Chapter Nine

President-King Aenos 5 had chosen to style himself as such, when he was aboard Audacity. Some of his advisors had suggested (in their own, wheedling, noncommittal way) that the title was overkill – an excess of power concentrated into a single name. They thought the other delegates might take him less seriously. He ignored these claims, or rather he failed to acknowledge that any claim had been made. The delegates would take him seriously because he was the President, and that was the end of it.

Almost.

The President-King was not blind to the way others perceived him. It was a careful skill that he had had a lifetime to practice – to be simultaneously aware of and above the opinions of lesser men. Those who would wish him ill back home tried as hard as they could to spread nasty rumours about his health, his temperament, or past failures. Some of them were true, but all were easily disputed. On Audacity things were different. For the first time in a long time the Empire was not the only force in play, and he was dealing with people that weren’t his subjects. So, with the dying music of his election celebrations behind him, he slipped away through the empty corridors, properly alone for the first time since coming aboard the station, to find the residence of one of the few delegates who wasn’t in attendance.

The Carmen dormitories mostly resembled the ones of his own Earth (he still found his mind refused to think of it as “Herald”, even as that name now bore a mark of prestige), although the Carmen residents had chosen rather more eclectic decorations. One door had a nameplate that flashed in different colours, while another had some kind of netting across the entire front wall. These people baffled him more than any other Earth.

But the dormitory on whose door he eventually knocked was totally undecorated, its resident clearly disinclined toward flash. It didn’t even have a nameplate – instead, a glyph of three equally-sized squares in a row adorned the front. As the voice inside beckoned him in the indicator on the door turned green and it slid open automatically. The lights inside were low, and he cast a shadow over the eggshell floor.

Sai stood at their desk beside their untouched bed, reading a book (a robot of Carmen? Using paper?) whose title the King could not read, so he assumed it was in their own language. They looked up and he got some satisfaction from the apparent confusion that played across their digital face – he was perhaps the last person they would have expected to see tonight.

“your glory, i… mr. president?” they half-asked, unclear on the correct address. He smiled in a way that he hoped was magnanimous, but not too magnanimous.

“I think it’s just Your Glory when I’m not in the chamber, but thank you. And thank you for your help too. If you and your friend hadn’t put such faith in Lady Kouris, you might have presented a serious challenge. May I come in?” He walked in before they could answer, momentarily stunned by his brazenness. Red and pink lights circled outwards on Sai’s face – perhaps anger, perhaps bewilderment. He sat on the bed, his large frame causing the mattress to sink low beneath him.

When Sai retained the power of speech, they said “she lied to us outright. lady kouris, that is.”

“Indeed she did,” he replied, “on my orders. She did very well, though that sort of trick would never work back home. It takes a special sort of person to believe a lie like that.”

Sai finally put their book down and turned to face him properly. “there are plenty of delegates out there eager to affirm your clever victory, your glory. i don’t think you need to come to me to get the approval you want.”

“They’ll be there tomorrow,” he waved a hand dismissively, “and that isn’t why I’m here. I want to talk to you.”

Sai considered this, their display settling into a calmer rhythm. He changed the subject before they could stew too long. “What are the three squares on the door? Some kind of signature?”

“in a way. it’s the display i used to use back home, before i had a physical body.”

“I’m not sure I follow. You used to look like that?”

“i didn’t look like anything back then – i was spread out over multiple systems, capable of multiple sensory inputs at once. i worked in three monitoring stations simultaneously, but control didn’t think it was a smart move to have a non-physical presence aboard audacity.”

“I see.” King Aenos still didn’t understand fully, but Sai was obviously not in the mood to explain further.

“what did you mean?” they asked him. “‘that sort of trick would never work back home’? there’s nobody on your planet who would oppose you.”

“Not directly, no. And certainly not on matters of leadership. But there are no end of issues where those lower in government would disagree with me – economy, exploration, education. Not even Alexander could control the entirety of his empire. There are people who would try to rob me of my authority one issue at a time, either because they truly believe I am wrong or – more likely – because they want some of that authority for themselves.”

“alexander? the great, you mean? we have him in our history, too.” Sai’s facial display shifted into a picture of a familiar image, presumably pulled from their memory banks.

He nodded. “The first of us, and the greatest. It’s still called the Alexandrian Empire these days, in official documentation.”

“you’re a direct descendant of alexander the great?” Sai’s anger at him seemed to be briefly forgotten as they came to terms with this.

“More or less. There’s a word for the specific kind of descendant I am – dinastikí – but I doubt there’s a Gaean translation. In any case, like him, sometimes I need to employ politics to get what I want – it’s not always as simple as proclaiming it to be so.”

“this… i can’t find the words. this should have been an opportunity to leave all that behind. we had a chance to start again, to take politics out of the equation. we came to the table in the spirit of honesty and transparency, and if you had done the same, we could have actually got something done up here.”

“‘Honesty and transparency’, was it, when you and señorita Castillo happily conspired with one of my own agents who you knew was trying to deceive me? Don’t try to paint all politicking as evil simply because you’re no good at it, Sai.”

“there’s politicking, your glory, and there’s outright deception. You seem to have forgotten that there’s still seventeen months and three weeks left in your term, and if you want to pass anything you can’t rely on your cronies alone. you need us, or edo, and we both know that their soul doesn’t come quite as cheap as garden’s. word about your vindictive little stunt is going to get out sooner or later, so if you hope to push any agenda at all in the rest of your time here, tell me this – how can we trust you ever again?”

Sai had let out this speech in a burst of frustration and passion that the King had previously thought unattainable by non-humans. They may not have been his subject, but they must have known that nobody talked to the King this way. President-King Aenos 5 did not raise his voice in response, for there was no need. This was why he had visited in the first place.

“I have had many privileges in my lifetime, but I am not inured to the fact that to be present aboard this station is one of the most powerful. I do not take it lightly, and I have spent much of the last five years learning everything I can about your culture and the culture of our other neighbours. I know you have scientists who wish to find the common ground between our histories and our points of divergence – a project which, incidentally, I intend to budget for as President – and already we have found some in this conversation alone.

“But more than that, I wanted to study the effect your history has had on your collective psyche. For the last two hundred years your world has been ruled by a machine that always purports to make the most logical decision according to an arcane algorithm that nobody living can claim to understand. You reach every conclusion as a single mind, and dissenters are quashed through rigid procedures of debate that nobody thinks to combat.

“Every citizen of your planet, be they flesh or steel, considers themselves entirely equal. That has left you with nothing to strive for, no ladder to climb. You have totally forgotten the art of politics, and for two centuries you considered it beneath you. Unfortunately, politics wasn’t done with you. But it’s in your nature to trust, and to agree, and to conform, so even as you climbed aboard this station you couldn’t conceive that anyone might try to mislead you, or to be anything other than as wide open as yourselves.”

Sai tried to protest but the King continued, finally reaching his point. “Which is why I’m here. You’re absolutely right – I couldn’t hope to immediately make enemies of you like this if I wanted to get anything done. And yet, at the same time, your people have a fundamental lack of understanding for the ways of politics. So if you wish, I can help you.”

He let that sit for a moment before continuing. “You have potential, Sai. You could have run this Parliament admirably, I’m sure, with your Control giving you valuable advice.” Sai’s face shifted colours, but the King couldn’t ascertain what the change meant. He pressed on all the same. “All you need to get there is a little mentoring. Some guidance in how to get what you want. And I can help.”

Sai was visibly struggling for words. Eventually they settled on: “why me?”

The King shrugged. “You were the only one who presented a serious challenge. Garden are an unknown quantity, and their Colonels will have to make some attitude changes before anyone considers voting for them in an election. Earth: Edo are shallow profiteers. Once they realise how little money there is to be made here, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them withdraw entirely. Other than mine, yours is the only faction who I can see taking the Presidency. And despite what you might think of me, I do have this station’s best interests in mind. I want you to be ready.”

“what about colonel powell? she’s your vice president, surely you would want to train her.”

“She earned that role in negotiations, and I hope to work very closely with her,” the King said diplomatically, “but I’m not offering this deal around. On my planet the King has a Right Hand – an advisor they trust more than any other. My own Right Hand is back on Earth, keeping things running in my absence. But I have grown used to having someone like that around, and Powell isn’t it. It’s for you to take, if you want it. I don’t pretend to understand what you are, Sai, but I can’t deny the evidence of my own eyes. You are a thinking, living being, and you’re smarter than me in ways I can’t understand. You could be a powerful ally. What do you say?”

Sai sunk into thought. The King watched them carefully – he was in a rare moment of vulnerability now, and he found it oddly thrilling. Eventually, Sai spoke. “i can’t accept, your glory. i see what you’re saying, and i’m flattered in a way, but after what happened… there just isn’t anything you could offer me. because no matter how good the offer looks, there’s always the possibility that you’re trying to pull the wool over my eyes again.”

The King was surprised. Of all the things, he had least expected for Sai to hear him out and then outright refuse. Perhaps he didn’t understand Carmen as well as he thought. He nodded and frowned. “Well, I hope you take what I’ve said to heart. I do think you have a chance to be elected someday, truly.”

Sai broke the ensuing silence. “was there anything else, sir?”

“No,” the King said, “that’s quite alright. I understand. I apologise for disturbing you.” He made a swift exit from the room, his confidence suddenly undercut. As he wandered back to the victory party, he considered for the first time whether he had been wrong. Of course Sai wouldn’t have wanted to work with the man who humiliated his friend. His intentions had been genuine, but it was too late. A bridge had been burned.

Perhaps this would be harder than he thought.