The Twice and Future Caesar (25 page)

Rear Admiral Mishindi's voice came over the com with greater volume than Farragut had ever heard out of him. “
What weren't you thinking!
”

Trying to explain it just made him sound a little bit crackers. Farragut was still on the interview when breaking news lit up all the space repeaters. The Pacific Consortium's development center in Perseid space had blown up.

The Pacific Consortium was now screaming at the U.S.

Rear Admiral Mishindi looked ready to ream his formerly favorite ship captain. “Well, John. You've created a diplomatic incident. Is this what you were going for?”

“This here is sorta actually the incident I was trying to get in front of, sir,” Farragut said.

Mishindi demanded that Farragut's Intelligence Officer be put on the com at once.

“Colonel Augustus,” Mishindi began tightly. “Are your people involved in the sabotage of the Pacific Consortium's facility?”

Augustus didn't call the rear admiral “Sir.” He didn't bother looking at Mishindi at all. “My particular people, no. But I cannot, will not, answer for Romulus' people.”

“
Romulus?
” Rear Admiral Mishindi blinked as if a fastball just got past him. “Romulus son of Magnus? Romulus is a bit player. Forget Romulus!”

“At your peril,” said Augustus and walked away from the com.

Mishindi's eyes flared very white in his dark face. “Captain Farragut. You do know that you may send that thing back to Palatine any time.”

That thing. Augustus.

“I do know, sir. It's what he wants. It would be a mistake. I need him.”

Captain Farragut searched for Colonel Augustus. Found him at last in the brig. Farragut frowned, puzzled. “Why are you here?”

“I figured it's where you'd want me.”

Farragut leaned against the hatchway. “I thought about it. Augustus, are we sure it was Romulus who blew up the Pacifics' development center? Romulus can't have got to Perseid space from the Myriad that fast, can he?”

“Romulus doesn't need to be in Perseid space. He only needed to order the hit. He has dangerous friends in Perseid space, it would seem.”

“So answer me this: Did Romulus just make his own future-built ship cease to exist?”

“The classic paradox doesn't seem to be playing out that way,” Augustus said. “But we'll know soon enough.”

“How?”

“When Romulus meets Romulus.”

3 September 2443
Xerxes
Roma Nova, Palatine
Corona Australis star system
Near Space

At last. At long last. Romulus arrived inside the Lambda Coronae Australis star system, where lay Palatine, capital world of the Roman Empire.

His Xerxes breeched Palatine airspace undetected. His ship's descent over the capital city of Nova Roma triggered no alarms. He set down in a park near the Capitoline Hill. No one heard or saw a thing.

Security picked up his approach on foot to the palace. All the sensors recognized him and let him pass.

He was climbing the one hundred wide snowy steps to the palace on the Capitoline when he saw her.

She waited at the top. A vision. Auburn hair. Stature of a goddess. Soft. Fierce. Haughty. She took his breath away.

He paused on the steps to steady himself against the force of emotion that swept over him. The enormity of what he'd done to get here caught up with him.

Her image shimmered through the mist that sprang to his eyes. Emotion thickened his throat. She was here. He had arrived.

She saw him.

Amazement crossed Claudia's face with a tentative smile as he mounted the stairs. “Look at you!”

She knew him. Even with five years on him, she knew him.

Romulus climbed the rest of the hundred steps to her, effortlessly. He felt winged. He reached the top. He stood over her. Breathed in the cloud of her scent, her warmth. She was here. He was here. He'd done it. He had moved space and time. He was here.

Her wide dark eyes moved, taking in all of him.

His voice came out thick. “How do I look?”

Her gaze met his. “Formidable.”

Her mouth stayed open, marveling, smiling. He offered her his arm. She slipped her little hand into the crook of his elbow and fell into step beside him. She would be able to feel the hard gauntlet under his sleeve, concealing his patterner's cables.

He felt her living presence beside him. He was lord of the universe.

She kept stealing glances up at him as he escorted her inside the palace. Against all facts, she knew him. Changed as he was, she knew him.

So did his alter ego.

Young Romulus had caught a glimpse of him in the forecourt. Young Romulus came bounding inside to see himself in the atrium. The alter ego knew exactly who he was. The young alter ego looked dazzled.

Romulus, the god, faced the younger being who called himself Romulus now in this
Anno Domini
2443.

Was I ever such a feckless idiot?
This face that I used to see in the mirror gazes back at me now with star-struck wonder
.

“So this is what I become,” said the alter ego, grinning, amazed.

That is what I was? I could just die
.

No use waiting another moment. The sooner done, the less confusion. Romulus the patterner, the god, needed to know right now, once and for dead certain, what would happen. It was the old time-travel conundrum.

“Let us have this done.”

Patterner Romulus, newly arrived from
Anno Domini
2448, drew his weapon here in 2443 and shot his younger self in the
head.

T
HE
ALTER
EGO
WAS
DEAD
.

Romulus the patterner lived. He'd been certain that he would. Everything he'd seen so far told him this was a parallel universe, not a fork in the one he'd left behind.

Claudia screamed. Wholly expected.

The palace guards had their weapons out, not sure where to point them. The guards didn't know what they'd seen. What to do. There was a dead Romulus. There was a live Romulus.

“Put those away,” the living Romulus ordered. He turned his back on the guns, holstered his sidearm, and took Claudia in his arms. “That!” He sneered at the dead man. “That thing is nothing. I am the one who loves you more than any man ever loved anything or anyone. You are empress of my universe. Sweet Claudia, grieve not for that.”

The word
empress
reached through her terror and grief. He knew it would.

Romulus pulled an eraser from his sleeve, turned it on the fallen body of the alter ego, and atomized the remains. Claudia squeaked. A guard ordered uselessly, “Hold!”

Another guard pulled the trigger of his weapon.

The guard's weapon didn't fire. It recognized the target as Caesar's son. Everyone heard the damning tone of machine refusal. The weapon spoke: “Target denied.”

The guard who'd tried to fire on Romulus turned white. Said awkwardly, apologetic, “
Domni
.”

Romulus ignored the guard's existence, as if it were a trivial thing, the attempt to kill him. It was good that everyone saw the weapon refusing to fire on him. The man could vanish later if Romulus was still vexed. For now Romulus gave all his attention to Claudia. “Do you still want blue diamonds? For your crown? I think emeralds become you.”

The palace guards stared at this authoritarian being who looked and sounded like Romulus, who seemed to have assassinated another Romulus. There was no protocol for this scenario. The palace
guns
thought he was the true son of Caesar and had refused to fire on him.

This Romulus acted as if everything were under control and there were no issues worth his attention.

The captain of the guard blurted, “
Domni
!”

Romulus turned, annoyed. In a normal voice, a bit tired, he said, “What?”

“I beg your pardon. I require—request—some physical readings.”

“Why did you not require those earlier? I should break you for letting that imposter into my sister's company. But I recognize that it was a convincing fraud. It even fooled Claudia. Now pay attention and do your duty.” Romulus offered himself to be read. “I am who I am.”

His DNA, his retinae, his bioelectric signature, and his brain waves all said he was Romulus son of Magnus. There was some oddity in the age of his cells. But things could happen to age a man. Mere age did not change who a man was.

His cables—Romulus called them his prostheses—they were his and none of their concern. “Just verify who I am. My personal business is my own.”

The guards posed the challenge questions they had on record. He answered all correctly without hesitation. Until he had enough of it. “You are done. Thou shalt leave now.”

This was, irrefutably, Romulus son of Magnus.

One guard blurted, “You just murdered someone.”

“Who?” Romulus said faintly. “Whom did I murder? Someone must be dead if I murdered someone. You cannot arrest me for murder until you produce or even identify a victim.”

Romulus was known as a games player. If Romulus set a snare, you didn't want to step into it. The guards withdrew.

Romulus turned to Claudia.

Claudia's face was wet. She looked pretty crying. Most women looked grotesque. She sniffled. Her pretty hands gestured over the empty space
where had lain that thing she'd mistaken for him, Romulus, her adored brother. She squeaked, “I don't understand.”

Romulus cupped her cheek in his palm. “Anything you want is yours. That is all you ever need to know.”

He'd always held sway over her. She loved him like a prisoner in love with her captor. He was the lord of her existence, the most powerful being in the universe. She must love him.

Claudia let him guide her inside to a private chamber. He told her, “We need to remove Magnus.”

Claudia revived at once, exasperated. “Have I not been telling you so!”

“Yes, beloved. I didn't listen until it was too late.”

“Is it too late?”

“Not this time. You were right. You are right. There are things that must happen.”

“Marry me,” Claudia demanded.

“Yes. That is one.”

She threw her arms around him. Kissed him all over his face. Then she pulled back and pummeled his chest with one fist.

“What!
Took!
You! So!
Long!
”

“Oh, my sweet, longer than you know. Come.”

He escorted her out of the palace, past the abashed guards. He ordered them to stay at their posts.

His Xerxes sat, invisible on the palace grounds. He introduced Claudia to the Xerxes. She looked nervous. Must've thought he was crazy, talking to vacant air.

Then he led her by the hand up the unseen ramp.

A Xerxes would kill unauthorized borders. Claudia had been introduced. The ship accepted her. Romulus instructed the Xerxes to obey Claudia's every wish and to defend her against all harm.

“These chambers are whatever you command them to be,” he told her.

The deck to which they entered appeared now as an ornate terrace overlooking a brilliant, deep blue sea. They could see bright coral, white sand, and colorful fish under the surface.

“Change the appearance as you wish. Only tell it what you want. Just don't try to walk through the cordons. Those mean real walls.”

Later in the evening, Romulus and Claudia sat cuddled together in a virtual alpine ski lodge. They watched news bulletins reporting the assassination of Caesar's son, Romulus.

There were interviews with witnesses, but no recordings of the assassination itself.

“What is this?” Claudia pointed at the vid.

“Idiocy,” Romulus said. “Let the comments fall like the rain.”

Senators were launching their own investigations into the event. They claimed that a being who looked like an older Romulus had murdered Romulus son of Magnus. They wanted to apprehend and charge this imposter with the assassination.

Romulus got up, threw on a toga over his black shirt and black jeans, and pulled on his black riding boots.

“I'm sorry, Claudia. I need to sort out these monkeys. Make the ship entertain you.”

“I want to watch the monkeys.”

Romulus brought up the program that would transmit the Senate proceedings for her to watch from the safety of the Xerxes.

Romulus presented himself at the midnight meeting in the curia and announced to all the Senators, “I live.”

Senator Ventus said at once, “That is not Romulus.”

Romulus twisted a smile. “With disrespect, I beg to differ.”

Most of the Senators noticed a difference, but the longer one looked at him and heard him speak, the more one became convinced that he had to be Romulus. He remembered private conversations. But it was the inimitable attitude that sealed it.

One of the guards who had checked him in the entryway testified: “He's not a clone. Clones have unique cellular markers. I don't know what witnesses saw, but this is, beyond any doubt, Romulus son of Magnus.”

Senator Ventus pointed. “There's something wrong with his neck and arms. I think we should see.”

Romulus shamed Ventus. Told him to leave his prostheses out of this.

Senator Quirinius demanded a DNA test be run on Romulus' victim.

“You're beyond ridiculous now. If I killed someone, then you tell me who it is that I killed. You can't. You slander me. I shall seek recourse.”

Senator Quirinius' face muscles writhed. “You killed Romulus.”

“Bring the corpse.”

Quirinius couldn't produce the body. So a group of Senators respectfully summoned Romulus' father into the Curia.

“All rise for Caesar Magnus.”

On seeing Romulus, the old man trembled a little.

Romulus looked him level in the eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

Magnus nodded slowly.

“Good.
We
are making a public announcement, Father.”

Magnus inquired, guarded, “What do you suppose I will say?”

“Anything you like,” Romulus said. “I'll go first.”

Romulus announced through all the news services that he would be making a galaxy-shaking announcement.

Watch for it.

A lot of people asked why he didn't just make the announcement.

But the announcement was shaping up to be a major event to be broadcast across civilized space. Romulus didn't give a date or time.
Watch for it
.

It happened on Lieutenant Glenn Hamilton's watch.

Romulus' event opened with enormous fanfare that gave time for most of civilization to wake up, drop everything, and tune in.

Romulus had never been a civic leader, but he was Caesar Magnus' natural son, so he was a celebrity.

Even if you wanted to snub Romulus, the anticipated event was taking on enough momentum that you had to watch just so you knew what everyone else was going to be talking about afterward.

Romulus made his entrance in an arena at an unidentified location, which made one wonder how the audience knew to go there, or if the audience and the arena were even real.

Romulus strode under an arch to the accompaniment of ferocious music that was all brass and triumph and gloria in a rain of cold fire. There was a quick scramble among the news commentators to identify the musical composition.

“That's grand,” Calli said. She looked to Jose Maria de Cordillera, who had joined her and the captain on
Merrimack
's command deck. “What's the music?”

Jose Maria shook his head.

The news commentators were saying it was Romulus' own composition.

The music climbed, labored, from a beaten and broken depth up to a hard fought peak, where it stood up and took flight.

While the galaxy waited for Romulus' appearance, reporters consulted musical critics, who were comparing his work to Beethoven.

Farragut turned around. “Cal, Jose Maria, y'all listen to this classical stuff. Are they blowing smoke up Romulus' stern pipe?”

“He's not Beethoven,” Calli said. “The composition is a little overwrought. But it's not hack work.”

Jose Maria said, “I never knew Romulus had music in him.”

“Then he stole it,” Farragut said.

“You'd think so,” Calli allowed. “But I don't know who he could've stolen it
from
. It doesn't sound like anyone else. Maybe Berlioz, but it's better than Berlioz.” She looked to Jose Maria.

“It sounds like something Romulus would compose if Romulus was a composer,” Jose Maria said. “And apparently he is.”

“Sir?” a perplexed technician spoke out of turn from his station. “Who cares?”

Jose Maria answered that. “Megalomania coupled with creative organization of thought on that level is a little frightening. I care.”

On a mammoth display behind the podium where Romulus was to give his address, a resonant visual feed began transmitting. The transmission source was identified as the League of Earth Nations ship
Woodland Serenity.
The ship was visible by starlight in the spectacular star cluster called the Myriad.

Then images from the lush planet Arra came into focus. Closer, they revealed tentacled gorgons devastating fields and forests, towns and living beings.

The images engulfed the arena so that even if you were safe on your space battleship, or sitting in Mad Bear O's with your tequila shots watching the show on the screen over the bar, you felt you were about to be eaten alive.

Romulus stepped up to the podium, a tiny island in the chaos.