New Frontiers
Page 29
“But I don’t want—”
“I know, Javas. But you will be Emperor someday. It is a responsibility you cannot avoid. Five years of training will stand you in good stead.”
The Prince sat up straighter in his bed, his face serious, his eyes meeting his father’s steadily.
“And, son,” the Emperor went on, “to be Emperor—even for five years—you must be master of your own house.”
Javas nodded. “I know, Father. I understand. And I will be.”
“Good.”
Then the prince’s knowing smile flitted across his face once again. “But tell me … suppose, while you are in transit toward Earth, I decide to move the Imperial court elsewhere? What then?”
His father smiled back at him. “I believe I will just have to trust you not to do that.”
“You would trust me?” Javas asked.
“I always have.”
Javas’s smile took on a new pleasure. “Thank you, Father. I will be waiting for you on Earth’s Moon. And for the lovely Dr. Montgarde, as well.”
Bomeer was still livid. “All this uprooting of everything … the costs … the manpower … over an unproven theory!”
“Why is the theory unproven, my friend?” the Emperor asked.
Bomeer’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s, but no words came out.
“It is unproven,” said the Emperor, “because our scientists have never gone so far before. In fact, the sciences of the Hundred Worlds have not made much progress at all in several generations. Isn’t that true, Bomeer?”
“We … sire, we have reached a natural plateau in our understanding of the physical universe. It has happened before. Our era is one of consolidation and practical applications of already acquired knowledge, not new basic breakthroughs.”
“Well, this project will force some new thinking and new breakthroughs, I warrant. Certainly we will be forced to recruit new scientists and engineers by the shipload. Perhaps that will be impetus enough to start the climb upward again, eh, Bomeer? I never did like plateaus.”
The academician lapsed into silence.
“And I see you, Fain,” the Emperor said, “trying to calculate in your head how much of your fleet strength is going to be wasted on this old man’s dream.”
“Sire, I had no—”
The Emperor waved him into silence. “No matter. Moving the capital won’t put much of a strain on the fleet, will it?”
“No, sire. But this project to save Earth…”
“We will have to construct new ships for that, Fain. And we will have to turn to the frontier worlds for those ships.” He glanced at Adela. “I believe that the frontier worlds will gladly join the effort to save Earth’s Sun. And their treasuries will be enriched by our purchase of thousands of new ships.”
“While the Imperial treasury is depleted.”
“It’s a rich Empire, Fain. It’s time we shared some of our wealth with the frontier worlds. A large shipbuilding program will do more to reconcile them with the Empire than anything else we can imagine.”
“Sire,” the Commander said bluntly, “I still think it’s madness.”
“Yes, I know. Perhaps it is. I only hope that I live long enough to find out, one way or the other.”
“Sire,” Adela said breathlessly, “you will be reuniting all the worlds of the Empire into a closely knit human community such as we haven’t seen in centuries!”
“Perhaps. It would be pleasant to believe so. But for the moment, all I have done is to implement a decision to try to save Earth’s Sun. It may succeed, it may fail. But we are sons and daughters of planet Earth, and we will not allow our original homeworld to be destroyed without striving to our uttermost to save it.”
He looked at their faces again. They were all waiting for him to continue. You grow pompous, old man.
“Very well. You each have several lifetimes of work to accomplish. Get busy, each of you.”
Bomeer’s and Fain’s images winked off immediately. Javas’s remained.
“Yes, my son? What is it?”
Javas’s ever-present smile was gone. He looked serious, even troubled. “Father … I am not going to bring Rihana to Earth with me. She wouldn’t want to come, I know—at least, not until all the comforts of the Court were established there for her.”
The Emperor nodded.
“If I’m to be master of my own house,” Javas went on, “it’s time we ended this farce of a marriage.”
“Very well, son. That is your decision to make. But, for what it’s worth, I agree with you.”
“Thank you, Father.” Javas’s image disappeared.
For a long moment the Emperor sat gazing thoughtfully at the wall where the holographic images had appeared. At last he turned to Adela.
“I believe I will send you to Earth on Javas’s ship. I think he likes you, and it’s important that the two of you get along well together.”
Adela looked almost shocked. “What do you mean by ‘get along well together’?”
The Emperor grinned at her. “That is for the two of you to decide.”
“You’re scandalous!” she said. But she was smiling too.
He shrugged. “Call it part of the price of victory. You’ll like Javas, he’s a good man. And I doubt that he’s ever met a woman quite like you.”
“I don’t know what to say…”
“You’ll need Javas’s protection and support, you know. You have defeated my closest advisors, and that means that they have become your enemies. Powerful enemies. That is also part of the price of your triumph.”
“Triumph? I don’t feel very triumphant.”
“I know,” said the Emperor. “Perhaps that’s what triumph really is: not so much glorying in the defeat of your enemies as weariness that they couldn’t see what seemed so obvious to you.”
Abruptly, Adela moved to him and put her lips to his cheek. “Thank you, sire.”
“Why, thank you, child.”
For a moment she stood there, holding his old hands in her tiny young ones.
Then she said, “I … have lots of work to do.”
“Of course. We might never see each other again. Go do your work. Do it well.”
“I will,” she said. “And you?”
He leaned back into the enfolding embrace of the bed. “I’ve finished my work. I believe that now I can go to sleep.” And with a smile he closed his eyes.
TOR BOOKS BY BEN BOVA
Able One
The Aftermath
As on a Darkling Plain
The Astral Mirror
Battle Station
The Best of the Nebulas (editor)
Challenges
Colony
Cyberbooks
Escape Plus
The Green Trap
Gremlins Go Home (with Gordon R. Dickson)
Jupiter
The Kinsman Saga
Leviathans of Jupiter
Mars Life
Mercury
The Multiple Man
Orion
Orion Among the Stars
Orion and King Arthur
Orion and the Conqueror
Orion in the Dying Time
Out of Sun
Peacekeepers
Power Play
Powersat
The Precipice
Privateers
Prometheans
The Rock Rats
Saturn
The Silent War
Star Peace: Assured Survival
The Starcrossed
Tale of the Grand Tour
Test of Fire
Titan
To Fear the Light (with A. J. Austin)
To Save the Sun (with A. J. Austin)
The Trikon Deception (with Bill Pogue)
Triumph
Vengeance of Orion
Venus
Voyagers
Voyagers II: The Alien Within
Voyagers III: Star Brothers
The Return: Book
IV of Voyagers
The Winds of Altair
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Bova is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog, a former editorial director of Omni, and a past president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. Bova is the author of more than a hundred and thirty works of science fact and fiction. He lives in Florida.
WWW.BENBOVA.NET
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NEW FRONTIERS
Copyright © 2014 by Ben Bova
All rights reserved.
Cover art by John Harris
Cover design by Emily Yolleck
A Tor Book
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ISBN 978-0-7653-7644-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5136-8 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466851368
First Edition: July 2014