by Ted Mayes
“That leads right into the next question. Why an 'empire'? There's another question, too – where is it an empire? Is it just an empire of this place here? I sure can't see that it's an empire that claims the United States.”
Having left the cafeteria, they went up a floor and out onto the street. “That part is more than just a little confusing to me. As far as I can tell, the empire was 'proclaimed' 17 or 18 years ago. It owns land in any number of different countries, but if I understand it correctly, Ostia here is the only real part of the empire. It just doesn't make much sense to claim that a square mile of land is an 'empire'!”
By this time they'd reached the Imperial Chapel, and Jon stopped her briefly before they entered. “I need to apologize before we go in.” At her questioning look, he went on to explain, “My Mom and Dad attend service here. It's going to be bad enough with Mom going into her concerned routine, but, even worse, you're probably going to be meeting my siblings.”
She laughed as they went up the shallow set of stairs into the building, because a number of kids, waiting right by the door, were already in movement toward them. They swarmed Jon with their questions for a while before he could get them to quiet down.
“Beth, these are my siblings, James, 16, Thomas, 14, Michael, 12, and Ruth, 10. Guys, this is Beth Jordan, from my squad.”
His brothers and sister all tried talking at once. “I hear it's more involved than that,” said James. “Do you spend all your time ordering her around, too?” said Thomas. “She's pretty – how did you arrange that?” said Michael. “How can you put up with him and all those boys?” said Ruth. It was all Beth could do to keep from laughing. It was pretty obvious that Jon's home was active, boisterous and … interesting.
The kids didn't settle down until Jon's Dad appeared and sent the younger ones off to sit with their mother. Then he turned to Jon and Beth. “Miss Jordan, Jon. You're welcome to sit with us if you want?”
Jon quickly said, “Thanks, Dad, but we were going to sit toward the back.”
“Okay. As I understand it, you won't have some free time for a while, but at some time in the future you should have Saturday noon to Sunday evening off. When that time comes, your mother wants you to bring your whole decury home for the weekend – she wants to have a good chance to get to know all of them.” It looked like he was going to say more, but the organ began playing and, after insuring that the two of them would hang around after the service, he left them alone.
As they entered the last pew to take a seat, Beth whispered, “Your Mom is brave, wanting to have us all over.”
“She really likes to invite people over – almost as much as she likes to cook.”
“Too bad my folks couldn't do that. I bet they'd enjoy meeting everyone, too.”
Jon looked at her a little strangely. “Think about whether you're serious about that. If you are, mention it to my Mom. I'll bet she'll try to arrange it so that all of our parents get together sooner or later.”
She looked around at the church, then, and the first thing that caught her attention was an immense chair behind the free standing altar. She pointed at it and gave Jon a questioning look. He smiled and whispered, “It's a representation of the heavenly throne for the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Some child asked where God sits in church, and the next week that was there.”
“I've never seen anything like that before,” she whispered back.
“Or ever heard of it, I imagine.” He shrugged. “I gotta admit it was a little weird at first, but I think the idea starts feeling 'right' pretty quickly. They've even come in here after some church meetings and found children peacefully sleeping up there.”
“How'd they get up there? It's huge.”
“Yep, three times normal size, made out of 'synthetic' ivory, and depicting the Lord as sitting on Old Testament cherubim. You'll have to take a look up close some time. It may be unusual, but it is impressive.”
The service started and Beth had other things to think of. She found the service calming and refreshing, and enjoyed listening to the chaplain's sermon. It was probably because she'd already met the chaplain, but she didn't feel like a visitor at all. She tucked far back in her memory, as something to think about much later, the realization that she also enjoyed, and felt comfortable, being there with Jon.
When the service ended, she and Jon waited for his family near the door. The younger ones came first and clustered around him, asking lots of questions about basic training. His Mom and Dad followed, and after saying 'hi' to them, she thanked them for inviting the decury, and suggested that the other parents would be interested in something like that. Beth was glad to see the excited look on Mrs. Harrison's face. If Jon was right about Mom, her folks as well as the others, would have the chance to meet all her codjits.
They only stayed talking with the Harrisons for a short time. Then they headed back to the barracks with Beth still smiling at the antics of Jon's family. “You have a nice family,” she said, “although I have to admit that your siblings make a lot more noise than my sister and I ever did.”
“Maybe that's why I'm not bothered by the noise in the barracks – it sounds too much like what I grew up with to get upset about it.”
They walked on for a few steps before she asked if she could ask a few more questions. When Jon agreed, she asked “Last night, the centurion got a little mysterious, I guess, when he was talking about the emperor. What does he look like? Will we ever see him?'
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him, although I've met some people who claim to have met him. As far as what he looks like, one of the strangest things about this place is that the emperor is totally incognito. People get messages from him through their clerks, or may even hear him speak, but the voice is disguised and can't be recognized.”
“Why would he do something like that? If the coins in the money pit really are his, you'd expect him to be living it up, running around the world with the rich, famous and powerful.”
“Dad's a history expert and I've heard him go on at length about this, with more examples from history than I care to hear. According to Dad, making a show of his wealth and power would raise intolerable resentment against the emperor (or any ruler), cut the emperor off from honest disagreement and opinion, and make it nearly impossible for the emperor's children to be worth anything. So, who the emperor is remains hidden. That, supposedly, has the added benefit of improving the politeness and courtesy of imperial society. If almost anyone you meet could be a member of the imperial family, that is supposed to make you behave better.”
“You don't really believe that, do you?”
“Well, sorta. I have a hard time making sense of it, but people I've met, who are rock-solid believable, are sure that the emperor is 'hidden', and that it's a good thing.”
She shook her head. “Maybe someone's making a very elaborate joke.”
“I don't think so. If you remember the centurion talking about the 'aristocracy' last night, he said that we're led and ruled by an aristocracy, but an aristocracy of merit. To rise in rank around here, not only do you have to be dedicated and competent, you also have to be completely honest and straight-forward. Mistakes you can make, but lying about them or trying to cover them up or blaming some one else is the kiss of death. And any rank or honors that you earn are yours only. Everyone has to start at the very bottom and work their way up. One example that is often given is the emperor's son or daughter (if he has one) – he, or she, has to start off exactly the way that we do. In fact, in theory, one of our codjits could be the emperor's son or daughter and a future emperor or empress.”
They entered their building and began climbing the steps to their barracks. “From what you say, it sounds like they mean what they say, but it sounds too fantastic.”
“It does sound unbelievable – but, on the other hand, there are some very serious people going around thinking, and acting, as if all that stuff is true.”
3 – July-August 1993
The training continued, of course, and the decurion made good on his promise to cause them more pain. They started running, relatively short distances at first, a half mile out and then back. It was more than enough for her, but there were two things that helped her survive. First was the fact that they ran as a squad – Jon on the right, then her, next Kevin, then Maria, and James on the left. When Beth, and Maria, found it hard to continue, Jon had them hang on to the guys' harnesses and get dragged along. Soon that wasn't so necessary as Beth got used to the running, even though the decurion continually increased the distance. After several weeks she found she was running a minimum of four miles and not thinking a thing about it.
The other survival trick was the gift of the decurion. The squad was told that they would run to the sound of the drums, and they did. Beth had heard it before at games, the rhythmic beat of “We Will Rock You”, but for them there were no words, just drums hammering out the rhythm. She wondered whether someone would legally object to that use, but James quietly reassured her. According to him, one, a drumbeat couldn't be copyrighted, two, the drumming obviously wasn't using a song, three, it had grown up from unofficial use by the army, and, besides, James stated with a smile, four, a good case could be made that the drum rhythm had originated in Africa, and was copied by the British band. The decurion put it more simply – if the band had any objections, they could come try to make him stop using the drums. And that was said with a very evil grin on his face.
Regardless of the source and legality, the drums made it easier to run. It was easy to put yourself into an almost hypnotic state, the rhythm of the run blending with the drums. In a way it was relaxing, because your mind wasn't thinking at all, and one reached the end of the run mentally refreshed.
That didn't mean that muscles didn't hurt, but Beth and the others got more and more used to the distance and the discomfort went away. Then the decurion threw a new challenge at them – a four mile long obstacle course. There were ditches, pits, lots of walls, inclines and a host of other obstacles to cross. At first it looked completely impossible, at least to Beth and Maria. Beth found, though, that her codjits were helping all the way, and she started recognizing that the training was deliberately trying to cause that cooperation to happen.
The first time through the obstacle course was awful, but the only good thing was that every other squad was just as awful. Before the second time through, Jon had come up with a plan that worked so well that their squad passed through any number of other units who were also on the course. When they came to a ten foot wall, Kevin would go first and wait at the top in case help was needed. Jon and James would stand at the bottom of the wall and 'throw' Beth and Maria up, almost like it was a cheerleading routine. When the girls were over, the two guys would jump up, muscle their way over the wall, and then catch up with the others on the way to the next obstacle.
Some of the squads who watched them breeze by just watched. Other squads, including their codjits led by Ari, were soon imitating them. Soon there were a number of squads making fairly good time towards the finish line. When they finished reaching the end, ahead of everyone else, Beth could have sworn she saw a smile on their decurion's face. All that happened, though, was that the decurion had asked who came up with the idea of how to tackle the obstacles, and then informed them that they weren't completely awful.
Some things didn't change at all. Every day, except Sunday, there was weapons training of some sort. Every day, except Sunday, there was practice at hand-to-hand combat. When they got used to sparring with their codjits, the decurions arranged sparring with other squads, so that there was a new opponent every day. Beth won some of those match-ups, some she lost. The training did lead to something that struck her as something strange, yet very appropriate under the circumstances – she found herself having discussions at meal times and at those infrequent 'free' periods about the best way to attack someone else, or defend against an attack.
That wasn't all that was a little strange. After a while the decurion became more 'approachable' and was willing to take the time to answer questions. Yes, the emperor was always incognito, although some people claimed they thought they knew who he was. Yes, the main reason, at least as far as he was concerned, was so that people behaved better – if anyone you met could be the emperor or a member of the imperial family (for sure there was an empress, and rumor had it that there were a number of children), it stood to reason that, in general, people would behave 'more thoughtfully.'
Yes, advancement was only by merit – no one was interested, at least officially, in who your parents were or how wealthy they were. All the higher-ups he'd met (lieutenants/principales , 4 stripes, and up) were top quality, and when they said something you could take it as Gospel truth. Yes, there were lots of secrets in the empire, but, no, he had no idea what they were – and if he did know, he wouldn't tell anyone.
No, basic training wasn't just about being trained to fight. That was part of it, of course, but they were under continuous observation and were being tested for different future careers. In fact, they'd already started official testing – some tests would be pencil and paper, with others you won't even know you're being tested. No, they weren't going to be told what it was all about. No, not everyone was going to be a fighter, although everyone was expected to be able to defend themselves, and could be called to arms in case of necessity. Others would have positions in the government or the imperial university, or wherever the emperor wanted to use you. (Yes, I'm sure some of you have a brilliant career waiting for you - as a tackling dummy.) No, not everybody gets to go to the university – I had a friend who went, and I'd never want to do the work that he had to do. The university may not be for you, but you'll get plenty of training.
No, being observed doesn't stop after training. You'll be observed for the purpose of determining what honors you will be given. Some honors, like a promotion in rank or pay, could be given at any time. Others are handed out on the last day of the year (and yes, that does make for some happy New Year's parties). Yes, it is possible to do something stupid and lose your awards and honors. When I got out of training and was assigned to a cohort, the tribune (one rank above a centurion) of the cohort put himself in for a combat award he hadn't earned – within twenty-four hours, he'd been stripped of all rank and honors and been reassigned to a front-line combat unit – and he stayed there till he died in combat.
The information dribbled out, in brief answers to the questions they asked, but the training continued. Beth was made the squad's medic and was somewhat surprised how much she enjoyed the training. Not just the training, she also enjoyed 'mothering' the rest of the squad, making sure that they stayed in good health. Thankfully, she encountered no major health problems.
The last three weeks of basic seemed to be even busier. The physical training continued without interruption, but they also received an intensive course of training in policing and crowd control. They learned how to use new 'secrets' as they had begun calling some of the inexplicable gadgets they had been confronted with. Their headsets functioned as radios for communications but could also provide any kind of music on demand. The goggles they had been issued were also communicators and reflected information on the inside of the lenses, information like where individuals in the vicinity were. The helmets operated in the same way, and they began having training sessions with them at night, once or twice even running the obstacle course in full gear.
The first three weekends of their last month were especially memorable. As Mr. Harrison had predicted, they were given liberty between Saturday noon and Sunday evening. Almost as soon as they had been given that information, Jon had been reminded to bring everyone home, and they all had had the chance to eventually meet all the parents. The first week, Beth, Maria and Shawna had gotten messages from their parents that the Harrisons had invited them to Sunday dinner. The other codjits parents would come on subsequent weekends.
So it was a joyous time. Getting to the Harrisons' house was inte
resting in itself. Weekend liberty had gotten them acquainted with the delights of the underground mall. They had guessed that some people lived underground as well, because there weren't any homes topside. The reality was, different. The whole decury rode the elevators down to the 3rd level and turned off the Via Schola into another tunnel for a ways. Spaced like houses in a subdivision, house fronts were set back from the corridor by strips of ground of varying depth. Each house front was different, reflecting the taste of the resident family. Each 'front yard' was also 'landscaped' differently. The Harrison's 'house' had a brick front and was set off by a multitude of blooming potted plants that almost hid a couple of bicycles.
Jon just opened the door and called out “We're here!” as he waved them through the door. Mrs. Harrison came out of the kitchen to welcome everyone, and Beth could easily hear the sound of footsteps as Jon's siblings pounded into the room, followed by Mr. Harrison. Somehow, amidst all the noise and confusion, they soon found themselves relaxing in a large family room, while the Harrisons were informing them about the location of snacks and drinks. They were told to relax and make themselves at home. If they wanted a nap sometime in the afternoon, Mrs. Harrison pointed in one direction, the guys could crash in the den and, she pointed in the other direction, the girls could use the guest bedroom nearest the front door.
The group dissolved into different little groups. Some of the guys wanted to investigate what sports event they could watch, while others, along with Jon's little brothers, wanted to try out whatever video games were available. Maria, Shawna and Beth went off with Ruth as a guide to explore the house with the Harrisons' blessing. It was a nice, roomy house, and Beth liked how it was decorated, but there was something about it that seemed strange. She was back in the kitchen, talking with Mrs. Harrison and Ruth, when she figured it out and blurted, “It seems so normal!”
“What seems normal, Bethany?”
