The Well of Time

by Robert I. Katz

  In the Corporate States, nobody, it seemed, was allowed not to participate.

  Michael grunted. “So, the descendants of the Caldwell 86 cluster now comprise seventy-six mini-empires, each with its own governing board, essentially independent of each other.”

  “Divide and conquer,” Henrik Anson said.

  “We’ll need to confirm all this,” Frankie said.

  “Yes,” Michael said. “We will.”

  Thankfully, the technology of the Akadius Corporation seemed no more advanced than that of the Second Empire, and considerably less than Gehenna’s. A small scout ship descended toward Helios, secure behind its screening, and settled down into the cover of a forest near the edge of a small city. Marissa and Matthew had been eager for a mission of their own and Michael saw no reason to refuse.

  The mission, however, turned out to be redundant. Gehenna, hovering fifty kilometers over the Akadius naval base, released two hundred drones, which drifted down toward the little world’s surface. They spread out and were soon sending shielded, encrypted transmissions, both to Gehenna and to Matthew and Marissa’s little ship.

  “Well, this is disappointing,” Marissa said.

  Looking at the images the drones were transmitting, Matthew shuddered. Their original plan had been to gather basic intelligence from the drones, then infiltrate Helios City in person. The plan quickly changed.

  The citizens of Helios practiced extensive cosmetic modifications. These included crests, tails, enlarged eyes with cat-slit pupils, horns, wings and skin colors of every hue and texture, each of them striving to declare their own individual uniqueness. They also possessed numerous implants, including ID and credit chips. The only exception was the spacers, whose identification and credit information were contained in bronze medallions worn around their necks.

  Only once did they see someone without a medallion, a spacer who had lost his in a drunken brawl. He was arrested immediately.

  It was impossible for Matthew and Marissa to blend in with the local citizenry without extensive body sculpting. Equally impossible to pretend to be a spacer, not unless they had a medallion, and there was no way to get a medallion without stealing it.

  It wasn’t worth the risk. “This is going to be boring,” Matthew said. “Very, very boring.”

  They spent three tedious days sitting in the scout ship and then returned to Gehenna, as did the drones.

  Michael had led many such meetings but until very recently, all of them had been long ago and far away. He hadn’t lost the knack, but he found that he had less patience than he used to, way back when. Or perhaps it was merely that these people tended to argue more than his old staff.

  But then, his old staff had respected him. Actually, they had revered him, which carried its own problems, but they were different problems, and easier to deal with.

  Henrik Anson had been with him long enough to have learned that there was much, much more to Michael Glover than met the eye. Captain Thorenson, Michael suspected, had been informed of Michael’s actual history and former career. Commander Dumas had not, but Commander Dumas was smart enough to get with the program.

  The problem (a minor problem but an annoying one) was the Juniors, particularly one Lieutenant Junior Grade Horatio Forrester and his obvious partner in crime, Ensign Brianna LeClair. Both were minor nobility. Both were smart but not as smart as they thought they were. Both had initially welcomed the posting to Gehenna, the largest, most capable ship in the Empire. Both had been clearly informed that the ship was owned by one Michael Glover, a gentleman adventurer who had discovered it, long ago abandoned, on an abandoned base on an abandoned asteroid.

  Or so the official story went.

  In reality, the knowledge of Michael Glover’s actual identity was a secret known only to Naval Intelligence, military high command, the upper reaches of government and a few select others. This was not the government’s decision. It was Michael’s. He had risen to fame in the distant past. Fame, in his opinion, was annoying. It had its uses, of course. A Governor-General and Imperial Viceroy is the living embodiment of the Empire. The job had required recognition, the certain knowledge that the Empire and the Empire’s swift justice was inevitable and absolute…but Michael Glover was no longer an Imperial Viceroy. Better to go where he wanted and do as he pleased without being mobbed by adoring crowds.

  The senior officers were all smart enough to know that there was more to the arrangement than met the eye. The juniors had difficulty with the concept that Gehenna’s playboy owner would actually give orders and choose their missions. Even worse was the knowledge that this playboy owner had somehow swindled or bribed the rank of Commodore out of the Imperial Navy. It was all too much for their neat little military minds to grasp.

  Even worse, from their point of view was the constant presence of Curly, Rosanna, Richard Norlin and the others, particularly Gloriosa, whose role seemed purely decorative, if not scandalous.

  Michael was sensitive to the situation. He let the navy run the ship, but where the ship went and what the ship did was his to decide. On that he would not compromise.

  “We have seen no evidence of the Orion,” Captain Thorenson stated.

  “During the past week,” Anson said, “fourteen ships have arrived at Helios. All of them appear to be merchants. The drones have observed goods being unloaded and then new cargo taken onboard. Twelve of the fourteen, plus three others that were already present, have left the system. We have been able to obtain target vectors for all fifteen of those ships. The Orion, if she ever came here, is presumably long gone.”

  “Marissa,” Michael said, “you’ve been down there. What do you have to say?”

  Lieutenant JG Forrester rolled his eyes. Ensign LeClair smirked.

  Marissa Oliver ignored this little byplay. “You’ve all seen the data. I don’t have much to add. These people are good little corporate citizens. They follow the rules. They study hard, work hard and don’t have a lot of play-time. If they succeed, they’re rewarded. If they fail, they’re punished and reduced in rank. It’s not a pleasant society—but….” Marissa leaned forward. “When they do play, they play very, very hard. They go all-out. They don’t call it slavery, but it’s hard to tell the difference. Those who aren’t smart enough or hard-working enough to obtain a position beyond the lower ranks are effectively disenfranchised.

  Matthew Oliver nodded. “It’s a fascist oligarchy. If you’re a member of the rank and file, you have almost no rights at all. You’re close to nothing. You follow orders and you make yourself available for any purpose that those above you on the corporate ladder might see fit.”

  “Charming,” Captain Thorenson said.

  “The lower ranks are desperate to escape them,” Marissa said. “The middle ranks are desperate not to fall back. All of them are under continual pressure, and that’s by design. There are only a few ways to succeed. Nobody feels secure. Everybody is fighting for the next rung up the ladder. It all leads to an enormous amount of casual sadism. Being able to abuse other people conveys status in their society. The executive class blows off steam in…unpleasant ways. The underclass has very little protection from it.

  “A visitors’ medallion indicates that they’re immune to the usual abuse. They can be purchased from any corporate office. They’re not cheap.”

  Lieutenant JG Forrester seemed bored with the conversation. Michael wondered what was going through his mind. Probably thinking that none of it was any of his concern.

  Richard Norlin was frowning. Richard, born and raised in a minor-league star Empire, seemed to recognize the pattern. Fascism, feudalism, Nazism, communism…all totalitarian governments were different in the exact same way. The jargon might differ. The rulers might claim to speak in the name of the State or the name of the people or the name of God, but such systems were identical at the core. An elite that claimed both superior merit and virtue ruled them all, an aristocracy that inevitably, after a few generations, if the system lasted that long,
became hereditary. In all of them, everybody else scrounged for the little that was left.

  “The Managing Director of the Duval Project, as they call it, is one Helmut Aaronson. His family have been major shareholders for fifteen generations.” Henrik Anson smiled. “We’ve managed to place micro-drones inside both his private quarters and the corporate offices. Aronson is not stupid. He’s a competent executive, but he likes to amuse himself in the evening with an assortment of very young girls and boys. None of them last long but there are always more where they come from.”

  Thorenson winced. “In the abstract, none of this is the Second Empire’s business. Duval is far outside of our borders and is neither a member of the Empire nor an official ally. We can deplore what Akadius has done here but the Empire is under no obligation to intercede.”

  The First Empire had considered all of humanity, wherever it might be and whatever the organization of its local political systems, as under its sway; had insisted upon it, in fact. The Second Empire had no such pretensions. It couldn’t afford them.

  However, what Akadius had done here, the casual destruction of an entire world and its people, was not going to be tolerated. Punishing genocide was, in the end, good business. Everybody, everywhere, even those worlds and beings that were not part of the Empire (perhaps especially them…) liked the idea that violent aggression would be punished, if not by themselves, then by somebody.

  Pour encourager les autres. To encourage the others, a line of Voltaire’s after the British loss at the battle of Minorca. The British had executed their own commanding admiral, as a lesson to his fellows.

  “Except,” Michael pointed out, “that our ships are being hijacked, our people stolen and our politicians bribed and suborned.”

  “By an entity or entities unknown. The Corporate States are far away from the Empire. We have no evidence that it’s them.”

  “And yet, Orion came here.”

  “Is Akadius even aware of the Second Empire?” Dumas asked.

  “Yes,” Anson said. “The Director’s office has received numerous reports from agents inside the Empire. None of those reports deal with political activity, infiltration or attempts to subvert our society or our government. All of them concern corporate interests: sales and purchases, contracts and business arrangements. All of those arrangements are carried out through Imperial citizens acting as proxies. None, so far as we can tell, are illegal.”

  “So, they know all about us and we have no knowledge whatsoever of them,” Commander Dumas said. “Why would that be?”

  Michael shrugged. “We don’t need to speculate. We’re going to find out.”

  Chapter 11

  “So, Professor,” Michael said, “how is the project going?”

  Arlo Scott was tall, lean and entirely bald. The baldness was an affectation. His people regarded themselves as more evolved than the human norm and they considered hair to be a remnant from the ancient, pre-human past. They removed it whenever it dared to sprout and pretended that it had never existed. They valued intelligence, knowledge and logic. Arlo Scott was a Professor of Advanced Hermaneutics at the University of Leiden, on Reliance. He had PhD’s in history, mathematics, astrophysics, quantum engineering and ancient literature.

  “It’s going well,” he said. He rubbed his hands together and looked entirely satisfied with himself. “Very well, indeed. The theory is sound. The technology should work.” He snickered. “Hopefully.”

  Arlo Scott was the unofficial head of the large cadre of academics that Gehenna carried. The naval authorities, and more specifically, Michael, had approved them all. In the past, Michael had more than once been subjected to the obsessions of high IQ lunatics, who tended to regard their own whims as second only to natural law and the edicts of the Imperial Senate.

  Arlo Scott, unlike most of his colleagues, wanted his work to have some relevance to the real world. ‘The Life of the Mind’ was all very well but a man who invented a better mouse trap did more for humanity than whoever managed to come up with the latest solution to Godel’s theorem.

  When the crew and personnel for Gehenna was being assembled, Arlo Scott was one of the first to volunteer.

  Michael and Arlo Scott stood in a large chamber adjacent to the transport bay, inspecting two large modules. Each was more than twenty meters in length and bristled with exposed wires, n-dimensional circuit boards and flashing lights.

  “They don’t look like they’re finished,” Michael said doubtfully.

  “That’s deliberate, because they’re not finished. With projects still under development, that need constant revision and fine-tuning, you want all the inner workings to be accessible. It’s easier to change things that way.”

  A good military man should remain flexible, Michael reflected. You had a plan. Then you had a plan B, and maybe even a plan C. Then you had a revision readily at hand for all three plans, keeping in mind the inevitable contingencies and setbacks, and then you mapped out a bunch of escape routes, just in case all the plans turned to shit, as they too often did.

  Arlo Scott’s little project was more in the nature of a wing and a prayer but in the end, when all else failed, it might prove useful.

  Michael hoped that they never had to find out.

  Seventy-six mini-empires…which ones to approach? Akadius had relations with all of them, some good, some strained. The databases on Helios contained extensive information on all seventy-six.

  “Jensen,” Michael said.

  The Jensen Corporation was a medium sized conglomerate, covering three worlds, Jensen-4 being the largest and first settled. Unlike most of the seventy-six Corporate States, Jensen respected the civil rights of all of its shareholders, and more importantly, non-shareholders as well. Jensen seemed a reasonable place to start.

  The trip to Jensen-4 took over a week. On the third day, Michael ordered the Captain of the captured Akadius ship to be brought to his office. He was a large man, in excellent physical shape. He moved lightly. Three guards in armor accompanied him. He looked around with interest, seemingly unconcerned with his situation, and ignored the guards. His name was Andrej Orsini.

  “Please sit down,” Michael said.

  Orsini glanced at the guards, shrugged and sat across from Michael’s desk.

  “You can leave us,” Michael said to the guards.

  “Those weren’t our orders,” one of the guards said.

  Captain Thorenson, Michael thought, had been quite respectful, an excellent officer in every way. Michael hadn’t asked, but he assumed that Arcturus had participated in her briefing. The officers and crew under her command, however, tended to be a bit passive-aggressive regarding their supposedly effete, dilettante Commodore. “I am countermanding your orders,” Michael said. “I will be perfectly safe with Captain Orsini.”

  The guards hesitated. One of them glanced at another, who was clearly in charge. Some wordless communication seemed to take place, then all three turned on their heel and left.

  “Close the door behind you,” Michael said.

  Andrej Orsini sat, a smile on his face, and waited for Michael to speak. He and his men had been scanned repeatedly. All were enhanced, though not in obvious ways. They didn’t have wings, or clawed hands or crests rising from their heads or skin colored red or purple or blue. No doubt the lack of such physical embellishments made it easier for them to mingle with societies that did not share Akadius’ customs. Captain Orsini and his crew looked like normal, healthy men and women, but all had superior strength, speed and senses. All possessed microcomputers implanted under their skulls, capable of connecting to the local network. All had jacked metabolisms, immune to drugs and poisons. Their enhancements were much like Michael’s.

  “Do you understand what’s happened to you?” Michael asked.

  Captain Orsini grinned ruefully. “In general. Your people are well trained. They’ve said very little, but the situation is obvious. You have a superior ship and superior technology. Our instruments didn’t de
tect you at all, not until you were right on top of us, so you have some sort of shielding capability. This ship is enormous, and your people wear armor of a type we’ve never seen. Clearly, you are not shareholders of the Corporate States.”

  Akadius prized intelligence. They selected for it. As Michael had expected, Captain Orsini was an intelligent and perceptive man. “You don’t seem worried,” Michael said.

  “Why should I be worried? You’ve kept us safe and you haven’t abused us. Clearly, you think we can be useful.”

  “Your statement implies a certain lack of devotion to the interests of Akadius. That surprises me.”

  Captain Orsini frowned. “Don’t get the wrong idea. My loyalty to Akadius is not in question. All of us have our programming and our instructions. I cannot act against the interests of the Corporation. My neural network won’t allow it. Aside from that, however, my crew and I do represent a resource. Wise men do not throw resources away.”

  “You are saying that you’ll cooperate, so long as we do not act directly against the Akadius Corporation?”

  “That is exactly what I am saying,” Captain Orsini said.

  “If I were to set you free, what would you do?”

  “I would return to Akadius and report. The Corporation needs to know of your existence, and the threat that you represent.”

  “And if I were to give you free reign of the ship, what would you do?”

  Captain Orsini smiled. “We would try to escape.”

  Pretty much what Michael had figured.

  “Tell me: why haven’t you attacked me? We’re alone in my office. With your enhanced abilities, you might be able to overpower me. You would have a hostage. You could bargain for your release.”

  Orsini looked incredulous. “Clearly, you are not concerned. I suspect that your physical abilities are at least the equal of my own. I would probably fail. If I failed, then my situation would be made worse. No. For the moment, at least, and within the parameters that I have specified, my crew and I will cooperate.”