"I couldn't act like you, Aulus," the younger man said with a grin. He was lacing his right boot, braced on the footboard. The tips of its iron nails winked where the rust had been polished clean.
"Sure, anybody can act like me," Perennius said. He began to work the signet ring off his left little finger. "Just remember that everybody you meet in a place like Headquarters is more afraid of a scene than you are. Blazes, boy, you've got the right - this is all on his Majesty's orders." He tossed Gaius the tablet, signed and sealed. "Or are you going to let some jumped-up pretty boy in silk make you cool your heels because you're afraid to raise hell?"
"Here, take this too," the agent added more gently. He handed his pass to the courier as he had said he would. Gaius waited uncertainly, ready to lace his other boot as soon as he was sure that nothing else was going to be flipped to him. "I won't bother to write down what we need, you tell Marcus personally and he'll dictate the orders. First - "
"Sir," Sestius interrupted, "I should be on duty now myself, and - "
"If you'll hold your damned water," Perennius snapped, "you'd hear that you're going along with Gaius. I'll get the Director to release you from your duties as of last night." He frowned. "Your buddy too, Maximus. Might save inquiries that wouldn't do us any good, damned paper-pushers. But first - " he continued, turning back to the courier who jumped up from his boot laces - "I want letters to the Prefect of the Fleet at Misneum and whoever the hell his lieutenant is at Ostia. Full cooperation, he'll understand. Make sure they're countersigned by Respectabilities in the right offices so that we don't get a lot of crap when we're ready to move. While you get the paperwork going, Lucius Calvus and I - " he nodded to the tall man - "are going to see whether we can find what we'll need in Ostia."
The agent rose from the bed and began to buckle on his
equipment belt. "That's the first thing we do when we leave this room," he said as he fingered the empty slot of his sword scabbard. "After I replace some hardware I figure we'll need."
CHAPTER NINE
"Just a moment, gentlemen," said the usher. "I'll see if the Tribune is free."
Perennius had been quite honest in saying he did not care for the sea. Ostia was no beach resort like Baiae, either. It was a working port, and it stank like one. The breeze drifting through the colonnades of the old Customs Station was ripe with spoiled goods dumped into the harbor along with the burden of the town's sewer system. Still, the agent was feeling unexpectedly cheerful. "You know," he said in a low voice to his companion. "I wasn't counting on being able to see anybody officially until Marcus got some orders cut. All I figured we'd be able to do was look around and probably buy some information for a cup or wine or two."
The reception room in which they waited was dingy. It seemed to be used to store old Customs records, judging from the seals on the dusty document cases stacked along one wall. The naval contingent at Ostia was under the Naval Prefect at Misenum, one hundred miles south on the Bay of Naples. The vessels here were attached to the Customs Service, and their command staff was housed in a corner of the Customs Station. Ill-housed, not surprisingly, and furnished with cast-offs from their senior partner.
Calvus looked around the room. Monochrome stucco was flaking from the walls which were not covered by boxes, and some of the marble bits of the mosaic flooring had worked loose from their concrete bed. "I mention this because it may be necessary for you to know it, Aulus Perennius," the tall man said. "I can sometimes influence persons to fall in with a course of action. Especially when the emotional temperature is low, or when the other person is very excited and considering the desired course of action himself. The course I desire."
It did not occur to Perennius to doubt what the other man was saying. The agent's skin flashed cold and his right hand curved over the grip of the sword he had been issued only hours before. "Now, tell me what that had to do with me being here," the agent said softly.
The hands that had lifted Perennius without effort remained crossed in Calvus' lap. His eyes were alert but fearless as they met the agent's. "That ability had nothing to do with you," the tall man said simply. "I don't want - could not use - anyone who needed prodding to act. I told you, Aulus Perennius: I was not raised to handle weapons." Calvus grin was brief and unreal. "My weapons have to handle themselves."
Shoes slapping down the hall and a burst of voices discussing insect netting drew the attention of the waiting men to the doorway. A plump man in his mid-twenties stepped into the reception room, calling one last objection over his shoulder to someone unseen. The newcomer had a curly beard, well-trimmed, and wore a tunic with the two thin stripes of equestrian rank. He nodded to Calvus and Perennius before seating himself on the wood-framed couch facing them. A layer of dust lifted from the couch pad, provoking first a curse, then a sneeze. When he had recovered himself, he said, "All right, gentlemen, Terentius Niger at your service. Nine chances in ten, what you need isn't in my department. This is the Naval contingent, not Customs. If you're the lucky tenth, I probably can't do a thing for you either - you know that those bastards won't issue gauze curtains for my office? You try and work there some night when you can't read a document for the gnats in your eyes!"
"I'm Aulus Perennius from Imperial Affairs," the agent said, watching the young tribune stiffen. The agent saw no reason to hide his identity or that of his office. "I realize you won't have received the orders yet, but it
would help us a great deal if you could tell us what major naval units are available here - and of course at Portus." The administrative offices had remained at Ostia when Portus, the artificial harbor for heavier vessels, was constructed adjacent to Ostia some two centuries before. Perennius had learned not to be over-specific when trying to learn something from a bureaucrat.
"Major naval units available," Niger repeated. He grinned bitterly. The tribune was young enough to hope that by being frank, he might be able to get word back up the line to where it might help correct the situation which he deplored. "How about jack shit?" he said bluntly. He leaned forward in his couch. "You know how quick Rome'11 start to starve if the grain supply from Africa is cut off? Weeks if we're lucky! And that's if nothing happens to the warehouses here." He waved his hand in a dramatic, ring-glittering circuit in the air. "The only things to stop pirates from sailing right into the harbor and burning it down around our ears are the gods, may they continue to preserve us, and my twelve customs scows. There's half a dozen light galleys laid up in Portus, but they haven't been in the water since Commodus died - and I couldn't crew them anyway." Niger grimaced and added, "Besides which, my Marine contingent just got drafted into a Field Force legion. Now you two tell me - is that a safe state for the capital of the Empire?"
Hell, no; but it's the state that everything else's in, Perennius thought. Aloud he said, "I'd like to take a look at those galleys you mentioned. I'm sure something could be arranged about crews . . . and we wouldn't need all of the ships, of course."
Niger stood up. "You think I'm joking?" he asked. "They haven't touched keel to water in seventy years - and Neptune alone knows when the damned things were built! But come along, you can see for yourself." He stepped to the doorway by which he had entered. "Rufio!" he called. "Rufio!"
The attendant who had greeted Perennius initially appeared in the hallway. "Sir?" he said.
"I'm taking these gentlemen to Shed Twelve," the tribune explained. "They want to see what passes for naval power in this wretched excuse for an age."