Dedication (The Medicean Stars Saga Book 1) (6 page)

The Capital

Behind Closed Doors

In the capital city, there is a discussion ongoing amongst patriarchs of the ruling families. The room is dark, with what little light cast by the large display screen reflecting eerily off spectacles through the pall of cigar smoke and a single light bulb faintly illuminating the emergency exit.

“That young hothead Gavitte has gone and stirred things up, and the people are demanding something again. The unmodified version of that speech of his has been making the rounds of all the usual spots.” With each breath, the speaker’s cigar glows red, its tip seeming like a slowly blinking eye of a demon.

“What we need is something to give them hope, as a distraction,” says a different voice in the room as if musing aloud. While the first voice had a rough texture, like a worn gravel road, this voice has the timber of brushed velvet seeming to slide across the ears of everyone present, which would cause shivers to run down the spine of anyone less hardened than the current assembly.

Each of the five families has at least one representative in the room. All the important branches of the government are accounted for, with only their official figureheads absent. It is in meetings like this that the real decisions are made regarding the governance of the state. Long ago there had been open conflict between them, each struggling to destroy the other and vying for the undivided support of the people, but several generations ago, several of the families banded together in a visionary pact. Instead of unmitigated hostility, they realized that a level of cooperation would allow them to all prosper. Of course, they still maneuvered and stabbed the occasional back, with alliances forming and dissolving at will, but for the most part, the victims of those plots were far removed from the men and women sitting in this room. Here the discourse is generally civil and respect is grudgingly shared.

The room is quiet for several minutes. Only the gentle hum of a fan and the occasional shuffle of paper disturb the silence as the group contemplates their options. Each weighs the options that would benefit his or her families the most.

“Instead of trying to do all that hope stuff, let’s just drive it straight at their hearts with a little fear,” the man with gravelly voice suggests. “If we talk it up as some sort of disease that causes people to lose rationality, we can probably even clear up a few other nuisances, since there is no point in having a plague with only one victim.”

“You always go right for the bluntest approach don’t you?” the velvety voice responds when the other man pauses to shake the ash off his cigar. “The problem I see is that we’d have to fabricate a significant back story to balance this Senator Gavitte’s outburst. People have heard what he said, and even if we tell them he was delusional, it’s not going to change the fact that some of it resonated with them. What we need is to gently steer them away from it. Let the people protest a little, let them vent their anger how and when we choose, then once they’re sated, we can quietly shame them back into line.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” the gravelly voice asks as the face it belongs to leans forward and catches the light, revealing distinguished features complete with a thick mustache. Others in the room lean forward as well, intrigued by the proposal, their faces seeming to materialize out of the gloom as they move closer to their reading lights.

“First we let them organize a little, a few speeches here and there. Maybe even shift some of the rhetoric to discuss change, hire a few ‘young and pure’ types to ‘shake up’ the status quo. Then, with a little gentle encouragement from our police forces, we can edge the speeches and rallies into protests. Once we get them all riled up with indignant virtuism, we can turn it all sour. A few well-placed radicals, maybe even a terrorist attack or two, and all that indignant anger directed at us will snap back and destroy the movement. The backlash should be enough to drive most of them back into our stable, welcoming arms, and, of course, those who are too stubborn or smart will be ostracized or fall victim to quiet accidents.”

A third voice responds, this one belonging to a woman who has been quietly sipping a small cup of pungent tea.

“These accidents don’t even have to befall just the protesters—after all, if people are protesting, sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt,” she says with a sly smile towards the man with the gravelly voice. “You’d be able to tidy up those loose ends much like you would with your plague scenario.”

“A great point,” he replies, jabbing the cigar at her in a gesture resembling a salute. “It’s just, protests are so short-lived. After a few years, even the most tragic are merely a lecture in a history class. Plagues, on the other hand, we can keep milking for decades. They’ve worked for us before, why mess with success?”

“That brings me back to my first point,” the man with the smooth voice responds. Only a flash of a smile and calmly folded hands are visible as he remains reclined in his seat away from the light. “We give them something to hope about, something to rally behind. If we play it well, we should even be able to spark a little economic boom whose harvest we can reap. I’m simply at a loss, though, for what to pin their hope to. Perhaps my esteemed colleagues might have a suggestion.”

He ends with a smile that twinkles in the dim light as he scans the room, his hands open in a supplicating gesture, humbly requesting assistance, even though he is well aware of several opportunities that might be presented and simply wants to see which of his colleagues knows what—and is willing to mention it. The woman across from him sets down her pungent tea and clears her throat gently.

“What about that military mission you’ve been working on to the moons of Jupiter?”

“That is supposed to be a secret,” the smooth voice replies, simply folding his hands back together.

“Come on, we all know we can’t keep secrets from each other. We have too many spies in each other’s camps,” she responds, easily drawing a hearty chuckle from the man with gravelly voice and a few other polite laughs from around the room.

“Too true, but that mission was intended to be a personal matter. We had been planning on using it as a more secure secondary seat of power for our family—a fallback position from which we could maintain oversight, for the benefit of our citizens of course, yet also ensure our own safety and dynastic integrity,” the man with the smooth voice replies, finally sitting up in his chair to study the half-seen expressions of his colleagues more closely. Several of them clearly knew about his little project, but more interestingly, some who he’d assumed already knew seem genuinely surprised.

Suspecting that he is trying to read the room and gain an advantage, the woman idly stirs her tea and, with a faint smile, flips his scheme back at him with a suggestion that the rest of the room is sure to agree with.

“Such a noble idea,” she begins, “yet I fear we must not only use it to unite the people in hope but also, through gallant sacrifice and tragedy, erect a lasting monument to the people’s greatness, cut short before it can fully flower.” Her smile deepens as she pulls the spoon out of her cup and rests it on the saucer. “We can use it in the same way we did the Mars Missions: a tragedy of epic proportions to bring the entire nation together. Some young and valiant lives lost and their tearful parents visiting the empty earth bound memorial every year while their loved ones remains float endlessly in the void will keep it fresh in everyone’s minds for quite some time.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” the man with cigar says, and the room is filled with nodding heads, all concurring that at least it will set back the designs of one of their rivals, if not actually addressing the problem at hand.

“Wait, I have an idea, before you go deciding to trash my project. What if we were to allow this endeavor to succeed?” the man with the smooth voice suggests, trying to keep his maneuvering alive. “Then we’d still be able to start our facility with one added benefit: a young productive workforce in place, already trained in the systems they built. Of course, you all will be invited to develop your own expansions in conjunction with ours.”

“I see what you mean,” says a voice that had been quiet until this point, his spindly fingers gently polishing his spectacles with a small handkerchief. “Make it public, and send some of the youth now working at the camp to set it up, claiming that they are the best and brightest and that they all volunteered for this heroic duty. Conveniently, it will get the concerned parents off our backs once they know how patriotic their children are being.” As he concludes his suggestion, he slides his glasses back up the crooked nose where they belong.

“Exactly,” the velvety voice responds, his confident smile returning.

“I’ll have my aides start drawing up the necessary cover stories and getting the press campaign started.” There is a pause as this particular bespectacled and crooked nosed power broker checks his watch. “Are we all in agreement on how to move forward? I have a tee time coming up and would like to adjourn this meeting until next week. Oh, but one more thing that I nearly forgot. This mission will, of course, need to be dedicated to someone. Give it some thought, and we’ll discuss possible candidates in more detail next time.

There is a general murmur of agreement and much shuffling of paper as the men and women of power stub out their cigars and drain their drinks of choice before heading for the exits, each plotting about some way that they can turn this entire incident to their advantage while maintaining the appearance of collaboration.

Foothills of the Western Mountains

A University Campus

The car banks hard around the curve onto the freeway, its lateral acceleration pushing Jon against the door. Momentarily, the relative force subsides, as the car dodges to the outside of the curve around a pothole; but his respite does not last long before he is plastered once more against the door. Up ahead, he can make out the end of the curve. The road is clear between them and the straight portion of pavement that allows them to merge with the rest of the traffic, which means that the car’s speed only increases to eat up the empty distance. Thankfully the curve ends, and Jon’s organs return to their normal upright positions, but before he can relax into the embracing confines of the car’s seats, it accelerates forward with as much verve as it took the corner. With the assistance of the car’s motion, Jon settles back into his seat to watch the other cars slide behind them as if they are parked.

The only sounds in the car are the noise from the engine and the whoosh of other cars as they fall behind. The relative silence remains until they reach the top of the hill leading out of town. The driver, realizing that anything resembling interesting driving is past, reaches for the radio and clicks it on, allowing a news broadcast to fill the small car’s cabin.

“Today a previously unidentified branch of the Resistance announced plans to quote: ‘strike terror into the heart of the institution of corruption’ and to ‘bring about the downfall of order, freeing the hounds of chaos amongst the sheep,’” the reporter begins. “This threat was delivered this morning, the five-year anniversary of the Bay City University Riots, during which the soldiers of an entire regiment of the army, along with their command staff, sacrificed themselves to stop the spread of hate from where it was breeding in the halls of academia.”

“Just listen to that crap,” the driver of the car says. “I’ve yet to meet anyone in academia who actively spreads hate on the scale they’re talking about, let alone anyone who’s capable of doing any scheming not relating to securing funding. If you want to know who really does the spreading of hate, all you have to do is pay attention to one of these stupid networks.”

Jon nods in agreement, as you are supposed to do when your thesis advisor makes some point she seems particularly fond of. Realizing that she is driving and therefore will not be looking at him, he substitutes his nod with a vaguely affirmative “um-huh…” which hangs in the air as the car drives through suburbs that separate the university from the city. The radio continues blabbing along as only talk radio can, indifferent to the people listening and indifferent to the opinions that might exist beyond its world of punditry.

Jon, by now, is as used to the way his advisor drives as he thinks he’ll ever be. Over the last summer, she took him to another conference at her old school that would have been a sixteen-hour drive away for anyone but her. They made it in a little less than twelve. Today, she can’t go nearly as fast as she had that trip. The suburban highway they are cruising along is too crowded, which allows Jon to relax enough to glance over at her behind the wheel. Today her normally shoulder-length curls are bound up into a bun on top of her head, and her lips, which usually break into a smile so easily, are pursed. Her jaw line is sharp, and he can see the muscles in her neck bulge slightly as she grits her teeth in frustration at the slow cars impeding the effective flow of the traffic.

When Ryan had heard that he had chosen to work with the newest professor in the department—a woman only a few years older than them—and in fact be her first graduate student, he had taken any opportunity he could come by to tease Jon. Her latest driving maneuver sends Jon’s head swaying so that he ends up looking out the window as his musing continues. Sure, she is the best looking professor in the department (not that it is much of a surprise, as the rest of the professors are all grouchy old men), and possibly she is one of the best looking professors on campus. But despite Ryan’s insinuations, her attractiveness had nothing to do with his choice. Her small, well-formed frame—he remembers her mentioning she had swam competitively in school—contains an energy, passion, and intellect that seems to be bursting that the seams. When he had met her for the first time, he had felt her eyes boring into him, reading his soul as easily as she would pick up and read a paper he had turned in. The reason he had decided to work for her was that whereas others with that kind of piercing gaze would have read him and judged him, she simply read and understood that analysis would be deferred until more data could be gathered.

Professor Lilianne Esmali may be the best looking professor on campus, but she is also the smartest, nicest, and most genuine person that Jon knows, and he desperately wants be her friend. The few times they have had more social moments during their weekly lunch meetings, she has let slip that she is a little overwhelmed by the chaotic social scene of the town. Jon wishes he could help her have some fun, but his own social life isn’t exactly legendary, and he is afraid of losing her respect if he is too overt.

It does not take long for both listeners to grow weary of trying to ignore the assaulting dialogue and for the professor to reach towards the radio. Allowing her fingers to hover before changing station, she asks if Jon has any particular taste in music. Knowing the expected answer, he insists that anything is fine. Soon the guitars of a rock band fill the car, a product of another tumultuous time in the country’s history. This band is from a previous generation, when music was more pure—at least that is how the era is remembered. The car continues to roll past the exits that lead to smaller streets and intertwined neighborhoods, and, looking out of the windshield, Jon can see a mass of dark clouds assembling over the city’s skyline.

*

A light rain is falling as the car begins to slow in the increased traffic of the commercial center of the city. Whereas before they had wide lanes and space between cars, here in the older part of the city, the road is squeezed in amongst the bases of the towering buildings. The pavement slinks its way around the buildings, as if ashamed to present itself in drab concrete amongst their glittering splendor. The rain spots on the window make the brake lights blossom into flowers of color as Jon looks out. He is struck by the constructions around them. Every time he travels into a city, he is shocked by the sheer defiance and power of the buildings. Such buildings seem to be built to spite the laws of nature. The arrogance of the tiny parks and trees in planters along the sidewalk make him wonder how it can all be held together. Even though he spent his childhood near the heart of a city much like this one, he wonders how such an artificial landscape can withstand the untamed and uncaring power of the wild that waits hungrily at the edges of the suburbs.

After they exit the freeway, a light forces them to stop, allowing Jon to look through the window at the oddly distorted remains of an older building. The roof must have given way during the last storm, causing much of one half of the building to go with it. Now a pile of rubble with the occasional partial wall or column sticking out remains. Already the lot is fenced off, and several contractors’ signs brazenly declare this lot as their claimed territory. Soon this lot too will hold a tower glimmering into the sky, casting its shadow on the towers around it and the people hurrying along the sidewalks at their base.

The light changes, and they make their way forward once more, travelling along the dark pavement with a press of other cars. The noise and smell of the city that would have been infiltrating the car by now is somehow kept at bay by the moisture in the air itself, as it seems to thicken the air into a sodden blanket. Turning off the main street, they roll behind a more modest building featuring concrete and metalwork in its façade and into the attached parking garage.

Pulling through the gate, they pass through the drip line of the building above them, and the rain, which has begun falling more steadily, parts like a curtain, revealing wet trails where cars have traveled before them. After weaving through nearly the entire parking structure, they find a spot tucked between a massive family vehicle and the concrete wall of the stairwell. Jon’s advisor pulls the car into the spot, leaving each of them just enough room to slide out. This maneuver, however possible, is not one accomplished quickly, nor can it be done without transferring a significant amount of water from the car’s body to their clothes. Fortunately all of their presentation materials are in the back of the car facilitating easy removal.

Once at the back, Jon uses the time that it takes her to open the trunk and sort through their collection of posters to attempt to brush off his suit. Contemplating the water and light brown dirt that seems embedded within the heather gray of his Jacket, he mentally bemoans the fact that he will undoubtedly need to get it cleaned now, a luxury that he can ill afford on his current income. Having gathered all their posters and removed the most obvious smudges on their clothes, Professor Esmali asks Jon if remembers which room they are assigned to. His shrug prompts a furious rummaging in the papers still in the trunk to find the one containing their room number. One of largest annual conferences in their field, the event takes over the entire hotel, and each of the twenty plus conference rooms is stuffed with bright intellectual minds striving to best each other.

*

After they have set up their booth, Jon pulls out the stack of note cards he has prepared with interesting facts about his research and begins to prepare himself for the hours of inevitable small talk. Reviewing each one, he thinks of the card’s content in the context of a witty joke, something to make the other academics appreciate his grasp of the subject. He does this not because he is unsure of the subject, but so that he is able to project the appearance that is so critical at these events.

Completing the round of his cards once, Jon checks his watch and notices that the open session is to start in five minutes. His advisor, however, has been missing since their booth was set up. Normally she would be fidgeting with the posters and stacks of abstracts until the first curious visitor stopped by their table, but today she is missing, and in fact Jon notices that some of the posters actually require some small adjustments. He turns to begin straightening the cardboard and the cheap table cloth covering their table. Once their display is satisfactory, he opens his bag and stuffs the notecards inside. As he is standing after shoving his bag farther under the table, he notices that the relatively soothing murmur of people preparing their booths has given way to the gradually surging noise of the conference itself.

The noise begins on the far side of the room, but it steals down the aisles like the ocean returning from a low tide, as people complete the final touches on their booths and begin to take an interest in their neighbors, some even wandering a few displays away to greet friends. The wave sweeps past Jon, leaving him in its swirling wake. Not having a predetermined escape route, he hesitates in abandoning his own posters for the relative safety of criticizing others’. It only takes a few seconds for those around him to seize on his lapse and pounce.

They swoop down on him like a pack of hungry carrion birds, each prepared with a list of questions designed to require a thesis in their own right to answer. Jon finds himself swept under answering questions that are not as much about his research, but more about how smart the person asking the question is. His note cards lie forgotten behind him as the onslaught continues.

He cannot tell how long he has been fielding the questions that he feels far too underqualified to be answering. Each comes from a potential grant committee member or a future research advisor, unrelentingly demanding to know some highly specific or theoretical application of the research and expecting him to know the answer before they’ve even made it halfway through the question. In a small respite, he is able to reshuffle the flyers he has been handing out and rescue the note cards he had been studying what seems like a lifetime ago. After a brief review he places them underneath the table once more with his bag and stares longingly at the snack he brought for later. Standing up again, this time stiffened from the high intensity questioning, he wonders where his advisor has disappeared to. It is very unlike her to leave him unattended for this long at a conference. Normally, she at least checks in every few minutes to make sure everything is going smoothly.

Looking around, he sees her slipping through the crowd. Her blouse and hair are no longer as neat and freshly presentable as they had been upon arrival, and her makeup has been smudged as if she has just been running. Jon mentally scolds himself for his thoughts earlier. Of course she has a life outside of work. Who is he to think that she needs his help to meet people? Her appearance indicates that she has managed to meet at least one person quite intimately. He has little time to contemplate her odd appearance and its implications in regards to the conference, however, as another conference attendee slips in to fire off his series of questions just as Jon catches sight of her down the aisle.

Once he is free again to look up and scan the crowd, she has disappeared. It is as if the press of people has swallowed her whole. He gives up and turns back to straightening the booth. She is waiting for him with arms crossed and a smug look on her face.

“It looks like you’ve got this all under control,” she says, indicating the posters detailing their work for the past year. “I’m going to go explore more of the conference. You keep holding down the fort and I’ll be back after lunch to relieve you.”