“I’m wondering . . .” Slats said. He spoke softly and seemed to be afraid to meet Froggie’s eyes. “I’m wondering if perhaps the Commander is sending us and the others out to give him warning if the Anroklaatschi are planning an attack? They would hit us first, and of course I would call a warning to the Harbor.”
He waggled a little rod that Froggie had taken for a writing stylus.
Froggie sighed. “Well, I tell you, Slats,” he said. “A long time ago I gave up expecting what officers did to make a lot of sense. But I gotta say, as a plan that’d really be a bad one. He’s weakening his base too much.”
“Nothing about this planet makes sense!” Slats burst out. “None of the products are of real value to the Guild. Oh, in the long term, certainly—but nothing worth the loss of warrior slaves as valuable as you are, Roman. And to lose my life as well over this wretched planet! Oh, what a tragedy!”
“I can see you’d feel that way about it,” Froggie said. “Well, you worry about your business, Slats, and me and the boys’ll worry about ours.”
He stepped aside and let the column tramp on by him. He’d see how Verruca, his number two, was making out at the end of the line; then he’d go up with Glabrio again where he belonged.
It didn’t make Froggie feel good that the administrator was just as worried about this business as he was, but sometimes it’s nice to know that you can trust your instincts even when they’re telling you you’re stepping into a pool of hog manure.
After all, you had to trust something.
* * *
Froggie looked at the sun, a hand’s-breadth past zenith. He thought the days here were about the same length as those in Italy—that wasn’t true a lot of places the legion had been—but home was too long ago for him to be sure.
A few big trees sprang from the protection of a limestone outcrop, but only saplings grew in the rest of the broad floodplain. At the moment the river was well within its channel.
“Queenie!” Froggie said. The chief girl, older than the others by a ways, didn’t actually push one of the carts. She trotted over to him. “River there—much water come down? Quick quick happen?”
Half his words were Latin, most of the rest were in Queenie’s chirps or as close as Froggie could come to the sounds. Trooper pidgin had bits and pieces of other tongues, too, some of them going back to the Pahlevi the legions had picked up marching into Parthia.
Queenie glanced at the river, using Froggie’s gestures as much as his words to figure out what he was asking. Some troopers had a knack for jawing with barbs. Froggie didn’t, but he could make out. It wasn’t like they were going to be talking philosophy, after all.
“No way, boss-man!” Queenie said. “Sky get cold first, then get warm, then hoosh! sweep all shit downstream. Long time, boss-man.”
Then, hopefully, “We camp here?”
“We camp here,” Froggie agreed. The century had already halted and the men were watching him; it wasn’t like they were recruits who couldn’t figure out what was going to happen next.
“Fall out!” Froggie said. “First and Third Squads provide security, Second digs posts every twelve feet—” for a marching camp there was no need to set every timber of the palisade in the ground, the way you’d do for a more permanent structure “—and the rest of you start cutting timber. I want this complete before sunset, and I don’t mean last light.”
Verruca and Blasus already had the T-staff and measuring cord out. Any of the troopers could survey a simple camp by now, and with the right tools Blasus could’ve set an aqueduct.
He’d never have occasion to do that, of course. The Guild didn’t use the legion for that kind of work. Well, Blasus was a good man to have at your side with a sword, too.
Troopers unlimbered axes, saws and shovels from the leading cart. The first job was to remove trees from the campsite, but they’d need to clear a wider area to complete the palisade. There wasn’t a high likelihood that the barbs would try anything, but—