Rogue Emperor (The Chronoplane Wars Book 3)

by Crawford Kilian

  The director, an owlish young man named Claudio Grossi, rose from his flickerscreen to welcome Pierce. He wore old-fashioned glasses, an affectation Pierce disliked, and offered a slim, cool hand without strength.

  “Mr. Pierce. A pleasure to meet you. The Agency said you’d be coming. Please sit down. Coffee?”

  “Water will be fine.” Coffee only worsened his metabolic tension. Pierce settled himself in a fine armchair and looked around. The office was large but austere, its walls adorned only by a small wooden crucifix doubtless made on Eden. On one side of the office, French doors opened onto a pleasant garden.

  For a moment Pierce thought a nude young woman was standing in a bed of chrysanthemums. Then he looked again and realized it was an Ahanian statue of Venus, painted in flesh tones and with gilded pubic hair. She stood leaning against a pillar as she undid a sandal.

  “You like our little Venus?”

  “A very popular subject.”

  “She’s very elegant, don’t you think?”

  “Mm. And expensive.”

  Grossi smiled faintly. “I am fortunate to have private means. She was worth it. Well. I understand you need one of our live Ahanians.”

  “Yes, for a few days. Someone who hasn’t been uptime very long.”

  Grossi spoke quickly in Italian to his computer, which chirped back at him and then printed out a narrow strip of film about ten cm long. Grossi held it out to Pierce.

  “Shall I project it for you, or — ?”

  “I have a flickreader, thank you.” Pierce slid the reader over his eyes; it looked like opaque brown spectacles. He slipped the film into the little aperture by the right temple, and spent a minute scanning the dossiers of sixty-two Roman Trainables.

  “Why so few?”

  Grossi shrugged. “We have a lot of medieval Italians from Eden at the moment. Most of the current cohort of Romans are Training at Naples, or Vienna, a few even in London. Are these candidates inadequate? We can look at — ”

  “Thank you. They will do. I’d like to talk to Gaius Aquilius Faber.”

  “Of course.” He nodded to the secretary, who had been standing discreetly by the door; the secretary murmured into a ringmike for a moment.

  “Perhaps you would like to meet him in the garden,” Grossi suggested. “A bit more congenial than this room.”

  “Of course. A good idea.”

  Carrying his glass of water, Pierce walked out into the garden. The air was cool, the sky a deeper blue than that of Ahanian Rome with its eternal charcoal smog. The garden, quiet and secure behind a high wall, was a tidy arrangement of greens and oranges, ivy and chrysanthemums; gravel walks divided it neatly. Pierce found a marble bench and sat down to drink his water. It helped dilute the metallic taste in his mouth, for a moment.

  “Mr. Pierce?” called a voice in English.

  The young man who strode toward him down the path was short and dark-haired, with a clear olive complexion a little faded after three months spent mostly indoors. He wore the usual Trainee’s rig, loose trousers and a long pullover sweater: quite a concession for a Roman who probably regarded trousers as hopelessly barbarian. Pierce admired the boy’s graceful walk, a kind of glide, and the impassive alertness in his eyes. Pierce remembered a similar alertness in the eyes of the little catamite who had died with his general a week before, in a tent in the Alps. But Gaius Aquilius Faber was neither effeminate nor proletarian. He displayed the sober gravity of a young aristocrat, deepened already by his Training.

  “Good afternoon, Aquilius.” As a new acquaintance, Pierce would not presume to use the praenomen Gaius, nor to condescend by speaking Latin. He shook the young man’s hand, pleased by the hard strength in it. “I have a task for you.”

  “Yes?”

  They began to walk about the garden in slow, measured steps.

  “I have just returned from your Rome. The emperor Domitian has been killed.”

  Aquilius said nothing.

  “Your family has had its conflicts with the emperor, I believe.”

  “Many families of the nobilitas have disagreed with one emperor or another.” He spoke English well, but with a strong trace of the lilting, almost singsong intonation of a well-bred Roman’s Latin.

  “Before you came uptime, were you aware of any plots against the emperor?”

  The young man’s intelligent eyes met his for a moment and slid away. “I would hesitate to answer that question even if my father put it to me.”

  Pierce smiled. “I may well put you in danger, but I will not betray you. I repeat my question.”

  “No. Since the emperor’s wife was executed, no one has dared stand in his way.”

  “Someone has dared now. With a wire-guided missile.”

  Aquilius looked unsurprised. “Then it was done by the Hesperians.”

  “It was not. We are deeply alarmed by the killing. Someone else is on Ahania, and we don’t know who. Tell me this: you have a cousin in the Praetorian Guard, Gnaeus Rufus Flaccus. Had you seen anything of him in the weeks before you came uptime?”

  “Flaccus … But he gave no hint of any conspiracy.”

  “Did he talk about Christianity?”

  Aquilius’s black eyebrows rose. “That would be most unusual. The Christians are still only a cult, as you well know.”

  Pierce allowed himself to be mildly amused. The boy already understood that it was an insult for a Trainable to mention what ought to be known.

  “Nonetheless,” he said, “a Praetorian officer blessed me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

  “I hope it did you some good.”

  Pierce burst into laughter. “Sit down, sit down.”

  They sat on a marble bench, looking at the gaudy Venus.

  “I think I have some understanding of what you have gone through in the last three months, Aquilius. You left your family, embarked on a ship, and two days later you went through the I-Screen on Sardinia and flew back here. You had a glimpse of your own city in ruins, overgrown by a monstrous new city, and then you learned your empire’s future as just a part of our past. We’ve recruited you into a struggle no one dreamed of a few years ago, and you’ve joined us with no choice in the matter. Your life will be utterly different from anything you might have imagined, and you will never feel at home anywhere — not here, not in your own Rome.”

  “I understand that very well.”

  “You were born and bred to serve the empire. If Domitian had sent you to Numidia, or to fight the Parthians or Piets, you would have gone without a murmur and given your life as your ancestors did. That much, at least, has not changed for you.”

  “I understand that also.”

  “You are still a man, and a Roman. You can still demonstrate virtus and emulate your ancestors.”

  Aquilius looked at him without speaking.

  “I know,” said Pierce. “I am not a Roman, and virtus is a Roman trait.”

  “Part of me still thinks that,” Aquilius agreed. “And yet now I know how men of many nations have acquitted themselves. Some of them showed virtus also.”

  “It is the achievement of glorious deeds for the benefit of the nation, is it not?”

  “Yes — and emulation of one’s ancestors’ deeds.”

  “Would it be virtus to achieve some great deed that exposed your mother and sisters to shame and death?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But a deed which saved them from shame and death … ”

  “Yes, that would be virtus.”

  “I need you for just such deeds, Gaius Aquilius. Someone on Ahania is planning some great evil against Rome. Not just a simple deception like the myth of Hesperia, but a betrayal of the patria. My masters are sending me back there to find out what this plot is, and to try to foil it. I need you with me.”

  “Why?”

  “I have spared you my Latin; I speak it badly. Worse, I am a stranger in Rome. How well would I do, blundering about asking questions of passersby? Ev
en if they answered me truly, would I understand their real meaning? Alone, I would be blind and deaf. With you — ”

  “You would have a guide dog.”

  Pierce frowned. “Sarcasm is for the vulgar. I expect better from a son of nobilitas. If you have an objection to what I ask of you, speak it clearly.”

  The young man’s face hardened; he glared at the gravel path beneath his feet. “I left Rome the mistress of the world; I would return to a shabby little client state, of less concern to this world than some tribe of Dacians would be to us. I would be working with you to ensure that Rome continues as a client, and an ignorant one. For all I know, those who killed Domitian have Rome’s true interests at heart.”

  “The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. Tell me — what do you see as the role we have cast you in?”

  “This world will be destroyed in eighty-four years, as Ulro and Urizen were when they passed through Doomsday. But they did not know it was coming, as we do. So the nations of this chronoplane are gathering the resources of all the chronoplanes, as we would build an outpost against invaders. The noncombatants we send to the rear, to the downtime worlds. The soldiers we recruit and train.”

  “And you and I are soldiers.”

  “Soldiers with no idea who will invade.”

  “All the more reason to ensure that our forces are as strong as possible. If we cannot recruit more Trainables like yourself from Rome, we will be that much weaker. And whoever killed Domitian has endangered our recruiting.”

  Aquilius shrugged. “Perhaps they will be glad to allow recruiting, as long as they rule Rome.”

  “No. Our policy was to support Domitian.”

  “Your policy is to support whoever allows recruiting. Why should you care if someone else is emperor?”

  Pierce felt both embarrassed and cheered. The boy was bright.

  “The International Federation would not tolerate a usurper,” Pierce said. “We need unity and cooperation, but on our own terms. We’re not going to help just anyone who manages to seize power. My own country, America, destroyed itself in half a century by siding with whatever brigands ruled our client states.”

  Aquilius nodded. “Realpolitik easily turns to political self-deception.”

  Pierce smiled. “You’ve been reading Karalis’s Decline of American Hegemony.”

  “I’ve been reading the history of three thousand years.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  Aquilius turned to look Pierce in the eye. “I have also been reading W. B. Yeats. ‘I do not love the ones I serve.’ But I will serve.”

  Again they shook hands.

  “Tomorrow you will be in Rome again, under your father’s roof.”

  “I hope I can take him some presents — a flashlight, a cassette recorder?”

  “We’re past the deception. Take him a Fiat if you can fit it through the I-Screen.”

  “When can we go?”

  “By tomorrow, I hope. Tonight we’ll go back to the Transferpoint and arrange to go through the I-Screen. We’ll need new clothes, money, and weapons.”

  “And how long will we be there?”

  “I don’t know. Not long. I’ve been under Briefing and Conditioning for two weeks.” Aquilius would know that more than a month under B&C could be permanently damaging, even with Pentasyn to soften the effects.

  “Will I also be Briefed and Conditioned?”

  “No time. You haven’t even completed your Training. I suggest we return to your room to pack.”

  “I have nothing I need to bring. The staff will store my clothes for me until I return.”

  Pierce nodded. “Then let us be on our way.”

  A few minutes later they were in a minivan owned by the Accademia, headed back to the Transferpoint. Aquilius said nothing, but looked out the windows with the all-observant eyes of a Trainable.

  “The roads are somewhat better here,” Pierce remarked.

  “Somewhat. But ours are built to last a century; yours disintegrate in months.”

  The driver was listening to chatter on the CB radio. Suddenly the volume went up and someone began shouting incoherently.

  The driver swore and glanced over his shoulder at Pierce. “Excuse me, sir, but they say a bomb exploded in the Transferpoint. The building is on fire.”

  Four

  The Transferpoint was surrounded by fire trucks; a helicopter fluttered overhead through the smoke. Pierce and Aquilius stood half a block away in the crowds, Pierce with his ringmike to his lips. The patch to New York was a poor one.

  “The firefighters think the bomb must have gone off right by the Ahania I-Screen,” Pierce shouted. “No one’s been found alive who was anywhere nearby. The whole lower level is on fire, all the I-Screens.”

  “So Rome is shut down.” Wigner replied almost inaudibly.

  “Yes.” He did not add what Wigner would of course know: several hundred million New Dollars’ worth of equipment was lost, and could not be easily replaced.

  “You know the Hesperian embassy was under attack just before the bomb went off?”

  Pierce frowned. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “They got a quick message through. Get this: Praetorians with Uzis were coming over the wall.”

  Pierce shook his head in disbelief. “If they’d been smart, they’d have timed it better.”

  “No doubt. Listen, old son, get out to Fiumicino and grab a helicopter to Sardinia.”

  “We’ll go to the city airport — quicker. But I’ve got a couple of things to do first.”

  “You’re in charge. I presume all your Roman gear’s been lost?”

  “We’ll scrounge up something in Sardinia.”

  “Any idea who’s behind all this?”

  “None. But they’re certainly ambitious. Talk to you later.”

  Pierce switched off, then switched on again and tapped out a local number.

  “Vido! This is your art-loving passenger from this afternoon,” he said in Croatian. “Can you pick me up near the Piazza Navona in half an hour?”

  “Of course, of course. Right by the taxi stand in the Via dei Coronari.”

  “Ciao.”

  Aquilius looked puzzled. Pierce smiled at him.

  “A little errand before we get out to the airport.”

  They walked through the late-afternoon streets; Aquilius kept his eyes on the traffic honking past. Pierce hailed a taxi.

  “Caesar was smart to keep wheeled traffic out of the city until nightfall,” he said as they got into an old Citroen. “Though it’s damned noisy all night.”

  “I liked it there. This Rome is too quiet.”

  “Does it frighten you?”

  “No. I am only afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

  “When we get back to your world, I will be the one who does the wrong things.”

  “I don’t like this, Mr. Pierce. First the emperor, then the Hesperian embassy, now the Transferpoint.”

  Pierce nodded. “Something nasty is happening on Ahania, and here. If we move quickly, maybe we can stop it from becoming even worse.”

  “Then why are you wasting time on this cabdriver, when we could be going to Sardinia?”

  “My friend Vido may actually save us some time.” They reached the taxi stand in the Via dei Coronari. Pierce paid the driver and led Aquilius to the Piazza Navona, a block away. No cars were allowed in the piazza, and at this hour few people were about. The loudest sounds were the splash of water in the Bernini fountains, and the happy shrieks of two little girls chasing one another.

  They walked about the piazza, drinking mineral water and eating sunflower seeds. Pierce wished the seeds tasted better. “I can almost see the stadium,” Aquilius said quietly as he looked around the piazza. “We used to sit on the west side, about there — ” He pointed to one of the close-packed old buildings that faced the elongated oval of the Piazza. “My father enjoyed — enjoys — the chariot races very much.”

  Pierce nodded. The stadiu
m of Domitian had survived in the layout of the piazza, but its transformation must be deeply unsettling. He was pleased that Aquilius seemed calm: this detour was a quiet kind of test, and Aquilius had passed it well.

  They went back to the taxi stand. After a few minutes the sleek Fiat appeared and stopped beside them. Pierce greeted Vido cheerfully as they got in.

  “Business is over,” said Pierce in Italian. “Let’s meet this wonderful dealer in erotica.”

  “Who’s your young friend?”

  “A student with a great interest in classical art. He’ll save me from buying imitations.”

  “No imitations, I promise,” Vido guffawed.

  They drove quickly north, into the suburbs where row after row of apartment buildings stood dark in the growing twilight. Their inhabitants were downtime now, living in prefabricated cabins or rudely built huts. The apartments gave way to villas, and Vido parked in front of one.

  “His name is Signor Bruckner. They know me, so just say I brought you. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Grazie, Vido.”

  They walked across the cracked sidewalk and rang the bell beside the steel door that shielded the garage. After a long wait, a voice came over a speaker: “Who is it?”

  “Friends of Vido, and lovers of antiquity.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  The steel door swung open; standing in the garage, just in front of a Mercedes 900 limousine, was a powerfully built man in an expensive Alfred Sung suit. He was in middle age, balding, and wore spectacles much like Claudio Grossi’s. Pierce smiled at him and approached, hand held out.

  “Signor Bruckner? My name is Gerald Pierce. This is my friend Achille Fabbro. We understand it’s possible to buy certain collector’s items here.”

  The man glanced over their shoulders at the Fiat, then grunted.

  “All right. Come in, please.”

  The garage door swung shut behind them; they followed the man up a narrow flight of stairs to a large living room. The walls were hung with fine Greek tapestries and Roman portraits on wood. On a glass coffee table, a bronze dolphin rose from marble foam. Pierce estimated the value of the artworks in the room at well over two million New Dollars. Surprisingly, no one else seemed to be in the house — no maid, no cook, most importantly no guard. Only Bruckner’s scent hung in the air, mingled with a very good Chanel aftershave.