David Weber: Ranks of Bronze

Clodius Afer assumed a full brace, looking at a knob of tree-trunk, and asked, "Further orders, sir?" in a raspy, impersonal voice. He did not want to prod his friend, his leader; but until the operation was complete, the pilus prior would be wound up tight as the springs of a catapult.

He knew very well that the operation was not over.

Niger's century was on duty in the forward section, half of them sprawled in the outer area while the remainder wandered in the glade which formed the Commander's quarters. Their centurion sat crosslegged with his back to a tree, smiling faintly but not speaking except to briefly answer direct questions.

He could not even be said to be watching the Commander, though he was not looking anywhere else.

"All right," said Vibulenus in a rharp voice intended to rouse his own mind as well as bring those around him to attention. He stood up and pointed his index fingers at the crewmen tied to daggers driven into one of the giant tree boles. "You," the tribune demanded. "Where is the ship controlled from?"

The Pilot winced with trapped-animal panic-he might have been dopey with the pain of his ribs and shoulders. The Medic craned his neck to see the other crewman. Because of the trunk's curve they could not see one another's face without straining.

When the Pilot still said nothing, the Medic flung his gaze again on the Roman tribune and said, "It's in his quarters, the whole thing, but you can't work the controls yourselves, you know-"

"Yes, we know," said Vibulenus with a vague smile at the fellow's desperation to prove he was indispensable. They already knew that; the tribune himself did, at least.

Niger stood with a mechanical rather than fluid grace, each joint of his close-coupled frame moving by small increments. There was certainly a way to provide the Commander's quarters with real furniture, but it was not worth the bother of learning-and very possibly, it was under the Commander's control alone.

The junior centurion put an arm around Vibulenus' shoulders and hugged him. Quartilla, standing at the tribune's other side, laid her fingers on her lover's biceps, and the troops of the century on guard began to move closer to hear what was about to happen.

"We can set a course for a lovely world," the Medic said, nervousness speeding his voice so that the words tripped across one another. "Anything you want, what-ever's lovely to you. And-"

"You'll set our course for home," said the tribune. "For Capua. For-"

"No." said the Pilot.

They had all been ignoring the slimmer crewman in his silence and his daze. Vibulenus moved to his side for a better view of the fellow. Niger, a non-commissioned officer again, made room through his crowding soldiers with a snarled order and a shove that could have moved oxen.

"There's no home," the Pilot went on, meeting the tribune's eyes with a bright terror which proved he understood well the temper of the men around him. "We can take you-many places, almost anywhere, places the Federation will never learn about. But if we take you to Earth-"

"Look at him," said Clodius Afer to the captive. He swept his arm to the side, clearing by his authority a path as wide as what his junior had managed with physical effort. "Look at him!" the pilus prior shouted.

The Commander was on a tree facing his two subordinates. The undergrowth which might have interfered with the view was gone, trampled down or hacked away. The shimmering filter of air before the guild officer's face was studded with sweat like that of a human. When he moaned, the droplets shuddered and occasionally splashed down onto his suit where they vanished in the fabric.

A number of the soldiers had gleefully helped, but no one had disputed Niger's right to drive home the daggers that pinioned the Commander to what had been part of the luxury in which the guild kept him.

His arms were outstretched, and his fingers twitched beneath their blue covering. The daggers by which he supported his upper body had been driven through his wrists, where the network of sinews and bone could accept a strain that would have torn apart the lighter structure of his palms and let his torso slump forward.

The Commander's legs were flexed sharply at the knees and turned to his right side. His feet had been drawn up to provide a cushion of sorts for his buttocks. Then the third spike had been hammered through both heelbones and deep into the wood beneath.

The slight, blue-clad figure was alive and would remain alive for a considerable time before shock or suffocation carried him off. The blood which dripped with spittle from the corner of his mouth was only from the way he bit himself while gnashing his teeth in agony.

"What's your Federation going to do with you," said Clodius Afer, his voice harsh but no longer shouting, "that's going to be worse than that?" The Commander whimpered.

"You don't understand," said the Medic who was closing his eyes tight and then reopening them, not blinking but more an unconscious attempt to wring visible reality into a more acceptable guise. He was almost whispering, but he got somewhat better control of himself when Vibulenus looked back at him.

"You've been gone," the crewman explained, "not the time you've been awake on the ship or on the ground, but all the time the ship's in Transit, too. Do you understand? You haven't been home for thousands of your years. There isn't any home left for you."

Quartilla stroked the tribune's back, her touch sensuous, this time for its power rather than its delicacy. "Yes," she said in answer to the question her lover has hot needed to ask aloud. "He's telling-"

She paused to rephrase. "He's not lying."

Existence was sand, rushing down a slope to bury the soul of Gaius Vibulenus Caper in tiny, harsh realities. Everything they had fought for, everything he had promised these men who trusted him He had promised them a chance to live free and live as men. Whatever else home might be was less important than that.

"We never thought it would be the same," Vibulenus said. His voice stirred echoes even from the rough boles of the synthetic trees. "It wouldn't have been the same if we'd marched back from Parthia with all the loot of Ctesiphon in our baggage-home would have changed, and we would have changed even more."

"All right," said the Pilot in a voice like twigs snapping. "Cut me loose and I'll take you to what you think your home is."

Quick hands moved, anticipating Vibuenus' nod of assent.

"I warn you, cargo," said the Pilot as his face worked against new pain as his injuries were jogged. "You don't understand what you're doing."

"Perhaps we don't, guild crewman," said Gaius Vibulenus. His right hand and those of his two centurions gripped each other in a knot as tight as that which Alexander cut at Gordion, and the soft warmth of Quartilla beside him was hope itself.

"But we understand that we are Romans."