Quintus studied the strangers through the farwatcher. ‘A man and a woman. Old enough. In their fifties, or older? That makes them older than any of our veterans, or their wives. Save maybe Titus Valerius of the seventh cohort, who I know for a fact has been lying about his age for a decade. Some men just don’t want to retire.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, even Titus is going to have to retire now. The colonia – that’s his job now, for all the grumbling.’ A morning of trying to deal with complaints from the colonists, the veterans who would be left behind on this world, had soured Quintus’s mood, even before this business of the intruders. Nothing will grow in this foreign muck, Centurion  … You can’t leave me on the same planet as Caius Flavius, Centurion, he’s had his eye on my wife since the Valhalla Superior campaign and now he’s leering at my daughter!  … I swear, Centurion, I swear …

Gnaeus said tactfully, ‘Well, those aren’t any of our veterans down there, sir, or their families. Nor are they any of the remiges.’

He was right. Eight subjective years after leaving Terra, including five years cooped up on the ship itself, Quintus was sure he would recognise any of the ship’s crew and passengers, even the lowliest slave. The complement of the Malleus Jesu was a few hundred, not counting the slaves, with the core of it being the eighty men of Quintus’s century, and an equal number of remiges, the ship’s crew – known by an archaic term deriving from a word for ‘rowers’ – mostly Brikanti, with their own hierarchy and their own officers under the sullen Movena, along with their families. But he did not recognise the intruders below.

‘They look like Brikanti, you have to give them that,’ he murmured. ‘Those odd clothes. Jackets and trousers rather than tunics and cloaks. Peculiar colours, aren’t they? Packs on their backs. And what’s that pale sparkle on their shoulders? Looks almost like frost, melting  … Impossible, of course. No frost on this world, not on the day side anyhow.’

‘And no sign of weapons,’ Gnaeus said practically.

Quintus grunted. ‘I’d want to strip them down and turn out their packs before I could be sure of that. At least they’re not Xin.’

Gnaeus pursed his lips. ‘I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, sir. The Xin empire is larger than ours, and includes many ethnicities. Even if not Xin themselves, they could be provincials, agents, even mercenaries.’

Quintus sighed. ‘The tripolar politics of Terra reaching out to us even here, eh, optio? Us, the Brikanti, and the Xin.’

‘Well, the Brikanti are our allies, sir. And we’re not actually at war with the Xin.’

‘You mean, we weren’t when we left home.’

‘True, sir.’

The craft was descending now, with a rattle of chains as ground anchors were dropped from a lower deck. Quintus grabbed his cloak from where he had flung it over the back of a chair and tied it around his neck, checked his sword and ballista were at his belt, and jammed his plumed helmet on his head.

Gnaeus frowned. ‘You’re going to interrogate them yourself, sir?’

‘By Christ’s tears I am.’

‘I think it’s best if you approach these people with an open mind. If I may say so.’

‘Hmm. If they are Brikanti or Xin I need to observe the proper diplomatic protocols before I throw their arses in the brig, is that your thinking?’

‘Sir, we didn’t bring these people here. I mean, on the Malleus Jesu. And so the only way they can have got here—’

Somehow this elementary observation hadn’t impressed itself on Quintus’s consciousness. ‘You are saying that unless they walked hundreds of miles from one of the indigenous Hatches, the only way is through that Hatch. Which we ourselves constructed—’

‘And which has evidently connected itself to the wider network of Hatches, just as it should. But we don’t know where that connection will have been made to. Perhaps to some place even more exotic than the cities of far Xin.’

Quintus, through his temper, saw the sense behind this reasoning. ‘So we don’t know where they’re from, how they got here, or what they can do. Therefore we don’t know what threat they may represent to us, the ship, our mission. Even the Empire.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, the sooner we find out the better. Let’s get this over with. Back me up, optio.’ And he strode without hesitation to the stair to the lower deck.

Behind him he heard the optio snap out commands, hastily assembling a guard unit from on-duty legionaries.

It was a relief for Quintus to hit the ground at the bottom of the ladder, to leave the confinement of the aerial whale and to be able to stride out towards the intruders, putting all his energies into the simple action of walking. To work out his frustrations in motion, in physical exercise: that had been his way since he had been a young bull of a raw recruit in Legio XC Victrix, unable to combat the shadows of privilege, preference and nepotism that had blighted his career in the army from the very beginning. Walking was one thing, but having somebody to punch out would be even better.

But that didn’t appear to be a likely option, today. The two elderly intruders just stood there by the Hatch emplacement, watching him approach. They looked somewhat startled – as you might, he thought, if you had just passed through the mysteries of a Hatch itself – but they did not seem afraid, did not seem daunted by the prospect of a fully armed centurion of the Roman army bearing down on them as if he had a kernel up his arse.

One of them, the man, even called out – something. The words sounded vaguely familiar to Quintus, the accent odd, stilted.

Time for a parade-ground bellow, Quintus decided.

CHAPTER 3

The craft overhead was like a tremendous airship. It moved smoothly, silently. It bore a symbol on its outer envelope, crossed axes with a Christian cross in the background, and lettering above:

SPQR

Anchors of some kind were dropped from a fancy-looking gondola. When the craft had drifted to a halt a rope ladder unrolled to the ground. And as Yuri Eden and Stef Kalinski watched, astonished, a hatch opened, and a man clambered down the ladder.

As soon as he reached the ground the man started towards them. He wore a plumed helmet, and a scarlet cloak over what looked like a bearskin tunic. His lower legs were bare, above strapped-up boots. He had a sword on one hip, and a gaudy-looking handgun in a holster on the other.

Yuri called, ‘Who the hell are you?’

The man, striding steadily, started shouting back: ‘Fortasse accipio oratio stridens vestri. Sum Quintus Fabius, centurio navis stellae Malleus Jesu. Quid estis, quid agitis in hac provincia? Et quid est mixti lingua vestri? Germanicus est? Non dubito quin vos ex Germaniae Exteriorae. Cognovi de genus vestri prius. Bene? Quam respondebitis mihi?’

Always another door, Yuri thought. ‘Let me handle this.’ He spread his hands and walked forward, towards the angry stranger.

‘I think I understand your guttural speech. I am Quintus Fabius, centurion of the star vessel Malleus Jesu. Who are you, and what are you doing in this province? And what is that mongrel tongue of yours? German, is it? From Outer Germania, no doubt. I’ve dealt with your sort before. Well? What have you got to say for yourselves?’

The fellow said something to his female companion, and walked forward, apparently undaunted. But at least he spread his hands, Quintus observed, showing he was unarmed.

Gnaeus Junius caught up with Quintus, panting. Glancing over his shoulder, Quintus saw a small squad of legionaries had followed the optio, all according to regulations. ‘You’re out of breath, Gnaeus. Double your daily exercise period for the rest of the month.’