Authors: R. M. Meluch

The Ninth Circle (68 page)

BOOK: The Ninth Circle

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“I need to know what happened,” said Calli. “I need to know yesterday.”

Already the erks were pulling the landing disk from Steele’s cockpit. They handed it down to the displacement techs, who took a reading on the spot.

The disk’s tracking record indicated a displacement event occurred from this disk at the instant Steele’s collar signature ceased to register.

Displacement notified the captain, “Steele
did
displace.”

Some
where.

Or nowhere.

Successful displacement required three correspondences—the displacement collar, the remote landing disk, and the sending/receiving chamber. It was three or nothing. Without all three, the traveler was thoroughly gone. And thoroughly dead. There was no margin for error in human displacement.

Grasping for anything, Calli hailed
Windward Isles
. “Ram! Do you have Colonel Steele?”

“Sorry?” Captain Singh did not understand the question.

Calli had hoped it was Ram Singh who displaced Steele out of his cockpit.

There were other ships orbiting Zoe now, mostly Asian scouts and news services. They had been underway here since Dr. Minyas’ announcement of the discovery of alien DNA.

Calli was not going to ask any of them if they had displaced her Marine. None of them could possibly have
Merrimack
’s displacement harmonic.

Commander Ryan said, “Rome has our displacement harmonic.”

Tactical clutched at his console. “Oh, God, do we have another mole?”

“Rome doesn’t need a mole,” Commander Ryan said. “We left LDs all over the LEN expedition site. Rome could have got our displacement harmonic off one of those.”

Calli hailed
Gladiator
. “Numa, where is my man?”

“You misplaced one?” Numa said lightly.

“Don’t foxtrot with me!”

“Perhaps you should be more careful with your men.”

Calli slammed off the com and turned to Rob Roy, who was standing at the rear of the command deck. “Did you notice he didn’t deny it? That means he doesn’t have him.”

Rob Roy had noticed. “I’d have thought the opposite. He’s dodging the question because he
does
have Steele.”

“No. He’s dodging the question because an outright denial would require Numa to admit that he doesn’t know where Steele is. When Numa doesn’t know something, the best he can do is make you think he knows. When Numa actually says the words, ‘I don’t know,’ it’s a lie.”

“That’s labyrinthine.”

“That’s Numa Pompeii. He doesn’t know where Steele is.”

“That’s rather terrifying, sir,” said Rob Roy.

Captain Carmel collected her Marines. They looked to her like lost dogs needing an alpha. Calli was as angry as any of them over the loss of Steele.
I can’t replace that man
.

The Marines needed their captain to be invincible now.

She couldn’t tell them she would bring Steele back, but she promised them she would find out what happened, and if there was a human agent behind it, she promised them that agent would die.

Her Intelligence Officer, Bradley Zolman, was looking into the possibility of Roman kidnap, but he advised her that the more likely answer was that Steele’s displacement equipment had malfunctioned, and he accidentally displaced without correspondence. That would not be kidnap. That would be fatal.

Everyone wanted it to be kidnap.

And everyone was afraid to use the displacement equipment now.

Caesar Numa issued an Imperal Mandate.
Merrimack
must withdraw from the Zoen star system and take her Marines with her.

Calli got Numa on the com to tell him personally, “Caesar, I cannot leave. I am under your mandate to take my Marines with me. You
know
I have a man unaccounted for.”

Numa said tiredly, “You sound like you’ve been sleeping with a lawyer. Don’t start another international incident. You can be removed from command. Send the particulars of your AWOL Marine to my adjutant. He will look into it.”

“Colonel Steele is not AWOL!”

The attitude shift was as palpable as a pressure drop before a storm. “Steele?” Numa said. “
Adamas
?”

Adamas was Rome’s name for the colonel.
Adamas
was the Latin word for
steel
. “It is Adamas whom you lost?”

“You know that!” said Calli.

Numa wouldn’t say he knew. He wouldn’t confirm that he hadn’t known. But he dropped the boredom facade. Numa told Captain Carmel earnestly, “I will use best efforts—best efforts—to determine the situation of your man. You must promise me something in turn.”

I must?
This was a deal with the devil. “What?” said Calli.

“Check your own house.”

Her house. What was her house? The
Merrimack
? The United States Naval Fleet?

Calli shook her head, confused. “Check my house for what?” “Roman moles.”

She felt as if she were having tea with a March Hare and a dormouse. “But you are Rome!”

Numa’s chest expanded to its most broad. His voice rumbled absolute royal authority. “Yes, We are.”

And Calli suddenly knew what he was telling her.

Shit
.

He was talking about an alternate Rome. A challenger to Numa’s supreme power.

He meant Romulii.

“You’re looking for Romulii,” said Calli. “You’re looking for them
here
.”

Not just in Perseid space. Not just in the Outback. Numa was looking for Romulii on Zoe.

Riddled with nanites, Romulus, former Caesar, currently existed in an induced coma. Effectively dead. Or sleeping like a King Arthur, the once and future king.

The Romulii were making straight the way for their true Caesar’s return.

This planet, Zoe, was a place of miracles. Zoe would make a fine place to stage Romulus’ resurrection—with or without Romulus.

Calli had to wonder: Was Romulus really still sleeping?

It would be just like Romulus to take something of profound cosmic significance, like a second Creation, and turn it to personal gain.

Roman moles suddenly sounded likely.

In both their houses.

A choice between Numa and Romulus was a choice between the devil and the devil. Calli fought the idea, hard. There had to be another choice. She couldn’t see one at this time.

She had to wonder, was Numa just sowing discord in making her look for moles? Trying to get her to suspect her own people? Or was he genuinely concerned about his comatose rival’s spy network.

Adamas had been Romulus’ gladiator.

A sudden outlandish thought struck her. “You
don’t
think the Romulii killed Steele?”

She wanted Numa to react with surprise or a laugh. He didn’t.

“Kill?” said Numa. “Not likely.”

“
Kidnap?”
said Calli. The idea was crazed. Numa must laugh now.

But he didn’t. “I don’t dismiss
any
possibility, especially ones I don’t want to believe.” He had dropped the royal plurals. He was talking to her man to man. The focus of his eyes was hard. “Check your house.”

Kidnap was a preposterous conspiracy theory. A displacement equipment malfunction was vastly more likely than kidnap by Romulii.

All reason and evidence pointed to horses, and Numa was telling her to look for zebras. She should tell him to go to hell.

“I will,” Calli said.

When she turned off the com, Commander Ryan said, “Captain, does this incident remind anyone of other displacement equipment we found where it had no business being?”

“I have not forgotten, Mister Ryan.”

Dingo was talking about the displacement disks left in space among the stations of Port Campbell. She had said at the time it had the look of someone preparing the way for a blitzkrieg through the Boomerang.

“Are you going to share that information with Caesar?” Dingo asked.

“No,” said Calli.

“Reason, sir?”

Calli’s mouth spread wide and tight. “Because they could be his disks.”

She inhaled as if to say something else. Didn’t.

“Captain?” Dingo prompted.

“Does it seem possible that Numa could not find a way to make Romulus dead if he actually has custody of Romulus?”

“But he does have custody. CIA has surveillance all over that installation. It’s in the heart of Roma Nova. Romulus is there.”

“Is he?” said Calli. “There was something Numa wasn’t telling me. He’s lost Romulus.”

“Are you telling me or guessing, Captain?”

“I’m betting you he has.”

Dingo considered this for several moments. Said, “I bet you’re right.”

Captain Carmel and Commander Ryan accompanied the ship’s Legal Officer, Rob Roy Buchanan, to Colonel TR Steele’s compartment to supervise the opening of Steele’s private locker.

Rob Roy lifted the universal key.

“No.”

The three officers turned.

Outside the hatch stood Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue. She appeared strangely calm, her face clear. She hadn’t been crying. She stood with her weight on one foot. Kerry Blue never came to attention or even to ease unless you ordered her.

Kerry Blue told the captain, the XO, and the Legal Officer, “He’s not dead.”

That the colonel and the flight sergeant had an off reservation relationship was common knowledge. Everyone knew it. It was everyone’s secret. No one reported it, and there had been no under-the-deck grumblings of favoritism. Morale was high among the Fleet Marines, so Captain Carmel chose not to know about it either.

But now Kerry Blue was holding up an official proceeding, and it was time to put the Marine in her place. “Flight Sergeant. This is not fair to the colonel’s next of kin. They need to know.”

“His next of kin knows he’s not dead,” said Kerry Blue.

Calli turned to her task. She nodded to the ship’s Legal Officer, poised at the locker. “Pop it.”

Rob Roy took the universal key to TR Steele’s locker and opened it. He looked through Steele’s personal effects.

Marines who had wills kept them in their lockers. Rob Roy found Steele’s. He expanded the legal document.

The lawyer’s eyebrows lifted as he read.

The XO read over Rob Roy’s shoulder. “Right, then,” said Dingo.

Rob Roy closed the will, replaced Steele’s things into his locker and closed it for the voyage home.

Calli, standing back at the hatch, questioned, “Mister Buchanan?”

Rob Roy said, sounding faintly surprised. “The colonel’s next of kin
knows
.”

BOOK: The Ninth Circle

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