“Yes, these four trunks and the two suitcases. That’s all of it,” Mary Anne told the men from the van.
There couldn’t be anything else, after all. The house was empty.
“Yes, ma’am.”
While they loaded the van, the chauffeur let Posten and Mary Anne into the back of the car.
“Pretty fancy,” Posten said to Mary Anne once they were under way. “We could have taken a cab.”
“The Imperial Palace staff set everything up, Gregory. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”
At the Moria Spaceport, their car was met by two young men in suits who showed them badges.
“Imperial Police, sir, ma’am. We’ll assist you with checking in and make sure all your luggage is properly routed.”
One of the men led them on into the spaceport while the other supervised the tagging and checking in of their luggage.
They took the slidewalk to the gate, and the IP officer with them directed them to seats and then went up to the counter to check them in. He came back with their boarding passes.
“Thank you for the assistance,” Mary Anne said. “We can take it from here.”
“I’ll wait until you board the shuttle, ma’am.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary, officer.”
“I have my orders, ma’am.”
Mary Anne looked at Posten. He just shrugged.
When their shuttle was called, as first-class passengers they boarded first. The IP officer accompanied them to the gate and looked on as their boarding passes were accepted.
“Good spacing, sir, ma’am.”
He nodded to them and watched them board before leaving.
Once aboard the IPS Empress Marie, the assistant purser showed them to their room. It was a first-class suite, the Empress Marie Suite. The eponymous suite on an interstellar passenger ship was sometimes called the owner’s suite, and was the best accommodations on the ship. The assistant purser waved them in.
“I thought shipboard accommodations were supposed to be tiny,” Posten said. “This is bigger than a nice hotel suite.”
“It’s our finest accommodation, sir,” the assistant purser said.
“It’s lovely,” Mary Anne said.
The porters showed up with their shipboard luggage, the two suitcases, and put them in the bedroom. The assistant purser refused a gratuity – ‘Your positive evaluation at the end of your voyage will be appreciated instead, sir.’ – and then waved the porters out of the room ahead of him.
Posten and Mary Anne sat on the sofa together in the sitting room.
“Well, this certainly is nice,” Posten said.
“I wonder,” Mary Anne said. “Do you think they’ll have a ship named after our daughter someday?”
“The Empress Arsinoe? I imagine they will.”
“Imagine that.”
They took their meals in the first-class dining room. They were not seated at the captain’s table, Imperial Interstellar Lines being a Galactic Holdings company and controlled by the Stauss-Becker family. The company and the captain were very much aware of the prohibition against interfering at all with the Emperor’s or Empress’s family, which had maintained throughout the Empire’s history.
They also did not share with their table companions who their famous daughter was, having been warned against it by Burke. Some may have made an inference from Mary Anne’s last name, but said nothing. Their story was that they were going to Center because their daughter was expecting their first grandchild, which was true as far as it went.
After almost a month aboard, they finally arrived at Center.
The IPS Empress Marie cut her acceleration to 0.3 gravities and dropped out of hyperspace. She immediately went back to one gravity of acceleration and called into Center planetary traffic control. It was the busiest space in the Empire – in all of human space – and traffic was tightly controlled.
It was twelve hours spacing to the planet before they were close enough to begin shuttle operations. As the passenger liner approached Center, computers on the big capital-planet transfer shuttles synched up with the Empress Marie’s computers and waited until the optimum time for take-off to make the rendezvous.
Gregory Posten and Mary Anne Burke were on the first shuttle down to Imperial City spaceport. When the shuttle landed on a pad in the shared space of the spaceport over by the Imperial Marines facility, a motorcade came out from the Imperial Marines facility to the shuttle as it cooled down. The rest of the passengers were held as the Empress’s parents debarked and got into the Imperial Palace limousine.
It was only then that people realized who they were – who they must be – to get such treatment.
The Empress’s parents arrived at the Imperial Palace in mid afternoon of a Friday late in August. They were escorted up to the Imperial Residence by a detail of Imperial Guardsmen, who showed them from the underground entrance of the Palace to the elevator bank. Two Guardsmen rode up with them in the elevator, which was express to the top floor.
Burke and Ardmore met them there in the elevator lobby of the Imperial Residence. Burke was just starting her eighth month, with three more weeks to the planned induced labor. She was wearing a fleece lounging set, with moccasins. Ardmore was wearing a business suit.
“Hi, Mom!” Burke said, then gave her mother a hug.
“Hi, Dad. It’s good to see you both. How was your trip?”
“Without incident,” said her father, shaking Ardmore’s hand.
“It was no problem, Dear. I don’t understand why you and your father made such a big deal out of it whenever you spaced.”
“Well, traveling in the owner’s suite of a capital-planet liner is a bit different than an Imperial Marines troopship. Tell me, were there ten other people sleeping in your room, in bunks?”
“Oh heavens, no.”
“See?”
Posten chuckled.
“Your luggage won’t be here for an hour or so yet,” Burke said. “but I can show you your apartment.”
“I need to get back to the office,” Ardmore said. “I’ll catch up with you all at dinner.”
Ardmore took an elevator down to the Imperial Office floor. Burke led her parents through the doorway into the Imperial Residence, which was held by one of the Imperial Guardsmen standing watch on the doors. There were two more Guardsmen standing watch on the Imperial Apartment at the far end of the corridor beyond.
“Those fellows are all around, aren’t they?” Mary Anne asked.
“Any time I’m there, or Jimmy’s there, they’ll be there.”
Her mother looked around as they walked down the hallway.
“This is pretty,” Mary Anne said.
“Pretty fancy, if you ask me,” Posten said.
“Yes. Well. No one’s asking you, Dear.”
Burke stifled a laugh.
They walked past the living room and dining room, and down to the second family apartment. The first family apartment was already set up as nursery and neo-natal intensive care unit.
“You should have the door lock in your VR now,” Burke said.
“Oh, yes,” Mary Anne said. “There it is.”
Mary Anne reached out to the knob and opened the door. She walked through and surveyed the living room beyond with a critical eye.
“Very nice, Dear. I think this is bigger than the living room back home. Could use some pictures on the walls, though.”
“The bedroom is through that door,” Burke said. “For right now, though, open the window wall.”
“Let’s see.... Oh, here it is,” Mary Anne said.
The drapes drew back, then the sheers, then the glass wall itself separated and folded into the side walls of the room, exposing a glass-railed balcony the width of the room. Mary Anne walked out on to the balcony.
“Gregory! Come and look at this,” she called.
Burke and Posten walked out on the balcony with her.
“What a remarkable view,” Mary Anne said.
“Agreed, agreed.”
She took a deep breath of air.
“It just feels so good to be outside again after a month aboard ship.”
“I can help with that, Mom. Are you too tired, or would you like to take a stroll through the gardens before supper?”
“Oh, I’d love to, Dear. You’ve said so much about them. Come along, Gregory.”
Burke chuckled and led her parents down the hall to the escalator, which took them up to the roof.
They met for supper at the door of the dining room of the Imperial Residence. Ardmore had changed down from his suit to casual wear at the end of the business day.
Posten stopped at the door of the room and looked down the hallway to the doors to the elevator lobby.
“Is this where you had the battle with the assassins?” he asked, walking into the room.
“Yes,” Burke said as they were sitting down around the table. “I had had the weapons caches on this floor seriously upgraded.”
A picture on one wall slid back, revealing ten racked Imperial Marines M55 over-and-unders – M23 rifles with underslung M32 Self-propelled Guided Munition (SGM) launchers – magazines for same on a shelf underneath, and a dozen small surveillance drones on a shelf above.
“Nice,” Posten said.
The picture slid back into place.
“When Gail gave the alarm,” Ardmore said, “I dumped the table over and shoved it up against the buffet there – it’s all metal cabinets and such – and told the Emperor to get down behind it.
Posten rapped his knuckles on the table top, assessing its sturdiness. It was a very heavy table. He nodded as Ardmore continued.
“Then I picked up a chair and stood on one side of the door there.”
“I got on the other side of the door,” Burke said. “When the doors started to open, I signaled Jimmy in VR and he hit them with the chair. He let the chair go with them, so they got all tangled up. Then I stepped out into the doorway and double-tapped them.”
“And after that, it was shooting gallery time,” Posten said. “Yes, I see. They were more surprised by you than you were by them.”
Ardmore raised an eyebrow at Burke. Even now, he didn’t know much about her family history.
“Dad did two enlistments with the Imperial Marines,” she said.
“Yes. That’s how we met,” Mary Anne said. “My father was Command Sergeant Major, so we lived on-base.”
“It was the deployments that got to me,” Posten said. “Being away from my wife and kids. So the third time around I didn’t re-up. I went into the reserves, and taught infantry combat skills on base for a while.”
“With Dad gone so much, I was really close to Gramps growing up. When I was four, and I got nanites, I signed up in VR as Gail Anne Burke, not Gail Anne Posten. I think that’s what tore it for Dad.”
Posten grunted.
“That’s when I re-assessed what was really important in my life. And it worked out great. So I don’t regret it. Not much, anyway.”
Posten took a deep breath, let out a sigh.
“But that was great work, you two. Nice job.”
“Thanks, Dad. From you, that means something.”
Dinner was served, and staff dismissed. Dinner tonight was a favorite: stuffed game hens with a side of blanched vegetables, garden salad and fresh bread, with peach streusel pie for dessert.
“Heavens. You don’t eat like this every night, do you?” Mary Anne asked.
“We could, but generally don’t,” Burke said. “The staff normally goes that little extra mile on special occasions, though, like you two showing up today.”
“That and they’ve been making sure Her Motherhood gets enough to eat for two,” Ardmore said.
Posten looked at Ardmore’s arms, now revealed by the short-sleeved shirt. He’d seen Ardmore’s avatar before, but avatars and people didn’t always match.
“You do have a gym in the Palace, obviously,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” Ardmore said. “There’s a private gym just for us. That includes you, if you want. It’s on the floor below us. Personal trainer, too. He’s pretty good.”
“Good. I’m gonna need it with this sort of diet.”
“We can walk, too, Dear,” Mary Anne said. “The gardens are lovely. We can swim, for that matter.”
“There’ll be suits up there for you tomorrow,” Burke said.
“How will they know what size, Dear?” Mary Anne asked.
“Didn’t Housekeeping unpack your things?” Burke asked.
“Well, yes, but–“
“Never underestimate Housekeeping.”
At thirty-two weeks, in the third week of September, the doctors induced labor per current medical practice. Burke gave birth to Stephen Burke Ardmore, named after her grandfather, Command Sergeant Major Stephen Burke. In attendance were Ardmore and Mary Anne.
After the birth, tiny Stephen was moved from the medical center one floor below the Imperial Residence’s upper floor to the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) that had been set up in the first family apartment, using an incubator cart obtained for the purpose.
The Imperial Press Office was, as always, terse.
PRESS RELEASE
– For Immediate Release –
IMPERIAL PALACE – Empress Arsinoe has given birth to Their Majesties’ first child, Stephen Burke Ardmore. Mother and child are doing well.
Investigations Continue
The Investigations Office had been busy since receiving Imperial Warrants for surveillance on selected members of the former DP’s plutocratic families.
The Throne was loathe to approve such warrants, believing such a mechanism was easily abused and such abuses tended to increase over time. That was one reason only Imperial Warrants could authorize it. The Emperor or Empress had to personally sign off on any surveillance. That essentially fell under the Imperial system of high justice. Their personal involvement, though, limited how much surveillance could be done in an Empire of two and a half quadrillion human beings.
The Investigations Office had continued the investigations it had begun into the DP’s plutocrats after the assassination attempt on the Empress. It had been several months, and the effort had languished a bit after the first sweep. The new information out of the Zoo gave them new focus. There were two areas of concentration.
One area of investigation was the people who did not have a current ‘where is he’ response, but hadn’t already been linked to an alias. There were unlinked aliases remaining, and now they had a group of unlinked people to connect with them. They could now, under the Imperial Warrant, monitor the communications of the unlinked aliases to see if they communicated with family members of one of the unlinked people.
The second area of investigation was the people who had essentially disappeared as children. Birth records in the Empire were relatively complete. For the safety of the mother and baby both, most infants were born at thirty-two weeks with a medically induced labor. That was four weeks premature compared to a normal full-term pregnancy. Neo-natal care was so good in most of the Empire, though, that was safer than being carried to term. The smaller babies were easier on the mother, and birth was easier on the smaller infant as well.
But those births were all induced with medical intervention, and neo-natal care was required. For those births, the vast majority in the Empire, there were good medical records.
Infant deaths were another matter. The infant might be buried quietly in a family plot, in a private ceremony. Confirmation of those deaths was unusual unless foul play was suspected. The registration of children in VR at age four was when they appeared on, and remained on, the Empire’s radar screens.
The missing children – born but not registered in VR at the age of four – were the question. They had either died in infancy, or had signed up for VR under an alias. That had never been suspected before, because w
ho starts using an alias at age four? Within a multi-generational conspiracy, though, it made sense. The child might not suspect it would want an alias later, but the parents would, and they could encourage the child to play a game of signing up under a pretend name.
Clearly, monitoring family members was worthwhile in those cases. If they were not maintaining strict communications security, Investigations might catch them communicating with their relative under his alias. The Imperial Warrant allowed that, as long as there were missing infants, born but not registered in VR.
Investigations went back a hundred years on those missing infants, because the adults could live under that alias their whole lives, and they initiated surveillance on immediate family members, as well as the current head of family. If someone’s kid sister slipped communications security, say, they would have him.
Among those to be monitored were Maire Kerrigan and the close family members of her grandson Thomas Doolan and her brother Ian Walsh.
“Oh, boy. This is a big one,” said Kana Miura, the head of the Imperial Network Operations Center.
“A big what?” asked her assistant, Marybeth Harris.
“Surveillance request. From the Investigations Office. There’s a bunch of people on here.”
“Surveillance request? Have they got a warrant? An Imperial Warrant?”
“They sure do,” Miura said. “Crypto-signed by His Majesty. It checks.”
“Well, OK, then. What are we looking for?”
“Just headers. But it’s all traffic to and from a few hundred people.”
“Ouch,” Harris said. “Well, I think they’re going to get a lot more than they bargained for, but let’s get started setting it up.”
“Well, ma’am, we have data coming in, but I’m not sure it’s useful,” said Stanley Nowack, assistant head of Investigations.
EMPIRE: Resurgence Page 6
