“Outside,” Vibulenus ordered in instant decision. He wished he felt better — and his physical condition was less a burden than the way his stomach dropped in black spirals whenever he thought of Quartilla.
“You heard the tribune!” roared the first centurion to the mob of men who had done no such thing. “Turn around and move out!”
Obedience was so quick and so complete that Rusticanus could begin marching immediately toward what had been a solid clot of men at the moment his leg swung forward. Vibulenus fell in step beside the senior non-com, marveling at the way discipline made of soldiers something greater — or at least different — than their numbers alone.
The Medic gave another startled squawk. The tribune glanced behind him and saw not only Clodius and Niger, but the soldiers who had been even nearer the booth as well — following because Rusticanus had said the tribune had ordered them to do so. The guards halted, no longer concerned, but the Medic had enough initiative to wonder what was happening.
The sudden, accidental display of his authority made Vibulenus tingle with pleasure, but there was a frightening core of responsibility within it also.
“Sir,” said Julius Rusticanus even as the tribune’s mouth opened to prod him, “I think . . . .”He rubbed his bald scalp fiercely. “Sir, if you come to the Rec Room, you can see it for yourself. That’s better than me trying to tell you.”
Presumably they were marching in that direction already as they followed an orange bead out of the Sick Bay and into a cross corridor. The floorplan of the ship normally did not change between embarkation and landing; but even when fixed, the maze of corridors was so complex that it was easier to ask for a guide bead to your destination than it was to grope along without one.
“These men came from Recreation?” asked Vibulenus, gesturing with spread fingers toward their entourage instead of giving a nod. The motion of walking was more than he could comfortably accept, and a good brisk shake of his head was likely to drop him to the floor in blinding pain.
He didn’t imagine that anything so badly required his presence that it couldn’t have waited for him to be refashioned into comfort by the Medic’s cubicles. The first centurion — whose freshness and clean tunic proved he had at least been to the baths — thought it was that level of emergency, though. Rusticanus was a solid man and had the information, so the tribune would be a fool to second-guess him.
“Yessir,” Rusticanus answered. “A lot stayed back though, and I just hope they kept the lid on.” He paused, rubbing his scalp, before he added, “Figured I’d better come fetch you myself, sir, so’s you’d know there was a rush.”
“Good judgment, First,” Vibulenus said, grinning wryly in his mind. He should have been pleased at his own accurate and self-sacrificing response to the situation. Instead, he was thinking that if he were a little less dutiful, he wouldn’t feel like a gladiator being dragged out of the arena on a hook — and he’d be better able to deal with whatever the problem was.
The soldiers ahead of them turned into the Recreation Room, slowed by the number of men already standing inside. The circular, domed room expanded when all its couches were full, so the tribune had never seen it overcrowded. Now, though there must have been at least a thousand men packing the aisles and open areas, only a handful were actually lying back to enter the room’s fantasy world.
“Move aside!” bellowed the first centurion. “Move aside for the tribune!” Soldiers obeyed by leaping onto the couches, the only space available. Many of them shouted, some cheering Vibulenus but others calling messages of anger uncertain in the confusion.
What in Hades was going on?
The tribune sat down on a couch, started to swing his legs up, and quickly decided to lay his torso down first. The strain of balancing his upper body while trying to lift his legs with his belly muscles had sent sheets of white fire across the back of his eyeballs.