The Shadow of Cincinnatus

by Nuttall, Christopher

  But that wouldn’t make the young man suffer, he knew.

  He’d been betrayed. A military organization couldn’t survive without trust – and trust was one thing that had been in short supply, after the mutinies and rebels and the imposition of a small army of political commissioners. Raistlin had been trusted, even though Marius had known of his family connections. There had seemed no grounds upon which to reject the talented young man. But, as soon as the orders came, Raistlin had tried to kill his commanding officer. The betrayal could not be allowed to go unpunished.

  And you want to make him suffer, he thought. Shooting is far too good for him.

  “Because I can,” Marius said. He paused. “Would you like to know what happened to the rest of your classmates? The ones who served the Federation Navy over their families?”

  Raistlin started to giggle. There was more than a hint of insanity in the sound.

  “Admiral,” he said, “what do you think you’ve built?”

  Marius stared at him, more disturbed than he would have cared to admit. “What do you mean?”

  “Riding a tiger is perfectly safe,” Raistlin said. He giggled again, then caught himself. “It’s when you try to get off that you start having problems. My family rode a tiger for far too long and could never muster the courage to try to get off. Each little compromise, each one a good idea at the time, built up into an overwhelming structure we could never free ourselves from.

  “And here you are, Emperor,” he added. “How long will it be until you become everything you accused us of being?”

  “You’re the last of the Grand Senatorial families,” Marius snarled. It was a lie, but close enough to the truth. The lower-level aristocrats had been exiled to a distant world where they would be left alone. It hadn’t occurred to him until much later that they might be happy to have left Earth for more reasons than merely being allowed to keep their lives. “And when you’re gone, you will be nothing.”

  Raistlin rose to his feet and walked up to the forcefield, which spat and crackled at him as he stopped. “Look at yourself,” he mocked. “What happened to the proud commanding officer who stood unmoved on the bridge as his ship plunged into battle?”

  “He found himself having to clean up a mess that should really have been solved hundreds of years ago,” Marius said, gathering his temper. “What happened to the young lieutenant who had the entire universe ahead of him?”

  “He did his job,” Raistlin said. “He followed orders.”

  He smirked at Marius’s scowl. “Tell me, Admiral,” he said. “When you were born, on Mars, the planet of war, were you ever exposed to any culture?”

  Marius frowned, puzzled. Mars wasn’t a barbaric backwater any longer. Hell, it hadn’t been anything of the sort since the First Interstellar War. These days, it was as civilized as Earth, perhaps more so. The population hadn’t forgotten just how thin the line between life and death could be, even now.

  “There’s a song,” Raistlin said. “From an opera. Many a king on a first-class throne, if he wants to call his crown his own, must manage somehow to get through, more dirty work that ever I do.”

  Marius gave him a dry look. “I’m no stranger to dirty work,” he said.

  “But are you prepared, Admiral, for the dirty work you’ll have to do as emperor?” Raistlin asked. “You’re not the person I knew and respected any longer. The job is changing you beyond recognition. What will you be in ten years, Emperor? Will you really give up the job?”

  “Yes,” Marius said.

  He took a moment to gather himself. “You will be put on trial, eventually,” he stated, flatly. “And then you will join your family in death.”

  “See?” Raistlin said. “You’re not the person you used to be.”

  “Neither are you,” Marius said.

  He hit the switch, darkening the forcefield, then turned and walked away from the cell. It was hard to say which of them had gotten the better of the encounter, even though Raistlin was in a cell and Marius...was in a prison of his own making. He shook his head as he strode past the Marines, too distracted to acknowledge their salutes. No, he knew which of them had come out ahead. Raistlin was right, in so many ways.

  But he’s still the one in a cell, he reminded himself, as he made his way back to his quarters, where his wife was waiting for him. And he will die soon.

  Chapter Three

  D’Artagnan, Lady Tiffany Eleanor Diana Katherine. Wife of Admiral, later Emperor, Marius Drake. Forced into marriage with him, she rapidly formed a bond with her husband that survived the attempt on his life and remained with him as he took on the position of Emperor...

  -The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

  Earth, 4098

  Marius had never considered himself a marrying man, even though it was an unspoken rule in the Federation Navy that admirals should marry, if only to have a hostess when assigned to command remote bases and fleet deployments. Indeed, he’d assumed he would never be promoted beyond vice admiral after his deployment to the Rim and never really considered looking for a wife. And yet, one had been provided for him by the Grand Senate. It still surprised him, years later, that he’d actually fallen in love with her.

  And, perhaps, that she’d become the confidante Tobias had been, before his death.

  Lady Tiffany was beautiful, with long red hair and a pale heart-shaped face. She’d once been considered one of the prettiest girls in high society, although she had also been considered largely unmarriageable for reasons that defied Marius’s understanding. However it had happened, he was glad she’d come to him, even though her family had intended to use the marriage to control him. He needed at least one person in his life he could trust completely.

  She lay on the bed, looking up at him with a thin smile playing over her lips. Marius grinned back at her, grateful that they’d managed to find enough time to make love. He’d never understood how some of the Grand Senators had managed to keep harems, not when he’d found himself working from five in the morning till very late at night. But then, there had been hundreds of Grand Senators and only one emperor. There were too many pieces of paperwork only he, it seemed, could sign.

  “I went to see Raistlin today,” he said, and outlined their conversation. “Do you think he’s right?”

  “I think you shouldn’t talk to him,” Tiffany said, practically. “What do you gain from exchanging words with a murderer?”

  “I...I don’t know,” Marius confessed. He rubbed the side of his head, feeling the last remnants of the headache fading away. “It’s like something I have to do.”

  “It’s a bad habit,” Tiffany said. “Have him shot, or send him into exile, or do something, but don’t torment yourself like this. Raistlin will always have the edge on you when it comes to a verbal duel.”

  “He’s cracking up,” Marius said.

  “And he’s trying to make you crack up,” Tiffany said. “Raistlin was raised in a Grand Senatorial family. Manipulation of your emotions will have been hammered into his head along with his mother’s milk. He will be very aware of every crack in your emotional armor and how to open it up for best results. You should not try to talk to him.”

  She sat upright, then poked him in the chest. “You need to get rid of him and concentrate on the future,” she said, firmly. “And there’s no shortage of work to do.”

  “Tell me about it,” Marius groaned.

  Tiffany crossed her arms under her bare breasts. “Let’s see,” she said. “There’s the economic recovery program, the training program, the colonization program...”

  “I didn’t mean that literally,” Marius snapped. He regretted it instantly. “I’m sorry...”

  “You need to find more people you can trust,” Tiffany said, ignoring his apology. “There’s too much for one person to do.”

  “But I have a shortage of trustworthy people,” Marius muttered. “Where do I get more?”

  He sighed, bitterly. Raistlin’s betrayal had hurt more than h
e cared to admit, but it wasn’t the only problem. Many of the people he’d picked for his ministers had been people he knew and trusted, but not everyone who fell into that category were able to handle the work of pushing the Federation into reform. Commodore Garibaldi and his generation might be superb fleet commanders – the deaths of so many high-ranking officers had left plenty of room for rapid promotion – but they lacked organizational experience. He couldn’t call one of them back and put him in command of economic recovery.

  And then there was the problem that untangling the mess the Grand Senate had made of the economy would take centuries, if they were lucky. Marius had thought the fleet command for the ill-fated Operation Retribution had been tangled, but the economy was far – far – worse. Figuring out who actually owned what – and which properties no longer had an owner – would take longer than he had. He’d promised himself ten years as emperor, no more. But the task was already looking to take longer than his entire lifespan.

  “You’ll need to start looking among the managers,” Tiffany said. She gave him a mischievous smile. “Did you really think that we aristocrats did all the work ourselves?”

  Marius eyed her, suspiciously. “I wondered how you managed to work while hosting endless parties,” he said.

  Tiffany made a face. “I never went to parties,” she said. She cleared her throat, loudly. “I believe that most of the High Families had their own crop of managers. They would be loyal to their patrons, of course, but they also have a great deal of practical experience. And, now that their patrons are gone, most of them will be looking for something else to do. You could round them up and put them to work.”

  “I see,” Marius said. “Are they trustworthy?”

  “They’ll be loyal to their own families, now,” Tiffany said. “You could make sure their families remain safe and they’ll be loyal.”

  Or keep them as hostages, Marius thought. Once, it would have revolted him to even consider such measures. Now, it struck him as something necessary. Raistlin was right, in a way. He definitely wasn’t the person he’d been.

  He looked up at his wife. “Do you want the task of finding them?”

  “Not if I can avoid it,” Tiffany said. She sighed. “But do I assume correctly that I don’t have a choice?”

  “I’d prefer to leave it in your hands,” Marius confirmed. “I don’t know how far I trust Tully.”

  “You can trust him to put his own interests first,” Tiffany told him. “But you can also trust him not to think outside the box.”

  Marius stroked his head. “And then we have the problem of sorting out the rules and regulations,” he added. “I’ve got a meeting this evening to discuss it...boring, boring, boring...”

  “But necessary,” Tiffany said, firmly. “The Grand Senate screwed up the rules and regulations to ensure they remained on top. Undoing those will be the first step forward towards true economic recovery.”

  Marius cursed under his breath. He’d never really thought of the Federation as flimsy, not since the Inheritance Wars had ensured that no planet thought it could declare independence and leave the Federation. Even Admiral Justinian and the other warlords hadn’t managed to crack the towering edifice. But it was rotten to the core, he knew now, and only sheer luck had kept it intact for so long. If he failed to handle the economic question as delicately as possible, the Federation would collapse into rubble. And then a whole new series of wars would begin.

  “Fine,” he said, as he rose to his feet. He would have liked to spend the rest of the day in bed with her, but there was far too much to do. They’d had more time together on his flagship! “I’ll expect you to sit in on the meeting. And the professor.”

  “Understood,” Tiffany said. She stood as he walked towards the shower. “Do you want company in there?”

  * * *

  Marius was still smiling as he walked into yet another meeting room, this one decorated in blue and green wallpaper. Judging from the handful of portraits on the walls, showing earlier presidents of the Federation, it was meant to reassure rather than intimidate. It made a change from the office he was starting to think of as his throne room.

  “Be seated,” he said, as he sat down at the head of the table. He’d chosen to shun formality almost as soon as he’d made himself emperor. “What do you have for me?”

  “We tried to review all of the rules and regulations that were considered to be in force prior to the Second Battle of Earth,” Larimore Hammond said. The portly man had been a legal expert at the Luna Academy before Professor Kratman had recommended him for the task of rewriting the Federation’s regulations. “Most of them are starkly contradictory and all of them are impossible to follow, without baksheesh. The only purpose they serve is enriching the bureaucrats and keeping the Grand Senate in control of the economy.”

  Marius sighed. It was a dirty little secret on Earth – and the rest of the Core Worlds – that almost anything could be authorized, if the bribe was large enough. Even in the military, a handful of bribes to the right person could get anything done. Admiral Justinian, the post-battle analysis had indicated, had bribed heavily to get his operatives into position to do some real damage on Earth. Indeed, if Marius’s flight hadn’t been delayed by a few minutes, Admiral Justinian might well have won the war in one fell swoop. But even that disaster hadn’t convinced the Grand Senate to do something about bribery.

  But they didn’t have a choice, he thought, bitterly. They needed the bribes to keep the system running.

  “The codes cannot be revised in anything resembling a satisfactory manner,” Hammond continued, firmly. “There are just too many pieces of junk attached to the laws for us to fix them all. Instead, I would like to remove or cancel as many regulations as possible, with our role being restricted to ensuring fair play. This would encourage entrepreneurs to start up new businesses as quickly as possible, eventually absorbing or replacing the old Grand Senate-owned businesses. In the long run, our economy would become a great deal stronger.”

  “However, it would also weaken Earth relative to the Core Worlds and the outer colonies,” Tully put in. The Comptroller of Earth didn’t sound happy. His thin lips looked even thinner than usual. “It would have unfortunate long-term effects for the balance of power.”

  “I don’t see why,” Marius said, although he had a pretty good idea. “Earth has plenty of industries already.”

  “It’s a problem caused by the educational facilities,” Kratman said. “The Grand Senate made some reforms, true, but not enough to take advantage of any economic boom. Earth’s population would be left behind.”

  “Which would give them incentive to learn to work harder,” Hammond snapped. “The Grand Senate was strangling the life out of the economy before the coup. Now, we have an unbalanced system that is on the verge of collapse.”

  “But it will also make it harder for Earth to recover,” Tully snapped back. “This solution will cause other problems for us in the long run.”

  “As opposed to short-term problems,” Hammond thundered. “I...”

  Marius slapped the table and they fell silent.

  “I think we have to admit,” Marius said into the silence, “that there are going to be problems – that there is going to be pain – no matter what we do. Is that correct?”

  No one disagreed.

  “Then we have to strike now, before events slide completely out of control,” Marius continued. “We will strike down most of the rules and regulations, leaving the ground as clear as we can for an economic revival.”

  “But it will cause problems,” Tully said. “What if there’s an ecological disaster?”

  “The regulations as they exist are too strict to allow any form of activity,” Hammond pointed out. “And when someone slips someone else a bribe, we get the ecological disaster anyway.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Or are you facing pressure from your subordinates?”

  Tully’s face darkened. “I...”

  “Enough,”
Marius said, quietly. “Our purpose is to reform the Federation, to allow it to have a chance to breathe, to eventually pass control back to the population. We are not here to assist any special interests.”

  He sighed, inwardly. The bureaucracy was the largest single employer in the Federation, with literally billions of workers. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that cutting rules and regulations would mean less work for the bureaucrats, making it impossible for them to justify their employment. The Grand Senate might not have intended to encourage the bureaucracy to grow to unsustainable levels, but it had succeeded beyond belief. It could take years, even decades, to get permission to open a business, if there wasn’t a large enough bribe.

  But no one used that as the excuse, did they? It was all about protecting the workers from exploitation, or protecting the environment of countless worlds, or even about protecting the owners from themselves. A hundred thousand excuses, each one so calm and reasonable and nonsensical. And each one a mocking nail in the Federation’s coffin, because they were useless. Marius knew, all too well, that a bribe in the right place could ensure that anything – absolutely anything – was overlooked.

  He tapped his forehead, absently. The headache was back.

  “See to cutting the regulations down to the bare minimum,” he ordered. He turned to look at Tully. “I trust you have ordered the freeze on recruitment?”

  “It’s proving hard, very hard,” Tully said. “We have a contractual obligation to complete the hiring process for bureaucrats who were applying at the time of the coup.”

  “There are to be no new bureaucrats hired beyond this point,” Marius said. He felt a sudden surge of hatred and had to remind himself, sharply, that he couldn’t shoot everyone who annoyed him. “We will also be looking for ways to retrain them to do something useful.”