I

by Jake Bible

  “No, but he’d puke on a nurse and not me!” Eliza called from the bedchamber.

  * * *

  “Seven years of conflict,” Alexis said from the head of the long table. “That is a long time to hold out against an entire station.”

  The master’s blond hair hung down to his shoulders, his blue eyes staring daggers at the man at the far end of the table from him. They were the only two seated, their advisors standing directly behind them, eyes locked on their counterparts at the other ends.

  Alexis lifted a glass of gelberry wine and sipped at it, his eyes never leaving his adversary’s. A dribble of the pinkish liquid dripped from his lip and onto his neatly trimmed beard; a beard that was streaked with white and covered a long scar that crisscrossed his chin.

  “I am not holding out against an entire station, Alexis,” Lucas Langley replied, taking a flask from the pocket of his worn and tattered cloak. He uncorked it and swigged liberally, smacking his lips when he was done. “I have only had to hold out against the royalty, nobility, and gentry. The passengers have been very accommodating. It’s almost as if they want change as well.”

  “They have gotten change,” Alexis replied, setting his glass down a little too hard.

  Gelberry wine splashed onto his hand and he stared at it for a second, watching the drops slide down his hand over skin that was cracked and dry from wearing thick, breen gloves under battle gauntlets for so long. He finally looked back up and grinned wide. No one standing by the table, or standing at attention along the wall of the great hall, had any illusions of mirth from that smile.

  “The meeting of passengers was created to address every concern you have had,” Alexis said. “But you never gave it a chance. You started this war before I could do what was needed to equalize the balance of power on Station Aelon. All the blood that has been shed these last few years is on your hands, Lucas. Not mine.”

  “I can accept some of that blame,” Langley replied. “But not all. You made choices, or better yet, your stewards made choices that were beyond ruthless. I have lists of innocents slaughtered at the hands of your men. Slaughtered by everything from your fancy longslings to basic fire axes. Not just adults, but children. Entire passageways wiped out. That is on you.”

  Alexis felt the weight of the words and wanted to acknowledge them, but he had been advised not to concede a single point. De Morlan and Stolt, in a rare moment of agreement, both told Alexis that even if Langley said that his breen trousers were blue, he would have to argue that they were red.

  It was not advice Alexis found helpful or comforting.

  “I have wanted nothing but peace,” Alexis said. “Despite what you think. I have reached out to you through the years with treaties and offers of asylum. You have rejected every single one with the murder of my messengers, sending their severed heads back as your answer.”

  “Yet you still sent them,” Langley laughed. “How many messenger volunteers do you have left? My blade has been lonely these past few months. I almost killed the last one, but decided I would hear the poor wretch out. Thus I am here.” He took another pull from his flask them placed it back in his cloak. “Explain your terms so I can reject them and we can get back to work, Alexis.”

  “Sire, I cannot allow this disrespect!” de Morlan cried from just behind Alexis and to the right, his hand on the hilt of his long blade. “He will address you properly or I’ll cut out his tongue!”

  “Stay yourself, steward,” Stolt said from the other side of the master’s chair. “He is less than a passenger and was raised poorly, just like all the lowdeckers.”

  “You see, Alexis,” Langley smiled, brushing a lock of his wild, curly red hair from his face. Just like Alexis’s beard, Langley’s hair was streaked with white. Smugness was not defense enough against the stress and trials of war. “Lowdeckers. Not even considered good enough to be passengers. We are, and always have been, the castoffs. We are like the untouchables of the old fables. How could your meeting of passengers represent us? We aren’t even worthy of that title.”

  “Yet you have quite a bit of passenger support,” Alexis said. “So don’t act as if you are a race of your own. No one believes that. Stewards and wardens, even deck bosses, may talk as if you are, but under the eyes of the crown, and the charter of the station, lowdeckers are passengers. Always have been and always will be. Your refusal to accept or see that is your own issue. That, my friend, is on you.”

  “Tit for tat,” Langley laughed. “Tit for tat. That is the story of the last seven years. You tit, I tat. I tit, you tat. Back and forth, over and over, again and again.”

  “Which is why we are here,” Alexis said. “So you can stop your idiocy and rejoin the station proper. I am willing to make concessions to the charter and adjust the scope of the meeting of passengers. I bring that to this table. What do you bring?”

  “The willingness to never stop fighting,” Langley said as his laughter ended abruptly. “That has always been my offer unless you surrender the station to the people and end monarchial rule.”

  Half the room erupted into shouting while the other half replied in kind. The two leaders ignored the mayhem, their eyes never leaving the others’. Eye to eye they waited, their ears taking in the insults and calls to fight that were thrown back and forth.

  Finally, Alexis raised his hand and his side of the room quieted instantly. Langley’s side laughed and jeered, slinging epithets and slurs about how the men were owned and not even real people. Langley let the words be hurled for an extra minute then cleared his throat and his side slowly quieted.

  “I’d say you have a knack for monarchy,” Alexis smirked. “They listen to you as if you were master.”

  “They listen to me out of respect, not out of fear, as your people do you,” Langley replied. “I would gladly give up my seat here if I knew someone could do a better job.”

  “Your assumption is that I would not,” Alexis said. “Let me tell you something: being master is not all feasts and evening balls. Life on the station is hard for us all.”

  “But harder for most,” Langley sighed. “So stop comparing yourself to people you do not understand. If you want to experience how hard life is then toss off your shackled crown and end the rule of the masters once and for all.”

  “And do what?” Stolt cried. “Bring back democracy? Turn Station Aelon into a republic? Our ancestors, the ones that fled the planet when the Vape tore apart the lands, tried democracy on the stations. It did not work then and it would not work now. The establishment of the monarchies on this station and the others, is how we kept humanity from ripping itself apart. Each man with an equal vote? Ridiculous! Nothing would be accomplished!”

  “Nothing is preferable to the something we have now,” Langley replied.

  “Anarchy!” someone yelled from the gallery of spectators.

  “Perhaps,” Langley shrugged. “Only way to know is to try it.”

  “Which will not happen,” Alexis said. “I sympathize with your cause, despite your beliefs in me. I fought side by side with many of your people during my time on the primes.” Alexis looked towards the men that stood behind Langley. “Moses. Moses Diggory. I see you standing there. You think I forgot our time in that trench, up to our asses in mud, as a flechette barrage rained over us like the air was made of metal? You think I don’t recall how we charged the line that day and pushed the burdened until their backs were up against the ocean? I see you, Diggory. I know you, Moses. And you know me. Do you truly believe your man is right and Station Aelon should be ripped apart at the seams? Is that what we both watched men die for?”

  “I fought with you and for you, your highness,” replied Diggory, a short, muscular man in his late thirties. Like most of the lowdeckers, he had a shock of red hair, but his was cropped short to his scalp and not a wild halo framing his head. “I would have died for you. But that conflict is over. Now I will die for this one.”

  “Fair enough,” Alexis said. “I understand your l
oyalty to your people and the lower decks. It was that loyalty that I admired in you all those years ago.”

  “Why are we here, Alexis?” Langley asked. “Tell me what you will so I can refuse and be done with your castle and all the wealth it represents.”

  Alexis furrowed his brow then slowly smiled as he looked about the great hall. Centuries old tapestries hung along the walls, depicting scenes from station history that many of the professors and teachers no longer understood. The grey metal walls that peeked out from behind the tapestries were stained with rust and pocked with corrosion. Alexis laughed at the idea of wealth, knowing that the conflict had nearly drained his coffers.

  “You know nothing,” Alexis said finally. “You have your head shoved so far up into your little world that you forget we aren’t the only station in this system. You call this wealth? I call it decrepitude. Funds that should be going to badly needed repairs are instead going to pay for an internal war that we cannot keep fighting!”

  The master stood up quickly, knocking his chair back and making the entire hall jump. Hands went to blades, slings were raised, eyes watched and waited for the signal to fight.

  “Stop it,” Alexis said quietly. “Release your arms.”

  He began to pace back and forth as he shook his head.

  “The issues you have with the monarchy are from the reigns before mine,” Alexis said, turning and pacing, turning and pacing. “I saw those issues, I felt them too. Not as you felt them since I was raised in this castle of wealth.”

  He laughed bitterly and stopped his pacing, slapping his hands on the table.

  “From the moment I took the crown I set out to change what was wrong with Station Aelon. As did you. This conflict isn’t about two sides fighting for their beliefs. It’s about bad timing. You saw an opportunity to go after a young, new master. I saw an opportunity to use my youth and place to go after an old, weak nobility. We both wanted what was right for the station and its people. We just attacked it from two ends, not two sides.”

  “I think you have oversimplified what I fight for,” Langley responded.

  “No, I have not,” Alexis said. “Because there is nothing simple about any of this. Do you have any idea the resistance I encountered when I proposed the meeting of passengers? The odds were very strong it would never have even seen more than the first session. But your attacks gave me the power to insist upon the meeting as a way to bring passengers into the fold and away from you. Your rebellion has strengthened the meeting of passengers, not weakened it. Now help me strengthen it even more.”

  Langley watched the impassioned master closely, looking for the deceit and lie he knew was just under the surface. But he couldn’t find it and finally nodded.

  “Strengthen how?” he asked.

  “Lucas,” Diggory hissed. “Don’t even entertain the thought. The Lower—”

  Langley held up his hand and the man fell silent. “I’ll hear out the master about what he proposes.”

  Alexis smiled and then sat back down.

  “Good,” he said and snapped his fingers. A thick stack of papers was set before him as a porter hustled down to the other end of the table and set a copy of the papers before Langley. “We better get started. This will take a while.”

  * * *

  “You can’t be serious, sire!” Stolt almost yelled when the great hall had finally cleared and all that were left were Stolt, de Morlan, Derrick, and Eliza. The latter having been grudgingly accepted by the former two. “This is just one step closer to democracy! A form of governance that nearly brought our ancestors to their knees! The very people with the intelligence and knowledge to build the stations! Do you think you know more than they did about the dangers of popular rule?”

  “Careful, Girard,” Derrick said. “You are speaking to the master, remember.”

  “I know exactly to whom I speak!” Stolt snapped. “A fool that will give everything away that we fought so hard for!”

  “That I fought so hard for,” Alexis corrected. “Of the people in this room, I was the only one to take up arms and bleed for this station. The rest of you did no such thing. I don’t begrudge that, Steward Stolt, as you were all needed here, but never attempt to speak as if you know what it is like to stand on a battlefield with your comrades’ guts splattered across your polybreen armor.”

  Stolt started to speak, but stopped. He took a deep breath and then continued. “My apologies, sire. I would never presume to understand the horrors you experienced.”

  “Apology accepted, Cousin Stolt,” Alexis responded. “And my apologies are also offered if I offended any of you. I know your roles on the station were of the utmost importance. Derrick, my brother, you reigned in my stead once father died.”

  “I reigned while he lived,” Derrick replied. “He was not one to cross T’s or dot I’s.”

  “Very true,” Alexis smiled. “And Alasdair, your years of service have made you invaluable to the Master of Station Aelon, no matter who that person may be.”

  “I thank you, sire,” de Morlan said.

  “And my wife,” Alexis grinned. “I’m nothing without you. This family, and its legacy, would be nothing without you.”

  “But you plan to give part of that legacy away,” Eliza said, surprising everyone except for Alexis. “I have some of the same worries as the stewards. But I know you and I trust you must do what your heart says.”

  “Thank you, my love,” Alexis said. “There is no backing out of this now. I have signed the accord and the changes will be made to the charter and to the meeting of passengers. Elections will be held by season’s end. I want this business behind us so we as a station can enjoy Last Meal with the rest of the System. By Helios, I am too tired and getting too old to keep fighting.”

  “You are thirty, Alexis,” Eliza smirked. “That is hardly too old.”

  “It feels it though,” Alexis sighed. “It’s like I never left the battlefield. I was born there, I live there, I’ll die there.”

  “Stop it,” Eliza said. “You’re being maudlin and morose.”

  “Aren’t they the same thing?” Derrick asked.

  “Are we playing crosswords now?” Eliza snapped.

  Derrick shrank back and held up his hands. “Sorry. I was just playing.”

  “I believe my wife is as tired as I am,” Alexis chuckled. “A new baby will do that.”

  “As will raising five other children with that new baby,” Eliza said. “If we get one thing out of this, it will be to have all of our servants and nurses back. It’s petty to say, I know, but I too feel like I have been at battle my whole life. I’m just battling diapers and tantrums instead of blades and flechettes.”

  “I know my dear Lesha could use some help in our manor house,” de Morlan responded. “She has kept us to our chambers most nights in order to avoid looking at the squalor the place has fallen into.”

  “You see?” Alexis said. “This is why I have signed the accord. We are complaining about not having servants while the lowdeckers complain about not having rights. They get freedoms they didn’t have before and we get clean toilet seats once again.”

  “Our toilet seats are plenty clean,” Eliza said. “I do make the children earn their keep in some respects.”

  “Minors and minoresses cleaning toilets,” Stolt huffed. “The lowdeckers should pay just for the indignity they have brought on the crown.”

  “Have you not been listening to me, Cousin?” Alexis asked.

  “I have, I have,” Stolt said. “But understanding and acceptance are two different things. As you will see once the meeting of stewards convenes next week. They have to ratify the accord, remember. This is not settled yet.”

  “Which is why I expect everyone in this room to be busy these next few days drumming up support,” Alexis said as he stood. “We will get the votes, of that I have no doubt, but I want more than just a majority. I want a consensus. I want the nobility to be in agreement so we can truly move forward and make Aelon the s
tation it was always meant to be.”

  “But first we sleep,” Eliza laughed as she stood up and took her husband’s hand. “The children are with your sister tonight. I have expressed enough milk for Alexis to eat until lunch tomorrow. We can fall into our bed and sleep as long as we want.”

  “I could sleep for eternity,” Alexis said as he kissed his wife deeply. “So we don’t exactly get to sleep as long as we want.”

  “I’ll make sure the royal quarters are not disturbed,” Derrick said. “Then starting tomorrow I will work on swaying support for the accord.”

  “As will I.” de Morlan bowed.

  All eyes looked to Stolt. He shook his head then shrugged.

  “I will do everything in my power to see your vision through, your highness,” Stolt said. “I may disagree, but only because I do not have the view that you do from your position. I’ll get the support we need.”

  “Thank you, Cousin.” Alexis smiled then yawned. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, it has been a long day.”

  The three men bowed as Alexis and Eliza left the great hall, trailed closely behind by Corbin and a contingent of the royal guards. Once the echoes of the doors shutting faded away, the three men all took seats at the long table.

  “Can it be done?” Derrick asked.

  “Possibly,” de Morlan replied.

  “Highly unlikely,” Stolt added. “But the master has already pushed us down this path. If we don’t get the support he needs then he will look weak which means the entire station looks weak to the rest of the System. That is something we must stress when we present the accord to our fellow stewards.”

  “Then we better get to it,” Derrick said as he stood up and stretched. “I’m done for the night. We’ll check in with each other tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” de Morlan said.

  “Certainly,” Stolt responded.

  The two stewards watched the minor leave then looked at each other across the table.