The Centurion's Empire by Sean McMullen

Author:Sean McMullen [McMullen, Sean]
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Science fiction, General, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, High Tech, Science Fiction - High Tech
ISBN: 9780812564754
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
Published: 2010-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

"Very."

"I don't recall it, I'm sorry. There was a Pliny who was

admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet. The ash and fumes killed him too. I knew his nephew. A few years later we exchanged letters comparing our memories of what happened that day."

The classics scholar Lucel came to life, eager and hungry.

"I don't believe it! You exchanged letters with Pliny the Younger himself?",

"If you say so, yes, I suppose that was he. He was a friend of the Emperor."

"Yes! Yes, but what did—do you, I mean, what happened to the letters?"

"My servants kept them for a time. The tradition in my village of Durvas has it that parchments and gold were buried when the law and order of Rome started to break down. I visited the site of my old villa once. The walls were gone. The locals had used them to build a church. It was all grassy mounds, nothing more."

"So you could easily find it again."

"Perhaps, but not easily. It depends on how much the south of Britain has changed since the ninth century."

"The ninth—that's when you were last there? Next you'll say you knew King Arthur."

"Arthur? I've met a Wessex swineherd named Arthur, but no king. Perhaps Artor? Artorius? There was Artorius, a sea chief from, ah, Scotland as you would say. He lived and died while I was sleeping in the ice, so I never knew him." The autocab turned onto a freeway feeder and began to accelerate through a great paved canyon between drab, uniform buildings. Lucel took a pair of dataspex from her jacket pocket and slipped them over her eyes. Soon she was partly away somewhere, although the dataspex allowed her to see the cab clearly while she was connected to distant databases and infomarts. The lenses were transparent yellow, with a spiral bus cable leading down from one thick arm to a netnode clipped to her belt. It had a dull brdwn case, and was flecked with gold highlights. The arms of the dataspex passed over induction cell arrays just below the skin behind her ears, and the control came from within her head. The unit at her waist linked into the cab's cordless pickup.

"Are you busy?" Vitellan asked.

"Busy but interruptible. When I do deep surfing the lenses turn black."

"Deep surfing: scanning information networks. So that's what you are doing?"

"Yes. I have a little pet research project to learn a few sensitive things about the Luministes. It's professional. I'm an assassin."

"You move like a trained fighter, but not a soldier. More like a gladiator."

"So I'm a gladiator? Tell me more."

"Your attitude is never far from violence. It is black and white, no colors at all."

"That's all?"

"Perhaps with better language imprints I could say more. Can your memory machines teach me more than they have done already?"

"They can, and will. History imprints are easy. Language is much harder because it imposes a bigger load on the brain. The brain tissue literally heats up, and too much heat will cook it like mince in an oven.

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