The Centurion's Empire

by Sean McMullen

  "There are three other rooms like this," said the guide. "The people in them were to awake first, then revive the others manually."

  "Why have four rooms?" asked the veteran.

  "Multiple redundant systems, like the early spacecraft had. The mechanism in one room has in fact failed because of slow corrosion, but the other three would have functioned properly."

  "When?"

  "About twenty years from now."

  There was a murmur of astonishment. Vitellan wondered what the reaction of the world would have been if the time travelers had revived themselves.

  "The timer works by the liquid properties of cold pitch. Pitch is actually a liquid, but flows very slowly if the temperature is lowered to the point that is needed for suspended animation. The designer calculated that after a few centuries enough pitch would drip through a broad funnel to trip a balance arm. That would in turn trigger mechanisms to seal off the cold air vents and start a chemical reaction to ignite a separate vat of pitch and heat the place. The ice encasing the man on the couch would melt, and the spring-and-wax clamps that had kept water out of his lungs while he was being frozen would pop off his nose and mouth. After a measured period, when the body was warm enough, a series of three hundred lead balls would roll down a race. They would strike his chest at about one-second intervals and were meant to start his heart. A second race with heavier balls was meant to work his lungs."

  "And they expected this wacky contraption to work?" asked the tourist from New York.

  "Actually, it probably would. A chemical analogue of the Romans' elixir had already been synthesized from the body of the Durvas time traveler, so a team in Berkeley conducted experiments using monkeys in a scaled-down version of this type of mechanism. One out of four were revived by the mechanism alone. The Romans had a fighting chance." "So what does the elixir do?"

  "Their bodies are preserved from decay by the cold, but they are not frozen solid—ice formation within individual cells would damage their bodies' tissues. They used a type of antifreeze derived from snow-dwelling insects to get around this problem, so that in theory they could stay frozen forever. In practice, natural radioactivity from their own bodies and the surrounding rocks would slowly damage the DNA of their cells, and after several thousand years of accumulated damage the person would die of cancer soon after being revived. At worst, the symptoms would resemble a massive radiation overdose. They could not have known about radioactivity, however, and were just lucky to have chosen a safe period."

  "Hey, wait a minute! That one there—"

  "Rentian."

  "Whoever he is, he's not frozen in ice."

  "It's good that you spotted it, a surprising number of people don't. Look closely, everyone. There's a thin film of thermal pump gel, layered and molded to his skin. First, it makes his body more accessible to scientists doing scans and taking samples; second, it keeps him as stable as ice would in the chamber's freezing air; third, it makes it easier for you to see him than if he were in a block of ice. Now step this way and you can see the real thing." The group proceeded to the dormitory chambers where most of the sleepers were on display but still in blocks of ice. Over a dozen spaces were ominously empty, and the guide said that there was evidence of fighting among the time travelers after Decius had left. Very significant, Vitellan thought to himself. Other chambers held clothing, food, weapons, and instruments. Everything was well preserved and ready for use; there was even a small prefabricated ship. A model of the assembled ship stood before it. Now the group began to break up, and people wandered off to examine what interested them most.

  One of the classics students tried to start up an argument

  with the guide about her use of "elixir" instead of "philter" in her translation of the Deciad.

  " 'Elixir' is a word associated with alchemy, it has a European medieval origin," he insisted earnestly.

  "English has a European medieval origin as well," replied the guide.

  The veteran spoke next. "I still don't see why we have to keep them frozen," he said. "I mean I've heard all that guff about them starting cults and causing trouble like Bonhomme did when he was unfrozen, but I can't believe that a bunch of folk over eighteen hundred years old could take over the world."

  "You may be right," said the guide, "but we want to be sure. The revival timer will click over in about twenty years, and the Deciad Management Trust Committee has decided to postpone revival until then. After all, it conforms with their original plans. In the meantime we have yet another frozen time traveler to observe when he is revived. The city of Durvas in England has that time traveler claimed to be a Roman who was awake for two years in the fourteenth century. I actually saw his body when it was on display in the British Museum in 2016. He was due to be unfrozen in 2054

  according to Durvas tradition, but the revival has now been brought forward to later this year. Radiocarbon microcore samples of his tissues verify the body's age, so he must be as genuine as Bonhomme or any of these bodies here. If he

  turns out to be less trouble than Bonhomme, then we shall definitely revive these Romans early as well." The veteran pointed to the niodel of the ship. "Just imagine if we hadn't found this place. Twenty years from now the Gods of Romulus might have revived and sailed that proto-schooner into Sydney harbor by themselves."

  "It's one of my favorite fantasies," the guide replied, cocking her head to one side and folding her arms, "except that they go to Valparaiso for me."

  The vid tour ended, and a list of credits scrolled up the wallscreen. To his surprise Vitellan found that the tourists were all actors, and only Gina Rossi was what she was portrayed as: a tour guide. The entire thing, all the spontaneity, everything had been a show.

  As bedtime entertainment Lucel could not have made a worse recommendation than the vid. Images of the Deciad Museum and readings from the Deciad cascaded through Vitellan's mind all night, and he had questions that nobody in this century was even capable of asking. Answers were, of course, well beyond hope. Vitellan could not fall asleep, and eventually he gave up. Looking for uncomplicated distraction, he accessed the full text of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury

  Tales from a datafarm and lay reading from the wallscreen until dawn.

  Lucel's hologram-face was neutral as Vitellan spoke to her the next day. She listened to his impressions of the vid with interest, and was able to field his questions with unexpected authority.

  "I've done some research on that first expedition, and I found out that a conscript classics tutor named Max Kerrin was shown the Deciad manuscript after it was smuggled out of the Jones Base. He even did a rough translation to assess its worth."

  "And the crew of the hovertank?" asked Vitellan. "Did they speak to anyone on the base about their find? Did they even know what they had found?"

  "Of course not, none of them knew Latin and they were not archeologists. They probably thought that they had found some modern Espanic wreckage, and that the manuscript might have been coded intelligence. That's why it was smuggled out after the base fell."

  "And is anything known of Quintus' body?"

  "Nobody survived to tell. The fighting for Jones Base was very heavy, and only a few people in the hospital bunker lived through the first attack. Why are you so interested?"

  Vitellan leaned forward, a hand resting on one knee and the other gesturing in the air as if he were conducting the Orchestral hologram tutor.

  "Why? They were the first Romans I've seen for six of my years—or 1,867 of yours, and they made the elixir that allowed me to travel through time. It's like an orphan suddenly discovering a book about his parents, except that a lot of the pages have been torn out."

  "Well, don't get too excited. They're all dead."

  Vitellan's arm flopped to his side, limp.

  "Dead?" he echoed. There was something authoritative and final in Lucel's voice, as if the only possible question were how.

  "The Resources War finished early in 2026, and an Australian expedi
tion was sent to the time ship after a huge fanfare of media hype. The original recommendation was to revive the Romans at once, then to set the time ship up as a museum. The Luministes had agents infiltrate the staff of the expedition, however. Someone drilled a microshaft into the brains of each Roman sleeper and inserted a bead of thermix the size of a hair follicle. From the outside the bodies look normal, but X rays show serious damage. The Australian government was highly embarrassed that such an archeological sensation in its care had been so terribly damaged, so there was a cover-up while their scientists investigated. It soon became clear that something could be salvaged.

  "Three of the bodies were actually still viable. One man and two women were quite a lot smaller than Quintus had rather romantically described them in the Deciad, and the Luministes had drilled too deep to plant their thermix—all the way down to the nasal cavity. The bodies were secredy replaced with wax mockups and taken away to the Mawson Institute in Melbourne. There they were unfrozen for reconstructive surgery, but that took a long time because they were badly messed up. Meanwhile a story was published that the Romans were being kept frozen because they might all turn out like Bonhomme, who was still causing a lot of problems internationally. The plan was to present the three survivors to the World around now, then 'discover' that the Luministes had killed the others."

  "If they are now all dead, then the Luministes must have been ahead of them," said Vitellan doubtfully.

  "They were. A spy named Gina Rossi was appointed to the museum staff, and she worked there for months, slowly getting people's trust and picking up clues. Some months later she turned up at the Mawson Institute posing as a postgraduate student and got right past the outer security before

  she started firing fingernails like the ones I used back in Paris. She offed thirty guards and staff before she reached the isolation ward, where the last Romans from Antarctica were being kept. There she detonated a copy of the Deciad, a copy made of laminated covalent lattice. It took out the Romans, the agent, the lab, another twelve guards, and half the west wall of the Mawson Institute. Now do you see why I'm being so careful about your security?"

  "She—the guide in that tour vid? She suicided to kill them?"

  "She did. All Luministe agents have obsession imprinting as part of their training. Suicide is no problem for them." Vitellan stood up and stalked across to the unit and stood face to face with Lucel's holograph.

  "And you're telling me that the public knows nothing about all this?"

  "Until this morning that was the case, but the Australians have just released the results of an investigation into the Luministe attacks. Because there has just been a change of government they have published the entire truth, blamed the previous administration for everything, and screamed bloody murder at the Luministes. The hard-line Luministe nations are insisting that they are innocent, but they applaud the killings and accuse the Temporian Romans of being pagans and agents of Satan. Australia has broken off diplomatic relations with a dozen governments that have condoned the attacks. Check the news, Vitellan, it's the biggest thing since the Japanese landed on Ceres." Vitellan paced across the room several times, absorbing and assimilating what Lucel had said. Abruptly he sat down and took a pair of voice-key dataspex from his pocket and plugged them into a console. It took him many minutes to navigate to a newsboard archive that Lucel could have found in seconds, but he eventually found what he was looking for.

  "FORTY-TWO STAFF DIE IN MAWSON INSTITUTE TRAGEDY. DAMAGE FROM SUSPECTED TERRORIST ATTACK ESTIMATED AT 12 MILLION

  AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS."

  "It should be dated November third," said Lucel. "It is November fourth."

  "Ah yes, the International Dateline. I was in California doing some illegal training and it was the previous day. Serves me right for not updating my impressions with an imprint overlay."

  "Illegal training?" said Vitellan wearily, sweeping the dataspex off and dropping them back into his pocket.

  "It was to do with rescuing you from the hospital in Paris—"

  "What!" Vitellan exploded. "That was nearly a fortnight before the Luministes abducted me."

  "When I am out of this thing I'll explain as much as I can."

  "Explain now! You're working for me, I order you to tell me."

  "I'll explain nothing until I'm ready."

  The holographic head winked out of existence. Vitellan stalked out of the room, furious. He met Dr. Baker in the corridor.

  "How long will the—will Lucel take to heal?" he asked, forcing an affable tone into his voice.

  "The shock from the three rounds that hit her was partly absorbed by woven monomolecular armor in her clothes. Miz Lucel died in the sense that you would have defined death up to ten years ago, but she's coming back fast. In three days she'll be allowed to be conscious for a few minutes, in a couple more she'll be walking. She was lucky. The Luministes hired serious firepower."

  Three or four days, thought Vitellan. Without the interface to her dataspex and the data networks of the world, she would have no control over him.

  "She was finding it distressing to be awake while her body was so helpless," Vitellan lied. "Would it be possible to have her, er, unconnected until she is ready to awake?"

  "I guess so. You know, people are funny about biosupport units. Some folk like to be a holovid and look down on themselves being cut open, others just don't want to know. Okay, I'll leave her interface switched off until it's time for a physical revival."

  Vitellan glowed with the minor triumph. He was learning to take control of his own destiny yet again.

  "I'd like to talk to you about having some facilities made available to me," he added casually. Baker nodded and gestured to a consulting room nearby.

  Houston, Texas: 10 December 2028, Anno Domini

  Vitellan came up to Caleb Hall's sternum, and the tall, gangly man reminded him of some type of powerful djin from an Eastern folk tale. In a heavy Texan drawl the imprint analyst explained that he had been brought in on contract from a clinic-cartel run by the more upmarket Houston gangs, and had been briefed about what was happening.

  "So you want to talk to some folk in Britain, then get me to sort out the facts from the bullshit in what they say?"

  "You have it," replied Vitellan. He sat down on the edge of the telepresence couch, hunched over and rubbing his hands together. "On the voice-face link just now ... Lord Wallace, the head of the Village Corporate, seemed surprised to hear from me. I think that he even doubted who I really was."

  "Has he ever met you?" asked Hall. "Have you spoken to him before?"

  "He has seen me, yes."

  "Hey, I get it, you're a British media personality." "I .. . have been seen widely on the media, twelve years ago."

  "So who are you, man?"

  "I'd rather not say. Why would he be so suspicious?"

  "With voice profile synthesizers you could sound like most anyone you wanted," Hall explained, sounding surprised that Vitellan was not aware of it. Vitellan looked to Baker.

  "About the results on those whole-body scans, Dr. Baker? Are you clear about what I want to know?"

  "You want an accurate fix on your physiological age," he said, scratching the back of his head and looking puzzled.

  "Yes. If my telepresence session is not over when the results come in, interrupt the session."

  "You're the boss."

  The telepresence couch contoured itself to the shape of Vitellan's body as he lay back on it The feeling was oddly sensual, just as Hall had described it. Medical technicians

  bonded the thin gauze of the dermal interface suit sensors to his skin.

  Hall sat watching with amused curiosity.

  "If you had a nerve-line interface like mine you wouldn't have to fool about with this museum piece," he pointed out as the technicians slowly and methodically configured the unfamiliar unit.

  "I'm a museum piece myself, it makes me feel at home," he replied through the gauze over his lips.

  "W
hat do you mean by that, man?"

  "Never mind. Look, enough has been done to my head already, so let's just do what keeps me happy."

  "Deal. You're the boss."

  As patches of the suit became active, Vitellan began to lose the sensations from his nerves. The feeling was like floating in a deep, tepid bath.

  Fishbourne, Britain: 11 December 2028, Anno Domini

  The linkage with a node in the south of England began as fading into a vague, shadow existence. Vitellan's inner ear tried to tell him that he was lying flat on his back, yet he was standing on a grassy rise beneath a clear sky in late afternoon. A cold wind was blustering through the grass and tugging at his overcoat. An overcoat. The software had dressed him for a cold, windy day outdoors.

  Even as he became aware of his own disorientation, the equipment compensated. The first node was to have been at the site of his old villa, but nothing seemed particularly familiar. The land was gently undulating and covered in bushes and new-growth trees. He had known it as farmland, and somehow this revegetation program reminded him of the Dark Ages. A wedge-shaped SOMS rumbled high overhead on its ramjets, hurtling spaceward.

  The air to his left solidified into a pillar that resolved itself into a tall, imposingly built but elderly man wearing an overcoat like his and a wide-brimmed hat. The hologram of -Lord Wallace introduced itself.

  "So this is where my villa used to stand?" Vitellan asked, the dismay obvious in his voice.

  "No, this is just for us to focus. The excavation is over this rise. Come, I'll show you." The word excavation should have warned Vitellan of what to expect, but the sight of what his villa had become still came as a shock. They walked their holograms over the low, grassy rise and came upon a dark, oblong scar in the earth, about the area of an arena. The lighter color of regular stone foundations showed an echo of disciplined Roman design that had survived but not triumphed. A team of archeol-ogists was at work with an ultrasonic scanner while robotic excavators patiently dug, mapped and catalogued fragments of Vitellan's past that had escaped the turmoil that had shattered and plundered the villa.