The Fourth Rome Read Online Free PDF Page A

interested in doing—convincing
     the Germans that they were already conquered, rather than expending the effort to conquer them.”
    His grin grew broader. “Winning hearts and minds,” he said.
    Rebecca felt her guts tighten. The analyst loved to use idioms from ages not his own. He always used them correctly, but he
     couldn’t possibly understand the horror that particular phrase awoke in someone who remembered it on the lips of liars in
     uniform.
    “ ‘Get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow,’ “ she quoted. “But that didn’t work either, Gerd. Nothing
     worked. Nothing.”
    “We work, Beckie,” Nan Roebeck said, looking back with enough hard-edged concern to snap Rebecca out of memories of a world
     from which she’d escaped. “Pauli, you’re team leader for the 9 AD locus.”
    “I’ve been planning cover stories,” Gerd said, “since we’ll have to operate in the local ambience if we separate from the
     capsule.”
    He cleared his throat with a tiny cough. “For the same reason I’ll have to be present. This—”
    He patted his sensor pack.
    “—isn’t as broad-ranging as the capsule’s capabilities, but in my hands it should be sufficient.”
    “I’ll go,” Rebecca said. “One member of the team should be a woman.”
    “You’re in training,” said Chun. “I’ll go.”
    “Quo, you’re Oriental,” Rebecca said. “You’d stand out like a sore thumb.”
    Also you might not be able to pull a trigger fast enough when the situation demanded it.
Beckie Carnes knew she wasn’t the best choice for that ability either, but at least her conditioning was five centuries less
     intense.
    Nan looked at her with a cold glare, then a smile. “Right, you’ll do,” she said. “The rest of us will deal with Moscow and
     pick you up on the other side. Will a week be enough time?”
    “I would suggest a minimum of three weeks,” Gerd said. “We’ll be limited to local transport. Now, as background for the three
     of us…”

Aliso, Free Germany
August 23, 9 AD
    P auli Weigand liked horses and his job had given him plenty of opportunity to use the riding skills that were part of ARC training.
     Right now, though, as he rode toward the fort he was glad that he was unlikely to need to move faster than his mount’s comfortable
     walk. The horse he’d bought the previous evening had a decent enough canter, but its trot was a stiff-legged wracking pace
     that Pauli would never be able to manage without stirrups.
    The ten men guarding the gate at ground level were relaxed without being blasé. One of them picked up the pair of lead-weighted
     javelins he’d leaned against the wall beside him, though there was nothing threatening in his posture. The gateway was divided
     into eight-foot halves by a log wall down the middle. The heavy timber panel across the left side remained closed.
    The noncom in charge was younger than most of the legionaries. He’d probably gotten his rank for being fully literate. His
     face showed no expression as he eyed Pauli, Gerd leading the pack mule, and Beckie walking between the two men.
    The animals’ shod hooves clopped on the wooden road. Two artillerymen watched from the platform above the rampart over the
     gate.
    “There are six with the catapult on the upper deck,” said Gerd in the English-based Standard language. “They’re arguing over
     a dice throw.”
    The analyst spoke in a muted voice, as though he were talking to himself. The teams’ headbands were communications devices
     set at the moment for continuous operation. When the band’s faceshield was pulled down, it also provided the user with thermal
     viewing, light intensification, and air filtration.
    “Guys, they don’t think the three of us are much threat to their camp,” Beckie said.
    She sounded calm, not that Pauli had really been concerned about her performance. Beckie knew her guise as a female slave
     in this milieu had significant risks, but she’d