32
N
UMA INVITED CALLI to his battlefort
Gladiator
for a drink.
“That is not a terrific idea,” said Captain Carmel.
Numa chided, “You went on a
date
with Romulus.”
“And how
is
Rom?” Calli asked too politely.
“The same,” said Numa.
That would be incapacitated, twitching, comatose.
“You must come,” Caesar commanded. “Bring Dr. Cordillera. We were told he was here.”
“Jose Maria is a hostage downstairs with your pirates,” said Calli.
“Do not attribute the pirates to Us,” said Numa. “It is irritating and insulting to Us.”
Calli said, “I don’t know if Jose Maria is even alive. I have no knowledge of what’s happening under that dome. You’ll need to ask your inside man.”
“More accusations,” said Numa.
“Any of them true?”
“Of course not.”
Refusing hospitality was not done in space. Even during a hot war, which this was not, it was not done. Sharing food and drink was the most ancient and basic human intercourse. It was a duty beyond sacred out here. Civilized spacefarers were bound to maintain their humanity in the most hostile of environments. Space was stark, ruthless. Everyone was vulnerable.
Dinner or drink invitations were a social mandate. You could shoot each other after dinner, but, unless the guy killed your mother, you must attend dinner. To do otherwise put you on a level with a pirate.
So when the head of the Roman Empire invited Captain Carmel for a drink, she must go.
Calli boarded
Gladiator
in dress whites with trousers and flat shoes. Her hair was pulled severely back, held by a heavy golden cicada. Rob Roy Buchanan came with her. They both wore armbands of LEN green.
Heads of most states adopted a dignified, reserved, subdued garb. The emperor of Rome went the other way. Numa Pompeii made all his entrances like a circus rhino: big, flashy, loud.
In an empire that adored beauty, Numa was as lovely as a tyrannosaurus.
But you don’t need beauty when you are
Rex.
Because more than beauty, Rome loved the biggest, strongest, brightest, cleverest, loudest.
The reprod scientists broke the mold after they made Numa. Probably right after they beheld their creation and said
Oh, Gods, what have we done?
Caesar advanced into his dining chamber as if claiming the field. He was built like a stack of boulders, well padded with brawn, even to his craggy face. The fabric of his tunic moved like liquid steel. The bronze toga over that also looked molten. His oakleaf crown was bronze.
Numa recognized Rob Roy. “Ah. The first mate.” Numa’s voice boomed even in conversational tones.
Rob Roy brought a bottle of single malt for their host. Numa passed the gift to an attendant. There was already a red wine breathing in a decanter of Roman glass on the olivewood table.
The attendant withdrew. It was just the three of them in the chamber. They didn’t sit or recline, which was more the Roman way. For now they stood.
Caesar poured the wine.
“To Zoe.” Numa lifted his glass.
“To life,” said Calli.
The ornate bronze pillars ringing the dinner chamber might be real. The gentle sea of Mediterranean blue beyond them was illusion. The slight breezes were balmy.
Numa said, “Callista. You reverted to your natural looks.”
“Since when are my looks subject for imperial comment?” said Calli.
“A face has been known to launch a thousand ships,” said Numa. “Ships in that volume get imperial attention.”
Calli said, “The sack of Troy was never really about Helen.”
“And Rome’s presence here has damned little to do with you,” said Numa.
“And Rome lets its emperor go dashing out to the edge of the known galaxy?” Calli asked.
“Rome expects it.”
“Numa. Why are you here?”
“We are reviewing Our secret empire,” said Numa.
That was a joke. But not really.
Admitting that he had less than absolute power over his vast empire was admitting a weakness.
Odd that Numa would speak of it. But he must know Calli was already aware of the possibility.
“I don’t think Romulus made it this far into the Outback,” said Calli. “This is ANZAC space.”
“Never trust where Romulus’ tentacles might have reached,” said Numa.
Calli agreed. “Romans are like heartworms that way.”
Numa said, “Romulus is here.”
Calli’s mouth opened and some words or others ought to be coming out of it, but she didn’t know which. Numa could always enrage her, but she hadn’t thought he could still shock her. “What?”
“Not Romulus, the physical creature. His tentacles. His Romulii. There is a secret society within Rome. You know that one.”
She had heard of it.
Under the reign of Numa Pompeii, the followers of mad Caesar Romulus had gone underground. There were still an appalling number of Roman citizens loyal to the incapacitated mad emperor. Romulus had been the most cunning, manipulative, grandiose, conscience-free, beloved, hated Caesar of the new Empire. His adherents, the Romulii, denied, ignored, dismissed accusations that Romulus was a patricide. Romulus was the one Caesar who nearly returned Rome to her true glory.
Instead, he’d brought Rome to the brink of disaster. Even sane people forgot about that part.
Like a drunk recovered from a massive banging hangover, a part of Rome looked back fondly on the reign of the mad emperor Romulus and wanted to try that again—the swaggering belligerence, the unapologetic excesses, the intoxicating power. The war.
A secret society moved now within Rome—the supporters of mad Romulus. The Romulii.
The secret kept itself. Most times when the existence of the Romulii was mentioned in public, the immediate reaction was, “You have got to be kidding.”
So Rome herself had existed very well as a secret society within many nations of Earth during the Long Silence.
The shoe was in the other closet now.
Calli gave a stalking-cat smile. “Oh, and how does
that
feel?”
“A surprising lack of civility for someone of your rank and training, Captain Carmel.”
“It’s a lack of hypocrisy, Numa. You and I have a long history of shooting at each other.”
“Which is why We trust you.”
“Can’t say the same.”
“Romulus concerns Us,” said Numa. “There is nothing like being dead to improve one’s image.”
“Did Rom die?” Calli felt something. Not sure what. Definitely not sad.
“Romulus is not actually dead,” said Numa. “Effectively dead, but with a very dangerous possibility of resurrection should someone devise a way to extricate the nanites from his brain. If he dies in fact, there will be accusations of assassination.”
“Will they be true?”
“I have tried.”
The blunt statement startled Calli. She believed him. She couldn’t believe Caesar said it to her. But he hadn’t used a royal plural when he confessed.
“Not while Romulus was Caesar, I did not. But Romulus the raving vegetable . . .” He let the rest of the sentence hang. Sighed. “That is one heavily protected vegetable.”
“You tried to have Romulus assassinated,” said Calli. “Why would you tell me that?”
“Why would We not? Repeat it if you like. No one will believe you.”
“Numa, there are
two
of us here.” Calli’s eyes flicked aside toward her Legal Officer.
“Married,” said Numa. “You two have vowed to stand together come what may. You are less than useless vouching for each other. I want Romulus dead. That should not be a shock.”
“The shock is that you can’t get it done,” said Calli. “He’s in your custody.”
“The not getting blood on my hands is the difficult piece of it. But it must be done. I cannot have the vegetable’s name spoken in the same breath as this world’s. This place holds a significance unlike any other.”
“You think the DNA is real?” said Calli. “As a natural, independent evolution, I mean.”
“It is real. Beyond a doubt, reasonable or otherwise.”
So says the man who just got here
.
Numa went on, “The discovery is profound. Earthshaking, you would say. Some tremors were felt through Palatine too, be assured. This world is too important to leave in the hands of its natives.”
“You mean it’s too important to entrust it to the beings God gave it to?” Calli said.
“The motto of Rome is
not
In God We Trust,” said Numa.
“No,” Calli agreed. “It’s not. It’s
Senatus Populusque Romanus
.” SPQR. The Senate and the People of Rome. “Just where do you fit into that, Numa? Are you the Senate or are you the People?”
“Verily? That’s our motto?” Numa said with all the innocence he didn’t have. “I thought our motto was
I came. I saw. I conquered
.”
The moment Calli returned to the
Merrimack
, she ran up to the command deck with a controlled panic she hadn’t shown to Numa.
She blew through the hatch barking, “Get me Colonel Steele.”
The com tech got the ground unit on the res link.
“Abort the search for the Xerxes,” Calli ordered. “Redirect operation. Get to the LEN camp. Get our people out. Caesar may be making a move. The pirates could panic, and there’s no one in camp that Numa can’t spare. Get in there first.”
Calli looked at the chron. It was five hours before sundown on that part of the world.
“Get there before next sunup. I’m sending all the information I have on the site and on the pirates.”
Steele didn’t object to the impossible assignment. Her XO did.
“A forced march over three marathons in strong gravity?” Commander Ryan said after she cut the connection. “They can’t make it before sunrise.”
Calli knew that. Said, “I don’t think whatever’s about to happen will wait any longer.”
“What is going to happen?”
“Numa Pompeii,” said Calli. “Numa Pompeii is going to happen. Never mind that Zoe has sapient life—which never stops Rome anyway—but this planet is already a LEN protectorate. Which should stop Rome. And it won’t. Numa has come to Eden. Imperial presence, his big personal presence, means Rome isn’t on a humanitarian mission. Caesar Numa Pompeii is going to stab the planet with his eagles.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Captain,” said Dingo. “But this is an emergency?”
Calli said, “First scenario: The pirates are just pirates. Numa breaks atmo. The pirates start carving up hostages.
“Second scenario: The pirates are agents of Numa. Numa breaks atmo. The pirates kill all the hostages, clearing the entire League of Earth Nations presence from the planet for Numa. All roads from Rome lead to dead hostages.”
Tactical reported, “Scenario Three, off the starboard stern.” Marcander Vincent enlarged the image on the tactical monitor.
A LEN ship had entered the star system.
Calli knew this one, the LEN ship
Windward Isles
. Despite its idyllic name,
Windward Isles
was a pirate hunter.
I don’t think he can help me
. Still, she was happy to see him. She hailed
Windward
over the LEN channel and bade the captain come aboard.
She met him at the dock with open arms. “Ram Singh!”
Captain Carmel gave and received a kiss on either cheek.
“Calli Carmel.” Ram’s grin was very white in his dark face. Even his mellow voice smiled. “You look good in green.”
“Don’t,” Calli warned. “Just don’t.”
Ram knew how she hated to wear LEN colors and to have any flag near Old Glory.
Ram’s
Windward Isles
had come here responding to an interrupted message from the LEN scientific expedition team. A breathy female voice:
This is LEN expedition base Zebra Oscar Echo. We ha—have—
“We believe The Ninth Circle might be on Zoe,” said Ram.
“The Ninth Circle
is
on Zoe,” said Calli. “They have control of the LEN expedition camp. And as you
might
have noticed, Rome is here.”
“Rome is here,” Ram said. The battlefort
Gladiator
shone like a star.
“Numa is going to make a move,” Calli told Ram. “And I’m afraid Numa’s idea of a surgical strike might be amputation.”