Chapter 55
‘But it’s moving by itself,’ Meekal said in Greek once Silas had withdrawn to the far wall of the compound and we’d unlocked the wooden cover that hid the vats from inspection by anyone else. ‘It’s as if some invisible spirit were stirring the liquid.’
I looked at the seething mass within the first of the three-hundred-gallon containers. Except for the dark, oily sheen, it looked like nothing so much as beer in its first couple of days after brewing. Taking care not to breathe in while I leaned over it, I cautiously pushed in one of the wooden stirring rods. The disturbance set the mixture into a frenzy of bubbling and plopping. I drew the wooden shaft out, and noted how it smoked as if it had just been inside a furnace.
‘How often must I tell you, my darling little grandson, that there are no invisible beings at work around us?’ I asked in a resigned tone. ‘There are no conscious forces beyond our own. Everything that happens has a natural explanation. It is by understanding the world that we can control it. Oh, you can disagree, but that’s how it is. Denounce me as an atheist if you want – but I know you wouldn’t dare. Whatever the general case, though, be assured the whole process now before you is a natural phenomenon. It’s a matter of breaking down common substances into their constituent atoms, and then recombining these into one new substance that does not of itself exist in nature. The seething shows that the breaking down is complete, but that the recombination has a few days to go yet before the new substance is stable. I have given you a full verbal description of the process. There will also be written instructions when we are sure that this attempt is a success.’
‘And it will be a success this time?’ Meekal asked. His voice had taken on that pleading tone again.
I thought of sneering about his need to impress the Caliph when the man came to see what had been achieved with such horrifying amounts of his cash. Instead, I shrugged.
‘The problem,’ I explained, ‘is that the oil seeping from the ground in Syria is of a different kind from that along the Empire’s Black Sea coast. It’s much thinner and much lighter. This means we can cut out many of the refining processes. At the same time, the results are more volatile. We haven’t lost this batch yet to spontaneous combustion. I don’t think we shall. It remains to be seen, however, whether it can be made to explode in a predictable manner when combined with the combustant.’ I prodded him with my stick as he reached forward to dip a finger into the vat. ‘If you’re willing to give up fourteen days of work, you might get some entertainment from this in one of your public executions. I really wouldn’t let that stuff on my own skin.’ He pulled his hand back and laughed. I climbed carefully down my own stepladder and followed him along the line of other vats. These we didn’t bother unlocking. With my hearing trumpet in my good ear, I simply listened for the sound of what is best described as fermentation. If each had been slightly varied in ways that only I as yet knew, all but one sounded at roughly the same stage of completion.
‘In this one,’ I said as Meekal got the cover open, ‘I more than doubled the amount of resin. It may be that this will start up again in the next few days. But I think I’ve worked out how to damp the process without entirely smothering it.’ I leaned on the rim of the earthenware vat. As I’d expected, it was warm to the touch. The basics of all this could be explained in terms of Epicurean physics. Even so, I still couldn’t reconcile the details. A thousand years before, the Master had obviously found the right path to understanding the nature of things. But he really had taken only the first few steps along what I’d learned for myself was a very long path. A shame he himself had intended his physics as nothing more than a support for his ethical teachings. Where might a whole thousand years of conjecture and experiment have taken humanity? No point in trying to answer that one. None either in thinking what might have happened, even granting the ethical bias of his teachings, if he rather than Plato and Aristotle had won the battle of the books for the human mind.
‘Quickly – come out with me!’ Meekal gasped. He clutched at my arm and hurried me into the bright, fresh air. I blinked in the sun and breathed in and out as the clouds that had, so insidiously, gathered about, drifted from my head.
‘Thank you, my dearest,’ I said, leaning against the side of my carrying chair. ‘You do have to be careful about those fumes. And they will be gathering faster before the process stabilises. Now, do be a love and fish out some more of that beer. As Silas is standing with his face to the wall, and these slaves can’t see a thing and don’t know Greek, I suppose you might care to join me in some refreshments.’
We drank. I rested. I watched the vultures overhead; doubtless Meekal’s latest victim had parched or suppurated to death. I thought about his reference to ‘supplies’. Did this mean he’d found another place where oil oozed from the ground? If so, the cellars that stretched far beneath us would be filling up with more of the basic materials. I turned and explained again to Meekal the need to filter the oil twice before it was finally sealed into the large earthenware containers to settle. He nodded impatiently. That much, at least, I had impressed on him.
The sun was now at its highest point, and I cast barely a shadow on the ground. Even with half a pint of coolish beer to keep me going, I didn’t fancy hanging about too long in the open. I nodded to Meekal. He pushed the door shut and called Silas over. We locked. We signed. We countersigned. Meekal now applied his Governor’s seal. We passed back through the gate into the first zone.
I’ll not bother with describing my inspection of the combustant. There never had been any problems with making this. It was simply a matter of unstopping one of the big jars and sniffing to make sure all remained well. The attendant security measures took far longer than the inspection. At last, we were back into the first zone, where Silas had ordered a most welcome lunch for me of bread in milk and olive paste. While I ate, Meekal gnawed at a crust and went with Silas through all the many ledger entries made since our last visit. All was in order. Still, he sniffed about – questioning bread consumption, asking about the burial of the workmen who’d not survived the last explosion, testing to make sure he knew the names and faces of every single guard.
Now, the break was over, and it was time to inspect the fourth zone, this entered through a gate at the far end of the third zone.
‘If not in writing, I gave precise instructions about the size of these openings,’ I said with rising impatience. I had my visor up and was looking through my lenses at the double valve that the straining workmen held before me. ‘It must fit exactly over the two spouts of the joined kettles, and the opening of each valve must allow the correct quantities of vapour into the mixing chamber. Again, the single exit spout must be of a certain diameter. It needs to fit precisely over the final bronze projection pipe. I’ll not fault the hardness of the steel – after all, this is Damascus. But this thing as it stands will simply produce another explosion.’ I replaced my visor and stood back to see the abortion that had emerged from fourteen days of labour in another of the sealed zones. It was a ball with about the same volume as a large cooking pot. The two feeding spouts were probably the right size and distance apart – we’d see about that in a moment. But it was plain, even without a measuring rod, that they weren’t long enough to fit safely within threaded sleeves on to the kettles. The exit spout was also too short. And it was too narrow. The bronze projection pipe really would pop straight off – that, if we didn’t have an explosion from the backed-up mixture. It really would all have to be redone.