'You believe it, don't you?' said Phidias.
'It's a hypothesis,' said Archimedes, flushing a little. 'There isn't enough evidence to decide either way. I suppose the people are right who say that where there isn't evidence, you should choose the explanation that fits appearances best- which is that the sun goes around the earth. But- I like it.'
'Oi moi! You like to think of the earth whirling about like a dust mote in an unspeakable immensity of space? It makes me dizzy!'
Archimedes grinned, but said, 'It makes sense to me that the universe is incomparably great. After all, the more I look at it, the more things I see that I can't understand.'
The words 'If you don't understand much, what hope is there for the rest of us?' hovered on the edge of Phidias' tongue, but he did not say them. He was wary of admitting how hard he worked to grasp ideas which seemed obvious to Archimedes. His son had always regarded him as an equal, and he was almost as proud of that as he was of the son himself- his son, the most gifted student he had ever taught, the most profound mind he had ever encountered. Phidias watched him now, tenderly: Archimedes' grin was fading, and his eyes, still bright, were abstracted, reckoning up the vastness of the universe. Phidias knew that they no longer saw him. He felt for a moment the ache that any parent feels at realizing the utter foreignness of the child: the body that came from you, that you have nourished, now contains a mind full of things you will never comprehend. He reached over and caught his son's hand. 'Medion,' he said, a bit breathlessly, 'swear to me that you will never, ever give up mathematics.'
Archimedes looked at him in surprise. 'Papa, you know that giving up mathematics is the last thing in the world I want to do!'
'You think that,' said Phidias, 'but it isn't true. The last thing in the world you want is for your family to starve or suffer- and that's right, that should be the last thing you allow. But promise me that however you have to snatch at learning and struggle for it when the day's work is done, however tired you get, however little anyone understands you, you'll never give it up and devote your soul to the earth. Swear to me.'
Archimedes hesitated, then went to the basin of water beside the bed and ceremoniously washed his hands and lifted them to heaven. 'I swear by Delian Apollo and Pythian Apollo,' he declared solemnly, 'by Urania and all the Muses, by Zeus and the Earth and the Sun, by Aphrodite and Hephaistos and Dionysos, and by all the gods and goddesses, that I will never give up mathematics nor allow the spark the god has given me to go out. If I do not keep this my undertaking, may all the gods and goddesses by whom I swore be angry with me and may I die a most miserable death; but if I honor it, may they be favorable!'
'So be it,' whispered Phidias.
Archimedes came back to the bed and took his father's hand, smiling now. 'But I didn't need to swear, Papa,' he said. 'I try to give it up, I tell myself, 'No more games!'- and it never works. I can't give it up. You know that.'
Phidias smiled back. 'I know,' he whispered, 'but I don't want you to try. Not for catapults or for anything else.'
6
To most of the city, the following day was the Day King Hieron Returned- but to Archimedes, the king and his army were merely an annoying interruption on the Day We Moved the Welcomer.
Only one workman- Elymos- assisted him with the catapult; Eudaimon insisted that the rest remain in the workshop to help on another arrow-shooter. Straton was still in charge of transporting the machine, however, and Archimedes was very glad of his assistance before the day was done. It took the heavy ox-drawn wagon more than two hours to reach the Hexapylon, and when they arrived at the fort they found that there was no crane to move the one-talenter to the enclosed platform on the tower selected for it.
This platform was the first floor of one of the fort's outer towers- large catapults were normally placed on the lower floors of towers, leaving the upper stories to the lighter machines. A stone stairway ran up past the platform, which stood open to the fort's interior yard, but it was not possible for three men to maneuver a thirty-foot stock up the stairs. Straton cajoled the fort garrison into lending some rope and pulleys, and Archimedes rigged up hoists, but it was still the middle of the afternoon before the pieces of catapult were all lying on their platform, and then they needed to be fitted together. King Hieron and his army appeared before the gates while this was being done. All the fort garrison went off to cheer the king as he rode past, and Straton joined them- quite unnecessarily, thought Archimedes, as he struggled to rearrange his hoists so that the catapult stock could be refitted to its stand. Straton, he told himself angrily, should have remained to haul on ropes when he was told to.
But when the king had gone, Straton said he must return the wagon and oxen to the Ortygia, and departed as well, leaving Archimedes and Elymos to continue the struggle alone. It was dark before the catapult finally stood intact in its place. Archimedes was staggering with exhaustion by that time, and his hands were blistered from the rope to the point where he couldn't feel any one particular ache. When the job at last was done, he examined his blisters, then looked at Elymos, who was, if anything, even more blistered and exhausted than he was himself. 'If you don't want to walk all the way back to the Ortygia,' he told the slave, 'you can sleep at my house tonight.'
'That's very kind of you, sir,' said Elymos gloomily, 'but Epimeles told me to stay here tonight.'
'Here?' asked Archimedes in surprise, glancing about the bare room. The catapult was under cover, but nobody would describe its location as comfortable. The yard side of the platform stoodopen and the floor was rough planking. In one corner stood a pile of forty-pound shot, left over from the platform's previous catapult.
'That's right,' agreed the slave mournfully. Epimeles had ordered him not to let the catapult out of his sight, and to make his bed beneath it.
'But- why?' asked Archimedes, totally mystified.
Elymos just shrugged and spat out the artillery port. Epimeles had also told him not to worry Archimedes. 'We don't want that lad's mind distracted,' he'd said. 'We don't want him spoiling his chances. He'll win the crown now if he just runs easy down to the finish line; if he starts thinking he has to put on a spurt, maybe he'll trip over his own feet.'
'Maybe,' added Elymos hopefully, 'you could ask the captain of the fort to give me a mat and a blanket and a bit of supper?'
'Very well,' said Archimedes, bewildered. 'I'll see that you get some wine, too, if you like.'
'Thank you, sir!' said Elymos, eyes gleaming.
Archimedes decided during the long walk home that it was actually very sensible of Elymos to stay at the Hexapylon overnight. The Achradina wasn't quite as far as the Ortygia, but it was still a long way, and by the time he arrived home it was very late. Marcus, yawning, let him in, but the rest of the family had been asleep for hours. No, Elymos was quite right to get some sleep at once, with the catapult.
But despite his exhaustion, Archimedes had trouble falling asleep. He tossed in the heat, blistered hands aching, mind running swiftly through things that could go wrong with his catapult. When he did at last slide into an uneasy sleep, it was to dream of an army attacking the Hexapylon, equipped with battering rams and siege towers. He knew that if the enemy reached the walls, they would get in and kill everyone; he knew that if he could fire the catapult he could keep them back- but the catapult kept coming apart in his hands. In desperation he slammed at it- and the impact of his blistered hand against the bed woke him again fully.
He groaned, rolled onto his back, and lay staring up at the darkness. His hands throbbed. After a minute he got up, went downstairs, and poured some water into a bucket so that he could soak his blisters. Above the courtyard, the Milky Way hung shimmering. The stars had wheeled far around toward morning. Archimedes sat against the wall, soaking his hands in the bucket, and watched the stars. Infinitely far away, eternally lovely. All the earth was incomparably small, and Syracuse a speckle upon a mote of dust. He closed his eyes, imagining the illimitable sphere of the universe, and the image of the catapult faded at last.
Archimedes was still asleep the next morning when there was a staccato knocking at the house door. Marcus, who was in the courtyard, opened the door and found two men in full armor. One was Straton, polished almost out of recognition; the other a wiry man in the crimson cloak and scarlet-crested helmet of an officer, wearing a beautiful bronze breastplate decorated with glittering silver medallions. 'This is the house of Archimedes
