“You do?”
“Yes. You’re Imperial Guard.”
“How do you figure?”
“First, you’re wearing Marine-issue shirt and pants. Second, you didn’t use the freight elevator, so you came up the escalator from the Imperial apartments, and nobody can do that except Housekeeping, the Imperial Guard, and the Emperor himself. Third, Imperial Guard isn’t on the palace payroll. Housekeeping is, but not the Imperial Guard. Fourth, you’re fit and muscled like a military man. You carry yourself like a military man.”
“Well, you’re right. I am Imperial Guard. Have been for ten years.”
“See. I told you.”
She punched him, gently, in the ribs.
“And you’re right, it’s not good to build a relationship on a lie. But I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That you’d run away screaming if I told you the whole truth.”
“Have we not yet arrived at the whole truth?”
“No.”
He said it so softly, and with such sadness, she almost didn’t hear it, even as close as they were.
“Well, then, you’d better hold me tight so I can’t go running away screaming.”
He pulled her close to him and turned his head to look into her eyes, inches away.
“All right,” Peters said. “I’m ready.”
“Bobby Allen – Robert Allen – is my name, just not all of it. My full name is Robert Allen Dunham.”
“Oh, my God!”
She struggled to get up, but he held her tight.
“See. I told you.”
He let her go then, and she sat up, holding her hand over her mouth, her staring eyes wide.
“You’re the Emperor,” she whispered.
“Yes, Amanda. I am a man they call the Emperor. But just a man, after all.”
She continued to stare at him.
“I did say I was in charge of the building.”
“But I – I don’t know what to say. What to do.”
“And that is why I was afraid. Afraid you wouldn’t be able to forget what I was, and see who I was.”
“But who are you?”
“A strong and sensitive incurable romantic, you said. That fits, I think. Come. Lie down here with me again. As you were. Please.”
“Is that an order? Your Majesty?”
“No. I will never give you an order, Amanda. Let’s have that straight from the start. And please, just call me Bobby.”
“I – I –“
Dunham patted the tablecloth next to him where she had been.
Slowly, tentatively, like she might bolt at any moment, Peters approached him and lay down next to him as she had before, with her head on his arm. She buried her face in his shoulder and breathed in the man-smell of him. She put her right arm across his chest and pulled herself up against him. Dunham held her against him, lay his head back on the ground, and sighed.
At some point, Peters got her arm under his, bent her elbow, and leaned her head on her hand, so she could look down at his face. Dunham turned his head to look at her, inches away. She bent down then and kissed him, softly and slowly. She pulled her head back.
“You don’t taste any different.”
“I’m not an alien, Amanda.”
“You might as well be.”
Dunham shook his head.
“Emperor is just my day job.”
“What are you when you’re not being Emperor?”
He turned his head to look up at the blue vault of the sky.
“Lonely.”
“How can that be? There are thousands of people in this building. It’s swarming with people.”
“All of whom call me Sire, or Your Majesty, who tremble at my approach –“ he turned to look at her again “– or who run away shrieking, or would if they could.”
“Sorry about that. It does take some getting used to.”
“I know. But there’s no one in this building who’s my friend. No one who just calls me Bobby. Not anymore.”
“Well, there is one now, Bobby.”
“You can’t possibly understand how precious that is to me.”
She kissed him again, longer, with more intensity. He let her set the pace, wary of the weight of his status. They spent an hour kissing and holding each other as the sun dropped further toward evening and the day began to cool off.
At length she pulled away and looked at him.
“We should continue this another time.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He gave her a private mail address, they packed up the remains of their picnic, and, with one final standing hug and a lingering kiss, they turned in their separate directions and walked away from each other on the path.
On Monday morning, Suzanne Saaret was on her way out for brunch and shopping with her girlfriends when she ran into the Emperor in the elevator lobby.
“Good morning, Bobby.”
“Good morning, Suzanne.”
“My, but you sound chipper this morning.”
“I met a girl this weekend. A young woman.”
Good Lord, how had he managed that?
“How wonderful. I’m very happy for you.”
“I’m very happy, too.”
Brenda Connolly came into Amanda Peters’ office and sat in her side chair.
“OK, out with it, girl. Who’s the new fella?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve got a real bad case of boyfriend-face. You know, that vacant, ‘I wonder what he’s doing now’ look.”
“OK, yes, I met a guy, and he’s really nice.”
“Who is it? Is it someone who works in the palace?”
“Yes, he works in the palace, and no, I’m not going to play twenty questions.”
Peters thought back to yesterday and smiled.
“You wouldn’t guess in a million years, anyway.”
An Improbable Assist
They had planned to get together the next Saturday. Wednesday morning, Peters sent Dunham a mail:
Peters to Dunham: How many days until Saturday?
Dunham to Peters: Too many. How about dinner tonight?
Peters to Dunham: Sure! When/where?
Dunham to Peters: The fire pit at six.
Peters to Dunham: OK!!
Dunham put a request in to Housekeeping for dinner at the fire pit, something suitable to eat sitting at the picnic table there. They settled on beef mini-sandwiches, a thin-sliced filet mignon served on a piece of fresh baguette, onion rings, applesauce, and smores for dessert, and a thermos of coffee. They also thoughtfully included some mints.
Dunham arrived at five to six as the staff was fussing with the setting. They put a tablecloth down first, and used clips to hold it in place. The food came up just before six, to ensure it was still warm, and they laid out covered serving dishes on the table.
Peters was a few minutes late. He could hear her approaching down the path, singing. She was wearing a sundress as before, but with a shawl over, and leg warmers from mid-thigh to ankle. Dunham had changed down after work as well, and was in his customary T-shirt and fatigue pants, with a sweatshirt over.
As Peters walked up, she saw Housekeeping kitchen staff still fussing over the arrangements, and a couple of Imperial Guardsmen standing off to one side. Dunham turned to the kitchen staff.
“Leave us.”
They left without a word. As they were leaving, Dunham gave a signal to the Guardsmen, and they, too, withdrew.
“Wow. You have a whole troupe following you around.”
“Well, I did get them to leave the brass band and the circus animals behind tonight.”
Peters laughed.
“I decided to be late so you would be sure not to miss out on the singing.”
“I appreciate that. I was early to make sure I wouldn’t.”
He held his arms out to her, and she came to him and gave him a hug with a long welcome kiss.
“We sh
ould probably eat while the food’s hot,” Dunham said.
They sat on the bench of the picnic table facing the other way, toward the fire pit, their feet up on a log set there for the purpose.
“That log is fake,” Peters said. “Daddy made it as realistic as he could, without it being prone to rotting. I think he took a real log, cut it into long pieces, impregnated them all with plastic, and then reassembled them.”
Dunham reached around and removed lids from serving dishes. He put applesauce and onion rings into paper cups, and gave each of them one of each, which they set on the seat. He handed her a sandwich as well, before taking one for himself.
“Oh, this is good. That’s not hamburger. What is it?”
“Filet mignon.”
“Oh, God. I could get used to this Emperor thing. And if I gain three hundred pounds, you can just have the staff push me around in a wheelbarrow.”
At the pained look that shot across his face, she was concerned.
“Bobby, what is it? What did I say?”
“Nothing. It just reminded me of something, that’s all.”
“Tell me, Bobby. Tell me the story.”
So, while they ate, Dunham told her the story of Dee’s illness, and of the cure the Empress provided. Of how Dunham took Dee into town in a wheelbarrow to get the cure, because his father couldn’t do it for another week and Dunham didn’t want her to have to wait.
“How far was it into town, Bobby?”
Dunham shrugged.
“I don’t know, Amanda. Six miles or so.”
“And you were just fourteen.”
“Yes. It was a long time ago.”
Dunham sighed.
“Sorry, Amanda. It’s going to take me a while to get over everything that’s happened.”
“That’s all right, Bobby. You can always talk to me about it.”
They roasted marshmallows over the fire and made the smores for dessert, then nibbled on the mints. When they were done, Peters groaned.
“Oh, God, I’m stuffed. That was all wonderful.”
“Let’s move to the chaise.”
There was a double lounger set up with its side to the fire. Dunham lay on it on his side, facing the fire, and Peters crawled in and lay in front of him also facing the fire, her head on his arm and his other arm around her. She pushed back to snuggle into him.
“So tell me. What’s up in the Emperor biz these days?”
“Oh, you don’t want to know.”
“Sure, I do. What do you do during the day? What’s work like?”
“OK, if you want to know. Right now I’m worried about Catalonia. The sector governor there has always been a problem. She has higher ambitions than sector governor.”
“What’s above sector governor?”
“Emperor.”
“OK, so that spot’s filled. She has no up from there.”
“I think she’s going to try to secede the sector from Sintar and set herself up as Empress of Catalonia.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, she’s got her favorite media personalities talking me down – the ruler should be an Empress, there was no proof provided against the Council, I’m a tyrant. The whole litany.”
“So what do you do about that?”
“Wait until she does it, then cut her off at the knees.”
“Go to war with her?”
“No. There’s a simpler way. A better way. At any given time, eighty or ninety percent of people don’t give a damn about the government. As long as times are good, they just want to be left alone to go about their lives.”
“Sure. Obvious.”
“Not so obvious to some of my staff. They’re such creatures of government they can’t imagine everyone in the Empire isn’t waiting with bated breath for their latest pronouncement. It’s silly.”
“Hey, I was a palace brat, and even I know better than that.”
“Right. And I grew up in an area where the general belief was that any interaction with the government was likely to start out bad, and go downhill from there.”
Peters laughed.
“Now, if the sector governor secedes from Sintar, and everything goes on along OK, then that eighty or ninety percent probably won’t care. They’ll just go, OK, instead of that Emperor or Empress, it’s this one. Whatever. Right?”
“Right. So your job is to mess that up.”
“Exactly. And without looking like the bad guy. What I can justify doing is taking away the privileges that come with being part of the Empire. If you leave, you don’t get the advantages of membership.”
“So what are you going to take away?”
“The hypergates. They belong to the Empire.”
“Ouch. That’ll get some people’s undies in a bunch.”
“Yes, but mostly the business people. Shippers and distributors and the like. It’ll filter down, but I worry it isn’t enough to get that eighty or ninety percent involved, because, while the sector governor and her kept media have been poisoning the whole sector against me, I can’t take all the hypergates in the sector, just those at the sector capital. If I can get the eighty or ninety percent of the people in the sector who just want to be left alone to turn against her, it’s over, but I’m not sure that’s enough.”
“Hmm.”
They lay there, snuggled up together, watching the fire.
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“I’ve got it. I know what to do.”
“What?”
Peters squirmed around to face him.
“Shut down the VR. The QE radios, the VR hubs, the whole thing. The whole sector. Shut it all down. Do you have any idea how much of the economy runs on VR, or is dependent on it?”
“But does that get the eighty or ninety percent of everyday people?”
“Absolutely. No VR with the grandkids. No school or entertainment for the kids, so they’re going to be bored and underfoot. No mail. No bank transfers. No verifying deposits, so no withdrawals either. Most of the money in circulation is virtual. Numbers in a computer. There’s not enough actual coin or currency in circulation to run the economy, by a lot. Everything will come crashing down.”
“Can they engineer substitutes? Print money? Set up a new VR system?”
“Sure, but there won’t be any time. The economy will come crashing down within days, maybe hours. She won’t last a week.”
Dunham stared into the fire, thinking about it.
“That’s an interesting idea. I wonder if the tech guys can pull that off.”
“I’d be surprised if they couldn’t. It actually takes a fair amount of work to keep it going. I would think breaking it would be easy.”
“I’ll suggest it to staff in the morning, and see what they think of it.”
He looked down from the fire into her eyes, and kissed her.
“Thank you, Amanda Peters. You’re not too bad at this Emperor stuff, you know?”
“I bet you say that to all your women.”
“Actually, that’s true. I do. Every single one. Emphasis on ‘one.’”
Peters laughed and hugged him.
An hour or so later, with the dusk turning to night, the chill of the evening deepened.
“Bobby, I’m cold. Can we go downstairs to your bed?”
“Is that what you want, Amanda?”
“Yes, Bobby. That’s what I want.”
He kissed her, and they got up off the lounger. She pulled her wrap close around her, and Dunham held her close as they walked to the cupola and the escalator.
The Imperial Guardsmen on watch there waited until they got on the escalator and then followed them down. It was deliciously warm once they got in from outdoors. They went down the hall the short distance to the Emperor’s apartment, Peters looking around with curiosity.
“Nice digs,” Peters said.
“Everything on Sintar’s so fancy compared to how I grew up, I don’t notice.”
They went directly into the bedroom
from the hallway. Two Imperial Guardsmen stood by.
“Leave us,” Dunham said.
They left without a word.
“Heavens, are they always around?”
“They even watch over me while I sleep. I normally allow it. It makes the Guard much happier. Tonight, however, no.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
Dunham shrugged.
“You get used to it.”
She looked around the bedroom, saw the bathroom opposite.
“I’m going to warm up in the tub. Why don’t you just go on and get into bed. I’ll join you in a bit.”
She stood on tiptoes to kiss him and went on into the bath.
Peters filled the tub half full with lukewarm water and got in, then cranked the tap to full hot. It was steaming by the time it was full, and it felt wonderful. She had been chilled to the bone when they came downstairs.
She decided against swimming any laps, but the size of the tub would just about allow it. Instead she sank full length below the water, until her chin and her face were the only part of her not submerged. She wondered if they could put a bigger tub like this in her apartment. She’d be willing to give up space for it. The living room, say.
Peters got out of the tub and dried off. She went back into the bedroom and over to the bed. Dunham was flat on his back, asleep and snoring softly. She smiled. Poor dear.
She got into bed and lay on her side facing away from him, and pushed back against him. He stirred and rolled onto his side toward her, cuddling up behind her. His arm reached around her waist and pulled her to him, his hand cupping her breast.
It was early, perhaps six o’clock, when Dunham woke with that married feeling. He opened his eyes and saw that Peters lay sprawled half across him, her head on his chest. He ran his hand up and down her side and she stirred. Her eyes opened, and she smiled up at him.
“You were asleep when I finally warmed up in the tub, so I let you sleep.”
“Probably for the best.”
“But you’re awake now.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
When Dunham came out of the bath from his shower, Peters was sitting on the edge of the bed eyeing her clothes of last night with dismay.
Tyrant Page 12
