Authors: Ben Bova
“Civil war,” said the Emperor. “Who wins a civil war? And once we begin to slaughter ourselves, what will your aliens do then, my dear Fain? Eh?”
His two advisors fell silent. The forest simulation returned, in deep twilight shadow now. The three men began to walk back along the path, which was softly illuminated by luminescent flowers.
Bomeer clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “Now that I have seen some of your other problems, sire, I must take a stronger stand and insistâyes, sire,
insist
âthat this young woman's plan to save the Earth is even more foolhardy than I had at first thought it to be. The cost is too high, the chance of success is much too slim. The frontier worlds would react violently against such an extravagance. And,” with a nod to Fain, “it would hamstring the fleet.”
For several moments the Emperor walked down the simulated forest path without speaking a word. Then, slowly, “I suppose you are right. It is an old man's sentimental dream.”
“I'm afraid that's the truth of it, sire,” said Fain.
Bomeer nodded sagaciously.
“I will tell her. She will be disappointed. Bitterly.”
Bomeer gasped. “She's here?”
The Emperor said, “Yes. I had her brought here to the palace. She has crossed the Empire, given up more than two years of her life to make the trip, lost a dozen years of her career over this wild scheme of hers ⦠just to hear that I will refuse her.”
“In the palace?” Fain echoed. “Sire, you're not going to see her in person? The securityâ”
“Yes, in person. I owe her that much.” The Emperor could see the shock on their faces. Bomeer, who had never stood in the same building with the Emperor until he had become Chairman of the Academy, was trying to suppress his fury with poor success. Fain, sworn to guard the Emperor as well as the Empire, looked worried.
“But sire,” the Commander said, “no one has personally seen the Emperor, privately, outside of his family and closest advisors,” Bomeer bristled visibly, “in years ⦠decades!”
The Emperor nodded but insisted, “She is going to see me. I owe her that much. An ancient ruler on Earth once said, âWhen you are going to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite about it.' She is not a man, of course, but I fear that our decision will kill her soul.”
They looked unconvinced.
Very well, then
, the Emperor said to them silently.
Put it down as the whim of an old man ⦠a man who is feeling all his years ⦠a man who will never recapture his youth.
5
SHE IS ONLY
a child.
The Emperor studied Adela de Montgarde as the young astrophysicist made her way through the guards and secretaries and halls and anterooms toward his own private chambers. He had prepared to meet her in the reception room, changed his mind and moved the meeting to his private office, then changed it again and now waited for her in his study. She knew nothing of his indecision; she merely followed the directions given her by the computer-informed staff of the palace.
The study was a warm old room lined with shelves of private disks that the Emperor had collected over the years. A stone fireplace big enough to walk into spanned one wall; its flames soaked the Emperor with life-giving warmth. The opposite wall was a single broad window that looked out onto the real forest beyond the palace walls. The window could also serve as a hologram frame; the Emperor could have any scene he desired projected from it.
Best to have reality this evening
, he told himself.
There is too little reality in my life these days.
So he eased back in his powerchair and watched his approaching visitor on the display screen above the fireplace of the richly carpeted, comfortably paneled old room.
He had carefully absorbed all the computer's dossier about Adela de Montgarde: born of a noble family on Gris, a frontier world whose settlers were slowly, painfully transforming from a ball of rock into a viable habitat for human life. He knew her face, her life history, her scientific accomplishments and rank. But now, as he watched her approaching on the display screen built into the stone fireplace, he realized how little knowledge had accompanied the computer's detailed facts.
The door to the study swung open automatically, and she stood uncertainly, framed in the doorway.
The Emperor swiveled his powerchair around to face her. The display screen immediately faded and became indistinguishable from the other stones of the fireplace.
“Come in, come in, Dr. Montgarde.”
She was tiny, the smallest woman the Emperor remembered seeing. Her face was almost elfin, with large curious eyes that looked as if they had known laughter. She wore a metallic tunic buttoned to the throat and a brief skirt. Her figure was childlike.
The Emperor smiled to himself.
She certainly won't tempt me with her body.
As she stepped hesitantly into the study, her eyes darting all around the room, the Emperor said:
“I'm sure that my aides have filled your head with all sorts of nonsense about protocolâwhen to stand, when to bow, what forms of address to use. Forget it all. This is an informal meeting, common politeness will suffice. If you need a form of address for me, call me sire. I shall call you Adela, if you don't mind.”
With a slow nod of her head, she answered, “Thank you, sire. That will be fine.” Her voice was so soft that he could barely hear it. He thought he detected a slight waver in it.
She's not going to make this easy for me
, he said to himself. Then he noticed the stone she wore on a slim silver chain about her neck.
“Agate,” he said.
She fingered the stone reflexively. “Yes ⦠it's from my homeworld ⦠Gris. Our planet is rich in minerals.”
“And poor in cultivable land.”
“True. But we are converting more land every year.”
“Please sit down,” the Emperor said. “I'm afraid it's been so long since my old legs have tried to stand in full gravity that I'm forced to remain in this powerchair ⦠or lower the gravitational field in this room. The computer files said that you are not accustomed to low-G fields.”
She glanced around the warm, richly furnished room.
“Any seat you like. My chair rides like a magic carpet.”
Adela picked the biggest couch in the room and tucked herself into a corner of it. The Emperor glided his chair over to her.
“It's very kind of you to keep the gravity up for me,” she said.
He shrugged. “It costs nothing to be polite. But tell me, of all the minerals that Gris is famous for, why did you choose to wear agate?”
She blushed.
The Emperor laughed. “Come, come, my dear. There's nothing to be ashamed of. It's well known that agate is a magical stone that protects the wearer from scorpions and snakes. An ancient superstition, of course, but it could possibly be significant, eh?”
“No! It's not that!”
“Then what is it?”
“It ⦠agate also makes the wearer ⦠eloquent in speech.”
“And a favorite of princes,” added the Emperor.
Her blush had gone. She sat straighter and almost smiled. “And it gives one victory over her enemies.”
“You perceive me as your enemy?”
“Oh no!” She reached out toward him, her small, childlike hand almost touching his.
“Who then?”
“The hierarchy. The old men who pretend to be young and refuse to admit any new ideas into the scientific community.”
“I am an old man, Adela.”
“Yes⦔ She stared frankly into his aged face. “I was surprised when I saw you a few moments ago. I've seen holographic images, of course ⦠but you ⦠you've
aged
.”
“Indeed.”
“Why can't you be rejuvenated? It seems like a useless old superstition to keep the Emperor from using modern biomedical therapies.”
“No, no, my child. It is a very wise tradition. You complain of inflexible old men at the top of the scientific hierarchy. Suppose you had an inflexible old man on the Emperor's throne? A man who would live not merely six or seven score years, but many centuries? What would happen to the Empire then?”
“Ohh. I see.” And there was real understanding in her eyes. And sympathy.
“So the king must die, to make room for new blood, new ideas, new vigor.”
“It's sad,” she said. “You are known everywhere as a good Emperor. The people love you.”
He felt his eyebrows rise. “Even on the frontier worlds?”
“Yes. They know that Fain and his troops would be standing on our necks if it weren't for the Emperor. We are not without our sources of information.”
He smiled. “Interesting.”
“But that isn't why you called me here to see you,” Adela said.
She grows bolder
. “True. You want to save Earth's Sun. Acadamecian Bomeer and all my advisors tell me that it is either impossible or foolish. I fear they have powerful arguments on their side.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “But I have the facts.”
“I have seen your presentation, I understand the scientific basis of your plan.”
“We can do it!” Adela said, her hands suddenly animated. “We can! The critical mass is really minuscule compared to⦔
“Gigatons are minuscule?”
“Compared to the effect they will produce, yes.”
And then she was on her feet, pacing the room, ticking off points on her fingers, lecturing, pleading, cajoling. The Emperor's powerchair nodded back and forth, following her intense, wiry form as she paced.
“Of course it will take vast resources! And timeâmore than a century before we know to a first-order approximation if the initial steps are working. I'll have to give myself up to cryosleep for decades at a time. But we
have
the resources! And we have the time ⦠just barely. We can do it, if we want to.”
The Emperor said, “How can you expect me to divert half the resources of the Empire to save Earth's Sun?”
“Because Earth is
important
,” she argued back, a tiny fighter standing alone in the middle of the Emperor's study. “It's the baseline for all the other worlds of the Empire. On Gris we send biogenetic teams every twenty-five years to check our own mutation rate. The cost is enormous for us, but we do it. We have to.”
“We can move Earth's population to another G-type star. There are plenty of them.”
“It won't be the same.”
“Adela, my dear, believe me, I would like to help. I know how important Earth is. We simply cannot afford to try your scheme now. Perhaps in another hundred years or so⦔
“That will be too late.”
“But new scientific advances⦔
“Under Bomeer and his ilk? Hah!”
The Emperor wanted to frown at her, but somehow his face would not compose itself properly. “You are a fierce, uncompromising woman,” he said.
She came to him and dropped to her knees at his feet. “No, sire. I'm not. I'm foolish and vain and utterly self-centered. I want to save Earth because I know I can do it. I can't stand the thought of living the rest of my life knowing that I could have done it, but never had the chance to try.”
Now we're getting to the truth
, the Emperor thought.
Adela continued, “And someday, maybe a million years from now, maybe a billion ⦠Gris's sun will become unstable. I want to be able to save Gris, too. And any other world whose star threatens it. I want all the Empire to know that Adela de Montgarde discovered the way to do it!”
The Emperor felt the breath rush out of him.
“Sire,” she went on, “I'm sorry if I'm speaking impolitely or stupidly. It's just that I know we can do this thing, do it successfully, and you're the only one who can make it happen.”
But he was barely listening. “Come with me,” he said, grasping her slim wrists and raising her to her feet. “It's time for the evening meal. I want you to meet my son.”
6
JAVAS PUT ON
his usual amused smirk when the Emperor introduced Adela.
Will nothing ever reach past his everlasting façade of polite boredom?
Rihana, at least, was properly enraged. He could see the anger on her face: A virtual barbarian from some frontier planet. Daughter of a petty noble. Practically a commoner. Dining with them!
“Such a young child to have such grandiose schemes,” said the princess once she realized who Adela was.
“Surely,” said the Emperor, “you had grandiose schemes of your own when you were young, Rihana. Of course, they involved lineages and marriages rather than astrophysics, didn't they?”
Neither of them smiled.
The Emperor had ordered dinner out on the terrace, under the glowing night sky of the Imperial Planet. Rihana, who was responsible for household affairs, always had sumptuous meals spread for them: the best meats and fowl and fruits of a dozen prime worlds. Adela looked bewildered at the array placed before her by the human servants. Such riches were obviously new to her. The Emperor ate sparingly and watched them all.
Inevitably the conversation returned to Adela's plan to save Earth's Sun. And Adela, subdued and timid at first, slowly turned tigress once again. She met Rihana's scorn with coldly furious logic. She countered Javas's skepticism with:
“Of course, since it will take more than a century before the outcome of the project is proven, you will probably be the Emperor who is remembered by all the human race as the one who saved the Earth.”
Javas's eyes widened slightly.
That hit home
, the Emperor noticed.
For once something affected the boy. This girl should be kept at the palace.
But Rihana snapped, “Why should the crown prince care about saving Earth? His brother was murdered by an Earthman.”