Strength and Honor (44 page)

And did not seem to be able to stop them. Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria had huge numbers of Roman visitors.

Captain Carme! on board
Wolfhound,
orbiting Earth with the home guard, signaled Jupiter Control regarding a new raft of Italians. “Are we sure these are all civilians?”

“We are sure there are enough Italian citizens on board those ships that we can’t shoot at them.”

And because the ships were not attempting to land in the United States, Calli could not buzz them away from entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Italy would not authorize the U.S. military to come in on the ground to repel their excess visitors, much less allow them to drop any ordnance on Italian soil.

Most of the visitors did not have proper admittance documents. They were obviously Roman. They spoke flawless Italian or French or Portuguese or Spanish or Arabic depending on the country they visited. Immigration was not inclined to incarcerate masses of orderly people. The visitors gently bypassed immigration. Italy did not authorize the use of force against them, and the immigration officials did not attempt to make any arrests. The Romans were breaking immigration law, but they were well dressed, friendly, said hello, and brought nice gifts. Colonial wine was very fine, and a confection that rivaled chocolate for divinity was a nice gift.

The visitors submitted to searches. They carried no weapons, they had adequate currency, did not look as if they would be a burden, and there were just too many of them and not enough reason to get belligerent with them.

Wolfhound
could only watch all those wolves coming in among the lambs.

“That’s cheating,” said Red Dorset at the com station.

“You tell ‘em,” said Tactical. “Bet you’ll really hurt their little feelings with that one.”

The Romans had staged a mass Exodus from Earth a century and a half ago. “Is this the Eisodos?” Red wondered out loud.

Tactical straightened up at his station, yelped, “You mean they’re all coming
back?”

Red Dorset passed a message from Jupiter Control to Captain Carmel. Per instructions from Captain John Farragut a week ago, Jupiter Control reported the approach of an Italian ship bearing Italian colors, Italian ID, and a passenger manifest of children.

Calli ordered Red Dorset to contact his buddy Guglielmo in Italy to recheck the ship’s identity while she took
Wolfhound
closer for a look at the target.

Merrimack
was in Palatine’s atmosphere, making decoy drops on the planet’s surface. Any time
Merrimack
dropped to sublight speed she had all the Roman ships’ attention. The Romans knew by now that
Merrimack
was often used as a diversion, sent down only to draw fire. And the diversion always worked, because Roman defense could not afford to ignore her.

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

^S
HOCK 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 deck 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

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