The one drawback to this scheme is that many of the clones abandon their cloisters after a year or two. Most go into business instead; they say the business world has less pressure.
Marco Polo gazes at the night’s starry blackness as Kublai Khan falls silent. After a time, he says, “In my travels, I, too, have spoken with Shaolin monks… and a true follower of Buddha would never believe in purchasing bliss, inciting holy wars, and all the other things you describe. Buddhists reject earthly strivings as ‘unhelpful practice.’ Either this monk of yours failed to comprehend the Buddha’s teaching, or he deliberately gave examples of wrong understanding, wrong intention, and so on.”
“Perhaps my monk was mistaken,” Kublai Khan says. “After all, there must have been some reason he left the monastery and joined my guard. He might have been expelled from Shaolin for his incorrect views. Or perhaps…”
The emperor’s voice trails off. Marco Polo asks, Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps the monk realized he was talking to an emperor. There’s little point in telling an emperor what he doesn’t want to hear… especially if your message is about the unhelpfulness of earthly strivings.” Kublai Khan stares at the dark heavens. “In all the futures to come, around every star in the sky, there will be emperors. The job never goes out of date, though it poses under a thousand different names. And not one of those emperors will ever have the luxury to dream of enlightenment.”
“And what,” asks Polo, “if enlightenment is not a luxury but a necessity?”
“Then the emperor befriends an explorer-or perhaps a Shaolin monk—and while the emperor does what an emperor must, the friend is free to follow different paths… eightfold or otherwise.” Kublai Khan gives a sad smile. “Consider it another perennial job in all those futures to come, around every star in the sky: the man who can be what an emperor can’t. The unfettered man who visits the royal court from time to time and tells the emperor what he’s missing.” Kublai Khan stares at the darkness overhead. “Where will you go for your next journey, Marco? Across the far ocean? To the jungles or the ice caps? Perhaps even to the stars?”
Polo says, “Where would you like me to go, great emperor?”
Kublai Khan sighs. “I leave that decision to you. Just come back and tell me stories…”
James Alan Gardner lives in Kitchener, Ontario, with his adoring wife, Linda Carson, and a rabbit who is confused but sincere. He got his master’s degree in applied mathematics (with a thesis on black holes) and then immediately gave up academics for writing. He has published six science fiction novels, the latest of which is Trapped. He has won the Aurora Award twice, and has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards.