The Lotus Eaters

again?'

Spaceport Rome, Province of Italy, United Earth

Two armed guard rode in seats behind Wallenstein as her shuttle descended to the Eternal City.

Rome, much restored, spread out beneath them as that shuttlecraft broke through the clouds. Marguerite resisted the urge to press her face to the porthole of the little craft. After all, the guards were lowers, Class Fours, she thought, and they would be watching. Even so, her head twisted, her chin dropped, and her eyes searched out the landmarks she had not seen in more than a decade, even since her last trip home to convey the late— I hope the bastard is 'late' . . . though Carrera never expressly promised me to kill him—High Admiral Martin Robinson to his new command around the alien star.

Just as Geneva was the bureaucratic locus of United Earth, so was Rome its emotional heart. Indeed, nearly half of Old Earth's half million Class Ones made the city their home. Why this should be so Wallenstein was not quite sure. Perhaps it was the more pleasant weather, especially as more northerly Europe, like Canada, was in the grip of a little ice age. Little, they call it . . . but it seems to go on and on and has since the early twenty-first century. Perhaps it was a harkening back to the glories of the Roman Empire.

Wallenstein slowly shook her head. But I think it has more to do with the emotional satisfaction of having triumphed over a stifling Christianity and taken the Vatican for ourselves. Certainly, when the last pope was burned by the Ara Pacis, we at least half-intended to show that we were the power in the world . . . and Christianity was dead.

Of course, Christianity is demonstrably not dead on Terra Nova, though it is rather arguable how Christian it is. And it wasn't just Christianity we wanted to extirpate here; all the Abrahamic religions had to go, except for Islam which had earned itself a place.

Marguerite shivered, unconsciously, in fear for her planet. At least it wasn't very 'Christian' of Carrera to nuke an Islamic city in revenge for his first wife and their children. I wonder what he'll do if and when he finds out that Martin was at least partially responsible for that. Can a couple of hundred light years be space enough to shield Old Earth from a vindictiveness of that magnitude?

Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova

A great black shape stood in the open doorway to the casa, framed by two of the guards the Legion still kept on Carrera's person and residence, part of the couple of hundred in and around the house. The guards were Pashtian Scouts in the Legion's employ. From their point of view they were actually there to guard Carrera's son, Hamilcar, whom some of them, or perhaps all of them, had decided was the avatar of God. They could hardly do that without at the same time guarding Carrera.

The black shape was Sergeant Major John McNamara. Though considerably older, old enough to have retired from the Federated States Army a dozen years before, and though considerably less good looking, Mac was otherwise a near twin for Jimenez. Both were tall, black, whippet thin, and simply mean looking. Appearances, moreover, were not the only points of relation. McNamara was married to Jimenez's niece, Artemisia, about four decades his junior and pregnant with their second child.

A former Miss Balboa, even pregnant Arti still turned heads and made younger men groan with desire.

'He's inside,' Mac said. 'I got Arti to take away Lourdes' submachine gun. She wouldn't shoot a pregnant woman . . . though she just might have shot me. They're together now in the kitchen with Tribune Cano's wife, Alena.'

Speaking English, his native tongue, McNamara had a lilting Maiden Islands accent and a tendency to mispronounce the diphthong 'th.' Speaking Spanish, as they were now, he was accentless.

Under the cover of returning the salutes of the guards on the door, Jimenez affected not to notice the sigh of relief breathed by his driver, Rico, at the news that Lourdes had been disarmed and was, so to speak, being watched.

'Have you talked to him?' Jimenez asked.

Mac shook his head. 'I figured it would be better if we double teamed him, while Lourdes is out of the picture.'

Jimenez nodded slowly. While neither man had much doubt that he was much smarter than McNamara, likewise neither had any doubt that the Sergeant Major General of the Legion was much the wiser, much the better at handling men, much the more 'people smart.'

'Where's Patricio?' Jimenez asked.

'Up on the back porch, drinking.' Mac switched to English to mutter, 'He does too fockin' much o' t'at.'

'Let's go up and chat, then, shall we?'

'I'll grab anot'er bottle and some glasses,' Mac replied, still in English. Then, switching to Spanish, he said, 'Rico, you can park the car around back. You know your way to the guards' mess, right? Hope you like Pashtian food.'

'I got used to it, Sergeant Major,' the driver answered.

Rome, Province of Italy, United Earth

Old Earth transportation was, for the most part, fairly conventional. The styles might have excited comment on Terra Nova, the mechanics would not have. The big difference was that, at least on the reasonably prosperous parts of the other world, private conveyance was common. On Old Earth, it was the perquisite of the high and mighty.

'The SecGen wanted to chat with you before you made your presentation to the Consensus the day after tomorrow,' said Wallenstein's escort, another Class Two named Moore, as their car sped through Rome's uncrowded streets. 'He told the Admiralty to stuff it, that they could see you after important matters were taken care of.'