When the Kalif entered the conference chamber to meet with the College, this particular morning, there was a difference about him that most of them noticed. After calling the meeting to order, he looked them over. "Today," he said, "I'm announcing my resignation."
The exarchs gaped. There were even gasps.
"When the fleet leaves a week from today, I will leave with it, and the kalifa and our son will accompany me. My resignation will take effect on its departure from this system into hyperspace. I will command the invasion personally, as its Grand Admiral and the personal envoy of the throne.
"Our business here this morning is to select a successor. My own choice would be Alb Jilsomo, but the rules state that the College selects, so I can only recommend.
"Jilsomo's early experience as a negotiator, and later as my aide and deputy, and his weeks as acting Kalif when I was hospitalized, all have prepared and proven him. But he is not the only one of you who is qualified for the throne." He looked them over. "The floor is now open for nominations," he finished, and sat down.
Thoga nominated Jilsomo, and others Tariil and Thoga. None of the newer exarchs were nominated. Each nominee was invited to speak, and Tariil declined to be considered. Thoga elaborated Jilsomo's qualities, but did not withdraw his own name. Then the two were sent out while the College discussed them.
In less than twenty minutes they were called back in. Ballots were marked and collected, and Jilsomo was chosen as the new Successor to The Prophet.
After lunch, they walked across the square to the Hall of the Estates, where the Kalif announced his coming resignation and his successor. The House was of two minds over Jilsomo as the new Kalif. The only voiced complaint was his gentry birth, though someone pointed out that he had a noble great-grandmother on his mother's side. Most of them knew him as rational, agreeable, and highly intelligent, a broadly effective man who might well be easier to work with than Kalif Coso.
And as old Dosu pointed out, The Prophet had been gentry. Why not His Successor?
At any rate, the succession was the responsibility of the College. Whoever they selected would be Kalif, like it or not. Actually the Diet had less attention on who would succeed than on the Kalif's abdication. It was hard to believe, for he was unquestionably the strongest and most popular Kalif in centuries.
And inevitably, there were those who distrusted his intentions in leaving with the armada, though they didn't bring it up till afterward, out of session. Would he try to carve an independent empire for himself, out there?
The answer given, of course, was why should he? If he wanted an empire, he was emperor here, and by extension there as well.
Sixty-five
It was a lovely, sunny morning in the Kalif's garden. Coso's garden now, but to be Jilsomo's by noon. Except for some bags, Coso's belongings, and the kalifa's, had already gone up to the flagship.
The Kalif had asked his deputy, the Kalif-to-be, to sit with him in an arbor and enjoy a cold drink. Jilsomo, of course, knew that Coso Biilathkamoro rarely sat down simply to enjoy a drink, except perhaps with his wife. So he expected some final words: suggestions, reminders, perhaps a warning or two.
As deputy and aide, Jilsomo was quite familiar with the day-to-day operations of the throne, and the various government programs and projects that the Kalif had kept tabs on. On top of that, he'd had specific briefings by the Kalif and various ministers. But it was reasonable that some additional items had occurred to the Kalif.
There was a small table in the arbor. They put their clinking glasses on it and sat down. "What do you think of the language and literacy training the invasion troops have been given?" the Kalif asked.
The question surprised Jilsomo; the Kalif knew well what he thought of it. "I like it," he answered. "Very much. I intend to see it continued for the troops remaining in the empire. And teaching it has given the trainee pastors experience in dealing with the peasant mind."
By and large, of course, army command had thought it a waste of time-time that might better have been spent in additional military training and productive labor. Some officers from the Great Families even considered it subversive. Chesty Vrislakavaro had had to twist some arms and threaten some careers to get full cooperation.
Jilsomo wished the general was staying as Chief of Staff, instead of faring out as commander of the armada's ground forces.
"What do you think of the books we gave them to practice their reading in?" the Kalif asked.
"I'm not familiar with them. As I recall, you had them prepared under the direction of that young pastor, Father Sukhanthu."
The Kalif nodded. "They consist of The Book, in a translation slightly simplified from the usual; and simple descriptions of history and government, emphasizing causes and effects. Not the sort of thing the Land Rights Party would want peasants studying. Might give them ideas."
Except for The Book, the books were slim, and even The Book was not very long. Most of the peasants had begun illiterate, and had only a limited knowledge of Imperial. On the other hand, even on Maolaari, peasant jabber was little more than a crude dialect of Imperial; learning Imperial was not difficult for them. Also, Imperial orthography was quite closely phonetic: If you could speak it, learning to read and write involved little more than learning the alphabet. And many of the peasant recruits had shown an unexpected interest in learning.
Jilsomo could see there the roots of reform. Or of trouble. "Who could I talk to about problems and results?" he asked.
"Father Sukhanthu will accompany the fleet, but Elder Dosu and others followed the work quite closely."
The Kalif fell silent then, as if through with that subject. But clearly he wasn't finished talking, so Jilsomo waited.
"There's something I need to tell you," he began after a minute. "Something I've kept from you. About the invasion expedition. It isn't quite what I've represented it to be."
The statement was a surprise and it wasn't. What else could it be, that armada of warships and transports? Yet this might explain the Kalif's uncharacteristic moods of reticence, his periods of uncharacteristic preoccupation.
"I intend that there be no conquest," he went on, "no fighting, no destruction and killing. I go prepared for all of that, but I intend to avoid it."
The Kalif's black eyes held Jilsomo's. "After the destruction of the palace, I looked differently at military attacks. Picture the attack on the Sreegana and then expand it over a city, a planet."
Jilsomo had. He'd always felt unhappy with the idea. But there was the threat, the prospect of the Confederacy invading the empire. That had seemed quite real to him. So he'd accepted.
"We will go," the Kalif continued. "And the fleet will lie in hyperspace adjacent to their central system, while I go in with a single ship and parley, making no threat. A scout will enter real space with me, and lie out-system, ready to generate hyperspace and inform the fleet if anything happens to me.
"They are seventy worlds-member worlds and client worlds. Over a volume of space much larger than the empire; no doubt as large a volume as they can administer.
"What lies beyond it? Surely they've explored. Are there inhabitable worlds unpeopled?
"It seems to me there must be. If there are, we will go there and lay claim to them. Set garrisons on them.
"If there are none, we'll dicker for rights to some of their client worlds. In either case, when we've established ourselves on such worlds, we'll send off message pods to you.
"Perhaps there are no unpeopled worlds in the space around them, and perhaps they will not bargain. Perhaps they'll prove hostile, or treacherous. Perhaps we'll fight them after all. But in Kargh's name, I'll make every reasonable effort not to."
He compressed his lips. "In the hospital, those first days, I thought of not sending a fleet, an army. I thought of sending a ship of missionaries instead, to give them the gift of The Prophet. But I could not dismiss the threat they pose. And the generals, the admirals, the colonels, would not have permitted it. Many of the nobles wouldn't have. The House would have, and most of the Greater Nobles with all their wealth. But there are the lesser nobles, and all who dream of their own landholdings. Which includes many or most of the officer corps."