The Far Arena Page 17

  Lucius Aurelius Cotta rented my performances to people sponsoring games for politics. In Rome then it was quite common for gladiators to fight in groups of twenty and one hundred. I told him his investment could be easily lost because I did not have eyes in my back, although for one gladiator to kill another in the back was almost unheard of.

  'What we do is limit as much as possible luck or chance, and by that, dominus, I do not mean diminish the quality of a match. It is the appearance of danger the crowds want, not danger itself, for perhaps the most dangerous thing is the poison in a Syrian's hand, but who would pay to watch someone drink a glass of wine ? No, we will have the appearance of danger.'

  And matches were arranged where I fought one gladiator, took his weapons and fought the next, and with the next's weapons fought the next. Considering that I chose the order of which weapon would fight which, it was not as dangerous as it seemed. I would always appear exhausted before the final match and make a great show of insisting the games go on.

  The master of the games would say 'no', and he would appeal to the people to end the games. Their decision always sounded like a gigantic growl, indistinguishable from a loud wind. But of course, the master of the games always heard 'yes'.

  I learned to fall safely and even lose my spatha safely, sticking the point down in the sand to keep the pommel clean. Invariably my opponent would guard it, and I would walk away and even pretend to chat with people in the seats. So there he was, looking for him to touch the pommel with his sweaty hands and hand it like a frightened fool. The most dangerous thing would have been for him to touch the pommel with his sweating hands and hand it back to me, for at the moment of grabbing the pommel, I would be closest to him and least secure with my weapon. None did. They always had to chase me to the walls where I could run away and eventually get to my dry-handled spatha getting drier in the Roman sun.

  Sometimes I would be chased so clumsily I could snatch my opponent's sword from his hands and kill him like a pugilist. Within two years, Lucius Aurelius Cotta earned back his huge investment that some had called him a fool for making. The biggest attraction, however, was the stories: at first created for me by the mobs themselves and then later by myself for them. I was the boy gladiator who had sold himself into slavery to buy his father arms to retrieve, by himself, the standards lost in a battle in the German forests, where three legions had been annihilated.

  In my seventeenth year, Cotta sought the lucrative post of praetor for Iberia. He made the proper donatives to powerful senators and to Emperor Vespasian, father of Titus and Domitian who were both to become emperors.

  At that time, a German had decapitated an opponent with one blow in games in which one hundred gladiators had been matched simultaneously. He became famous immediately, and just as immediately I asked Lucius Aurelius Cotta to get me a match with him as soon as possible. Cotta hesitated because he feared he might lose me with a blow, and, while that might offer great excitement, many lanistae had advised him that a beheading might also prove dull or dispiriting to the mobs.

  'Dominus, a head comes off with a slash, not a thrust. He is a gift. If he were drugged, the outcome could not be more certain.'

  'He is very big, a head taller than you. They say he can split a wooden beam with his hands.'

  'Do not let him get away, dominus, for with this one the mobs will beg you to give me my freedom, and what a great gift it will be. Iberia is yours.'

  He agreed. Already in a small way I had learned to use rumours. I was going to avenge my father by showing the Germans to be barbarians. Since many had been used by Nero to terrorize the populace and since, about fifty years before, three entire legions had been lost without a trace of them and since my own father had already been said to have died trying to recover the standards of those legions by himself, the city devoured this match like a day drunk with a fresh skin of wine.

  It was on sand that I won my freedom. I fought him on my knees, announcing that I only fought equals on my feet. While this looked like foolhardy hatred, it actually exposed the poor brute incredibly, and, while trying to take off my head, he reared back each time. I could have written my name on his stomach with my spatha. But I danced on my knees, working at his stomach bit by bit, prolonging the match until the crowds were hysterical with passion. When his blows were tired and his stomach muscles punctured, I caught his last weak blow with my shield and raised his helpless sword as I stood, pushing it up in his own hands.

  I put him to the sand with a blow on the side of his neck, and waited for the signal which was death. His body moved, but he was already dead. I made a great show of a strong effort in dispatching him and then panted as though breath could not come fast enough. In the volcano of noise, Lucius Aurelius Cotta, who was to become praetor, ran out on to the sand and broke a disk. I had never worn one to signify my slavery, but it was clear to Rome that I was freed for this.

  There was a saying that men condemned to the arena fought for their lives and, given their lives fought further to live in order to support themselves. I already had money from my peculium, which had grown heavy.

  With the money, I began my search for my mother as a free man instead of a boy. I bought myself a grammarian who resumed my education, which had ended at age eight. Knowing that my own mind might be my worst enemy, the first words I wrote with my own shaking hand were what I remembered about my mother: the colours of my mind's sight, the hills around the latifundium, the shape of the barns, the colour of the oxen that pulled the carts. While these were most common, I wanted all the facts unchanged, even those I thought would not help. And that was the great gift of writing, for it did not rely on the unstable memory. These scrolls I did not let slaves see or touch. I was sure the latifundium was in Greece itself because I did not remember crossing the sea. I was sure that was a thing I would have remembered accurately. Yet I did not know south from north or east from west, and the latifundium could even have been in Gaul, if we had travelled inland from the Adriaticum. Yet my cunning told me latifundium slaves were so cheap, my father would not have invested in so long a journey. We must have been a very small wager.

  With all I remembered written unchangeably, I bought and studied latifundia: the probabilities of lots being sold off, how long each lived in each job, the chances of my mother's weaving abilities getting her to a less harsh labour, which were good except that beaten slaves were not swiftly put in tanners' or weavers' jobs.

  I bought latifundia in Greece, once taking six months to go through each. I purchased heavily around Athens. Having been duped by charlatans while at Capua, I was more careful now not to let anyone know what I was looking for. I explained to one praetor that I was looking for women who bred killers, assuming that might identify my mother more easily, without exposing how precious she was to me. But with the reputation of my growing wealth, I discovered there were enough latifundium slaves birthing killers to annihilate the population of the civilized world one and a half times.

  My presence proved to be a hindrance to the search and an added torture to myself, for I saw how latifundium slaves toiled without respite, the vilici working their lives out of them with rods. I ordered that my latifundium slaves be given certain guarantees against beatings and more plentiful food

  In one month I had two slave rebellions that required legions to be put down. The praetor insisted I allow every tenth slave to be crucified, the healthy males being sentenced to the arena.

  'Do not try to change the world, Eugeni, It does not change but only becomes more of the same, faster if you hurry it,' the praetor had told me. 'You are a good boy and a great gladiator. Do not let your soft heart bring ruin to your glory and your happiness.'

  On the day he told me not to ruin my happiness the rebellious slaves were punished, and one of them could have been my mother, for I realized that should I have seen her, I would not have known her. A child's memory is flawed enough without the drastic changes wreaked by latifundium labour. I had been looking for a young w
oman, and my mother had to be at least thirty-three or -four, woefully old on a latifundium.

  Of course I did not know whether I caused her death any more than I knew if I owned her. At twenty-three I already owned more than forthy thousand slaves. And I did not know if one of them was her, nor could I alleviate her burdens if I did own her. I was too rich to get honesty and too poor to change the order of the Roman world.

  So I buried the pain of my mother's memory in my heart and kept it from my young family as well as I could, Petronius, my son, thinking I hid facts because I was ashamed of her. I was not ashamed of her. I was ashamed of myself that I could not find her, and might have allowed her execution

  It was also why I would become so distracted at a latifundium that I did not press the family which had sponsored the ruinous games for proof that they could afford proper games.

  These things I thought about waiting for my last match.

  'Eugeni!' The word was sharp and I felt a hard hand slap my shoulders. It was Plutarch. 'Whatever you're thinking, stop that. This is the last time. Last fight. Last day. Perfection in the beginning, perfection in the end. Your muscles are tight like an olive press.'

  'Thank you, Plutarch,' I said. But I could not help thinking that of all the games supposed to honour the dead, none had honoured my mother.

  She had to be dead, I told myself, although never honoured in death. Lying on the small couch in the special cubicle, I realized that was a Roman thing. And she was not Roman. Perhaps I should have told Petronius about her, but I feared his sharp tongue. The boy used truth like a scourge.

  'Eugeni!' It was Plutarch again. 'A little while longer, great gladiator, and then no more. Just a while longer.'

  'Yes,' I said. 'I empty my mind now,' I stared at my fingers and listened to the crowd.

  'Eugeni!' he said.

  'My mind is clear.'

  'Your body makes you a liar, dominus,' he said. 'You lost control.' And he was right.

  But then I was on my stomach. And now I am on my back. That was Rome. And this is beyond the empire, and suddenly I see it. The biggest head I have ever seen. He is the largest man, with red-flecked face, wearing a grey tight slave's tunic. I cannot move my legs.

  Somebody calls him. Grunts. Who is and what is this giant Macudal ? What is a Macudal ? Where am I ? Where is Plutarch ? Why is everyone in white?

  Eleven

  It opened its eyes. It stared.

  ‘It is focusing,' said Petrovitch. 'Look, McCardle. The eyes.'

  The lids were open and the black eyes, so black Lew could not discern the pupils, seemed to latch on to Lew's eyes.

  It was a strange feeling for Lew McCardle, like a corpse or a ghost. Yet this ghost blinked in apparent terror. Its tannish skin, blotched with white, its lips dry with whitish spittle at the edges, its body living through machines here in the new intensive-care unit Houghton had provided Petrovitch, it looked at Lew. And then it closed its eyes again and was mumbling. This was the seventh day since Petrovitch's team had refused to accept its death. The cheeks so tender once they were savaged by mere gauze now grew whole again, serviced with the life of blood. It also had a beard.

  ‘I think it saw us,' said Lew.

  ‘I think you are right, Lew. I think you are right. Now what are you not telling me?'

  'You know just about everything. It will take time to get you reports on where it was discovered, but we're in no rush. We aren't even certain it's going to live.'

  'No. No,' said Petrovitch. He stared only at the body gone back to its mumbling sleep. 'Who is he really?'

  'We don't know, yet.'

  'There are limits even to my trust, Dr McCardle.' 'This is a great achievement of yours. Why can't you accept it ?' ‘I would like to accept it. I would like to believe that it was not living and warm but a few minutes before I got it.' 'You saw the ice.' 'On the outside.'

  The nurse, assigned to this period of sitting with the living specimen, became more entranced with the doctor's conversation than her novel.

  Petrovitch nodded to the door.

  'Come. Come with me, and I will share my doubts about John Carter with you. All right?'

  Outside the door marked 'John Carter', and 'Private', Dr Petrovitch lit a British Oval with a gold Dunhill lighter. The oxygen tent inside prohibited smoking.

  There's a story going around about some Houghton executive playing sexual games in the snow, and your transporting him here for us to save him. Hush hush.'

  'Yes, there is that story. I didn't start it, but I'm not going to stop it. As long as people believe that, we are not going to have a circus of publicity around here. It protects you.'

  'And you?'

  'I have other interests,' said Lew. He carried the tapes with him in a small-attache case. He had yet to tell Dr Petrovitch about the language.

  'Come with me and we will have lesson number one in cryonics: what we have done, what we can do, and what we have yet to do.'

  'You've done a lot with John Carter,' said Lew.

  'It would be nice to think so,' said Dr Petrovitch, his thick, doughy features like a gloomy pudding made without sugar or decoration. 'So nice to think so.'

  He sighed and walked down the hall towards the elevator with Lew following.

  They took the elevator down to the basement with Petrovitch explaining his lab was here and how spread out everything was. Petrovitch had a key to the lab on a key ring so crowded it could have been worn by a night watchman.

  The dull grey metal door had warning signs on it. Petrovitch said they were not just to keep people out. There was danger inside, he said.

  The lab was dark and smelled of some dank chemical swamp. 'Chilly in here,' said Lew.

  'No. Sixty-nine point eight Fahrenheit,' said Petrovitch.

  ‘I could take it in Celsius, too,' said Lew McCardle.

  Petrovitch shut the door behind them. Lew heard a lock click. They were in blackness, and suddenly a harsh fluorescent battery of lights assaulted the eyes with white, as Petrovitch turned on the lights. Lew blinked trying to adjust to the harsh light.

  He saw four large white-bellied sinks in the middle of the room. He let his hand drop to one and felt the white lining of the sink was soft. Polished stainless steel boxes, about eight feet high, came out of one wall. Each box had square drawers. There were forty drawers in all, half with small, round windows and all had monitoring instruments in them. Long pipes, some of them sweating moisture, some apparently insulated, came out of the ceiling into the boxes. It looked modern, yet it had flaws so common in Soviet engineering. McCardle wasn't sure what these large compartment were for, but he knew that good engineering did not have right angles in pipes. It was just bad. He assumed this arrangement was designed by Petrovitch for low-temperature experimentation. The man had a good reputation in the field.

  The finest cryonics equipment in the world,' said Dr Petrovitch. This side of Moscow, of course.'

  Dr Petrovitch counted down the drawers from the top of one polished stainless-steel box. He hummed a tuneless garble, assured himself he had the right container, and pulled the drawer. The front plate with the glass panel folded down as the drawer came out. The inside was white and spotless. Dr Petrovitch raised a hand, signalling McCardle to wait.

  'A frog please,' said Dr Petrovitch.

  'I don't have one with me,' said McCardle.

  The black rubber tanks behind you.'

  McCardle saw a series of black tubs with lids. He lifted a lid on a middle one. The water was dark.

  'Not that one, said Dr Petrovitch. To your left.'

  McCardle replaced the lid and took the lid off the next one. He looked to Dr Petrovitch, who nodded. McCardle dropped his jacket on his briefcase. He rolled up his left sleeve and plunged the hand into the dark water. He felt the short, squirmy kicks of fast things against his hands and through his fingers. He cornered something against the wall of the tub, cupping his hand for a prison. He moved the cupped prison up along the side with the skipping
, pushing thing still trapped inside. Above the water line he let the water drip out thoroughly then slid his captive to the top, where his other hand waited to make an escape-proof chamber. He felt it jump and splatter around inside his hands as he brought it to Dr Petrovitch. The water smelled of fresh green algae, like a swampy womb of life. Dr Petrovitch nodded to the tray.

  'Don't touch the tray. Drop it in the centre quickly, if you please.'

  McCardle saw the frog for the first time and only briefly, as he separated the bottoms of his hands. The little fellow was green with yellowish stripes and black circles. He had big black, sad, round eyes. He blinked. Dr Petrovitch pushed the drawer closed and pressed a switch. McCardle could see into the drawer through the clear panel. It was lit with a purplish light. The frog did not jump. He quivered momentarily, and even the quiver stopped. The black eyes changed immediately to white. The dots and yellow stripes became white: a little white crust of frog. It was still.

  'Sixty seconds,' said Dr Petrovitch. He opened the drawer, took an index card from his pocket, slid it under the white little frog, and carried it to the sinks. He dropped it. It hit with a little click and bounced to its nose, where it stayed balanced between nose and left leg. Its back feet curled beneath it as though caught by a camera while diving into the sink. It stayed diving.

  'Dr McCardle, I now offer you my proposition. Anything you want, just name it, if you do me a simple thing.'