Magnus did rename Europa, however. He called the rock Orbis Romanus.
In the later stages of the project, he reined in the excesses of wealthy travellers and burnt-out workers, and began to transform his project into a more family-friendly tourist destination. Scholars◦– those who had not been invited initially to help with the recreations◦– visited from Earth, bringing with them their students and their partners (who were sometimes both) for a weekend away. Magnus entertained those scholars and gleaned information from them. They became his advisors; they helped him fine-tune Orbis Romanus.
Since the galaxy’s economy had recovered, what was once a worthless rock happened now to be a habitable, fully terraformed moon situated on burgeoning trade routes. It was one of the most valuable properties in the solar system.
Despite his ability to shape worlds, I believe Magnus Lucretious found himself dissatisfied on Orbis Romanus. He was Mark Antony without his Cleopatra.
Moreover, it came quite apparent that there was a new direction to his historical recreations.
Magnus orchestrated certain battles, ones from between the second and third century AD. The Roman-Parthian War, the Dacian Wars. Poetry was read out, and plays performed on stage, all of which had originally been written in that same era. And if the text could not be found, it was written by his pet academics to mimic the style of the era.
Citizens and tourists alike were encouraged to wear the dress style of that particular time. Buildings were reworked in that same fashion. The whole of Orbis Romanus’ most developed sector became a vast city plucked straight out of that same era. Even the walls of our mansion were covered in fourth style Roman frescos◦– bright and bold colours detailing classical scenes, all of which were set within frames painted to look like columns.
I came to my own conclusions about his actions, and finally determined to ask him. As Magnus was sprawling in bed one evening, I served him his food, and put my thoughts to him.
He turned to look at me from his pillow and it was only then I noticed yet another woman in the bed next to him, almost hidden beneath the sheets.
“Ah, my apologies, dominus,” I said, backing away.
But what I’d said to him seemed to have touched him in some way.
He sighed. “No you’re right. I can’t hide anything from you, Felix. That’s the Athenian quality, right there. Give me a moment to cover up my arse and we’ll talk.”
We walked through the gardens listening to a lyre player. Directly above us a ship with Saturnian insignia fragmented into being, a good fourteen miles from the nearest skyport. Normally Magnus would lose his temper at such poor use of mathematics, but not today. He merely smiled at the error and continued through the gardens as the ship’s engines flamed and burned the sky, turning the vessel in a slow arc to the north. There came a sudden peace after it had left, and the purpling sky settled calmly into its previous state. The lyre player continued. The faint contrails left from other, slower ships could be seen extending through to the horizon.
“Her name was Cornelia,” Magus breathed.
“The woman in bed, dominus?”
“No. Gods, no. That was just one of the actresses from the theatre. No, Cornelia… she was, is, the reason for all of this. You know as well as I do how little money this place makes.”
“I believe it has yielded a four billion pound loss thus far, dominus.” There had been opportunities for it to make more revenue◦– anyone could see that◦– but here, for just this property, Magnus seemed content that the project be about something else, something other than the balance sheet.
Waving away my reminder, he paused and smiled. “I keep thinking about her, when we talk of the old days. You helped me do that, our little conversations now and then, when we revisit the past◦– well, when I speak of the old days.”
“I merely stirred the thoughts, dominus.”
“Well, that may be. But the fountains, the courtyards, the recreations of the battles, the simulations of culture, the replications and the museum pieces… They’re all because of her.”
“She admired these things?”
“Cornelia used to love them, back on Earth. We were young, but she adored that era◦– not the fashionable end of the Republic days, but later, y’know? The later emperors, Nerva. Hadrian and even that guy he was fucking, Antinous. Cornelia was besotted by the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius◦– bit of a cliché looking back, but still.”
“Do you think she has heard of Orbis Romanus?”
“Given the amount of advertising I’ve spent on Earth in the past year, I would be impressed if she hadn’t. Every time she read an article on her tab she’d see a personalized ad from me, expanding upon the delights of this place. ‘Relive life under the Five Good Emperors, Cornelia’, he quoted, ‘accommodation included’. ‘Do you have the nerve for Nerva?’.”
He and Cornelia had been childhood sweethearts. She had been a vatted child, grown for an older, very wealthy childless couple. Magnus had come from a poor family. But his brains and his talent marked him for a brilliant career and he had won scholarships to the same academy as Cornelia. They met for the first time, so he said, whilst reaching for the same copy of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in the school library. They had an intense romance in their final year. He had even saved up part of his scholarship money to purchase her a fountain pen constructed from genuine melted Roman denarii. She wept after she had unwrapped it, and later, in the dark, they made love in the library, just beneath the Ovids
He wanted to marry her but, because of Magnus’ poor background and family status, Cornelia’s father would not let them. Magnus made desperate overtures, of course, but his persistence annoyed her father and eventually he was forbidden from ever seeing her again. Under the portico of her family mansion he said farewell to her one last time, quietly vowing that some day he would earn enough money to please her father.
Later, he learned that she had married a banker.
“So you see, I want her back, Felix. I’ve managed to track her down◦– easy enough to do when you pay the right people. She’s divorced now, as it turns out. The time is ripe.”
“I have heard talk among humans of the ‘one that got away’. Is this just such an example?”
A wry smile upon his face, emotions that, despite my programming, I could not fathom. “Something like that.”
“Why now?” I asked.
“I have everything I could possibly want. I’m still not happy.”
“Perhaps, if it is happiness you seek, then you will forever be disappointed.”
“You’ve not been programmed a Stoic, have you?”
I inclined my head. “Not unless you requested. All I can say then is that you are very persistent, dominus.”
“That’s why I’ve got where I have today, Felix.” He seemed to regret his words immediately but, instead of offering an apology, he merely slid the garden wall up and stormed off into the kitchen. The lyre player stuttered and blacked out, and I made a note to recharge it overnight. As a matter of fact, I felt as if I needed to recharge myself.
It was not long, a mere thirty days until after that conversation, when we heard from one of the human operators at the skyport that Cornelia was on her way to Orbis Romanus.
The messages came through the mansion information system, relayed in every room, streaming down the windowscreens like green neon rain.
Her ship will materialise 15 miles away within 50 minutes.