Robert Silverberg: The Palace at Midnight

“It’s a lovely apartment,” she told him.

“Three rooms, bath, hot and cold running water. Not bad for a mere foreign minister. Some of the boys have suites at the palace, but I like it better here.” He opened the door to the deck and stepped outside. Somehow, now that he was home, the night was not so cold. He thought about the Realm of Wicca, far off up there in green, happy Oregon sending a hundred fifty thousand kindly Goddess-worshiping neopagans down here to celebrate the rebirth of the sun. A nuisance, a mess, a headache. Tomorrow he’d have to call a meeting of the cabinet, when everybody had sobered up, and start the wheels turning, and probably he’d have to make trips to places like Petaluma and Palo Alto to get the alliance flanged together. Damn. Damn. But it was his job, wasn’t it? Someone had to carry the load.

He slipped his arm around the slender woman from Monterey.

“The poor Emperor,” she said softly.

“Yes. The poor Emperor. Poor everybody.”

He looked toward the east. In a few hours the sun would be coming up over that hill, out of the place that used to be the United States of America and now was a thousand thousand crazy fractured fragmented entities. Christensen shook his head. The Grand Duchy of Chicago, he thought. The Holy Carolina Confederation. The Three Kingdoms of New York. The Empire of San Francisco. No use getting upset—much too late for getting upset. You played the hand that was dealt you and you did your best and you carved little islands of safety out of the night. Turning to her he said, “I’m glad you came home with me tonight.” He brushed his lips lightly against hers. “Come. Let’s go inside.”