The Confed publicists wouldn’t like to have it public knowledge that Dimitri—the Dimitri—had a sentimental streak. They made much of the mythical Iron Man at the head of the TEC.
He could ignore them with impunity.
The Face, Dimitri could not ignore.
He was the most powerful human being in the Confederacy. He needed to remind himself that there were things bigger than he was.
Dimitri turned to look at his bodyguard-companion. Ambrose appeared unmoved by the alien structure filling a third of their horizon. But, then, he never was. Ambrose stood at parade rest, wearing less covering than Dimitri did, breath hardly fogging the Martian air. Ambrose was two and a half meters tall, hairless and tan, and stared out at the world from behind black irises that nearly swallowed his pupils.
“Ever wonder why they died out?” Dimitri swung his cane in the general direction of the dome that supposedly protected the ancient artifact from the oxygenating atmosphere.
“No, sir.” Ambrose shook his head.
Sometimes Dimitri wondered how much cognition really went on behind Ambrose’s dark eyes. Most of Ambrose was construct. Only a quarter of his original brain was left. Ambrose’s conversation had more to do with the computer programs that maintained the other three-quarters of his mind. Despite the brain damage, Ambrose was loyal, somewhat intelligent, efficient, and perfectly programmable—all without violating the Confederacy’s taboos on AIs or genetic engineering.
But Ambrose would never be a great conversationalist.
Dimitri hobbled forward on his cane. “Was it a natural flaw? Some inherent weakness?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“They achieved so much ...”
The Face was one of only a handful of remnants of a civilization that flourished and died before any of the known intelligent races achieved sentience. Humanity had originally called them Martians, believing the Face to be the product of a dead Martian race—
That was before humans had discovered a carved starmap that led them to Dolbri. Dolbri was an inhabitable planet that absolutely could not have evolved naturally. It was only the first example of extraterrestrial terraforming. Mars, it seemed, was an example of a similar effort. However, Mars—unlike Dolbri—had stalled halfway. The biosphere never took, the atmosphere thinned, and the water froze or evaporated.
It seemed that the ancient Dolbrians had died out at their zenith, and no one could figure out why.
“Is there a problem, sir?”
Dimitri realized he had trailed off in mid-sentence. “No, no.” I’m just thinking, Ambrose. Not having a stroke. “It’s just the Dolbrians reached such a point—may have been gods compared to us—and still destroyed themselves. What chance have we got?”
“Do you know that, sir?”
Dimitri smiled bitterly. “It’s the nature of thinking animals to create Evil. And Evil is what destroys us.”
Ambrose stared at him.
“You should realize that, Ambrose,” Dimitri said. “We wade through it every day. Or I do. One hundred and sixty years of humanity’s collective Evil. “That’s what I am.”
“If you say so, sir.”
“Someday you may have to disagree with me, Ambrose.” Dimitri bent down and pulled a strand of green-webbed demongrass from the dirt. It came reluctantly, trailing chunks of partially-dissolved rock and some of the engineered symbiotes that supported its simple ecosystem. He rolled the strand between his fingers, crushing tiny white insects. “What would you do if I tried to kill myself?”
A pained look crossed Ambrose’s face. “Sir—”
“That would give you some problems. You’d have to leapfrog that programming of yours and use whatever judgment you have left.”
“Don’t.” Ambrose seemed to have trouble talking.
Dimitri let the strand tumble from his fingers. “Don’t worry. I’m cursed with the knowledge of what a succession battle would do to this Confederacy I’m supposed to protect. I will not allow myself to die.” Not until I know that my replacement isn’t going to be worse than myself.
The look of pain on Ambrose’s face seemed to fade somewhat.
“The nature of the beast. The head executive is going to be a monster. But the monster has to have a scrap of a soul.”
Ambrose had faded back into his natural mode, parade rest, nodding, saying, “Sir.”
Dimitri barely noticed. He stood up from his too-long squat and felt the joints of his knees pop. “Remember to serve my successor as well as you serve me, Ambrose. You’re going to outlive me.”
“Perhaps, sir.”
Dimitri sighed and started walking back to the aircar. He had seen enough of the Face. “Do you remember Helen, Ambrose?”
“No, sir.”
“You wouldn’t. It isn’t relevant to you, is it? You don’t retain anything that isn’t relevant, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Helen was before your time, anyway. When I knew her personally, that is. I dealt with her fifteen years ago, and now I’m going to have to deal with her twins.”
“Sir?”
They reached the aircar and Dimitri leaned on the hood. He decided that he probably should have brought a respirator. “The propagation of Evil, Ambrose. Sins of the fathers and so on—” Dimitri paused and caught his breath. In a few seconds he was racked with painful coughs that made him dizzy.
Ambrose was at his side before Dimitri could say, “Back!” He warded Ambrose off with his cane. “I’m fine! No doctors this week. They’ll only replace another organ.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
Dimitri nodded, even though his head was spinning. The aircar door was open and Dimitri slipped inside. Ambrose took the driver’s seat and the door closed. Dimitri felt better when the car repressurized.
He looked out the window at the Face and realized that it was probably the last time he would see it. Whether he managed to create a successor or not, his doctors could keep him alive for only so much longer.
Dimitri didn’t want to live any longer. He had lived too long already.
He had lived through the rise and fall of the Terran Council and the forced depopulation of the Earth. He had seen the wormhole network superseded by the first tach-drive starships and the subsequent explosion of mankind across the sky. Humans had founded colonies on fifty separate worlds since his birth, most of them in the last century. In his lifetime the Martian atmosphere had been made breathable and the majority of mankind had moved to the stars.
It was too much history for one man.
He was the head executive of the Terran Executive Command, the secret police, army, and enforcement arm of the eighty-three planet Confederacy. Dimitri and the TEC represented the only centralized authority over all of those eighty-three planets. Eighty-three independent governments that would gladly tear the Confederacy apart if it weren’t for the thin diplomatic glue holding the whole thing together.
Sometimes it was nearly too much to bear.
And, speaking of diplomatic glue.
“Let’s go, Ambrose. We have a meeting.” As the vehicle lifted off, Dimitri added, “Someday you’ll make me late for my own funeral.”
* * * *
Far away from Dimitri’s aircar, in a Martian rock formation that could have been a Dolbrian artifact, or simply a weathered crest of rock, a lone figure lowered his binoculars. The man knew it was a risk to be this close to Dimitri, especially with that creature, Ambrose, hanging around. In fact, he was just remembering how much of a risk it was. He had almost forgotten about Dimitri’s pet golem.