Heirs of Empire

“Indeed. The classic example from your own recent history would, of course, be that of Queen Victoria and Edward VII. The tragic waste of Edward’s potential did great disservice to his country, and—”

“Maybe,” Colin interrupted, “but I wasn’t thinking about the Imperium. I want our kids to do something, and not for the Imperium. I want them to be able to look back and know they were winners, not place-holders. And I want them to know all the nice perks—the rank and deference, the flattery they’re gonna hear—don’t mean a thing unless they earn them.”

He fell silent for a moment, feeling Jiltanith’s silent agreement as she hugged him tight, and stared up to where Mother hung overhead like the very embodiment of an emperor’s power and treacherous grandeur.

“Dahak,” he said finally, “Herdan’s dynasty ruled for five thousand years. Five thousand years. That’s not a long time for someone like you, but it’s literally beyond the comprehension of a human. Yet long as it was, impossible as it is for me to imagine, our kids—and their kids, and their kids’ kids—may rule even longer. I can’t begin to guess what they’ll face, the sorts of decisions they’ll have to make, but there’s one thing ’Tanni and I can give them, starting right here and now with Sean and Harry. Not for the Imperium, though the Imperium’ll profit from it, but for them.”

“What, Colin?” Dahak asked quietly.

“The knowledge that power is a responsibility. The belief that who they are and what they do is as important as what they’re born to. A tradition of—well, of service. Becoming Emperor should be the capstone of a life, not a career in itself, and ’Tanni and I want our kids—our family—to remember that. That’s why we’re sending them to the Academy, and why we won’t have anyone kowtowing to them, much as some of the jerks who work for us would love to.”

Dahak was silent for a moment—a very long moment, for him—before he spoke again. “I believe I understand you, Colin, and you are correct. Sean and Harriet do not yet realize what you and ’Tanni have done for them, but someday they will understand. And you are wise to make service a tradition rather than a matter of law, for my observation of human polities suggests that laws are more easily subverted than tradition.”

“Yeah, that’s what we thought, too,” Colin said.

“Nay, my love,” Jiltanith said softly. ” ’Twas what thou didst think, and glad am I thou didst, for thou hadst the right of it.”

” ’Tanni is correct, Colin,” Dahak said gently, “and I am glad you have explained it to me. I do not yet have your insight into individuals, but I will have many years to gain it, and I will not forget what you have said. You and ’Tanni are my friends, and you have made me a member of your family. Sean and Harriet are your children, and I would love them for that reason even if they were not themselves my friends. But they are my friends—and my family—and I see I have a function I had not previously recognized.”

“What function?”

“Mother may be the guardian of the Imperium, Colin, but I am the guardian of our family. I shall not forget that.”

“Thank you, Dahak,” Colin said very, very softly, and Jiltanith nodded against his shoulder once more.

Chapter Six

It wasn’t a large room, but it seemed huge to Sean MacIntyre as he stood waiting at the foot of the narrow bed, and his anxious eyes swept it again and again, scanning every surface for the tiniest trace of dust.

Sean had spent all his seventeen and a half years knowing he was Academy-bound, yet despite the vantage point his lofty birth should have given him, he hadn’t really understood what that meant. Now he knew … and his worst nightmares had fallen far short of the reality.

He was a “plebe,” the lowest form of military life and the legitimate prey of any higher member of the food chain. He remembered dinner conversations in which Adrienne Robbins had assured his father she’d eliminated most of the hazing the Emperor had recalled from his own days at the US Navy’s academy. Sean would never dream of disputing her word, of course, but it seemed unlikely to him that she could have eliminated very much of it after all.

Intellectually, he understood a plebe’s unenviable lot was a necessary part of teaching future officers to function under pressure and knew it wasn’t personal—or not, at least, for most people. All of which made no difference to his sweaty palms as he awaited quarters inspection, for this was a subject upon which his intellect and the rest of him were hardly on speaking terms. He’d embarrassed Mid/4 Malinovsky, his divisional officer, before her peers. The fact that he’d embarrassed himself even worse cut no ice with her, and understanding why she’d set her flinty little heart on making his life a living hell was no help at all.

He’d felt, to use one of his father’s favorite deflating phrases, as proud as a peacock as he stood in the front rank of the newest Academy class, awaiting the Commandant’s first inspection. Every detail of his appearance had been perfect—God knew he’d worked hard enough to make it so!—and he’d been excited and happy despite the butterflies in his midsection. And because he’d felt and been all those things, he’d done an incredibly stupid thing.

He’d smiled at Admiral Robbins. Worse, he’d forgotten to stare straight before him as she inspected the ranks. He’d actually turned his head to meet her eyes and grinned at her!

Lady Nergal hadn’t said a word, but her brown eyes had held no trace of “Aunt Adrienne’s” twinkle. Their temperature had hovered somewhere a bit below that of liquid helium as they considered him like some particularly repulsive amoeba, and the parade ground’s silence had been … profound.

It only lasted a century or so, and then his eyes whipped back to their appointed position, his ramrod- straight spine turned straighter still, and his smile vanished. But the damage had been done, and Christina Malinovsky intended to make him pay.

The click of a heel warned him, and he snapped to rigid attention, thumbs against his trouser seams, as Mid/4 Malinovsky entered his quarters.

There were no domestic robots at the Academy. Some of the Fleet and Marine officers had pointed out that their own pre-Imperial military academies had provided their midshipmen and cadets with servants in order to free them from domestic concerns and let them concentrate on their studies. Admiral Robbins, however, was a product of the US military tradition. She was a great believer in the virtues of sweat, and no one had quite had the nerve to argue with her when she began designing the Academy’s syllabus and traditions. The fact that His Imperial Majesty Colin I sprang from the same tradition as Admiral Robbins may also have had a little something to do with that, but the mechanics behind the decision meant little to the plebes faced with its consequences, and Sean had labored manfully against this dreadful moment. Now he stood silent, buttons gleaming like tiny suns, boots so brightly polished it was difficult to tell they were black, and used the full enhancement he’d finally received to keep from sweating bullets.

Mid/4 Malinovsky prowled around the room, running white-gloved fingers over shelves and dresser top, regarding her stony face in the lavatory mirror as she checked his tooth glass for water spots. She opened his locker to examine its contents and his tiny closet to check the hangered garments and study the polish of his second pair of boots. Her perfectly turned out exec stood in the door, traditional clipboard tucked under his arm, watching her, and Sean could almost feel the sadistic glee with which he waited to inscribe Mid/1 MacIntyre’s name on his gig list. But Malinovsky said nothing, and Sean fought down a sense of relief and reminded himself she wasn’t done yet.

She straightened and closed the closet, looked about the room one more time, and crossed to his bed. She stopped where he could see her—not, he was certain, by accident—and reached into her pocket. She took her time, making an elaborate ritual of it, as she withdrew a shiny disk Sean recognized after a moment as an antique U.S. silver dollar. She balanced it consideringly on her crooked index finger and thumb, then flipped it.

The coin flashed through the air, then arced down to land precisely in the center of the bunk … and lie there.

Malinovsky’s gray eyes glittered as it failed to bounce, and Sean’s heart fell. He kept his face impassive— with an effort—as she reclaimed the coin and weighed it in her palm a moment before pocketing it once more. Then