Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“I feel strange,” he said, flatly. There was little tone in his voice. Someone who had survived and prospered among the inhabitants of the Rim would be skilled at controlling themselves, refusing to act violently unless there was no other choice. Tiberius had never been to the Rim, not even on his Grand Tour of the Empire, but he’d heard stories. Life was cheap along the Rim for those who chose to play the great game of intrigue. “I never expected to be back here again.”

“We always kept a candle in the window for you,” Tiberius said, carefully. Cordova wasn’t armed, at least on the surface, but he was a very dangerous man. In theory, the guards outside the room should be able to break in and stop him before he killed Tiberius, if he decided to go out in a blaze of violence and glory, but Tiberius wouldn’t have cared to bet his life on it. The fact he was betting his life on it wasn’t one he wanted to face. “You were always honoured as a member of the Family.”

Cordova’s gaze wandered to the Family Wall, a giant family tree that traced the Cicero Family backwards to the foundation of the Empire and beyond, even to the pre-spaceflight days when Earth had been a heavily populated world on the brink of disaster. It was complete and comprehensive, although Tiberius’s father had once told him that it was also unreliable for pre-spaceflight members, but it lacked one name. Jason Cordova wasn’t just scored out, disowned by his family, but removed completely. He had been written out of the Family’s history.

“I appear to be missing,” he said, dryly. “There are my two sisters, married off now to bring two other Families into the Clan. There is my brother, dead in a duelling accident the year after I… departed. There is my mother, God rest her soul, and my father, who expired pleasantly, if not peacefully, in someone else’s bed. Where is Jason Cicero , I ask you?”

“We did not wish to formally disown you,” Tiberius said. It sounded weak and he knew it, but perhaps Cordova would accept it as the truth, or at least the accepted version of events. “Given what was at stake…”

“I do the right thing for once in my parasitical existence and I get forced out of the Family, forced to flee for the Rim with a pack of battlecruisers snapping at my heels,” Cordova snapped. “Where was the Family’s concern then?”

“The Family’s very existence was at stake,” Tiberius reminded him. He forced as much conviction into his voice as he could. “We had little choice, but to wipe you from official history, just to prevent the other Families from learning the truth.”

“I would be very surprised if some of them didn’t know the truth,” Cordova sneered, sarcastically. “It might have been kept from the poor common folk, who would have been the first to condemn me if the truth came out, but I doubt it was a secret from the other Families. The more senior ones, at least, could have found out the truth before you managed to cover it up.”

Tiberius lifted an eyebrow. “And how do you account for the fact that none of them ever sought to use it against us?” He asked. “It’s political antimatter. If they used it as a weapon, they would have the entire Family…”

He paused, looking for words. Cordova suggested them. “Bent over a table, chained down and with our legs spread?”

“Effectively,” Tiberius agreed. Cordova was trying to rattle him slightly. He was determined that it wouldn’t work, even if the conversation became even cruder. “They never attempted to use it as a weapon against us…”

“Because it was always a two-sided sword,” Cordova said. “You stand here in the High City, secure — or you were secure — in your power and position, and you don’t grasp what it might mean to the commoners. They don’t draw any distinction between Cicero and Roosevelt, or Rothschild and Windsor; they just care about the Thousand Families, the aristocrats who have been systematically sucking the life out of the Empire. They wouldn’t care about fine details like the fact it was a Cicero who made the decision; they would blame the entire system!”

He leaned forward, close enough for Tiberius to smell his breath. “That’s why they never tried it on your father, or anyone else from your Family,” he snapped. “It would rebound on them as well.”

“You may be right,” Tiberius conceded. He’d never known the truth until after his father died and he’d read the secret files. He had assumed that the cover-up had worked and that no one else knew the truth. Cordova was right, however; the other Families might well know the truth already, but regard it as a weapon of mass destruction, politically speaking. “Still, I doubt that it will benefit you if the truth came out now.”

“Colin would understand,” Cordova said. “You managed to save Cicero from the doom that came to Roosevelt and a dozen other Families. Are you sure you want to risk throwing that all away just to get me sucking your dick?”

Tiberius considered it. “You have seen the news recently?” He asked. “Sure, Colin might understand, but how many others will share his… compassion? Is it not far more likely that they will seek to lynch you in the streets?”

He turned to peer out of the windows, down towards the garden below. The news of Colin’s latest proposals had hit the Empire hard, with acrimonious exchanges in Parliament and a great deal of covert manoeuvring behind the scenes. Daria had been right, he realised; Colin had, however accidentally, destabilised part of the Empire. The repercussions might be a long time coming, but they would come. The real question was how far Colin was prepared to go to get his way.

His gaze slipped upwards towards the blue sky. Floating up there, lost in the glare of the sun, were thirty-five orbital battle stations, each one controlled by Colin’s loyalists… and perfectly capable of bombarding the surface of Earth. Beyond them, if more were needed, were three squadrons of superdreadnaughts and their escorts, protecting Earth from external and internal threats. Colin could have his way, if he decided to threaten them with the wrath of the Shadow Fleet, but that would destroy the system he was trying to build. He would become Emperor in all, but name… and Daria had already discovered the limits of that position.

And that’s why she wants the war with Admiral Wilhelm , he thought coldly. It won’t just expend Colin’s loyalists, but it will serve as an excuse for all kinds of war-related changes, including some that will strengthen the Empire. A single-minded ruler would be far more effective than a committee…

“They might,” Cordova said. He wandered over to the bookshelves and took a book from them at random. “My life would be forfeit in that case… and the Cicero Clan would be badly damaged by the information. I could return to the Random Numbers and vanish off to the Rim, but how could you do that, unless you abandoned the factories and industries that make you powerful? Are you sure that you want to play this card?”

Tiberius took a breath. “And where would you hide?”

“I beg your pardon?” Cordova asked. “I spent years on the Rim. I know hundreds of places where I could hide a light cruiser and her crew…”

“And how long would that last if the truth got out?” Tiberius asked. “I would see to it that the truth got everywhere. Your former friends and allies would desert you, even if they didn’t shoot you on sight, just from general principles. Your admirers would become your strongest detractors. Those who praised you for standing up for the right would damn you louder than anyone else.”

“Never underestimate the power of sheer embarrassment,” Cordova agreed, coldly. “They defended me, only to discover that they were defending… I don’t think I did the wrong thing.”