“That won’t be too long. Life-spans lengthen, you know, as races approach their norms.”
“Yes. But none of the others is having half the trouble that I am. Most of them, in fact, have things coming along just about the way they want them. My four planets are raising more hell than all the rest of both galaxies put together, and I know that it isn’t me – next to you, I’m the most efficient operator we’ve got. What I’m wondering about is why I happen to be the goat.”
“Precisely because you are our most efficient operator.” If an Eddorian can be said to smile, the All-Highest smiled. “You know, as well as I do, the findings of the Integrator.”
“Yes, but I am wondering more and more as to whether to believe them unreservedly or not. Spores from an extinct life-form – suitable environments – operation of the laws of chance – Tommyrot! I am beginning to suspect that chance is being strained beyond its elastic limit, for my particular benefit, and as soon as I can find out who is doing that straining there will be one empty place in the Innermost Circle.”
“Have a care, Gharlane!” All levity, all casualness disappeared. “Whom do you suspect? Whom do you accuse?”
“Nobody, as yet. The true angle never occurred to me until just now, while I have been discussing the thing with you. Nor shall I either suspect or accuse, ever. I shall determine, then I shall act.”
“In defiance of me? Of my orders?” the All-Highest demanded, his short temper flaring.
“Say, rather, in support,” the lieutenant shot back, unabashed. “If some one is working on me through my job, what position are you probably already in, without knowing it? Assume that I am right, that these four planets of mine got the way they are because of monkey business inside the Circle. Who would be next? And how sure are you that there isn’t something similar, but not so far advanced, already aimed at you? It seems to me that serious thought is in order.”
“Perhaps so . . . You may be right . . .
There have been a few non-conformable items. Taken separately, they did not seem to be of any importance; but together, and considered in this new light . . .”
Thus was borne out the conclusion of the Arisian Elders that the Eddorians would not at that time deduce Arisia; and thus Eddore lost its chance to begin in time the forging of a weapon with which to oppose effectively Arisia’s – Civilization’s – Galactic Patrol, so soon to come into being.
If either of the two had been less suspicious, less jealous, less arrogant and domineering, in other words, had not been Eddorians – this History of Civilization might never have been written; or written very differently and by another hand.
Both were, however, Eddorians.
2. ARISIA In the brief interval between the fall of Atlantis and the rise of Rome to the summit of her power, Eukonidor of Arisia had aged scarcely at all. He was still a youth.
He was, and would be for many centuries to come, a Watchman. Although his mind was powerful enough to understand the Elders’ visualization of the course of Civilization in fact, he had already made significant progress in his own visualization of the Cosmic All – he was not sufficiently mature to contemplate unmoved the events which, according to all Arisian visualizations, were bound to occur.
“Your feeling is but natural, Eukonidor.” Drounli, the Moulder principally concerned with the planet Tellus, meshed his mind smoothly with that of the young Watchman. “We do not enjoy it ourselves, as you know. It is, however, necessary. In no other way can the ultimate triumph of Civilization be assured.”
“But can nothing be done to alleviate . . . ?” Eukonidor paused.
Drounli waited. “Have you any suggestions to offer?”
“None,” the younger Arisian confessed. “But I thought you, or the Elders, so much older and stronger . . . could . . .”
“We can not. Rome will fall. It must be allowed to fall.”
“It will be Nero, then? And we can do nothing?”
“Nero. We can do little enough. Our forms of flesh – Petronius, Acte, and the others – will do whatever they can; but their powers will be exactly the same as those of other human beings of their time. They must be and will be constrained, since any show of unusual powers, either mental or physical, would be detected instantly and would be far too revealing. On the other hand, Nero – that is, Gharlane of Eddore – will be operating much more freely.”
“Very much so. Practically unhampered, except in purely physical matters. But, if nothing can be done to stop it . . . If Nero must be allowed to sow his seeds of ruin . . .”
And upon that cheerless note the conference ended.
3. ROME “But what have you, Livius, or any of us, for that matter, got to live for?” demanded Patroclus the gladiator of his cell-mate. “We are well fed, well kept, well exercised; like horses. But, like horses, we are lower than slaves. Slaves have some freedom of action; most of us have none. We fight – fight whoever or whatever our cursed owners send us against. Those of us who live fight again; but the end is certain and comes soon. I had a wife and children once. So did you. Is there any chance, however slight, that either of us will ever know them again; or learn even whether they live or die? None. At this price, is your life worth living? Mine is not.”
Livius the Bithynian, who had been staring out past the bars of the cubicle and over the smooth sand of the arena toward Nero’s garlanded and purple-bannered throne, turned and studied his fellow gladiator from toe to crown. The heavily-muscled legs, the narrow waist, the sharply-tapering torso, the enormous shoulders. The leonine head, surmounted by an unkempt shock of red-bronze-auburn hair. And, lastly, the eyes-gold-flecked, tawny eyes – hard and cold now with a ferocity and a purpose not to be concealed.
“I have been more or less expecting something of this sort,” Livius said then, quietly. “Nothing overt – you have builded well, Patroclus – but to one who knows gladiators as I know them there has been something in the wind for weeks past. I take it that someone swore his life for me and that I should not ask who that friend might be.”
“One did. You should not.”
“So be it. To my unknown sponsor, then, and to the gods, I give thanks, for I am wholly with you. Not that I have any hope. Although your tribe breeds men – from your build and hair and eyes you descend from Spartacus himself, you know that even he did not succeed. Things now are worse, infinitely worse, than they were in his day. No one who has ever plotted against Nero has had any measure of success; not even his scheming slut of a mother. All have died, in what fashions you know. Nero is vile, the basest of the base. Nevertheless, his spies are the most efficient that the world has ever known. In spite of that, I feel as you do. If I can take with me two or three of the Praetorians, I die content. But by your look, your plan is not what I thought, to storm vainly Nero’s podium yonder. Have you, by any chance, some trace of hope of success?”
“More than a trace; much more.” The Thracian’s teeth bared in a wolfish grin.
“His spies are, as you say, very good. But, this time, so are we. Just as hard and just as ruthless. Many of his spies among us have died; most, if not all, of the rest are known.
They, too, shall die. Glatius, for instance. Once in a while, by the luck of the gods, a man kills a better man than he is; but Glatius has done it six times in a row, without getting a scratch. But the next time he fights, in spite of Nero’s protection, Glatius dies.
Word has gone out, and there are gladiators’ tricks that Nero never heard of.”
“Quite true. One question, and I too may begin to hope. This is not the first time that gladiators have plotted against Ahenobarbus. Before the plotters could accomplish anything, however, they found themselves matched against each other and the signal was always for death, never for mercy. Has this . . .?” Livius paused.
“It has not. It is that which gives me the hope I have. Nor are we gladiators alone in this. We have powerful friends at court; one of whom has for days been carrying a knife sharpened especially to slip between Nero’s ribs. That he still carries that knife and that we still live are proofs enough for me that Ahenobarbus, the matricide and incendiary, has no suspicion whatever of what is going on.”