by Rob Steiner
“I did not want this to be true,” Lepidus grunted.
Kneel before your gods!
No!
The Consul leaned forward, his deep blue eyes trying to bring out the worship Lepidus once gave him. He spoke in a whisper, barely audible above the screams now coming from the crowds below. “If you shoot me, this body may die, but we will live until another body is found for us.”
Worship them!
No!
Sweat streamed down Lepidus’s face. At the exits, the Praetorians were getting closer.
They deserve your devotion, your love—
NO! NOT MY LOVE! THEY TOOK MY ONLY LOVE!
He lowered his pistol.
“Tell me,” Lepidus gasped, “only you, your family, and the Collegia know these beings?”
A smile curled the Consul's mouth. “Only the powerful are so worthy.”
Lepidus nodded. “You’re all here, then.”
He dropped his pistol and then took from his toga the other item he had hidden beneath his seat. The Consul's smile vanished.
Yes. He knows an antimatter grenade when he sees it. He knows it will vaporize everything within fifty feet.
Lepidus looked from the Consul to the Pontifex, both men showing fear for the first time. The Pontiffs jumped from their seats and tried to flee, as did their families. As did the children of the Consul and the Pontifex Maximus.
“Triaria,” Lepidus whispered.
The Praetorians broke through the crowd and raise their pulse rifles.
Too late.
Lepidus activated the grenade and let the fire of the gods purge him of his sins.
60
Claudia stood on a stage in an amphitheater with over 15,000 people, singing a hit song she recorded five years ago. It was about rising from the ashes, maintaining hope when all seemed lost, and trusting the gods and one's family to overcome trying times. With the sudden end of the Roman siege of Libertus, she thought it an appropriate choice to finish her show.
When she sang, the world melted away until all she could feel were the notes rising from her chest, passing her throat, and then beyond her lips in a way she always thought miraculous. She knew her voice was a gift from the gods. This was not vanity. Her voice had given her so many things in life, and she thanked the gods every day for blessing her with a gift that brought her such joy and prosperity.
As always when she finished a song, she felt as if she were leaving a vision of Elysium. She blinked at the erupting applause and remembered where she was. She bowed to the audience, her smile genuine and grateful. While she did not sing for the applause, she was pleased when she did well enough to earn her audience’s praise. It meant she had given them a glimpse of the place she dwelled while she sang.
She exited the stage to the continued cheering. Backstage, a crowd of well-wishers complimented her. She exchanged pleasantries with friends, colleagues, and producers, then saw Abram standing behind them. He wore a proud grin as he clapped, a bouquet of sky blue flowers in the crook of his arms. She excused herself from the well-wishers and made her way to Abram. As always after a show, he handed her the bouquet with a bow of his head.
“My lady.”
“Sky roses,” Claudia said. “How did you know they’re my favorite?”
Abram shrugged. “You might have mentioned it. Once or twice.”
She laughed, then set the flowers down on a nearby table and hugged her husband. He returned the embrace and then said into her ear, “You were beautiful tonight. It was your best performance.”
“You say that after every show.”
“I know.” He glanced at the stage behind her. “You hit a nerve. They're still cheering.”
Claudia nodded, half-turning to the lit stage past the curtains. “It's been a hard month.”
The Roman fleet besieging Libertus abruptly left three days after the deaths of the Roman Consul and the entire Collegia Pontificis in a mysterious explosion. There was already talk of the Kaldethians rebelling again, along with several other worlds, not to mention native populations on Terra itself. Like any Liberti, Claudia found herself conflicted. She hated the Romans for what they did to Agricola and Dives, along with the horrible fear to which they had subjected her world. But she empathized with the average Roman who would suffer greatly before stability returned.
“Where's Pullus?” she asked.
Their three-year-old son loved watching his mother's performances, but refused to go backstage with Abram due to all the frenetic activity.
“He's with my mother in the box,” Abram said. “Probably still clapping.”
Claudia smiled, thinking of her little boy. When she took the stage, she had glanced up at the family box above the main theater. She could not see much due to the stage lights shining in her eyes, but she knew Pullus was there and could feel his love.
Claudia was about to ask Abram to bring Pullus to her dressing room when she noticed a tall man staring at her from the stairwell exit. He wore the dark green dress uniform of the Liberti System Patrol; a centuriae if she remembered the rank stripes correctly. When he captured her gaze, he took off his ceremonial pileus and walked toward her. His head was clean-shaved, which made it difficult to tell his age, but judging by the lines on his face, Claudia guessed him to be in his upper forties. A thin scar ran across his forehead above deep-set, light blue eyes.
“Lady Claudia Abiff?” the man said.
Abram turned and regarded the man curiously.
Claudia nodded to the man. “Yes?” He seemed familiar, especially his eyes, though she could not remember where she may have met him.
The man paused, then said, “My name is Kaeso Aemilius. I served with your father in the LSP over ten years ago. I was with him the day he died.”
“My father,” Claudia repeated. She took a sudden breath, and Abram put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him. She thought of her parents now and then, especially when with Abram's family. How could she not be around her husband’s parents without remembering the tragic deaths of hers?
“My apologies, Lady Abiff,” the man said hurriedly. “I did not wish to upset you. I should go.” Aemilius blinked and turned around.
“Wait,” Claudia said, hurrying to catch up. Aemilius stopped. His eyes held inexplicable fear, and he would not meet her gaze.
“You knew my father,” Claudia said.
Aemilius nodded once, his jaw clenching and unclenching.
“What did you want to tell me, Centuriae?”
He finally looked at her. “He made me promise to tell you some things. He wanted you to know he was sorry. He knew he’d been...distracted after your mother’s murder, that he had not given you the support you needed. He knew you suffered just as he did, yet he didn't have the strength to get past his own suffering to comfort you. He felt like a failure at the end. But he made me promise that I would find you and tell you that he loved you more than he could ever convey in words or deeds.”
Claudia realized tears were streaming down her cheeks when she tasted their saltiness on her lips. Abram held her tighter as she wiped the tears with her sleeves.
The last day she'd spoken to her father before he died in a raid on the Sodalicium was, in many ways, the worst day of her life. Even worse than the day her mother was killed. At least she had told her mother she loved her that morning. Claudia’s final moments with her father were spent in a screaming argument over something as ridiculous as the clothes she wanted to wear to a friend’s birthday party. The last words she’d spoken to her father were I hate you before she stormed out of the house. She never forgave herself for those words, and that day had been an open wound on her soul ever since. She felt she had somehow cursed her father; that she was the reason he died. It took her many years to find peace, to have faith that both her parents had found joy in the light of the gods in Elysium.
“I apologize for upsetting you, Lady Abiff. I shouldn't have—”
“If you apologize one more time, Centur
iae, I will get upset,” Claudia said. She put a hand on his arm. “I'm glad you told me these things. They do bring me peace.”
Those familiar eyes glistened. “I regret I was unable to come sooner. The life of an LSP officer is rather busy.”
“I understand,” Claudia said.
There was a pause in the conversation, and Aemilius glanced at Abram.
Claudia gasped. “Where are my manners? This is my husband, Abram Abiff.”
Abram held out his hand to the officer, and Aemilius clasped it with a smile. “I'm very happy to meet you, sir.”
Abram nodded. “Thank you for telling Claudia about her father.”
Aemilius looked from Abram to Claudia with a satisfied smile, as if he had just finished an LSP mission he had feared for a long time. He seemed to stand straighter, and there were fewer lines on his forehead.
He put his pileus back on. “I must be going.”
“Would you...” Claudia stammered. “Would you like to come with us? My family and I always have dinner after my shows.”
Intense longing crossed Aemilius's face, his mouth opened as if to say something, but then he closed it again.
Then he said, “Thank you, Lady Abiff, but I need to catch a shuttle. My departure orders are strict.”
“Perhaps another time,” Claudia said.
“Perhaps.” Aemilius said it in a way that felt to Claudia she would never see him again. It saddened her, but she didn't know how else to convince this mysterious man to tell her everything he knew about her father.
Aemilius turned toward the exit, stopped and then said, “You sing beautifully. He would have been proud.”
Claudia smiled as she wiped away more brimming tears.
Aemilius strode out the softly lit theater exit.
Abram gave her a squeeze. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, staring after Aemilius. “This may sound awful, but it comforts me to know he bore the same guilt I had. It means he forgave me for what I said. It means he never stopped loving me.”
“You were his daughter. Of course he never stopped loving you.”
“I know that,” Claudia said. “Now. But not before I had a child of my own. Before Pullus I thought it was possible for parents to stop loving their children.”
“Let’s go see our boy.” Abram guided her toward the elevators near the exit.
When they reached the observation box, Claudia heard her son's laughter from the hall. She entered the box to the standing applause of Abram's family. Her family. Pullus ran up to her and threw his arms around her legs. She stooped to one knee and hugged him just as tight.
He pulled away and said, “What’s for dinner?”
She laughed, though he wore no smile, and his light blue eyes were entirely serious—
His light blue eyes.
Aemilius's light blue eyes, his tone of voice, the way he stood...
Gods.
Kaeso saw the tension on Ocella’s face through the window of the ground car in which she waited for him, and then relief when she noticed him jogging toward the car. He opened the passenger side door and was barely in the seat when Ocella pulled into traffic on the street in front of the amphitheater.
“In a hurry?” Kaeso asked.
“This was a bad idea. They know who Claudia is. They know you might try to contact her. And that old uniform won’t fool them.” She focused on the road, navigating through the post-show traffic. Throngs of people spilled out of the amphitheater and mingled with the ground cars leaving the theater’s parking areas.
“So you’ve said. Many times.”
“I’ll keep saying it until we leave Libertus.”
“Relax,” Kaeso said. “We have a deal, remember?”
Ocella snorted. “I’m sorry if I don’t trust some memory of Petra who claims to be speaking for the Muses. You were awake during a way line jump.”
“In other words, I’m mad.” He turned to her and smiled until she rolled her eyes.
“I’m not saying you’re mad. Even if it were the Liberti Muses talking through Petra, I still wouldn’t trust their promises as far as I can— Gods, how many people were at this concert?” She lay on the car’s horn. People in front of the car returned annoyed glares, yet they moved out of the way.
“Claudia’s popular,” Kaeso said, still smiling.
“And you need to stop that. It scares me.”
“Stop what?”
“Smiling. You’ve barely stopped since we escaped Menota.”
“Why would my smiling scare you?”
“Because you never did it in your pre-Umbra days and it makes me wonder if that way line jump did scramble your brains.”
Kaeso chuckled. “You’d be surprised how easy life is when you stop trying to be someone you’re not, and accept who you are. You should try it sometime.”
Ocella grunted, then laid on her horn again.
She finally calmed down once they escaped the theater and entered the expressway. After several minutes of silence, Ocella asked, “What was she like?”
Kaeso considered his words. How can I explain how beautiful, kind, talented, and wise my daughter has become? How proud I am? How much it broke my heart to turn down her dinner offer, a chance to spend just a few more hours with Claudia and her family?
Kaeso stared at the amphitheater in the car’s side mirrors as it receded into the background. “I didn’t want to leave,” he said.
Ocella put a hand on his leg, and Kaeso put his hand on top of hers.
“You can always tell her the truth,” Ocella said. “If you believe your vision of Petra, then you’re no longer bound by the concealment protocols. Umbra has no hold on you.”
Kaeso shook his head. “She’s made peace with my ‘death.’ I won’t disrupt that. Besides, our fight with the Muses has only started. I don’t want to put her through my death again.”
“Finally, the pessimistic man I once knew.”
A half hour later they arrived at the temporary ship yards where starships capable of atmospheric travel landed while the Liberti Way Station was repaired. The Way Station was not completely destroyed during the Roman attack, but large chunks of it were. It would take years before the Way Station was rebuilt to its former glory. In the meantime, some atmo starships were allowed to land outside Avita, the badly needed commerce taxing the planetary traffic control systems to their breaking point.
Ocella drove the car to the rental lot, turned it in, and both she and Kaeso jumped on a shuttle bus that drove them to Caduceus. Other starship crews rode the bus, and it stopped many times to deposit everyone at their parked ships. Caduceus sat near the end of the lot.
It’s Vacuna now, Kaeso reminded himself. He chose to keep the name the Praetorian had given the ship because he thought it fitting that a ship with a new mission have a new name.
That and he didn’t want to risk frying his expensive com systems by trying to change the beacon again. His crew may have their freedom, but they still had money problems. Even the small grant Gaia Julius gave them was only enough to make repairs on the ship and pay for the Avita parking fee.
Kaeso and Ocella strode up the open Cargo One ramp and into Vacuna. Inside, Dariya and Daryush were examining a rack of way line plasma canisters. Dariya’s eyes flitted to Kaeso and then back to the canisters and the tabulari pad she held.
“Two more minutes, and we were going to leave without you,” she said.
“‘Welcome back, Centuriae.’ ‘Glad you weren’t captured, Centuriae.’”
She grunted and returned to the canisters. Daryush grinned from behind her. Kaeso was happy to see her strength—and attitude—returning to normal. Even Daryush looked healthier and content. The large Persian was no longer hollow-eyed with worry, and he stood straighter with his sister around.
With the knowledge of Cordus’s Muses—and the boy’s own blood—Gaia’s Saturnist medicus team created an antidote that helped Dariya’s body defeat the Cariosus. However, the antidote itself was
not enough. It only weakened the Cariosus. To eradicate it, Dariya had to endure a way line jump while awake, just like Ocella. She claimed she didn’t remember much about the jump, but Kaeso saw it had changed her, just as it had changed him. She was calmer now, less abrasive with the rest of the crew, especially Lucia. Kaeso believed it was a change for the better, but he knew it bothered Lucia. She missed sparring with Dariya.
Blaesus strode into Cargo One as Kaeso closed the ramp door. “Centuriae, your daughter was breathtaking! I watched her concert on the bands. She has a voice that would make Apollo weep. How she came from your loins, I shall never know.”
“You’ve never heard me sing,” Kaeso said. “I could be very good.”
“Centuriae, you have many talents, but I doubt singing is one of them.”
“Get enough wine in me, and I’ll prove you wrong.”
“Deal! We shall test your voice in the most expensive tavern at the next way station we dock!” Blaesus clapped Kaeso on the back, then left Cargo One.
Kaeso and Ocella entered the corridor and then climbed the ladder up to the command deck. Lucia sat in the pilot’s couch making pre-flight checks on her tabulari. She nodded to Kaeso.
“Centuriae,” she said, then returned to her checklist.
Things had been awkward between them since he came back from the way line jump. She only spoke to him when she had to, and even those times involved the ship or crew. They left many things unsaid just before the jump. It seemed Lucia wanted to forget those things, but her silence told him she couldn’t. Kaeso knew he’d have to face this sooner rather than later.
Kaeso strapped himself into the command couch, while Ocella took Nestor’s place in the delta couch. Nestor was with a Saturnist team searching the Menota system for the way line termini Kaeso saw in the Pomona vaults. So far they had not found any, but they were there. He could still see the way line map in his mind. If what Petra said was true, they had to be found. Humanity could ill afford a surprise Muse invasion from way lines they never knew existed.
Especially now that humanity was in a struggle for survival against itself. Roma was in chaos, with dozens of subject worlds rebelling. Civil war was breaking out amongst the Legions themselves in the fight over succession. The Zhonguo had annexed several Roman systems and made threatening moves toward some of the Lost Worlds. Libertus would take years to rebuild after the siege and was in no shape to resist attacks on its Lost World allies. Humanity had not been this fractured since the days of Marcus Antonius Primus.