"God, 'Tanni," he murmured, "look at that."
"Aye." She squeezed him gently. " 'Tis like unto God's own gem box."
"It really is," he agreed softly. "Sort of makes it all seem worthwhile, doesn't it?" She nodded against his shoulder, and he sighed, looking back up at the distant planetoids once more. "Of course, looking at all this also tends to make me think about how much we still have to do."
"Mayhap, my love. Yet have we done all Fate hath called us to thus far. I misdoubt not we'll do all else when time demands."
"Yeah." He inhaled deeply, savoring the night, and pressed his cheek against her hair in deep, happy contentment.
"How're the kids coming along, Dahak?"
"I regret to report that Sean has just tripped Harriet into a particularly muddy stream. Otherwise, things are proceeding to plan. Analysis of Harriet's personality suggests she will attain revenge shortly."
"Damn right," Colin agreed, and Jiltanith's laugh gurgled in his ear.
"Thou'rt worse by far than thy offspring, Colin MacIntyre!"
"Nah, just older and deeper in sin." He chuckled. "God, I'm glad they're growing up like normal kids!"
" 'Normal,' thou sayest? My love, the Furies themselves scarce could wreak the havoc those twain do leave strewn in their wake!"
"I know. Ain't it great?" Bio-enhanced fingers pinched his ribs like a steel vise and he yelped. "Just think what royal pains in the ass they could have turned into," he said, rubbing his side.
"Aye, there's that," Jiltanith said more seriously, "and 'twas thou didst save them from it."
"You had a hand in it, too."
"Oh, aye, there's truth in that, but thou'rt the one who taught them warmth, my Colin. I love them well, and that they know wi'out doubt, but life hath not fitted me o'er well to nourish younglings."
"You did good, anyway," Colin said. "Actually, it looks like we make a pretty good team."
"Indeed, 'Tanni," Dahak added. "Left to his own devices, Colin would undoubtedly have—I believe the proper term is 'spoiled them rotten.' "
"Oh, I would, would I? Well, mister energy-state smarty pants, who was smart enough to suggest finding them something to do besides sitting around sucking on silver spoons?"
"It was you," Dahak replied with a soft, electronic chuckle. "A fact which, I must confess, continues to surprise me." Colin muttered something rude, and Jiltanith giggled. "Actually," the computer went on, "it was an excellent idea, Colin. One which should have occurred to me."
"Oh, it probably would've come to you eventually. But unless something goes wrong in a big way, 'Tanni and I are gonna be around for centuries, and a professional crown prince could get mighty bored in that much time. Besides, we're young enough it's unlikely Sean will outlive us by more than a century or so. It'd be a dead waste of his life to wait that long for such a brief reign."
"Indeed. The classic example from your own recent history would, of course, be that of Queen Victoria and Edward VII. The tragic waste of Edward's potential did great disservice to his country, and—"
"Maybe," Colin interrupted, "but I wasn't thinking about the Imperium. I want our kids to do something, and not for the Imperium. I want them to be able to look back and know they were winners, not place-holders. And I want them to know all the nice perks—the rank and deference, the flattery they're gonna hear—don't mean a thing unless they earn them."
He fell silent for a moment, feeling Jiltanith's silent agreement as she hugged him tight, and stared up to where Mother hung overhead like the very embodiment of an emperor's power and treacherous grandeur.
"Dahak," he said finally, "Herdan's dynasty ruled for five thousand years. Five thousand years. That's not a long time for someone like you, but it's literally beyond the comprehension of a human. Yet long as it was, impossible as it is for me to imagine, our kids—and their kids, and their kids' kids—may rule even longer. I can't begin to guess what they'll face, the sorts of decisions they'll have to make, but there's one thing 'Tanni and I can give them, starting right here and now with Sean and Harry. Not for the Imperium, though the Imperium'll profit from it, but for them."
"What, Colin?" Dahak asked quietly.
"The knowledge that power is a responsibility. The belief that who they are and what they do is as important as what they're born to. A tradition of—well, of service. Becoming Emperor should be the capstone of a life, not a career in itself, and 'Tanni and I want our kids—our family—to remember that. That's why we're sending them to the Academy, and why we won't have anyone kowtowing to them, much as some of the jerks who work for us would love to."
Dahak was silent for a moment—a very long moment, for him—before he spoke again. "I believe I understand you, Colin, and you are correct. Sean and Harriet do not yet realize what you and 'Tanni have done for them, but someday they will understand. And you are wise to make service a tradition rather than a matter of law, for my observation of human polities suggests that laws are more easily subverted than tradition."
"Yeah, that's what we thought, too," Colin said.
"Nay, my love," Jiltanith said softly. " 'Twas what thou didst think, and glad am I thou didst, for thou hadst the right of it."
" 'Tanni is correct, Colin," Dahak said gently, "and I am glad you have explained it to me. I do not yet have your insight into individuals, but I will have many years to gain it, and I will not forget what you have said. You and 'Tanni are my friends, and you have made me a member of your family. Sean and Harriet are your children, and I would love them for that reason even if they were not themselves my friends. But they are my friends—and my family—and I see I have a function I had not previously recognized."
"What function?"
"Mother may be the guardian of the Imperium, Colin, but I am the guardian of our family. I shall not forget that."
"Thank you, Dahak," Colin said very, very softly, and Jiltanith nodded against his shoulder once more.
Chapter Six
It wasn't a large room, but it seemed huge to Sean MacIntyre as he stood waiting at the foot of the narrow bed, and his anxious eyes swept it again and again, scanning every surface for the tiniest trace of dust.
Sean had spent all his seventeen and a half years knowing he was Academy-bound, yet despite the vantage point his lofty birth should have given him, he hadn't really understood what that meant. Now he knew... and his worst nightmares had fallen far short of the reality.
He was a "plebe," the lowest form of military life and the legitimate prey of any higher member of the food chain. He remembered dinner conversations in which Adrienne Robbins had assured his father she'd eliminated most of the hazing the Emperor had recalled from his own days at the US Navy's academy. Sean would never dream of disputing her word, of course, but it seemed unlikely to him that she could have eliminated very much of it after all.
Intellectually, he understood a plebe's unenviable lot was a necessary part of teaching future officers to function under pressure and knew it wasn't personal—or not, at least, for most people. All of which made no difference to his sweaty palms as he awaited quarters inspection, for this was a subject upon which his intellect and the rest of him were hardly on speaking terms. He'd embarrassed Mid/4 Malinovsky, his divisional officer, before her peers. The fact that he'd embarrassed himself even worse cut no ice with her, and understanding why she'd set her flinty little heart on making his life a living hell was no help at all.