Chapter 18
“Dax!” The general’s voice was clear but not exactly that loud.
For no particular reason, Dax was in a jovial mood. He marched in and executed the precise protocols. “Sir, Captain Brood reports!”
The general looked faintly amused and returned his salute. “That’s almost appropriate, Son. Pack a bag and go home.”
“Sir?”
The general stared at him wordlessly for a long moment.
Something clicked in Dax’s head. “Is it that time, Sir?”
“You might want to avoid using portals in this area. Take conventional transportation and ship the bag separately. I want people to see you leaving here. This might be a good time to visit that place you folks call Hometown. You’ll have a couple of days to get there.” It wasn’t necessary to say much more.
Dax saluted again. “Thank you, Sir! Best of luck, too.”
“You’ve already been as much good luck as I needed, now go find something else to do with your life. Mine will take me out of here, too, either in a new suit or in a box.” He curtly saluted and turned to something on his desk.
Dax knew better than to play it with any sentimentality. And there really wasn’t that much to pack for someone who was heading off to a new career. He grabbed a standard briefcase and tossed a few items in, told the receptionist he would be out for a few days, and strolled off down the corridor whistling.
He took the trains as far as they would go, and then a short flight to another continent. There were more train rides, including a long sleeper ride. By the sunrise the next morning he asked AI for the nearest portal entrance. Two hops and he was hugging his sister and two nephews.
It crossed his mind they needed to work on the gender balance in the new enclave. That was when Harp introduced him to a lovely lass who had insisted on playing the role of housekeeper and nanny. In the next breath Harp mentioned that Tim had been courting her. Good for him. Dax hadn’t been ready to settle down just yet, anyway. Tim needed the help more.
During breakfast in his sister’s quarters, Dax looked at his watch. “AI, does the general know I’m safe?”
In reply, AI fed to a nearby wall display. There was news of a takeover by one of the plutocrat families. All the others had been simply rounded up without resistance. But instead of prison or more forceful measures, the now dominant household sequestered them all in a sort of voting assembly. At that point AI ended the summary.
“Boy, he didn’t waste any time,” Dax commented.
“Who?” Harp was puzzled.
“My ex-boss. He told me yesterday morning to come home. I knew what it meant without being told because it was too obvious what he was planning. I helped him figure out how to do it with minimal bloodshed and taught a bunch of his people how to deal with AI. Or, more precisely, a lot of people I trained left the military and went to work for his family.” Dax hadn’t really been telling his family much, but figured AI had it covered. He was lucky to get a quick chat here and there with Harp, Tim and his parents while at least one party to the conversation was on the move.
She didn’t seem too concerned either way. “So, what do you suppose he’ll do now?”
AI posted in bold letters on the display: Imperium.
They both said at the same time, “The natural end of any republic.”
Then Harp added with a grin, “Well, at least it’s someone we know.”
“Even better, someone who knows us and is kindly disposed toward us. He’ll make a good emperor and we are probably one of his biggest assets. His is the only family that directly interacts with AI. He also has found a way to unscramble all that wireless traffic the others were using. He never let on, but AI told me about it. It also told me that he had no big interest in the portals, just the communications and the means to control.” Dax was really enjoying the superior fresh food usually found only on plutocrat tables.
He added hastily, “I hope Tim’s okay.”
Harp was feeding one of the boys. “Is he in danger?”
Dax grinned, “Only if he wants to be. This is as close as we’ve ever come to having AI actually run the whole world, so I’m not worried about what happens, just curious.”
She turned and said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, he was coming by today. He was off at the other end of the world from where you were and said he’d try to make it before lunch.”
The housekeeper grinned and started humming.
Dax chuckled as his eyes followed her out of the room. “Good news for all of us, then.”
Harp wiped the elder boy’s face with a damp cloth. “So, what should we expect from your ex-boss who is now everyone’s boss?”
Dax stared into his coffee mug. “Not much right away. It’s not as if a global bureaucracy can change overnight without throwing everything into chaos. I suspect he’ll sack a few, put some in prison, maybe even find himself compelled to execute a few bureaucrats. But aside from an increased police and military presence on the streets, he’ll be working in the background to quash resistance to his bigger plans.”
The housekeeper came in and took the elder boy away for post-meal clean up. Harp turned back to Dax. “What bigger plans?”
“Well, the biggest problem has been the constant partisan bickering and jockeying for favors and position. It’s been pretty lavish and wasteful. However, he probably won’t so much reduce taxes as redirect them more efficiently while opening up the economy more.” Dax took a sip of coffee and swallowed. “I remember him asking about whether the portals could be used for space travel. Of course, as you know, they can’t. They transmit through the earth’s core because subspace can’t carry that sort of traffic. I’m guessing he wants to pursue a program for researching hyperspace travel.”
Harp raised her eyebrows. “We’ve heard it discussed before, but everyone says that would be really expensive just to investigate.”
Dax grinned, “Well, some of your folks here are the primary names in the research, so you should know. This enclave stands to prosper right off the scale for that reason alone.” He paused for a moment, and then frowned. “But there’s bad news, too.”
She tilted her chin down and just off to one side while keeping her eyes on his. “And...?”
“I’ve been watching this business of trying to maintain interfamilial communications security among the plutocrats. Right now they are all flat on their collective backs. Our new emperor won’t toss them out of the mansions, but they will be tightly restricted in both power and income. They won’t be using the system to scrape so much off as before, and they will resent this with a fury impossible to describe. They are willing for us lesser beings to pay any price for them to regain their golden days.”
Dax rose to his feet, moving toward the door. Turning back, he added, “I’ve seen indications that they will try to revive the research in psi-powers or even attempt welding people to AI with implanted devices. This takes them in the direction of serious violations of quantum morality. We may finally see AI hitting back, as it were, with devastating consequences.”
He paused for her response, but she just shook her head at the whole idea. “What are you going to do now?”
Dax’s smile bore a still somber note. “For a guy who joined the military just for the sporting opportunities, I sure haven’t had much chance to engage in it. I think I need a couple of weeks hiking around the mountains here. I had to leave all my gear back at the base. Got any hiking stuff around?”
Epilogue
Our tale ends here, readers. If you want to see where it goes, you should read The Chronicles of Misty. There may be other tales out there somewhere floating in subspace, but Thinkum isn’t telling.
Dax took his time finding a mate. Meanwhile, he spent a few months creating a security system for his sister’s enclave. Then he took a job with the imperial research foundation as technical adviser.
Harp became the ultimate mother hen for her enclave. Her husband had to stop traveling to become the chi
ef elder of the community that grew there. It’s not as if the rest of the The Brotherhood simply merged into it, but Hometown became the single best known enclave. Plenty of the wider membership continued as before, but with considerably more freedom.
Tim was actually the star in this story. His work in linguistics opened the door for the eventual development of what became known as Galactic, a form of communication that could be adjusted to fit any constraints, even while it offered a wealth of subtlety never before seen in human speech. As you might expect, dear readers, the emperor did finally get his hyperspace travel and colonized other worlds.
Sadly, the truth about quantum reasoning waxed and waned across the human timeline, but that’s the whole point of bringing you this story in two parts. If you don’t see how important it is to keep quantum thinking alive, you can’t expect to actually be alive yourself.
Again, you have our condolences.
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