Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (21 page)

As the production of the next play commenced, Gaius suddenly stopped making an appearance at the production set.

"You're not . . . er . . . upset, are you?" Vipsania asked one evening, after they had had a meal during which very long silences were mainly interrupted only by requests for some item.

"No. At least, not in particular," Gaius shrugged. He had been deep in thought, and he had not really emerged to consider the question.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Gaius said, as he suddenly realized he had to say something sensible, and something better than asking them what the problem was. "I suppose I still wish I were back on Earth, but there's nothing novel about that. Why? What's wrong?"

"Well, I just wondered why you're not paying us more attention," Vipsania said, with a touch of bitterness. "You could show a bit more interest."

"As to why he's not interested, that's easy," Lucilla chipped in. "We're better at it than him, so like a spoiled brat, he's packed up his stuff and gone elsewhere."

"What?" a bemused Gaius asked.

"You can't stand us being better at something than you are, can you?" Lucilla said with almost a touch of triumph in her voice.

"What are you talking about?" Gaius asked.

"You haven't been out on the set lately," Vipsania said in a flat tone.

"He's just waiting around to spend the money. He thinks he's back in Rome where we did all the work and he spends −"

"I don't think that stands up," Gaius said with a touch of anger. "I don't recall your doing an awful lot of work. Work involves more than instructing slaves."

"Please," Vipsania intervened, "let's not fight."

"You're right," Lucilla said. "I'm sorry. I'm sure my brother has a really good reason for not showing any interest."

"Just tell us why haven't you been on the site?" Vipsania asked, her voice still laden with irritation. "What have you been doing?"

"I've been too busy," Gaius explained.

"Busy? How can you be busy?" Vipsania gave him a dazed stare. As she remarked later, on Earth she would have thought this must be an outright lie, a clear indication of his being off with another woman. Here, that was unlikely.

"I've been invited to be some sort of expert at one of those discussions you've watched on the screen from time to time," Gaius grinned.

"An expert?" Vipsania snorted. "What on?"

"The war," Gaius shrugged.

"The war? What do you know about that?"

"Not enough," Gaius replied. "That's why I've been busy. I've been trying to find out what I can."

"Then why do they want you?" Lucilla asked in a bewildered tone.

"Why not? There's nothing actually wrong with me," Gaius snorted.

"Well, by your own admission, you don't know much about it. That hardly makes you an expert."

"More to the point, how did they get around to asking you?" Vipsania asked, her tone now quite puzzled. This did not seem to make sense. "Even if you did know heaps, it's hard to imagine that they'd ask for your opinion."

"It was a bit of an accident. There was some sort of argument about the war going on outside the library," Gaius explained. "I've learned enough Ulsian I could follow what they were saying, more or less, so I chipped in and told them what I thought."

"And what was the result? They all picked on you?"

"Stunned silence," Gaius smiled. "It's all to do with these wretched behind the throat rumbles."

"What Gaius actually said was incomprehensible," the Tin Man intervened with an explanation. "The words approximated to an explanation of why desert plants are unsuitable for constructing bridges, with mechanical cakes likely to be the next infection thrown in."

"So that was why he became an instant expert?" a bemused Vipsania asked. "He dazzled them with incomprehensibility?"

"I asked him what he was trying to say," the Tin Man explained in his usual unflappable way, "then I translated for him. I might add that since he was addressing two Ulsian generals, this went down quite poorly. However, the third person there was a producer, and after all the heat subsided, he could see the making of a program."

"So I got invited, so I thought I had better get some facts," Gaius explained.

"This program will certainly be interesting," Lucilla remarked dryly. "A must see!"

Chapter 16

The producer himself came to collect Gaius, who had been waiting for some time, and had suddenly become nervous. Command in the field had been straightforward. He knew what his forces could do, he knew what he knew about the enemy, and he made rational decisions. He had been successful.

The problem was, he had been successful on another planet, in another age. Suddenly he had to transfer his experience to a civilization so far advanced . . . Perhaps his experience was useless now? Yes, he had read a lot, and was possibly more familiar with some of the battles from millions of years previously than the generals, but would that help?

The producer stared at him for a moment, then gave a grunt of disgust. "You must wear full dress uniform!"

"Full dress uniform is back on Earth," Gaius shrugged. "I suppose we could go and get it if you could manage the transportation," he added with another shrug.

"Full dress uniform is in this box," the Tin Man offered. "Timothy took it just in case your meeting with Vespasian required formality."

"I see," Gaius remarked. "The Gods alone know how the soldiers will react to seeing me dressed in that."

"They will realize you are hardly ordinary," the Tin Man offered. "The coronae, hastae purae and vexillae look quite special, and it is reasonably obvious that no army is going to give all of those to just anyone."

"I see," Gaius said, for want of something better to say. He was unsure what effect these would have on the viewers, but there was nothing much he could do about this. Clearly the producer and the Tin Man had made all the decisions.

"I have also had everything polished," the Tin Man said proudly. "You will look very impressive."

There was no suitable answer. Gaius thanked the Tin Man, then began to dress. He paused as he stared at the silver finned boar, and a terrible wave of nostalgia struck him as the faces of the soldiers of the twentieth passed before his eyes. Even the fool who had fallen flat on his face in the mud trying to free his cart. He finished dressing.

When he arrived at the studio, there was much toing and froing, there was a lot of activity, but not a lot seemed to be achieved. Gaius decided that with all this chaos, nothing would happen this evening, but on that he was wrong. Eventually he was placed in a chair, an Ulsian appeared from nowhere with a large brush and brushed his face, what he was told were cameras appeared from all directions, then retreated. Then, suddenly the producer stepped forward, said something, and suddenly the set was emptied of all but those officially part of the interview.

The programme began with introductions of the participants. There were a number of Ulsian generals/admirals present, and their histories were read out. Most had impressive records of peacetime commands of this or that unit, but most had no battle experience. There was also one other alien, Admiral Merly, a Krothian. He was dressed in all encompassing "overalls" with strange silvery symbols, which were presumably symbols of rank, placed halfway down the arms and across the chest. The only visible parts of the creature were a face covered with incredibly dense hair/fur and a pair of quite delicate hands. This alien also had never seen battle.

Then Gaius was introduced, and to his embarrassment the decorations were described. Those of rank were indicated, and the rest described as the rewards of victory, of battles won −

"Of blood spilt," one of the Ulsians remarked caustically.

"On the contrary," the announcer remarked, "if you see this one," and the 'temple' decoration was highlighted, "this was awarded for acting on behalf of his government and independently and successfully negotiating a peace thus avoiding a general revolt which would have been very bloody."

Gaius was surprised to see the effect this had on the other participants. As he was told later, none of them had ever had the right to negotiate treaties in the event conflict had arisen, and this made his rank seem even higher. Gaius was never to tell anyone that 'authority' had not been the issue; he had done what he felt to be right, and had hoped it would stick.

The program then commenced properly with an explanation of what had happened, of how the M'starn had launched a surprise attack, how they had driven into the Ulsian domain, leaping across star systems and restricting themselves to capturing certain planetary systems. Initially, the element of surprise had been total, and the forces were overwhelming, hence the first two planets effectively collapsed without mounting any defence whatsoever. A fraction of the force remained to defend that planet, while the rest surged on to the next target, with fractions of the fleet sweeping the space free of Ulsian warships that could otherwise remain as a source of guerrilla attacks.

As they penetrated further, defences began to be mounted, but the attacking fleets had such overwhelming superiority that resistance did not last. Accordingly, the war front had advanced towards Ulse at a velocity that was approaching significance in the relativistic sense.

It was then that the first real confrontation occurred, when a small M'starn fleet ran into a somewhat larger Ulsian fleet. In the following encounter the enemy suffered significant damage and the Ulsian ships were able to retreat more or less intact. At this point the frenetic pace of the invasion was halted, at least temporarily. Decades passed, as the enemy appeared to consolidate, and during this time, a limited number of other inconsequential engagements occurred.

It was almost as if the invasion had run out of steam, however recently the sequence had started again. A wave of M'starn war ships had descended on the third star system from the previous "front". An Ulsian fleet had been assembled, and was undergoing training in preparation for a return sortie, when a wave of enemy ships passed at almost light speed. These ships discharged a sequence of cloaked "smart" mines; huge explosive devices that were attracted to ships by nothing more than enormous magnetic fields that locked onto the fields from the warships propulsion systems. Half the Ulsian fleet was destroyed before it even knew what hit it. Many of the others were rendered virtually inoperable and the only ones undamaged were those that, for one reason or another, had their motors off and hence were not generating fields. As soon as the attacking wave passed, the few remaining undamaged Ulsian ships powered up and fled. Shortly later a small invasion force arrived and accepted the planet's surrender.

Gaius pricked up his ears at this description. A small invasion force had arrived. Given that the main fleet had already passed, what would have happened if the undamaged Ulsian ships had stood and fought? It was almost as if the enemy knew enough about the Ulsians to predict what they would do. Either that, or they had great faith in the initial attack, because if the description was correct, the main enemy fleet had continued at almost light speed, and would never find out about failure of the exercise until it finally stopped. A success here could have given the Ulsians a base for a few hundred years without an enemy response.

The enemy proceeded on to take another military base, deeper into Ulsian space, and intelligence, such as it was, suggested that further waves were coming. The problem was, what to do? A small panel of Ulsian military experts had been assembled, together with the two aliens. Gaius tried to smile at this other alien, but was rewarded with what he assumed was a look of disdain.

Gaius felt sorry for the first Ulsian general who was trying to explain how a major fleet was destroyed in a surprise attack. In principle, you should never be surprised at war, but in practice surprise was a major feature of an attacker's armoury, and new ways to achieve it were always being sought. It was also particularly easy to be surprised when you were unaware that there was even a war going on.

Then came the discussion on what to do next. The older general was in favour of sending out a new fleet to meet one of these waves and simply destroying it. Most of the others supported this view, without giving an awful lot of consideration to the difficulties involved in finding the enemy in the vastness of space. There was, however, a smaller school that proposed something slightly different.

"They're over-extended," one of the younger ones said. "We should take a fleet out to here," he said, pointing at a star map, and showing a point about half-way back from the enemy's latest point of advance, and out to one side, "and drive across, cutting off the line of supply, and isolate this advance guard."

A heated discussion followed, then the other alien was invited to speak. Gaius heard an unexpectedly high-pitched voice, and from his translator, he heard, "I fear all this is too unimaginative. Of course you go out and face the enemy, but you have to do something once there. Going out and cutting off the enemy is fine, but it's going to take several hundred years to get out there, and even more to find out if it's been successful. If you have the resources to spare, fine, but it can't be the main strategy."

This created a further flurry. Then, finally, Gaius' opinion was requested. Suddenly becoming rather conscious of the number of viewers, he became a little stiff as he offered, "I would, as a matter of extreme urgency, build and strengthen all the defences around Ulse itself."

"What?" was the almost universal cry. One of the generals stared at him in disgust, and thumped the table, "You've got no better suggestion than to defend around the home planet? What sort of strategy's that? We go out and fight away from Ulse."

There was a clamour, until the interviewer interrupted and suggested they should hear why Gaius thought the way he did.

"Ask yourself what's their strategy?" Gaius asked, now a little angry. The anger at least had the benefit of removing his self-consciousness, so his delivery now was no longer stiff. "What's their immediate goal? Yes, I know in the end they want to defeat Ulse, but I doubt even the most optimistic of their generals think all they have to do is to turn up, or that they can obtain a surrender after one more battle. Accordingly, there'll be some intermediate objectives. So, what's the next one?" He paused, and stared accusingly at the Ulsian generals.