“Somebody. . . ,” Vibulenus wheezed. He forced himself to stand fully upright, though his right shoulder was still an inch high to put less tension on the ribs and muscles of his other side. “I was going to help you,” the young tribune went on with careful steadiness, “but somebody hit me. I don’t see him.”
He glared at the nearest soldiers. Some blinked in surprise and a few turned their eyes away, but the man who threw the punch had disappeared into the crowd.
“Umm,” said the file-closer, sucking in his lips. He laid his hand on Vibulenus’ shoulder; in comradeship, but also to face the younger man to the front again. “Gotta be careful about, you know, things like that, sir,” the veteran said. “Saw a first centurion tossed right through an oak door, the once, when he broke his swagger stick on somebody and turned his back to fetch another one. You got enough people together, you can lead ’em when there’s someplace to go . . . but you need be real careful if you’re gonna push.”
There was a series of crisp flashes from within the hexagon on the wall, light like the edge-glints of swords drawn in the sun. The figure itself spun, momentarily circular with its velocity. Around it opened a rectangular doorway tall enough to have passed one of the giant spearmen.
The Commander looked even tinier in the doorway than he had when mounted on the carnivore.
“Brave warriors,” said the voice in Vibulenus’ ears, and the tribune was close enough to see that the sound now synchronized with the Commander’s lip movements.
The door closed behind the figure in blue, and another glitter of light from the hexagon haloed his head. The door pivoted from one side, but it did not seem to be attached in any way to the lintel or jambs. Like the vehicles which roved the valley after the battle, the panel of shimmering metal appeared to float in the air until its edges merged again seamlessly with those of the bulkhead.
“Here, on a world far from your own,” the Commander continued, “you have undertaken your first duties as assets of the finest trading guild in the Federation. Your success was beyond our expectation — and your reward will be beyond your dreams.”
The Commander’s chest rose and fell without affecting the words Vibulenus heard, so the pause was a rhetorical one before the voice continued, “You will never grow older. Throughout eternity, you will remain as strong and agile as your are now.”
There was so general a buzz of sound from the assembled Romans that the Main Gallery hissed and popped like a fire in wet leaves. The young tribune glanced sharply at Clodius, knowing — presuming, at least — that the file-closer had heard this before, when they had confronted the Commander at the gate of the sacked camp.
Clodius’ muscles were still, his eyes wide open and expressionless. His face was not so much blank as masked, and the knuckles of his right hand were grinding against the calloused palm of his left in proof of physical existence.
“This gift of immortality — so to speak,” said the Commander, hushing the room with anticipation of what might come next, “is a very expensive boon, one which I myself received only upon being promoted to my present post. You have earned it by the technical skill which you displayed today.”
“Have you seen anybody besides him and the Medic?” Clodius Afer whispered into the tribune’s ear.
“Well, the guards,” Vibulenus whispered back with a quick flutter of his hand that was all the gesture he was willing to make toward the creatures in plate armor.
“You will have no duties, no responsibilities,” said the Commander, “save the duty for which you have proven yourselves so splendidly fitted: war against the enemies of my guild, the enemies of galactic progress.”
“Them,” sneered the file-closer, and it was a moment before Vibulenus remembered that the guards were the pronoun’s referrent. “They don’t run this place. They’re dim as six feet up a hog’s ass.”
The word “war” had drawn a restive murmur from the legion and another pause from the Commander before he continued, “For reasons that do not concern you, the Federation has interdicted trading guilds, my own included, from the use of military technology higher than that of the natives who must be subdued. It is the ability that you have shown in using your pitiful technology which has enabled you to become assets of a trading guild envied by all its rivals.”