"You mean with no profit?"
"Sure. They say: 'We're giving our money, the soldiers are giving their lives, so the least you craftsmen can do is to give your skill.' First they wanted us to work for nothing at all. I had to point out that in the first place we couldn't do that unless they could get us supplies and materials free, and, second, that we had to eat."
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, it don't look like Demetrios will attack us without a lot of preparation. So we're going to cut down these catapult crews to skeletons and put the rest of the men to work."
"On what?" I asked.
"There's plenty, with all these new contracts. I got two big ones: to make another battery of catapults and to build a penthouse on this mole to protect the crews and lengthen our range."
"What about Kallias' great sluing crane?"
Bias smiled, creasing his face into a mass of wrinkles. "Kallias is hopping around like he was dancing the kordax, trying to get it done. But I know it won't work, so I'll see that he don't use none of my good men on it."
"Have you spoken to the Council about the crane?"
"Sure. I brought it up today, with a sheet of figures to prove my point. All it got me was that Kallias blew up and practically had 'em convinced that I was a traitor. I can't fight him before the Council, on account of I don't have a tongue loose at both ends like him. But now I think he's going to hang himself. Do you know what his latest idea is?"
"No, what?"
"Torsion scorpions. I've shown him figures to prove the torsion principle's not practical in such small sizes. But no, he says: if it works on a big machine, it'll work on a small one. So he's got one of my competitors building one."
"What do you want me to do, Bias?"
He laid his hairy, freckled hand on my arm. "You're a pretty good little fellow in spite of that sassy manner, and I need your help."
"Thanks, but how?"
"Helping to oversee some of my contracts. The trouble with Rhodes is, it's got too many orators and not enough engineers. We can't blow Demetrios' army away by talk, though you might think so to hear some of our politicians speechify. You may not be an experienced engineer, but you have at least studied the theory and aren't too much of a gentleman to use your hands."
I said: "That's kind of you, but my father needs me in the foundry."
"Oh, I've spoken to Nikon. He would like you, but he admits the work you'd do would be that of any competent bronzesmith, while you can use your engineering to better advantage working for me. So I'll lend him one of my men in your place."
"Oh. Perhaps you could also use Berosos, my Babylonian aimer. He knows mathematics."
"Sure."
"And if there's such a shortage of engineering talent, what is our former municipal architect doing?"
"Diognetos is kind of retired, I guess. He's never forgiven the city for throwing him out."
"Perhaps we could ask him to forget the past. If the city perish, it will be his throat along with the rest."
"All right, let's." Bias started briskly back along the mole, to the waterfront.
When Diognetos' porter announced us, the architect appeared, leaning upon a stick. His beard seemed longer than ever and his general aspect just as forbidding. He frowned.
"Let me see," he said. "You are Bias Gorgou, the torsion-catapult enthusiast. And you—tsk, tsk, I cannot quite place you, young man."
"Chares Nikonos, sir," I said. "I—"
"Oh! Now I know. You are one of those who plotted to deprive me of my architect's post and turn it over to that Phoenician swindler. What do you here?"
I began: "O Diognetos, whatever be the truth about Kallias—and I, too, have suffered at his hands—our beloved city lies in deadly peril."
"What is the fate of this race of drunkards and fornicators to me?" said Diognetos. "I am a Rhodian in name only. My city has spurned me and cast me out."
"Ah, but you are in the city. If it fall, you will suffer with the rest."
"What would you have me do?" said Diognetos. "I am past the age for wielding a spear."
Bias spoke: "Sure, sir, but you're a technical man, and we need every one we can find, to boss the building of defenses and engines. Now, I'm no politician, but I know enough men on the Council so that I could maybe get them to offer you a good job, in spite of what Kallias might say—"
Diognetos struck the ground with his stick. "May you not live out the year!" he roared. "Has Rhodes the dog-faced insolence first to cast me out and humiliate me, and then, as soon as she is in trouble, to send emissaries to ask me to forgive and forget? Ordure! Diognetos is not so careless of his honor. Your talk of the city's fall frightens me not a whit. I am soon to die anyway, and how could I die more happily than seeing this ungrateful city going down in ruin? Begone or I will set the dog upon you!"
We left Diognetos muttering about "this accursed tribe of adulterers and rattlepates." As we walked back to the waterfront, Bias said:
"It looks like we'll have to do without the old vulture's help.".
We walked to the marketplace in silence, where towered the heroic statues of our assailant and his father. Their bronze still glowed a ruddy brown, the patina of age not having yet greened them over. Bias jerked his thumb, saying:
"It seems kind of funny, don't it, to have statues of these jacklegs standing there when we're at war with them? All that good bronze would be better used for armor."
"I hope not!" I said. "Those are my masterpieces."
"Forget your own glory for once, Chares, and think of your city."
"I am thinking of it," said I, casting about for some unselfish reason for preserving the statues. "Look: Either we shall win or we shall lose. If we win, and keep the statues, people will say: 'What greatness of soul the Rhodians have, to preserve their art even when it immortalizes their foes!' While, if we lose, the fact that we spared the statues might incline Demetrios to mercy."
"That's clever but it don't convince me," said Bias. "Metal is metal, no matter what it's used for."
At the waterfront we passed Makar the stonecutter, bossing a gang of workmen who were heightening the harbor wall.
"Rejoice, Makar!" I said. "Where did you get all that fine stone?"
"It arrived but a ten-day ago for the new theater," said Makar. "Kallias didn't much, like my taking it for this work, since the theater is a pet project of his. But I faced him down before the Council."
"Good for you!" I said. "When you run out of theater stones, round up all those marble sundials that Berosos has sold the people. They will give you one more course for your wall."
Bias: "That gives me an idea, Chares. You said the Babylonian was an expert at calculating, didn't you? Well, run out on the mole and fetch him; then meet me in the armory."
Berosos and I found Bias in the armory with a scroll spread out on a table. Around him dust swirled as workmen carried dull-gleaming weapons and armor hither and yon. The great building rang with the sound of hammer and whetstone as the city's fighting gear was readied.
Bias coughed and raised his voice. "This is Diades' book, On the Construction of Engines of War. Diades invented the belfry for the divine Alexander, and—"
"I crave your pardon, sir," said Berosos, "but never did this Diades invent the movable siege tower. My people did."
"Oh?"
"Aye, sir. In Babylonia reliefs hundreds of years old I can show you, depicting Babylonians attacking cities by means of belfries on wheels, with rams—"
Berosos would have no doubt given us a history of siege-craft from the Flood on down, but the blunt Bias cut him off. "All right, all right, let's get back to business. We've got to build some new catapults, and I'd like to try for a greater range than anybody has obtained so far."