Strength and Honor

by R. M. Meluch

  Captain Farragut gave his XO the deck so he could take Calli’s hail. “Little busy here, Cal. You still at Earth?”

  “Yes, I’m still here, and your Italian school group is here.”

  Farragut remembered the school group leaving Palatine. A busload of ten year olds going home. “Did I miss that call?” he asked. He had already vetted that bus, and lain off it as civilian. Still he had known something was wrong with it.

  “It’s a bone fide school group and it’s Italian,” said Calli. “But they’ve got a Roman passenger.”

  “Can’t start shooting for one Roman,” said Farragut. “Not children.”

  “I know,” said Calli. “But you were right, and I sure wish I had your patterner Mend with me.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The Roman passenger. I got a bead right through the view port. John, I’m looking at him. It’s Romulus.”

  35

  SHOCK SELDOM SLOWED DOWN John Farragut. He responded immediately “That’s not real likely, Cal. Caesar is in Roma Nova. He’s been holding games.” Had to suppress anger at that. He had seen a recording of Steele’s last contest in the arena and wanted nothing better than to run Romulus through with a sword.

  Calli sent back, “Are you sure you’ve got the real Caesar there?”

  “Are you?” Farragut returned. “Actually, yes,” said Calli. “I am. I know Rom. This is Rom. I just want you to argue with me.”

  “I—” had to consider carefully. The Caesar whom Farragut had seen on the recordings only made cameo appearances to introduce the games. “—can’t,” he finished. And added significantly, “Your guy is hiding behind children.”

  “I’ve got the real Romulus,” said Calli. “Numa’s shooting at me,” Farragut sent and had to break communication. “Give him my worst,” said Calli. Wolfhound received orders to wear off from the Italian school ship at the stratosphere.

  In her place, U.S. Rattlers swarmed up and took positions on either side of the descending spacecraft. The Rattler pilots could see the children through the viewports. The children did not appear frightened. Did not seem aware of the Rattlers. The ship must have one-ways activated on the viewports so the children could not look out and see gunships and start screaming. Calli listened to the transmissions between the Rattlers and Ground Control.

  Control: “Is Romulus on board?”

  Rattler 6: “Looks like him, sir.”

  Control: “What is he doing?”

  Rattler 6: “Singing, sir.”

  Control: “What?”

  Rattler 6: “Frere Jacques, sir.”

  Romulus had a flock of the children around him, and one on his knee. The viewports were only occluded oneway instead of fully opaqued. Romulus wanted the world to see this.

  He let the children teach him the song. Pretended not to know the words. The children were eager to show off their mastery of foreign words to the Roman Emperor.

  Control: “What are they doing now?”

  Rattler 6: “Rounds, sir.”

  Control: “What load?”

  Rattler 6: “No. Rounds. They’re singing Frere Jacques in rounds.” The lead Rattler hailed the school ship, demanded the pilot stop. The Italian pilot hotly demanded the U.S. gunships cease menacing his craft. Caesar added his own message to that, “No harm shall come to these children. They are under my protection.” Hearing that, Calli had to walk away from the com, incensed.

  “Skata! They don’t even know they’re hostages! He is under their protection! With those children around him, we don’t dare aerate his head!”

  They were singing Alouette now. The children giggled as Romulus kept pointing to the wrong body parts of the plucked lark, his fingertip to his elbow when they were singing beak, to his knee when the children sang neck. The emperor was being very silly.

  When the ship set down at the spaceport in old Rome, it was greeted not just by parents of the schoolchildren, but by such a mass of people that there was no controlling them. With his people around him, Romulus went anywhere he wanted. People reached out to touch him like a sports hero or the Pope. Or a conquering Caesar.

  Snipers in space could not get a clean shot on his eminence. Romulus was wearing a two-stage personal field, which protected him from beams, projectiles, and even thrown rocks, none of which were headed his way. Joy and adoration surrounded him.

  Anything the Americans could send down there capable of penetrating his personal field would take out a wide radius around him as well. The Pentagon was debating the pros and cons of doing so.

  Unfortunately the people closest to Caesar were not Romans. They were Italian civilians caught up in mob fervor. Not that the Romans were not part of the masses.

  There were hundreds of thousands of Roman tourists in Italy. They had come without weapons. But weapons could always be bought. Civilians could become soldiers. Their commander in chief was here.

  Caesar proceeded on foot to Vatican City where the Swiss Guards forbade him and his thousands entry. Tried to forbid. The titanic crowds made the gates part for him. Romulus walked past them.

  Romulus walked into Saint Peter’s Square with his legions of civilians around him. And the guards could not bring themselves to wreak violence on unarmed people.

  Romulus advised the unhappy guards to ask God to smite him, if He objected to his being here.

  The guards were more concerned with the flouting of international borders and possible lifting of Vatican treasure than they were with God’s will.

  The U.S. had been denied entry into Vatican City airspace, so there was nothing but blue sky and the glint of high distant spacecraft overhead. And a dark swarm of approaching aerial news craft.

  Romulus stopped at the Vatican obelisk, which stood in the center of the square. In actuality it was Caligula’s obelisk. A soaring red granite phallic symbol brought here a thousand years ago by Sixtus V. The Catholics had stuck a cross on top of it. Sixtus V had been Roman.

  Romulus announced that he wanted to sit on the Throne of the Fisherman. He pretended not to know the way. By involving the people in his quest, he took ownership of their hearts. The throng directed him to the palace. The mob, swept up in the sense of this historic moment and the grandeur of the place, made sure Romulus got whatever he wished. Excitement crackled like lightning within a thunderhead, common sense swept aside by the rapture. This moment had been thousands of years in the coming. A Caesar had returned to Rome.

  Romulus strode into the Papal palace and up to the chamber like returning royalty. The Vatican ran a lean organization, so there were few people to stand in his way.

  The Pope did not come out to oppose him, but his personal secretary, the monsignor, did. The people cleared the path for Caesar. Romulus strode up the steps of the dais and sat on the red velvet cushion of the gilded throne.

  Someone brought him a scepter like a shepherd’s crook, which he accepted. He refused the miter. He wore his own crown of gilt oak leaves.

  Media transmitters shoved their way into the chamber. Caesar requested the curtains be parted so the airships could get their views through the windows. Romulus used the public media to transmit a greeting to the President of Italy.

  He also said into the cameras, “Someone can tell Sampson Reed that We are here if he has anything to say to Us.” He was speaking in royal plurals now. Omitted Sampson Reed’s title of President of the United States.

  And he posed for people to record images of him. He glanced toward the window. “Can we get some white smoke out there?”

  The crowd outside roared, because his words were carried everywhere instantly on the news media. And soon white smoke issued from the chimney that normally announced a new Pope.

  Cheers resounded from Saint Peter’s Square.

  Merrimack pulled back from her battle with Gladiator. Jumped to FTL, then slowed back down to sublight speed again in a new location and transmitted to Gladiator, “Time Out.”

  Time Out? The Romans on Gladiator’s command de
ck were mystified. They looked to each other as if their language modules were malfunctioning. “Did he say Time Out?”

  Numa Pompeii took up the com: “Do you think this is an American game of football, Captain Farragut?” Farragut returned, “Numa, just stop shooting for a minute and turn on any news broadcast from Earth.”

  This was possibly a trick, but this was also John Farragut. Numa was curious now. He nodded to his command crew to comply.

  Everything in the universe was stopping to watch the news from Earth. The signals from Vatican City were broadcast by resonant pulse, so the feed was immediate and everywhere.

  White smoke.

  “What does that mean?” Numa asked the air, because he could not expect anyone around him to have the answer. “Is that Romulus? Did he just take possession of Vatican City?”

  Difficult to be Pope when Romulus wasn’t Catholic. Though historically there had been Popes with dim claims to the faith.

  When Caesar had collected the attention of the better part of the known galaxy, he rose from the Throne of the Fisherman. He spoke to anyone who would know, “Show me the way to that balcony. I need to give my address Urbi et Orbi et Cosmi.”

  “That balcony” was description enough to get him where the Pope traditionally spoke his message to the City, the World, and the Universe.

  By the time his procession wended it way from the palace to Saint Peter’s Basilica, up the stairs, and to the doors that led out to the central balcony, the sky over Saint Peter’s Square was clogged with camera ships. The pilots angrily signaled to each other to get out of the picture.

  Curtains over the doors to the Loggia of the Blessings moved. The human ocean down below roared.

  Romulus stepped onto the balcony, sunlight on his oak leaves. He collected the voices, the immense sound of Biblical thunder.

  Romulus stepped to the railing, made eye contact with individuals in the crowd, waved and smiled. The cheering only intensified, resolving into a chant that rocked the earth: CAE-SAR! CAE-SAR! CAE-SAR!

  Romulus was in no hurry for silence. The streets before him had become rivers of humanity. People clustered on the rooftops. Faces filled all the windows. Small craft jockeyed for positions in the sky.

  Romulus gripped the railing, bowed his head, collecting himself to address the multitude. At length the crowd allowed itself to go quiet, listening. The galaxy held its breath.

  Romulus looked out.

  His focus faltered, swam away. He held tight to the railing for balance. A murmur rolled back in a wave. His lips moved, no sound coming forth at first, confusion, disgust, and fear moving on his face.

  Romulus reached forward, his hand out to empty air over the square, his eyes fixed in profound horror. Blood appeared on his palm, not like the wound of a nail, but blood all over both hands. He screamed at something no one else could see.

  “Pater!”

  PART FIVE

  The Outer Darkness

  36

  STEELE AND HIS RECAPTURED MARINES sat on the floor in a boxcar. The compartment smelled like sheep. Every surface felt greasy with lanolin. There was no light. After several hours, a voice in the dark sounded, moaning, “Just how long does it take to get to the Coliseum?” It was probable they were not going back to the Coliseum after two escapes.

  They didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  Daybreak brought light and nothing else, Time wore on. There was no food. There was still a carton of water, which they were relunctant to drink because there was no crapper in here.

  “Did you see the light, sir?” Dak Shepard asked.

  Steele looked to either side of himself for some other “sir” who might answer the question. He squinted at Dak Shepard. “What?”

  “When you died,” said Dak.

  “I saw it once,” said Kerry Blue. “The light.” She had been drowning. Dak turned to her. “See anyone at the end?” Kerry shook her head. “I didn’t get very far before a medic was squishing water out of me.”

  “Sir?” Dak turned back to Colonel Steele. “Did you?”

  Steele slowly nodded. “Saw my mom. She told me to go back.”

  Dak nodded, liking that answer. But it was only part of what Steele heard from the light.

  What Ma Steele actually said was, Boy, you go right back there and get her.

  The sun was past zenith when the boxcar set down, and the door lifted open. Automatons and human guards herded the Marines into a clean Spartan dormitory, some place where the season was autumn. The guards locked the Americans in by themselves.

  There was a security system all around the building, but no locks on the doors to the individual rooms. Once locked inside, the prisoners had free run of everything. There were dry showers, cots with air mattresses, food, drinking water, heads, a first aid kit, and a dry laundry.

  Cain blurted, “Wow! Was there a regime change?”

  Steele supposed the League of Earth Nations must have stepped in to enforce conventions of treatment of POWs.

  Dak looked around for a video. That was asking too much. But there were decks of cards.

  So the Marines played cards, talked, making up stories of what could have changed about the war to land them here. Except for Steele, Ranza, and Cain who spent the daylight inspecting their confines, searching for a way out.

  There were two cots in each sleeping room, but enough rooms for each Marine to have his own private space.

  At nightfall Kerry Blue came to Flight Leader Ranza Espinoza’s room, and stood in the doorway hugging a pillow. “Can I stay here?”

  Kerry Blue hadn’t had her own room ever and discovered she didn’t like it. On Merrimack there would be eight women stacked into a space this size. And there would be Dak Shepard snoring right on the other side of the thin metal partition that walled Kerry’s pod from the guys’ rack.

  The private room felt like exile.

  Ranza was trying to make her thick cloud of freshly cleaned hair lie down. She shot Kerry a sneer through the mirror. “You mean you’re not going to bunk with Thomas?”

  Ran/a had been in the arena when Kerry screamed the colonel’s name over the wall.

  Kerry asked, “You gonna bust me, Ranza?”

  “Nah. Can’t. Take that cot. I got this one.”

  “Thanks,” Kerry came in. She sat on her cot. Thought to ask, “You can’t?” “Can’t,” said Ranza.” ‘Cause if the Old Man wanted to feat with me, I’d be there in a half a heartbeat.”

  Wolfhound had not received new orders since Caesar’s collapse, so she maintained orbit around Earth. When the wolfhunter ship finally received a message other than a general broadcast, it wasn’t from Command.

  Red Dorset at the com reported, “Captain Carmel, I have a resonant hail coming in on a disallowed harmonic. Claims to be Gaius American us.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Calli. The transmission came with a video. Calli saw the face and let out an involuntary, “Oh.”

  Gaius Americanus touched his own young face. “Oh, yes.” He had forgotten, as had she, that they hadn’t seen each other since they had both been burned. “That’s what my wife is going to say, I’m afraid.”

  “What’s happening, Gaius?”

  The Roman appeared to be debating how much to say, “You saw the transmission from the Vatican?”

  “The whole universe saw that,” said Calli. “Our nations are talking.”

  “Who is speaking for the Empire?” Last seen, Romulus was screaming incoherently. “The Senate.” Calli noticed that Gaius was wearing a red-bordered Senatorial toga.

  “No interim Caesar?”

  “Not a chance.”

  That meant Rome was working in a power void—which would be more of a power glut if you counted all the Senators. No one could expect that many ambitious brains to agree on anything, except that they all distrusted anyone who might seize control as deftly as Romulus had upon Magnus’ death.

  “What is the purpose of this call, Senator?” Captain Carmel kept her words
formal.

  “A personal favor, if at all possible,” said Gaius. “Check on my wife and children at Fort Eisenhower? I know you can’t carry a message. If you could just see that they are well?”

  “I think I can accommodate that,” Calli said.

  Seeing him, and speaking of Fort Ike, memories of their doomed flight in the shuttle came back to her. The attack. The fire. “I’m sorry the war might be ending without my getting a chance to kill Numa.”

  “He’s right here,” said Gaius.

  “No, no, don’t pass me over to— What do you want?”

  The vastness of Numa Pompeii filled her com screen. “I wanted to let you know I had the warrant for your arrest lifted, Callista.”

  “What warrant?”

  “For your arrest for the murder of Caesar Magnus.”

  That nonsense? She had assumed Claudia’s accusations were long behind her. “That wasn’t I.”

  “I know that,” said Numa. “Why isn’t there a warrant out for your attempted murder of Gaius?” said Calli. “And why is he even talking to you? Gaius! Where’s Gaius! Put Gaius back on!”

  “You ridiculous American cowgirl,” Numa’s deep voice rolled like mumbling thunder. “Had I wanted Gaius dead, he would be dead. I would have let him board Gladiator and executed him with my own sword. I would not have hatched a sniveling plot in the dark using a disgraced moron from Daedalus Station and Romulus’ other toadies.”

  What he said made sense, but Calli was never good at backing down or giving Numa Pompeii the benefit of any doubt. She said back, “What was Romulus hoping to achieve here?”

  “I was not privy to Caesar’s plans and would not tell you if I knew. I like your new face by the way.”

  “Don’t be cruel.”

  “I mean it,” said Numa. “It lets the strength behind it show through. Before you were just pretty.”

  ———

  Sound and lights outside the POWs’ dormitory woke the Marines, who had become light sleepers anyway. Ranza rolled off her cot to look out the window. A lander descended, right next to the building. Leaves and dust fanned out beneath it. “It’s one of ours!”