The Fourth Rome Read online

  The most difficult data to accept was the information about implants. How did the traveler get back? Did the effect wear off, and the person automatically revert to his native space-time after an interval? Not very practical. Was there some way of calibrating and reprogramming the implants on the fly? Did the handheld control all travel parameters?

  If the Russian handheld could replace the whole TC in which the ARC Riders had come here, then the base technology had to be from Up The Line. Had to be.

  There was no other explanation. Such miniaturization of power sources was still impossible in Roebeck’s epoch. Nobody in his right mind would take a one-way trip to 9 AD. Or to anywhere else for that matter. So that wasn’t a possibility. Therefore, somebody from Up The Line was running a mission in which this timeline was a secondary staging area. And that somebody was going to great pains to have the technology look homegrown.

  The science community here flat didn’t have the skill to produce a handheld with even the rudimentary capabilities demonstrated by Neat’s group. The mouse, which had traveled minutes into the past when touched with that handheld, was proof that the handheld and the implant worked just fine.

  Now all she had to find out was who controlled the technology, where it was centered, how many key people were involved, and how to eradicate all knowledge of it from this horizon. For starters.

  If the ARC Riders were up against operators from Up The Line, people from the ARC Riders’ own future with better equipment and superior knowledge, then they might be in over their heads on this mission. She’d never heard of an ARC mission Up The Line, past the 26th, past Central’s locus. She was pretty sure there couldn’t be one. Safeguards against that very eventuality had been put in place before the Up The Line folks gave their technology to the savages who comprised the ARC Riders. So if this technology was from farther Up The Line than the ARC Riders could reach, then what?

  You heard stories about adult supervision for the ARC Riders coming from Up The Line. Maybe somebody way above Roebeck’s pay grade could send a message to those adult supervisors. But more help than that probably wasn’t going to be forthcoming from beyond the 26th century. Whatever this furball was made up of in this century, Nan Roebeck’s team of ARC Riders was going to have to spit it out on their own.

  The more she thought about it, the surer she became that Central wasn’t going to be able to do much for them. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t required to seek additional guidance in such an unusual situation. Damn quick, too.

  Roebeck resolved to get back to the TC as soon as she could and take Chun with her. Maybe Chun could get some guidance from Central’s download. Maybe they all ought to displace out of here, get some new orders, and then come back. They could reenter this horizon mere minutes, even seconds after they’d left it, if that kind of risk was warranted.

  Maybe Chun and Grainger had done better than she. Maybe the other ARC Riders knew for certain by now just where, what, and who they needed to strike.

  Too many “maybes.”

  Grainger had warned her that Russia was like dogs fighting under a blanket. Well, now Nan Roebeck was under the blanket, too, and she couldn’t tell one Russian dog from another in the dark.

  Three Kilometers East of the Hase River, Free Germany

  August 29, 9 AD

  A Roman soldier lay dead beside Rebecca Cames with a javelin projecting from his armpit. It was a crude weapon, four feet long and made entirely of wood. The tip was shaved to a point and seared to brittle hardness.

  It did the job, though. The legionary had lurched some distance before he collapsed, but the best surgeons of this day couldn’t have repaired the artery that splinters had perforated. The man had died alone in the brush, unnoticed by friend or foe.

  The thunder was almost continuous. Rebecca staggered from a gust so fierce that the rain it hurled in her face might almost have been hail. The horse she led shied. She didn’t let go of the reins, so the beast dragged her off her feet. She slid on her hip for a moment, her head butting that of the desperate horse as she tried to rise.

  The team had been trying to avoid the battle ever since the morning of the previous day. The Roman column had fragmented when the Germans attacked. Lines of wagons blocked the narrow roadway, separating units of troops and forcing them to act independently.

  Some had continued forward, some held in place; many had attempted to retreat. The nearby corpse had probably been one of those who’d counterattacked, charging into the trees that made Roman close-order tactics impossible. Light-armed Germans faded into the forest. Hidden warriors flung javelins into a pursuer’s back or thrust iron-pointed stabbing spears from the cover of the dense undergrowth.

  The marching column, miles long when Varus broke camp, had spread into an amorphous blob that thrashed and died in the Teutoburg Forest. The team had to get clear of the battle before they could safely leave the depths of the forest and head for the Rhine. Despite Gerd’s skill and equipment, that was proving extremely difficult.

  They’d lost one of the horses the previous night. Even hobbled the mare had managed to break her tie rope and flee farther than the team could search when they realized she was gone. Rebecca had lived through seven Asian monsoons and had been in a Tennessee trailer park while a tornado ripped it. She didn’t remember ever seeing worse weather.

  Lightning ripped the whole sky. Gerd Barthuli sat cross-legged beside a huge basswood tree. You couldn’t say he was sheltering there because the wind came from too many directions. The air above his sensor pack spluttered with light like the corona discharge around a high-voltage switch.

  Gerd’s display depended on coherent light projected from two sources to interact precisely, forming a hologram. Raindrops and even blown spray interfered with the light beams, blurring their meaning. Rebecca didn’t know how the analyst could use the device; but he said he could, and there wasn’t any choice.

  She’d briefly shielded the display with an ARC sleeping bag: a sock of impervious, microns-thin fabric that transferred heat in either direction to hold a constant temperature. The wind was too strong and variable. She and Pauli together might have held it, but they’d have lost the remaining horses if they tried.

  The rain would interfere with the microwave pistols as sure as it did Gerd’s holograms. The submachine gun holstered on her belt was a cold weight and no comfort. Beckie Carnes was no willing killer.

  But the forest was full of killers tonight.

  Pauli Weigand stood like a tree himself. His left arm was around his gelding’s neck. He murmured to the animal as he turned, viewing each quadrant of the team’s surroundings as he waited.

  There wasn’t much to see. They’d had to avoid the roadway. Sight distances within the old-growth forest were a matter of feet or inches. The storm didn’t make things significantly worse.

  Rebecca’s horse stopped fighting her for the moment. It stood with its legs spread and head bowed, shivering violently. She didn’t know if it was cold or just afraid. She patted its neck and said something pointlessly reassuring, the sort of thing she’d said often enough to a boy on a stretcher with guts poking out of his torn abdomen.

  Pauli’s wet mail gleamed in each flash. The steel links would be a good ground. Rebecca wondered what would happen if a bolt hit him.

  If lightning killed Pauli Weigand…

  If lightning killed Team Leader Weigand, Riders Carnes and Barthuli would make their way to Xanten, neutralize the two revisionists remaining, and wait for pickup by TC 779.

  Unless Rebecca was standing close enough that the stroke killed her also, instead of just killing the part of her that would die with Pauli.

  He saw her looking at him and smiled. His faceshield was transparent from the outside, but rain streaked its slick surface.

  Gerd stood up with care born of stiff muscles and the slick leaves underfoot. “I believe we can cross now,” Gerd said via their headbands, safer than trying to talk over the storm. “There isn’t a way around
the fighting for farther than I can view, even extrapolating beyond the sensors’ real range.”

  “Then we go through,” said Pauli. “Just give me a vector. I’ll lead from here on.”

  Rebecca saw the analyst’s nose wrinkle, though the tsk his tongue made against the roof of his mouth didn’t transmit. “I may wander off occasionally, Pauli,” he said, “but I hope I can usually be trusted to carry out my duties when I’m present. I will continue to lead.”

  Gerd set off through the brush, holding the sensor pack in front of him in both hands. Pauli slid his left hand down to the reins and followed. He held his pistol in the other hand, ready to act if a band of howling Germans came out of the night onto them. He didn’t like putting the analyst in front when they knew there were warriors nearby, but Gerd was right: the sensors should be in the lead.

  “Come on, horse,” Rebecca said to her shivering animal. She stroked its neck. “I know, none of this was your idea, but life isn’t fair.”

  Four Kilometers West of the Hase River, Free Germany

  August 29/30, 9 AD

  Twenty meters to the right, Pauli Weigand saw a score of Roman soldiers and civilians stand circled, trying to defend themselves against hundreds of capering Germans. This part of the forest was sandy bog. The trees were cypress, spaced more widely than the oaks and larches of firmer ground, and the undergrowth grew only waist high. Rain and darkness hid the team from the fighters, but it was still closer contact than Pauli would have chosen.

  Thermal vision gave Pauli a good view of the fighting; he could have done without that also.

  Most of the Romans had shields: thick, leather-covered ovals of cross-laminated birch. They knelt so that the curved bottom edge could rest on the ground. Two male civilians, wagon drivers by the broad leather hats both wore, huddled behind military shields they’d picked up.

  The only woman among the defenders had a dazed expression and a short German spear whose tip was bloody. The merchant beside her held a small brass-faced buckler in his left hand and a leaf-shaped sword of Greek pattern in his right. He looked as if he knew how to use his weapons and the legionaries certainly knew how to use theirs; but it wasn’t going to matter, and everybody knew that also.

  The defensive circle had contracted as victims fell. A dozen Roman bodies lay outside it, sinking noticeably into the wet soil. There were two Germans as well. More warriors lay against tree roots where their fellows had dragged them wounded or dead.

  A dozen Germans charged, shouting and waving spears. They were commoners. None had a sword, body armor, or a metal helmet, though a few wore cone-shaped leather caps that would be some protection against a blow from above. Their round bucklers were made of wicker covered with cowhide worn hair side out to give each shield a distinctive pattern. Most of them were barefoot and bare-chested, their only garments breechclouts and sometimes a short fur cape.

  Legionaries rose, lifting their heavy shields with difficulty from the ground. Two days of driving rain had soaked the wood and leather, doubling the shields’ weight and making them hard to move, much less handle in combat.

  The Germans fenced, staying just out of contact. Mud squished between their toes. The Romans held their places.

  Several warriors stepped back, butted their stabbing spears in the ground, and began throwing the all-wood javelins they carried in sets of three or four in their shield hands. Even at such short range the darts couldn’t penetrate Roman shields, but one stuck a legionary beneath his helmet’s cheekpiece.

  Bawling with pain and frustration, the Roman lurched forward. The missile flopped from his face. He thrust his own long javelin into a warrior’s shield.

  The German hopped nimbly away. Other warriors attacked the legionary from both sides. A spear pierced the Roman’s thigh. He shouted and staggered back, dropping his javelin.

  Two legionaries stepped out to cover him. One chopped overhand at a German who didn’t dodge swiftly enough to avoid a shearing scalp wound. It bled like a waterfall. The Roman shouted in fierce joy and sloshed forward to finish the job. A javelin from the other side of the circle caught him in the neck. He pitched forward on his face.

  The legionary with the leg wound stumbled. A warrior thrust the third of the advanced Romans through the face because the victim couldn’t shift his waterlogged shield in time to block the spear. Germans surged through the gap in the circle before the tired defenders could back closer together for mutual support.

  Romans turned to meet the warriors leaping onto them from behind, but fatigue and their heavy equipment slowed them. Warriors rushed the defenders from all sides. The Germans’ own numbers worked against them for a moment, but only a moment.

  The merchant broke free of the crush. His intestines dragged behind him in coils. He took three steps forward and fell. A warrior bellowed in guttural triumph, brandishing a bloody Roman sword in one hand and the woman’s head in the other.

  Pauli Weigand followed Gerd through the muck, drawing his horse along behind him. The smell of blood terrified the animal. A hell of a trait in a warhorse. The cavalry troop leader who’d sold Pauli the mount wouldn’t be spending the money he’d bilked from the emperor’s envoy, though.

  Gerd pushed into a clump of willows that would screen the ARC Riders from the nearby Germans. Pauli felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Lightning struck a cypress a dozen meters to the team’s left, knocking all of them off their feet. The thunderclap lifted waves from the brilliantly lighted puddles, but the shock—mental and electrical—was so great that Pauli didn’t hear the sound.

  He struggled to his feet. The horse had stumbled also; by the time it was up, Pauli had both arms around the beast’s neck to prevent it from bolting. Beckie’s horse charged blindly into the haunches of Pauli’s, staggering both animals long enough for the ARC Riders to regain control.

  The top of the cypress burned briefly. The flames decayed from sulphurous yellow through red to blackness, leaving the air sharp with the smell of smoke and ozone. A strip of bark three fingers wide had peeled from the peak to the ground. Willows near the base of the big tree were withered, and a branch broken by the flash now twisted loose in the wind.

  The Germans turned from where they were looting the bodies of those they’d slaughtered moments before. The sky god’s finger had pointed directly at the three ARC Riders.

  “Pick up Gerd and ride!” Pauli shouted to Beckie Carnes. She might have argued, but the practical aspect was obvious: the team leader was much heavier than either of the other two, and the horses were little more than ponies. Beckie dragged herself into the military saddle, cursing the rain-soaked leather and the lack of stirrups.

  Screaming like furies, hundreds of warriors charged their fresh prey.

  Pauli aimed over the gelding’s withers and swept his microwave pistol across the Germans. The pulses atomized raindrops. Fog filled the air between muzzle and target. Beyond the gray wall a few warriors fell, but the rain absorbed most of the weapon’s output. Steam crackled from the pistol’s receiver as droplets hit plastic heated by continuous use.

  Pauli tried to mount with the pistol in one hand. The horse shied. Shouting in frustration, Pauli thrust the weapon under his sword belt and prayed it’d stay there. Using brute strength and a roll of skin gripped from the screaming animal’s barrel, the ARC Rider hauled himself aboard. In a battle, they don’t give points for gracefulness.

  The sudden fog stopped the German rush for a moment. The leaders hurled javelins. Somebody’d picked up a heavy Roman missile that might have penetrated, but only a native weapon hit Pauli. The wooden point shattered on his mail coat

  He let his horse follow its head for a moment as he turned and tried his pistol on the Germans. A few more tumbled; the central wooden boss of a shield shattered like a gunshot. The main result was a gush of fog to replace what was dissipating. Some of the shouts were fearful.

  Pauli kicked his mount forward. The horse with Gerd and Beckie astride splashed on just ahea
d of him.

  Pauli didn’t know whether his teammates were riding in a direction Gerd had chosen or just away, clearly a good choice with warriors whooping behind for another orgy of slaughter. He waved his gun blindly to the rear, holding the trigger down. Continuous operation wasn’t supposed to overstress the mechanism, though he wasn’t sure Central’s technical staff had tested the weapon with rain spattering the hot receiver.

  The microwave pistol operated with no sound or flash to betray its use. Normally that was an advantage. An ARC Rider could drop an opponent in his tracks without warning those nearby that anything had occurred.

  Right now the lack of spectacular effects might get the team killed. There were too many Germans to fight even if conditions hadn’t seriously degraded the pistol’s performance. A huge flash and bang might have frightened the war-band into searching for safer prey. Warriors with their blood up simply didn’t notice when a few of their neighbors fell down silently.

  The revisionist submachine gun was in one of the satchels balanced across his horse’s withers. It was even more useless than the ARC pistols. The silencer throttled the weapon’s flash and muzzle blast, and the light bullets didn’t have nearly the authority of a microwave pulse. An adrenaline-charged warrior would ignore a body shot, though he might bleed to death internally five or ten minutes later.

  The lead horse trampled through a screen of ferns. Pauli’s mount was nose to tail. Beckie shouted. They’d ridden into a cleared strip.

  In preparation for the ambush, Hermann and his allies had built ramparts of logs and earth along the expected Roman line of march. The team had blundered into this one from the rear, where the Germans had camped and waited.

  High-stoked bonfires lit the scene. The flames overwhelmed rain that tried to quench them. A band of Germans, many of them nobles whose horses were tethered nearby, busied themselves with prisoners they’d taken during the fighting.