The Lotus Eaters

Carrera looked, oh, a lot better on leaving the bedroom he shared with Lourdes than he had for a long time. For her part, he thought the smile on her face might have to be surgically relaxed. Sighing contentedly, he closed the door behind him and walked briskly, with more energy than he'd felt in seeming ages, down the broad steps, around a corner, and down a narrower set into the basement.

Carrera's first thought, as he entered the conference room in the basement, was, I should have held this somewhere else. But where? No place off of the island is as secure. The reason he thought that was . . .

'Gentlemen . . . ladies . . . please. You are not supposed to stand at attention for me anymore.' Carrera's voice went low and he sounded wistful as he added, 'That's not the purpose of this at all. Now, if you would please take your seats.'

Parilla, the only one present who had not stood to attention, tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to contain a wry, I told you so smile. Whether that smile was directed at Carrera, at the Senatorial Select Committee, or at the legislators who had followed the Senators' lead, wasn't entirely clear.

The group was almost entirely male. There were two women from the Legislative Assembly, true, but even some of the legislators tended to be ex-legionaries, hence typically male, since many had run on Parilla's presidential ticket, and been elected on his coattails. Of those, most had volunteered for the select committee. On the other hand, the initial Senate had been handpicked from Legion veterans. Those were mostly male and, of the women who had passed through the Legion, none had really had the chance to shine.

Where 'shine,' thought Carrera, equals the opportunity to lose eyes and limbs. In any case, they haven't had the chance  . . . yet.

His eyes swept over the small assembly, counting human appendages. Of the twelve senators of the select committee, there were only nineteen arms, seventeen legs, and twenty-one eyes. I sure hope none of them lost their balls, too. Their average age was a bit over thirty-five, a deliberate effort on the part of Parilla and Carrera, who had done the hand selecting, to make the Senate as mature as possible, given the constraint that the Legion was mostly young.

After the committee members had taken seats, Carrera took his own. 'Senators,' he began, rather than Conscript Fathers, which had been his first instinct. They really were too young for that title, in any event, even though they had been conscripted. Then, nodding at Parilla, he continued, 'Princeps Senatus and President, legislators, I've asked you here'—Carrera put a very strong emphasis on the word, 'asked'—'because we are facing a war, a very hard war, and there are things I am no longer willing to take on, myself, things I no longer trust my own judgment with.'

'You want us to be your conscience?' asked one of the Senators, a dark skinned ex-legionary turned farmer by the name of Robles.

'That among other things,' Carrera answered.

'Duque, that will never work,' Robles said. 'We all know you and we all know you well. Listening to others is not your strong point. At least, it isn't if you don't have to. And you don't play well with others. I remember a certain bridge in Sumer.'

Carrera smiled shyly at the memory. Once, during the invasion of Sumer, ten years prior, Carrera had bombed a bridge out of existence under the very noses of his allies, and for not much more reason that to avoid the difficulty of actually having to coordinate with those allies.

He forced the smile away and nodded. 'I know. I'm just going to have to learn.'

Robles looked very doubtful. Still, he shrugged his doubt off for the moment. Maybe, just maybe, Carrera could change. But—

'And what happens, Duque,' Robles asked, 'when you want to do something and we say, 'No'?'

In answer, Carrera took a folder from atop the table and opened it. Inside was a sheaf of white paper, stapled at one corner. He signed at the bottom of the first page, flipped that and signed the next, then the next, until he reached the last page which his signed in the middle. Wordlessly, he slid the packet over to Robles who began to read.

'Holy fucking shit!' the senator exclaimed before he was halfway through.

'What is it?' asked one of the legislators, Marissa Correa. The short and stout woman's light brown eyes flashed with curiosity.

Robles didn't answer immediately. He quickly scanned the rest of the package and then slid it in turn to Correa. 'He's just turned over nearly everything—seventy or seventy-five percent anyway—to the Senate.'

'Yes,' Carrera said. 'Everything but a quarter of the general fund, my family trust, which I have no right to give away, this house, Quarters One on the Isla Real—I think I want to retire there—and a discretionary fund sufficient to provide at least a few hundred, and possibly as much as five hundred, million a year. It's closer to seventy than seventy-five percent, once you take account of the exemptions.'

Carrera's finger pointed at the agreement. 'And now, Ms Correa, if you would turn to the last page and sign, as a witness and as a promise that you will not reveal anything of security interest to the country or the Legion, and then pass the thing around, we can get on with this.'

'My God,' Robles said, 'you're really serious.'

'Very,' Carrera agreed. 'If I don't listen, and can't convince you, you can now fire me. Or make it impossible to support the Legion unless I resign, which amounts to the same thing. Actually, you can fire me for any reason or no reason. My only job security is that I don't know that there's really anyone to replace me if you do. Jimenez, maybe, but he wouldn't take the job.'

'Ah . . . and there is one caveat,' Carrera added. 'I will still track the money and if I find any of it going astray I will drop a word in the right ear and the people responsible will be killed. You can try me for murder afterwards, but they'll still be dead. Similarly, if any of the Senate don't voluntarily step down or fight for election or reelection when their time comes, they're toast.'

'Don't worry about that, Duque,' Robles said. 'Just drop that word in my ear. I'll kill 'em myself.'