Ilaria laughed. "Not _reverted_. We finally accepted it as the only
logical form of government for an entire world."
"What happens when the dictator goes wild? He always has."
The smile was there again. "You're not quite ready for that," Ilaria
told him. "But, it has been taken into consideration."
Out of the corner of his eye, Jay saw the slight puff of Ilaria's
chest, the self-satisfied square of his shoulders, the quick set of his
jaw. He wondered what part Tribune Kevin Ilaria played in the 'dictator
control' this world had provided.
"The system has worked and is working. See this?"
They turned a corner in the corridor and faced a great domed room.
On the far wall hung a white tapestry of something like 40 x 40 foot
dimensions. On it, emblazoned in letters of red and yellow made to look
like flame, were the characters PPB. In the lower right-hand corner, in
white outlined with blue, was the same PR that Ilaria wore. Jay waited
for the Tribune's explanation.
"PpB stands for Pax per Bello," Ilaria explained. "Peace through War.
That slogan was written in 1967 by Julius and adapted in 1971 as
official."
"Julius?"
"Yes. The first Dictator."
Things were beginning to click in Jay's mind.
"I think I know what PR stands for," he said. "Pax Romana."
As always, Ilaria smiled. "That's right," he said.
* * * * *
The command-car marked with the PR symbol pulled over and stopped.
"What is it? Who are you?" the driver demanded.
The Captain on the seat beside him peered into the blackness and cursed.
The man who had waved the vehicle to a halt walked away.
"Here!" the Captain cried. "What in blazes is going on here? Why'd you
stop us? Centurion! Stop that man!"
The two Centurions in the back seat looked at the Captain for a moment,
then they both jumped out and ran after the man.
An ellipsoidal grey thing streaked out of the darkness, landed in the
driver's lap and thudded to the floor of the car. The Captain threw
open his door and started to climb out. The driver bent over to see
what it was.
At that moment the driver, the command-car and the Captain blew up.
The silence that followed was broken by the blast of a submachine gun
as it struck down the two centurions.
"Take their weapons," said a brittle voice.
* * * * *
The detachment of soldiers from the garrison at Tel Aviv stopped and
looked around.
"Sir, what is it?" asked a guard anxiously.
"Terribly quiet out here; something's up," the Lieutenant muttered
calmly.
There were seven of them. The Lieutenant, the Centurion, and five
legionaries. They had grown accustomed to the quiet life of garrison
men in a calm, conquered city. When there is nothing tangible to be
guarded, a guard's life is a dull one. The guns they carried were
the symbol of their authority, and had never been used for any other
purpose.
They looked around. The dirty, once-white buildings rose close on
either side. There was no moon. There was no sound. The darkness and
the silence could have been cut with a knife.
The Lieutenant grinned. He didn't feel much like grinning. He spoke. He
didn't feel much like talking, either.
"This darkness is thick," he said. "You could cut it with a knife. Wish
I had a knife."
He got a knife. The men had just started to laugh when the Lieutenant
got it.
Between his shoulder blades.
As the Lieutenant toppled forward, the Centurion dodged close against
the dirty stone wall and yelled "Spread out!"
They killed a lot of the shadowy, green-clad attackers, but there were
only six of them and they were cornered. When the enemy drove a tank
into the alley and sprayed them with its mounted gun they died.
"Take their weapons," said a quiet voice.
* * * * *
The half-track rolled to a stop.
"Where, Sir?" the driver wanted to know.
"Beyond that big crater over there. The sun glinted on metal. I'm sure
of it. Didn't you see it?"
"No, Sir." The driver craned his neck. There was nothing but barren
rubble and bomb craters and torn, twisted metal and ruined buildings.
"There are all sorts of old automobiles lying around out there, Sir,"
the driver volunteered.
"Yes, and they've been here long enough to get good and rusty," the
Captain snapped. "This is something else."
The driver craned his neck. There was nothing but rubble.
Eight men in the back of the half-track leaped to their feet when they
heard the faint clicking of KCN-H2SO4 guns and the buzz of an old gamma
gun and the sharp bark of a very old sub machine-gun. But a grenade
landed on the truck and another rolled under it.
Another wreck was added to the rubble.
"Take their weapons, if there are any left," said a quiet voice.
* * * * *
And in the more peaceful city of Louisville, Jay Welch was introduced
to Kevin Ilaria's best friend, his adjutant at Standiford Field.
Jay took a liking to Sub-Tribune Jason Rinaldi the moment he felt the
fellow's firm grip.
"Jason is adjutant," Ilaria explained. "And one of the few 'field
soldiers' who manages to get along with Caesar's Pretorian Prefect,
Lamberti. How he does it, I don't know. Lamberti's absolutely
unbearable."
"Prejudice. Middle-class prejudices," Rinaldi grinned. He was short and
very dark with a lot of black hair.
Ilaria's left cheek cracked into a long dimple as he smiled. "He picks
on me because I'm a serious psychologist."
Rinaldi laughed. "As a psychologist, Kevin, you're an excellent bridge
player. As a soldier--"
"Just remember who's got three bars and who has two."
Rinaldi waved his hand and shrugged. "They pass 'em out to psych boys
wholesale," he said, and ducked Ilaria's swing. "Slow reflexes, too,"
he added as he turned to go.
Ilaria stopped him at the door and murmured a few sentences.
Jay caught something about sabotage at Standiford. Rinaldi seemed to be
attributing it to the Commanding Officer there.
"Nice guy," Jay said as the door closed behind Rinaldi.
"You said it. Good officer, too. He'll root out the bird who's playing
around out there. Can't figure out why it's being done."
"Factions," Jay said, "--within factions."
"Little ones always exist, I guess. Have you finished with the history
films?"
"I've seen them, yes. I'm still trying to digest them."
"The language give you much trouble?"
"Quite a bit, but I think I got most of it.
"One man," Jay went on wonderingly. "One man. A Captain in the Italian
Army.
"The Communist forces in Indo-China had been driven back and
Captain--then Major--Lollabrigida went in after them.
"The defeat was becoming so terrible that the Kremlin dealt itself a
playing hand rather than the dummy it had been playing. Red forces came
piling in. Lollabrigida and his Italian troops stopped them cold. Then
he seemed to sway. And, when the Commies pounced for the kill, they
were trapped, pocketed, and annihilated.
"American newspapers and commentators began to call Major Julius
Lollabrigida 'Julius Caesar.' Italy became big overnight. The Big Three
became Russia, the United States, and Italy. Lollabrigida appealed to
America--sometime in there they made him a Colonel, but he was actually
telling the Generals and the Italian government what to do--for aid in
going ahead aggressively.
"And America turned him down. They were still playing 'wait and see.'
They waited. They waited too long. The Commies got tired of waiting
around and sent a couple of jet bombers with A-bombs."
"Now you're telling me things," Ilaria interrupted. "I'm pretty shady
on that period myself."
Jay shrugged. "It was after my time. All I know is what the films show.
Two planes, each with a seven-man crew, and each carrying one atomic
bomb, were dispatched from an airbase somewhere near Juneau." Jay
stopped.
"And?"
The man from 1954 choked. It was hard to be objective about this. It
wasn't so easy for him to pass off as the film had done.
"And--" he hesitated.
"It's over, Jay. It's done with. It doesn't even concern you anymore.
It belongs to a past era."
"One was headed for New York. The other struck farther inland ... for
Washington. The first one was shot down by an F-117 border patrol
plane. The other one got through. It--it levelled the capitol. Almost
completely. The White House and the Pentagon were destroyed."
Ilaria sat quietly and waited. Jay didn't go on.
"Thus removing the United States of America, as such, from a prominent
position in the world picture," Ilaria said.
"Yes. I can't understand it. Everything just folded up. SAC
didn't even get off the ground. And Colonel Lollabrigida, by then
Commander-in-Chief of the UN forces, sent fifty planes, each with
one A-bomb, over the Kremlin. One was shot down over Vladivostok,
but the bombardier pulled the firing pin as the ship crashed and
most of Vladivostok was destroyed. Six other planes made it to their
destinations and dropped their loads. I can't remember the cities ...
one was a new super airbase near Moscow. Five of the planes returned.
None had managed to reach Moscow. Half the world was in ruins. The Pope
begged that the War be stopped."