full of garbage and mud and oil and tar. Phanocles stumbled forward and Mamillius bowed under the torrent, too shocked even to curse. The water ceased to fall from the sky but surged, waist-deep, over the decks instead. Puffs of steam spurted from Talos like ejaculations of rage. Then the water had all streamed away, the decks were shining and the roar of the harbour had risen to a frenzy. Mamillius was cursing at last under a hat like a cow pat and in clothes that clung greasily to him. Then he was silent, turning to the place where they had leaned and talked. The crab had snatched away six feet of the bulwarks, had torn off planking from the deck and laid bare the splintered beam ends. The huge cable led straight down from the yard of the trireme into the water where yellow mud still stank and swirled. A mob of men were brawling on the trireme, and soldiers were among them, using the pommels of their swords. A man broke free. He stumbled to the quay, seized a loose stone, clasped it to his stomach and plunged over the harbour wall into the sea. The struggle sorted itself out. Two of the Emperor's guards were bashing heads impartially.

Mamillius went white slowly under the filth that covered him.

"That is the first time anyone has tried to kill me."

Phanocles was gaping at the broken bulwarks. Mamillius began to shiver.

"I have harmed no one."

The captain of the trireme came, leaping nimbly to the deck.

"Lord, what can I say?"

The frenzy from the harbour seemed as though it would never die away. There was the sense of eyes, thousands of eyes watching across the deceptive embroidery of the water. Mamillius gazed wildly round into the white air. His nerves were jerking. Phanocles spoke in a foolishly complaining voice.

"They have damaged her."

"Curse your filthy ship--"

"Lord. The slave who cut the cable has drowned himself. We are trying to find the ringleader."

Mamillius cried out.

"Oloito!"

Use of a literary word was a safety valve. He shivered no more but began to weep instead. Phanocles put his shaking hands close to his face and examined them as though they might have information of value.