TW11 The Cleopatra Crisis NEW (11 page)

"No shit. Really? The old arbitration wars. I was there, too."

"You're kidding," Lucas said. "Which cohort?"

"Wrong army," Andell said with a grin. "I was with Hannibal."

Lucas frowned. “You were with
Hannibal
? How can that be? The U.S. Temporal Corps contingent was infiltrated into Roman forces during that Time War."

"I wasn't with the U.S. Temporal Corps," Andell said. "I was fighting for the Nippon Conglomerate Empire back then. Freelance mercenary."

"That explains it," said Delaney. "I was wondering why someone your age was still a sergeant.”

"Yeah. Big black mark on my record," Andell said. "Ex-mercenaries are scum of the earth, far as TAC-HQ is concerned.”

"But you're American, aren't you?" said Lucas. "So you had to start out regular Corps before you went merc. What happened?"

"I caught a real bad tour that made me want out in a big way," said Andell. "I served a hitch in the War Between the States. I was with the Union troops at Shiloh."

Delaney whistled. "That must've been a rough one."

"Tell me about it. It made the Punic Wars seem like a cakewalk. I got shot up pretty had and wound up just lying there on the damn battlefield, wondering if I was going to die or if the damn hogs were going to get to me first. There was a bunch of 'em rutting around the corpses. And some of them weren't even corpses yet. Not too far off from me, this huge pig was chewing on a guy's exposed intestines and he was still alive. I can still hear the poor bastard screaming.”

"My God." said Andre.

"It gets worse," Andell said. "Somehow, I got the strength up to crawl away and get into the woods. Packed my wounds with mud and then started trying to limp back to our lines. Only a rebel patrol found me first. I wound up in Andersonville."

"Jesus," said Delaney.

"Yeah. Maybe the worst prison in American history. But there was a Union doctor there and he managed to get me patched back up, sort of, and I eventually managed to escape with a small group of men. We made our way to Sherman's troops and then, boy, we sure got even. Eventually, S & R found me and clocked me back. I spent some time in the hospital and then took my discharge. I figured I'd had enough. Only a funny thing happened."

“You couldn't hack civilian life," said Lucas.

Andell nodded. "You know about it. huh?"

"Yeah. I quit once, too. But there was just no going back. It was either reenlist or go crazy."

"Then you understand," Andell said. "War does funny things to some people. I don't know, maybe it's that after you've danced on the edge of the sword blade, you can just never go back to ordinary life. Lot of people do, but me...” he shook his head. "I never would've figured it. I thought I'd never want to go back in the military again, but civilian life just drove me around the bend. I started drinking. Got into drugs. Got busted a few times."

"That's why you couldn't reenlist," said Delaney.

"Yeah, they don't take convicted felons in the service. So I wound up going merc. Ran into a corporate recruiter in Miami. Next thing I knew, I was on a shuttle to Tokyo. They processed me, put me through detox, then clocked me out to Spain with a merc unit they were using and we joined up with Hannibal there."

"So you were in on the crossing of the Alps?" said Lucas.

"That's right. Not exactly your average day hike. But I'll tell you something . . . you'll probably think I'm crazy, but I loved every minute of it."

"How'd you wind up with the Observers?" Andre asked.

"I re-upped after I completed my hitch for Nippon and got assigned to the T.O. Corps."

"But what about your record?" Andre said, puzzled.

"They didn't know I had a record."

"I don't understand," said Andre, frowning.

"The Nippon Conglomerate gave him a new identity," Delaney explained. "Some countries do that for mercs. It's sort of a recruiting inducement. Do a good job for them, complete your tour without getting yourself killed, and they'll give you a brand-new identity, fully documented. You get to start off with a clean slate."

"So Andell's not your real name?" asked Andre.

“It is now."

"Aren't you taking a chance on telling us all this?" she asked.

“No, not really. Even if you turned me in, which I don’t think you would, HQ wouldn't really care. They're kind of pressed for manpower these days. As long as my official record's clean, they're not going to care about who or what I was before."

"But they're not going to promote you, either," said Delaney.

"No, that's for sure. I'll never make it past sergeant. But that's okay. I never much liked officers, anyway." He grinned. “No offense."

"None taken," said Delaney. "I know exactly how you feel."

"You're talking to the man who actually holds the record for the most reductions in grade in the entire Temporal Corps," said Lucas, smiling.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"And you still made captain?" Andell shook his head. "You must be a real hotshot. Sir."

"I just don't understand it," said Delaney. "I keep taking the damn bars off and they keep slapping them back on.”

Andell grinned. They were entering the outskirts of the city. "So, you want the orientation lecture or you just going to let the programming kick in?"

"No, go ahead" said Lucas. "We can always use the perspective of someone who's been in the field for a while."

"Well, like I said, the city looks better from a distance. Once you actually get in the city itself, as you'll notice in
a
little while, there are still a lot of truly beautiful buildings, especially the temples and the villas of some of the aristocrats, but the streets are choked with what are essentially your basic slum tenements. This time of year, it's not too bad, but in the summer, you wouldn't believe the stink. They just throw their garbage out into the streets. Lot of people die from fever in the summer.

“At this point, we're actually entering the city," he continued. "Passing through the gates of Rome has become sort of a misnomer. Rome has outgrown its walls and gates. The streets and houses are spread out well beyond them. The citizens of the republic are so secure these days that they feel they have no need of protective walls. Except around the better houses in the city, to keep the riffraff out."

"What road is this we're on?" asked Lucas.

"The Via Flaminia," said Andell. "You'll notice that it's paved, but it's got two dirt roads running along on either side, like shoulders. The Roman method of building roads is to first excavate a ditch with sloping walls, then fill it with layers of gravel, stone, and mortar. After the ditch is built up in this fashion, the top layer of stones is laid and the road is crowned slightly so water runs off to the sides. The dirt roads running along either side are for the unimportant traffic, your farm carts, peasants, and slaves. The legions have the right of way over everybody else.

"The outlying areas of the city we just passed through are primarily farms, olive orchards and vineyards, with several roadside inns along the way. Right now, we're in the suburbs, which will get denser as we come closer to the old city walls built in the 4th century B.C.

"Here comes your basic geography lesson. Rome itself is built on seven hills: the Capitoline, the Palatine, the Caelian, the Esquiline. the Viminal, and the Quirinal, which ring a small valley that was probably once a swamp. The seventh hill, the Aventine, is slightly to our south. The River Tiber flows along the western borders of the city and beyond its opposite bank is a range of hills called the Janiculum.

"As for culture, the wars with Greece and the conquest of Sicily in the First Punic War brought Romans into contact with Greek architecture, which they've been copying ever since. The first statues in Rome were of Greek origin, brought to the city as spoils of war. Around the middle of the 2nd century B.C., the discovery of a new type of limestone called travertine allowed them to build larger and more solid buildings, as well as their famous arches."

He turned back toward Lucas. "You probably won't recognize the city from when you were here before. There's been lots more construction and they're always building or repairing something. They use a type of lime-mortar that sets up so hard, it can easily be mistaken for modern concrete. Over there is the first aqueduct to bring water to the city, the Marcian, constructed in 144 B.C. And the first stone bridge across the Tiber was built about two years later."

"How do they build the arches?" Andre asked, consulting her programmed "submemory" and not coming up with an answer. Mission programming was never totally complete. There were inevitable gaps.

"They're constructed on wooden scaffolding frames that function as forms on which the stones are laid and mortared," Andell explained. "Then when the mortar has set, the forms and scaffolding are taken down. Simple, but effective. The roads and paths in the city itself were originally gravel, but they've been relaid with stone and volcanic lava from the Alban Hills. The so-called 'Golden Age' of Rome won't really begin until the time of the Nerva and Trajan, around 96 A.D., when there's going to be a tremendous boom in some really impressive construction. However, Caesar's already started a lot of new projects, some of which won't be completed until the time of Augustus. He's bought up all the land on the north side of the Forum, which we'll be passing shortly, and pulled down all the houses to start construction of a new square and market, which will be called the Forum Augusti when it's completed. To the southwest, you'll probably be able to smell it in a few minutes, is the forum boarium, the cattle market. Right next to it is the forum holitorium, the main market for oil, fruit, and vegetables. So you can get your produce in an atmosphere scented with manure."

"Is that the Forum?" asked Delaney, pointing.

"That's it," Andell said. "The Forum Romano, the most famous city square in all of history. That black stone building over there is the tomb of Romulus. And there's the Sanctuary of Venus the Purifier. Across from the Basilica over there is the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the twin gods. And over there, the Temple of Saturn. You can't see it from here, but right next to it is the Golden Milestone, from which all miles on roads leading to Rome are measured. And there's the Rostra, where they conduct trials and, on occasion, the Senate meets there, as well, when it's warm enough. Otherwise, until they build the permanent Senate House, the Curia Julia, they usually meet in the Temple of Jupiter, which is just to the east of here. On a nice day. you can stand in the Forum and hear someone like Cicero speak. If the wind is right, you can also smell the fish market. So much for historical glamour."

They passed the Forum and entered a residential area.

“A lot of the buildings are more run-down than I expected," Andre said. "It's a bit like towns and cities in medieval times."

"Yeah. there's a similarity." said Andell. "Few Romans except wealthy aristocrats and merchants can afford to live in a townhouse or a villa. The majority of the city's population lives in blocks of tenements like this, no more than three or four stories high."

"The streets are narrower than I expected, too," said Andre.

"They won't be widened until Nero's time," Andell replied. "Most streets in the city, neighbors across the street from one another can reach out from their balconies and shake hands. When Augustus comes in, he'll put a height limit of seventy feet on houses because of the poor construction. Sometimes the tenements just collapse all of a sudden, so be careful when you walk the streets. The average apartments are made up of small rooms over street-level shops, with shuttered windows looking out over the street or out into an interior courtyard. Tenants can buy a room outright, so you've got your original condos, but most people can't afford it, so they rent. You can make a good income as a landlord. The rents in Rome are about four times higher than in the country, anywhere from two thousand to thirty thousand sesterces. For that kind of money, you can buy a small house within sixty miles of Rome. Water's available from lead pipes coming from the aqueducts, but it's a luxury only the wealthy can afford. They pay for it according to the size of their pipes. Most tenants have no water pipes and they have to bring water from a public fountain or a bath. They also have to go to commercial bake and cook shops for their food, because most apartments don't have kitchen facilities. So Romans tend to eat out a lot."

“I don't see many carts or wagons," Lucas said.

"Just coaches and light carriages during the day." Andell said. "That's something new. By Caesar's order, the heavy wheeled traffic is only allowed in the city at night so nights in the city can get noisy, especially in the business districts. It's like trying to get a good night's sleep in New York, with sirens and shit going off all the time. Same thing. Carts and wagons going by all night. drivers shouting, cracking whips, oxen bellowing . . . not the best idea in the world. if you ask me, but it does cut down on traffic during the day."

“The buildings look like a real fire hazard," Andre said.

"That they are. Fires are real common, especially this time of year, when people leave open braziers burning all night to keep warm. They don't have anything like an organized fire department. at least they won't until Augustus' time, when he'll form a sort of combination police and fire brigade called the Cohortes Vigilum, recruited from freedmen who'll get full citizenship after six years' service. But right now, a lot of people die in fires. They usually just let the damn things burn, then knock down what's left and start all over. You get maps of the city in your programming?"

"Yes," said Lucas.

"Good. You'll need 'em. You'll notice that there aren't any street signs and the houses aren't numbered. It can be hard to find your way around."

They swung down another street. heading back toward the Tiber. "Travers has himself a villa by the river," Andell said, "so you won't be staying in one of those rattraps. Being buddies with the
imperator
has its perks. It's still early, but in a few hours, things'll really start picking up. They're holding chariot races in the Circus today. Maybe some gladiator combat, too. Eventually, that'll all move to the Colisseum, but it won't be built for years yet. If you want to get a good feel for what's going on, the place to go is the baths. You can meet everyone from senators down to the tinker, the baker, and the candlestick maker. One
quadrans
gets you in for the whole day, but don't look for soap. And most of the baths are for men only. I'm afraid," he said, glancing at Andre.