Chapter Five
The dream always comes to me whenever I’m under a lot of stress. And it is always the same. I’m floating in space without an environment suit, comfortable but alone, the only living thing in the universe. With no one there with me I am not only alone, but lonely. Because I am endowed with the power of a god I decide to create a world. I put my best effort into that act of creation and bring something of true beauty into existence. But as the only living thing in my universe there is no one to share my accomplishment with. Then, with no one to admire my handiwork, I destroy the world in a fit of anger. My anger grows and I quickly become consumed with rage. As my fury rages unchecked I reach out and destroy other planets, entire star systems and even galaxies. But without anyone to see what I have done the destruction is an empty act.
That’s where the dream ends. I usually woke up feeling anxious and confused, often with my heart pounding and my sheets soaked with sweat. But this time was different. This time I awoke strangely untroubled. As I lay staring at the dark ceiling, replaying the images from the dream in my mind, it all suddenly made sense. I realized now that my dream was the result of a discussion I’d had with Morgan several years ago when he first posed a philosophical riddle to me: can a person alone in the world be good or evil? We’d gone back and forth on that one many times since then. Although he readily shot down all of my solutions he refused to tell me what his answer to the riddle was. All he would say was that when I could answer it for myself I would be a truly wise ruler.
I lay there smiling to myself as I thought about what I was going to say to Morgan the next time we talked. The crafty old fox had done it to me again. When I was younger he was always posing hypothetical situations to me which turned out to be morality lessons in disguise. I had been wrestling with this one for many years and only just now did I understand the lesson he had been trying to teach me. My dream was about the nature of right and wrong, so called good and evil. I understood now that those ideas were an illusion. There was no such thing as good or evil in an objective sense. Good and evil could only exist if there were someone to be good or evil to. Alone in my dream universe there was no one for me to hurt, no one for me to help. The world I created was not grateful for being created, did not resent me for its destruction. It was only the actions between living, feeling people that could be described in those terms. Good and evil, right and wrong, they were things that could only be judged by the person being affected.
Then the other shoe dropped. I suddenly knew why he’d pitched that particular riddle at me. He was trying to tell me about a problem within our society. The foundation of our legal system was that laws were supposed to exist to protect people from being wronged by others. Yet, many of the laws that were currently on the books had less to do with what was actually wrong than with things people wanted to control. If enough people were against something the pressures of public opinion often resulted in legal sanctions being imposed, even if the activity itself didn’t hurt anyone else. But what about the people who were being prevented from doing things they wanted to do? Weren’t they being wronged? Even if the thing they wanted to do was self destructive, did the government have the right to intercede?
If I was right about what Morgan wanted me to understand, then this was the most profound thing he had ever tried to teach me. It touched on the very foundations of our constitution and the rights of people.
I started thinking about the Libertarians and their recent rally in the capitol. While I thought their positions on a number of issues were a bit extreme, they might have a point about legalizing victimless acts. Morgan’s lesson implied that he supported their position.
But what about the rights of communities to set their own standards? Didn’t people have the right to decide the type of environment they wanted to live in? If the people in a community were opposed to the idea of alcohol use, why shouldn’t they be able to vote to establish a dry county? Yet to do so would impose restrictions on members within the community who didn’t agree with the opinion of the majority. Why should majority opinion prevent them from having a few beers with their friends as they watched the afternoon game?
Arguments and counter arguments competed with each other in my mind. Which was the lesser of two evils: forcing the minority to bend to the will of the majority, or forcing the opinions of the majority to take a back seat to the unassailable rights of the individual?
Thinking about all of the conflicting arguments was maddening. But the one thing I kept coming back to was the idea which was the central doctrine of our society: freedom. Government had no business inhibiting the freedom of its citizens.
Yet deep in my gut part of me also felt that some things had to be controlled. Drugs for example were far too dangerous to be allowed to circulate freely. I had seen firsthand just how destructive they could be. Prostitution, gambling, public nudity—these were things that you could argue for as being harmless. If drugs were legalized however, good people would end up having their lives ruined before they even knew what was happening to them. But as I lay there I began to have second thoughts about this as well. There was no doubt that drugs were dangerous, but did that mean the government had the right to force a policy on the general public for their own good?
I lay awake for a long while as I considered the implications of my revelation. When I was the captain of an independent transport that was crewed by a handful of escaped felons, the decision had been a simple one. My job was to run the ship. That was the extent of my responsibility. The crew had to be responsible for themselves. As long as their personal lives didn’t interfere with their on duty performance they were free to indulge in whatever activity they wanted to. If anyone couldn’t pull their own weight they were welcome to leave. But as king of the most powerful nation in the galaxy it was my responsibility to protect my citizens, even from themselves … or was it? What was my responsibility as their leader? The longer I thought about it, the more unclear the issue became. Eventually everything got so confused in my mind that I pushed the entire matter aside. I needed to put down this line of thinking and let my subconscious work on it until I could come back to it later with a fresh eye.
I rolled over to check the clock and was surprised to see that it was coming up on oh-seven-hundred. I had been laying awake for more than two hours. We would be dropping out of hyperspace soon. At that moment dealing with murderous pirates seemed simple compared with trying to resolve the nation’s social issues.
Since sleep was eluding me I decided to get up. But as soon as I folded back the covers Morgana rolled toward me.
“Trouble sleeping?” she asked as she rested her hand gently on my shoulder, sounding as if she had been up for a while herself.
I turned back toward her and nuzzled her neck. “After the workout you put me through last night I slept like a log.”
“Until you woke up around four-thirty,” she pointed out. “Is it anything you want to talk about?”
“Nothing to do with our mission,” I said, propping my head up on one hand. “Just an idea I’m kicking around for when we get back. I’ll tell you about it after I smooth out some of the rough edges. But right now …”
I leaned toward her and kissed her deeply. When I finally pulled away she looked up at me with raised brows. “Don’t you think we should get to the bridge? We’re supposed to be dropping back to sublight in half an hour.”
“You let me nibble your neck and then try to brush me off? Sounds like mutiny,” I said as I leaned in to kiss her again. She placed her fingers against my lips.
“Jason, I …”
I knew that tone. “What’s wrong?”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position and drew her knees up to her chest as she pulled the sheet around her shoulders.
“Nothing,” she said a little too quickly. “I just think we need to take a look at where all this is going.”
?
??We’re going to Beta Antares Three,” I said with exaggerated innocence. Morgana shot me a deadpan look. “Okay, sorry. But I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
She dropped her eyes to the mattress between us.
“I don’t know if I can do … this,” she said quietly.
“This?”
“Us. If people find out about us, our lives are going to become something completely different.”
“But everyone knows we’re involved,” I said. There are times when I can be a little slow on the uptake.
“I don’t mean the crew,” she said. “I’m talking about the general public. Right now I’m just one more faceless PSA agent assigned to the capitol. I come and go as I please and no one pays me any notice. So far we’ve been able to keep our relationship quiet, but I don’t know how long that will last.”
“You already know what I think. I want to let the whole galaxy know about this fabulous woman I plan to share my life with.”
“But don’t you see?” she insisted. “Once we formalize our relationship, everything will change. I’ll be the king’s betrothed. Everything I do will be scrutinized. There won’t be anywhere I can go that I won’t have a hundred reporters watching my every move.”
“They watch everything I do too,” I countered, “but I haven’t fared that badly in the press. I admit that living in the public eye can be a pain at times. And it is a little annoying to have paparazzi following you everywhere, but you get used to it.”
“You still don’t get it,” she said in an exasperated tone. “You were born into royalty. I wasn’t. People are much more willing to accept any mistakes you might make because you have your title by blood. But I’ll be looked at differently. People are going to expect me to be perfect. If I come up short in any way they’re going to say that I’m not worthy to be your bride, their Queen. I’ll have to live my life like a china doll in a glass house. … I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“Oh,” I finally managed in my typical, eloquent style.
This was what was on her mind as we were heading off on a mission to infiltrate the pirate network? I always thought of Morgana as someone who was as tough mentally as she was physically. Yet here she was worring about the way she would be judged by the public. Like generations of men before me I realized that women were something I probably would never completely understand. But I knew enough to know that, even if I didn’t understand it myself, it was enough that it bothered her. I did the only thing I could think of. I sat up, took her hands in mine and looked deeply into her eyes.
“You are the most important thing in my world,” I said. “There’s no reason to do anything to change our relationship now. We have plenty of time to figure out where we want to go from here.”
She gazed back into my eyes for several moments. Then she smiled and gave me a light peck on the lips.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed. You should do the same.”
She let the covers drop and stood up. I followed her with my eyes as she headed to the refresher. As I watched, a subtle transformation came over her. With every step she stood a little taller. Each step was more firm, more self assured. By the time she walked through the ‘fresher doorway any trace of uncertainty was gone from her bearing. She was once more my self-confident, no nonsense security officer.
Once she stepped into the other compartment I allowed myself to react to her revelation—I sat there utterly stunned. She couldn’t have surprised me more if she told me she had two heads. As far as I was concerned I knew she was the only woman for me. Just as importantly, I knew that I was right for her. Did she still think that she had taken advantage of my feelings during those years when I had lost my memory? I thought we had settled that issue long ago. Whatever it was that was bothering her I knew I had to show her that those concerns were baseless. I was incomplete without her in my life and I was not about to give up on us.
With less than thirty minutes before we dropped out of hyperspace, now was not the time to wrestle with this. Once again I was forced to relegate my personal needs to the back burner so I could attend to other matters. But I promised myself that as soon as this pirate business was put to rest we were going to take some time for us. I would never ignore my responsibilities as king, but I’d be damned if I was going to lose the one thing that gave my life meaning.
I tossed the covers aside, stood and followed her into the refresher. The compartment was already beginning to fill with steam when I entered the room. I watched her silhouette through the frosted glass of the shower door for a moment, enjoying the fluid movements of her limbs and the sensual contours of her body before I slid the curved door open. Wiping her hair out of her face she looked back at me as I stepped into the shower behind her and placed my hands on her shoulders. I massaged her neck briefly, then let my hands slide down her sides and out along the flair of her hips. Closing her eyes she dropped her head back against my shoulder as I pulled her against me.
“Jason, I—”
I pressed my mouth to hers, cutting short whatever she was about to say. The universe could take care of itself for the next few minutes. Right now my girl needed reassuring.