The Twice and Future Caesar (42 page)

Augustus stayed maddeningly calm or else he was just sick to death. He said indolently, “Romulus never played enough moves ahead, and he always undercounted the pieces left on the game board. A player begins the game with two knights. I knew I might need to sacrifice one of mine.”

“You're talking in symbols, Augustus. Can't you just say what you mean?”

“In terms you can understand, John Farragut, I hit a sac fly. Look for the runner coming in to home. Tactical! See the plot at ten by three by
sixty-six. Same vector as my Striker came in, but two light-years behind it. There's something to be said for redundance, John Farragut.”

Given the precise vector, Tactical was able to locate the FTL object and put its image on display.

The target was a small ship, sky-blue and white, recognizable as a Roman Striker by its waspish lines.

The Striker kicked down from FTL. It wasn't attracting gluies as Augustus' Striker was.

Sacrifice fly.

Augustus got the Hive to chase his own Striker while—while what?

“You're bringing it in a little close, Augustus.”

“We don't have a lot of time,” Augustus said. “I need to get on board that Striker.”

“You know what's in it?”

“I do. I don't know if it's alive. If it's dead, so are we.”

Farragut ordered Space Torpedo Patrol Boat One to be readied for immediate launch. He ordered TR Steele to report to the hangar deck with a team of Fleet Marine gunners. Full suits, breathers, swords. He invited Jose Maria to come with him, and he charged off the command deck. “XO has the deck and com!”

On board SPT 1, crossing the void from
Merrimack
to the blue and white Striker, a team of Marine gunners were seated, ready at the guns. The guns were loaded with fragmentation rounds.

TR Steele stood at a porthole, glowering intently at
Merrimack
. Kerry Blue was back there. The space battleship grew smaller with distance.

Not small enough that he couldn't see the gorgons. His heart dropped. “Captain!”

“I see it, TR. Pilot, stay the course.”

Merrimack
was taking on gorgons.

It took all Steele's discipline to keep from requesting permission to open fire. Only the futility of it kept him in place.

He wondered if it was possible to choke on his own beating heart.

It was killing him not to be there, with
her
, repelling boarders.

His only shot was right here. This sortie was grasping at a miracle that he just couldn't see happening.

The Striker, where they were headed, hadn't attracted gorgons yet. The Striker was visible by the forward lights from SPT 1.

Farragut nodded ahead at the Striker. He asked the monster patterner, Augustus, “Whose ship is this?”

“This Striker belonged to the patterner Secundus.”

“You knew him?”

“No. Secundus died sixty years ago.”

The blue and white Striker filled the Spit boat's forward view ports. The pilot pivoted the Spit boat one-eighty and closed in, presenting the Spit boat's sternside air lock forward.

At Augustus' clicking request, the Striker formed an opening in its inertial screen to allow the Marines to establish a soft dock between the Spit boat's aft air lock and the Striker's only air lock.

Steele knew, because
Merrimack
had hangared another Roman Striker for way too long, that this Striker's air lock probably accessed its living compartment.

The living compartment couldn't be much more than seven by seven by eight feet empty. It housed all the patterner's possessions. Steele's own berth on
Merrimack
was smaller, but Steele had the rest of the space battleship to move around in. He wasn't confined to his quarters for months on end.

The Marines fixed a short flexible walkway between the Spit boat's air lock and the Striker's air lock and pressurized it. Then they withdrew to stand rear guard at their guns on board SPT 1.

Augustus took the point position in the walkway to board the Striker. He shut the Spit boat's hatches behind him.

He crossed to the Striker's outer hatch in three long strides. When the pressure gauges read equal, the locks on the Striker's outer hatch relaxed. Augustus advanced into the Striker's air lock.

He grasped the handle to the Striker's inner hatch.

Farragut's voice sounded over Augustus' suit com. “What are we expecting to find in there?”

“I'm
expecting
a dead mess of aliens from the Deep End and a nest of dormant gorgons waking up to devour me. I'm
hoping
for a
Deus ex machina
.”

Saying so, Augustus pulled the inner hatch.

The hatch sucked open with a billow of dense, damp, heated air. Condensation formed on Augustus' bubble helmet.

The Striker's living compartment had been converted into a tropical biosphere. Green plants dripped. The rubbery trees were breathing. Their
black-green leaves hung like rags. Their trunks bent over as they had been forced to grow across the low overhead. Where there was a bed in Augustus' Striker, there was a pond here. Creatures moved in it.

There was no fear of alien microbes. Terrestrial life made incompatible hosts for alien infection. Basic airborne poisons—carbon monoxide, cyanide, and hydrochloric acid—were reasonable fears, but they were not present here.

Augustus spoke into his suit com, “Send Doctor Cordillera over.”

Farragut: “I'm coming.”

Augustus: “If you must. But I need Doctor Cordillera yesterday.”

Farragut and Jose Maria were already suited up.

With the opening of the Spit boat's outer and inner hatches, the heavy scent of chlorophyll and damp, heated air spilled inside. Moisture condensed on all the surfaces and fogged the portholes.

Farragut bounded out the air lock. “TR! Your boat!”

“Sir.”

Farragut crossed the walkway in three bounds. On entering the Striker, Farragut resisted swatting at the insectoids. The compartment was tight and it was clogged with living things. He didn't know where to step.

Toad-skinned rays with pulsating, bristling warts trembled and spat at him.

“Friends of yours, Augustus?”

“These are natives of a world deep in the Deep End of the galaxy.”

“No. That's not possible. The Deep End is plagued with Hive. Nothing lives there.”

Augustus picked up a warty ray. Its lizard tail twitched. Its bristles stood out rigid from its warts. “Life emerges where it can, and it evolves to survive the conditions present. Life on this creature's world evolved to coexist with a Hive swarm. All the life in here is resonating the Hive harmonic.”

Augustus passed the wart ray to Jose Maria as he stepped in through the air lock. “The Hive mistakes these creatures for part of itself. Doctor Cordillera, you may get the Hive harmonic off of anything in here.”

“You think that can be done?”

“It's
been
done. The patterner Secundus did it. It needs to be done again, very, very quickly.”

“Then plug into patterner mode and analyze these creatures,” Farragut ordered.

“No.”

“You're refusing an order, Colonel Augustus?”

“Yes. If I get the Hive harmonic in my head, I
will
join the other side. I can't allow that to happen.”

Jose Maria regarded the wart ray in his gloved hands. “Young Captain, I believe I can analyze the shape of the natural res chamber of this creature, and, from that, perhaps, derive the harmonic.”

“You sound reluctant, Jose Maria.”

“This is so, young Captain. It requires my taking a resonant sounding.”

“Can you do that?”

“Understand that a resonant sounding entails
resonating
,” Jose Maria warned. “This
will
provoke the Hive.”

“Odds of success?”

“Better than not doing it,” Augustus answered for him.

Jose Maria nodded assent.

“Go,” Farragut said.

In the instant that Jose Maria took the res sounding, all the creatures inside the chamber made noises of protest. The creature under Jose Maria's direct observation shrieked. Its warts spat.

“Now what?” Farragut demanded.

Jose Maria wiped the viscous spit off his res reader. “There is a new harmonic in my chamber.”

“Is it the Hive harmonic?”

“I do not know.” Jose Maria stepped carefully over the pond creatures and crossed back to the Spit boat at a run. TR Steele stepped away from the air lock to let him board.

Jose Maria wiped condensation off a porthole to give him a view out.

Through the clear spot, TR Steele could see
Merrimack
out there, covered in gorgons and razors.

Jose Maria announced loudly, “I am resonating the harmonic that is currently lodged inside my resonator
now
. And—”

Steele watched the gorgons. Held his breath.

And?

And nothing.

There was no change in the behavior of the marauding gorgons out there.

Farragut barreled through the air lock. His heavy footfalls sent the flexible walkway bouncing in his wake. “Any reaction out there?”

Jose Maria's answer fell on Steele's ears like an epitaph. “Negative response.”

Steele glowered out the porthole, his brows lowered, his jaw set.

So this was it. Negative response. End of the world.

By the light of the sun he could see gorgons continuing to clot onto
Merrimack
.

This really was the Alamo now. Kerry Blue was in there, in that living tomb. And he wasn't with her. Was she alone? Were her mates around her? Kerry Blue loved her team.
God, if I can't save her, if I can't be with her, please don't let her be alone
.

He was dumbfounded to hear the captain shouting with a sound like hallelujah. “Jose Maria! You
mean
it?”

Steele was bewildered. Farragut sounded
happy
about it. Joyous. Was negative response a good thing?

“Yes, young Captain,” Jose Maria confirmed with a fragile smile.

Farragut bellowed, crowing now:
“We are singing with the choir!”

Jose Maria looked to be trembling. “We have the Hive harmonic.” It was the end of a long dark ordeal.

Farragut ordered, “Send the complement of the Hive harmonic.
Yesterday!
”

Jose Maria made entries into his handheld resonator. As he did, he warned Farragut, “Know that resonating the complement of the Hive harmonic will cause both harmonics to cancel each other out. Neither will exist.”

“That means the Hive will cease to exist?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“Near to a certainty. Resonance is the nervous system of the Hive. The Hive is a resonant entity. It cannot exist without its harmonic. Resonance knows no distance. All the Hive swarms on this harmonic, everywhere in the universe, will cease. The ramifications are far reaching. For example, what the absence of the harmonic could do to those creatures in Secundus' Striker, I could not say.”

All the strange creatures from Constantine's Deep End world—the bristling little wart rays in their shallow pool, the weeping stalks, the rag trees pushing at the overhead, and the pulsing sponges—all of them were resonating a harmonic that was about to go extinct. Might they die? Might all life on their home world die?

Steele struggled to keep from bellowing,
So what!

To Steele's huge relief, Farragut said, “I'm not doing an impact study, Jose Maria.”

Merrimack
was now coated with gorgons so thick there was no making out her spearhead shape anymore.
Merrimack
was dying.

Farragut said, “If anyone has objections, keep 'em to yourself. I'm destroying the enemy.”

Jose Maria took a breath. His voice came out shaky. “I have it. I have the complement to the Hive harmonic.”

“Kill it,” Farragut said. “Kill the Hive.”

“In my lifetime, if you please,” Augustus added.

Jose Maria paused over his resonator. He looked to be praying.

Captain Farragut reached around him and activated the harmonic.

In the next moment Jose Maria cried,
“Dios! Dios!”

T
HE
ALIEN
CREATURES
INSIDE
the Striker's living compartment shrank, withered, and closed. The plants turned dull and curled into their mud beds.

Part of Steele died. He stared out the forward viewscreen. His heart pounded. It wanted out.

Merrimack
was visible only as a gorgon tomb. Nothing of the space battleship herself showed. She looked like a mountain adrift in space.

But something was different. The surface of the mass wasn't crawling. It wasn't moving.

Then, like a slow shrug, a crack appeared in the mass. A great sheet sheared off, split. Pieces, they were gorgons, slowly crumbled in the vacuum. Tentacles lazily broke off and drifted.

Now part of
Merrimack
's hull showed through the crust of gorgons. The space battleship's running lights were on.

The American flag broke surface, furled, but still there.

The motions of all the individual gorgons in space changed. Their tentacles dreamily detached and drifted away from their bodies.

Inside the Striker's swampy compartment, the alien creatures from the Deep End stopped contracting. Slowly, they expanded again, unfolding. They thrust out bright stamens and spread their fins to the compartment lights. The wart rays shed their dull skins. They chirped. They were alive.

The Hive was dead.

Black grit like volcanic ash fell to Earth. Meteors streaked across the skies. Dead gorgons clouded the atmosphere. Earth was facing a climatic nightmare.

Most people considered themselves blessed to be alive to have the nightmare.

Cleanup efforts started immediately. It was a different sort of battle, another scenario for the U.S. Fleet Marines to train for. New equipment was installed on
Merrimack
to turn back the new threat.

President Catherine Mays publicly thanked Caesar Numa Pompeii for all his assistance during the recent crisis. Numa had given none. She declined any further assistance from Rome and privately advised Caesar that should Roman troops attempt to occupy Earth during the reconstruction, she would personally stab him in the heart with a sword.

Kerry Blue and Alpha Team waded in the little swamp on board the Roman Striker. They crated up the aliens and hovered them as fast as they could to an identical hold on board
Merrimack.
Orders were to move everything. Slime. Ooze. All. They needed to get it done before Caesar Numa Pompeii could demand the Striker be returned to Roman custody. Numa could lawfully do that. The Striker was Roman property.

The aliens inside it were not.

They got the compartment battened down. Twitch and Dak stood in the hatchway and took a last look inside to see if they'd broken anything in transit.

Nothing floating belly up. A couple of leaves were a little crinkled, but they may have already been that way.

As the Marines turned to go, a wart ray, wallowing in the shallow pool, made a break for the hatchway. Carly pointed, cried, “Get it!”

Twitch and Dak grabbed for the slithery wart ray.

It went airborne.

“I didn't know they could fly!” Carly cried.

The wart ray came down on Kerry Blue's head and held tight with its rubbery sides.

“Get it off! It's peeing down my neck.”

“I don't think that's pee,
chica linda
.”

The creature was flapping, its warts pulsing.

“Aw! Nah! Come
on!
Really?”

* * *

Captain Farragut opened up the ship's bar to toast
Don
Jose Maria de Cordillera, Colonel Augustus, and Commander Calli Carmel. He would have invited Lieutenant Colonel Steele, but that wouldn't be doing Steele a favor. Steele was a plain soldier at heart. You'd never find him in an Officers' Mess unless commanded to be there.

Farragut said, “Someone—that would be you, Augustus—explain Constantine to me. Was he actually the same historical megalomaniac who supposedly died decades ago?”

“That same Constantine, yes. Constantine Siculus arranged his own death to stop the hunters from searching for him.”

“You knew he was still out there?”

“I only became aware of his continued survival when I was on board Romulus' Xerxes. One of the first things Romulus did on arriving back in time—stop wincing, John Farragut—was send an assassin missile to the Deep End to kill Constantine. I thought it strange that Romulus found it necessary to kill a dead historical figure. After we left the Myriad, I sent my Striker to follow the assassin missile.”

“You told me you couldn't contact your Striker,” Farragut said. “You lied to me, Augustus.”

“I left off half the truth. I couldn't contact my Striker by resonator. But Strikers talk to each other by tachyon clicks. It's slower than resonance, but clicking doesn't attract Hive attention.

“Secundus' Striker transmitted a continuous warning on the tachyon clicker for any other Striker who might come out that way. It told us that Constantine was alive and intent on coopting any patterner who came there.”

“Us? Who is us?”

“Me and my Striker.”

“And yet you sent your Striker into the Deep End.”

“It was a risk worth taking.”

“And your Striker killed Constantine?”

“No,” Augustus said. “Romulus' assassin missile killed Constantine. My Striker ordered Secundus' Striker to follow it back to Near Space. It was a long trek.”

“And what was Secundus doing while his Striker was running away with your Striker?”

“Being dead.”

“You're sure? The patterner Secundus is dead? Death doesn't seem all that permanent these days.”

“Secundus has been dead for sixty years. Patterners don't live that long.”

“And Constantine?”

“Dead.”

“You're sure.”

“Secundus' Striker sent confirmation to my Striker by tachyon clicker. Romulus' assassin missile successfully connected with Constantine. Constantine is finally, truly dead.”

Augustus' Striker was also dead. Farragut knew that. To the extent that Strikers could be considered alive in the first place, Augustus' Striker was now thoroughly dead. The gluies had eaten into his Striker's antimatter chamber.

Secundus' Striker—the little ship that had served as an ark for its cargo of alien creatures from the Deep End—that Striker was still functional. The possession of Secundus' Striker was hotly contested now.

“Caesar Numa Pompeii has the lawful claim to the Striker,” Augustus said. “The Striker is a Roman vessel. It must be returned to Rome.”

“Okay,” said John Farragut.

Okay?

Farragut had never known Augustus to blink.

Now Augustus looked cross. “John Farragut, you are the most transparent being in the known galaxy. You've already offloaded the aliens.”

Farragut didn't deny it.

“That could be construed as piracy,” Augustus said.

Farragut's broad shoulders lifted. Dropped. “My sister granted the aliens asylum.”

Augustus' face was an impenetrable mask. Commander Calli Carmel flashed a dazzling smile. She had to be envisioning Numa Pompeii's reaction. She laughed out loud. “Why were all those creatures on board the Striker in the first place?”

Jose Maria de Cordillera answered that one. “Constantine Siculus intended that Striker to be his life craft out of the Deep End. The creatures mimicked the gorgons' resonance and passed themselves off as part of the Hive. The resonance from the creatures could have given Constantine safe passage through the Deep.”

Farragut made an exasperated noise. “What makes men like Constantine and Romulus think they can rule the universe? They're not real. They're megalomaniacs. They shouldn't be real.”

“Constantine and Romulus are not unique,” Jose Maria said. “As much as one might want to believe that the madman who sets himself up as a god in the jungle is the stuff of fiction, the heart of darkness is real. History is populated with genocidal maniacs with delusions of invincibility, from Caligula to Hitler, to His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.

“As late as this third millennium there was also Glorious General descended from heaven, Dear Father Guiding Star of the Twenty-First Century, Great Defender, Savior, Great Sun of Life, Shining Star of Paektu Mountain, Ever Victorious Iron-Willed Commander, Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love, His Excellency Kim Jong-Il. No one needs to make these men up. They
are
. The Pacific Consortium, who created the Xerxes ship, were well aware of the existence of such men. ‘Unleashing a weapon without a failsafe is the dumbest godforsaken thing in the world.'”

John Farragut winced, nodding. “I said that, didn't I?”

The Pacifics already knew better than to give their products the ability to kill a world leader.

Calli asked, “Why didn't Romulus detect the failsafe in his Xerxes? He was a patterner.”

Augustus answered. “The failsafe is not in the Xerxes' specifications. It's entirely passive. The failsafe doesn't exist until it's triggered by a grossly forbidden command, such as an act of war. The Xerxes expunged its operating system when Romulus tried to use it to kill the U.S. President.”

Farragut: “Would you have detected the failsafe?”

“Detect it? No. But I knew there had to be one. It's common sense.”

“Why didn't Romulus know? You said he was a superior patterner.”

“Have I ever told you that being able to see doesn't make you
look
? The ability to see patterns doesn't curb the human tendency to kick unwanted data under the rug to get desired answers.” Augustus leaned back, his eyes shut, brow creased as if in pain.

“Can I do anything for you?” Farragut asked.

“Tell your sister to surrender the U.S. to Rome.”

“I don't see that ever happening.”

Augustus snorted. Mistake. Got blood on his mouth and chin. “
Merda
.”

“Are you dying?”

“Technically we're all dying,” Augustus said. “I just also happen to have a nose bleed.”

The space battleship
Merrimack
reverberated with a colossal ship-wide 'cuss jam.

Company and crew were dancing, clanging, clubbing, and stomping.

A massive unglamorous reconstruction effort awaited them. But now was now. They'd won a big one. The ship was dancing.

A resonant hail came in on Farragut's private harmonic. He withdrew to the relative quiet of his cabin to take the call. The image that came up stunned him.

“Captain Farragut,” his brother said.

“John!”

“My name is Nox. Call off your search. I won't be found.”

Captain John Farragut had people looking for his younger brother. Captain Farragut was wealthy. He could mount an interstellar manhunt. He needed to find his brother—find him before anyone else did. Everyone else wanted him dead.