“Certainly, Commander.”
Like a soldier standing at attention as he delivers an unpleasant report to his superior officer, Fain drew himself up and monotoned, “Sire, the main reason for unrest among the frontier words is the lack of Imperial firmness in dealing with them. In my opinion, a strong hand is desperately needed. The neighboring worlds will respect their Emperor if—and only if—he acts decisively. The people value strength, Sire, not meekness.”
The Emperor reached out and put a hand on the Commander’s shoulder. Fain was still rock-hard under his uniform.
“You have sworn an oath to protect and defend this realm,” the Emperor said. “If necessary, to die for it.”
“And to protect and defend you, Sire.” The man stood straighter and firmer than the trees around them.
“But this Empire, my dear Commander, is more than blood and steel. It is more than any one man. It is an idea.”
Fain looked back at him steadily, but with no real understanding in his eyes. Bomeer stood uncertainly off to one side.
Impatiently the Emperor turned his face toward the ceiling hologram and called, “Map!”
Instantly the forest scene disappeared and they were in limitless space. Stars glowed around them, overhead, on all sides, underfoot. The pale gleam of the galaxy’s spiral arms wafted off and away into unutterable distance.
Bomeer’s knees buckled. Even the Commander’s rigid self-discipline was shaken.
The Emperor smiled. He was accustomed to walking godlike on the face of the Deep.
“This is the Empire, gentlemen,” he lectured in the darkness. “A handful of stars, a pitiful scattering of worlds set apart by distances that take years to traverse. All populated by human beings, the descendants of Earth.”
He could hear Bomeer breathing heavily. Fain was a ramrod outline against the glow of the Milky Way, but his hands were outstretched, as if seeking balance.
“What links these scattered dust motes? What preserves their ancient heritage, guards their civilization, protects their hard-won knowledge and arts and sciences? The Empire, gentlemen. We are the mind of the Hundred Worlds, their memory, the yardstick against which they can measure their own humanity. We are their friend, their father, their teacher and helper.”
The Emperor searched the black starry void for the tiny yellow speck of Earth’s Sun, while saying:
“But if the Hundred Worlds decide that the Empire is no longer their friend, if they want to leave their father, if they feel that their teacher and helper has become an oppressor… what then happens to the human race? It will shatter into a hundred fragments, and all the civilization that we have built and nurtured and protected over all these centuries will be destroyed.”
Bomeer’s whispered voice floated through the darkness. “They would never—”
“Yes. They would never turn against the Empire because they know that they have more to gain by remaining with us than by leaving us.”
“But the frontier worlds,” Fain said.
“The frontier worlds are restless, as frontier communities always are. If we use military might to force them to bow to our will, then other worlds will begin to wonder where their own best interests lie.”
“But they could never hope to fight against the Empire!”
The Emperor snapped his fingers and instantly the three of them were standing again in the forest at sunset.
“They could never hope to win against the Empire,” the Emperor corrected. “But they could destroy the Empire and themselves. I have played out the scenarios with the computers. Widespread rebellion is possible, once the majority of the Hundred Worlds becomes convinced that the Empire is interfering with their freedoms.”
“But the rebels could never win,” the Commander said. “I have run the same war games myself, many times.”
“Civil war,” said the Emperor. “Who wins a civil war? And once we begin to slaughter ourselves, what will your aliens do, my dear Fain? Eh?”
His two advisors fell silent. The forest simulation was now deep in twilight shadow. The three men began to walk back along the path, which was softly illuminated by bioluminescent flowers and fireflies flickering through the dark.
Bomeer clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “Now that I have seen some of your other problems, Sire, I must take a stronger stand and insist—yes, Sire, insist—that this young woman’s plan to save the Earth is even more foolhardy than I had at first thought it to be. The cost is too high, and the chance of success is much too slim. The frontier worlds would react violently against such an extravagance. And,” with a nod to Fain, “it would hamstring the fleet.”
For several moments the Emperor walked down the simulated forest path without saying a word. Then, slowly, “I suppose you are right. It is an old man’s sentimental dream.”
“I’m afraid that’s the truth of it, Sire,” said Fain.
Bomeer nodded sagaciously.
“I will tell her. She will be disappointed. Bitterly.”
Bomeer gasped. “She’s here?”
The Emperor said, “Yes. I had her brought here to the palace. She has crossed the Empire, given up more than two decades of her life to make the trip, lost half a century of her career over this wild scheme of hers… just to hear that I will refuse her.”
“In the palace?” Fain echoed. “Sire, you’re not going to see her in person? The security—”
“Yes, in person. I owe her that much.” The Emperor could see the shock on their faces. Bomeer, who had never stood in the same building with the Emperor until he had become Chairman of the Academy, was trying to suppress his fury with poor success. Fain, sworn to guard the Emperor as well as the Empire, looked worried.
“But Sire,” the Commander said, “no one has personally seen the Emperor, privately, outside of his family and closest advisors”—Bomeer bristled visibly—“in years… decades!”
The Emperor nodded but insisted, “She is going to see me. I owe her that much. An ancient ruler on Earth once said, ‘When you are going to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite about it.’ She is not a man, of course, but I fear that our decision will kill her soul.”
They looked unconvinced.
Very well, then, the Emperor said to them silently. Put it down as the whim of an old man … a man who is feeling all his years … a man who will never recapture his youth.
She is only a child.
The Emperor studied Adela de Montgarde as the young astrophysicist made her way through the guards and secretaries and halls and antechambers toward his own private chambers. He had prepared to meet her in his reception room, changed his mind and moved the meeting to his office, then changed it again and now waited for her in his study. She knew nothing of his indecision; she merely followed the directions given her by the computer-informed staff of the palace.
The study was a warm old room, lined with shelves of private tapes and ancient paper tomes that the Emperor had collected over the years. A stone fireplace big enough to walk into spanned one wall; its flames soaked the Emperor in life-giving warmth. The opposite wall was a single broad window that looked out on the real forest beyond the palace walls. The window could also serve as a hologram frame; the Emperor could have any scene he wanted projected from it.
Best to have reality this evening, he told himself. There is too little reality in my life these days. So he eased back in his powerchair and watched his approaching visitor on the viewscreen above the fireplace of the richly carpeted, comfortably paneled old room.