The Ninth Circle

by R. M. Meluch

  A sudden jolt threw them to the ground.

  No.

  The ground was rising under them.

  A pseudopod of energy, extending from Merrimack’s inertial field, jabbed down to the planet surface, enclosed the Romans, their shield dome, and the ground they stood on, and pulled them up.

  Imperial eagles canted over. Roman standards wobbled. The ground became loose and crumbly under the guardsmen. They lay flat forward for a dizzying ride a quarter way around the globe.

  Merrimack set them down in darkness, not gently. The energy hook dissolved.

  Wind felt like blades. Breath iced in their lungs. They narrowed their eyes to slits. Blowing ice collected on their lashes. They had come from a temperate zone. They were not equipped for arctic operations. Their energy dome was still active, but it was an umbrella. They were vulnerable at ground level.

  A wind-whipped spray of glassy particles sent them all crouching low again. They heard engines.

  Not friendlies. These were United States fighter craft.

  Incoming beamfire at ground level took out the dome generators. Now the guardsmen were open to the sky. Bitter wind was dry and cutting. The place was dark except for the auroras and starshine lancing off the glittering snowpack.

  The Swifts set down in a blizzard of ice crystals that made tinny sounds on the guards’ bronze helmets, lifted their formal tunics and stung their bare legs. Cold metal armor felt sticky.

  The Swifts’ canopies slid back. Figures in full environmental gear, including heated suits, emerged from their cockpits. The Marines’ personal fields glinted around them. Their splinter guns presented muzzles first.

  One figure climbed atop his fighter’s fuselage. The host of stars were icy bright around him. The American’s merry grin was visible through his faceplate. He called down through his helmet speaker. “Freeze!”

  The Praetorian decurion raised his hands. “Oh, you’re a laugh riot, you are, Yank.”

  Tactical spoke what Calli had already noticed. “Gladiator is not returning fire.”

  This was a bad sign.

  Numa Pompeii always takes the war home.

  Caesar was going to hit her from behind. Only she didn’t know how.

  It came quicker than she expected. Red Dorset turned from his station at the com. “Captain. Incoming call on the resonator. It’s Admiral Farragut.”

  Already?

  “Give it to me.”

  Red Dorset sent the link to the captain’s console.

  “Yes, sir?” Calli said wearily into the com.

  “You’ve been undercut,” Admiral Farragut told her. “The order came down from the President. Merrimack is to take no more action without direct orders.”

  “Can you give me the direct order, John?”

  “No,” said Admiral Farragut. “No one is saying you lacked authorization or you did anything wrong. They’re just saying stop.”

  “Does the President know Numa caused the destruction of the cloke Ark?”

  “From here it looked like Roman ships tried to save the Ark.”

  “That was staged.”

  “I believe you. No one else will. They won’t want to.”

  “Numa will take over the world,” said Calli. “You know if you let Rome in, you’ve given them the world.”

  “Cal? I think he has it. You lost this one. Don’t make me give your ship to the Dingo.”

  “John, you know I can’t lose to Numa!”

  “You did, Cal. If we hadn’t just got off a war, we might have got someone to make a stand. The pols don’t want to spend lives on this. They don’t see Rome as a danger to Zoe. It’s over.”

  She had arguments. Kept from voicing them. “Aye, sir.”

  In a moment the admiral came back, “Cal?”

  “Yes, John?”

  “Do you know what happened to my brother?”

  Dingo Ryan issued the order for the Marines to release the Roman prisoners.

  The Marines had been holding the Praetorians in a Spit boat at the pole. Colonel Steele turned the Romans out to the arctic night, then ordered the Swifts aloft. The fighters lifted in a blast of ice crystals.

  Merrimack had not turned off her jammers. With the jammers still in place, Gladiator could not displace the stranded guardsmen off the polar ice pack.

  Asante commented over the com, “A little cold, isn’t that?” There was a distinct grin in his voice.

  “They can walk home for all I care,” said Steele.

  Cain sent, “Sir? Can we salute?”

  The Yurg sent, “You know, show respect.”

  “Proceed,” said Colonel Steele.

  The Swifts executed a low fly by, scarcely higher than a rooftop, over the Praetorians. Vicious winds and sonic booms trailed in their wakes.

  As the Swifts rose out of the atmosphere, Gladiator launched a transport toward the planet, probably to collect the freezing guardsmen.

  Cain sent over the Marines’ open com, “Colonel? Can we go back down and salute those guys too?”

  “Can we?” said the Yurg.

  “Can we?” said Kerry Blue.

  “Colonel?” said Cain.

  Guessed Colonel Steele didn’t like that idea. He wasn’t responding.

  All flights were returning to Merrimack.

  Colonel Steele, leading Red Squadron, wasn’t adjusting his course for the approach.

  “Wing Leader. This is Alpha One. Are you there, sir?”

  Steele did not answer. He did not change course or speed.

  “Merrimack. Merrimack. Merrimack. This is Alpha One. I have lost contact with Wing Leader. Colonel Steele is not answering his com.”

  “Wing Leader. Wing Leader. Wing Leader. This is Merrimack. Respond.”

  Nothing.

  Hailed Cain instead. “Alpha One. This is Merrimack. Bring your squadron in to the flight deck.”

  Steele’s com was out. He was having systems problems. Meant he would come in last.

  Alpha and Baker Flights rode their beams in to Merrimack’s starboard wing. They touched down, clamped down, rode the elevator down. The upper flight deck of the starboard wing was clear for Steele’s approach.

  Marines climbing out of their Swifts on the hangar deck all looked to the empty slot.

  Rhino said, “Where’s the Old Man?”

  Steele should have circled round for his approach after everyone else was inboard.

  “Captain?” said Commander Ryan. “Steele’s not coming back.”

  “Overtake,” said Captain Carmel. On the com she sent, “Colonel Steele, if you can hear me, shut your engine down.”

  The Swift did not deviate course or speed. The engine stayed hot.

  Tactical said, “We have a runaway.”

  “Bring him in. Assume incapacitated pilot,” said Captain Carmel.

  Dingo Ryan got on the intracom. “Displacement. This is Command. Ready rapture for Colonel Steele. Execute when ready.”

  “Command. This is Displacement. No go. Negative correspondence. I can’t get a read from Colonel Steele’s collar. The Colonel’s displacement collar is turned off or damaged.”

  “Whatever incapacitated Steele took out his collar too,” Ryan told the captain. “What got him?”

  Marcander Vincent said, “Nothing. Nothing hit him.”

  “Check him,” Calli ordered the specialist next to Marcander Vincent. If Vincent missed something, Calli was going to send him down, no matter what she promised John Farragut.

  Then she was on the com: “Medical Department. This is the captain. Report to cargo bay one.”

  To her XO: “Mister Ryan, shut that Swift down, hook him, and get him in here. Cargo bay one.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Ryan issued the override signal that remotely shut down the Swift’s engine. At the same instant Merrimack closed a full hook around the runaway.

  Engineering reeled the Swift into the designated cargo bay.

  The moment the cargo bay pressurization lights show
ed green, the inner access hatch opened. Fully suited medics ran inside, and scrambled atop the Swift’s wings. Marines thronged into the bay after them. The Marines stood back at the bulks, out of the medics’ way, craning to see.

  The Swift’s canopy frosted over opaque.

  The erks hadn’t even popped the Swift’s canopy, and already the medics’ faces looked altogether wrong.

  Carly, escaped from sickbay, circled her reattached arm around Kerry Blue.

  The erks dragged the canopy open.

  The Marines’ low mutters rumbled through the compartment.

  “They didn’t wait for the pressure light.”

  “Why didn’t they wait for it to pressurize?”

  “What are they doing?”

  The medics were stepping down as if from a funeral.

  When the medics cleared, Marines surged forward. Those still in their environmental suits climbed up the space-cold wings and looked into the cockpit. The mustard-suited erks moved aside for them to see.

  No one was talking.

  Carly, first one up, turned away from the cockpit. She looked down from the wing, her face stricken.

  Kerry Blue cried, “Is he alive?”

  Carly’s eyes were wide and helpless. Carly said, “I don’t know.”

  Kerry Blue advanced. The Marines parted for her and helped her up onto the wing to see for herself.

  The cockpit was empty.

  Captain Carmel signaled the displacement department over the intracom. “Did you execute rapture?”

  Displacement responded, “Negative. Negative rapture. We did not get correspondence. We did not initiate. Rapture not attempted. We can’t even try now. Target’s collar signature has ceased registering.”

  “I need to know what happened,” said Calli. “I need to know yesterday.”

  Already the erks were pulling the landing disk from Steele’s cockpit. They handed it down to the displacement techs, who took a reading on the spot.

  The disk’s tracking record indicated a displacement event occurred from this disk at the instant Steele’s collar signature ceased to register.

  Displacement notified the captain, “Steele did displace.”

  Somewhere.

  Or nowhere.

  Successful displacement required three correspondences—the displacement collar, the remote landing disk, and the sending/receiving chamber. It was three or nothing. Without all three, the traveler was thoroughly gone. And thoroughly dead. There was no margin for error in human displacement.

  Grasping for anything, Calli hailed Windward Isles. “Ram! Do you have Colonel Steele?”

  “Sorry?” Captain Singh did not understand the question.

  Calli had hoped it was Ram Singh who displaced Steele out of his cockpit.

  There were other ships orbiting Zoe now, mostly Asian scouts and news services. They had been underway here since Dr. Minyas’ announcement of the discovery of alien DNA.

  Calli was not going to ask any of them if they had displaced her Marine. None of them could possibly have Merrimack’s displacement harmonic.

  Commander Ryan said, “Rome has our displacement harmonic.”

  Tactical clutched at his console. “Oh, God, do we have another mole?”

  “Rome doesn’t need a mole,” Commander Ryan said. “We left LDs all over the LEN expedition site. Rome could have got our displacement harmonic off one of those.”

  Calli hailed Gladiator. “Numa, where is my man?”

  “You misplaced one?” Numa said lightly.

  “Don’t foxtrot with me!”

  “Perhaps you should be more careful with your men.”

  Calli slammed off the com and turned to Rob Roy, who was standing at the rear of the command deck. “Did you notice he didn’t deny it? That means he doesn’t have him.”

  Rob Roy had noticed. “I’d have thought the opposite. He’s dodging the question because he does have Steele.”

  “No. He’s dodging the question because an outright denial would require Numa to admit that he doesn’t know where Steele is. When Numa doesn’t know something, the best he can do is make you think he knows. When Numa actually says the words, ‘I don’t know,’ it’s a lie.”

  “That’s labyrinthine.”

  “That’s Numa Pompeii. He doesn’t know where Steele is.”

  “That’s rather terrifying, sir,” said Rob Roy.

  Captain Carmel collected her Marines. They looked to her like lost dogs needing an alpha. Calli was as angry as any of them over the loss of Steele. I can’t replace that man.

  The Marines needed their captain to be invincible now.

  She couldn’t tell them she would bring Steele back, but she promised them she would find out what happened, and if there was a human agent behind it, she promised them that agent would die.

  Her Intelligence Officer, Bradley Zolman, was looking into the possibility of Roman kidnap, but he advised her that the more likely answer was that Steele’s displacement equipment had malfunctioned, and he accidentally displaced without correspondence. That would not be kidnap. That would be fatal.

  Everyone wanted it to be kidnap.

  And everyone was afraid to use the displacement equipment now.

  Caesar Numa issued an Imperal Mandate. Merrimack must withdraw from the Zoen star system and take her Marines with her.

  Calli got Numa on the com to tell him personally, “Caesar, I cannot leave. I am under your mandate to take my Marines with me. You know I have a man unaccounted for.”

  Numa said tiredly, “You sound like you’ve been sleeping with a lawyer. Don’t start another international incident. You can be removed from command. Send the particulars of your AWOL Marine to my adjutant. He will look into it.”

  “Colonel Steele is not AWOL!”

  The attitude shift was as palpable as a pressure drop before a storm. “Steele?” Numa said. “Adamas?”

  Adamas was Rome’s name for the colonel. Adamas was the Latin word for steel. “It is Adamas whom you lost?”

  “You know that!” said Calli.

  Numa wouldn’t say he knew. He wouldn’t confirm that he hadn’t known. But he dropped the boredom facade. Numa told Captain Carmel earnestly, “I will use best efforts—best efforts—to determine the situation of your man. You must promise me something in turn.”

  I must? This was a deal with the devil. “What?” said Calli.

  “Check your own house.”

  Her house. What was her house? The Merrimack? The United States Naval Fleet?

  Calli shook her head, confused. “Check my house for what?” “Roman moles.”

  She felt as if she were having tea with a March Hare and a dormouse. “But you are Rome!”

  Numa’s chest expanded to its most broad. His voice rumbled absolute royal authority. “Yes, We are.”

  And Calli suddenly knew what he was telling her.

  Shit.

  He was talking about an alternate Rome. A challenger to Numa’s supreme power.

  He meant Romulii.

  “You’re looking for Romulii,” said Calli. “You’re looking for them here.”

  Not just in Perseid space. Not just in the Outback. Numa was looking for Romulii on Zoe.

  Riddled with nanites, Romulus, former Caesar, currently existed in an induced coma. Effectively dead. Or sleeping like a King Arthur, the once and future king.

  The Romulii were making straight the way for their true Caesar’s return.

  This planet, Zoe, was a place of miracles. Zoe would make a fine place to stage Romulus’ resurrection—with or without Romulus.

  Calli had to wonder: Was Romulus really still sleeping?

  It would be just like Romulus to take something of profound cosmic significance, like a second Creation, and turn it to personal gain.

  Roman moles suddenly sounded likely.

  In both their houses.

  A choice between Numa and Romulus was a choice between the devil and the devil. Calli fought the idea, hard. There h
ad to be another choice. She couldn’t see one at this time.

  She had to wonder, was Numa just sowing discord in making her look for moles? Trying to get her to suspect her own people? Or was he genuinely concerned about his comatose rival’s spy network.

  Adamas had been Romulus’ gladiator.

  A sudden outlandish thought struck her. “You don’t think the Romulii killed Steele?”

  She wanted Numa to react with surprise or a laugh. He didn’t.

  “Kill?” said Numa. “Not likely.”

  “Kidnap?” said Calli. The idea was crazed. Numa must laugh now.

  But he didn’t. “I don’t dismiss any possibility, especially ones I don’t want to believe.” He had dropped the royal plurals. He was talking to her man to man. The focus of his eyes was hard. “Check your house.”

  Kidnap was a preposterous conspiracy theory. A displacement equipment malfunction was vastly more likely than kidnap by Romulii.

  All reason and evidence pointed to horses, and Numa was telling her to look for zebras. She should tell him to go to hell.

  “I will,” Calli said.

  When she turned off the com, Commander Ryan said, “Captain, does this incident remind anyone of other displacement equipment we found where it had no business being?”

  “I have not forgotten, Mister Ryan.”

  Dingo was talking about the displacement disks left in space among the stations of Port Campbell. She had said at the time it had the look of someone preparing the way for a blitzkrieg through the Boomerang.

  “Are you going to share that information with Caesar?” Dingo asked.

  “No,” said Calli.

  “Reason, sir?”

  Calli’s mouth spread wide and tight. “Because they could be his disks.”

  She inhaled as if to say something else. Didn’t.

  “Captain?” Dingo prompted.

  “Does it seem possible that Numa could not find a way to make Romulus dead if he actually has custody of Romulus?”

  “But he does have custody. CIA has surveillance all over that installation. It’s in the heart of Roma Nova. Romulus is there.”

  “Is he?” said Calli. “There was something Numa wasn’t telling me. He’s lost Romulus.”

  “Are you telling me or guessing, Captain?”

  “I’m betting you he has.”