The Unnecessary Man, Randall Garrett [top e book reader txt] 📗

The colonel grinned, although he knew the listener couldn't see it. But he knew the other was grinning, too. "I humbly beg your majesty's pardon."

"You'll have to wait a while, colonel; Imperial pardons have to be by the Portfolio for the Interior. Your Sovereign is an impotent figurehead."

"Sure you are, Sire," said the colonel. "Meanwhile, what about those tapes?"

"Get them—or copies of them. They can't be dangerous in themselves, but if they're genuine, I want to know who's bugging this place. I can't have spies in the Palace itself. Otherwise, keep your eyes on the Senesin boy."

The voice went on giving instructions, but the colonel lifted the thumb of his left hand from his larynx; the waiter was approaching, and if he wanted to speak to him, it would be better not to have to interrupt the flow of words from his finger.

The android put the dishes on the table. "Coffee, sir?"

"Yes," said the colonel. "Cream, no sugar. And bring a second cup as soon as I've finished with the first." Only a part of his attention was given to the waiter; the rest was focused on the instructions he was receiving. The instructions kept coming until after the coffee had been brought. Then the voice said:

"Any questions?"

"No, Sire," said the colonel, replacing his thumb.

"Very well. I'll be expecting your report sometime between eleven and midnight."

The colonel nodded, brought his hand down from the side of his jaw to pick up his fork and begin a concerted attack on his lunch.

Hawaii, with its beauty and its perfect climate, had been the obvious choice for the center of the Terran Empire. For centuries before the coming of interstellar travel, the islands had been used to a mixture of tongues and races, and the coming of the Empire had merely added to that mixture. In the five centuries since Man had begun his explosive spread to the stars, more "races" had come into being due to the genetic variations and divisions that occurred as small groups of isolated colonists were cut off from Earth and from each other. The fact that interstellar vessels incorporating the contraspace drive were relatively inexpensive to build, plus the fact that nearly every G-type sun had an Earth-like planet in Bode's Third Position, had made scattering to the stars almost an automatic reflex among men.

It had also shattered the cohesion of Mankind that had been laboriously built up over several millennia. The old U.N. government had gradually welded together the various nations of Earth under one flag, and for nearly two centuries it had run Earth like a smoothly operating machine. But no culture is immortal; even the U.N. must fall, and fall it did.

And, during the chaos that followed, a man named Jerris Danfors had grabbed the loosened reins of government just as Napoleon had done after the French Revolution. Unlike Napoleon, however, Jerris had been able to hold his power without abusing it; he was able to declare himself Emperor of Earth and make it stick. The people wanted a single central government, and they were willing to go back to the old idea of Empire just to get such a government.

Jerris the First was neither a power-mad dictator nor an altruist, although he had been called both. He was, purely and simply, a strong, wise, intelligent man—which made him abnormal, no matter how you look at it. Or supernormal, if you will.

Like Napoleon, he realized that wars of conquest were capable of being used as a kind of cement to hold the people together in support of their Emperor. But, again, unlike Napoleon, he found there was no need to sap the strength of Earth to fight those wars. The population and productive capacity of Earth was greater than any possible coalition among extra-Solar planets and vastly greater than any single planet alone.

Thus the Terran Empire had come into being with only a fraction of the internal disruption which normally follows empire-building.

But Man can flee as well as fight. Every invading army is preceded by hordes of refugees. Ships left every planet threatened by the Empire, seeking new, uncharted planets to settle—planets that would be safe from the Imperial Fleet because they were hidden among a thousand thousand stars. Mankind spread through the galaxy faster than the Empire could. Not even Jerris the First could completely consolidate the vast reaches of the galaxy into a single unit; one lifetime is simply not enough.

Nor are a dozen.

Slowly, the Empire had changed. Over the next several generations, the Emperors had yielded more and more of the absolute power that had been left to them by Jerris. While history never exactly repeats itself, a parallel could be drawn between the history of the Empire and the history of England between, say, 1550 and 1950. But, while England's empire had begun to recede with the coming of democratic government, the Terran Empire continued to spread—more slowly than at first, but steadily.

Until, that is, the Empire had touched the edges of the Gehan Federation.

For the hordes that had fled from the Empire had not forgotten her; they knew that one day the Empire would find them, that one day they would have to fight for their independence. So they formed the Federation, with its capital on the third planet of Gehan's Sun.

It was a federation in name only. Even after several generations, the refugees had not been able to build up enough population to fight the Empire. There was only one other way out, as they saw it. They formed a military dictatorship.

In the Twentieth Century, the German Third Reich, although outnumbered by its neighbors and enemies, populationwise, had concentrated all its efforts on building an unbeatable war machine. Japan, also outnumbered, had done likewise. Between them, they thought they could beat the rest of Earth. And they came dangerously close to succeeding.

The Gehan Federation had done the same thing, building up fleets and armies and material stockpiles as though she were already at war.

And, in doing so, her citizens had voluntarily forfeited the very thing they thought they were fighting for—their freedom.

But they posed a greater threat to the Terran Empire than that Empire had ever faced before. Any nation so totally prepared for defensive war may, at any moment, decide that the best defense is a good offense. Any nation which subjects its people to semislavery for the sake of war must eventually fight that war or suffer collapse.

The Empire had to change tactics. Instead of steady expansion, she was forced into a deadly game of interstellar chess, making her plays carefully, so as not to touch off the explosive temper of her opponent.

It was not a situation to be handled by clumsy fools.

And Lord Senesin, the Prime Portfolio of the Imperial File, the elected leader of the Empire, the constitutional head of the Imperial Government, was accused, not only of being a clumsy fool, but of being a dangerous madman. The planet Bairnvell was an independent, autonomic ally of the Gehan Federation, and, although not actually a member of the Federation, was presumably under her protection. For the Imperial Fleet to go to the aid of rebels trying to overthrow Bairnvell's lawful government seemed to be the act of an insane mind. The people of the Empire wouldn't stand for it.

Colonel Lord Barrick Sorban was well aware of the temper of the people and of the situation that prevailed politically in the Empire—more so, in fact, than most men. He was also well aware that internal strife of a very serious nature could so dangerously weaken the Empire that the Gehan Federation would be able to attack and win.

His job was to cut off that sort of thing before it could gain momentum. His job was to maintain the Empire; his only superior was the Emperor himself; his subordinates hand-picked, well-trained, and, like himself, unobtrusive to the public eye. And not one of those subordinates knew who the colonel's superior was.

The colonel strolled along the streets of Honolulu with all the courteous aplomb of a man who was both an officer and a gentleman of leisure. He dropped in at various respectable clubs and did various respectable things. He went into other places and did other things not so respectable. He gave certain orders to certain people and made certain odd arrangements. When everything had been set up to his satisfaction, he ate a leisurely dinner, topped it off with two glasses of Velaskan wine, read the tenth edition of the Globe, and strolled out to the street again, looking every inch the impeccable gentleman.

At ten minutes of eleven, he took a skycab to the fashionable apartment house where the Honorable Jon Senesin, son of the Prime Portfolio, made his home. The skycab deposited him on the roof at two minutes of eleven. The android doorman opened the entrance for him, and he took the drop chute down to the fifteenth floor. At precisely eleven o'clock, he was facing the announcer plate on Jon Senesin's door.

Senesin opened the door. There was a queer look—half jubilant, half worried—on his face as he said: "Come in, my lord, come in. Care for a drink?"

"Don't mind if I do, Jon. Brandy, if you have it."

Young Senesin poured the brandy, speaking rapidly as he did. "I've made an appointment to get those tapes, my lord. I want you to go with me. If we can get them, we can break this whole fraud wide open. Wide open." He handed the colonel a crystal goblet half filled with the clear, red-brown liquid. "Sorry I left so hurriedly this morning, but if that Heywood character had said another word I'd have broken his nose for him."

The colonel took the goblet and looked into its depths. "Jon, what do you expect these tapes to prove?"

The young man's face darkened. He walked across the spacious room, brandy goblet in hand, and sat down on the wall couch before he spoke.

"Just what I told you, my lord. I expect to prove that my father's mind has been tampered with—that he is not responsible for the decisions that have been made in his name—that he is going to lose his position and his reputation and his career for something that he would never have done in his right mind—that he has been the duped pawn of someone else."

The colonel walked over toward the couch and stood over the young man. "Someone? You keep referring to 'someone.' Ever since you asked me to help you, you've been mysterious about this someone. Whom do you suspect?"

Senesin looked up at the colonel for a long moment before he answered. Then: "I suspect the Emperor himself," he said, half defiantly.

The colonel raised his finely-drawn brows just a fraction of an inch, as though he hadn't known what the answer would be. "The Emperor? Hannikar IV? Isn't that a little far-fetched?"

Senesin shook his head vehemently. "Don't you see? Legally, the Emperor is powerless; the Throne hasn't had any say-so in the Government for over a century—except to sign state papers and such. But suppose an Emperor came along who wanted power—power such as the old Emperors used to have. How would he go about getting it? By controlling the Government! He could slowly force them to give him back the powers that the people of the Empire have taken so many centuries to obtain."

The colonel shook his head. "Impossible. Not even the Emperor could control the votes of the whole File for that purpose. It simply couldn't be done."

"Not that way; of course not," the young man said irritably. "But there is a way. It's been used before. Are you up on your history?"

"Reasonably well," the colonel said dryly.

"How did Julius Caesar get dictatorial powers? And, after him, Augustus? Rome was threatened by war, and then actually engaged in it, and the patricians were glad to give power to a strong man."

"That was in a state ruled by the few patricians," the colonel pointed out, "not in a democracy."

"Very well, then; what about the United States, during World War II? Look at the extraordinary powers granted to the President—first to stop a depression, then to win a war. What might have happened if he hadn't died? Would he have gone on to a fifth and a sixth term? How much more power could he have usurped from the hands of Congress?"

The colonel wondered vaguely what history texts young Senesin had read, but he didn't ask. "All right," he said, "now tie your examples up with His Majesty."

"It's very simple. By controlling the mind of the Prime Portfolio, the Emperor can plunge the Empire into war with the Gehan Federation. Once that has been done, he can begin to ask for extraordinary powers from the File. If he has a few key men under his thumb, he can swing the majority of the File any way he wants to. Don't you see that?"

The colonel said: "It does make a certain amount of sense." He paused, looking at the young man speculatively. "Tell me, son: why did you pick me to tell this tale to?"

Senesin's sensitive face betrayed his anxiety. "Because you have been my father's best and oldest friend. If he's really being made a puppet of, I should think you'd want to help him. Do you like to see him being destroyed this way?"

"No," said the colonel honestly. "And if he is actually being controlled illegally, if he is actually being blamed for things he did not do of his own free will, I'll do everything in my power to expose the plot—that I promise you."

Jon Senesin's eyes lit up; his face broke into a smile. "I knew I could depend on you, my lord! I knew it!"

"Just how do you propose to go about this?" asked Colonel Lord Sorban.

There was fire in young Senesin's eyes now. "I'll turn the whole case over to the people! I have some evidence, of course; the queer changes in behavior that Dad has exhibited during