EMPIRE: Investigation

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Well, I can certainly speak to them, Governor Turley. That would be a positive whether you retained the position or Governor Derwinsky stepped in. What would be the best time, do you think?”

  “Sooner is better, Your Majesty. First thing Monday Stolits time would be best.”

  “So nine o’clock Monday evening Imperial City time. Yes, I can do that. Plan on it.”

  “Thank you, Sire.”

  “I had anticipated your eagerness for replacement, however, Governor Turley. I’m going to ask Ms. Gallo to tell us where her group is at on this problem. We can both get the same update at once.”

  Dunham nodded to Gallo.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. Governor Turley, the new ideas group is the Emperor’s think tank in the Imperial Palace. We take on the most intractable problems with an unstructured group of the best minds we can find. Yesterday morning, the Emperor asked us to look into the governors issue. What makes a good governor, and who has those traits?

  “Channel change to 598.”

  It was the same reviewing room simulation, but with a different display space. Turley recognized a strategic planning workspace from her time in the Imperial Marines. It looked like the new ideas group had adapted it to their needs.

  Gallo turned to the display space, and pointed out features as she talked.

  “We have imported a lot of biographical and psychological data on everyone who has ever been a governor, as well as those people in a position to be considered for such a posting. That data structure is here.

  “We also have a number of potential queries about that data here. These are proposed indicators of good governorship. We are testing these against various evaluations of the personnel previously holding such positions, to see which are predictive. We will then run those filters against the candidates for the new positions, and see which candidates our filters recommend.”

  “You’re going to select governor candidates with data analysis, Ms. Gallo?”

  “Yes, Governor Turley. It’s what we do. We use data to solve problems. The advantage is, once the parameters are well-defined, the analysis of candidates is very fast.”

  “I can see that, Ms. Gallo. It just seems a strange way to select political appointees.”

  “Two points on that, Governor Turley. First, this is not the ultimate decision maker. We are trying to limit the scope of the problem by giving His Majesty a smaller pool of qualified and vetted candidates to make his ultimate selection from.

  “Second, this problem is more well-bounded and has fewer variables than the battlefield simulations the Imperial Marines routinely do, and you yourself did for Groton and Julian. They cannot predict the outcome of the battle, or say with certainty what will happen when, but they can help the commander make decisions more likely to lead to a positive outcome. Same here.”

  Turley nodded. That made sense to her. The battlefield was a chaotic situation. Once the battle was under way, the commander had to make the decisions. But if you hadn’t worked through scenarios, hadn’t done the advance work, you wouldn’t have who you needed where you needed them when it all hit the wall.

  “Your estimate, Ms. Gallo, for completion?” Dunham asked.

  Gallo looked at the map. It had continued to change as they watched. Turley didn’t know what Gallo saw to allow her to estimate times, but she had clearly done this many times.

  “Another two days, Sire, and we should have candidate lists for you. There are hundreds of people working around the clock on this. No one wants to be absent when the big decisions are made. I’ve already sent out my first set of reminders to everyone to eat and sleep. With a problem like this, I might even have to enforce those reminders. People just want to work straight through on it.”

  Turley knew the type. Gallo had apparently collected all of them she could find into one organization. With that kind of intellectual horsepower, they could beat any problem into submission.

  “Governor Turley?” Dunham asked.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. That’s all I had for today. Please speak to Governor Derwinsky, however.”

  Dunham nodded.

  “I recall, Governor Turley. Thank you, everyone,” he said.

  Dunham and Peters dropped from the channel.

  When he dropped them from channel 598, Dunham switched himself and Peters to channel 22, the simulation of his office.

  “What do you think, Amanda?” Dunham asked.

  “Governor Turley is clearly struggling to manage. Even her avatar looks harried.”

  Dunham nodded.

  “One concern I have is that Governor Derwinsky is in his eighties.”

  “As are you, Bobby,” Peters said. “As are Darrel Hawker and Andy Forsythe, for that matter. The Prosperity of Trajan, as the economists have been calling it, has been good for longevity and health.”

  “Well, I can ask him and see what he says, Amanda. He was a great sector governor.”

  “I think it would be a good move to have them split up the load, Bobby.”

  Dunham nodded.

  “Thank you, Amanda.”

  She dropped from the channel.

  Dunham and Derwinsky met in channel 20, a blank white room containing two leather club chairs. It was the channel Dunham used for meeting with other heads of state, and often with sector governors as well.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Sector Governor Derwinsky.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Derwinsky’s voice was a deep baritone that sounded incongruous coming from the tall, slender administrator. Dunham waved to the chairs and they both sat. Derwinsky waited for Dunham to sit first. When he sat, Derwinsky settled back in the chair and let out a deep sigh.

  Dunham raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Yes, Sire. In VR, such a sigh is hardly warranted. At the same time, I would hate to lose the full appreciation of a comfortable chair for having gotten out of practice.”

  Dunham chuckled. Derwinsky had always enjoyed the finer things in life, and it was clear he had lost none of his gusto for them.

  “Governor Derwinsky, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “Does this have to do with that Earth Sector mess, Your Majesty? I’ve been following it in the newsfeeds.”

  “Yes, Governor Derwinsky, it does. Governor Turley has been doing a good job over the last several days trying to get things cleaned up, at least to the point of rounding up the wrong-doers. That process, however, is leaving little to no higher-level administration in place behind it, and, as acting sector governor as well, she is becoming overwhelmed.”

  Derwinsky nodded.

  “Not to be unexpected, Sire. There are a lot of holes now. So many people involved. It’s shocking, really.”

  Derwinsky shook his head and looked down at his hands for several seconds. He looked up and continued.

  “We’ve spoken, you know. Governor Turley and I. You asked me to be available to her for advice, and she’s come to me twice now with questions. They were rather specific. Minor issues, really. I suspect she’s being much more proactive and involved than she needs to be.”

  Dunham nodded. Military combat commanders did not like to let little problems grow to be big problems. But government administration was a different scenario. Many problems, left to themselves, solved themselves, or the solutions became more obvious to lower-ranking people.

  “Yes, and it has her swamped. And so my favor, Governor Derwinsky. I would ask you to step in as Earth Sector Governor, and take up the sector governor and planetary governor roles. Governor Turley would remain Imperial forces sector commander. This arrangement would be for a month, perhaps a bit more. We are making good progress here on identifying replacements. Then there is just the travel time.”

  “Sire, may I make a counter-proposal?”

  “Of course, Governor Derwinsky.”

  “I will take sector governor, and two of the provincial governorships in the interim, say Earth and Sondheim. Governor Turley can take sector comma
nder and the other two provincial governorships, Dalnimir and Esmeralda. I think that would be a more balanced split, Sire, and I could teach her some tricks about being provincial governor.”

  Dunham nodded.

  “That sounds like a good proposal, Governor Derwinsky. Let’s go ahead with that.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  Dunham stood, and so perforce did Derwinsky.

  Derwinsky sighed.

  “You knew, of course, I would not be able to turn you down, Your Majesty.”

  “I had my hopes, Governor Derwinsky.”

  Derwinsky put his hands together in the Buddhist fashion and bowed his head over them.

  “You have the whole of humanity in your care, Sire. When His Majesty calls, I can only hope to serve.”

  When Ann Turley woke on Saturday morning, she had a mail from the Emperor. He had not marked it emergency priority, which would have got through her privacy settings and woken her.

  “Well, that’s interesting.”

  “What is?” Gulliver asked as he was getting dressed.

  “Governor Derwinsky has agreed to be Earth Sector Governor, as well as Provincial Governor for Earth Province and Sondheim Province. I remain as sector commander, but am also retained as Provincial Governor for Dalnimir Province and Esmeralda Province.”

  “Well, that’s not the whole tuna, but it should help a lot.”

  “I hope so,” Turley said. “I also have a request from Governor Derwinsky for a meeting at my convenience.”

  “That meeting I think I would take.”

  “I’d better. He’s my boss now.”

  Turley checked the time on Essen. She should be able to meet with Derwinsky after breakfast. She acknowledged with a meeting time, and got an acceptance back.

  Provincial Governor

  Rather than a face-to-face VR call, Ann Turley’s meeting with Eugene Derwinsky was a VR meeting. When Turley logged into VR and selected Derwinsky’s designated meeting channel, she found herself in a remarkably comfortable and welcoming room. Just being there felt like coming home, though she had never seen the room before. Derwinsky sat in a large armchair before a fire in a stone fireplace.

  “Ah, Governor Turley. Please, have a seat.”

  Derwinsky waved at the other armchair before the fire, a duplicate of his own. She sat facing him, the fireplace on her left.

  “It’s good to see you again, Governor Derwinsky. This is a remarkably comfortable room.”

  “Yes, well, one should have comfortable surroundings, I think, and in VR it’s not even expensive to do so.”

  Turley nodded, and Derwinsky continued.

  “My reason for getting together is, of course, because of the Emperor’s naming me – at your request, as I understand it – the interim Earth Sector Governor. You retain two provinces, while I have the other two, at the provincial governor level. I thought I would take this opportunity to give you some instruction, if you will, about how to be an effective provincial governor.”

  “I would appreciate that, Governor Derwinsky. I never went to governor school.”

  Derwinsky snorted.

  “There actually is such a thing, Governor Turley, though it’s not called that. It’s a course offered by the Imperial department of education. It goes into all sorts of details, most of which are tedious. I would like instead to give you more – how shall I say – philosophical pointers.

  “First, government administrators hate to make decisions. Every decision is potentially a landmine, to blow up in their faces and ruin their careers. And so, the people who work for you in your provincial governor role would much rather you make their decisions for them. They will bring you no end of minor issues for you to decide, when it is clearly within their authority – and should be within their ability – to decide themselves.

  “Second, every decision you are asked to make will be framed as a life and death decision, a tremendous emergency, that must be decided right now or terrible things will happen. Simply terrible things.

  “Am I striking close to the truth here, Governor Turley?”

  “Oh, yes, Governor Derwinsky. This sounds like my mail queue, every day and every message.”

  “I suspected as much. At the same time, you are particularly vulnerable to that sort of thing, Governor Turley. As a military field commander, there really are such decisions to be made in the midst of battle. And the military’s tendency to force decision-making down, to the commander closest to the scene and with the best information, means you are biased toward assuming every such request for a decision is real, a true emergency the local commander cannot possibly decide.

  “In government administration, by contrast, this is seldom if ever true. The Empire is at peace. There are no true emergencies.”

  “So what do I do then, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “A few things make everything so much simpler, Governor Turley. For one, never be available to your subordinates other than during working hours. Eight to five, Monday through Friday.”

  “What about this meeting, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “Ah, but I asked for this meeting, Governor Turley. You did not. Completely different situation. I am not your subordinate.”

  Turley nodded.

  “And what about people running on a different time, Governor Derwinsky? I think right now, for example, the capital city on Esmeralda is running about six hours ahead of Stolits.”

  “Oh, they can call or mail during your business hours, Governor Turley. If it is truly important, that is. It is much too easy to put in a meeting request to one’s superior and then dawdle away an hour in such a meeting during the business day. If such a meeting requires instead that time be taken out of someone’s evening at home, it is positively amazing how few issues rise to that level of importance in a bureaucrat’s mind, and how quickly such meetings can be conducted.”

  Turley laughed and Derwinsky continued.

  “Another thing to make life simpler, Governor Turley, is simply not to make most decisions. When a decision is brought to you, you might say, ‘That is most concerning,’ or ‘I will have to give this matter serious thought,’ or even a simple ‘I understand your concern.’ But you should almost never make any decision in the first meeting on any topic. People will soon learn they cannot expect to get a decision out of you with a meeting, and such a meeting – particularly one at your convenience, which may be after hours or on the weekend for them – will seldom relieve them of their duty to decide.”

  “But what happens to the decisions you do not make, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “The subordinate eventually makes them, Governor Turley. The pressure on them to decide gets so great, they break the bureaucrat’s number one rule and actually decide something. Or it gradually becomes more obvious over time what the correct decision is until they make it. Or perhaps the problem simply goes away. It resolves itself over time.”

  “You decide nothing then, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “Oh, on the contrary, Governor Turley. I decide the things I think are important. Those are seldom things brought to me by a subordinate. I may decide, for instance to demote someone who is clearly not cutting it and put another in his place. Or – simpler than demoting someone and with the same effect – name someone else to a new position between the subordinate and myself. I may decide on a new policy based on the things I am hearing, and issue orders to that effect to my subordinates. But most decisions brought to a provincial or sector governor by a subordinate actually do not require any action on the governor’s part at all.”

  “So if I brought you a problem–“

  “I would certainly give it serious consideration, Governor Turley.”

  Turley laughed.

  “But you would not decide.”

  “Of course not. You will decide, Governor Turley, and you will do fine. That is what it means to be a governor. One must govern.”

  “Just as the biggest failure of a subordinate commander in the military is failure to com
mand, Governor Derwinsky.”

  “Exactly correct, Governor Turley. Exactly correct. The military does a much better job of training its lower-level people to do just that. Corporations, too, for that matter. But it is up to us, I’m afraid, to educate our bureaucrats on the job, as it were. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

  Derwinsky shook his head sadly, and Turley laughed again.

  “But don’t you get a reputation for being indecisive or ineffective, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “Of course, Governor Turley. But that does not matter. The only person whose opinion of me matters is His Majesty. You have been in a unique position this week, in that His Majesty has been assisting you. For sector governors generally, His Majesty has a remarkably hands-off style.”

  “So he has the same attitude toward subordinates as you do, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “From whom do you think I learned it, Governor Turley?”

  That caused Turley’s head to spin.

  “But he seems so decisive, Governor Derwinsky.”

  “Oh, he is, Governor Turley, he is. About the things he decides are important. He decided to have someone look into the troubling things he was hearing about Dalnimir. He decided to activate the Imperial Guard. He decided to involve Imperial Investigations. He decided to bring in the Zoo to resolve the open governorships.”

  “The zoo, Governor Derwinsky?”

  “I believe it is formally titled the new ideas group, but it is known in Palace circles simply as the Zoo. The point is, Governor Turley, this is all on His Majesty’s initiative. No subordinate brought him this problem. He is driving the agenda at his level. Haven’t you wondered how he can give you so much of his time, with seventy-nine sector governors reporting to him, with the Imperial Navy, the Imperial Marines, the Imperial Guard, and the Imperial Police reporting to him, with the Investigations group, the Policy group, the Budgets group, the Consulting group, the Oversight group and the Troubleshooting group all reporting to him? He has what? Ninety direct reports or so?

  “And yet His Majesty has been remarkably available to you in resolving this issue in a single sector, in a single province, originally a single planet out of half a million planets. How can he possibly do that? For the operation you carried out on Julian last year, that likely came from the Emperor himself. No one else would dare be so audacious. And that is a single colony planet, not even under his rule, with a mere ten million people. How can he take the time to do that, while ruling an Empire of one-and-a-third quadrillion human beings?”