My Friend the Emperor

by William Lee Gordon

  “Jac, I have no desire for the throne.”

  “And I didn’t have any desire to be your aide. We do what we have to do. You’re the only one that can claim the throne from Tauri.”

  Monica jumped in, “Jac, how could we possibly do that? We’re only one ship.”

  They both looked at the Captain who obviously wasn’t liking what he was hearing.

  “The only way I could legitimately claim the throne,” the Captain said. “Would be to take Tauri out first. I would have no idea how to go about doing that even if I wanted to.”

  “Then what will happen to the Empire?” Jac quietly asked.

  Now it was Captain’s turn to pause. After a moment he slowly shook his head and said, “I don’t really know but nothing good will come of it I’m sure. It looks as if my brother is retreating back to the Pyrenees sector and consolidating his forces there. Tauri is going to need more than her own IDF. She’s going to have to consolidate the rest of the Empire’s fleet.

  “Once she does that I suspect she’ll go after Prince Eridanus in force.”

  “Would she dare use the same tactics as she did at Mount Sinai?” Monica asked.

  There was complete silence. Contemplating destruction on that scale was almost too much for Monica’s mind to grasp.

  The problem with planetary kinetic bombardment is that there was no way to stop it. There was no defense against it. If you unleashed such an attack you’d best destroy your enemy in one fell swoop. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to stop the retaliation.

  Most professional warriors considered it a no-win situation. But most professional warriors were sane; Monica wasn’t sure that Tauri was.

  “Well, at any rate she won’t be able do anything to them for a while,” the Captain said. “In the meantime, there’s at least one IDF ship out here looking for us. I think this would be a great time to make ourselves scarce. Besides, we need to get Consuelo and her people home.”

  “But Mount Sinai doesn’t exist anymore,” Monica said.

  “That wasn’t their home,” he replied. “Mount Sinai was just a small outpost.”

  Chapter thirty-five

  ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY

  The Meri Acá

  We were skipping deep into the Hades forest.

  Imperial scouts and explorers had, of course, done this before, but the Hades Forest was a vast expanse that covered the entire width of the spiral arm. The Empire knew that there were populations and civilizations on the other side but there had been no reason to traverse that distance in centuries.

  The Halcion was a fast ship.

  What that really means is that its Gravitational Lens has the ability to accurately discriminate and focus on gravitational objects that are much further away than most other Imperial ships.

  Also, it helped if you knew where you were going.

  We had been in continual skip for an incredible 42 days when we all gathered on the bridge get a look at our destination.

  It was… phenomenal.

  We exited our skip on the outskirts of a simple five planet system. Three of the planets were large gas giants and the second of those had two habitable moons.

  What made it a stunning vista was a combination of effects. The system itself was warmed by a blue-giant star. It was located inside an exceptionally dense stellar cloud. The entire cloud was back dropped by a blood-red stellar nebula. The effect on our forward screen was that we were dropping into a red pool and then an expanding dot of purple, then blue, and then white.

  “Captain we’ve arrived in the Epsilon Sagir system,” said Felix. “I’ll have a course plotted for the moon Gallo momentarily.”

  “All traffic patterns are normal, Captain,” said Durand. “Preliminary scan discloses no obvious threats.”

  “Captain, we’re being hailed,” said Maria.

  “Put it on the screen.”

  The man that appeared certainly wouldn’t be mistaken for a normal frontiersman. On the other hand, he didn’t look like an Imperial Citizen either.

  He was clean-shaven with a full head of hair and was neatly groomed. His clothing was neat and functional but it didn’t look like a uniform.

  “We give welcome to the C.E.S. Halcyon,” the figure said. “Is Captain Acamar on board?”

  “This is he,” our Captain said. “To whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  “Ah, hello Captain. My name is Samuel Hernandez. I’d like to welcome you to this system. May I ask, are you returning people to us?”

  “The intelligence of the Meri Acá is as good as ever. Yes Samuel, we have 32 of your people onboard.”

  “So few,” he sighed. “We had hoped for more but are greatly appreciative for your help and aid.”

  The Captain’s silence showed that he wished the same.

  “We’re sending you parking orbit coordinates now. Will you require transportation?”

  “No,” the Captain responded. “Fortunately we happen to be carrying and extra troop transport.”

  ΔΔΔ

  “You may not see me for a few days,” the Captain said.

  He, Monica, and I were taking our lunch at a third story balcony restaurant in what appeared to be some kind of community holiday celebration center.

  It had taken several shuttle flights before we had finished repatriating the survivors and setting up leave schedules for our Citizens and crew.

  One of the twins, I think it was Jenna, ran up and hugged me as they were exiting the transport. “Thank you for bringing us home,” she said. “We’re going to miss you and don’t you dare leave Gallo without saying goodbye!”

  Eventually she released me from her surprisingly strong hug, wiped a tear, and then ran back to join her group.

  It was hard not to think of Gallo as a full-fledged planet. It had an atmosphere, a blue sky (for at least most of the day), and an almost normal gravity.

  The Captain had asked Monica and I to accompany him for lunch and proceeded to lead us through a surprisingly modern and clean public transportation system. Then after a short walk he’d guided us here. It was obvious he knew his way around.

  “We’re not going to be here long enough for me to get my own comms. So if it’s an emergency use Consuelo’s codes to contact me. You can also comm Felix for less important issues.”

  “You mean Felix has his own comm codes?” Monica asked.

  Grinning the Captain said, “I suspect he’s got more than one so he’ll be easy enough to get ahold of.”

  He continued, “I want both of you to spend the next couple of days familiarizing yourself with the Meri Acá society. We’ve got a lot of decisions to make and right now you both know less than half the equation.”

  With that mysterious comment the Captain suddenly looked up from our table and said, “Ah, here you are now.”

  Monica and I both stood as a fourth person joined us.

  “This is Barina. Barina, I’d like you to meet my First Officer Monica and my Aide Jac.”

  The woman in front of us was of mid-age and attractive in a full-head-of-hair sort of way. With the introduction she gave us a dazzling smile and said, “Welcome to Gallo. It will be my pleasure to show you around for the next couple of days.”

  I looked up questioningly to the Captain.

  “I suspect you’re both going to have a lot of questions, especially you Jac,” he chuckled. “Barina is an expert on Celcium Imperial culture as well as the many cultures of the Meri Acá. She has volunteered to answer your questions and be your guide.”

  Looking back at Barina he added, “I don’t envy you; Jac can ask a lot of questions.”

  I think everybody at the table except for me was grinning. Come to think of it, I guess I was kind of grinning too.

  With that, the Captain made his goodbyes and put us in Barina’s hands.

  Once he’d left the table Barina smiled and said, “Jac hasn’t finished his meal and this is a comfortable place to sit and talk, so why don’t we start by letting you as
k me any questions you already have?”

  It was true that I was eating very slowly. The foods were totally unknown to me. Even Monica had been somewhat more picky than her usual wont.

  That’s not to say the meal wasn’t good; it was just taking some getting used to.

  Once Barina had made her offer I realized that I did have a thousand questions. I had no idea where to start so I blurted out the first one that came to my mind, “What holiday is this?”

  From her expression I realized she obviously hadn’t understood my question.

  “All these people, the bright colors, this… ceremonial place. What’s it all about? What’s happening?”

  “You mean the shopping mall?” she asked.

  ΔΔΔ

  It had taken me a full day to really process what Barina had told us.

  I had finally gotten it through my head that the shopping mall was an everyday experience. It wasn’t until later that day, however, that I understood it was open to anyone, not just high government officials.

  I’ll admit that my mind was having a little trouble adjusting to the ideas on display in front of me. The next two days were to be a whirlwind and I still hadn’t grasped the essence of what made this society so different.

  Part of those confusing differences was something that at first I had only registered subconsciously.

  Everything was clean.

  I think that must be a big part of why I had assumed from the very beginning that the shopping mall was a special place. On the Capital Planet Celcium the Imperial grounds were also maintained and clean. Even Imperial ships and orbital platforms were maintained at a higher state than the surroundings I had grown up in, visited since, or viewed on the vids.

  Most of the Empire showed wear and tear.

  For her part, Barina experienced some difficulty in answering these types of questions. She knew an amazing amount about the Empire but had never lived with us. Finally she caught on to what both Monica and I were asking about.

  We had spent the afternoon walking around that same shopping mall. “Everything you see here,” she said. “Is designed to attract people. The owners of the shops keep things organized and clean and display their goods in as attractive a manner as possible. They want people to buy their products. If they didn’t do this shoppers would go to other stores that do. It’s a competition thing.”

  As soon as she explained that another ten thousand questions popped up in my mind. Monica beat me to the first.

  “You said the owners of the shops. Are you saying that a business legion doesn’t control the stores?” she asked.

  Smiling, Barina said, “We don’t have government legions. Here, individuals own the stores or groups of individuals get together to own multiple stores, but the government is forbidden from competing with the people.”

  It gets boring and repetitious to keep saying that I kept having new ideas and questions popping up in my mind but that was a continual occurrence over those next two days. I wouldn’t be able to assimilate everything I’d learned on Gallo until we’d returned to the Halcyon.

  In the meantime I realized I was enjoying myself immensely.

  And it wasn’t just me; Monica was having the time of her life.

  The variety of goods available in the shopping mall was mind-boggling. Many shoppers seemed to spend a lot a lot of time trying out various combinations of decorative clothing. We discovered that most of the stores would even let you try on the clothes before you acquired them!

  Monica and I did not succumb to that temptation although I’ll admit there was a certain allure to it.

  Monica fell in love with a sporting goods store.

  Her hunting background was in full display as she inspected bows, knives, Laz rifles and projectile weapons. She was enthralled by the survival and camping equipment on display.

  As for myself, I was particularly attracted to a store that sold net access devices.

  The technology used was much different than anything I was used to and I fell in love with it quickly.

  Barina made a gift to me of a net access device that I particularly liked. Looking very similar to Felix’s astrogation cube, it would allow me to access the Gallo net. What made it so incredible in my eyes was that it was controlled verbally and used a holographic display.

  The display wasn’t as large or as high resolution as the astrogation cube but it was more than adequate for my needs.

  And my needs were growing – it appeared that these people were making an unbelievable amount of knowledge available on the net, and I wanted to learn all of it.

  ΔΔΔ

  Monica and I were given suites in the plush hotel that was connected to the shopping mall.

  I was amazed at how tired I was at the end of the day; all we had done was walk around and ogle all kinds of goods and services.

  Barina had made it clear that we were guests and not to be afraid to order Room Service. She showed us an online directory that would guide us through the hotel’s list of amenities including a sauna, swimming pool, and a masseuse on staff.

  Monica and I were both sitting in the living area of my suite; we were both exhausted but too excited to turn in for the night.

  “Why would they place such a royal hotel next to a shopping mall that’s open to everyone?” I asked out loud. My suspicious mind was working overtime trying to figure out what I was missing.

  As I gazed at Monica leaning back on the sofa with her eyes closed, my mind briefly flickered back to Valys. After all, she’d been the one to first teach me not to trust anyone.

  “Because the hotel is open to everyone,” Monica said without opening her eyes. “The best way to look at it is as if everybody here has the same rights as the Royal Family.”

  “That can’t be right…” I said as much to myself as to Monica. “Our Empire is designed to have the most social equality possible, yet…”

  “Yet some people are more equal than others, and Citizens are more equal than everyone. And then of course there’s the Royal Family and their cronies…” Now it was Monica’s turn to let her voice trail off.

  I suddenly set up and punched the comm unit next to my chair.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hold on,” I said… And then, “Yes, I’d like to make a reservation tomorrow morning for a massage. 9 AM? Oh yes, 0900 would be perfect… By the way, I have a question for you. How do you know that I’m entitled to schedule a massage? Yes, I’m aware that there’s a fee attached but is there no other privilege required? Anyone can walk in and request a massage? Okay, thank you.”

  Monica was staring at me, waiting for my confirmation.

  “You’re right. The services are for anyone.”

  Monica rubbed her eyes and said, “Do you think everyplace on this moon is the same way?”

  “I can’t believe it would be,” I replied. “But let’s make it a point to ask Barina tomorrow; she’s asked us to meet her midmorning for breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant.”

  “Which one?” she asked while looking at the hotel’s list of guest services.

  “You mean there’s more than one?” I said surprisingly.

  “According to this there are three restaurants, a coffee shop, and a late night bar.”

  Once Monica had returned to her room I undressed and slipped under the covers. I really wanted to play with my net access cube but thought it best I take a short nap first.

  As I lay there my fatigue made it difficult to focus on any single thought or revelation. All I really knew is that I was lying in the most comfortable bed that I… could… remember…

  ΔΔΔ

  I awoke early the next morning, more from habit than anything else. My subconscious must’ve been working overtime because my mind was full of ideas and questions.

  It was way too early to make any conclusions but I had trained for civil service. With that comes at least a fundamental understanding of economics. I had dreamed of someday being able to make my
world rich. If I could just eliminate the inefficiency and waste that I had seen all around me I had calculated that our planet would be a much more prosperous place.

  But here… they were doing more than that. There were still many more questions than answers but it seemed that the efficiencies were coming from the bottom up, not the top down. People were working under different motivations. Hmm… I’d have to put more thought into that.

  Monica and I were scheduled to have all of today and all of tomorrow to continue exploring this world. This is what I was thinking about as I was perfunctorily going through my morning routine. I was comfortably lost in thought when I stepped into the shower.