by Ted Mayes
Commerce reported on the four hotel chains that had made the first cut to locate at Capitol – so far Hilton was moving the fastest to get things set up, but the other three weren’t far behind. At least two chain hotels were expected to be operating in the next couple of weeks. Otherwise business was booming at Capitol, especially those that catered to tourists. There was a request from a Hollywood studio for a ‘tax break’ or kickback for shooting a film on the moon – which was politely rejected.
He listened to a brief message about the meeting from the Marine praetor and was reading through some of the reports from Foreign about the various political maneuvering that was going on when Jon and Ari returned. They looked a little ‘dazed’ from the high level of the meeting. He let them sit down at opposite ends of the table before he said anything. “Well, gentlemen, how did the meeting go?”
The two looked at each other briefly. Then Ari began, “We walked in and were asked for our strategic plan almost as soon as we sat down. My family in Israel has lost a number of people to terrorists over the years. Therefore I recommended stomping down Al-Quaeda as hard and fast as it could be done. Then the assembled officers took over and sliced my idea into little tiny pieces.”
Michael waited for a moment and then said, “On the positive side, you managed to walk in there and speak coherently to more stripes than you’ve seen in your life. You maintained your composure during the ‘dissection’ of your plan. And the plan itself wasn’t that bad. It could have been much worse.” He turned to Jon and waited for him to speak.
“My suggestion was more nuanced, Sir,” Jon said. “The first stage of reaction would be ‘Nacht und Nebel’ - bombs and/or individual attackers would simply disappear, having had no effect. Stage two would be individual retaliation – bombs and attacks would be individually returned to the perpetrator. Stage three, assuming that the speculatores are competent, would be to eliminate Al-Qaeda, as Ari suggested.”
Michael smiled. “Did they ask any questions of you?”
“Yes, Sir. Questions about when those various steps should be implemented.”
“And your response to those questions?”
“Sir, my reply was basically that those were decisions that no decurion can, or should, make.”
Michael smiled once again. “Regardless of how you might feel at this moment, the two of you did well this morning. The praetor, who is as sparing of compliments as a decurion in basic, messaged me that both of you were ‘acceptable.’ Now, before you get too comfortable, you can start to work organizing this paper,” he gestured at the table in front of them, “while I do a quick ‘inspection’ of Commerce.” He left the room while Ari and Jon were still a little shell-shocked.
He spent the next hour or so on an impromptu inspection tour and when he returned to the residence, Ari and Jon had organized and arranged all the documents and the rest of the morning was very productive. When he left for lunch, he told the two to concentrate on their studies for the rest of the day. He, however, got a special treat – because of the greater crowds frequenting Ostia, and therefore more Marines on duty in the streets, the emperor had agreed to a reduced guard for him as well. Now, instead of the usual two squad parade, he only had to take one squad – and Tommy and High Eagle.
That made lunch with Amanda more of a ‘date.’ Today, she had decided to go low-brow and they met outside a chain pizza shop. When she caught sight of them, she laughed and said, “Don’t tell me that someone's realized that High Eagle is so ferocious that he can replace a squad of praetorians all by himself?”
Michael chuckled, High Eagle looked a little embarrassed and Tommy snorted and grumbled, “Only thing worse than a grizzly.” They made their way to the back of the restaurant and half of the praetorians went to get their food, while the rest remained around Michael and Amanda.
When they were settled into the booth, Amanda quietly asked, “What did First mean?”
“It’s something he’s been saying a lot recently. I believe it’s a shortened version of ‘The only thing worse than a grizzly is a female grizzly.’ If you want a full explanation of that cryptic statement, you’ll have to ask him.”
Amanda just looked at Tommy and said, “Well?”
Tommy muttered, “Already giving orders about how to take care of Mike – only going to get worse.”
Amanda looked a little shocked and then grinned. “You know, maybe I didn’t do a good enough job on that story about First – maybe I need to rewrite it and add some more detail.”
First’s head jerked back to look at her and Michael laughed. “Tommy, go, get your food, and I’ll try and negotiate a peace treaty for you.”
As Tommy moved away, Amanda glared at his back. “Female grizzly, indeed! How could he have come up with that!”
“You honestly don’t know?” Michael asked with a grin. “Let’s see, how many times did you come storming into the residence, ready to take me apart?”
“That? But that was just you!”
“Well, yes, but look at it from Tommy’s point of view. Subject only to the emperor’s veto, I hold the power of life and death over everyone in the empire, and I can make or break a career with the same limitation. More, Tommy and some of the praetorians have followed me in battle, and they know what I’m capable of. Then you come roaring into my life and spitting defiance at me. The only choices they thought of were, one, you were crazy and I’d gone soft, or, two, as they told me, I’d found a perfect mate that could stand up to me.”
“They really said that to … oh, my!”
They were quiet for a while and went up to the buffet to get their food, Michael a plate of pizza and Amanda a salad. They ate quietly and he guessed that he was finally going to hear the something that he thought had been bothering her since her return. After they were finished eating, he found her staring solemnity at him. “I guess we did react strongly towards each other from the beginning.”
“Strongly enough that the empress noticed it.”
“Yes, but, … I think there are some potentially major differences between us. If we were going to move forward, I think you would choose matrimonium again.”
“I never could see the point in planning to fail.” She gave him a questioning look. “Coniugium, with its assumption that the relationship is going to fail and end, and the two people are going to go on to other people, always seemed counter-productive and pointless to me.”
“But what … what if I can’t match the kind of dedication that you have?”
“Let me see, are you talking about the same girl who was determined to go to Vassar, to go into journalism, but stay out of the family business, all against her father’s wishes? The same girl who seemed determined to fight me every step of the way, and was determined to get back into the empire? The same girl who, on a number of different occasions objected, very nicely, of course, that the emperor shouldn’t be doing what he had chosen to do? That’s the girl who doesn’t have dedication?”
“You make it sound so unusual, so extraordinary.”
Michael grinned. “I do believe that I remember Bethany Jordan saying that very same thing about your article on her – and what was your response?”
“But she was, is, unusual and extraordinary!” He just looked at her. “But, if we were to ‘move forward’, how can you be sure that things would last?”
“Because I will love you. I will protect and take care of you. I will share everything with you to my dying breath. Not that it will be perfection, because I’m sure I’ll make lots of mistakes – but I’m also sure you will hold me accountable.”
“But what if I’m not sure I can do it?”
“You mean, besides the fact that the emperor and empress, whom I greatly respect, think you can do it?” She nodded. “Even if you’re not sure, I trust you.”
16 – March 1994
Thursday was Beth’s 18th birthday and it started out a little strange. Mr. Simpson had dismissed 2nd hour Physics II a little early and had asked Be
th to stay for a moment. He’d told her that he’d felt uncomfortable keeping the lunar and Martian samples for himself. He’d made arrangements to keep them on display, on permanent loan, at the science department of his old school, UMKC. She was a little confused by that, and even more so when Mr. Simpson asked her if that was okay. She’d told him that the samples were his, and he was free to do whatever he wanted with them. All she hoped for was that he wouldn't tell people that the samples came from her – and he promised he wouldn’t tell anyone.
The other thing that was strange that day was that she noticed that some, or rather, more, of her classmates were coming to her to ask her questions – questions about how to apply to the University, how to get into the Marines, how to ‘join’ the Empire. She was uncomfortable enough about the questions that she promised to ask and find out. She decided that she’d rather get an official answer, preferably printed out, rather than answer all sorts of individual questions.
She survived the school day, somehow, but the day was just as weird when she got to the office. It seemed that almost everyone was in an uproar. Thankfully, Sigrid had fielded all the questions earlier in the day and had passed the inquiries up the line to request an answer. Unfortunately, even though the answers had been delivered, the scientists wanted it from her.
The scientists concentrating on Mars had demanded a answer on why the Martian magnetosphere had increased in strength and why there was more nitrogen in the Martian atmosphere. Beth repeated the Imperial answer that an experiment was being conducted on the effect of a magnetosphere on the Martian atmosphere.
When one of scientists burst out angrily that the Empire was corrupting Mars, making the search for life on Mars virtually impossible, Beth had replied, “The Mars expedition has been in place for almost seven months. You have been given all the information that we have from the first planetary survey. Now, the civilian scientist have been there for almost five months and they have been given almost everything they have requested. By the figures I have been given, they have run tests to determine if life existed on Mars 50-100 times a day for almost 150 days. Now, Dr. Lynch, has there been any definite, positive evidence of life in those ten-thousand-plus tests?”
“Well, no, nothing that we can be absolutely certain about.”
“Have the civilian scientists been purposely looking in the wrong places for evidence of life?”
“Of course not!”
“Have any imperials failed to help in any experiments or tests?”
“No.”
“Then how can you say that the Empire has made the search for life impossible? Or are you scientists simply demanding that the Empire do nothing until you have examined every square centimeter of the Martian surface, which, if my staff is correct, comes close to one and a half quintillion square centimeters?”
The scientists whose specialty was Venus had any number of complaints, all dealing with slight but definite changes to Venus’s tilt, rotation speed, and the density and content of its atmosphere. The only thing Beth could do was point to the official imperial message that various ‘experiments’ were being conducted on Venus.
Eventually the complaint came down to one scientist’s heart-felt declaration of “But you’re not allowed to do that!!”
Beth looked at the individual for a moment before answering. “Who is not allowing us to do something?”
“Mankind!” was the triumphant reply.
“Well, then, let mankind go ahead and stop the experiments.” She waited a moment or two, then went on. “Has mankind stopped the experiments yet?”
The reply was flustered and not very coherent, but the individual announced that as soon as the Empire recognized the wrongness and injustice of its actions, the Empire’s illegal and immoral experiments would, of course, come to an end.
Beth stared at the individual in amazement. She was trying to figure out what to say when five pings sounded in the room. She stiffened to attention, almost paralyzed by shock that the emperor was apparently going to speak in front of these scientists, all non-imperial. “Decurion,” the emperor said, “I hope you don’t mind that I was listening to the comments on the latest experiments that I authorized.”
All she could do was squeeze out a semi-strangled, “No, Sir!” As if it were important that she didn’t mind!
“It’s unfortunate that this had to happen on such a day,” and somehow she knew he was referring to her birthday, “but I’m afraid that while we’ve grown to expect rudeness from outsiders, we never expected to have the mentally ill sent among us. I will have Marines remove the delusional individual who thinks she speaks for humanity.” Two Marines entered the office, saluted Beth, and removed the protesting scientist. “You may now continue with your duties, and rest assured, that individual is banned from the Empire.”
Beth could barely get out a “Yes, Sir” before the five closing clicks sounded. There was a moment of quiet before Beth was surrounded by a barrage of questions she hadn’t expected. Yes, that was the emperor and that is how he normally communicates. No, I’ve been told that is not what he actually sounds like, so don’t expect to hear it on the streets. No, I’ve never heard of the emperor speaking where foreigners can hear him. I doubt his speaking here today has anything to do with me, since he said he’d been listening in to hear your comments about ‘his’ experiments. May I refer you to the news article written by Miss Amanda Ochs about what is called the ‘lack of privacy’ in the empire? The emperor, or his officers, can listen in, or ‘see in,’ at any time they feel like it.
Well, if you feel you can’t work in such a society, no one is forcing you to stay here – you may leave at any time you wish. The Marines, if I understand correctly, will escort her off imperial territory and she will not be allowed back in. We will not do anything to her material and notes, but it would be generous if some of you gathered them together and delivered them to her. How could I know whether or not she will ever get off-planet? All I know is that, as of right now, we won’t be taking her.
I don’t know. If you’d like me to ask, I’ll try and find out if there’s anything she could do to return. No, I don’t think it’s just a matter of apologizing for rudeness. As the emperor said, we’ve gotten to the point of expecting you to be rude. I believe mention was made of mental illness, of megalomania, thinking she spoke for every human being. Yes, I will inquire for you.
The scientists left in a very subdued mood. Beth penned a quick message, asking under what conditions the individual would be allowed to reenter the empire and passed it on to her centurion along with a recording of the meeting and the emperor’s message. The rest of the afternoon was relatively peaceful, although she did get a chance to understand why some of the scientists were upset. If the readings were correct, the tilt of Venus had increased by .01%; the speed of rotation had increased by the same amount; the density of the atmosphere had decreased, the amount of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide decreased and the amount of oxygen increased, all by a very small amount. At least, it seemed like a small amount until one of the scientists put it into terms of tons and miles per hour.
By quitting time, when Jon swung by to pick her up for the birthday supper and party at her parents, something else was attracting her attention. A poster, suitable for placing on the office department bulletin board, had been delivered to Beth’s office, and, supposedly, ‘to all commands.’ Given in official Latin and translated into the major Terran languages were the words “The rudeness of foreigners is not always to be tolerated – decurions are to report, centurions may recommend, praetors may ban such [rudeness].”
“Why do I get the uncomfortable feeling that I’m a public figure again?” she sighed, leaning against Jon.
“Because you’re such a smart woman,” Jon answered. “Are you ready to hear all about it?”
“Not if I’m going to be stared at by everyone topside!”
“As to that, I found a route – down a couple levels, cross the Via, up to the student park a
nd in the back door – that should keep you mostly out of sight.”
“Let’s take it and you can tell me the bad news,” she said, shooing Sigrid out of the office before locking the door. According to Jon, the afternoon’s ‘incident’ was being featured on what passed for imperial news, but Beth gave every impression of having behaved with great patience and forbearance. On the other hand, the scientists were being labeled “crassus et improbus” with all the connotations that went with those words (rude, coarse, rough, harsh, heavy, gross, stupid, crass, insensitive; wicked, morally unsound, greedy, rude, immoderate, disloyal, shameless). Instructions would soon be distributed about how to handle similar situations. All in all, Jon insisted, she had nothing to be ashamed. That might be true, but she was still grateful that they saw few people on their way to Jordan’s.
She relaxed once they got upstairs to her parents’ apartment. While the dinner was in the last stages of preparation, she played with her nephew and niece while Jon talked quietly with her father. Supper was all her favorites and Larry and Becky entertained them with all sorts of stories about what was happening at Capitol, and about the crowds of tourists and immigrants. They had the traditional birthday cake and ice cream, which Brent really loved and little Sophie was intrigued by. Beth opened her presents then, some stylish clothing from Larry and Becky and a gift certificate to her favorite boutique from her parents.
Jon’s gift was in a box the same size as his Christmas present, and she wondered what he could be getting her this time. She opened the box to find, first, another sample collection bag along with a document signed by a decurion she’d never heard of, which stated that the samples had been collected on Mercury. She looked at Jon, who simply said, “For your teacher, the rest is for you.”