by Mike Smith
A great darkness swept over the Imperium, as one-by-one the lights were extinguished, until none remained. The people cried out for a hero, but none was ever forthcoming. They had all long since packed their bags and left, or perhaps they just never existed?
—From the journal of Lord Alexander Greystone,
Arcturus, Sirius System, 2544
My earliest memories were of sitting in my father’s library, in one of his high-backed, worn, leather chairs listening to the crackle of the fire, feeling its warmth lull me gently to sleep. That fire was always burning brightly, even at the height of summer, but I was too young to understand that some chills went soul-deep and could never be banished. I used to sit there, watching my father, seated as always behind his desk, scratching away with a pen into his leather bound journal. For many years I thought this was synonymous with family, just the two of us, alone, in that room with the comfortable silence resting between us.
I never knew my mother.
I think for many years I didn’t even know what a mother was. It was just my father and I. He meant the world to me, my sun and my moon, the centre of my universe. I vaguely recall another, older woman, but one day she simply vanished and I never saw her again. I asked my father about her once, but he simply brushed aside the question, explaining that she couldn’t visit any more. It wasn’t until I was older that I found out that she had died, passing away in her sleep one night. Maybe that was why my father never mentioned my mother? Doing this would have involved a long, and complex, discussion about life—and death. Perhaps that was just too much for him to cope with, already having experienced so much grief in his life, now left to raise a young boy, alone. While our home was never filled with joy or laughter, I remember feeling safe and loved. Warmed, both by the fire and my father’s constant, reassuring, presence. The knowledge that no matter what happened he would always be there for me, to support me, certain that he would never allow any harm to befall me.
As I got older and started attending the local school, I met others and heard them describe their families, only then did I begin to understand just how different mine was. For one thing I quickly began to notice a distance between the other children and me. While they would be friends with me and talk to me, there was always a barrier between us that I couldn’t overcome. For a long time, I thought that it was because of me. It wasn’t me of course, but my father.
Lord Alexander Greystone.
It wasn’t just the title, or the imposing residence that I grew up in, but the almost mythical aura that had built up around my father over the years. For a start, nobody was exactly sure what my father looked like, as he hadn’t been seen in public for almost twenty-five years. Those that did remember him did so with a certain degree of apprehension—and fear. For the story had long persisted that he had once killed five men with lightning bolts. I, of course, dismissed this as absurd. My father was an imposing man but he could no more throw lightning than I. As for him ever killing anybody, I similarly rejected this. My father was a quiet, introspective man, who preferred the solitude of his own company and would never hurt anybody.
Events later in my life would disprove many of these assumptions, but I am getting ahead of myself.
The other thing that set me apart from the other children was my education. Not the reading, writing or basic arithmetic that we learnt during lessons, but the ones I received outside school—from my father. They started off simply as bedtime stories in my father’s library, surrounded by his books, seated around that blazing fire. He would read to me until I fell asleep in his arms, but what he was actually doing was giving me an education that went far beyond most.
For I learnt about history and events from other distant worlds.
He educated me about the Imperium, the various High-Lords and occasionally Ladies, that ruled it, but not as it was taught in school. There they taught us these people were Gods that walked among us, nurtured us and guided us. Instead I learnt the truth, that they were nothing of the sort, but just men and women, like you and I.
Heresy.
He would often read me stories about our distant home world, Earth, before the great exodus. Describing the planet and the massive starships that carried us from there, almost four centuries earlier. He showed me pictures of both from his library, ancient books that perhaps had been carried on one of those very vessels? For every picture of such ships gliding through the heavens, he showed me many more of Earth, with such strange plants and creatures. Many of them made me laugh, as they seemed such fantastical things. Animals with necks so long that they could reach tall trees and another with a nose long enough that it could consume food and water from the very ground.
I once asked my father why we would have ever left such a wondrous place, as it sounded so different from our current home. At this question his expression turned grim and he described an Earth that was groaning under the weight of overpopulation, widespread famine and pollution, lacking even the most basic of resources, as most had long since been depleted. Eventually it became far more cost effective to mine these on other planets within the System. Firstly, the rare precious metals that underpinned much of our modern technology, then later, with the adoption of fusion power, the raw isotopes that fuelled those reactors.
The situation on Earth however continued to deteriorate, to the point that many were happy to escape to artificial colonies. First on the Moon and then later the inner planets. Even more desperate communities, those persecuted for their religious or political beliefs, took the ultimate decision of joining colony ships heading out of the System, for many life-bearing planets had been discovered decades earlier by remote observation. These were all multi-generational ships, as the nearest systems were dozens of light-years distant and it took decades of acceleration to even approach the speed of light and just as long to decelerate.
Most were lost.
The limiting factor being the speed of light, that universal speed limit that stubbornly refused to yield. In the end it took a brilliant young physicist to turn the problem on its head, to come up with a solution. For if the speed of light was a universal physical constant, then they just needed to find a different universe! Building on research conducted early in the twenty-first century by his great-grandfather, Miguel Alcubierre, he built the first working Alcubierre drive. This involved generating a dimensional bubble of the thirteenth dimension, long having been predicted by string theory, this dimension was unique, a mirror of our own, but consisting of negative mass. This resulted in an energy-density field lower than that of the surrounding space, causing space in front of the drive to contract and space behind it to expand, resulting in faster-than-light travel.
With a working prototype, but unable to take it to the next level, Alcubierre approached Edward Hadley, a pioneer in early, deep space, propulsion. The proposal was idealistic—a joint venture to develop the drive, for the betterment of humanity.
Edward Hadley, CEO of Hadley Industries was a visionary and immediately recognised the awesome potential for the new drive. The answer to over-population and the lack of resources; humanity could now escape to the stars! He quickly agreed to the proposal by Alcubierre and soon a working production engine was developed, proving beyond any doubt that the technology worked.
Hadley then murdered Alcubierre, forever ensuring that the invention remained his secret, alone.
Hadley Industries proceeded to market and sell the only faster-than-light engine, to any and all that could afford one. For Hadley was a visionary and had clearly seen the potential—for vast profits. With the first batch of Alcubierre drives retailing at a little over one billion dollars, per engine, they were far beyond the reach of ordinary individuals. Indeed all the first batch were purchased by multi-national companies. What then followed was something akin to the American gold rush of the late nineteen-century, with a frantic scramble to acquire the nearest planets, either rich in mineral resources or with a habitable atmosphere.
As the only su
pplier of faster-than-light engines, within a decade Hadley Industries had become the richest corporation on the planet. Meanwhile Edward Hadley, founder and sole proprietor, became the world’s richest man, with a net personal wealth in excess of one trillion. He was succeeded by his son, the first High-Lord of the Twenty Second Century, but others were soon to follow.
The multi-national companies that initially purchased the Alcubierre drives were soon able to undercut all their competitors, with access to cheap, limitless resources. Within the next few decades a massive round of consolidation had taken place, with these companies growing rapidly and acquiring any and all competitors.
By the end of the Twenty Third Century, only a few dozen mega-corporations remained in existence. This was a golden age for humanity—and government coffers. For the drives brought rapidly falling prices, accelerated growth and tax receipts swelled. However, this was not to last.
Hadley Industries, for years having been plagued with industrial espionage and an ever-increasing tax bill, were the first to move their entire operation off-planet and the rest soon followed. Within the first half of the Twenty Fourth Century, corporation tax fell by seventy-five percent and within a decade this was matched by a fall in personal income tax, as the workforce was forced to follow the companies off-planet. By the end of the Twenty Fourth Century central government had practically ceased to exist, instead replaced by local administrative bodies, run by committees, overseeing local issues only.
In the two hundred years since the invention of the Alcubierre drive, over three hundred planets had been settled, ninety-nine percent of them run by the mega-corporations. They controlled every aspect of daily life, they made all the significant decisions and, in effect, they became company planets. It became known as the Imperium, which roughly translates as ‘power to command’ and the mega-corporations had all the power, especially those who owned and ran them.
For many of these companies, long plagued by poor succession planning, had learnt from their Chaebol family-controlled cousins, which bred nepotism and cronyism. Over the years they had all slowly evolved into multi-generational family dynasties. The owners of these companies had wealth beyond imagination, income that made the combined gross domestic product of Earth look like loose change. With little ability to expand to new markets, for each mega-corporation guarded their own markets jealously, pleasure became their number one priority and their appetite for it grew with no bounds. People, ships and even planets simply became playthings for them; a deadly engagement between two mega-corporations involving several dozen warships wasn’t likely to even rouse the owner from his, or her, slumber.
They became the High-Lords of the Imperium, answerable to nobody, beholden to nothing. With excessive genetic manipulation over the years, they had extended their lifespan considerably, immune to almost all diseases. For most people they became Gods, and yet even Gods can sometimes stumble and fall.
*****
“Michael!”
I looked up towards the origin of the call, as my name was shouted from the other side of the river. River was probably an over-exaggeration as it was really nothing more than a fast flowing stream, running parallel to the path that I had been following. It was a well-trod, dirt path and for good reason. Having trekked this route, twice per day for the past ten years, I assumed that I had mostly formed it. “Have you heard the news?” the voice carried on regardless, unaware of my own internal musings.
I recognised the red face and puffing cheeks of my childhood friend. Even from a young age Nicholas, or Nick as he preferred to be called, had been overweight and age had not been kind to him—that and the cream-puff cakes that he was overly fond of. With bright blue eyes, a golden mane of hair and a fondness for garish coloured clothing, he had always been popular with the ladies. The two of us couldn’t have been more different; as compared to the shorter, stockier man, I stood a foot taller, with black hair, brown eyes and darker skin tones. Probably from all the sun that I received trekking the several kilometres each day from my father’s home to the Capital. In reality it was nothing more than a small town, where I worked in the one and only spaceport.
“What news?” I shouted back with a frown. I’d spent most of the day buried inside a small planetary shuttle, trying to track down the intermittent power loss to the engine. After ten hours of trying without success, I was hungry, tired and already in a foul mood.
“You mean that you really haven’t heard?” Nick exclaimed in delight, as it was extremely rare for him to know something that I didn’t.
“I’m hungry. I’m tired. I still have a long trek home. So why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me, okay?” I replied, rubbing my forehead tiredly. Trying hard to supress the irritation in my voice, but failing miserably.
“It’s your fault that you have to walk so far every day. I’ve been telling you for years now that you should buy an apartment in town. I don’t understand why you won’t.”
I only just supressed the urge to roll my eyes, as it was a common disagreement between the two of us and one that we had a couple of times a week. Secretly, I thought that the only reason that Nick kept badgering me about it, was that he had few friends and wanted somebody to accompany him out with the local girls, when they all congregated in the evening, after the few factories and offices had shut. “You know why. I won’t leave my father there, alone.”
“I’m sure that he can survive by himself,” Nick shrugged. “Anyway from what you tell me he isn’t much company anyway, either engrossed in some book or another, or busy writing away in his journal. By the way, why doesn’t he use a data-recorder, like the rest of us?”
“Probably because he would have no way to charge it. We’re not connected to the town’s energy distribution grid, remember?”
“I don’t see why not. According to my father, yours is as rich as Croesus.”
“Croesus?” I echoed with a smirk.
Nick had the decency to blush before muttering, “Okay, so maybe I read a little of that book that you lent me, although I didn’t understand much. Was it really written about some fella that lived on another planet?”
“Croesus was King of Lydia, a kingdom that once existed on Earth, about three thousand years ago,” I confirmed.
“Cor, blimey!”
“Nick, what was the news?”
“What news?” he replied, confused.
I took a deep breath, trying to hold back my scream of frustration at my easily distracted friend. “The news that you came running up to tell me not five minutes ago, desperate to share with me, you know the news that you haven’t told me yet.”
“Oh, that news.”
“And?”
“The SPC Orion intercepted a refugee transport heading into the System and according to the Tower there were thirty refugees on-board, including men, women and children.”
I stumbled to a halt, deep in thought. To describe the Orion as a system patrol craft was stretching incredulity to the breaking point. It was a hurriedly patched up freighter with a few bolted on laser emitters, that fed directly from its ancient and extremely unreliable, ion engine. I should know having spent several months making it flight worthy, or near enough. Suddenly his words clicked in my head and I looked at my old school friend with sudden concern. “What do you mean there were thirty refugees on-board?”
“They’re all dead now. The Orion opened fire on the freighter after they refused to turn back,” Nick’s response was muffled, as he was busy digging through a small rucksack that he had been carrying on his shoulder, finally withdrawing a sealed container with much delight.
“They’re what?” I clenched my teeth, biting back my anger. After all it wasn’t Nick’s fault, he was just the messenger.
“Dead,” Nick repeated, unperturbed. “I’m surprised that you didn’t already know, after all it was your father that ordered the Orion to intercept the freighter.” He finally looked up, after managing to unseal the vacuum container that had stored the
cream cake perfectly, but I was already long since gone.
*****
The sound of the door being flung open and slamming into the wall reverberated like a gunshot, and I winced at the sound. They probably heard the bang back at the spaceport, almost ten kilometres distant. While I could not take my ire out on Nick, my father was a different matter entirely, from what Nick had said he was likely to be the cause.
The noise caused Lucifer to raise his head sleepily, giving me an indignant glare, before settling back down to sleep in front of the fire. Lucifer was my father’s ever-present Wolfhound, a term coined by me from a young age, as nobody was quite sure of his pedigree, but I was convinced he once must have been a wolf after my father showed me a picture of one.
The noise barely disturbed my father, pausing writing in his journal for a moment, before resuming. “Close the door behind you,” he insisted, without even looking up. “There is a terrible draught in this house.”
“Well, perhaps it’s time you find a new, smaller one,” I snapped back, ignoring his subtle rebuke. “What do you have, thirty-eight rooms, for just the two of us?”
“Thirty-nine,” he grunted. It was a long-standing disagreement between the two of us, if the twenty-foot square cloakroom counted.
Ignoring his response, I stalked forward to tower over him, as he was still seated behind his desk. The sun had set over an hour before and it was now dark outside, hence the only source of illumination in the room was the fire, which cast long, dancing shadows. Not that my father seemed to notice the lack of light, or was particularly moved by it, as he had excellent night vision. Eventually he sighed, closing his journal, putting his pen aside and giving me his full attention.
It was another peculiar thing that I had noticed about him. When others paid me close attention, they might look aside, fidget or interrupt. My father never did any of these things. He simply sat there, perfectly still and stared at me with his dark, troubled eyes, which so closely mirrored my own. Unlike my shoulder length, black, wavy locks, I noticed that my father’s close cut hair was starting to show flecks of grey. He looked tired, more anxious than I ever remember seeing him. More than that, he simply looked old and it came as a sudden shock to me that my father was almost seventy. It was the first time that I realised that he wasn’t going to live forever and that one day I would have to go on without him; to step into his shoes and to make the sort of life-and-death decisions that he had just so recently made.