Every legionary aboard had now been brought into the Commander’s quarters for a view of the price men had exacted from — not men. Most of the centuries filed in and out in boisterous good humor, but Rusticanus had set his own stamp on the conduct of the First Cohort.
“Sir,” he said as the men marched toward the exit into the Main Gallery where most of the legion already waited. “I — I’m very proud to serve under you. You did . . . you did what you promised us you would.”
“Thank you, First,” the tribune said, feeling pleasure tingle beneath his skin despite his weariness.
“But you should have had me with you —” his broad hand gestured around him, fingers spread “—when.”
The first centurion made an about face as sharp as a surveyed angle and marched out after his men.
Clodius Afer assumed a full brace, looking at a knob of tree-trunk, and asked, “Further orders, sir?” in a raspy, impersonal voice. He did not want to prod his friend, his leader; but until the operation was complete, the pilus prior would be wound up tight as the springs of a catapult.
He knew very well that the operation was not over.
Niger’s century was on duty in the forward section, half of them sprawled in the outer area while the remainder wandered in the glade which formed the Commander’s quarters. Their centurion sat crosslegged with his back to a tree, smiling faintly but not speaking except to briefly answer direct questions.
He could not even be said to be watching the Commander, though he was not looking anywhere else.
“All right,” said Vibulenus in a sharp voice intended to rouse his own mind as well as bring those around him to attention. He stood up and pointed his index fingers at the crewmen tied to daggers driven into one of the giant tree boles. “You,” the tribune demanded. “Where is the ship controlled from?”
The Pilot winced with trapped-animal panic — he might have been dopey with the pain of his ribs and shoulders. The Medic craned his neck to see the other crewman. Because of the trunk’s curve they could not see one another’s face without straining.
When the Pilot still said nothing, the Medic flung his gaze again on the Roman tribune and said, “It’s in his quarters, the whole thing, but you can’t work the controls yourselves, you know —”
“Yes, we know,” said Vibulenus with a vague smile at the fellow’s desperation to prove he was indispensable. They already knew that; the tribune himself did, at least.
Niger stood with a mechanical rather than fluid grace, each joint of his close-coupled frame moving by small increments. There was certainly a way to provide the Commander’s quarters with real furniture, but it was not worth the bother of learning — and very possibly, it was under the Commander’s control alone.
The junior centurion put an arm around Vibulenus’ shoulders and hugged him. Quartilla, standing at the tribune’s other side, laid her fingers on her lover’s biceps, and the troops of the century on guard began to move closer to hear what was about to happen.
“We can set a course for a lovely world,” the Medic said, nervousness speeding his voice so that the words tripped across one another. “Anything you want, whatever’s lovely to you. And —”
“You’ll set our course for home,” said the tribune. “For Capua. For —”
“No.” said the Pilot.
They had all been ignoring the slimmer crewman in his silence and his daze. Vibulenus moved to his side for a better view of the fellow. Niger, a non-commissioned officer again, made room through his crowding soldiers with a snarled order and a shove that could have moved oxen.
“There’s no home,” the Pilot went on, meeting the tribune’s eyes with a bright terror which proved he understood well the temper of the men around him. “We can take you — many places, almost anywhere, places the Federation will never learn about. But if we take you to Earth —”
“Look at him,” said Clodius Afer to the captive. He swept his arm to the side, clearing by his authority a path as wide as what his junior had managed with physical effort. “Look at him!” the pilus prior shouted.