The Centurion's Empire (37 page)

"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 expedition 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.

"What 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.

"We are near modern Fishbourne," said Lord Wallace. "The Village Corporate bought the land as soon as the ruins
were, ah, discovered. That was two years ago, but the Resources War delayed excavations. Austerity and all that."
Vitellan walked his hologram down an excavated path and stared at the foundations he had never set eyes upon when he
had lived there. Beneath a large plastic weather dome the mosaic of a blue dolphin in green waves was taking shape
under the gentle manipulators of terrier-sized robots on arrays of padded legs.

"I try to remember what it used to be like, but this is too much for me," he admitted. "Seeing one's house in ruins is bad
enough, but seeing it made as ancient as this is far worse."

"We may be able to help there," said his host. "Jackson, a full simulation if you please," Lord Wallace said to the air
before him.

Walls and tiled roofs shimmered into being over the foundations, hedges and carefully manicured bushes grew out of air.
A mathematically level lawn was even being cropped by virtual sheep. Sparrows splashed in the shallow water of a gently
bubbling fountain. The walls were gleaming with whitewash, and were all as straight as a lance.

"Would you like to go inside?" asked Lord Wallace. Vitellan nodded and followed him down the path and through a door.
Apart from being unnaturally clean, Vitellan could not fault the reconstruction.

"The accuracy of the floor plans and floor mosaics I can understand," said Vitellan as he looked from the dolphin mosaic
to a fresco of Diana the Huntress on a nearby wall, "but the furnishings and frescoes should have been impossible. How
did you get all that.detail right? Even in the ninth century this place was a pile of rubble."

"The science of archeology can deduce a fantastic amount from very little," Lord Wallace replied. "Fragments of tiles
and stones found in the soil show what the roofing and walls were like, and subtle discoloration of the soil reveals where
bushes and trees once stood in your garden. We have even used chemical tracers to identify odd corners where people
used to piss when caught short."

Vitellan gave a start, as if he had been caught in the act of doing just that.

"Why go to so much trouble?"

"Why? You're the Centurion,
our
Centurion."

This was meant to explain everything, but although Vitellan did not find it helpful, he was too distressed and disoriented
to argue the point. He had seen this place in its prime barely half a decade ago, yet now it was so very old that even its
ghosts had surely faded.