Stephen Baxter - Coalescent

The Colosseum was only a short walk down Mussolini’s majestic boulevard from our hotel, and its ruined grandeur loomed ahead of us as we approached. In fact the Colosseum had been a key motivation for Mussolini to build his imperial way where he did, for he wanted a clear view of it from his palace off the Piazza Venezia. Its size was deceptive; it seemed to take us a long time to reach the foot of that mighty wall, even longer to walk around the tarmac apron at its base.

By the time we got to the public entrance, Peter was puffing and sweating profusely. He seemed agitated today, his untroubled demeanor gone, but he wouldn’t say what was on his mind.

We joined a glacier-pace queue of more or less patient visitors before the glass-fronted ticket office. Hucksters worked the crowd: water sellers, tropical-shirted vendors of bangles and felt hats and fake- leather handbags, and a few plausible-sounding American-accented girls who offered “official” guided tours. Groups of blokes in fake legionary uniforms, all scarlet and gold and plastic swords, volunteered to have their photos taken with tourists. With my British sensibility I vaguely imagined these were “official,” somehow sanctioned by the city or whichever authority controlled the Colosseum, until I saw them cluster around one hapless American tourist demanding twenty euros for each photograph they’d just taken.

But above all this indignity loomed the antique walls, to which marble still clung, despite fifteen hundred years of neglect and despoliation.

Peter wasn’t comfortable in the gathering heat. “Fucking Italians,” he said. “Once, you know, they could get fifty thousand people inside this stadium in ten minutes. Now this .”

At length we inched our way to the head of the queue, bought our tickets, and passed through a turnstile and into the body of the stadium.

The huge structure was a hollow shell. Inside, cavernous corridors curved out of sight to either side. Peter looked a little lost, but all this was startlingly familiar to me, a veteran of the architecture of English soccer stadiums. Still, the corridors and alcoves were littered with rubble, stupendous fragments of fallen brickwork and columns and marble carvings. The place had long been neglected; even in the seventies the Romans had used these immense corridors as a car park.

We emerged at last into bright sunlight.

The interior of the stadium was oval. Walkways curved around its perimeter at a couple of levels. Because we were early, like dutiful tourists we completed circuits of the walls, and crossed a wooden walkway that passed along the axis of the stadium floor. The original floor, made of wood, had long since rotted away, exposing brick cells where humans and animals had once been kept, waiting to fight for their lives on the stage above.

After perhaps half an hour, it was time. We made our way to the small book stall, which had been built into an alcove close to the main spectator entrance. There was quite a crowd here, for this was where you congregated for your “official” guided tours.

I had no problem recognizing Lucia.

She had exactly the look that had characterized the women and girls of the Order: not tall, stockily built, with the oval face and pale gray eyes of that huge subterranean family. I had had a lot of trouble figuring out ages in the Crypt, but Lucia looked genuinely young — perhaps sixteen, or even younger. She had blue-tinged sunglasses pushed up on her head. But her simple blue dress was grimy, the hem ripped; it looked as if she had been wearing it for days.

She was heavily pregnant, I saw, startled.

When she saw me standing before her — and she recognized my similar features — her eyes widened, and she clutched the hand of the boy with her.

He was quite different: perhaps a couple of years older, taller, slim, with reddish hair that was already receding from a pale, rounded brow. His eyes were clear blue, and he peered at us suspiciously.

“So here we are,” Peter said. “I take it you’re Lucia — you speak English?”

“Not well,” she said. Her voice was husky, her English heavily accented.

“But I do,” said the boy, Daniel. “I’m an American.”

“Good for you,” said Peter dryly.

I tried to reduce the tension. “My name is George Poole. Lucia, it seems we are distant cousins.” I smiled, and she nervously smiled back. “And this is Peter McLachlan. My friend.”

Daniel wasn’t reassured. He looked defiant, but scared. He was already out of his depth. His Internet contact with us, conducted from the safety of his home or some cybercafй, was one thing, but maybe he was having second thoughts when confronted by the reality of two hefty, sweating middle-age men. “How do we know we can trust you?”

Peter snorted, sweating. “You contacted us, remember?”

I held up a hand and gave Peter a look: Go easy on them. I said, “I’m family, and Peter is an old friend. He’s here to help. I’ve known him all my life, and I trust him. Let’s just talk. We can stay in public places all the time. Anytime you like you can just walk away. How’s that?”

Daniel, still uncertain, glanced at Lucia. She just nodded weakly.

So we walked around the curving walkway. Lucia, gravid, walked heavily and painfully, her hand on her back. Daniel supported her, holding her arm.

I whispered to Peter, “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “That poor kid looks as if she’s going to pup any minute … You think Daniel’s the father?”

“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. But somehow I thought it wouldn’t be as simple as that.

Peter chewed a nail, a habit I hadn’t noticed before. “I wasn’t expecting this. This is supposed to be about your sister, and her cult. What are we getting into here?” He had seemed oddly jumpy all day, and his nervousness was getting worse. I had no idea why — but then I knew there was a lot about Peter, not least why he was in Rome in the first place, he wasn’t telling me.

The Colosseum is a big place, and we soon found an out-of-the-way alcove where it looked as if we would be undisturbed. Lucia found a place to sit, on a worn row of steps in the shade. Daniel stood over her protectively. Peter had a couple of bottles of water in his day bag. He gave one to Lucia, and she sipped it gratefully. She was breathing hard, I saw, and sweating heavily.

“So,” said Peter. “Tell me how you got in touch with us.”

Daniel shrugged. “It wasn’t hard … I thought I needed to find somebody outside the Order, and yet with a connection. You see what I mean?”

“Yes,” I said. “Somebody else asking awkward questions.”

And so, he said, he had hacked into the Order’s email streams looking for likely candidates. “It was difficult — the Order’s traffic is heavily encrypted — but—”

“But you’re a smart little hacker,” said Peter unsympathetically.

Daniel’s eyes flashed. “I did what I had to do.”

Peter said, “Let’s cut to the chase. She’s your girlfriend, and you got her pregnant. Is that the story?”

“No!” Daniel’s denial was surprisingly hot. “I wouldn’t be so stupid.”

I studied Daniel. “How old are you, son?”

He was just seventeen; he looked older. No wonder he was out of his depth.

“If you aren’t the father, how did you get involved with Lucia?”

For the next couple of minutes he gabbled out something of his life story — how he was the son of a diplomat, a student at an expat school in the city — and how his harmless flirtation with a pretty girl he spotted at the Pantheon had led him into deep waters. When he had gotten all this out, he seemed drained, some of his nerve gone. “I was only fooling. I didn’t expect it to turn out like this. But when she asked me for help, I couldn’t refuse, could I?”