“In league again,” Augustus observes. He gestures me to close the door. I sit near him. The hard lines of his face deepen as he stares into my eyes. From a distance, the lines are invisible. But this close, they are the things that make his face. Loss gives a man lines like this, reminding me, This is the man you do not anger. The man you do not owe.
“We can do away with righteous indignation before it finds a place on your tongue.” He steeples his fingers, examining the manicured cuticles. “The question is simple, and you will answer it: Are you a demokrat?”
I had not expected this. I try not to look around nervously.
“No, my liege. I am no demokrat.”`
“Not a Reformer? Not someone who wants to alter our Compact to create a more fair, more decent society?”
“Man is organized properly now,” I say, pausing, “except for a few notable exceptions.”
“Pliny?”
“Pliny.”
“You each have your gifts. And you would do well not to question my judgment in keeping him close.”
“Yes, my liege. But I am no more a demokrat than you are a Lune.”
He does not smile as I intended. Instead, he presses a button and the speech I used to win over the Pax comes on the speakers. An HC holo shows the faces of different Colors.
“Watch their expressions.” He watches mine as he cycles through a series of video clips from different parts of the ship as the crew listens to the speech I gave before they rose against their Gold commanders. “Do you see that? That right there. The spark? Do you?”
“I see it.”
“That is hope.” The man who killed my wife waits for my face to give me away. Good luck with that. “Hope.”
“Are you saying I made a mistake?” I ask.
He recalls old words. “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
“My heart has always been laid bare.”
“So you say.” His lips part slightly, hissing the words. “But as terrorists spread lies over the net, as bombings wrack our cities, as the lowColors rumble with displeasure, as we begin a war despite the termites in our foundation, you say this.”
“Any chaos is—”
“Shut your mouth. Do you know what would happen if the other Governors thought us Reformers? If the other houses looked at mine as a bastion of equality and demokracy?” He points to a glass. “Our potential allies.” He brushes the glass off the table, letting it shatter. Points to another. “Our lives.” It falls and shatters too. “It is bad enough my daughter had the ear of the Reformer bloc on Luna. You cannot seem political. Stay a warrior. Stay simple. Do you understand?”
What if the lowColors rally to us? I want to ask, but he would have his Obsidians kill me where I stand.
“I understand.”
“Good.” Augustus looks at his hands, twisting the ring there. Hesitancy creeps over him. “Can I trust you?”
“In what way?”
A scornful laugh bursts from his mouth. “Most would say yes without thinking.”
“Most men are liars.”
“Can I trust you with power autonomous from my own?” He scratches his jaw idly. “That is when many leave their lords. It is when hunger fills their eyes. The Romans learned this time and again. It is why they did not let generals cross the Rubicon with their armies without the permission of the Senate. Men with armies soon begin to realize how strong they are. And they always know that their particular strength is not forever. It must be used with haste, before their army leaves them. But hasty decisions can ruin empires. My son, for instance, must never be allowed such power.”
“He has his businesses.”
“That is a slow power. Cleverly done on his part, if unfit for my name. Slow power can grind away any stagnant enemy. But fast power, one that can travel where you go, do what you wish it to as effectively as a hammer hitting a nail, that is the power that lops off heads and steals crowns. Can I trust you with it?”
“You must. I am the only man who can go to Lorn.”