Strength and Honor (48 page)

“I have a racing craft, young Captain.”

The smaller mass of
Mercedes
gave her a much higher threshold velocity than the titanic space battleship. “Is she that fast?” He meant was she fast enough to make a side trip to Corindahlor and still catch up with
Merrimack
without losing time.

“We can make it a race,” said Jose Maria.

Farragut lifted his wrist com. “Farragut to Command.”

Gypsy’s voice responded, “Command, aye.”

“Commander Dent, you have the ship.”

“Aye, sir,” said Gypsy, accepting the order, only then questioning, “What are you doing, sir?”

A reminder there that the Hive was on Earth.

“Going to see Augustus.”

“He’s dead, sir.”

“I’m not.”

I’m not. Why am I not?

Why did he let me live the third time?

Corindahlor, a planetary system known less for itself than for one of its bridges, lay just to the galactic south of
Merrimack’s
homeward course.

Decades ago, a Roman cohort made a heroic stand at the bridge. They lost the battle. The valiant three hundred died to a man. But the heroic defeat set in motion events that won Rome the world.

The famous stand had been recorded—by the victors of that battle, to their eternal dismay. It was a picture of Roman heroism.

Augustus had been one of the three hundred in his past life.

The Roman Horizon Guard granted the unarmed neutral Terra Rican ship
Mercedes
permission to enter Corindahlor airspace and set down.

The Bridge.

Gray and massive. Two miles long. A choke point connecting land masses. The proud inhabitants had left the beam fire scars unrepaired and the bullets lodged in the original railings.

Augustus always had cynical things to say of the three hundred and the monument to youthful gullibility. He said it reinforced witless credulity so that future generations of prime stupid youth would not hesitate to answer the call to serve their country.
Isn’t it grand to be dead?

Farragut had told Augustus that he demeaned his empire’s war dead by speaking so. Augustus said, “Do I? Because I know what it is.”

The monument was stirring in its simplicity. Built on the defender’s end of the bridge. Large, not colossal. The Roman Tenth had been the Few against overwhelming odds. The memorial was simple. Enduring. Steadfast. It bore three hundred names.

Farragut found him in the Flavian century list. He lifted his fingers toward the name. Cyprian Flavius Cassius.

Hesitated.

Touched the name.

Heard Jose Maria’s gasp. Then a voice:

“John you flaming idiot Farragut.”

Farragut was not sure why he didn’t jump. That voice, those words seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to hear. And weirdly comforting.

He turned to the holoimage of Augustus that had given Jose Maria such a start.

The image’s mouth moved. The voice sounded from somewhere nearby, “Here you are. Some things are just inevitable.”

Augustus appeared as he had the day he left
Merrimack.
A battered sardonic warrior. In black. A ruby showed like a drop of blood on his chest where soldiers wore their medals.

“What is it about touching a name on a grave monument that makes you think you can contact a spirit? This is not a spirit. I am not here. This is a recording.

“This recording will appear only for you, John Farragut, and only after Romulus is effectively dead.” Captain Farragut supposed Romulus’ current condition qualified as death.

“You are the only one I can trust—obscene and absurd as that notion is. I’m giving you this for the same reasons Caesar Magnus chose you to take Rome’s surrender. Do not use this information for political or tactical advantage. If you do, you will end like Romulus. You see, I really don’t trust anyone. And I didn’t let you live because I like you.”

A hiss sounded from the span of the bridge. Smoke rose off its surface with an acidic smell. Red marks began to appear on the bridge. The marks took the shapes of numbers etching themselves into the concrete.

“Rome has these figures from my black box and the Striker, but I don’t know if they have put the knowledge to use or not, because, as you have noticed, I am dead. Get these to Jose Maria if he’s not standing next to you.” Farragut and Jose Maria glanced at each other. Exchanged the same thought:
Patterner.
“I shall meet you in the Outer Darkness,” said Augustus.

And he was gone.

Farragut and Jose Maria stepped onto the bridge to read the smoldering figures burned into the stone. “Can you read that, Jose Maria?”

“It may be an algorithm,” Jose Maria said provisionally, his eyes still roving up and down the numbers. He withdrew a computer from his pocket.

Farragut was receiving a signal from Gypsy on
Merrimack.
“Admiral Mishindi for you, Captain,” she told him.

Farragut waited for Gypsy to pass through the signal, expecting to hear piss and brimstone for his separating from
Merrrimack,
though Farragut could not believe Gypsy would sing on him. And when Farragut answered the hail, Mishindi did not seem to be aware that Farragut was not on board the
Mack.

Admiral Mishindi sounded more surprised and confounded than angry. “John! What did you do?”

Farragut foundered. The admiral hadn’t demanded, “Why aren’t you on your ship? Or where the hell are you?”

Puzzled, Farragut asked back, “What did I do?”

“I’ve got reports coming in from all over Earth and the Deep End of gorgons melting and gorgons freezing solid in space. Just like the last time you erased the Hive. You mean this is nothing you did?”

“I.. . may have done.” He looked to Jose Maria, who was casting round the bridge supports for something. “I’ll report when I have something definite, sir.” Clicked off.

Jose Maria hiked up from under one end of the bridge.

“I have found it.”

“It?”

“The resonant chamber. You touched the name. Your action did not just trigger the holoimage of Augustus. You triggered two resonant pulses.”

Farragut asked, “Can I assume those two pulses are on harmonics complementary to the two new Hive harmonics?”

“From what your admiral says, it would seem that they are.” A harmonic pulse and its complement cancelled each other out so that neither existed. A Hive lived by its harmonic resonance. Without its resonance, a Hive ceased to exist.

“Augustus killed both Hives.”

Just like that.

Augustus had waited until Romulus was dead— effectively dead—to do so. A little high-handed, that. To allow the Hive to flourish while Augustus waited for his revenge.

But then again, allowing the Hive to flourish was not all Augustus’ doing.

Rome has these figures.

“Rome could have done this much sooner,” said Farragut. “Other than Romulus, who in Rome would have access to Augustus’ data?”

Jose Maria placed his hand over his breast pocket. Spoke, resentful, “Roman Imperial Intelligence counts among its members some of my least loved acquaintances under God’s heaven.”

Waiting for Farragut to touch the name had not been a delay in getting the cure to the disease. It was the backup plan to make sure the cure got to the disease somehow, in case someone in Rome decided to withhold it for his own purposes.

Redundance is good. Redundance is good.

There had been a period of time when no one knew where Augustus was. Between the time he left
Merrimack
in the Deep End and his reappearance over the Roman Curia.

Sometime in that range Augustus had come here to walk over his own grave.

And to plant this recording and these res signals.

“If I didn’t come here and trigger those two resonant pulses, Rome has ...” Farragut looked to the numbers on the bridge. “What exactly does Rome have there?” The figures looked like more than just two harmonics. There were equations.

“I think,” Jose Maria answered slowly because he hadn’t had time to verify what he thought, “this is an algorithm for calculating the shift in harmonic between the old Hives and their successor Hives. The difference between the old and new generations in both Hive entities share a progression. Should a third generation emerge—may God forbid—then this algorithm should calculate the new harmonics, and allow us to destroy them as well.”

Augustus had been programmed to serve Rome, and so he had done to the end. “He saved his Empire and our Earth,” said John Farragut. “And no one but you and I will thank him for it.”

“Augustus did not believe in heroes,” said Jose Maria.

“Oh, he crabbed a lot, but there’s a reason he came back here.” Back here to the place he first died. To the monument from a grateful nation.

Farragut touched the name again. The image did not come again. Only a voice: “Get the hell out of here. I am still dead, and you are still an idiot.”

39

^A
T THE DINNER DANCE
in honor of his promotion, Rear Admiral Farragut made his entrance with a young thing on his arm. He had been dreading the ground posting as district commander until his future tripped and fell on him on the steps at the inn where he was staying.

She was twenty-five years old, brown hair, moderately pretty face, the nose a little pointy, a bright genuine smile. Blue-gray eyes. You could see at once that someone was home behind the eyes. She was athletic, very thin, a bit angular. Pretty as only a laughing woman of that age wearing an evening dress and making an entrance on the arm of a hero admiral can be.

Farragut could have carried less weight, and he had fifteen years on her, but the two looked good together. That Farragut smile, those blue eyes never looked brighter. He looked amazingly buoyant, even for John Farragut.

He had intended to come to the party stag. Until this young woman tripped over him. He’d caught her. “I didn’t trip,” Kathy confessed at the party in a circle of admirals. Her name was Kathy.

“I knew that,” Farragut confessed back.

They danced a lot of the dances. Kathy got introduced to everyone. Looked you right in the eyes.

After the toasts to the rear admiral’s success, John Farragut in turn toasted Captain Calli Carmel on her new post as captain of the space battleship U.S.S.
Merrimack.

Not altogether sure about leaving his command to an officer known as “Crash,” he added at the end of his toast, “Don’t bend my boat, Cal.”

Lieutenant Colonel TR Steele made a brief appearance. Stiff. Steele was always stiff at formal events, especially when the room was full of brass. It was worse when all those senior officers made way for him and the chant started, “A-da-mas! A-da-mas!” His head burned red and bright enough to serve as a port sidelight.

Steele extended congratulations to Rear Admiral Farragut and to Captain Calli Carmel, and quickly left. Kathy watched him go. “That was fast. That was the gladiator, wasn’t it? Does he have a
date?”

“I try not to know,” said Commander Gypsy Dent.

Calli asked, “Is that Marine girl still on board the
Mack?
What was her name?” She remembered the young woman, good-tempered, eager, and moral as a cheerful dog. Steele snarled at her all the time. “Kerry Blue. Is she—?”

Gypsy hummed and took an interest in the light fixtures.

Farragut asked Kathy to dance.

“Ah,” Calli said, and nothing else.

Captain Calli Carmel, who had come to the dance stag—or doe—spent much of the evening discussing Roman strategy with a cluster of admirals. They had been following the many speculations over who would be Caesar’s successor. Bookmakers had odds on the front-runners. Odds on Rome reverting to a republic were fairly steep.

Calli snorted at the mere suggestion of republic. Rome needed its Caesar. And to Calli, Gaius Americanus was the obvious choice.

But she also recognized that the Empire did not think as she did.

Though Romans had respect for a man who survived an assassination attempt and who came back to confront his attacker and endured imprisonment for it, Gaius had spent much of the war in hiding and in an American hospital—not good places for a leader to be. He had been the one to speak openly against Romulus. He had walked onto the Senate floor to certain doom and denounced the madman. The Senate
had
chosen Gaius as moderator for the debates concerning the Empire’s future course.

But while Gaius’ integrity was beyond question, his ordeal did not make him quite the man of action Romans preferred. Gaius was also an extreme moderate, and the middle ground was always a good place to get shot in the Roman Empire.

The field of possible successors was wide open.

Senator Quirinius was a strong possibility. He was philosophically similar to Gaius. He had given shelter to Gaius upon his escape from prison. A protector was a more attractive image than an evader.

Numa Pompeii had always been quintessentially Roman. But he had been bested in battle by the
Merrimack
and by Calli Carmel. He had obeyed Romulus-—as had everyone except for Gaius. But more was expected from the mighty Triumphalis.

Among the dark horses was the father of Herius Asinius, the heroic commander of Legion Draconis who had died fighting the Hive. Also among the long shots was Senator Trogus, who had resisted Romulus, but he was a very very long shot because no one could love him.

A Senator Siculus was making a bid for the supremacy, but Siculus was just not a popular name.

A serious contender was Flavia Irena. Irena was an ironic name for a Flavian, as it meant Peace. This Irena, like most Flavians, was a hardcore hawk. Irena was the feminized clone of one of the fallen at Corindahlor—but not of Augustus.

No one was considering any clones of
his.
A mind could not be cloned—thank all the gods.

A strange and alarming number of Romans were not recanting their support for Romulus’ agenda. It went against human nature to back down from a public stand. And denial was often stronger than reason, so there was an odd litter of Julians vying for the top position.