Fludenoc barked, in the Gha way of humor.
“Only some of us, you damned monkey shrimp,” he retorted. “In the beginning, at least. All the members of the Poct’on will join, once they learn. But most Gha do not belong to the secret society, and it will take time to win them over.”
“That doesn’t matter,” interjected Gaius. “The new legions are the heart of the plan. They’ll have to be human, of course. There aren’t very many Gha to begin with, and half of them are scattered all over the galaxy. Whereas we—!”
He grinned and glanced at his watch. “Let’s stop for a moment, comrades. I want you to watch something.”
He nodded at Rusticanus. The first centurion picked up the remote control lying on a nearby table and turned on the television. The huge screen on the far wall suddenly bloomed with color—and sound.
Lots of sound.
Wincing, Rusticanus hastily turned down the volume. In collusion with Gaius, he had already set the right channel, but he hadn’t tested the sound.
The legionnaires were transfixed. Gaping, many of them.
“This scene is from Beijing,” said Vibulenus. “The small square—the one that looks small, from the camera’s height—is called Tien-an-Men.”
The scene on the television suddenly shifted to another city. “This is Shanghai,” he said.
Another scene. “Guangzhou.”
Another. Another. Another.
“Nanjing. Hangzhou. Chongqing.”
China was on the march. Every one of those great cities was packed with millions of people, marching through its streets and squares, chanting slogans, holding banners aloft.
“It’s not just China,” said Rusticanus. His voice, like that of Gaius, was soft.
Another city. More millions, marching, chanting, holding banners aloft.
“Bombay.”
Another. “Paris.”
Another. Another. More and more and more.
Sao Paolo. Moscow. Los Angeles. Lagos. Ciudad de Mexico.
On and on and on.
A different scene came on the screen. Not a city, now, but a hillside in farm country. The hillside itself—and everywhere the camera panned—was covered with an enormous throng of people. Speeches were being given from a stand atop the ridge.
“That is called Cemetery Ridge,” announced Rusticanus. “It is near the small town of Gettysburg in the North American province called Pennsylvania. These people have gathered here to participate in what they are calling the Rededication.”
Harshly: “Most of you ignorant sods won’t understand why they are calling it that. But you can find out easily enough by reading a short speech which a man named Lincoln gave there not so very long ago. He was a `stinking politician,’ of course.”
None of the legionnaires, Ainsley noted, even responded to the jibe. They were still utterly mesmerized by the scenes on the television.
The historian glanced around the room. Its other occupants, mostly aliens, were equally mesmerized—the Gha, Quartilla, the two Medics and the Pilot.
But only on the faces of the legionnaires did tears begin to fall.
They, like the others, were transfixed by the unforgettable images of sheer, raw, massive human power. But it was not the sight of those millions upon millions of determined people which brought tears to Roman eyes. It was the sudden, final knowledge that the world’s most long-lost exiles had never been forgotten.
One thing was common, in all those scenes. The people varied, in their shape and color and manner of dress. The slogans were chanted in a hundred languages, and the words written on a multitude of banners came in a dozen scripts.
But everywhere—on a hillside in Pennsylvania; a huge square in China—the same standards were held aloft, dominating the banners surrounding them. Many of those standards had been mass-produced for the occasion; many—probably most—crafted by hand.
The eagle standard of the legions.
Gaius rose. Like Rusticanus, he also adopted a theatrical pose, pointing dramatically at the screen.
“There are twelve billion people alive in the world today,” he said. “And all of them, as one, have chosen that standard as the symbol of their new crusade.”
The tribune’s eyes swept the room, finally settling on the scarred face of Clodius Afer.
“Will history record that the first Romans failed the last?” he demanded.
Rusticanus switched off the screen. For a moment, the room was silent. Then, Clodius Afer rose and (theatrically) drained his goblet.