Free All the Lives He Led-A Novel by Frederik Pohl

individuals—a Pole, an Ecuadorian, a couple of Filipina women—who were known terrorists and might just possibly be somewhere around our area (but, he admitted, probably weren’t). Then he snapped off the screens, took a hit of his cooling espresso and beamed at us. “Any questions?” he asked.
    So the actual Security briefing had amounted to, what?, maybe fifteen minutes or so? That was a pleasant surprise. We couldn’t leave that early, though, so we looked around at each other to see if anybody had a question. Finally one of the Ghanians who had arrived with me raised his hand. When the professor pointed to him he had trouble getting his English going, so he leaned over and whispered to the man next to him. Who said, “Hamel says these class ordered by Italian government, okay? But you not Italian government. You Intersec Security person, Hamel say.”
    At the word “Security” the temperature in the room dropped a couple of degrees. It didn’t change the amiable old-fart expression on the professor’s face, though. “Hamel is very observant,” he said, sounding more like an admirer than a threat. “Yes, Intersec is a global agency, but its personnel are often recruited from the country where they will serve and as it happens I am indeed Italian by birth. Are there any other questions?”
    Most of the class had the look of not wanting to get into any conversation that included the word “Security,” but finally a woman in the first row put her hand up. It was the good-looking one named Elfreda. She asked politely, “Is it true we will all have to work overtime for this Vespasian thing?”
    I was sort of curious about the answer to that, too, since my readings on the ship hadn’t given me any idea of what a “Vespasian” thing was, outside of being the name of Pompeii’s current (as of AD 79) emperor. The professor included us all in his friendly look. “Afraid so, Elfreda,” he admitted. “We’re expecting big crowds on the anniversary, and we’ll have to accommodate them.” I guess I must have let some of my ignorance leak onto the expression on my face, because he was looking right at me when he said, “Maybe some of our newer people don’t know what the anniversary is all about. Anyone care to tell us?”
    Three or four suck-ups tried to answer at once, but it was a thick-necked American whose name I didn’t know who got the nod. “It’s about the Emperor Vespasian, the guy who was the twelfth Caesar, and—what?”
    The professor was waggling a finger at him. “Not the twelfth. Anybody?”
    He was looking right at the Italian with the frayed suit, but he didn’t get a response until he said, “Come on, Mr. Gatti. You’re named after him, aren’t you?”
    Gatti said briefly, “Vespasian was the tenth of the Caesars. If one looks at the virts in the refectory hall one will see this for himself,” and that was all he did say. He went back to resting his chin on the silver handle of his cane.
    The professor sighed. The same bunch of would-be teacher’s pets began calling out supplementary information, but the professor stopped them. “Counting from Julius Caesar, Vespasian was the tenth, and what’s special about him is that he was the Roman emperor who built the Colosseum in Rome. He died just before the time when Pompeii got snuffed. Specifically, June 2079 is the two thousandth anniversary of the date in 79 when Emperor Vespasian died and was succeeded by his son, Titus. That made a big holiday in First Century Rome, and so the Giubileo’s going to mark the date with a celebration of our own. All clear? Any other questions?” None appeared immediately and he turned to me, beaming again. “What about you, Mr. Sheridan? You just got here. Isn’t there anything that you’d like explained?”
     
     
    Well, sure there was. In fact, there were a lot of things, and so over the rest of the hour some of the holes of ignorance in my head got filled. Not just by the professor,