The tribune unbuckled both his crossed waist belts, the heavy one that carried the sheathed sword and the slimmer belt with the dagger which he could not, at this moment when it was inconsequential, remember even having drawn in battle. He would hate to lose the sword, though, sharpened often enough to change its balance and as uniquely natural in his hand now as the feel of his hair when he ran his fingers through it.
He wrapped the belts around the sheathed weapons as he heard the harness of the two centurions thud to the ground behind him. “Here,” he said, offering the bundle hilts-first to the other tribune. “You take it.”
“Not me,” Falco said, kicking the side of the vehicle as he started backward. “Just drop it.”
The lighting changed again. This time the vehicle’s sidewalls became blankly metallic while its interior was suffused with light that seemed to cling instead of emanating from a discernible source. Besides the blue-suited Commander and his pair of guards in the stern, there were two — persons. One looked to be a man; the other had six limbs like the Commander himself. They wore one-piece garments of bright yellow which matched the color of the vehicle now that it was no longer a source of white light.
“I think you can keep your sword, Gaius Vibulenus Caper,” the Commander said with the air of unctuous paternalism that was always a part of him — whether he had four limbs or six, and whatever the features of the face behind his mask of air. “You won’t do anything foolish. Get in the wagon, now — all four of you.”
Falco winced to hear himself lumped in with his rival and the two non-coms, but he obeyed as sharply as if he had been spurred. The motion he made to board, scissoring one leg over the side, then the other, provided a model that Vibulenus could follow more easily for the greater length of his legs.
Vibulenus boarded without the least outward hesitation, because he did not want his companions to make any mistaken moves. The two guild employees in yellow held lasers like the one that had fried a shield in an instant’s discharge.
There was no problem. Clodius grunted as he came over the side, and Niger was too close behind him to take the hand his senior then turned to offer.
Vibulenus sat down because Falco did. The seats were three abreast, backless, and to the tribune’s first thought so uncomfortable that they must have been designed for bodies not of men.
He seated himself facing the Commander, but even as he opened his mouth to continue his argument the seat began to shift beneath him. The hard surfaces flowed, shaping themselves to his buttocks, and a support extended itself to midback with an animate smoothness that almost caused him to leap to his feet screaming.
What saved Vibulenus from that and the possible overreaction of guild employees with lasers was his awareness that the same thing was about to happen to the centurions — his men. “Clodius,” he snapped, “Niger — the seats will move when you sit down. Don’t be alarmed.” By speaking the words as a duty and as a tribune, he was able to restrain his body’s instinctual terror before his intellect could overcome it.
Vibulenus looked back over his shoulder at the non-coms, and by that chance caught a glimpse of his rival in unguarded rage and frustration. Falco knew about the seats — of course; and of course was waiting for them to humiliate Vibulenus in front of friends, enemy, and the Commander.
Vibulenus did not smile, but it was with the air of a boxer coming off a victory that he faced the Commander again and said, “Sir, these are valuable men, a centurion and two front-rankers. If you’ll let us go after them with a torch — a, ah, your lights would frighten them more, I’m afraid — then I’m sure we can have them back aboard the ship in only a few hours.”
“They’re deserters, Gaius Vibulenus,” said Falco. “The Commander knows that, of course. And if he didn’t, I would have told him because it’s my duty to the guild to inform him of what’s going on in the legion.”