Scaevola's Triumph (Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy Book 3) (53 page)

"How many enemy did he actually destroy in this localized battle?"

"He doesn't say," Antonia said, "nor does he give any further details. I must add that I find this quite disturbing, because amongst other things, it goes against standard protocol. The logs recovered from the destroyed ships accurately report the battle up until ship destruction, at least as seen by that ship, but here's another oddity. The deployment orders have not been entered, which is odd because cowardice cannot be established if the initial orders are not logged, hence only the overall commander can require such orders not to be logged. Finally, Gerenthe's refusal to log his own actions most certainly would adversely affect his place in Ulsian history, so why did he do it if he won?"

"Are you telling me that Ulsians don't like terse battle descriptions?" Lucilla smiled. "Ulsians are a little like the Romans."

"When there is nothing to write about, such as when you make a horrible blunder," Antonia pointed out, "nothing gets written. But you are correct in one way. Ulsian generals are just as keen as Roman generals to promote their own image."

The problem was, while Lucilla was convinced that something was wrong, she had to admit she had no idea what it could be, and she had absolutely no evidence. She decided that she would try to talk to troops from Gerenthe's ships. She tried to find out where these troops would go for shore leave, but all that happened was that she received another surprise. Gerenthe, possibly hearing that she was making inquiries, had cancelled all shore leave for his troops. Nobody knew why he had done this, but when she probed further, she was told that Gerenthe was requiring his troops stay on board for additional training. Just when she was feeling quite frustrated at getting nowhere, Gerenthe sent her a message: stay out of what does not concern you, or else. Consider this an order from a superior.

Lucilla sent back a message that she would follow the order. She meant it. As far as she was concerned, Gerenthe's situation concerned her. However, the order did make her recognize the need for a little more discretion. She also realized that Gerenthe would make further efforts to cover his tracks, so her task would not get any easier.

She informed Gaius of her lack of progress, and demanded that Gaius countermand Gerenthe's orders.

"No," Gaius said simply. "I shall not."

"And I suppose you've got a good reason," Lucilla snorted.

"If this invasion force starts off with two commanders at loggerheads, the Ulsian Government is going to have to replace one of them," Gaius replied. "I fail to see how us getting side-lined and demoted helps our cause in any sensible way."

"So he gets away with . . ."

"With what?"

"You're as bad as Antonia," Lucilla said sourly. "You should be able to see that Gerenthe has lied."

"I tend to agree," Gaius shrugged, "but to accuse him of lying, you have to know what the lie is. Exaggerating his own importance, while bad, is unlikely to be critical at a moment of crisis, because even if he's flawed, he's the best available."

"There's you!"

"The best Ulsian available," Gaius countered.

"I suppose so," Lucilla said, "but it's wrong that he can get away with whatever it is. Surely you can see we've got to do something."

"It's undesirable that I countermand my associate's orders," Gaius replied tersely, then with a grin, added, "and before you bite my head off, there's a way around it. Straight out of Titus Flavius' guide-book on how to piss off your associate legates."

"What's that?"

"I'll give you a direct order that he cannot countermand," Gaius offered, "and that's that you check on his supplies and the manoeuvres that he is undertaking."

"His ships are stationary," Lucilla pointed out.

"Which is why I find his orders to stop shore leave for additional training disturbing," Gaius said slowly. "He has a secret manoeuvre, or so he claims. It is my duty, as a commander, to give my troops the fullest information on whatever tactical methods work against the enemy. If he practices his manoeuvre, I want to know what it is."

"And if he doesn't?"

"There's not a lot I can do. I've asked the Ulsian high command, and they report back that Gerenthe now claims there is nothing special, just timing."

"That's not very likely," Lucilla said in a scathing tone.

"I know that," Gaius replied. "Something's wrong, but I don't know what. So, you have a free run to follow your nose, within certain limits."

"I'll be right on it," Lucilla said.

"I know," Gaius said, "with or without my orders. All I've given you is some sort of cover, but Lucilla, please, be careful. Remember this. If you go too far out on a limb and give him a chance to think you might be an enemy infiltrator, I doubt he'll pause too much before shooting at you. So, keep at a reasonable distance, and under no circumstances try something like boarding his ship. I have a very bad feeling about this."

* * *

Lucilla decided that Vipsania would offer a more sympathetic ear, so she invited her to dinner. Vipsania, however, proved to be much more cautious. "You're best off to forget it," she said, after listening to Lucilla's tirade.

"You do agree there's something wrong?" Lucilla almost demanded agreement.

"Yes, but I don't see what we can do. We're much better off dealing with the new threat."

"But that Gerenthe . . ."

"Yes, I know," Vipsania replied quietly, "but we have to go off and fight, and the last thing we need is for our own side to be distracted over some previous incident."

"Distracted! I want Gerenthe removed."

"Yes, that's fine if you succeed," Vipsania pointed out, "and provided the Ulsians don't get peeved by the fact that their hero lost on a point of protocol, and decide to be unenthusiastic about following Gaius' orders."

"I'm sure they'll follow orders," Lucilla said, although her tone indicated that she was clearly not overconfident.

"And suppose you fail and the matter's unresolved? Now what? Gaius' troops might quit and leave us to the enemy."

"They wouldn't do that," Lucilla said.

"You know the Ulsians that well?"

"I suppose not," Lucilla had to agree, then added, "but if we don't do something now, the evidence could be lost forever."

"There's no harm in investigating," Vipsania said softly. "You've just got to be discreet about it."

"Of course I'll be discreet," Lucilla said sourly. "This has to be investigated."

"You haven't been very discreet so far," Vipsania said. "If I were you, I'd give up for the time being."

"No way!" Lucilla snorted.

* * *

So Lucilla began her discreet enquiries. Unfortunately for her, being human she tended to stand out in the crowd, and after her first two or three efforts she noticed that Ulsians were giving a forced 'No!' before they even heard the question. It was soon confirmed for her that Ulsians connected with Gerenthe had been told in no uncertain terms to avoid her.

She requested to see the ships' logs, and permission was denied.

"I thought these were available for study by any Ulsian?" she queried.

"Yes," the attendant said, "but you are not an Ulsian."

"You mean," she almost yelled, "that I am good enough to fight and die for your miserable civilization, but I'm not good enough to see these logs."

"Space Marshall Gerenthe has specifically ordered that these not be made available," the attendant explained. "That order is general, and must be obeyed unless another law takes precedence. The right of Ulsians to view this material is one such law that takes precedence, but the law does not specifically permit non-Ulsians, so the answer is no, without specific permission from Marshall Gerenthe." He paused, and seeing the sour face of Lucilla, said, "You could ask the Space Marshall for permission."

"That'll be a winning strategy," Lucilla muttered sourly.

"Then I'm afraid you do not have the right to see it."

"So much for all the rights and privileges of that honour," Lucilla said even more sourly. "Just when I need something any Ulsian can have, it isn't enough."

"What honour?" the attendant asked, as if he could not believe this human was capable of earning anything, except possibly a time in prison.

"I'm a Commander of the Order of Camran," Lucilla replied, "for all the good it is going to do me."

"The order of what?" the attendant asked, now somewhat less sure of himself.

"Camran," Lucilla said, then suddenly she began to realize, as she continued, "You have no right to deny me, do you?"

"Please wait here," then attendant said. "I shall have to check."

Lucilla sat down, then as an afterthought she made thought contact with Antonia.

'Yes?' Antonia asked.

'I'm trying to view the logs of those ships,' Lucilla thought. 'I have mentioned my honour. Does it give me rights of ordinary Ulsians?'

'Very many more,' Antonia affirmed. 'Demand that they be placed in official verification equipment, and exact and complete transcripts be sent to the
Romulus
. That way, you can view them at your leisure, and more to the point, the
Romulus
can view them.'

'Does that help?'

'It can analyse every word in its context to see if any alterations have taken place, and for verbal records, it can analyse the emotional state of whoever is recording.'

'And if this Ulsian refuses to let me?'

'Capture his image with your Krezell wand, transmit it here, and watch what happens to his career.'

In the event, when the attendant returned, he could not have been more helpful. Lucilla's request was filled immediately, and she was given immediate access to the verification equipment she had requested. The access was so immediate that four Ulsians were removed from the room, with explanations as to why, which, as Vipsania pointed out later, was hardly discreet.

"They wouldn't say anything," Lucilla snorted.

"Well, I got blamed for it later," Vipsania said, "and I was four buildings away."

As it happened, Antonia informed her that while the logs were interesting, they were not very helpful as yet. Lucilla did not take up the significance of the 'as yet'.

* * *

Of the party, Lucilla alone had developed a taste for Ulsian music and often spent days at the café-concerts that Ulsians so liked, and indeed she frequented one sufficiently often that they had made a special effort to obtain delicacies that she could eat or drink. She decided to visit her favourite café again after a particularly frustrating sequence of inquiries that had gone nowhere. She really liked this café, and for some reason the owners seemed to particularly like her. After acquiring details of her metabolism, they offered to formulate some special drinks and delicacies for her to try. Some of these were simply awful, in fact one looked suspiciously like clotted blood, but eventually some turned out to be quite interesting. They had two really strange fruit juices, quite unlike anything she had ever tasted, and one or two other strange drinks that she later found out contained caffeine.

Suddenly she had an idea, and called a waiter. Yes, he informed her. The raw materials for this special food originated on Plotk. In principle this food and drink, and the fruit, would have been available for Quintus. She ordered one of the strange carbonated drinks that, she was told, were very popular on Ranh. Originally she had found this drink simply strange, but she had to admit it did grow on her, and by drinking it, she felt she had some connection with Quintus. She was halfway through this when an Ulsian officer suddenly sat down in front of her.

"You!" he said. "Stop sticking your nose in where it isn't wanted."

"And who exactly do you think you are!" Lucilla said. She turned for help, but all she saw were two other officers standing behind her.

"Sit down!"

"Help!" Lucilla called out at the top of her voice, reverting to Latin. "I'm being attacked!"

"You are not! Nobody has touched you." The Ulsian officer was emphatic, but he was also perhaps a little embarrassed, as all the others in the cafeteria had turned to stare at them.

"Then send those goons behind me away. Clear the exit."

"Nobody will hurt you, at least not here."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Lucilla stared at him.

"You will stop interfering in the affairs of Space Marshall Gerenthe."

"Or else you'll arrange for something nasty to happen to me, I suppose?" Lucilla was so angry she again inadvertently reverted to using Latin.

"Something like that," the officer said, in turn reverting to Latin so that the other diners could not understand. "Quite simply, you will stop this pursuit of Space Marshall Gerenthe or you will suffer consequences you will definitely not like."

"I see," Lucilla said. Her anger had by now overwhelmed her fear, possibly because she could see that it would not be practical for anything to happen to her inside this cafeteria. "You know what would entice me to stop?" she said.

"What? Are you on the make?"

Lucilla got to her feet and said loudly, in Ulsian, "I shall stop trying to find out how Admiral Gerenthe managed to take on a fleet several times bigger than himself and beat them without sustaining a scratch on his ships when he, or for that matter you or anyone else, tells me how he managed it. I want to know this so that all the other Ulsians flying out to war have the best chance of coming back."

"Indeed!" came a cry in Ulsian from the back of the cafeteria. A small round of applause broke out, which expanded into a wave. The music has stopped, and all the listeners were applauding, and staring at the officer.

"You'll regret this!" he said, as he got up to leave.

"No she won't," the owner of the café said. "Here, a free drink, and I'll arrange an escort for you. And I'll see that Space Marshall Gerenthe hears about your boorish behaviour," he added, and waved a finger at the retreating Ulsian.