The Twice and Future Caesar (15 page)

Captain Carmel said coldly, “Your court martial will wait until the present crisis passes, Colonel Steele. Z, bring this Marine up to speed.”

Then the captain turned her back on him, and quit the dock.

Kerry Blue. In officer's country. Looking for Colonel Steele. No idea what she was going say when she saw that man face-to-face. Her CO. Her husband. Was there anything to say?

I cheated on you with your best friend. I thought you were dead.

She felt as if there were a burrowing animal loose in her gut. Her face burned. Then it felt like ice.

She'd known he wasn't dead. Deep down, she'd known.

Shouldn't say anything.

What if it got back to him somehow else? About her and Cain.

She froze up altogether as the voice sounded at her back.

“You're out of bounds, Flight Sergeant.”

She inhaled quick. Forgot how to exhale. Wanted to throw up. She
turned. The face she so desperately wanted and so dreaded to see. Eyes like blue ice. He knew. Oh, he knew.

That look said it all. His face was stone. Betrayed, pissed off, angry, disappointed stone. Kerry Blue felt herself turn white. Opened her mouth to say something difficult.

“Thomas, I—”

Up went Steele's forefinger. “Don't.”

“But—”

He stopped her. Whole palm up now. Didn't want to hear it.

Her world shredded around her.

TR Steele spoke, a low growl, and this would be the last word on it. “Kerry Blue, I know who I married.”

19 Aprilis 2448
Xerxes
Centauri Star System
Near Space

Romulus brooded, pacing long strides, restless inside his fortress Xerxes.

Woe to Terra Rica!

It wasn't enough, destroying Terra Rica. It wasn't nearly enough. It didn't bring Claudia back.

Claudia was still dead.

Done was done.

He threw back his head and screamed to the universe,
“NO!”

Hands shaking, eyes blurred with tears, he plugged into patterner mode. The leads rattled as he made the final connections behind his neck. There must be an answer in the vast information available to him.

The barrage of knowledge struck. He staggered, fell to his knees, almost too angry to see the patterns.

Clarity came to him as a double-edged blade.

The fact remained: Romulus could not bring back the dead.

But there was another question he hadn't seen before, and it had an answer.

I can make her not to have died
.

I will move heaven and Earth and all the worlds in between. I will move space and time! My will be done!

T
IME
TRAVEL
WAS
A
FACT
. The Xi tablet was testament to that—a twenty-billion-year-old artifact in a fifteen-billion-year-old universe. Time travel was possible. It was only left for Romulus to bend it to his will.

The Xi tablet had been found on a dead world in a star system not distant from Earth, 82 Eridani III.

“Where is the Xi tablet now?” Romulus asked his search engine on board his Xerxes.

The Xerxes responded, “The Smithsonian.”

So the Yanks had the Xi tablet.

“Assemble for my review all resources relating to the Xi tablet. Include tangential references.”

He paced animatedly as he waited.

The Xi tablet had gone back in time. How?

The Xerxes quickly assembled the responsive data into one repository. As a patterner Romulus could sift through all the information and identify significant connections.

Sometimes the motion of a single molecule made a difference, and its amplifications rippled out across the stars.

All data paths converged to a critical point: an instant in time when a rift existed and then ceased to be.

It had happened in the galactic Deep End, inside a globular cluster of over a million stars, designation IC9870986.

The Myriad.

* * *

The Xi tablet originated on an alien world inside the Myriad cluster. Somehow, the Xi tablet ended up on 82 Eridani III—a quarter of the way across the galaxy—billions of years before the tablet was ever formed.

Now the Myriad was falling into itself, feeding a black hole from which no information escaped.

Something was locked inside that black hole that could not exist in this reality. Romulus needed to pinpoint the instant and place where time broke.

And get himself there.

Romulus unplugged his cables. Quitting patterner mode was always an unsettling, stomach-lurching downshift. His thoughts tumbled.

His search told him he was missing information. It also told him where that information was housed.

The United States Space Battleship
Merrimack
had been in the Myriad when something triggered the globular cluster's collapse.

Romulus contacted a human attendant. “We have a loyalist on the
Merrimack,
do we not?”

“Yes, Caesar. She's a Flight Sergeant in the U.S. Fleet Marine.”

“Can she mine a database?”

“She is Roman, Caesar.”

Of course
.

“Get me all the records from
Merrimack
created during
Merrimack
's maneuvers in the globular cluster Myriad in 2443.”

“It shall be done, Caesar.”

Romulus plugged back into his data bank. There was something else he'd marked while he was prowling the huge store of information. He hadn't been looking for it. He was surprised to find it.

He disconnected, almost laughing.

Numa Pompeii has a patterner!

Romulus smiled through a throbbing headache.

And a Farragut
.

Everything was happening for a reason. This was destiny.

Gods were not ruled by Creation.

20 Aprilis 2448
Bagheera
Centauri Star System
Near Space

On board the pirate ship
Bagheera
, Orissus growled, “Cinna, do something with him!”

Nox looked left and right. No one else in this compartment but Cinna and Orissus.

Orissus was talking about him, Nox.

“What?” Nox said.

Orissus snarled. “What do you mean
what?
Art thou mad?”

“He is,” Cinna told Orissus. Mad, Cinna meant.

“I am?” Nox said. “Why do you think so?”

“Night terrors,” Cinna said. “You've been having them. Hysterical screaming for five minutes then you go back to sleep.”

“
He
goes back to sleep!” Orissus shouted. “
I
don't!”

“Sorry,” Nox mumbled and moved apart to a compartment where no one was. This chamber used to be the ambassador's office.

Nox didn't so much sit down as he crumpled to the deck.

He pulled a dagger.

What is a conscience and can I cut it out?

He found tears on his face. “Am I dying,
Bagheera?
”

The ship heard him. Advised him that it did not understand the question.
Bagheera
told Nox the question was ambiguous, as all things that live can be said to be dying. “Please restate query,” the ship said.

“Forget it,” Nox said.

“Query deleted,”
Bagheera
said.

Bagheera
operated in full stealth, orbiting the artificial world of Beta Centauri, where Romulus was celebrating his return.

Numa Pompeii wanted his assassins close to Romulus.

Nox got up from the deck. He dyed his hair, his skin, and his eyes brown. He displaced down to the planet. He could see the coliseum from here. Could hear the crowd.

The games hadn't paused in mourning for the tragedy at Terra Rica. The flag over the coliseum flew at full staff.

Nox had known a Terra Rican, a famous one. Jose Maria de Cordillera.
Very important, so naturally he'd been a guest at Chief Justice John Knox Farragut Senior's house. Nox remembered
Don
Cordillera as a gracious man. Nox would've liked Jose Maria if he hadn't been such a good friend of that other man named John Farragut.

Nox wasn't mourning Terra Rica either. Not a lot. Most of the people had got out. They lost everything, but they got out. The loss was mostly a whole lot of expensive real estate owned by a few overprivileged people.

Nox had grown up overprivileged. He didn't really pity them.

The coliseum on Beta Centauri was filled to climbing-room-only, even though Romulus wasn't there in person. Romulus had flooded the arena and was staging sea battles in it. There were live sharks in the water.

Nox fell into a tavern to watch the battles on the monitors, drink a lot, and lose money.

He walked out of the tavern late.

As he was losing consciousness, he hoped that these were his brothers snatching him off the street and bundling him into the back of a transport.

No such deal.

When he was hauled out of the transport, Nox was either still really really drunk and having hallucinations or he actually was in the presence of Romulus, Caesar Pretender of the Roman Empire.

Nox stumbled as he was pushed into the Presence.

Romulus Julius was the finest looking man that bioengineers could possibly design. His deep brown eyes and full indulgent mouth stopped just short of being sybaritic. His build was athletic. He looked butch and lordly, even dressed up in that big lacy Elizabethan collar and those voluminous sleeves with lace cuffs.

Romulus greeted Nox, “
Ave
.”

Nox was not intimidated by emperors. His own father was a Zeusly being, and Nox currently took orders directly from Caesar Numa Pompeii. Nox wasn't in a groveling mood for this guy.

Guards scanned Nox for weapons. They took his daggers, then they withdrew, leaving Nox facing Romulus.

Nox looked left and right, then squinted at Romulus. It seemed impossible that they should be alone together. There had to be a force field between them, but he couldn't see its shimmer. “Did you know I have orders to assassinate you?”

Romulus said, “And did you know that you are about to get blinded on the road to Damascus?”

For a moment Nox feared he was about to have his eyes gouged out. But Nox had a Bible-thumping father, so he recognized the reference.

Saul of Tarsus had been blinded by the glory of the true God on the road to Damascus and transformed from Christian-killing Roman zealot into epistle-writing Christian zealot.

So Nox was about to receive a revelation.

Romulus said, “I want Cinna.”

“No,” Nox said.

“I intend no harm. I need Cinna alive and well. He needs me.
You
need me.”

“Do I?”

“How do I say it in Americanese: You been done wrong. Very wrong, Nox Antonius.”

Something reverberated inside Nox. His face felt hot. It tore Nox up to correct Romulus, “That's not my name.”

Antonius, Nox's Roman family name, had been stripped from him. He was outcast now. He was no one.

“I am Caesar, and you are who I say you are, Nox Antonius.”

The sound of his Roman name filled Nox with a warmth like a hot drink to one too cold even to shiver.

Romulus went on, “You were not made
damnati
under a legitimate Caesar.”

Oh, the snake in Eden wasn't this seductive.

Romulus said, “I need your patterner.”

That woke Nox up cold from his pretty, pretty dream. “No. I won't betray my brothers.” He spread his arms, offering himself. “Do your worst.”

“I tell you I mean Cinna only the best. We have a bond. Cinna and I.”

Romulus unlaced his wide collar and pushed up his full sleeves.

Patterner cables extended from Romulus' neck and forearms.

Afraid he was gawking, Nox cried, “Can't be!”

“Am,” said Romulus, calmly smoothing his sleeves back down. “Now, I shall tell you what you believe happened on the morning you hazed Cinna.”

“I know what happened,” Nox said. “I was there.” Didn't want to relive it.

“Do not interrupt. On that morning, you and your squad took Cinna to the top of Widow's Edge. You told him to jump off the cliff. It was a ritual hazing. Of course Cinna jumped. The net that was meant to catch
him failed to deploy. The incident was caught on satellite surveillance. Funny that a satellite camera just happened to be focused on Widow's Edge at the precise moment on the single instance that the net
ever
failed.”

Nox nodded, sour. “Funny.”

“For Cinna's supposed death, you and your squad were drummed out of Legio Persus, stripped of your Roman citizenship, and declared
damnati
. Cinna was salvaged from the bottom of the cliff and fashioned into a patterner. Or that's what you believe.”

Nox's throat was tight. He squeezed out words. “That's pretty much what happened.”

“No. You're wrong. The failure of the net to deploy was not an accident.”

“I know,” Nox said wearily. And
merda
, tears were pushing their way out. “Some jackaster jammed a rock in the net mechanism for the hell of it.” He had to sniffle. That was weak.

Romulus said, “The rock was definitely jammed in there, but no, it was not the random act of a vandal. It was the very deliberate act of a slave named Baucus on orders from his master, Numa Pompeii.”

Wet eyelids opened wide.
“Caesar Numa?”

“Pretender Numa. That criminal slug is not Caesar.”

Romulus was speaking terrible, amazing things. “Numa required a young Roman of unquestioned loyalty. Cinna's willingness to take the fatal step proved that he valued honor over life. Numa needed Cinna to appear to die so Numa wouldn't be caught carving up one of his own loyal citizens. And Numa also wanted you—you specifically, Nox Antonius—to take the blame for Cinna's death.”

“Me?”

Nox had been no one remarkable back then. Just another ephebe, a young new soldier in Legio Persus. Okay, that was what Nox wanted to think he was. Nox was different. He'd been born in America. He'd been born a Farragut.

Romulus went on. “Squads are always formed in eights. Tell me how was it that there happened to be an opening in your squad for Cinna?”

Nox opened his mouth. He couldn't say it. And he got the idea that Romulus already knew. Nox's squad had numbered seven because Rubeus Tunica Antonius had been stung by a sand needle. Rubeus Tunica hadn't felt it. The brothers hadn't known it happened until Rubeus failed to wake up and the
medici
found the sand needle in his foot.

“Remarkable that your brother Rubeus Tunica didn't feel the sting,” Romulus said. “Sand needles are ungodly painful.”