The Twice and Future Caesar

by R. M. Meluch

  Augustus answered. “No and yes. Terra Rica is still out there. It’s still alive. Today. But the configuration of the background planets and stars in this recording is consistent with a date in Anno Domini 2448, which is also consistent with the apparent age of your niece in this recording.”

  Jose Maria’s voice shuddered. “This will happen?”

  “No. This already happened in a future reality.”

  Jose Maria inhaled, like breathing in knives. “Is there nothing to be done?”

  “Stay in the present tense if you’re to be of any use to anyone,” Augustus said coldly. “In some reality, the destruction of Terra Rica actually happens. But not in this reality. And this is the one we have.”

  Jose Maria stared at the data capsule with dread sorrow.

  Captain John Farragut put out his hand. “Let me see that.”

  Jose Maria gave Farragut the capsule. Farragut threw it into the annihilator.

  Jose Maria looked quietly stunned. He spoke resentfully, “That was not yours to destroy.”

  “I am the master of this vessel,” Captain John Farragut said. “Torture devices are subject to summary annihilation, no process, no recourse. Stay with me, Jose Maria. I need you.”

  Romulus still needed to kill Jose Maria. Horribly. But he couldn’t find him. Jose Maria wasn’t on Terra Rica.

  Romulus had sent the recording of Terra Rica’s destruction to the Cordillera family on Terra Rica, but he received no confirmation that it ever got to Jose Maria or that Jose Maria actually viewed it.

  Romulus gave the planet Terra Rica to Claudia at her demand.

  Terra Rica had light industry and no military. It had a huge export business in pharmaceuticals, and it was a planetary breadbasket. It produced a wealth of natural building materials.

  As Romulus desperately hoped, Claudia was disenchanted with it inside a terrestrial day.

  With Claudia safely restored to her gilded cage inside the Xerxes, Romulus pointed his ship back toward his power base on Beta Centauri.

  While in transit, Romulus escorted Claudia to a recreation of the Anastasis Ball, a well-recorded party that celebrated the emergence of the new Roman Empire in year 2290, when secret Romans broke the Long Silence and revealed their Empire ascendant.

  The Xerxes brought the occasion to life. The greatest bands of the day played. It took some intricate programming to keep Claudia from running into the compartment’s physical walls as she danced. She changed her dress twelve times. She loved the antique fashions. Shimmering bubbles floated up to the towering ceiling. She caught and released sparkling flits that left her hands dusted with gold. He’d never seen her so happy.

  The programmed courtiers were charming to her. Romulus called out a cheeky, insolent rake to the terrace with drawn rapiers. Romulus fought the rake to the ground, had him on his back at swordpoint, waiting for Claudia’s mercy. She had none.

  18 November 2443

  Kentucky, USA

  Earth

  Gorgons were difficult to kill. Vacuum didn’t kill them, Neither did they crush. They were pressure impervious. They burned slowly.

  Gorgons descended on Kentucky. Decimated as they were, clouds of them still got past Earth’s Horizon Guard, and they were falling on the Farragut estate.

  His Honor John Knox Farragut Senior ran outside with a Colt .45, blaspheming, a dinner napkin still tucked into his collar. He quickly found out that bullets were no good against gorgons. He turned around and came back out with a scythe.

  The horses were running.

  Mama Farragut bade her eighth-born son, “John John, see to your father.”

  “He’s fine,” John Junior said. “He’s wearing an adamantine net.”

  “Gorgons can chew through adamantine,” sister Leah said.

  “Only if they live long enough,” John John said. “His Honor is scary.”

  The family dogs howled, milling, and whining. They banged at the windows. Leah had orders to lock the dogs indoors. The hounds desperately wanted to get out there and help their master, but they were too slow to survive a gorgon.

  “Watch his back for him, John John,” Leah said. “Gorgons learn.”

  “The gorgons are learning to run away,” John Junior observed, making no move to go out and help.

  The Farraguts’ golden Xanthin serpent, which had never been anything other than a sweet furry family pet, coiled itself around His Honor’s waist and bit the fanged end off any tentacle that tried to strike its master from behind.

  The eldest Farragut daughter paced, pushing herself off the walls, out of her mind with worry. Her mares were screaming. Amanda was going to lose all her foals. She kept from saying that aloud. It would sound small compared to what other people were losing. She kept her foals out of it and wailed, “Where’s the Horizon Guard! Where are the U.S. Fleet Marines?”

  A roar from the sky brought all the Farraguts out to the porch in time to catch the retreating sterns of a flight of Fleet Marine Swifts, flying so low they flattened the tall grasses in the pastures. The fighter craft fired fragmentation rounds at the gorgons in the fields. They swept wide of Justice Farragut, who took off his hat and waved.

  Leah, on the porch, yelled back into the house, “Mama! John sent the Marines!”

  John Knox Farragut Junior stood back. He leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, mouth shut.

  A second flight of Swifts made a low pass, picking off gorgons.

  John sent the Marines. Well, yes, it must be Captain John Alexander Farragut’s idea to send in the Marines after seven years away from Earth. Because God knows our State Senator, Catherine Farragut Mays, could have nothing to do with the appearance of Fleet Marines over Kentucky in a crisis. No. It’s all John Alexander. Everything is John Alexander.

  His Honor, Justice John Knox Farragut Senior, marched in from the field. He was drenched in sweat. He left his scythe at the bottom of the steps, and he climbed up to the wide front porch. He uncoiled the Xanthin serpent from his wide waist and bundled it into Leah’s arms. “Brush him out. Give him some water. Some quail eggs after he’s cooled down. Good snake.” He ruffled the serpent’s golden fur.

  He moved back out to the edge of the porch to watch the Marine Swifts come down for another pass.

  21 November 2443

  Kentucky, USA

  Earth

  Captain John Alexander Farragut never came home from the Battle of Eta Cassiopeia seven years ago. His wife Laura sued for abandonment and he let her carve him up. He never told anyone that the children weren’t his, though anyone who could read a calendar knew whose children they weren’t.

  Captain Farragut took a Fleet Marine Swift into Earth’s atmosphere.

  Swifts were small fighter craft. Farragut barely fit into the cockpit. He set the little ship down on the old homestead in Kentucky. He would not displace while there were gorgons on world.

  The Swift sat in the grass between the ancient oaks. The oaks clung to most of their brown leaves. The old house sprawled with several added wings. It had housed twenty-one children, some of whom came back, and now there were grandchildren.

  As the firstborn walked up the front steps to the deep front porch, he heard a sullen adolescent male voice from inside.

  “Oh, joy. The hero of Eta Cas is among us.”

  That was followed by Mama’s quick scold, “John John!”

  Captain Farragut inwardly winced. They still called his younger brother John John. The sound of it had always grated. John Alexander Farragut didn’t think it was right somehow. It was belittling.

  But he was not going to fly in here and drop a lot of opinions and leave Mama to clean up the wreckage. Captain Farragut kept his observations to himself. He called the young man “John,” then walked into his mother’s teary, breathy embrace.

  Farraguts from all over swarmed into the old Kent
ucky home. There were twenty brothers and sisters, a flock of nieces and nephews, and seven years’ worth of hugging and crying to fit into a short time.

  There was a lull in the Hive activity in the Eastern U.S. for the moment. The Marines had cleared away most of the gorgons from the region. The outbreaks were elsewhere. It wouldn’t stay that way. This was only a small space in which to breathe.

  In which to finally come home.

  An inner archway darkened.

  His father.

  A frozen moment Captain Farragut had been dreading. He was never sure how this would go. The frozen moment broke. His Honor stomped into the front room with wide-flung arms and a booming how the hell are you, boy! A whomp on the back. A firm hearty shake of his hand. Proud. So proud.

  His Honor motioned in the direction of the quiet skies. “You run them out?”

  “No, sir. Not yet.”

  His Honor guided Captain Farragut out of the parlor under a heavy arm. Out of Mama’s earshot His Honor said, “Sugar’s for your mama. Give me the straight story.”

  “It’s Armageddon,” said John Alexander Farragut.

  The old man nodded gravely, absorbing that. “We gonna win?”

  “If I have anything to say about it. And I do.”

  “Good man,” His Honor said.

  Captain John Alexander Farragut found his younger brother, John Junior, packing for a journey.

  “You’re leaving,” Captain Farragut said, surprised.

  John Knox Farragut Junior didn’t look at his famous brother. “I’ve learned that the way to get respect around here is not to be here for years on end.”

  “Where are you going?” Captain Farragut asked, reproach in his voice. “Mama needs you.”

  “I’m enlisting.”

  “You’re too young.”

  “Not for a Roman Legion, I’m not.”

  Crack!

  Before he knew what he was doing Captain John Alexander Farragut had hauled off and decked his brother. Remorse was immediate. “Oh, for Jesus. I’m sorry.”

  He was more than sorry. He was horrified. I just turned into our father.

  “I never wanted to be that, John.”

  The words drew a hard smile from John Junior. John John spoke with soft wrath. “You don’t need to be at all.” And he pulled a revolver from behind his back.

  With only half a heartbeat to be startled, John Alexander Farragut batted the gun aside, doubled his brother over with a blow to the middle, and stepped on his wrist. He picked up the revolver.

  He left John John gasping on the carpet.

  Captain Farragut took the revolver out with him. He stalked into the front parlor and informed their father, “I’m going. Keep your blades sharp. It’s still the only thing that works against the gorgons. I’ll see that you get better top cover here. This shouldn’t’ve happened.” He nodded out the window where gorgon scars were visible in the century oaks.

  He didn’t mention John John pulling a gun on him. Captain Farragut had called his younger brother’s bluff. Called it hard. The incident was done. No point shaming the young man over a stupid flash of teenaged temper.

  From His Honor, Captain John Alexander Farragut got a great thumping bear hug. He was the firstborn, the captain, the hero. Always and ever the favorite.

  John Knox Farragut Junior pulled himself off the floor. When he got his breath back, he stumbled out the back door and stalked up the six-mile-long driveway, past all the century oaks, past the wide horse pastures, toward the front gate of the Farragut estate.

  The number of John Farraguts back in that house had reached critical mass. It was impossible to breathe in there. John John felt himself diminishing into nothingness.

  He marched, jetting breaths through his nostrils like an angry bull. Brittle fallen leaves crunched underfoot. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He’d left his bag behind. He’d left everything.

  He wondered how long it would be before anyone noticed he was gone. Would anyone notice? Ever?

  He heard the Swift roar to life. He flattened himself against a stout tree trunk to stay out of view. And he didn’t want to see it if John did a roll in his Swift over the house.

  He didn’t know if he’d been completely serious when he said he was joining a Roman Legion. It wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had. America really was a Roman colony, so his thoughts weren’t actually treasonous. Romulus had invited him to join the Empire two months ago when he had visited the house.

  John Knox Farragut Junior had studied history. He knew about the founding of America, the parts they didn’t teach in U.S. schools—that Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were Romans. That Thomas Jefferson was a Roman traitor. That the province of America belonged to its Roman founders.

  The United States, the nation his father stood for, was in the wrong.

  Truths you uncover for yourself are more powerful than what you are hand fed in school. Secrets held power.

  The mottos of twenty-five U.S. states and the District of Columbia were in Latin.

  America rightfully belonged to Rome. It was a revelation.

  Rome never really fell. Rome had gone underground and persisted as a secret society for centuries. It lived in the Catholic Church until Vatican II. The fall of the church was a serious setback. But secret Rome still had a grip on law and the sciences, especially medicine—any discipline conducted in Latin, the language of the Empire.

  With the advent of the Internet at the end of the twentieth century, the widely scattered Roman sects regrouped. Latin returned to American schools.

  The Internet exploded with sites on which Romans could converse, hiding in plain sight. Loyal Romans were taken for historical reenactors.

  At the dawn of the FTL era, an American-based intellectual community founded the planetary colony Palatine in the Lambda Coronae Australis star system. And in the year 2290, Rome revealed herself and declared independence from the United States of America.

  The new Rome fought a war of secession against the U.S. and won.

  Palatine flourished. The new Rome engaged in a continuing race with its mother world to colonize hospitable planets. The Roman Empire now spread across one sixth of the Milky Way. There would be no reining Rome back in.

  The best the U.S. could do was to keep her own independence and colonize more worlds, spreading her presence as wide as Rome’s.

  All the while, it was Rome’s vision and destiny to recapture her birthplace, the terrestrial city of Rome, and to bring her most successful colony, America, under her rule.

  Given that America was founded as a Roman colony, what was so terribly wrong with the idea of his joining a Roman Legion? Rome was united for a higher purpose than America’s self-serving individualism. John’s famous brother had no right to hit him for wanting to be part of something greater.

  And there was no evidence that Romulus was sending gorgons to Earth.

  John Knox Farragut Junior had come to the end of the eternal driveway of his father’s estate.

  The elaborate front gates parted at his command.

  John stalked out to the country road.

  The gates hadn’t even closed behind him when a transport dropped straight down from the sky like an elevator without a shaft. A hatch opened.

  John Knox Farragut Junior opened his mouth. He meant to say something.

  Then there was nothing.

  22 November 2443

  Romulid Government in Exile

  Beta Centauri

  Near Space

  JOHN KNOX FARRAGUT JUNIOR wasn’t where he had been a heartbeat ago. In fact, a heartbeat was too long a measure of time to describe what he’d just experienced. Clearly, time had passed, but he hadn’t sensed any of it. In one moment, he’d been outside the gate to his father’s estate, and now, instantly, he wasn’t. A chunk of
reality in between then and now was gone.

  The chamber was grand, gilt, and ornate, overdone in an Italian Renaissance style. The night sky showed through the skylight in the high, vaulted ceiling. John John recognized a constellation up there—the familiar W of Cassiopeia. But the constellation was wrong. Cassiopeia had her cat at her knee. Cassiopeia’s Cat was a star that didn’t belong to Cassiopeia when viewed from Earth—because the star known as Cassiopeia’s Cat was Earth’s star, Sol.

  John John wasn’t on Earth anymore. He could see Sol in the constellation of Cassiopeia. That meant he was in the Centauri star system.

  He had fallen down a very long rabbit hole.

  He turned to find someone else with him in the ornate chamber.

  This place could only be the Italian embassy on Beta Centauri, because that was Caesar Romulus.

  Romulus was a physically beautiful human being, lean, athletic. He was dressed all in black here. His shirt had full sleeves and a high collar. A gilded oak leaf crown wreathed his dark curls.

  John Junior stared, astonished to be here, alone in presence of the Imperator.

  No doubt there would be failsafes in place to insure Romulus’ security, but John John wasn’t feeling violent. He kept a civilized voice. “You kidnapped me.”

  “If you don’t wish to be here, I can deliver you back to one of the other John Farraguts.”

  That stung. Before John John could speak, Romulus went on. “You are a valuable, underappreciated man, squandered in your current circumstance. I want you in my Empire.”

  John John’s heart swelled, then collapsed in suspicion. I’m being used to get to my father and my brother. He wanted to believe this fairy tale too badly.

  He answered in Latin. “Is it your empire, domni? I was led to believe that you are mad.”

  “I have been imprisoned under the most violent torture you can imagine, so, yes, I suppose I was mad for that time. It was a temporary condition, not a character trait. I am well now. I am sane. Ask your other question.”

  John John wondered if the man was reading his mind. “Do you actually think you’re a god?” As soon as the question was out, John John winced. He wanted it back.