Authors: Ben Bova
The Emperor felt his blood turn to ice.
Adela looked panic-stricken. She turned to the Emperor, wide-eyed, open-mouthed.
“My eldest son died on Earth,” he told her. “My second son was killed putting down a rebellion on a frontier world. My third son died of a strange viral infection that
some
tell me was assassination.” He stared at Rihana. “Death is a constant companion in every royal house.”
“Three sons⦔ Adela seemed about to burst into tears.
“I have not punished Earth, nor that frontier world, nor sought to find a possible assassin,” the Emperor went on, icily. “My only hope is that my last remaining son will make a good Emperor despite his ⦠handicaps.”
Javas turned very deliberately in his chair to stare out at the dark forest. He seemed bored by the antagonism between his wife and his father. Rihana glowered like molten lava.
The dinner ended in dismal, bitter silence. The Emperor sent them all away to their rooms while he remained on the terrace and stared hard at the stars strewn so thickly across the sky.
He closed his eyes and summoned a computer-assisted image of Earth's Sun. He saw it coalesce from a hazy cloud of cold gas and dust, saw it turn into a star and spawn planets. Saw it beaming out energy that allowed life to grow and flourish on some of those planets. And then he saw it age, blemish, erupt, swell, and finally collapse into a dark cinder.
Just as I will
, thought the Emperor.
The Sun and I have both reached the age where a bit of rejuvenation is needed. Otherwise ⦠death.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his veined, fleshless, knobby hands.
How different from hers! How young and vital she is.
With a touch on one of the control studs set into the arm of his powerchair, he headed for his bedroom.
I cannot be rejuvenated. It is wrong even to desire it. But the Sun? Would it be wrong to try? Is it proper for puny men to tamper with the destinies of the stars themselves?
Once in his tower-top bedroom he called for her. Adela came to him quickly, without delay or question. She wore a simple knee-length gown tied loosely at the waist. It hung limply over her childlike figure.
“You sent for me, sire.” It was not a question but a statement. The Emperor knew her meaning:
I will do what you ask, but in return I expect you to give me what I desire.
He was already reclining in the soft embrace of his bed. The texture of the monolayer surface felt soft and protective. The warmth of the water beneath it eased his tired body.
“Come here, child. Come and talk to me. I hardly ever sleep anymore; it gives my doctors something to worry about. Come and sit beside me and tell me all about yourself ⦠the parts of your life story that are not on file in the computers.”
She sat on the edge of the huge bed; its nearly living surface barely dimpled under her spare body.
“What would you like to know?” she asked.
“I never had a daughter,” the Emperor said. “What was your childhood like? How did you become the woman you are?”
She began to tell him. Living underground in the mining settlements on Gris. Seeing sunlight only when the planet was far enough from its too-bright star to allow humans to walk on the surface safely. Playing in the tunnels. Sent by her parents to other worlds for schooling. The realization that her beauty was not physical. The few lovers she had known. The astronomer who had championed her cause to the Emperor at that meeting nearly fifteen years ago. Their brief marriage. Its breakup when he realized that being married to her kept him from advancing in the hierarchy.
“You have known pain too,” the Emperor said.
“It's not an Imperial prerogative,” she answered softly. “Everybody who lives knows pain.”
By now the sky was milky white with the approach of dawn. The Emperor smiled at her.
“Before breakfast everyone in the palace will know that you spent the night with me. I'm afraid I have ruined your reputation.”
She smiled back, impishly. “Or perhaps
made
my reputation.”
He reached out and grasped her by her shoulders. Holding her at arm's length, he searched her face with a long, sad, almost fatherly look.
“It would not be a kindness to grant your request. If I allow you to pursue this dream of yours, have you any idea of the enemies it would make for you? Your life would be so cruel, so filled with envy and hatred.”
“I know that,” Adela said evenly. “I've known that from the beginning.”
“And you are not afraid?”
“Of course I'm afraid! But I won't turn away from what I must do. Not because of fear. Not because of envy or hatred or any other reason.”
“Not even for love?”
He felt her body stiffen. “No,” she said. “Not even for love.”
The Emperor let his hands drop away from her and called out to the computer, “Connect me with Prince Javas, Academician Bomeer, and Commander Fain.”
Almost instantly the three holographic images appeared on separate segments of the farthest bedroom wall. Bomeer, halfway across the planet in late afternoon, was at his ornate desk. Fain appeared to be on the bridge of a warcraft. Javas, of course, was still in bed. It was not Rihana who lay next to him.
The Emperor's first impulse was disapproval, but then he wondered where Rihana was sleeping.
“I am sorry to intrude on you so abruptly,” he said to all three men, while they were still staring at the slight young woman sitting on the bed with their Emperor. “I have made my decision on the question of trying to save Earth's Sun.”
Bomeer folded his hands on his desktop. Fain, on his feet, shifted uneasily. Javas arched an eyebrow and looked more curious than anything else.
“I have listened to your arguments and find that there is much merit in them. I have also listened carefully to Dr. Montgarde's arguments, and find much merit in them, as well.”
Adela sat rigidly beside him. The expression on her face was frozen: she feared nothing and expected nothing. She neither hoped nor despaired. She waited, hardly breathing. She waited.
“We will move the Imperial throne and all the court to Earth's only Moon,” said the Emperor.
They gasped. All of them.
“Since this project to save the Sun will take many human generations, we will want the seat of the Empire close enough to the project so that the Emperor may take a direct view of its progress.”
“But you can't move the entire capital!” Fain protested. “And to Earth! It's a backwater⦔
“Commander Fain,” the Emperor said sternly. “Yesterday you were prepared to move Earth's millions. I ask now that the Fleet move the court's thousands. And Earth will no longer be a backwater once the Empire is centered once again at the original home of the human race.”
Bomeer sputtered. “But ⦠but what if the plan fails? The Sun will erupt ⦠and ⦠and⦔
“That is a decision to be made in the future.”
The Emperor glanced at Adela. Her expression had not changed noticeably, but she was breathing rapidly now. The excitement had hit her body, it hadn't yet penetrated her emotional defenses.
“Father,” said Javas, “may I point out that it takes
five years
in realtime to reach Earth from here? The Empire can't be governed without an Emperor for five years.”
“Quite true, my son. You will go to Earth before me. Once you've set up everything there, you will become acting Emperor while I make the trip.”
Javas's mouth dropped open. “Acting Emperor? For five years?”
“With a little luck,” the Emperor said, grinning slightly, “old age will catch up with me before I reach Earth and you will be the full-fledged Emperor for the rest of your life.”
“But I don't wantâ”
“I know, Javas. But you will be Emperor someday. It is a responsibility you cannot avoid. Five years of training will stand you in good stead.”
The Prince sat up straighter in his bed, his face serious, his eyes meeting his father's steadily.
“And, son,” the Emperor went on, “to be Emperorâeven for five yearsâyou must be master of your own house.”
Javas nodded. “I know, Father. I understand. And I will be.”
“Good.”
Then the prince's knowing smile flitted across his face once again. “But tell me ⦠suppose, while you are in transit toward Earth, I decide to move the Imperial court elsewhere? What then?”
His father smiled back at him. “I believe I will just have to trust you not to do that.”
“You would trust me?” Javas asked.
“I always have.”
Javas's smile took on a new pleasure. “Thank you, Father. I will be waiting for you on Earth's Moon. And for the lovely Dr. Montgarde, as well.”
Bomeer was still livid. “All this uprooting of everything ⦠the costs ⦠the manpower ⦠over an unproven theory!”
“Why is the theory unproven, my friend?” the Emperor asked.
Bomeer's mouth opened and closed like a fish's, but no words came out.
“It is unproven,” said the Emperor, “because our scientists have never gone so far before. In fact, the sciences of the Hundred Worlds have not made much progress at all in several generations. Isn't that true, Bomeer?”
“We ⦠sire, we have reached a natural plateau in our understanding of the physical universe. It has happened before. Our era is one of consolidation and practical applications of already acquired knowledge, not new basic breakthroughs.”
“Well, this project will force some new thinking and new breakthroughs, I warrant. Certainly we will be forced to recruit new scientists and engineers by the shipload. Perhaps that will be impetus enough to start the climb upward again, eh, Bomeer? I never did like plateaus.”
The academician lapsed into silence.
“And I see you, Fain,” the Emperor said, “trying to calculate in your head how much of your fleet strength is going to be wasted on this old man's dream.”
“Sire, I had noâ”
The Emperor waved him into silence. “No matter. Moving the capital won't put much of a strain on the fleet, will it?”
“No, sire. But this project to save Earth⦔
“We will have to construct new ships for that, Fain. And we will have to turn to the frontier worlds for those ships.” He glanced at Adela. “I believe that the frontier worlds will gladly join the effort to save Earth's Sun. And their treasuries will be enriched by our purchase of thousands of new ships.”
“While the Imperial treasury is depleted.”
“It's a rich Empire, Fain. It's time we shared some of our wealth with the frontier worlds. A large shipbuilding program will do more to reconcile them with the Empire than anything else we can imagine.”
“Sire,” the Commander said bluntly, “I still think it's madness.”
“Yes, I know. Perhaps it is. I only hope that I live long enough to find out, one way or the other.”
“Sire,” Adela said breathlessly, “you will be reuniting all the worlds of the Empire into a closely knit human community such as we haven't seen in centuries!”
“Perhaps. It would be pleasant to believe so. But for the moment, all I have done is to implement a decision to
try
to save Earth's Sun. It may succeed, it may fail. But we are sons and daughters of planet Earth, and we will not allow our original homeworld to be destroyed without striving to our uttermost to save it.”
He looked at their faces again. They were all waiting for him to continue.
You grow pompous, old man.
“Very well. You each have several lifetimes of work to accomplish. Get busy, each of you.”
Bomeer's and Fain's images winked off immediately. Javas's remained.
“Yes, my son? What is it?”
Javas's ever-present smile was gone. He looked serious, even troubled. “Father ⦠I am not going to bring Rihana to Earth with me. She wouldn't want to come, I knowâat least, not until all the comforts of the Court were established there for her.”
The Emperor nodded.
“If I'm to be master of my own house,” Javas went on, “it's time we ended this farce of a marriage.”
“Very well, son. That is your decision to make. But, for what it's worth, I agree with you.”
“Thank you, Father.” Javas's image disappeared.
For a long moment the Emperor sat gazing thoughtfully at the wall where the holographic images had appeared. At last he turned to Adela.
“I believe I will send you to Earth on Javas's ship. I think he likes you, and it's important that the two of you get along well together.”
Adela looked almost shocked. “What do you mean by âget along well together'?”
The Emperor grinned at her. “That is for the two of you to decide.”
“You're scandalous!” she said. But she was smiling too.
He shrugged. “Call it part of the price of victory. You'll like Javas, he's a good man. And I doubt that he's ever met a woman quite like you.”
“I don't know what to say⦔
“You'll need Javas's protection and support, you know. You have defeated my closest advisors, and that means that they have become your enemies. Powerful enemies. That is also part of the price of your triumph.”
“Triumph? I don't feel very triumphant.”
“I know,” said the Emperor. “Perhaps that's what triumph really is: not so much glorying in the defeat of your enemies as weariness that they couldn't see what seemed so obvious to you.”
Abruptly, Adela moved to him and put her lips to his cheek. “Thank you, sire.”
“Why, thank you, child.”
For a moment she stood there, holding his old hands in her tiny young ones.
Then she said, “I ⦠have lots of work to do.”
“Of course. We might never see each other again. Go do your work. Do it well.”