'Right you are, skipper.' The oarmaster clanged his mallet against the bronze square. 'Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!' 'Rhyppapai!' the rowers echoed, taking their beat from him. Menedemos had only ten men a side at the oars. He would work the men in shifts, the way any captain not in a desperate hurry did. Sostratos asked, 'May I let a couple of peahens out now?' 'Wait till we're well away from Syme and in more open water,' Menedemos answered. 'We don't want the miserable birds trying to fly to land and going into the sea instead.' 'You're right. I hadn't thought of that,' Sostratos said. Menedemos couldn't imagine himself making an admission like that, even if it was true. If he hadn't thought of something, he didn't want anybody but himself knowing it. His cousin went on, 'Tell me when the time is right, then.' 'I will,' Menedemos said, somewhat abstractedly: the bulk of the island was shielding him from some of the wind he wanted to use. He ordered the big square mainsail lowered from the yard, but it flapped and fluttered and didn't want to fill. Even after the sailors used the brails to haul up most of the canvas on the leeward side, he wondered if he should have bothered using it at all; it hardly seemed to add anything to the Aphrodite's turn of speed. Then he shrugged. The men would think it helped, even if it didn't really do much. Keeping them happy counted for something, too. After an hour or so, the Aphrodite glided between the narrow spit of land at Syme's southwestern corner and the closest of the three tiny islets that straggled out from the spit. Once the ship got free of Syme's wind shadow, the sail bellied out and went taut. 'That's more like it,' Menedemos exclaimed, and ordered more of the sail lowered to take advantage of the breeze. 'Now?' Sostratos asked: so much for waiting for Menedemos to give him the word. Menedemos considered. Now that Syme no longer blocked his view, he could see the long, narrow Karian peninsula at whose end Knidos sat. But the peninsula lay perhaps forty stadia to the north: far enough away for it to seem a little misty, a little indistinct. He didn't suppose the peafowl would try to fly to it. 'Go ahead,' he said. 'Let's see what happens. Pick your sailors first, though, and tell them what they're going to have to do.' His cousin dipped his head. Menedemos gave him no more specific instructions; he wanted to see how Sostratos would handle the business. Most of the sailors Sostratos chose were men Menedemos would have picked, too, men he reckoned sensible and reliable. But his cousin also pointed to the two rowers Diokles had plucked off the wharf as the Aphrodite was about to sail. Maybe he wanted to work them in with the rest of the crew. Maybe he just reckoned them expendable. Either way, Menedemos didn't think he would have wanted them for this work. 'Just keep the birds away from people who are doing things that need doing,' Sostratos said. 'Except for that, let them run around and eat whatever they can catch. We'll have fewer lizards and mice and cockroaches aboard the Aphrodite after a while.' He was probably right. Menedemos hadn't looked at that side of things. No man born of woman could keep down the vermin that inevitably traveled with men and cargo. Vermin were part of life; Menedemos suspected mice and roaches ate scraps of ambrosia on Olympos. Some ship captains took along Egyptian cats to try to keep down the mice, though he'd never been convinced the nasty little yowlers caught enough to be worthwhile.
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