After my face was thoroughly licked, Nat said, “It’s as safe here as anywhere else, now, and most of the children are busy with the war, so I thought you could keep him.”
I dragged them both off to the terrace outside my room, and Nat and I sat on the wall facing the sea, while Goldie put his head on my knees and Nat talked to me of strategy, of victories, of troop movements, of some of the weapon caches they found, of bits of documentation the Good Men had suppressed and which would come to me in time.
It was a beautiful spring day, with a soft breeze blowing, warm and salty around us. I told him a little of what I was doing, and he said, “I know. You’re well on your way to becoming a living legend. Forget the generals and everyone who actually fights. When historians write about this period, it will all be Lucius Keeva. Lucius Keeva came up with the idea, created the revolution and fought the war singlehanded.”
I’d smiled at him and shrugged. “I just can’t wait till there are elections, and a legitimate representative of the people is elected to take over this place, and I can be just Lucius Keeva, without anyone associating me with being a Patrician or thinking I want to go on being the Good Man.”
“Ah. How goes the constitutional republic project?”
I made a face. “The convention is a howling mess. But I did manage to get them not to outlaw homosexuality . . . Which considering that’s been a crime in Earth’s code for so long, with death penalty attached many places, is a minor victory, and the only time I got involved . . . for cause.”
He grinned at me. “Minor victories, but personal.”
“Of sorts. I don’t like it, though, Nat. I don’t like getting involved in that sort of discussion. And I don’t want them to change their minds because it’s personal.”
He looked serious, again. “But it’s all personal, isn’t it? That is the whole point of individual liberties. The right and the duty to have it be personal, to have it count, to be the best person you can be, no matter how easy or difficult for you, particularly.” He sounded pensive. “I think the beginning of the end, for the republic, before, was dividing people into groups and buying into collective guilt and collective innocence. In the end, all each of us has is himself, and no regime will be perfect for everyone. But particularly for us, the odd ones that don’t quite fit in, the regime that respects the individual most is always the best.”
Silence fell and he smoked, quietly. After a long time, he cleared his throat. “So, you don’t want to go into politics? Because you’re quite good at it.”
“No. I don’t want to go into it. I hate it. I hate being on display, and my life observed from every angle.”
He was quiet a longer while. “What do you intend to do, after you pass on the governorship of Olympus and the North American territories, and the war is over?”
“I told you before,” I said. “I will take my money, if it’s still worth anything, since your father is flapping about fiat currencies and a gold standard—”
“Oh, yes, one of Father’s old hobby horses. Mind you, I haven’t studied it enough to say he’s not right, but . . .”
“Yeah, so if my money is still worth something, I’ll buy an awful lot of robots and go cut down some of those fast-growing trees and start a farm. Close enough to the Longs that I can go to the Fall Festival, if they still have those. And then grow chickens and pigs and cows, and maybe even a couple of kids, because there’re going to be a lot of them orphaned when this is over, and I’ve found I’m fond of reading bedtime stories.”
“Are you really?” Nat said. He looked at me, examining my face, as if he were looking for something. I didn’t know what, so I just looked back at him, waiting for him to say something like that I had a wart forming at the end of my nose. It was that sort of intent scrutiny.
But instead, after a long while, he flicked his spent cigarette out to sea and sighed. “And here, I’m a thoroughly urban man, but I don’t think I can let you go and settle in the wilderness all alone. For one, you’d be making coffee with socks rather than learn to use the proper appliance—” I started to open my mouth to protest, but he didn’t give me time. “For another, I remember you had the hardest time telling the cows from the bulls, and for yet another because even if you do adopt a couple of kids, eventually they will leave, and it’s a sad thought that you’ll end up like old Rogers, living with three pigs and talking to them as if they were people.”
“So,” I said, confused, “what are you saying?”
“When the war is over, we’ll go to the wilderness and start a farm,” Nat said, firmly. “And we’ll have an attic room with a window at either end, so the breeze can flow through in the summer. And we’ll raise chickens and pigs who don’t wear aprons, and cows, and kids if you insist, and a whole lot of golden-haired dumb dogs.” He took a deep breath. “And I’ll operate the kitchen machinery because, Lucius, honestly, you’re pitiful.”
I looked over at him, trying to determine if he was teasing me. But, even though his lips were curved in a smile, his eyes were deadly serious and a little anxious, as if he were afraid of what I might say. So I did what I had to do and tried not to look like I’d just won the lottery.
I said, “Yeah. Let’s do that. I’d like that.”
Table of Contents
THE MONSTER
Carry Me to the Water
Setting All the Captives Free
Out of Hell
Stranger in a Strange Land
Don’t Look Now
Long Live the Good Man
Clothe Him in Silk, Cover Him in Gold
Running Away
The World Turned Upside Down
Hell on Broomback
Familiar Strangers
Like a Thief in the Night
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE DECLARE THE REVOLUTION
Lord and Master
Cloak and Dragged
In the Dark
Sturm Und Dragged
Riders on the Sturm
When the Sturm Breaks
Ladies and Gentlemen, We Declare the Revolution
COME HELL
Nightmare
My Son
Softly, What Light
A Free Man
Three or More Incessantly Wagging Tongues
Cloak and Skirt
Making Haste Strangely
Consensus
The Man, Alone
For I Was Lost
Into Hell
And Death is at My Side
When Angels Die
TO WAR, TO WAR
Paradise Regained
Revolution
More Than One Way to Win
Daughters of Liberty
The Wheel
A Grand Expedition
A Few Good Men and Not a Few Women
Our Beloved Home
And the War’s Desolation
Dearly Bought
The Point Turns
A Few Good Men Page 40