“I can do that,” Montefiore said.
“Very well, Teresa. If you wouldn’t mind. Then we can each pick which one we are most comfortable with, perhaps modify them a bit to suit us.”
Goulet reviewed the sector governors’ responses to his request for input with increasing dismay. He had asked for changes they wanted to Imperial rule in order to better serve the people of their sectors. What he got was changes they wanted to Imperial rule in order to better serve themselves.
None of which would be good for the Empire as a whole.
Bastards. They put him in this position, and now they wanted to manipulate it to their advantage against him. There was no question about that.
What to do about it was an open question, however.
They were meeting in channel 22, the simulation of the Emperor’s office.
“Thank you for meeting with me, Ms. Peters.”
“I have served the Throne all my life, Your Majesty. Thank you for letting me attend in VR.”
Goulet nodded.
“I recently asked the sector governors to prepare for me their desires for changes to Imperial rule, Ms. Peters. I had planned meetings to discuss this topic, but Mr. Hayes encouraged me to get their major talking points in writing so that I might be better prepared.”
“That seems sensible, Sire.”
“I thought so, too, Ms. Peters, and it has proved so in hindsight. I have received their written proposals. Where I had asked what changes they desired to better serve their subjects, they gave me the changes they desired to better serve themselves.”
Peters nodded.
“What sort of changes, Sire?”
“Sector governor control of the military in their sectors, including the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Police. Ability to impose tariffs, even to ban certain imports. Increasing or eliminating the caps on sector taxes. Even the ability to control all future successions by electing the new Emperor.”
“Consolidating all meaningful power in the sectors and generating a revenue stream through higher taxes and through corruption and payoffs from their cronies, Sire.”
“Yes, Ms. Peters. That much I understand. What I don’t understand is how they can be so blind. It would do nothing but create barriers between the sectors and reduce the Emperor to a figurehead. Why, you could even have military conflict between sectors.”
Peters nodded.
“And anything they want that I give them represents a loss to someone else. To the Throne, or the public, or specific companies and individuals.”
Peters nodded again.
“You don’t seem surprised by any of this, Ms. Peters.”
“I’m not, Sire. In fact, I predicted it.”
“How could you know, Ms. Peters?”
“Because I’ve had the view from the top for so long, Sire. You’re just now getting the view from the top.”
Peters sighed.
“Your Majesty, it is in the nature of government that the only things it can provide to someone it must first take from someone else. Government at its core is not a creative force, it is a redistributive force. If you are going to provide defense in the form of the Imperial Navy or Imperial Marines, you are going to have to take the funds for that from someone else. If you are going to provide food or clothing or medicine or schooling to one group of people, you are going to have to take the funds for that from another group of people. That’s what government does. In some sense, that’s all it does.
“Most of this it doesn’t do very well. Taxes are filtered through an expensive bureaucracy, mistakes are made in how the money is collected and where it goes, and opportunities for corruption are everywhere. Bobby understood all this. He worked to make government as lean and as uncorrupted as it could be.
“For the Sintar/Alliance and Sintar/DP Wars, for example, we actually fielded smaller forces than our enemies. In numbers of ships, in numbers of men. We had about three people in uniform per hundred thousand people protected. That is the smallest ratio of any military in history. Yet we won. Through a combination of superb technology, good leadership, and loyal and well trained troops, we won.
“But for most things, if you leave people alone, they do better for themselves than the government can do for them. There are exceptions. Places where the government has a unique economy of scale that outweighs its inefficiencies. Defense. Communications, with the QE network and universal VR. Education, where we purchase and distribute educational curricula over VR. Some vaccines and medicines that take a lot of expensive research but have low marginal costs.
“You see this now. The view from the top. When someone asks you for something – and as Emperor, everyone will always be asking you for something – you can’t turn around and get it from someone above you. You’re the top of the government. For you to give something to someone, you have to reach down to take it from someone else.
“That’s true of most of their requests. Tariffs between sectors raises prices for people in their sector, reduces profits for companies outside their sector, and allows them to protect companies within their sector, often in return for corruption payments. It undermines economic incentives and allows them to pick winners and losers.
“Increasing the caps on sector taxes allows them to take more money from some people, and give more money to others, to pick winners and losers among their own people, after skimming off a big chunk of it to run yet more bureaucracy.
“The other requests are requests for you to decrease your own power – to give up control of the succession, to give up control of the military – and to cede that power to them.
“And you’re right. It increases the separation of sectors, increases friction between sectors, and even gives sectors the power to relieve those frictions through war on each other. It’s a prescription for the end of the Empire.
“You can see all this now, Your Majesty. You didn’t see it before. And it’s not that you weren’t warned.”
Goulet nodded. A lesser man might be angry about being lectured so, but Goulet was an inherently honest man, and that honesty extended to his own assessment of himself.
“You’re right, Ms. Peters. I didn’t see it. I expected better of my sector governors.”
“Which was your major mistake, Sire. You and the sector governors are structural antagonists – people bound to be at odds with each other based solely on the positions you hold with respect to each other. You both need each other, but neither of you can trust the other.”
“And this is normal, you say, Ms. Peters?”
“Of course, Sire. You are the source of the sector governors’ power, but, more importantly, you are also the limit on the sector governors’ power. They don’t like those limits, but they know they need the Empire. Few of them would survive without it.”
“Because head of state requires a different skill set.”
“Yes, Sire. And people with those skill sets would rise and replace them. And they know it.
“At the same time, you need them as well. The Empire’s organization is very flat as it is. Even without the military and the bureaucracy, seventy-nine sector governors is a lot of direct reports. You need them to administer the sectors, but you can’t trust them not to try to chip away at your power and aggrandize themselves.”
“Which is where the Earth Sector Crisis came from, Ms. Peters.”
“Yes, Sire. Earth Sector and the other three sectors which were more quietly cleaned up.”
Goulet nodded and sighed. There was a tension of forces here, a balance, which Trajan had maintained for decades, and which his fellow sector governors had upset when fate found the named Heir to the Throne far away from Imperial City when the Emperor had died.
“So what is to be done, Ms. Peters?”
“Have Hawking and Sounder returned requests, Sire?”
“Yes, Ms. Peters.”
“Aggressive ones or mild ones, Sire?”
“Aggressive, Ms. Peters.”
Peters nodded.
“And can you tell from the other responses who they’re teamed with?”
“Yes, actually, Ms. Peters. Montefiore and Thornton for sure, and probably Lewis.”
Peters nodded.
“The Five Musketeers.”
Peters sighed.
“Well, Sire, you could take those five out and shoot them.”
“On what charge, Ms. Peters?”
“Treason, Your Majesty.”
“That would never hold up in court, Ms. Peters.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Sire, but in any case it doesn’t need to. Under the Imperial system of high justice, you can find them guilty of treason and have them shot on your own say-so. Only the Emperor can do that, but you don’t need to prove the charges other than to yourself.”
“That seems extreme, Ms. Peters.”
“For interfering with the succession of the rightful Heir to the Throne, and for forming a group of sector governors coordinating and acting together? Bobby warned the sector governors against alliances, Sire. You’ve viewed that warning several times yourself.”
“Do you know what Emperor Trajan would do in a case like this, Ms. Peters?”
“Yes, Sire. Of course.”
“And that is?”
“They’d be dead already.”
Goulet reflected on the interview with Peters that evening, sitting in the living room of the Imperial Residence after dinner. He had been widowed years before when Madeline had died in a groundcar accident. He missed her now and had no confidant to talk things out with.
Of course, he had talked them out with Peters, but her viewpoint was so different as to appear almost alien. He couldn’t simply yell ‘Off with their heads!’ any time someone disagreed with him. There should be some peaceful way to solve this. Some negotiation. Some politicking.
He just didn’t know what it was.
For her part, Peters was reflecting on the interview with Goulet as well. He was a fool. A well meaning fool, but a fool nonetheless. Treason in the Empire was like a weed in the garden. When you saw it, you pulled it out by the roots or you got more, and quickly. Leaving treason unpunished gave you nothing but more treason.
The Throne had to assert its authority, and Goulet just wasn’t the Emperor to do it. When would he finally tell her he understood that to be true?
The Empire, Peters knew, was based on the theory that a benevolent dictatorship was the best form of government, if you could only ensure the benevolent part. She now knew that wasn’t enough. A benevolent, inept dictatorship wouldn’t do. The Empire needed a benevolent, competent dictatorship.
And if Goulet didn’t admit his incompetence soon, she may have to take matters into her own hands.
Resupply Of The Illustrious
Seven weeks after he had spoken with Gerry Conner, Bernd Stauss got a message from Section Six. It was encrypted, but decrypted with his personal key.
To: Bernd Stauss
From: Marge Watson
Subject: Resupply
Resupply surplus carrier ICV Otto Stauss in one week to ten days. Best captain. No QE radio. No visual communications. Coordinates attached.
Stauss Freight Services had never actually named a ship after its founder. The whole company, after all, bore his name. But Bernd Stauss was sure his grandfather would be proud of this ship.
For Bernd Stauss wasn’t stupid. He knew what was going on. It wasn’t like the Imperial Navy lost a carrier every other week. The ICV Otto Stauss had to be the HMS Illustrious, and that meant the rightful Heir to the Throne had not been lost.
Karl Linden, with forty years in space and twenty-five years as a captain with Stauss Interstellar, was no longer the captain of the ICV Abigail Sturm. As a senior captain, he had a newer, bigger ship, the ICV Harold M. Beecher. The crew called her the ‘Hairy Bitch,’ but never to Linden’s face.
Yes, Karl Linden had spaced for a long time, but he’d never had an assignment like this. The bill of lading was half reaction mass, half food supplies, over two thousand containers worth. That wasn’t a problem for the Harold M. Beecher, which could take up to three thousand containers if they were light enough.
No, what was weird about this assignment was that he was getting orders directly from Bernd Stauss. That and they had sat here around Alexa for a week with no destination yet.
Linden got a meeting request from Bernd Stauss, and he took it immediately. He found himself sitting in the simulation of a well-appointed office, presumably a virtual copy of Bernd Stauss’s office on Hesse.
“Hello, Mr. Stauss.”
“Captain Linden. Please sit down.”
The captain sat while Stauss was looking at papers.
“You are in position on Alexa?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have a triple load?”
“Yes, sir, if those resupply requirements are right. They seem high.”
“O, they are, they are, Captain. It’s a big ship. That’s part of why this has to be so quiet.”
Bernd Stauss leaned forward conspiratorially.
“You see, Captain, one of our subsidiaries is doing some prospecting in an uninhabited system. It could be very lucrative. But I’m not in any negotiations yet, because they’ll want to charge me for the prospecting itself, see?”
“I see, Mr. Stauss.”
“Now you know how prospecting works. Lots of samples to take, all that sort of thing. Lots of running around, back and forth to the planet, the asteroid, whatever. So there’s a lot of small-ship work that needs doing. This is the other part that needs to be kept a secret. I picked up an Imperial Navy attack ship carrier.”
“A carrier, sir?”
“Yes, Captain. Surplus, of course. Now I don’t need the Imperial Navy wondering why there’s an extra one floating about, you see, but one must make prototypes, and sometimes they aren’t deliverable as-is. It’s easier to make a new one. But then you have this extra ship, and it’s perfect for running a lot of little parasite ships around, like, oh, for prospecting, for instance.”
“I see, sir.”
“Now it’s all legal and all, but I’d just as soon not have to answer a lot of questions about it right now. So I need you to go into the system, meet up with this ship, transfer cargo, and then leave the extras there, all blocked up, so they can restock again themselves with their cargo shuttles. Make sense, Captain?”
“Yes, sir. How do we get back into hyperspace?”
“Oh, she’s fully equipped, Captain. She’ll project a hypergate for you.”
“OK, that’ll work, sir.”
“But to keep our little secrets, we need the QE radio shut off when you drop into the system. You’ll have to use radar and radio to find each other. We need you to have no visual communications with the other ship. No external cameras on except for the people doing the work. All that sort of thing. And you should keep these coordinates and ship name to yourself. You, the navigator, the executive officer, sure. But not general knowledge.”
Stauss pushed Linden the coordinates of the system.
“I understand, sir.”
“You’re the best ship’s captain I have, Captain Linden. I very much need to have this done right. I’m counting on you.”
“You can rely on me, sir. Consider it done.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Bernd Stauss cut the channel.
A week’s spacing out of Alexa, the Harold M. Beecher dropped out of hyperspace into the uninhabited system of Bernd Stauss’s coordinates. Captain Linden hoped the hell they found another ship there. It was a long walk home without hyperspace.
At least they’d have plenty of supplies.
But they saw the other ship within minutes, from the radiation signature of its drive. It was across the system, so that radiation signature had been emitted half an hour ago.
They were under way to the location of the other ship when it dropped out of hyperspace behind them. After half an hour, they had picked up the Harold M. Be
echer’s signature and simply popped over through hyperspace.
“That’s some nice navigating right there,” Chris Jackson, the navigator, said. “Somebody over there knows what they’re doing.”
The other ship’s transponder was squawking the ICV Otto Stauss, as expected, and was outrunning the Harold M. Beecher. It would be pulling up alongside in minutes.
Linden came over to Jackson’s station.
“You spent some time supplying Imperial Navy ships, didn’t you, Chris.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You ever dock up with one of those big Victorious-class carriers?”
“Oh, sure. Big bastards, but it’s not that bad if the guy on the other side knows what he’s doing. The Imperial Navy guys are pretty good.”
Jackson looked back down at his display, then snapped his head back up to Linden.
“Wait. Are you saying....”
But Linden was holding a finger up to his mouth, and Jackson just said, “Yes, Sir.”
Jackson turned back to his display and started entering computerized docking parameters for a Victorious-class attack ship carrier. The computer considered the ‘ICV Otto Stauss’ for several seconds, and then pinged a ‘Ready’ signal. The parameters matched.
“I’ll be damned,” Jackson said.
He looked over to the captain, who just nodded and, once again, held a finger to his lips.
For as big as the Harold M. Beecher was, the carrier was bigger. The two behemoth ships, under computer control and human oversight, maneuvered up next to each other, both under one gravity of acceleration, until their grapples could pull them together and latch them up. The Harold M. Beecher surrendered her helm to the Otto Stauss so the two ships could maneuver together.
The container transfer then started. The Otto Stauss had dropped its empties, so it was a simple matter of transferring full containers across, and that was all done by machinery.
Linden got a voice only call from Captain Julia Bianchi of the Otto Stauss.
EMPIRE: Succession Page 12