“Understood. We’ll have a more complete picture by then.”
The next morning when he came into the office, Hayes found a précis of the investigation so far in his inbox, with a long attachment of all the details. He checked the time on Verano – about six in the evening – then put in a call request to Turley. She took it immediately.
“Hello, Mr. Hayes.”
“Hello, Governor Turley. I have the results of the investigation so far for you. The summary is: no Empire connections, no Empire funding. It’s all local.”
Hayes pushed her the précis and its attachment.
“So the target was Prieto, not our mutual friend.”
“Yes. Either President Prieto or Senator Bouchard. How is our mutual friend, by the way?”
“Very well, actually.”
“Good. One other question, Governor Turley. Just out of curiosity. I would have expected an attack by that many to succeed. How was the assassination attempt foiled?”
“They were outgunned, Mr. Hayes.”
“Outgunned?”
“Yes, Mr. Hayes. Two fire teams of eight, against Ms. Bouchard and myself.”
Hayes remembered how the Dalnimir investigation had started, when Turley killed four attackers in an alley in the capital city of Stolits.
“Ms. Bouchard is also a capable shooter then, Governor Turley?”
“She is very much my superior, Mr. Hayes.”
“My word.”
“Yes. Absent a lucky shot, they didn’t stand a chance.”
Dinner that evening was subdued. The household staff had worked on getting the sitting room back into shape after the police had come and gone. The area rugs had been taken out for cleaning and substitutes were in place for the moment. The room smelled a bit of fresh paint from the patches that had been made to the walls where the various misses and over-penetrations had hit. That faint odor was a constant reminder to the six of how close they had all come to disaster.
Dinner itself was comfort food, the staff being very attuned to the mood of their charges. Chicken noodle soup, meat loaf with a thick brown gravy, macaroni and cheese, broccoli with a Hollandaise sauce, and a side salad, finished off with apple pie à la mode.
After dinner, in the sitting room, the conversation was a bit stilted, with each distracted by their own thoughts over the recent events.
“Imperial Investigations has given me their preliminary report,” Turley said. “It was all local money and local talent. No connections back to the Empire at all.”
“Really,” Prieto said. “So there was no connection to, er, any of our houseguests.”
She looked back and forth at Stimson and Parnell for a moment.
“No. None at all. That’s the good news. Your political upheaval over the annexation vote has definitely ratcheted up, though. That’s the bad news.”
“But that we can handle,” Prieto said. “Can I have a copy of that report?”
“Of course.”
Turley pushed her the report in VR, and Prieto pushed it to the head of her planetary police department.
“Thank you,” Prieto said. “I’ve sent it on to the planetary police. I think they’ll find it interesting.”
“There’s another issue now,” Bouchard said. “At least one person on Center now knows where, um, some individuals are. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No,” Turley said. “I have no concerns about the Co-Consul at all.”
Bouchard gave her a pointed look, then looked at Gulliver, who just nodded.
“All right. Good,” Bouchard said.
The conversation slowed to a halt before everyone made their excuses for making an early evening of it.
Back in the guesthouse, Turley and Gulliver settled into their customary spots in the living room.
“I have to talk to His Majesty about Bouchard. I promised her, and it’s clear the two are now uncomfortable with each other. She doesn’t know what to do or say to him, and he’s picked up on it. Unless you want to do it, that is.”
“Me? No, thank you. First, you’re the one who committed to Bouchard. Second, you have more experience than I. I have only had one experience of the heart, shall we say, and it may be atypical. You, on the other hand, have had at least two.”
Turley sighed.
“I can’t argue with your logic. So when do I do it?”
“Now, before you lose your nerve or they get any more uncomfortable around each other.”
Turley nodded. She put in a meeting request with Parnell, which he accepted immediately. Turley turned to Gulliver before she logged in.
“Well, he’s accepted my meeting request. Wish me luck.”
“Break a leg,” Gulliver said.
When Turley logged into her simulation of the cozy room with the stone fireplace, Parnell was already there.
“Thank you for coming, Your Majesty.”
“Please be seated, Governor Turley.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“It’s your meeting, Governor Turley. Proceed.”
“Yes, Sire. This is actually not about business or politics at all. It’s about personal matters. I have to ask you, What are your feelings toward Ms. Bouchard?”
The question caught Parnell flat-footed, and he hesitated. How did he answer that question?
Turley picked up on his hesitation.
“I will caution you, Sire, to answer me honestly. A great deal depends on it.”
“Very well, Governor Turley. Ann. I am very much in love with Marie Louise Bouchard. And I have no clue what to do about it.”
“Would it make it easier if I were to tell you she is very much in love with you as well?”
“She is?”
“Yes, Sire. That’s what she told me when she asked me to inquire about your feelings for her.”
Parnell felt a moment of elation, then another thought occurred.
“Does she know I’m the legitimate Emperor?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Then how do I know this is real, Ann? Marie is a politician. She is ambitious. How do I know her interest is in me, and not in my position?”
“Ah. Perhaps I should restate my earlier answer. She knows now that you are the Emperor. She did not know when she revealed her feelings for you to me. She thought you were the pilot.”
“She did?”
“Yes. It seems your little ruse with Colonel Stimson worked very well. She believed him to be the Emperor and you the pilot. She was relieved actually. She doesn’t want to be Empress.”
“She doesn’t?”
“No. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life sequestered in the Imperial Palace. So I’m not sure what the two of you do about that. But she was madly in love with you when she thought you were the Emperor’s pilot.”
“Then what do I do?”
“I don’t know. But I will tell you this, Sire. Two people in love are ten times stronger, ten times more powerful, than any one person can be on their own. Look at Bobby and Amanda. They changed history, in a huge way, for the better. Neither could have done it alone.”
Parnell nodded.
“Well, thank you for letting me know, Ann. I have some thinking to do.”
And with that, Parnell dropped from the channel.
“How’d it go? Are her feelings reciprocated?” Gulliver asked when Turley dropped out of VR.
“Yes. He’s just as much in love with her as she is with him.”
“That still doesn’t solve the ‘don’t want to be Empress’ problem.”
“No, it doesn’t. But that’s for them to solve.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to tell her.”
Turley sent Bouchard a short note: ‘Your feelings are reciprocated. He is very much in love with you.’
“Well, we’ll see what happens next,” Turley said to Gulliver.
Parnell was sitting in his guest room trying to think what he should do when there was a knock on his door. He went a
nd opened it to find Bouchard standing in the hall. She was wearing a long silk robe.
“May I come in?” Bouchard asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
Parnell waved her into the room and closed the door behind her. They faced each other there, just inside the door of his room. She put her hand to the side of his face.
“I don’t know if we have tomorrow, my love, but we have today, and we shouldn’t waste it. Make love to me.”
She let the robe slip from her shoulders and stood naked in front of him.
“Here. Now.”
Neither was sexually inexperienced, but neither had been in love before. It made all the difference in the world. Whatever their previous experiences, without this depth of feeling they counted for nothing.
The next morning, Bouchard sent Turley a message: ‘Ann, you said you had a friend I could talk to about life in the Imperial Palace. Could you please set that meeting up for me?’
Bouchard logged into the address Turley sent her, not knowing what to expect. She found herself in a cozy room in front of a stone fireplace, a simulation she recognized as Turley’s. Seated opposite her, though, was Amanda Peters, the eighty-eight-year-old widow of the Emperor Trajan. Bouchard jumped to her feet.
“Oh, my gosh. Milady Empress.”
“Please sit down, dear. That was before. Now I am simply Amanda.”
Bouchard sat down and didn’t know what to say. She had never met Peters, who had already been a legend – and thirty-five years the Empress – when Bouchard was born.
“Perhaps if you would tell me your situation first, then I can try to answer your questions. May I call you Marie?”
“Yes, of course, Mil– Amanda.”
Bouchard sighed.
“For the very first time, I am truly in love.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Amanda. I think. I am in love with the Emperor.”
“Daniel Parnell?”
“Yes.”
“And now you don’t know what to do. What that even means.”
“Yes, Amanda. Exactly.”
“Well, Marie, I know now why Governor Turley suggested you talk to me. You see, I am the only person alive who can tell you about that. About what it means to fall in love with an Emperor. What it means to be Empress.
“It was a very long time ago. When Bobby and I met, I didn’t know he was the Emperor. He hid it from me. Much like your situation, I understand.”
“Yes. Our two houseguests are using aliases here, and I thought he was the Emperor’s pilot.”
“And Bobby told me he was in charge of the building. The Imperial Palace. It was true after a fashion.”
“What did you do when you found out?”
“I knew he was hiding something, and I made him tell me. My very first instinct was to run away.”
Peters chuckled.
“I’m glad I didn’t, Marie. We had a very good life together, and we made a great team.”
“But you could never leave the Imperial Palace.”
“Yes, I know. I still haven’t. It’s been over six decades now. But you see, I grew up in the Imperial Palace. My father was the gardener in the Imperial Gardens. I grew up in the Palace, went away to college, and then returned to the Palace for my first job. Empress was my second job.”
Peters smiled.
“So I had that advantage over you, Marie. I knew all the ins and outs of the Palace already. To you it’s some building thousands of light-years away, but to me it was already home.”
Bouchard nodded.
“Still, to spend one’s whole life in a building....”
“Marie, there’s something I need to show you. Would you mind if I transferred us to a different channel?”
“No, of course not, Amanda.”
The channel changed, and Bouchard found herself still sitting opposite Amanda, but now they were on either side of a picnic table. It sat on the edge of a meadow, bright with summer flowers. Bouchard gasped.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Come, Marie. Walk with me.”
They walked down the path that wandered around the gardens. Past Bobby and Amanda’s first picnic spot where he had told her his full name, past the pool where Amanda and Bobby used to swim nude and make love on the pool deck, past the fire pit where they had dinner that first memorable night they had spent together. Eventually, they arrived back at the picnic table. They took their original seats again.
“One of the things I like about being in VR is that I don’t get tired. I can walk the whole gardens.”
“This is a lovely simulation, Amanda.”
“No, Marie. You miss the point. This isn’t a simulation. It’s a recording. These gardens exist. They are the Emperor’s personal domain, reserved exclusively to him and those he invites.”
“Where are they?”
“On the roof of the Imperial Palace. My father was the chief gardener, then my brother, then his daughter. Even my niece has retired by now. My grand-nephew is the current chief gardener. Fourth generation.
“Bobby and I met right here, on this spot, over sixty years ago. I was a brat. I used to work for my father, and I could still get into the Imperial Gardens, you see. So I would sneak in. I was dancing and singing there in the meadow, when Bobby came to see who was singing. He was standing right here when I noticed him. That’s how we met.”
“How sweet.”
“We would picnic on the sward there. We would cuddle in front of the fire in the double chaise at the fire pit. We would even swim naked in the pool and then make love in the double chaise on the pool deck in the sunshine. I fell asleep in his arms the first time and burned my ass good.”
Bouchard laughed.
“After that we would cover with a towel to cuddle in the afterglow. And then the children came. We raised the twins here. They loved the pool. That sandbox by the pool was put in for them. Then our grandchildren played in it when they came to visit, then our great-grandchildren.
“These gardens are real, Marie. They come with the job. And they’re the one place where the Imperial Guard doesn’t mind leaving you alone. They’re the great escape.”
Bouchard looked out at the meadow, took a deep breath of fresh air, sweet with the smell of flowers. It had to be a recording. Simulations weren’t so deep, so immersive. Such huge recordings were rare because they were insanely expensive.
Bouchard turned to Peters and took her hand.
“Thank you, Amanda. This has been a big help.”
“No problem, Marie. I’m always here for you. Any time at all.”
Bouchard dropped out of VR and was back in her room in the main house at Il Refugio. She went down the hall and around the corner to the guest wing and knocked on Parnell’s door.
He opened the door, and Bouchard took his hands in hers and looked into his eyes.
“I will be your Empress.”
Collecting Input
“Be seated, Mr. Hayes.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
“Mr. Hayes, it has been your recommendation that I not seek input from the sector governors for changes they might wish to see in Imperial rule.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Let me ask you a different question. If you were to seek such input – and I have asked them to prepare such input for me, to be discussed in a series of meetings – in what manner would you do it?”
That was a different question. Assuming the Emperor would do it anyway, What would be the best way?
“I suppose, Sire, that I would ask that any such suggestions be submitted in writing before any meetings. This would allow you to prepare before the meetings, to look into the matters to be discussed, so as to have a more productive discussion.”
Goulet considered, then nodded.
“That’s a good suggestion, Mr. Hayes.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
“Would you then have meetings with everyone, or only with those whose suggestion raised questions? And
if the latter, would you meet with them individually, or in groups? Does previous practice give any guidance there?”
“I believe the Emperor Trajan would sometimes address the sector governors as a whole, Sire, but that was never a two-way conversation. For two-way conversations he always met with them one-on-one.”
“Curious. Any idea why, Mr. Hayes?”
“Sector governor is a powerful position, Sire. I believe Emperor Trajan thought that a group of sector governors would be more likely to feel emboldened by each other’s presence. Be more likely to push back against his authority. The Throne always wins, of course, but I think he thought it best to avoid circumstances in which the Throne would have to take notice of, shall we say, suboptimal behavior.”
“I see. Well, let’s start with getting the input in writing first, and see where that leads. I like that. Sort of ask for their talking points ahead of the meetings.”
“Very well, Sire. Do you want me to draw up that request?”
“Yes, Mr. Hayes. See to it.”
“Yes, Sire.”
Hawking, Sounder, Thornton, Lewis, and Montefiore were meeting in VR. The five sector governors had received, as all sector governors had, the Emperor’s request for written input prior to their meetings.
“It’s an interesting move. I sense Emperor Trajan’s staff is behind this. The Co-Consul, perhaps,” Hawking said.
“How does this affect our plans?” Montefiore asked.
“I don’t think it needs to affect them much,” Sounder said.
“We do need to avoid cookie-cutter responses, though,” Thornton said. “Remember Emperor Trajan’s annual warning against forming alliances of sector governors.”
“Yes, well that was Trajan, and Nerva is not Trajan, thank God,” Sounder said.
Hawking nodded.
“Nevertheless, I think Governor Thornton’s warning is well founded,” Hawking said. “Perhaps one of us should prepare a set of responses. Make them different. Leave out different secondary points in each, have major points in different orders, word everything differently. That sort of thing.
EMPIRE: Succession Page 11
