The Alexander Inheritance Read online

  He was afraid of the notion of being on his own. Who would feed him? How could he make his way in the world? At the same time, he resented the restrictions placed on him. He always had, but slavery had just been the way the world was, his lot in life. Now he was beginning to wonder if there might not be another way.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Eumenes took the goblet of wine from the slave and sipped as he listened to the doctor’s report. It was still touch and go for Attalus, even after six weeks, and it would be months more until he recovered. If he recovered.

  “It’s time and past time to replace Attalus as commander of the Companion Cavalry,” said Alcetas.

  “But Attalus has access to Perdiccas’ funds at Tyre,” Cleopatra said.

  “So do I. Or I should, at least,” Eumenes pointed out. He was talking about the appointment as strategos.

  “Attalus is Perdiccas’ brother-in-law,” Cleopatra said.

  “And I am Perdiccas’ brother!” Alcetas said. “I should be strat— I should be the commander of the Companion Cavalry.”

  “Not after your part in the death of Cynane,” Cleopatra told him.

  Cynane had been Alexander the Great’s half-sister. Fearing her influence, Perdiccas had sent his brother Alcetas to put her to death. He’d done so, but the army had been so furious they had almost mutinied. Perdiccas was now dead himself, murdered by his own officers after the disaster he led his army to on the Nile. And no one had forgotten Alcetas’ role in the death of an Argead princess, least of all the Macedonian troops who were still largely devoted to the dynasty.

  “That wasn’t my fault! The stupid woman—”

  Cleopatra held up a hand, and Alcetas fell silent. Red-faced, but silent. “It doesn’t matter if she forced you to it. You almost had a rebellion in the ranks and it’s the reason that Attalus was given access to Perdiccas’ funds instead of you in the first place. Also, the woman you killed was Eurydice’s mother and Roxane has proclaimed Eurydice as regent for Philip, effectively the co-ruler of my brother’s empire. If we give credence to the part of Roxane’s proclamation that makes Eumenes here strategos and grants him the satraps, then we have to acknowledge the part that makes Eurydice Philip’s regent.”

  Cleopatra turned to Eumenes. “Who do you think for commander?”

  “I’d appoint Pharnabazus,” Eumenes said, and Alcetas started to interrupt again as Eumenes continued. “But the Macedonians won’t accept him because he’s Persian. Besides, he has naval experience, and it would almost be a waste to leave him as a cavalry commander. No, I think it will have to be Docimus.”

  Cleopatra looked around the room. Alcetas was not happy, but Eumenes’ suggestion of Pharnabazus had worked. Alcetas would accept it. Cleopatra wasn’t happy with it, but it was the best choice they could make work.

  CHAPTER 18

  President’s Office, Fort Plymouth

  February 10

  “We’re in the wrong fucking place!” the large, gray-haired man roared as he banged through the door, and Allen Wiley wished that the New U.S. had a Secret Service.

  “This is, of course, Sean Little, our chief petroleum geologist.”

  “Oh, bull, Wiley. I’m just an old roughneck with lousy luck. And you know it.” The gray head turned and brown eyes looked out at the collection of natives and ship people. The natives were the tribal sort from here on Trinidad, and the ship people included Bob Jones, Amanda Miller, Nick Pacheco, and Eleanor Kinney.

  Wiley saw the penny drop as Sean Little realized that this might not be the best time or the best company for one of his rants.

  “I’m guessing that Mr. Little is a bit upset with me and wishes to vent. Is it urgent, Mr. Little? We are discussing the pricing of ship-produced ceramics and…” Allen let his voice trail off.

  By now Little’s anger had cooled a bit and he was thinking again. “I guess I can wait, but it’s important, Al. I’ll be in the library at the computer when you get done here.”

  “Is there anyone I should bring?”

  “Amanda, and maybe Bob. And we are going to need the Reliance in this, so Adrian Scott.”

  “What about the Queen?” Eleanor Kinney asked.

  “Just came from there. Besides, it’s not the Queen’s business.” Little wasn’t a fan of Captain Floden. He felt that the passengers had gotten a raw deal. He turned and marched out of the office.

  “What’s got his panties in a knot this time?” Eleanor asked.

  “I’m sure I’ll find out,” Allen said, putting all the long-suffering patience he could manage into his tone. The truth was Allen was reasonably fond of Little. He was a hard-working, hard-partying sort who came on the cruise to gamble in the casino. He had been a roughneck for thirty-five years. And by now, near retirement, he knew every aspect of a drilling rig, from the mud loggers to the pipe fitters. “In the meantime, we were discussing the price of ceramic storage vessels?”

  “No,” said Botoka, a middle-aged stocky woman who was wearing a single kola feather in her straight black hair and not much else. “We talk about cooking pots for cassava.”

  The translator app wasn’t ready for prime time when it came to Akpara. The Akpara were from the hills on the north side of the island, and combined hunting and gathering with limited farming. Mostly cassava, guinep trees, and some herbs. The ship people had been a bit disheartened to learn that coconuts hadn’t reached the Atlantic yet. A lot of the modern cassava recipes involved coconut milk or meat. Still, the cassava were a staple food source of the region already. They were a product that the colony could buy in exchange for clay pots and steel implements, from machetes to cook pots.

  It took another hour before the discussion of prices was done and Allen could find out what had—as Eleanor put it—Little’s panties in a knot.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Amanda brought Sean Little in, and Allen spoke before Little could. “I called and the Reliance is dropping nets in the north of the bay. Can I inform Captain Scott about it in the morning? Whatever it is?”

  Little looked around. Now the room held only him, Amanda, Allen Wiley and Bob Jones. “I shouldn’t have popped off like that, Al, but we’re in the wrong place, the wrong part of the island.”

  “I got that part. But what do you mean and how do you know?”

  “You know that Aripero number five isn’t producing for crap, right?”

  “Yes. I approved of the saltwater injection well you proposed.”

  “Right. And that’s the problem. I knew about that trick from a hundred wells on as many fields. When the oil field isn’t producing much anymore, because the pressure has dropped, you drill another well a bit deeper than the first and pump in saltwater. Saltwater is heavier than oil, so it pushes the oil up and increases the pressure, so you can get oil out of an old well. Problem is, this ain’t an old well. It’s a brand new well. That bugged me. They didn’t know about that trick in the eighteen sixties when Walter Darwent drilled his well. Poor sod didn’t go broke and die because he was underfunded, like Wikipedia had it. He went broke because there wasn’t enough pressure to push the oil. You know where the first commercial oil well on Trinidad was drilled? Out in the forest, near a village that was called Guayaguayare in our time. Guayaguayare is on the other side of the frigging island. Thirty-four miles from here.” Sean pointed at a spot on the map in Allen’s office. The spot was in the southeast corner of the island, and well outside the area the colony bought.

  “Are you saying your injection well won’t work?”

  “No. It’ll work. For a while. But there probably isn’t all that much oil down there, at least not recoverable oil. We can make the sucker produce for a while. But there’s a reason injection wells like this one are sometimes called salting the field. They make the field produce, but they use it up fast too. I figure two years if we’re lucky, six months if we ain’t.”

  “How deep are the wells in Guaya-whatever?” Amanda asked.

  “I
don’t know. They can’t be too deep for us to reach, since they were drilled in 1902.”

  “I’m afraid that is not the most urgent issue,” Bob Jones said. “The Koksy don’t like us, and they hold that land. They use blow pipes and poisoned darts to hunt the howler monkeys, and they occasionally hunt each other too.”

  Bob was using the term “hold” advisedly. Ownership of land wasn’t an official sort of thing on Trinidad. It was an issue of who could hold it, and that changed frequently, with tribes and even families fighting each other over the land. The locals were surprised at the ship people’s willingness to pay for the land they bought. The anger of the Koksy tribe had to do with a lot of their young people running off to get jobs with the ship people. There were six on the experimental farm Bob and his family set up.

  “They have a tribal hierarchy set up with the elders running everything. The youngsters don’t have a lot of choice but to toe the line or live on their own, which is uncomfortable and dangerous. With us over here offering jobs, food, and housing, the young people are running off to work for us any time the elders decide they have to do something they don’t like. Like become their uncle’s third wife. We have two teenage couples on the farm and a couple of girls looking speculatively at my thirteen-year-old son.”

  Allen was looking concerned, and Bob grinned. “Don’t worry about it, Allen. We have more important issues.” Allen, Bob knew, was worried about the issue of polygamy because of his Mormon heritage. Being a Mormon politician in the world they’d come from meant you had to be vociferously opposed to polygamy or you got accused of all sorts of unnatural appetites.

  Meanwhile, here on the island and among the tribes in Venezuela proper, all sorts of marriage customs were in practice, from monogamy to every form of group marriage. In the here-and-now, no one with any sense had time to spare for worrying about that sort of crap. And, aside from a very few people who had not accepted the new situation, no one was very worried about it. They were too busy catching and freezing fish, harvesting and freezing wild fruits and vegetables, and the other necessary jobs to make sure there was enough food and shelter to last them until the Queen got back with live cattle and mules to pull plows and let them start farming seriously.

  Plymouth Bay

  February 15

  Leonard Wechsler breathed deeply several times, then let go of the side of the outrigger boat and sank down in the water. He was wearing his snorkeling mask and a set of weights to let him sink fast. He was also wearing a harness so that he could be pulled up without dropping the weights. When he reached the bottom, he started to walk along, looking for issues that would make the dredge work more difficult. They were trying to get a canal deep enough for Barge 14 to navigate up to shore.

  The problem was, they were doing it with cobbled-together tools. The sandy bottom here was only ten feet deep, and what Leonard was looking for were rocks that would have to be blown up, like stumps in clearing a field. Once the rocks were out of the way, they would drop the dredge, the Reliance would pull it seaward, and dig a trench. It wasn’t efficient—or environmentally sound—but it would let them get Barge 14 close enough to shore to pipe oil into it. Leonard saw a rock protruding up from the sand and went over to check it out. He reached for the rock and shook. It was firm, but there was a place a rope could be attached. Leonard pulled a cord from his belt, tied it around the rock protrusion and pulled his signal cord. Then he swam back up to the boat.

  “Gimme the tank and a balloon, John,” Leonard said.

  “What you got, Lenny?” John Harvell asked.

  “Got a rock. Pretty big one, but I think it’s just sitting there. Not bedrock. I want to see if we can lift it and use it as part of the canal wall.”

  John passed over the rope and leather balloon, along with the small air tank. Leonard took several more deep breaths, and went back down. He found the rock, tied the rope around it, and used the tank to inflate the balloon. It was a good-sized balloon, but it didn’t shift the rock at all. Leonard left it tied to the rock and headed back to the boat. This was taking a long time.

  Queen of the Sea

  February 15

  Georgios Iconomou checked the settings on the vacuum pump and started the motor. He was an American Greek who had two words of Greek, ouzo and retsina. And one of them, ouzo, didn’t exist yet, except for a couple of bottles on the Queen. So rather than being a translator, Georgios was working on making tubes. It was proving surprisingly difficult, in spite of the fact that the Queen had vacuum pumps of excellent quality. The problem was that you had to pump out all the air, then let the sucker sit for a week or so, so that the gas molecules that had been stuck in the glass or metal of the tube slowly migrated out. Then you had to pump it out again, and then set off a match to use up the last few atoms of oxygen. And even at this, you had to have all the wires in the right place.

  The reason they needed tubes was twofold. One, the ships only had a limited number of radios. Very limited. Two, even those radios, at least the powerful ones, used tubes. Tubes that were eventually going to wear out.

  Georgios watched the gauges and waited. Then he sealed the pipe, and turned off the pump. This one would wait a week, then be sucked out again, and they would see if he had gotten it right this time.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  All across the Queen of the Sea there were people like Georgios Iconomou, using their knowledge and experience, along with the knowledge available in encyclopedias and technical reference works—not nearly enough technical reference works—to try to build the tools to build the tools to start an industrial revolution two thousand years early.

  Southeast Trinidad

  February 15

  Pelio waited and watched as the howler monkey moved from branch to branch, somehow never giving him a shot. Pelio was furious. It wasn’t fair. Just because his stupid little sister ran off, he was in trouble. The Koksy elders just needed someone to punish, so he was going to have to wait another year to marry, and he wouldn’t be getting Leasook as his wife.

  His foot came down in the black mud and he cursed. Then he stopped. His stupid little sister talked about the ship people liking the black mud. They burned it. Well, Pelio knew you could burn it, but he didn’t like to use it. It stank and made the food over it taste bad. But if the ship people used it, maybe he could trade it for some of their knives. He slipped away, the howler monkey forgotten.

  Experimental Farm, Trinidad

  February 16

  Jason Jones listened to the girl who worked on the farm and her brother—or boyfriend, or something—and tried to figure out what they were talking about. Not that he was particularly happy to see the guy. Whether he was brother or boyfriend, he wasn’t good news as far as Jason was concerned.

  Then the guy, apparently frustrated with Jason’s failure to understand, reached down and rubbed a finger over the side of his ankle, then brought the finger back up and rubbed the greasy black crap on Jason’s face.

  Wait a second. Greasy black crap. Oil.

  “Right!” Jason said. “Dad! We have a guy here who knows where there’s an oil seep.”

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Using the translation app helped a little, but not very much. The Koksy language was unique on the island and apparently hadn’t survived in any form into the twenty-first century. Also, the workers on the farm weren’t bilingual with any of the other tribes, at least not very. As a result, the app had only a few words programmed in and even less syntax. So it was gesture, point, and guess, but over an hour of point and shout. Bob got the idea that the young man, Pelio, was the brother of Safsa, a girl who worked on the farm, and that Pelio knew where oil seeped out of the ground, and would show them in return for a machete.

  At that point, Bob Jones called Fort Plymouth.

  “I need to talk with Al, Amanda. We have a kid here who knows where there’s an oil seep.”

  “In Koksy territory?” Amanda asked.

  “Probably. The kid is Koksy, anyway.”

/>   Southeast Trinidad

  February 18

  It took a couple of days to get the expedition organized. The team had a canister of black powder, half a dozen microphones rigged for ground pickup, and a computer to record the echoes and hopefully find a salt dome to drill through.

  The Reliance gave the team a ride most of the way around to the south of the island, and they put into a small bay that, on their maps, was marked Guayaguayare Bay. Then they made their way inland, with Pelio making what were probably snide comments about all the noise they were making. Robert Waters sympathized with the kid a bit. He’d never been much of an outdoorsman, but he had shepherded suits around his shop, and spent most of the time wishing they would go away and not interfere with his work.

  It took the team a couple of hours to make the trek inland. The team was Sean Little, a former roughneck, Jeffrey Zeitlin, their seismologist—that is, he had taken a course in seismology while getting his early modern lit degree thirty years earlier. John Bogan, one of Sean’s crew, recruited after The Event. He had been a mechanic at a lube and tire shop in Mississippi and was on the cruise with his wife for their thirtieth anniversary. And David Dove, who was carrying a black powder rifle made after The Event. Robert Waters and the rest were carrying crossbows.

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  They reached the area, and Pelio pointed out the pool of oil.

  Sean Little scooped some up, took it over a ways, and tasted it with the tip of his tongue. Then he lit it with a Zippo lighter. “Sweet crude. Guys, you could almost run the lifeboats on this stuff without refining. Jeff, where do you want the charge set?”

  “I’d like to get a bit of distance. I want to be sure that the echoes are distinct. It would be best if it was on a rock, so the sound transmission to the bedrock will be clear.”

  All of which he had said before, any number of times. On the other hand, Robert had to admit that between Jeff Zeitlin and Katy Borman, a programmer on the Queen, they had done some pretty good seismology, and spotted the well where they finally hit oil.