That didn’t sound good at all.
She paused to let it sink in, and then continued. “In a very personal sense, we regret that your viewpoints were not presented legally. Our government includes numerous mechanisms for the redress of grievance that have operated effectively for hundreds of years. Granted, these channels are slow, as enlightened social change always should be. But impatience is one of the hallmarks of youth, and in many ways this is your argument.
“Childhood is a fleeting condition, and any justice which overruns its boundaries is no justice at all, but a service to the adults you will one day become. And your voices have been very clear on this point: that you will sacrifice the comfort and liberty of those future selves, in order to enjoy a different and more immediate sense of freedom in the here and now. Such a decision should not be—and in our estimation, has not been—made lightly. And again, we understand, even if we do not agree.”
She paused again. She had their absolute silence, their absolute attention.
“The matter of your punishment has been the focus of considerable debate and analysis. The solution we’ve arrived at is not one which comforts us, but justice can be like that sometimes. Please be aware that we love you, and wish no harm upon you. But you have brought this on yourselves.”
She pointed the scepter at the sky, and lowered its butt end onto the stage with a soft thump. As gestures went, this one was clear enough: the prosecution rests.
King Bruno unrolled the document in his hand, glanced at it, and then looked up at the audience. “Er, hmm. There’s a lot of legalese in this: the whereas and the shall and the by-the-power-vested. Let’s skip that part, shall we? And allow me to reiterate: this isn’t a desirable solution. But it appears to be a necessary one.”
He paused, looking around, and now he wasn’t the avatar of a nation, or even the father of a friend, but just some nice man stepping in with bad news. “The gist of it,” he said, “is exile. You’ll be provided with a starship and the means to form a reasonable settlement in the worlds of the Barnard system, some five-point-nine light-years from Sol, which will be ceded to you for this purpose.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“And once this ship is commissioned and registered and this land grant is made, you will have forty-eight hours to remove yourselves from the borders of the Queendom, which you may not then reenter for a period of one thousand years.”
The murmur became a gasp.
“One thousand years,” the king repeated, “on pain of death and erasure. I can assure you, this sentence is not imposed lightly, nor in good humor. But your cooperation has been impossible to secure by other means.”
He scratched his chin, and tugged lightly at the end of his beard. “The, ah, the course ahead of you is a difficult one, and one I daresay you’ll regret. But it is precisely the course you have chosen, and precisely the one you deserve, and if there truly is a God who dwells within us, or is generated through us, or otherwise takes an interest in our affairs, then I pray that he will have mercy on your souls. Because Tamra and I, alas, cannot.”
He seemed poised for a moment to ask if there were any questions. But that was the scientist in him, the professor and declarant—an old reflex that sometimes showed through. Today he suppressed it, and remained regal.
“At this point,” the queen said, “you are all remanded to the custody of your parents, or parole officers for the adults and emancipated minors among you. We don’t yet know how long the preparations will take, as no voyage of this type has ever been attempted. But the expected cost is very high, and any further misbehavior in the meantime will be dealt with”—she peered down her nose at the audience—“very harshly.”
She paused for several seconds before adding, “That is all.”
And with that, the king and queen turned together, dismounted the stage, and began the climb back up toward the rear of the amphitheater, where the fax gates were. But they didn’t get even as far as the third row— Conrad’s row—before a purple-clad figure leaped from the stands and threw itself at them with a yell.
The heads of the Palace Guards swiveled, their arms coming partway up, weapon-fingers at the ready. But they made no other move, perhaps sensing that Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui had no harm in him at this moment. “I love you!” the prince screamed, throwing both arms around his parents in an embrace that nearly bowled them over. He was laughing and crying all at once, his strong voice quavering with emotion. “Thank you, thank you! The task of this grievous voyage has been lightly fulfilled, and I am ... I am . . . pickled with joy!”
Indeed, it was a perfect solution, and Conrad could see that Bascal had been right all along, about everything—even the pushy, malicious stuff. Tantrums and blackmail weren’t supposed to work; they just hardened parental and governmental resolve, right? But here the children were, openly reaping the benefits of it. A thousand years of freedom! A whole star system to call their own! Conrad was worldly enough—just barely—to appreciate the irony.
Bruno’s answer was soft, personal and private. He knew, probably from long experience, how to shelter his voice from the arena’s fine acoustics. But Conrad was only a couple of meters away, and could hear the king’s surprised muttering well enough. “It isn’t a reward, Bascal. It isn’t a good thing at all.”
“Oh, Father,” the prince replied fondly, hugging even harder. And they all lived happily ever after.
Like hell they did.
A: With some parallax view on the subject, I feel confident in citing “The Song of Physics” as His Majesty’s first true masterwork. Here we see the culmination not only of literary talent and real-world insight, not only of that famous wit, but also of generational outreach. The song is fundamentally a parting gift from son to father, and should be appreciated as such.
Q: It’s a much longer poem than anything he’d previously attempted, true?
A: Not only longer, but more universal in every sense. Here is a piece written with the future—not the present—in mind. With an audience which includes the Queendom, but is not limited to it. Of course, it’s the audacity of the project that truly inspires: the universe in twenty stanzas, with simple language and a compulsively tractable—one might almost say childish—cadence of melody.
Q: A gift to all of us, then. To posterity.
A: A parting gift, I would say, on the eve of a perilous exile. The poem is ebullient, but the gesture itself has an old-fashioned air, of separation and mortality. Just in case, we used to say. If this meeting be our last, have this token for thy memory of me. And so we shall.
—Critic Laureate Julia Aimes,
in a Q299 interview with FUSILIERS magazine
Chapter twenty-one.
Walking home
By the light of a gas lamp, Radmer takes a final flask of dinite from the chemry and closes its little brass door for the last time. It’s a clever device, worthy of its Highrock creators: without electricity, using only catalyst beds and the mechanical energy of a foot pump, it combines the gases in the air with water from the sea, to produce a paste that any spark will explode, even in the vacuum of space. He’s been warned not to get this paste on his skin; even the sweet, waxy smell of it sometimes gives him headaches and heart palpitations.