Ultima Read Online Free PDF Page B

encased in a wooden cylinder. “Centurion, don’t take it out on me. And it wasn’t me who set the
principia
alight. On the contrary, it was me who organized the bucket chains that—”
    â€œPah! Don’t give me that, you devil. You were trouble when you were under my father’s command and now you’re just as much trouble under mine.”
    Titus sighed heavily. “Ah, well, if I could afford to retire I would have long ago, sir—you know that—and I’d take my daughter, Clodia, home for a decent education and a quiet life, away from the ruffians of your command.”
    â€œHa!” Quintus waved a hand at the fort. “
This
is your retirement, you dolt. A city to command. A world to conquer! Why, I’ll appoint you head of the senate if you like.”
    â€œFancy titles aren’t for me, sir. And neither is this world.”
    â€œThe
Malleus
leaves in under a month, and you won’t be on it. And if you haven’t sorted yourselves out by then—”
    â€œBut that’s impossible, sir! That’s what we tried to tell you. That’s why we had to set the
principia
alight, to make you listen!”
    â€œI thought you said it wasn’t you—”
    Titus grabbed his commander’s arm with his one hand. “Listen to me, sir.
Our crops won’t grow here
. The wheat, the barley, even Valhalla potatoes fail and
they
grow anywhere. The soil’s too dry! Or there’s something wrong with it, something missing . . . You know me, sir. I’m no farmer.”
    â€œYes, and you’re not much of a soldier either.”
    â€œNo matter what we do, and we’ve been stirring our shit into this dirt for months now, nothing’s working. Why, this reminds me of a time on campaign when—”
    â€œSpare me your anecdotes. Shit harder, man!”
    â€œIt’s not just the dirt, sir.” Titus glanced up at the sky, at the rising second sun of this world. “Some say that bastard Remus is getting bigger.”
    â€œBigger?”
    â€œThis world,
this
sun, is spinning in toward it. What then, sir? It’s hot enough here as it is. If we are to be scorched by two suns—”
    â€œRubbish!” Quintus proclaimed boldly.
    The response was angry heckling. He faced the mob bravely, but men on both sides of the argument had their hands on the hilts of their swords.
    Stef murmured to Movena, “Do the men have a point?”
    â€œWell, they’re right about the second sun. This world circles the big ugly star you see up there—that’s called Romulus; Romans always call double stars Romulus and Remus. But Romulus and Remus circle a common center of their own—they loop toward and away from each other like mating birds, or like the two bright stars of the Centaur’s Hoof, the nearest system to Terra. In a few years, as that second sun swims close, this world will get decidedly hotter than it is now—and then, a few more decades after that when it recedes, it will get colder.”
    Stef wondered if this wretched planet was doomed to orbit out of its star’s habitable zone, when the twin got too close—or even receded too far away. “Has anybody modeled this? I mean, worked out how the climate will change?”
    â€œI doubt it. And even if they had, no matter how dire the warning, the orders for these men and their families would not vary. From the point of view of the imperial strategists snug in their villas on the outskirts of Greater Rome, you see, worlds are simple. They are habitable, or they are not. If they are not, they may be ignored. If they are, they must be inhabited, by
colonia
such as this one. Inhabited and farmed. It is just as the Romans took every country in their reach and appended it as a province—all but Pritanike, of course, thanks to the wisdom of Queen Kartimandia, and we Brikanti escaped their net. If this world is not habitable