Bobbie started to leave, then something made her stop. Before she knew she was going to say it, she asked, “How much longer?”
“Rest of her life,” Amos said, then went back into the sick bay and closed the hatch behind him.
She found Holden and Naomi eating breakfast in the galley. The smell of scrambled eggs with powdered onions and what passed for peppers competed with brewing coffee. Bobbie’s belly growled as soon as she walked into the room, and without a word Holden pushed a plate toward her and began slopping eggs onto it.
“Enjoy, because this is the last of the real eggs until we get back to Medina,” Holden said as he dished her up.
Naomi finished chewing a mouthful and said, “What’s going on?”
“Did you guys read my threat assessment on Freehold?”
“Skimmed it,” Holden replied.
“First-generation colony,” Naomi said. “Eight years since founding, and it’s still only got one township on it in a semiarid temperate zone. Low-level agriculture, but most of the food supply is salvaged hydroponics. Some goats and chickens, but the livestock is surviving on the hydroponics too, so not the most efficient model. Lithium in the planetary crust and a weirdly lot of uranium trapped in polar glaciers that hopefully means it’ll be easily harvested helium if they ever get the infrastructure to mine something. Charter that calls for radical personal autonomy enforced by a citizen militia made up of the whole colonial population.”
“Really?” Holden said. “The whole population?”
“So three hundred people who like guns,” Naomi said, then pointed at Holden. “This one will insist on getting off the ship and speaking to them in person.”
“Right?” Bobbie said, then quickly shoveled a heaping scoop of eggs into her mouth. They were as good as her nose had promised they’d be.
“This has to be done face-to-face,” Holden said. “If not, we could just have radioed the message to them from Medina and saved ourselves the trip.”
“Diplomacy is your thing,” Bobbie said. “I’m strictly concerned with tactical issues. And when we talk to the powers that be on Freehold, we’ll be telling them there’s no reason not to just start shooting and hope for the best.”
Holden pushed his half-empty plate away and leaned back with a frown. “Explain that.”
“You really should read my assessments.”
Naomi grabbed Holden’s mug and moved over to the coffee machine. “I think I know where she’s going with this. You want any coffee, Bobbie?”
“Yes, thank you,” Bobbie said, then pulled up the tactical assessment on her hand terminal. “These are people who left Earth to form a colony based on personal sovereignty. They believe in the absolute right of each citizen to defend themselves and their property, with lethal force if necessary. And they are well armed for this purpose.”
“I followed that part,” Holden said.
“They are also years from self-sustaining at this point. The reason they’re relying on hydroponics is that they’re having a difficult time developing soil for their greenhouses. Something about the mineral content. The money they’ve been able to get from preliminary mining futures is all going to Auberon for agricultural supplies trying to get around that. They don’t agree that the Transport Union should be taking tariffs on any basic life-sustaining trade. Which is what got us here.”
Naomi handed her a steaming mug of coffee with lots of cream, just the way she liked it. Holden nodded in a way that probably meant trouble. He’d understood what she was saying.
“How long till they have local crops?” Naomi asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at the report.
“I don’t know, but that’s not the issue here—”
“The issue here,” Holden said, “is that we’re delivering a death sentence. Isn’t that right? We’re going to land and tell them they’re cut off from trading with other colonies. And they know they’re going to run out of usable food in a few months, and won’t be able to grow their own for years. The union is putting them in an impossible position. And by union right now, I mean us. We are.”
“Yes,” Bobbie agreed, glad he seemed to understand. “These are people who believe in the inviolate right to use lethal force in defense of their own lives. When we land and tell them they’re cut off, we’ll leave them with no reason not to try to take the ship.”
“I don’t understand the penalty,” Naomi said. “Seems harsh.”
“Drummer’s been waiting for this one, I’d guess,” Holden said. He didn’t look happy. “The first colony to really test how far the union will go to protect its monopoly on gate usage. And she’s going to crush this first example so hard that no one else will even try. She’s killing one colony now so she doesn’t have to kill thirteen hundred colonies later.”
The idea hung in the air like smoke over a poker game. Naomi’s expression mirrored Bobbie’s concern. Holden had the inward focus he got when he was thinking about something too hard for safety. A three-year timeout was rough. A three-year timeout when you’d start starving in less than one was something worse. Motive enough for violence, at least. Maybe something more.
“So,” Bobbie said, “this is going to be interesting.”
Chapter Three: Santiago Jilie Singh
Singh felt a tingle on his wrist and slid back his sleeve. The monitor wrapped around his forearm saw him look and displayed a notification of his most urgent task: the upcoming audience with the high consul.
He reset the notification timer to one-half hour before the meeting itself. His data pad had been riding on his arm or in his pocket for nearly five years. It knew everything there was to know about him. It was treating his upcoming audience with the high consul as if it were the single most important event of his life.
It wasn’t wrong.
He pulled the sleeve back into place, giving it one sharp tug to smooth out any new wrinkles, and inspected himself in his mirror. His blue-and-white dress uniform fit him like a glove, emphasizing the muscular frame he spent an hour every day sculpting in the gym. The newly acquired captain’s stars glittered on his collar, polished to a golden gleam. His chin and scalp were freshly shaved, and he imagined it gave him the feral, predatory quality that befit a military man.
“Still preening?” Natalia said from the bathroom. She opened the door and came out in a cloud of steam, her hair dripping wet. “A man so handsome needs to be groped, I think.”
“No,” Singh said, backing away. “If you get water on me—”
“Too late,” his wife laughed, darting forward to grab him. She hugged him tight around the waist, her wet hair on his shoulder.
“Nat,” he said, meaning to complain but finding himself unable to. Her towel had come loose when she grabbed him, and in the mirror he could see the gentle curve of her hip. He put a hand on it and squeezed. “I’m all wet now.”
“You’ll dry,” she said, reaching behind him to pinch his butt. The newly promoted captain in the Laconian navy gave an undignified yelp. He felt another buzz in his wrist, and for a moment Singh thought the pad on his arm was disapproving of all this tomfoolery.
He pushed his sleeve back again, and saw that it was just a notification that his car would arrive in twenty minutes.
“Car will be here soon,” he said with regret, burying his nose in his wife’s wet hair for a moment.
“And it’s time to get Elsa up,” Natalia agreed. “It’s your big day. You pick: wake the monster, or make breakfast?”
“I’ll take monster duty this morning.”
“Be careful. She’ll care even less about not messing up your clean new uniform,” Natalia said as she pulled on a robe. “Breakfast in ten, sailor.”
But it took nearly fifteen minutes to drag Elsa out of her crib, change her diaper, get her dressed, and carry her into their kitchen. Natalia had already put plates piled high with pancakes and fresh apples on the table, and the smell of chai filled the air.
Singh’s wrist buzzed, and he didn’t n
eed to look to know it was the five-minute warning for his car. He strapped Elsa into her high chair and put the smallest plate of apple slices in front of her. She chortled and smacked her palm down onto them, spraying droplets of juice everywhere.
“Will you have time to eat?” Natalia asked.
“I’m afraid I won’t,” Singh said, pulling up his sleeve and scrolling through the day’s schedule. “Monster just did not want to put pants on today.”
“I think her single biggest disagreement with preschool is their pants requirement,” Natalia said with a smile. Then she glanced down at the meeting schedule on his arm and sobered. “What time should we expect you?”
“My meeting is scheduled for fifteen minutes at nine a.m., and I don’t have anything else today, so …” Singh said. He did not say, but I’m meeting with High Consul Winston Duarte, so I control nothing about when the meeting begins or ends.
“All right,” Natalia said, then kissed his cheek. “I’ll be at the lab today until at least six, but your father agreed to monster duty if you can’t pick her up from school.”
“Fine, fine,” Singh said. “Until then.”
The dark naval staff car pulled up outside. Singh paused at the mirror by the door to give himself one final inspection, and wipe away an errant bit of Monster’s breakfast shrapnel. Natalia was at the table now, trying to eat and also get some of Monster’s own food in her mouth and off her shirt.
Dread welled up from his belly, swamping his heart. He had to swallow half a dozen times before he could speak. He loved his wife and their child more than he could say, and leaving them was always a little difficult. This was different. Generations of navy men had faced mornings like this. Meetings with superiors that heralded change. Surely, if they’d faced it, he could too.
The imperial view, a history professor at the Naval Academy once said, is the long view. Individuals build empires because they want their names to echo through time. They build massive constructs of stone and steel so that their descendants will remember the people who created the world that they only live in. There were buildings on Earth that were thousands of years old, sometimes the only remaining evidence of empires that thought they would last forever. Hubris, the professor had called it. When people build, they are trying to make an aspiration physical. When they die, their intentions are buried with them. All that’s left is the building.
While Martian intentions had never been explicitly imperialist, they had a fair bit of this same hubris. They’d built their tunnels and warrens as temporary living space in the stone of Mars, then gotten down to the generations-spanning work of making the surface habitable.
But their first generation died with the work still unaccomplished. And the generation after that, and so on, child following parent, until the children only knew the tunnels and didn’t think they were so bad. They lost sight of the larger dream because it had never been their dream. Once the creators and their intentions were gone, only the tunnels were left.
As Singh looked out at the capital city of Laconia whizzing past the car’s window, he saw the same masses of material and intention. Giant stone-and-steel buildings designed to house the government of an empire that didn’t exist yet. More infrastructure than Laconia on its own would need for centuries. Their columns and spires called back millennia of Terran and Martian culture, and remade them as a vision of a peculiarly human future.
If the dreams of empire failed, they’d just be big buildings that had never been used.
It was an open secret among the high-ranking officers of Laconia’s military that the high consul’s labs had made incredible breakthroughs in human modification. One of their most important projects was dramatic life extension for the high consul himself. The captain that Singh had served under as a lieutenant had received an official reprimand for getting drunk and referring to the high consul as “our own little god-king.”
But Singh understood why that particular project for the high consul was so important. Empires, like buildings, are aspirations made material. When the creator dies, the intention is lost.
And so the creator couldn’t be permitted to die.
If the rumors were true, and the high consul’s scientists were in fact working to make him deathless, they had a chance to create the sort of empire history had only dreamed of. Stability of leadership, continuity of purpose, and a single lasting vision. Which was all well and good, but didn’t explain why he had been summoned to a personal meeting with Duarte.
“We’re almost there, sir,” his driver said.
“I’m ready,” Singh lied.
The State Building of Laconia was the imperial palace in all but name. It was by far the largest structure in the capital city. It was both the seat of their government and the personal dwelling space of the high consul and his daughter. After passing through a rigorous security screening administered by soldiers in state-of-the-art Laconian power armor, Singh was finally ushered inside for the very first time.
It was a little disappointing.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A ceiling fifty feet high, maybe, held up by rows of massive stone pillars. A red velvet carpet leading to a towering golden throne. Ministers and servants lining up for a word with the high consul and plotting intrigues in whispers. Instead, there was a foyer and waiting area lined with comfortable chairs, easy access to restrooms, and a wall monitor displaying the security rules inside the State Building. It all seemed very mundane. Very governmental.
A short, smiling man with a red jacket and black pants entered through the room’s largest door and gave an almost imperceptible bow.
“Captain Santiago Singh,” he said, not making it a question.
Singh stood up, only barely stopping himself from snapping out a salute. The man didn’t wear a military uniform or any rank insignia, but they were inside the home of their ruler. It carried a weight beyond protocol.
“Yes, sir. I am Captain Singh.”
“The high consul hopes you will join him in the residence for breakfast,” the little man said.
“It would be my honor, of course.”
“Follow me,” said the little man as he exited through the same large door. Singh followed.
If the foyer of the State Building was underwhelming, the rest of the interior was positively utilitarian. Corridors lined with office space radiated off in every direction. The halls bustled with activity, people in suits and military uniforms and the same red jackets and black pants as his guide moving about. Singh made sure to salute any time he saw a rank that required it and tried to ignore everyone else. The whole human population of Laconia were the original colonists, Duarte’s fleet, and the children born there in the last few decades. He hadn’t imagined there were this many people on the planet he hadn’t met. His little guide moved through as though he didn’t see any of them and kept his same vague smile the entire time.
After a ten-minute walk through a maze of corridors and chambers, they arrived at a set of glass double doors that looked out on a large patio. His guide opened one door and ushered him through, then disappeared back into the building.
“Captain Singh!” High Consul Winston Duarte, absolute military ruler of Laconia, called out. “Please join me. Kelly, make sure the captain has a plate.”
Another man in a red jacket and black pants, this one apparently named Kelly, set a place for him, then pulled out his chair. Singh sat, dizzy and grateful he wouldn’t have to try to keep from swaying on his feet.
“High Consul, I—” Singh started, but Duarte waved him off.
“Thank you for joining me this morning. And I think we can use our military titles here. Admiral Duarte, or just Admiral is fine.”
“Of course, Admiral.”
Kelly had placed a single egg in an egg cup in front of him, and was now using tongs to put a sweet roll next to it on his plate. Singh had eaten an egg before, so while it was a luxury, it wasn’t a total mystery. The table was small—it would have been crowded with f
our diners—and overlooked a large patch of what looked like lovingly tended terrestrial grass. A girl of maybe twelve years sat in the middle of the grass playing with a puppy. Real chickens and Terran dogs. Unlike Noah’s ark in the old story, the ships of the first fleet had carried only a few species of animal to Laconia. Seeing evidence of two in the same sitting was a little overwhelming. Singh tapped on the shell of his egg with his spoon to crack it, and tried to keep his bearings.
Admiral Duarte gestured at Singh’s coffee cup, and Kelly poured for him. “I apologize,” Duarte said, “for pulling you away from your family so early this morning.”
“I serve at the pleasure of the high consul,” Singh said automatically.
“Yes, yes,” the admiral replied. “Natalia, right? And one daughter?”
“Yes, Admiral. Elsa. She is nearly two now.”
Admiral Duarte smiled out at the girl in the grass and nodded. “It’s a good age. Not the toilet-training part, but she’s sleeping through the night?”
“Most nights, sir.”
“It’s fascinating to watch their minds start to grow around then. Learning language. Learning to identify themselves as a separate entity. The word no becomes magical.”
“Yes, sir,” Singh said.
“Don’t pass up trying that pastry,” the admiral said. “Our baker’s a genius.”
Singh nodded and took a bite. The pastry was too sweet for him, but the bitter black coffee paired with it perfectly.
Admiral Duarte smiled at him, then said, “Tell me about Captain Iwasa.”
The bite of sweet roll he’d just swallowed turned into a slug of lead in his belly. Captain Iwasa had been stripped of rank and dishonorably discharged based on a report Singh had given to the admiralty. If his former commanding officer had been a personal friend of the high consul, Singh could be witnessing the end of his career. Or worse.
“I’m sorry, I—” Singh started.
“It’s not an interrogation,” Duarte said, his voice as soft as warm flannel. “I know all the facts about Captain Iwasa. I want to hear your version. You filed the original dereliction-of-duty report. What moved you to do that?”