“This tunic don’t feel right,” said Clodius, pinching out the breast of the garment which had dropped at his feet from a wall dispenser as he left the Sick Bay. The file-closer peered down his nose at the tent of fabric between his thumb and forefinger. “Isn’t . . . I dunno. Don’t scratch the way it ought to, you know?”
“All personnel, report to the Main Gallery for an address by your commander,” said the voice.
It sounded as if the words were being spoken a few inches from both of the tribune’s ears simultaneously. He no longer jumped and looked around, but the effect still shocked him. Some legionaries covered their ears — uselessly, Vibulenus suspected — and hunched lower in growing fear at every repetition. Clodius Afer seemed to ignore the words, or at least their strangeness.
“Maybe it’s Egyptian,” the tribune said, trying to speak over the last of the announcement. The vessel was huge, even though it did not compare in size with the ship that had thundered in after the close of the battle. As soon as the announcements began, scarlet beads appeared in the ceiling of all the rooms and hallways. They flowed to the Main Gallery — to here. “The linen, I mean.”
If it was linen. If it were even cloth. The walls and ceilings of the vessel were metal, totalling more metal than Vibulenus had ever imagined could be in one place; but sometimes the surfaces took on other semblances, as when the sheer wall opened to deposit garments, or ceilings that had been smooth and unremarkable glowed with light to guide the legionaries toward the assembly.
The floor of the Main Gallery was large enough to have held the legion fully equipped before it marched to battle. With the men — with the survivors — stripped to tunics, there was no hint of crowding, so that legionaries could stand in groups of their closest fellows or wander nervously, looking for somewhere to alight.
One of the latter was Pompilius Rufus who, before Vibulenus could speak, called, “Sir! Sir? Have you seen Niger?”
Clodius and the tribune dipped their chins together in denial as the young soldier paced over to them.
“I was just saying they ought to muster us properly,” Vibulenus offered. “Issue standards to the standard bearers so that everyone would know his place.”
“He insisted going looking for a cursed beehive,” Rufus muttered, oblivious to the disembodied summons as well as to the tribune’s conversation. “I thought, well, if I go back, then he won’t stay out long. . . . But I don’t see him.”
“You know,” said the file-closer, looking down again at the fabric covering his own broad chest, “The tunic feels funny, but it fits me. Yours wouldn’t.” He nodded toward the much slimmer tribune and added in an afterthought, “Sir.”
“Niger!” Rufus shouted, through the megaphone of his hands. The acoustics of the room absorbed the sound so completely that the shout was lost in the buzz of conversation only ten feet away. A few men turned, then turned back to their own concerns.
“Let’s go to the front,” Vibulenus said. He was feeling increasingly restive, and there was nowhere else to move that made a difference . . . except back out of the gallery. What result would defiance have?
“What d’ye suppose they do when people don’t come back when the little lights tell ’em to, sir?” Rufus asked miserably.
Vibulenus put his arm around the shoulders of his childhood friend. “Strait rations,” he said as the three of them maneuvered toward the front of the gallery where they would have a somewhat better view of the gathered soldiers. “Maybe a flogging. Don’t worry — the Commander says we’re valuable.” He began to believe the words as soon as he had spoken them.
“What I mean is,” the file-closer continued, completing his own point, “you muster by rank and file so’s you know who’s there and who isn’t. But if you know that already, and I guess they do or they wouldn’t be dropping clothes the right size outa the walls, then you don’t need that kind of order.”
“I don’t —” Vibulenus started to say before he realized that he could think of no objections to the veteran’s formulation. Who in the name of Hercules were the Commander and his entourage?