Although Sedgeley appeared to be too polite to mention it—producing a silence vastly louder than any remark he might have made upon the subject—he knew (and knew perfectly well that she knew) that even the most rigid of social rules are invariably applied differently to different genders. More to the point, they are also applied differently at different levels of power.
Thus to one individual, especially to one of the aristocracy, the brand of bastardy is likeliest to become a life-destroying curse, while to another, less fortunate by right of birth, it may become the key to unlimited wealth and power. And even if Sedgeley were not personally motivated by a genteel resentment toward her and the course her life had taken, many among his social class were, and they concealed it in the ’Droom with a deliberate lack of competence.
For perhaps the hundred thousandth time since she had—all unwillingly—assumed this position, she sadly shook her head, wishing there were someone whom she could trust, someone she could call a loyal friend, within the sound of her voice, or even a parsec of the capital planet. It was inevitable, the young Ceo supposed, that the illegitimate but (in recent years) acknowledged daughter to her immediate predecessor, Ceo Leupould IX, should often feel this way.
It was inevitable, she corrected herself, that anyone with great power should do so.
But she found that it was increasingly intolerable to the former Mistress Lia Woodgate. Her furry, striped, and butter-hued pet awakened all at once, raised delicate antennae, and jumped to the floor, landing simultaneously on all six feet. It looked up at her expectantly and made a friendly chirruping noise.
She picked up her cup and saucer and arose.
“You’re right,” she momentarily dismissed her cares. “It’s time for lunch!”
CHAPTER VII:
BIG, SILLY BIRDS
It was at times such as these that Lia hated her once-illustrious father most.
The vast floor of the Monopolitan ’Droom was said to be a million square measures in extent, exactly one square klomme, precisely the same area—to a ten thousandth of a millimeasure—as each of the four walls standing above it. Unlike those walls, fifty measures thick and fashioned from the purest, most optically perfect glass known at the time of their making (or at any time since), the floor was of age-blued and traffic-polished nickel steel, a massive block cut from the heart of an asteroid and lowered from synchronous orbit to the surface of Hanover, it was said, over the course of an entire year.
It was also said this floor was the foundation for the stablest (if not verifiably the largest) edifice in the Known Deep, extending hundreds of measures below ground level. A similar time, “not one of your short, 365-day standard years, but a full 708-day Hanoverian year,” had been required to raise its temperature from that of the night-black Deep whence it had come, to that of the surrounding countryside, employing heat exchangers of more than ninety dozen municipal annihilators which provided the planetwide city with light and power. Even now, were not such heroic efforts still in effect, the temperature within the “Greatest Hall of All” would have been bone-chilling, with so much naked metal in such intimate contact with the bedrock for so many centuries.
Legend held that all this had come to pass eleven hundred—standard—years ago, and that the building, meant as a kind of temple to unfettered mercantilism, predated the Monopolity which had confiscated it. That individual sometimes referred to as the “Proprietress of Hanover” entertained scholarly doubts as to the date—her research indicated that the ’Droom was certainly no less than two centuries younger than what was claimed—but not the order of the events. Sometimes—and this was surely one of those occasions—Lia thought she could feel the added gravity created by such a mass of dense material beneath her feet.
A thousand measures overhead, the ceiling—which also had been glass until an orbital attack by unknown terrorists had brought it crashing to the steel floor—was composed of the glowing metalloid mesh from which starship sails were fashioned. In her opinion this was the only cheerful feature to be found in a prime example of the variety of architecture intended to intimidate the intellect and shrink the spirit of anyone unlucky enough to have to occupy it.
Yet none of this took a significant part in the reasons she resented her predecessor just now. Those had more to do with the fact that each of the million square measures of floorspace before her seemed to be occupied by some individual—only a bare majority appeared human lately—demanding her attention.
“Revlan hatu, Ceo Lia!”
The mixture of alien and familiar words came to her as if released from the tightly stretched orifice of a child’s balloon. The odd creature who had spoken them stood before her, three full measures tall, on a pair of legs no thicker than her own wrist. It waved four equally spindly arms at her in a way its species considered friendly, doing its best to smile—an expression that did not come naturally to it—with the tiny features on its fist-sized head.
“Revlan hatu, yourself, Adaven Sagevsal!”
Among the more numerous of the non-humans to be seen upon any given day at the ’Droom were the “stiquemen,” a Deep-traveling race who had “discovered” the Monopolity at about the time Lia was born. Their interstellar territories—it was still unclear precisely how they organized and governed themselves—lay just beyond those which had been explored so far by her own species.
At least the stiquemen had the decency to go naked, she thought, the very idea of clothing being a hilarious novelty to them. How much better that was than all of this counterfeit buccaneer finery she saw about her at the moment, a fashion trend that she found—with excellent reason—particularly repulsive.
Today, as upon all previous occasions when they had come to the ’Droom, the stiquemen wished to discuss trade. Lia believed that sooner or later—provided she succeeded at revitalizing the human exploratory urge—there was bound to be some kind of border disagreement with these beings. Then the talk might turn to other forms of “communication.” She wished to understand them when that day arrived, which was why she had granted an extended audience to this individual, who seemed to be acting as ambassadorial spokesman for them all.
Any real negotiations would take place later—were taking place already—between this fellow and various legatees whom she had assigned to what she called “Stiquemannish Affairs.” However from time to time, it was politically necessary to exchange a vital word or two with him in public, sending signals to all who had something to win or lose by her diplomatic relations with the creatures. A few empty pleasantries, and the forms were satisfied; the stiqueman moved on to his real business. Yet he was just the first of many, stretching away in a long, broad line, whom she must greet today, their number augmented horribly by those she had put off this morning in order to steal some time to think.
Meanwhile, servants by the hundreds, yensid mostly, scurried about the room upon the orders of their principals—or hired place-holders—waiting in line, fetching food or drink or drugs to make the waiting less unpleasant. Nothing could ease the hardship of the unforgiving steel floor, however, and—following the wise example of her predecessors—except for the wheeled chairs or powered litters of her low-gravity subjects, Lia would neither allow furniture of any kind nor carpets upon the floor to render the waiting easier. If she had, the line before her would have been ten times as long as it was now.
Briefly, she considered also banning eye patches, artificial facial scars and crude prosthetic limbs—metal hooks and wooden legs—voluminous white blouses with puffy sleeves, factory-soiled velvet knee breeches, and slippers sporting silver buckles. If she had to look upon or hear another artificial bird, she might very well thrust it off the shoulder of its cretinous owner herself.
The women were even worse, of course, with their artfully tattered gowns, and fetters fashioned out of precious metals and be-decked with jewels. Like many another of history’s rulers, Lia had herself worn chains upon one overly protracted occasion, and had found nothing roma
ntic or even prurient about them.
And yet, somehow, the ’Droom would outlast this foolishness, just as it had outlasted every other foolishness its occupants had thought to practice over nearly a millennium. Smells of food, perfume, and body odor—human and otherwise—blended in a miasma almost legendary in itself, despite elaborate measures employed to dispel it. The noise (talk, music, the clamorous demands of media “personalities”) would have been equally appalling had it not been for the abatement devices deployed at intervals throughout the room, replaying each and every sound precisely out of phase so it was—almost—canceled out.
Something with a blunt, sticky tongue the width of her shoulders licked her outstretched hand. She had been told it was a religious leader of a world only recently found to harbor sapient life. Although it lay many parsecs deep within the boundaries of the Monopolity, it had apparently been overlooked time and again by explorers. As soon as she had greeted it, been greeted in return, and dismissed it, she made surreptitious use of the small box of moist wipes she had brought with her this afternoon in anticipation of just this moment.
Given a brief respite, she took a breath and glanced about. From the measure-high dais (a raised area “merely” a thousand measures square, cut from the same giant asteroidal block as the rest of the building’s underpinning) upon which she and her retinue sat or stood, along the length of yet another elevation known as the “Ceo’s Table,” down to the floor of the ’Droom itself, the queue extended to great doors, half a klomme tall, that had permitted entry in the first place. Briefly, she enjoyed a fantasy of ordering the doors welded shut.
Her greatest regret was that there had to be guards everywhere, standing about her in a living picket fence, forming a perimeter upon the lower tier of the Ceo’s Table, circulating throughout the ’Droom itself (no few in civilian attire), hovering upon §-field harnesses above the crowd. Although she had inherited this situation, she could not help but believe that any leader who required guarding like this was a bad leader, who probably deserved whatever fate his guards strove to protect him from. At least she had replaced the mindless Oplytes, who had performed this hateful task, with sapients, mostly humans.
Any deficit of security this created she made up by carrying a personal thrustible upon her forearm beneath one highly embellished sleeve. As far as she knew, she was the first Ceo to take such a precaution. Or accept such a responsibility.
On and on her endless duties went. Eight hundred individuals with evil intentions and excellent tailors spoke her name in a variety of accents as she spoke theirs, prompted by a tiny whispering device she wore behind one ear, concealed by her wavy hair. She glanced backward for the briefest instant at the whisperer, standing a few measures behind her, speaking as discreetly as he could into a microphone, then, before she turned back to the next person she must greet, transformed her glance into a grateful smile which caught him by surprise.
One advantage to this enormously public routine, she had found, was that, once a rhythm had been established, she could go on with the reasoning process she had begun earlier today. And a good thing that was, for there was much to contemplate and plan before she could make the final, fateful decision lying ahead.
Despite the many rumors always circulating among the masqued habitués of the ’Droom, even the Ceo Lia was uncertain why her father had abdicated his august position in such a sudden manner, without giving any warning. Nor, she had determined, during the brief time left to him afterward, had he bothered trying to explain it to anyone else, not even his most trusted confidants. It certainly had not been over these weekly public audiences she dreaded so well. He’d loved them more than any other single aspect of ruling the Monopolity of Hanover.
She shuddered at the memory of his enthusiasm.
To every appearance, as absolute rulers go, Leupould IX had been a decent and conscientious one. Virtually everything he had tried to accomplish had been directed toward genuinely enhancing the lives of his fifteen quintillion subjects. For the most part—this was a quality which had made him unique among rulers—that had amounted to leaving them alone to enhance their own lives.
As an historian, Lia knew well that, despite millennia of propaganda to the contrary, great power seldom attracts great minds. No matter what form a government might take, the most important proficiencies of leadership are those of ingratiation and intimidation, not creative or contemplative intelligence. The only difference among forms is upon whom those proficiencies are practiced (more than sufficient reason for political power to be stringently curtailed). Who had said, at the dawn of antiquity, that great men are nearly always bad men?
Yet nearly every authority agreed that Leupould had been extraordinarily intelligent for an individual in his position. Some there were, in fact, with much experience in the ’Droom, who might even have insisted upon calling him wise.
“Plain Leupould Wheeler” (as he had often styled himself) had lectured and written for many years as a university professor—another line of work which seldom attracts great minds. Nevertheless, he had ascended to head the imperium-conglomerate as a leader most unusual in the extent of his education. Since his abdication, academic scholars and media reporters alike had expended thousands of hours vainly scouring his earliest writings word by word for any clue to his later behavior. Lia had spent almost as much time searching the Ceo’s several official Residences herself, for the same kind of clue. Even after more than a decade, new theories, each more absurd than its predecessor, still flapped through the agitated Monopolitan atmosphere like big, silly birds.
Nor did anyone know why, of all people, he had selected his illegitimate daughter Lia Woodgate to succeed him. Even she believed that Leupould must have been aware of many wiser, more illustrious, more accomplished individuals who might have replaced him better than she had—not to mention, in a milieu dominated top to bottom by men, his countless male children, illegitimate and otherwise. She was not the youngest individual to hold the Hanoverian reins of power, nor was she the first female ever to occupy the Monopolity’s most powerful position. She was, however, the second youngest, and the second woman, to be thus designated. The last female Ceo of Hanover, a legendary figure all but lost in the mists of antiquity, had been its first. Lia hoped that she would not turn out, completing the symmetry, to be the Monopolity’s last.
Those, like the former Executor-General, who had been privy to every confidence Leupould could bestow, nevertheless had been left by their departed leader as completely in the dark as everybody else. They assumed, although it was nothing but a wild surmise, that his choice of Lia must have had something to do with the covert intelligence work she had performed for him for many years.
This, of course, had been long before either of them had acknowledged in public, or even to each other, what each of them had known in private for so long: that she was, indeed, his daughter. One need not conceal one’s facial features, she thought now (although not for the first time) in order to wear a masque. It was believed by nearly everyone that her mother had been another academic, although neither of them had ever named her or ever would. In the pursuit of this information, the same useless scholars and reporters had spent thousands of hours poring over Hanover University faculty likenesses, but to no avail. Lia changed the mental subject: beyond this point lay nothing but pain.
But she had digressed to a degree that was uncharacteristic of her. It was fascinating, in light of current events, how much her intelligence work had thrown her into contact with elements of the Oplyte Trade—not that it had done her any more good than a million others before her. To her, the most astonishing fact of all was that no one even knew whether the slavers were human! Hundreds of sapient aliens—stiquemen, flatsies, rollerballers—could be seen upon the capital world every day, in ever-increasing numbers. They served in many stations and capacities, from interstellar ambassadors to common dockhands and crewbeings. It was far from impossible that one variety of them alone was responsible for creatin
g and trading in Oplyte warrior-slaves.
In any event—whoever these mysterious, unknown entities turned out to be—one thing was undeniable: for generations uncounted, unlike an equally uncounted number of jealous Ceos, they had controlled galaxywide production and distribution of Oplytes. This was, in the Ceo Lia’s much-exalted opinion, an obscene political and moral circumstance, one, in her view, no longer to be borne!
But what was this?
Before her stood three forms—she believed them to be human—shrouded in loose gray hooded robes indicating clerics of some kind. As they stepped closer, side by side, under the watchful glare of her personal guard, one of them raised his hands a fraction of a second before the others, pushed his hood back to reveal a heavily bearded face beneath a thick mop of curly black hair, and winked a highly insubordinate but startlingly blue eye at her. In an instant, all her boredom and resentment melted away, replaced by helpless affection.
“Hello, Father,” she told Brother Leo. “I had hoped that you would come with Sedgeley.”
CHAPTER VIII:
TOO TERRIBLE TO TOLERATE
“My dear Ceo, surely you are joking!”
“On the contrary, ‘Uncle’ Sedgeley, I am completely in earnest.” This time, Lia insisted that he take the long-handled mallet with the brightly colored bands she had offered him. “I trust that you find yellow acceptably cheerful.”
Sedgeley examined the mallet. “Since you ask, the truth is, I prefer red.”
Lia clucked at him and shook her head. “Now, now, I have claimed that color for myself. Permit me to be childish in this regard. Father, I am well aware of your own partiality to blue. Tell me, what color would you prefer, Frantisek?”
Demondion-Echeverria showed excellent, evenly spaced teeth, “As your guest, Ceo, and your subject, it would be ungenteel to tell you of my preference with regard to this game.”
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