Ranks of Bronze

"Some of your comrades are undergoing emergency medical treatment," said the Commander in a return to his pla

The Commander's arm made a coy gesture that filled Vibulenus with revulsion. Did he think they were children? Or mincing aristocrats maundering to one another while slaves pampered their bodies? He should spit out his instructions, treating them as soldiers and pretending himself to be a man!

The trio of guards still held the tether. Their armored bodies were interposed between the beast and the Commander, though the guild officer could scarcely be at risk from an animal whose like he had ridden to battle many times in the past.

"Our friend," continued the Commander in the oily ma

The Pilot stepped from the doorway with a set expression, gripping his weapon so fiercely that tendons stood out on the backs of his hands.

"Your Worship!" shouted Gaius Vibulenus as his soul froze and his body stepped forward into the cleared area where he had no friends or fellows. The acoustics of the big room drank his voice, but not so fully that the dainty figure in yellow could not hear him.

The tribune's hands were raised and open, a sign of supplication and in any culture proof of peaceful intent. A guard lurched forward, holding his mace out in bar.

"You have wisely chosen a creature whose savagery and power were demonstrated to us all today," Vibulenus said, still shouting. His mind considered the risk that other Romans who could not hear him would take this as some suicidal call to mutiny-and obey it.

That risk was the lesser one.

"Who could not have been amazed," the tribune continued, gesturing rhetorically as his chest halted at the mace shaft, "at the way these terrible creatures wreaked havoc among heavily armed opponents whose skill and courage threatened to overwhelm us? Not even the bravest of us would dare approach such a creature as this."

The carnivore snarled and gave a tentative pull on its line as it peered past its handlers toward the Roman. Vibulenus wondered whether he had halted inside or outside the arc the beast could lunge on its tether.

That risk, too, had to be disregarded.

For a moment, the Pilot leveled his weapon at the tribune. Then he pointed the laser at the deck and hopped backward, into the doorway again. The crewman had been drafted into duties beyond his normal competence. Now that the script had gone awry, the Pilot had either to improvise or to withdraw.

The Commander's duties did not permit him the option of withdrawing. He glanced behind him, nervously aware that if the carnivore lunged toward this nearest Roman, the cable would slice across those standing in the way.

"This assembly is dismissed," the Commander said sharply, driven to decision by the personal risk which grew if he should vacillate. "Leave at once and report to the Sick Bay for normal processing."

There was immediate movement toward the rear of the gallery. The sudden dismissal was just one more circumstance in a disorganized day.

The Commander's lips moved, and the voice in Vibulenus's ears said, "Not you, Gaius Vibulenus Caper."

Two guards advanced in response to orders grunted to them alone. They forced Vibulenus back a step as if he were a spiderlet ballooning before the wind. Rather than resist their effortless advance, he skipped ahead of them, keeping one outstretched hand on the mace helve to show that he was not trying to escape.

"Slow down, fish-face," snarled Clodius Afer as he and Niger-Niger blanching yellow beneath the wind-burn on his skin-stepped toward the guards on the balls of their feet.

"It's all right!" the tribune cried, sliding between the creatures in armor and the friends who would rescue him. "We're just getting away from the, the hyena!"

Maybe. Existing on the ship like fighting a war. Unless you intended to plunge in and slog forward, come what may, you needed to anticipate what everyone else would be doing long before they decided. And you could assume that not only would communications break down, but that everyone would put the worst possible face on whatever anyone else did.

Vibulenus didn't think his anticipation was very good. But he'd have bet his hopes of homecoming that he was the only one aboard who tried.

Quartilla touched an arm of each centurion though she did not try to hold them. "They're getting him away from the beast," the woman was saying throatily. "Careful or you'll put him in danger."

Maybe the tribune wasn't the only one on board who tried to think things through.

The Commander strode beyond the arc of his-watchdog's-tether, permitting the bodyguards to release it. When they exerted themselves, the toad-things exuded a sweetish odor with a tinge of ammonia behind it.

Freed, the carnivore immediately relaxed. It strolled across the front bulkhead at the limit of its cable, sniffing at the deck which clicked beneath its claws.

"I want to-" the guild officer began. He glanced at the centurions and Quartilla, then beyond at other soldiers staying to watch the show in the knowledge that the mob ahead of them would not clear for some time. The Commander's ears twitched; he turned toward his expectant bodyguards.

Quartilla opened her mouth, but neither Clodius nor Niger would be ruled by a woman in this.

"I would appreciate it," called Vibulenus in a tone of icy command, "if you men would go about your business while I confer with my superior."

The face of the pilus prior went professionally blank. Niger, more boyish in spirit as well as appearance, blinked like a dog who has been kicked for jumping up to greet its master. Then both minds reasserted themselves and the men stepped away, still held by Quartilla. Clodius Afer was wearing a grim smile.

"As you were saying, Your Worship?" Vibulenus prompted with an expression as supercilious as that of one campaigning politician meeting another.

Close up, the Commander's face seemed to be tinged with jaundice. Whether that was true, or an accident of reflection from the yellow bodysuit-or possibly just something within the tribune's mind-was beyond Vibulenus' reckoning. His lips, which were more nearly circular at rest than a human's should have been, pursed and paused. At last the guild officer decided to say, "We have noted with approval your actions on the field today, military tribune. My guild was very pleased with the loyalty and dedication you showed, as well as a level of initiative unexpected in an asset."

Even without the hinted motion of the Commander's ears, Vibulenus would have known that "initiative" was an attribute with risk when it appeared this far down the chain of command.

"My guild seeks to reward proper behavior," the Commander continued. He was absurdly slight when viewed from so nearby. The strength and technique which Vibulenus had gained from untold battles and drills would permit him to snap the childsized neck before either of the guards, slowed by their armor, could intervene.

"Is there some particular reward you would like to receive?" said the voice that did not come directly from the Commander's lips.

"Your Worship," said Vibulenus as his mind took over before his body began to tremble at the risk he was accepting, "I would like to lead my fellows home and arrange the recruitment of new legions of full strength for you."

That was ridiculous-Romans enlisting as mercenaries for foreign traders! But if the guild let them march home, then the aftermath could be dealt with somehow, some way…