EMPIRE: Renewal

by Richard F. Weyand

PRESS RELEASE

  – For Immediate Release –

  IMPERIAL PALACE –Emperor Augustus VI died today. Prior to his death, he had named Major Gail Anne Burke, Imperial Guard, and Dr. James Philip Ardmore, Court Historian, as Heirs to the Throne. The date of their coronation has not yet been scheduled.

  The next day, Ardmore and Burke both went into the Emperor’s office on the upper of the two Imperial office floors in the Imperial Palace. Ardmore waved Burke to the desk and sat in one of the guest chairs. Mr. Moody came in.

  “Good morning, Your Majesties.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Moody,” Burke said. “Be seated.”

  “Yes, Milady. I was wondering how you wanted to handle office arrangements. With two of you, there should be two offices.”

  “What would you suggest, Mr. Moody?”

  Burke waved to the side wall opposite the door from Moody’s office.

  “What’s on the other side of this wall? Can we punch through the wall?”

  “Actually, Milady, I had a different suggestion. If you and His Majesty wish to occupy these two offices–“ Moody made a sweeping gesture indicating the Emperor’s office and Moody’s own office “– I would be happy to move into one of the outer offices.”

  “Are you sure, Mr. Moody? That doesn’t put you out too much?”

  “It doesn’t put me out at all, Milady. I am proud to serve, and spend much of my time in VR. I think it is much the superior solution to the problem.”

  Burke looked to Ardmore, who nodded.

  “Very well, Mr. Moody. Thank you.”

  Moody bowed his head.

  “Not at all, Milady. And I have a request from General Hargreaves to see you this morning at your convenience.”

  “One of us, both of us, or me specifically, Mr. Moody?”

  “You specifically, Milady.”

  “Very well, Mr. Moody. You can send him in at his convenience.”

  “Yes, Milady. And I will be out of my office within the hour.”

  Moody left. Burke turned to Ardmore.

  “I wonder what Hargreaves wants,” Burke said.

  “To discuss security issues, most likely,” Ardmore said.

  “But why me, in particular?”

  Ardmore shrugged.

  “No telling.”

  Hargreaves arrived perhaps five minutes later, and was shown in by Moody.

  “General Hargreaves, Your Majesties.”

  “Be seated, General Hargreaves.”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “It’s your meeting, General Hargreaves. Proceed.”

  “Yes, Milady. When Trajan II took the Throne, the Imperial Guard had concerns about his wearing the uniform as Emperor. Not because they didn’t want him to wear it, but because they worried that, in the heat of a crisis, he might not stand out enough as Emperor. So the Guard asked him to wear a purple fourragère.”

  “This was with Trajan II, General Hargreaves? What about Trajan the Great?”

  “Trajan the Great was tall, muscular, with blond hair and white-blue eyes, Milady. The Guard’s concern developed because Trajan II was of more commonplace stature. Antoninus and Augustus the Great also wore the purple fourragère.”

  “And you don’t think I stand out enough, General Hargreaves? As the only female member of the Guard, with dark brown skin, and with decidedly non-regulation hair?”

  Burke’s hair, unshorn for six years now, was a mass of tight, shiny curls that trailed down her back.

  “It’s not that, Milady. Guardsmen have been relearning their heritage from the many books that became available when censorship stopped. They love the purple fourragère. And they want you, in particular, to have it.”

  “I see, General Hargreaves.”

  Burke looked to Ardmore, who smiled and nodded.

  “Very well, General Hargreaves.”

  “Thank you, Milady.”

  Hargreaves reached into his pocket and produced a fourragère in Imperial purple. Where in heaven did he get one on a day’s notice? Then again, he had known she was the Heir to the Throne for years now. Burke suspected that when Hargreaves said the Guard wanted her to have it, he meant he wanted her to have it.

  “If I may, Your Majesty.”

  “Of course, General Hargreaves.”

  Burke and Hargreaves both stood. Ardmore was the one person who had the luxury of remaining seated when Burke stood. Hargreaves removed the black fourragère from the MDU she had worn in to the office this morning and replaced it with the purple one. He bowed to her.

  “Thank you, Milady.”

  “Is that all for today, General Hargreaves?”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Very well. You are dismissed, General Hargreaves.”

  Hargreaves left, and Burke sat down behind the desk.

  “It does look really good on you, I’ll have to give him that,” Ardmore said.

  “It’s the little things that often set the tone for the big things. If it makes him and the Guard happy, I’m happy to wear it.”

  The body of Augustus VI lay in state for two days. Ardmore and Burke didn’t want to overdo it. Like the four Emperors before him, he had not been as popular during his reign as any of the Four Good Emperors, and they didn’t want the body to lay in state longer than the line lasted.

  They need not have worried. Emperor Augustus VI’s popularity had climbed over the last seven years as he took control and began to remake the Empire. Anyone with school-age children, in particular, appreciated the changes he had made, as many more curriculum choices were open to students and they were able to find better matches for their interests.

  Emperor Augustus VI, tenth Emperor of the Galactic Empire, lay in state in the apse of the ancient gothic Throne Room that jutted out from the Imperial Palace, before the Throne he had rescued from hereditary rule. Better than two hundred thousand people filed down the nave and past the Emperor’s open casket during those two days. They waited in line throughout the day and night for the chance. Trillions more observed the body in VR.

  At nine o’clock in the morning on the third day, his casket was closed. It was carried by the Imperial Guard down Palace Mall, past the statue of Ilithyia II, to the Imperial Mausoleum. The mausoleum was opened, and his casket slid into place next to his wife’s. The marker plate was affixed, the Guard withdrew, the mausoleum was sealed again.

  Ardmore and Burke watched from Ardmore’s balcony in the Imperial Residence.

  “So ends an age,” Ardmore said.

  “And so begins another,” Burke said.

  Ardmore nodded.

  “That is the way of things.”

  It took Housekeeping a week to completely refresh the Imperial Apartment, the private living room, bedroom, bath, and closets of the Emperor. They then moved Ardmore and Burke into the Imperial Apartment while they were at work during the day.

  Returning home that evening, Burke walked through, making sure everything was where she wanted it. Satisfied, she went out to the living room where Ardmore was sitting in one of the armchairs. The one, in fact, he had sat in for their afternoon meetings for years.

  “I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go sit in that big tub for a while before dinner and relax.”

  “Have fun.”

  She kissed him and was shedding clothes on her way out of the room. Ardmore watched her go, but she didn’t get to any of the good parts before she disappeared around the corner.

  Two weeks after Drake died, Burke’s grandfather – the retired Imperial Marines Command Sergeant Major she had called Gramps – had a stroke and died at the age of seventy-three. He had lived to see his granddaughter named Empress, but he would not see her coronation.

  Burke was devastated by the news. They had talked the previous week, in VR, after Drake had died. He had called her ‘Milady Empress’ with a twinkle in his eye. There had been no sign anything was wrong, no indication anything was imminent.

  And then the message arrived and he was gone.
>
  After two days out of the office in mourning, Burke came into breakfast in MDU, with the purple fourragère. She looked all business.

  “Jimmy, it’s time we do something about the nanites.”

  The Nanites

  When they got into the office that morning, it was mid-afternoon in Heidelberg on Hesse, in the Baden Sector. Burke put in a request for a meeting with Franz Becker. He accepted the meeting immediately and appeared in channel 22. Burke was sitting behind the desk, while Ardmore was in one of the guest chairs. Comfortably in one of the guest chairs, in fact, because in channel 22 the chair adjusted to his frame.

  Becker bowed to Burke, then Ardmore.

  “Your Majesties,” he said.

  “Be seated, Mr. Becker.”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Mr. Becker, I want to talk today about nanites.”

  “Very well, Milady.”

  “Mr. Becker, I assume you have the premium nanites, whatever they call them, and can expect to live into your late nineties.”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “For which your parents, presumably, paid a premium over the standard nanites everyone gets for free in the Empire, Mr. Becker?”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Did you know the ‘premium’ nanites used to be the standard nanites given to everyone in the Empire, Mr. Becker? That the situation changed a hundred years ago when the pharmaceutical companies negotiated a new arrangement with the Emperor Augustus II?”

  “Actually, I did know that, Milady.”

  “Well, we are going to change that, Mr. Becker. Everyone in the Empire will once again get the full-function nanites they once did.”

  “I see, Milady.”

  Becker was clearly a little taken back by her tone. Ardmore touched Becker’s arm, and Becker turned to him.

  “Her Majesty’s grandfather died this week of a stroke at the age of seventy-three, Mr. Becker. Milady Empress is very upset about this.”

  “I see, Sire.”

  “Bet your ass I am. This shit is going to stop. What is Galactic Holdings’ role in all this, if any, Mr. Becker?”

  “We do not have a controlling interest in any of the pharmaceutical companies, Milady. Corporate by-laws normally prevent someone from having a controlling interest in one company while having large stakes in any of its competitors. We have chosen to take a broad position in this industry, with large stakes in multiple pharmaceutical companies rather than controlling interest in just one.”

  “I see. So you do not run any of these companies, Mr. Becker, but I imagine you have access to information about their business operations.”

  “Yes, Milady, although such information is generally considered confidential.”

  “I’ll subpoena it if I have to, Mr. Becker, but if I do, it means heads will roll. In this case, that is not a figure of speech.”

  “I will obtain what information I can, Milady.”

  “I want it all, Mr. Becker. And I want you to put one of your consulting groups on it. Not the engineering types, this time. The financial types. I want their volumes, their margins, the history of their corporate officers, a précis on the technology, information on their manufacturing methods. I’m going to negotiate with these people, and I’m playing hardball.”

  “Yes, Milady. I understand.”

  “Very well, Mr. Becker. Report when you have results for me.”

  Burke cut the channel.

  Back in his office, Becker made a VR call and put his best financial analysis team on the problem. This was not the time to mess around. The Empress was on the warpath, and not without reason. Family legends told him what could result when the Throne got its back up.

  It was never a good idea to piss off the Emperor. Bad things could happen, and usually did. This time it was an Empress, not an Emperor, but that probably made it worse, not better.

  Ilithyia I and Ilithyia II, for example, had not been known for their restraint.

  Becker suspected the new Empress was cut from the same cloth.

  Elizabeth Schoenhorst was the head of Becker’s premier financial consulting group.

  “All right, everybody. We’ve got a request from the top dog for a workup on the pharmaceutical industry in regards to manufacturers of general maintenance nanites, both Imperial and premium. Complete workup. Revenues, unit cost, margins, technology, manufacturing methods, executive bios, everything.”

  “We’re gonna scoop up some confidential data in that, Betty. How do we handle that?”

  “I’m told this is internal use only, so we’ll mark that stuff, but everything goes in.”

  When Betty Schoenhorst presented the group’s findings to Franz Becker two weeks later, he was once more the only apparent member of the audience. Yet Ardmore and Burke were watching in the management channel. The members of Schoenhorst’s group were also in the seats, in case they were needed to answer questions.

  “The maintenance nanite business is dominated by perhaps a hundred large firms, Mr. Becker, who comprise ninety percent of the market. There are several hundred smaller players making up the other ten percent.”

  “So this is a very broad industry,” Becker said.

  “Yes, sir. The hundred largest firms deliver an average of three hundred billion doses a year into the marketplace. Even the smallest firms deliver something like six billion doses a year.

  “There’s huge money in this market. The Imperial government pays on the order of a hundred credits per person, which means the market as a whole is valued at three and a half quadrillion credits per year, all of which is paid by the Imperial government.

  “The marginal cost per dose amounts to no more than twelve to fifteen credits, which means the companies on average have profit margins in the eighty-five to eighty-eight percent range.”

  “Are those their book margins, Ms. Schoenhorst?

  “No, sir. The companies use various methods to load up the cost column on these nanites. One way is to book against them general nanite research, which actually is being used to research nanites for other purposes than general health maintenance. They will also build a new production line for general health maintenance nanites every other year or so, and book that expense against the general health maintenance nanites. They then convert the existing production line, which is only a year or two old, to the production of other nanite products. Such cost shifting burdens up the costs of the general health maintenance nanites, and it is these costs which are reported to the Imperial government.”

  “What is the marginal cost per dose of the premium line of general health maintenance nanites, Ms. Schoenhorst?”

  “Between eighteen and twenty credits, sir.”

  “Five credits additional, then?”

  “About that. Yes, sir.”

  “Why is the market price of the nanites upgrade tens of thousands of credits per dose, Ms. Schoenhorst?”

  “Because it can be, sir. People with money will pay it. The price has been set not to reflect the cost of manufacture, but to maximize profits.”

  “And no one manufacturer is willing to undercut the others, Ms. Schoenhorst?”

  “No, sir. It’s pretty openly price fixing and collusion.”

  “And all this is in your report, Ms. Schoenhorst?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That will be all for now. Thank you. Good job, everyone. Well done.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Becker.”

  Becker nodded and dropped from the channel. Or thought he did, at least. He found himself in channel 22 of the Imperial Palace, the office of the Empress. Becker shot to his feet.

  “Your Majesties.”

  “Be seated, Mr. Becker.”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Did I hear that correctly through all the business jargon, Mr. Becker? That my grandfather died prematurely so some company with eighty-five-percent-plus margins could make an extra five credits?”

  “Yes, Milady. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault, Mr. Be
cker. And it’s a good thing right now. I am beyond angry at this.”

  “I understand, Milady.”

  “Do all these companies have representatives in Imperial City, Mr. Becker?”

  “Oh, yes, Milady. The Imperial government is their biggest customer.”

  “So I could actually have a meeting of all these people here in the Imperial Palace, Mr. Becker?”

  “Yes, Milady, but you probably don’t need to. They typically negotiate in smaller groups, in which each person present represents about ten percent of the market.”

  “So ten people would do it, Mr. Becker, if I wanted to send a message?”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Very well, Mr. Becker. Provide me a copy of that report, if you would, and include for me a list of those ten people.”

  “Of course, Milady.”

  Burke cut the channel.

  Back in his office, Becker wondered how the Empress had managed that little trick with his VR. But most of all he was glad Galactic Holdings wasn’t a majority shareholder in any of the big pharmaceutical companies.

  Her Majesty did not look happy.

  The Imperial Palace, per its standard practice, had not published pictures of the new Emperor and Empress. The coronation would be the ultimate public debut of the new rulers. They had also not published their reign names. That had sometimes been done in advance in the past, and other times not. It depended on the new ruler. Ardmore and Burke had decided it would all be made public at once, at the coronation, which was still a couple of months off.

  The ten industry representatives for the pharmaceutical companies did not know who they were meeting that day. They had been called to the Imperial Palace on short notice, and all had decided not showing up was decidedly not in their client companies’ best interests. They were seated on one side of a conference table on what none of them knew was the upper of the two Imperial office floors, the office floor of the Emperor and Empress Regnant. They had been escorted here by Imperial Guardsmen and told to take their seats on one side of the table. On the other side of the table were just two chairs. The leader among them, who represented the biggest companies, sat opposite the two chairs.