The driver opened the door and two burly bodyguards in dark uniforms got out and looked up and down Fifteenth Street.
Then Kendall got out of the car. He was wearing a business suit. He walked up to the apartment building doors. One of them was opened by a young man in a lavalava.
“The Chen is expecting you, Mr. Chairman.”
“These men come with me,” Kendall said.
“As you wish.”
The young man led them into the building, one bodyguard walking before Kendall, one after. He stopped at a sliding door panel, knocked, then slid it open.
“Mr. Kendall and friends, Chen Zufu.”
“Show them in, MinChao.”
The young man bowed into the room, then waved the threesome through the doorway. After they had passed, he slid the panel shut behind them.
Inside, Kendall saw Matt Chen-Jasic sitting in tailor seat on a pillow facing him, with a large doorway into a walled garden behind him. He was a big man, bigger even than Kendall’s bodyguards, and well muscled and tanned despite his age. He was barefoot and wearing only a lavalava. Another pillow was on the floor in front of him, with a tea set on a low table between the pillows.
From Matt’s point of view, Kendall was a paunchy middle-aged man who had never worked a day in his life. He was approaching corpulence under the influence of his extravagant lifestyle. His bodyguards, too, edged toward softness, pampered show pieces without training or discipline.
“Please have a seat, Mr. Chairman. I could have extra pillows brought. I did not expect you to bring friends.”
“That’s not required, Mr. Chen. These men are necessary. It’s something of a rule.”
“You make rules for yourself? Interesting.”
Matt waved to the pillow, and Kendall sat down. The two thugs – for that was what Matt considered them – stood to either side of the door.
A young woman wearing a lavalava and flip-flops came in through the large doorway from the garden carrying a steaming teapot. She poured two cups, setting each on the table adjacent to the nearest man, then set the teapot in the middle of the table. She bowed to them, then departed without a word.
“Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Chen.”
“I am pleased to meet with you, Mr. Chairman. I have always been available to meet with the chairman or any members of the council. It has not happened often.”
“I hope to remedy that.”
Matt didn’t respond, but picked up his tea and sipped. He set the cup down and waved Kendall to continue. Kendall launched into his little spiel.
“Mr. Chen, I think Arcadia has done very well in the last fifty years. We have made a lot of progress from being set down on this planet to get to where we are now.
“But I can’t help thinking it is time to switch gears, if you will. To fine tune our society to achieve the next stage of our progress. I think there are a number of specific policies that should be enacted to carry out that goal.”
“Aside from any discussion of specific policies, Mr. Chairman, two questions arise if one wishes to change the direction of a group of people acting out its own wishes and desires. The first question is, Who decides?”
“Why, the chairman and the council, as the executive and legislative bodies, should naturally decide these questions, Mr. Chen.”
“I see. The second question is, How does one enforce these policies?”
“With laws, Mr. Chen.”
“That is not enforcement, Mr. Chairman. Suppose someone decides not to follow these dictates, and carries on as he wishes.”
“Then it becomes a police matter, Mr. Chen.”
“You would use men with guns to enforce your wishes on society, Mr. Chairman?”
“That is how government works, Mr. Chen.”
“Ah.”
Matt picked up his tea, sipped, and set it back down.
“As it turns out, I have seen your questionnaire, Mr. Chairman, so I know what policies you wish to pursue. Aside from my objection to the specific policies you espouse, I object to your assumption of the authority to impose them.
“I am afraid I have no choice but to oppose you, Mr. Chairman.”
“Then you will be arrested and tried for treason.”
The two thugs stirred, but Matt raised a hand and pushed a button in his heads-up display.
Two young men in the garden, one on either side of the doorway, rotated into view, their guns already drawn and elevated. The suppressed semi-automatic weapons in their hands each coughed three times as they executed the Mozambique Drill on Kendall’s two bodyguards – two shots to the center of mass and one to the head.
The two bodyguards fell like trees, one to either side of Kendall, and lay still.
Kendall looked back and forth at them and then back to Matt in shock, to find himself staring into the muzzle of another suppressed semi-automatic pistol, this one held by Matt, pulled out from under the flap of his lavalava. It was trained on Kendall.
“You are not fit to be chairman, Mr. Kendall. You are ignorant of history, or you would have no such plans. Down this path is only death and destruction, and you should know that. Yet in your forty-five years on a planet with a library containing literally every written record of humanity, you remain ignorant of history.
“You are also too stupid to be chairman, to think you could come in here and arrest me on a capital charge – in my own home, from amid my family, with your two armed thugs – merely for disagreeing with you.”
Matt turned to one side and spat on the fallen bodyguard there, then turned and spat on the other.
“Always there are such men, willing to follow the ignorant.”
“But you can’t do this.”
“Why not, Mr. Kendall? You already told me your philosophy of government.
