Authors: R. M. Meluch
The Ninth Circle (34 page)
The leader of the stranger pack, the grand male with gray sides, came over to Patrick and Glenn at a loping trot. His color was not the faded gray of age. It was an iron gray hue. Patrick dubbed him Graysides.
Graysides looked hard at Patrick and Glenn. He sniffed them. Sniffed again. Glenn got the inevitable nose in the crotch. Graysides hummed something to Conan. Before Conan could reply, Patrick hummed something back.
Conan and Graysides barked out loud with fox laughter.
Patrick translated for Glenn. “Graysides asked Conan what we were.”
“What did you tell him?” She was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“‘Funny.’”
Nicanor called on
Bagheera
to kill the boarders.
Bagheera
to kill the boarders.
Bagheera
wasn’t helping.
wasn’t helping.
Nox, with the part of his brain that wasn’t flailing, wondered why he wasn’t dead yet. He’d been knocked to the deck, but the kill stroke hadn’t descended on him. The boarders hadn’t fired on them, hadn’t stabbed them. The Praetorians could have killed any of them immediately with a bronze fist.
A lordly voice of a Praetorian ordered, “Weapons on the deck! Personal fields off. Hands where we can see them.”
The brothers looked to one another for direction.
Nicanor’s machete dropped to the deck. Nox had already lost his machete. He let his dagger drop. It clattered down. Heard other weapons dropping.
Nox was hauled to his feet, his arms wrenched behind his back. Shackles closed round his wrists. Metal-gloved hands patted him down for hidden daggers. A kick to his heel started him walking toward the air lock. “March.”
Nox advanced toward the hatch.
Here we go. Out the air lock
.
.
But no. The hatch at the other side opened, and Nox and his guards passed through the air lock into
Gladiator
.
Gladiator
.
Nox glanced back. Felt a jolt of surprise. His brothers were not behind him. The hatch shut.
Only four of the guards had come aboard with Nox. They pushed him the way they wanted him to go.
They passed through bronze-embossed corridors. There were gilded and enameled coffers in the overhead. Aldebaran scarab crickets were heraldically placed at the tops of archways.
The
Gladiator
used to be the ship of the great triumphalis Numa Pompeii before he became emperor.
Gladiator
used to be the ship of the great triumphalis Numa Pompeii before he became emperor.
Numa Pompeii was Caesar now. Nox didn’t know who commanded
Gladiator
these days.
Gladiator
these days.
But there were Praetorian Guards on board.
Why were there imperial guards on a ship at the galactic Rim? Someone far from the home world was acting high and overly mighty for his station.
Nox’s escort passed him into the custody of other Praetorians. These were in full ceremonial regalia, with silver eagle wings embossed across their cuirasses, triple-plumed helmets, and ornate bronze greaves. They marched Nox toward an audience with someone who had a dangerously high sense of his own importance.
The Praetorian Guard and the silver eagles belonged solely to Caesar.
Who did this guy think he was?
Enormous doors flanked by marble gods parted.
The Praetorians hauled Nox bodily—still living and breathing bodily—into the throned presence of Caesar Numa Pompeii.
After a night of drumming and dancing, the two fox packs united for a hunt at dawn. No small animals, birds, and insects would do for this. They brought down a heavy, hoofed thing that looked like a cross between an antelope and a lorry. Conan clamped onto the beast’s throat. Graysides’ jaws closed on its spine. Other males hung onto the thing’s long horns, weighing them down to the ground.
Glenn hung back, hugging her splinter gun. She desperately wanted to save her boys from those wicked horns and those lethal thrashing hooves.
Don’t.
The beast fell over, kicking and bellowing.
This is what they live for. Let them do their jobs.
The bull died. Swift strokes with the razor edge of curved claws made the skinning look easy. The foxes tore off hunks of meat and sliced open the belly. A cluster of young foxes stuck their faces in the cavity.
After gorging and then licking each other clean, the young girls brought meat around to the aged members of their tribes, and to Patrick and Glenn.
Several foxes visited to make sure Glenn and Patrick got a share. Glenn tried to smile at the bloody shank proudly bestowed on her. “Thanks. Awfully.”
Patrick said, “At least it’s not entrails.”
Glenn cooked the meat with her heat stick. She did not dare make an open flame out here. But she was not about to eat raw meat now that she knew she and Patrick were fair game for any microbes that might be in it.
Fox noses picked up the scent of cooking meat. Members of both packs moved in to find out what it was.
Whiskers tickled Glenn’s cheek. It was Brat.
Glenn offered Brat a bit of the cooked part. Brat nibbled at the edge, let the piece drop. His nose wrinkled up. The others chortled.
Brat said it was funny.
When the foxes left the kill site, a circle of tattlers descended to finish the feast.
The tribes returned to the fox meadow, where Graysides told a story. Patrick recorded it on his omni.
The young ones hung on the old male’s every hum as if it were a ghost story.
Glenn whispered, “Can you tell what he’s saying?”
Patrick shook his head.
“I can’t make it out,” Patrick whispered. “Not unless smelly black thorn bushes are crossing the river.”
The rest of the day was spent sleeping, lazing. Cooler breezes in the evening brought play. Then drumming and dancing.
“Uh-oh,” said Patrick.
Glenn followed his gaze.
A wiry young male from the other tribe was sparking Princess. The one with the nicked ear and heavy scar across his flank. Glenn had named him Rogue.
Princess kept pacing with a haughty strut in her gait, her tail straight up like an empress’ fan. She made flirty eyes. Rogue laid gifts at her dancing feet.
Mama-san and Daddy moved in to inspect the gifts.
Glenn pushed her way in there too, checking out the offerings. Patrick asked, “Is he good enough for her?” Not sure if he was kidding.
One of the gifts was a tanned hide. The furred side of the skin was spotted and striped in colors of rich auburn, tiger orange, black, and white. The other side was soft as kid leather. “This is well done,” Glenn said.
Even the young male named Tanner from their own tribe gave the hide a thorough resentful inspection. Tanner could find no fault with Rogue’s work.
Glenn moved back to stand with Patrick. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Is he good enough?”
“
No
one’s good enough for our Princess,” said Glenn. “But she wants him.”
No
one’s good enough for our Princess,” said Glenn. “But she wants him.”
Princess was acting coy.
The bachelor males of her own tribe were agitated. Brat was biting his own tail in distress.
None of the local boys challenged Rogue.
Mama-san and Daddy appeared to approve.
When the evening drumming started, Princess and Rogue danced in a line that was just the two of them, no one else. They shared a mouse snack. They wandered into the woods in the starlight.
Nox breathed an oath in Americanese. “Almighty. Almighty.”
“Yes, Mister Farragut?” Caesar said, as if he had been addressed.
Nox recovered. Declared, “I am not a Farragut.”
“You are not an Antonius either.” Caesar’s voice rumbled.
Nox was struck by the enormity that was Numa Pompeii, the enormity of his station.
Caesar Numa was a titan, brawny, fleshy. Romans like their gods huge, with huge appetites and vast grasp, living grandly.
Nox couldn’t fathom what could possibly have brought Caesar to the outer rim of the galaxy. There must be something of great importance here. And it could not be Nox, or even the stolen Xerxes.
Numa studied him in intimidating silence. Nox was not going to make another sound without leave.
Finally Caesar commanded him, “Speak.”
Nox opened his mouth. Speech stopped up in his throat.
He hadn’t been asked a question. Caesar had bid him say something.
Nox spoke his mind, “How does puny pirate garbage rate Caesar’s attention?”
“You are garbage,” Caesar confirmed. “But you are not puny, and you have never
not
had Our attention.”
not
had Our attention.”
It’s my coiens birth name
, Nox thought, sour.
If Caesar thinks that will give him leverage with Big John, it will not. Not ever
.
, Nox thought, sour.
If Caesar thinks that will give him leverage with Big John, it will not. Not ever
.
Caesar said, “You acquired a flight program for a Xerxes transport. From your friend Tycho. Did you think anyone would just hand that over to an
ignominiosissum
without higher permission?”
ignominiosissum
without higher permission?”
At this point, I’m guessing not,
Nox thought.
Nox thought.
Nox had never quite believed his luck in pulling off the theft of the Xerxes. And so he hadn’t. Not without a large amount of help. Very large.
Caesar spoke, like the voice of a canyon, “You shall take your Ninth Circle to the Rim world known as Zoe, sometimes called Eden.”
Strange place to send The Ninth Ci
r
cle
.
r
cle
.
As if reading Nox’s thought, Numa said, “It needs a serpent.”
Nox didn’t know that world. Zoe. There were settled worlds across one-eighth of the galaxy, so there were many places he had never heard of. He knew he would be able to locate Zoe in the Xerxes’ data bank, so he didn’t ask Caesar for directions. He waited for Caesar to tell him what to do when he got there.
Caesar said, “We require non-Roman Roman eyes on the ground.”
Non-Roman Roman. That described him well. He wondered how Caesar knew that he was still devoted to the Empire. Nox guessed that was how Numa got to be Caesar.
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