Ranks of Bronze

"Choose a location along the wall," said the voice.

The tribune stalked straight ahead, pretending that he did not see any of the other Romans and that they, as a result, could not see him.

"Hey, d'ye see him?" came a fragment of conversation, overheard but unprocessed until minutes later. "Right up't' the front knocking shit outa them bastids, and him without even a helmet!"

The ceiling was the usual eight feet high, the only dimension in which the gigantic vessel seemed less than generous by human standards. Nude men, some of them talking to one another with animation, were passing back and forth through the center of the room. The wall to which Vibulenus had been directed was unusual only in that it was curved, but the soldiers already standing within arm's length of it were in separate capsules whose boundaries were displayed by the water which leaped and sprayed within.

The tribune walked to the first open space he saw, ignoring the men who jostled him on their own slanting courses. Embarrassment about his condition kept Vibulenus from fear of undergoing a process strange to him.

Some of the men in this bath were hanging back in concern, watching cylinders of air glint to enclose their fellows before sprays from the floor and ceiling converged on them. Many of the common legionaries were so unsophisticated, however, that they had not seen a seagoing vessel before Crassus sailed his army from Brundisium. This bathing arrangement was only one more of the unique circumstances they had learned to expect since they left their farms in the Campania.

Gaius Vibulenus knew enough to be afraid; but to his boy's mind, dissolution like that of Pompilius Rufus was less to be feared than his present loss of dignity.

Somebody stepped in front of him to the space he had chosen, but the air around the soldier next to that place lost its sheen. That legionary sauntered away from the wall with a refreshed expression; his skin was flushed and gleaming as if from an expert massage. Vibulenus took his place without hesitation.

There was a ping that could have been in his ears instead of being heard by them. Everything in the room as a whole was now glimpsed through a surface that was perfectly clear but did not pass light in quite the same line as air did. Vibulenus remembered the way the Commander's face gleamed and wondered if that were from the same unknown cause.

"Standard?" asked the voice.

Vibulenus looked around, surprised out of his fuzzy internal dialogue.

"Or do you want to give instructions for changes in the standard cleansing program?" prompted the voice. It had a peevish tinge at such moments, unless the young tribune was imagining the tone from memories of house slaves skirting insubordination under similar circumstances.

"Fine, that's fine," Vibulenus snapped, flushing again. "I'll have the same that the men have."

Before the tribune could wonder whether he had correctly inferred from the question that he was being offered something special because of his rank and class, needles of warm water with a slight astringence began to scrape grime from his body. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, but it was effective; and the steam that clouded the invisible cylinder around him sheltered Vibulenus from eyes more effectively than his mind could do.

As a way of cleaning the body, this "bath" was at least as effective as the system with which Vibulenus was familiar. The sprays varied in termperature and were firm enough to knead his muscles like the fingers of a masseur. There seemed to be an ingredient added to the water which took the place of the olive oil with which the tribune would ordinarily have rubbed himself, then scraped off in combination with the dirt and body grease from his skin.

So it wasn't the result of the bath that bothered the young Roman, only the process. He had expected a social event-sitting with half a dozen others around the water vat in the steam room; racing a friend across the pool in the cold room; and at the very least, being oiled down by a slave in the warm rooma task no individual could effectively perform for himself.

Instead, Gaius Vibulenus Caper was more alone than he had ever been in the eighteen years since he left his mother's womb… excepting only what had happened to him in the Medic's cubicle; and this bath was too similar to that event to be comfortable.

The sprays became bitingly cold, then shut off. Blasts of hot, dry air wrapped Vibulenus for a moment, and the voice said, "New clothing will be issued to you at the exit from the bath."

Probably the ping Vibulenus thought he had heard before did have something to do with the invisible shield, because when he heard the sound again he was back in the room with no distortion. The air was cooler than the flows which had dried him, and the atmosphere had a freedom of movement that would have gone u

The shimmer of a cubicle next to him ceased without a sound the tribune could hear. It reminded him to step back into the room, to give space to anyone else who wanted it. What were the bath hours here? Were there bath hours? Was it daylight now?

The man stepping away from the wall next to him was Lucius Rectinus Falco. He was two inches shorter than Vibulenus and within days of being the same age, but he always gave the air of being infinitely more knowledgeable.

Vibulenus would have let his eyes slide away from the other tribune, except that Falco was already starting to grin with recognition. To refuse to face him would be cowardly as well as futile, so Vibulenus started to nod a vague greeting in hope that it would suffice.

Falco reached out and gripped his forearm. "Well, Gaius my boy, how did you like our little demonstration yesterday?"

And while Vibulenus' conscious mind told him that he must have misunderstood the words, Falco went on, "You know, I suggested to the Commander that you were the sort of troublemaker who'd be of more use as a demonstration than for anything else. But since you were an officer, so to speak, he thought he'd wait. So I suggested-"

Falco really didn't expect the bigger tribune to hit him.

Vibulenus landed his first clumsy punch squarely on the sneering lips. Vibulenus did not immediately follow that blow with another, because of the pain that shot up his own arm from the knuckle he had broken on Falco's teeth.

"Stop!" called Falco. "Commander!"

"Fighting is not allowed!" shouted the ship's voice as Vibulenus tried to hit Falco with his left hand and wished he had a shield in it. "Stop at once, or this area will be gassed and corrective measures taken!"

"Don't!" cried Falco, throwing up his hands. His lip was bleeding enough to spit droplets of blood. "You heard the Commander! Hell-"

It was impossible to hurt somebody with your bare hands, thought Vibulenus as he slapped at Falco to avoid reinjuring the knuckle while Falco scrunched up his face and punched back.

Neither blow landed, because arms grabbed Vibulenus from behind and rotated him around the man who was holding him. The tribune's bare feet hit the ground six feet from where they had been lifted. The voice continued, "Personal contests can be held through the simulator in the Recreation Room. No direct combats are allowed!"

"Gnaeus?" said Vibulenus.

"Right in one," agreed the file-closer as he released the younger man and stepped hastily away so that his peacemaking would not look like an expansion of the brawl. His arms were splayed slightly so that he could react if the tribune tried to dodge past him to get at Falco again. "Let's stay calm, sir."

Vibulenus was both drained and embarrassed to have hurt himself so badly and Falco not at all. Well, Falco somewhat: the other tribune was dabbing his fingers to the cut on his lips. The rage which he glared at Vibulenus could not have been more real if Falco had just been impaled at his command.