The Ninth Circle (29 page)

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Authors: R. M. Meluch

BOOK: The Ninth Circle
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Fleet officers usually got rejuv on Uncle Sam’s tab when they hit age thirty-nine, to reverse natural entropy. This officer had undergone trauma, so the Navy pretty much insisted she have the work done. So when her mileage rolled around for rejuv during peacetime, she received facial bones and eyes cultivated from her own cells. The medics also restored her scalp and hair to their natural state.
The natural Calli was idiotically beautiful. Her attitude made her looks lethal.
Before debarking, Calli stepped onto
Merrimack
’s command platform. “Mister Ryan, your boat.”
Merrimack
’s new XO was jaunty Commander Stuart Ryan from Oz. Everyone called him Dingo. During the war, Dingo had commanded a small ship at the siege of Palatine charged with drop-kicking Rome’s power stations out of planetary orbit.
Dingo Ryan stood up, eyed his captain head to heels. “Captain, you’re going to kill someone.”
Other personnel on deck stood up even though they’d been waved down. They didn’t salute. They bowed.
“Mister Ryan, brig the lot,” Calli said.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
A civilian transport ferried the captain to the main station of Port Campbell. She appeared at the governor’s residence on the arm of her husband, baby-faced Rob Roy Buchanan. Rob Roy had shaved for the occasion, so he looked even younger.
Rob Roy looked like the victim of an overdone rejuvenation. But he hadn’t been through rejuv. Ever. Rob Roy was not a line officer. The Navy didn’t rejuv his type. Anyway, if Rob Roy Buchanan ever went through rejuv, they’d be handing him lollipops.
Calli’s dress shimmered cobalt, emerald, and gold. The slit in one side of the long skirt flashed a leg bracelet of laced gold from knee to ankle.
Governor Kidd beheld his guest at the door and clapped his hand over his heart as if it had stopped. “Empress Calli!”
The captain had picked up the nickname when she accompanied Romulus on a regrettable date just before he became Caesar. It was the kind of name that sticks and never comes off.
Conversation stayed on a civilized course during dinner with the governor. Only after dinner, while shooting billiards and sipping brandy in the parlor, did prickly subjects come up.
“What really brings
Merrimack
this way,” Governor Kidd asked, lining up a shot.
“Our destination is a planet called Zoe,” said Captain Carmel.
Kidd looked up from the table. Commented, “Oh, you really are headed out to the woop woop, aren’t you?”
The planet Zoe was well away from any trade route, and it was off limits for settlement. That made the world interesting only to scientists.
Kidd took his shot, chalked his cue. “Shame about the sapient natives there. Can’t build a single hotel. Can’t do anything with it. And it’s a pretty planet.”
Kidd missed his next shot, either to be polite, or he just wanted Calli to lean over the table. Calli was certain that the governor could have run the table. He won the set, despite his attempts to let her win.
“I appreciate your making time for us, Captain Carmel. Everyone was afraid to take a ship out of its station before you got here.”
“Traffic will keep moving after we go,” Calli predicted.
“God, I hope so. Sooner or later they’ve got to realize the leopard can only be in one place at one time.”
“Leopard?” said Rob Roy.
“Leopard.” Governor Kidd crossed his parlor to activate a holographic image. The image displayed was a giant leopard on a star field, as viewed through a ship’s porthole.
The beast was vivid, spectacular. Its bloody mouth moved in a silent roar over a kill.
“Ferocious picture,” said Rob Roy.
“Isn’t it?” said Kidd. “They pirated it.”
The governor pointed to the belly of the beast where the Xerxes—which was projecting the leopard hologram onto the star field—was visible.
Disconcerting to see the shape of the U.S. President’s ship painted in leopard spots and flying a Jolly Roger. A fiery circled IX shone on the ship’s standard.
“Did the ship that took this picture survive?” Calli asked.
“No.” Kidd shut off the projector. “They’re a thoroughly bad lot, The Ninth Circle. Doesn’t matter that half their victims are the wrong sort—no one you’d feel sorry for. Still, it’s a gruesome thing picking up human remains from the vacuum. And the other half of their victims are responders. And
that
is twelve degrees past wrong. They have a large arsenal.”
Calli asked, “How did they get a large arsenal?” A Xerxes only carried defensive weapons. To protect itself from pirates.
“The Ninth Circle kill anyone who tries to arrest them, then they gut the ship. So they have police-grade weapons now. There’s an obscene bounty on them, so there’s no end of lowlifes who want to collect. Gunrunners have tried to take them. So now the pirates have a stash of guns. The Ninth Circle do not respect the Red Cross or a white flag.”
“Who
are
they?” Calli asked.
“Trace evidence says they’re human and they’re male,” said Kidd. “They’re all XY chromosomes. Six of them are similar enough to be altered clones, so someone
made
these men, but their precise DNA prints come up with no record.”
“Means they’re Roman,” said Calli.
Rome was notorious for human cloning, and Rome did not share its DNA database with anyone. No record in the universal bank always meant the individual was Roman.
“Rome denied these men are theirs,” said the governor. “Rome has no record of them either.”
Calli became very still. She murmured with a chill, “They’re
damnati memoriae
.”
Damned in memory. These men used to be Roman. Rome hadn’t just erased them. Rome pretended they never existed.
Governor Kidd said, “They
are
Roman? You mean Rome lied to me?”
“Not exactly,” Rob Roy said. “And not exactly. Rome disowned them retroactively. If they’re
damnati
, Rome really doesn’t have a record anymore. These men aren’t just dead to Rome. They were never born.”
“That would make sense,” said the governor. “Except there is one more pirate. His DNA print
is
in the universal system. Information on that one is blocked. The ident comes up classified.”
“
Classified
?” Calli echoed.
What the hell?
“Classified by whom?”
“You. The CIA.”
“Don’t ever refer to me and CIA in the same breath,” said Calli.
“Your side,” said Governor Kidd. “The United States of America.”
 
Arguments and accusations flew around the expedition camp’s fire pit like flaming arrows. Glenn expected the expedition might actually burn Dr. Minyas at the stake at any moment.
Glenn skipped dinner rather than join that group.
She found Aaron Rose in the relative quiet behind one of the LEN ships, checking his latest vintage. A white wine this time. He poured some into a shallow pan to give the camp goat a taste.
The nanny’s thick tongue lapped hesitantly.
Dr. Rose looked up on hearing Glenn approach. He nodded sideways at the nanny. “She likes the red better.” He poured a splash of white wine into the bottom of a glass for Glenn.
Glenn gave it a swirl. It was clear with a slight amber tint and fruity smell. She tasted it. Paused.
Dr. Rose read her face. “Too sweet?”
“Yeah,” said Glenn. She passed the glass back to him.
Aaron Rose lifted his heavy eyebrows. “More?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Dr. Rose topped her glass and passed it back to her.
The nanny goat nudged her pan for a refill.
All the while angry shouts carried between the ships from around the fire pit at the center of camp.
Dr. Rose swirled the wine in his glass. “Can you taste the DNA?”
He’d caught her trying to swallow. She spilled some wine down her chin. “Oh, you snot.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t understand the shrillness of the arguments over there,” Glenn said. “The results of the life code analysis are either true or they’re not true. It will all shake out. The facts aren’t going to change in the next ten minutes or the next ten million years. Why is everyone screaming?”
Dr. Rose, with a few glasses of wine inside him, was taking on a rosy serenity. The angry voices might as well have been bird songs. “You really were never in academia, were you?”
 
“Flight Leader Salvador!”
Marines’ heads turned. Team Alpha had just arrived at Taz Station in Port Campbell for R and R. They were getting their bearings when Colonel Steele came striding down the concourse in dress blues, his hat tucked under his arm. He was red in the face.
Cain Salvador snapped to attention. “Aye!”
“Flight Sergeant Delgado!”
Carly snapped to. “Aye!”
“Flight Sergeant Fuentes!”
“Aye!” Twitch went rigid.
“Flight Sergeant Blue!”
“Aye!”
Dak waited with his
aye
ready, but that was the end of the roll call. The colonel was barking, moving off swiftly, “With me!”
“Sir!” Dak cried. “You didn’t call me!”
“Enjoy your liberty, Marine,” Steele said back.
The selected Marines fell in behind Colonel Steele at a very fast walk.
Dak blinked, left out.
Asante clapped Dak on his beefy shoulder. “Better them than us, no?”
Rhino said, “
No
. I want to go where they’re going!”
Asante said, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna spend my time out of the can on duty.”
“I do,” said Rhino. She trotted after the chosen Alphas. “Colonel, take me!”
“I have my team, Flight Sergeant,” said Steele.
Cain, Kerry, Carly, and Twitch followed Steele out of sight. None of them crabbed. None of them looked back.
They hadn’t even looked surprised.
And they didn’t say anything when they returned to
Merrimack
at the end of their scheduled liberty.
They came back to the forecastle as if nothing had happened.
“Where you been?” Rhino cried.
“Special assignment,” Cain said.
“Why not us?” Asante asked, starting to feel slighted. He, Rhino, and Dak had gone clubbing in Port Campbell.
“Well,” Carly said. Sounded like she was stalling till a likely excuse came to her. “You’re the new guys.”
“I’m not!” Dak said. “What about me?”
“Dak, you can’t keep your mouth shut,” Cain said.
Rhino was not taking the exclusion at all well. “Why was I left out? Is someone telling lies about me behind my back? What are they saying? Why not me?”
“You got liberty,” said Kerry. “Why are you skunking?”

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