extraordinary powers.”
“There’s the problem,” Flandry pointed out. “Who’s both competent and
trustworthy enough, aside from those who’re already up to their armpits
in alligators elsewhere?”
“If he has no better choice,” Desai said, “his Majesty should let the
Spican sector be ravaged–should even let it be lost, in hopes of
regaining the territory afterward–anything, rather than absent himself
for months. What ultimate good can he accomplish yonder if meanwhile the
Imperium is taken from him? The best service he can render the Empire is
simply to keep a grip on its heart. Else the civil wars begin again.”
“I fear you exaggerate,” Flandry said, though he recalled how Desai was
always inclined to understate things. And Dennitzans on Diomedes … “We
seem to’ve pacified ourselves fairly well. Besides, why refer to civil
wars in the plural?”
“Have you forgotten McCormac’s rebellion, Sir Dominic?”
Scarcely, seeing I was involved. Flandry winced at a memory. Lost
Kathryn, as well as the irregular nature of his actions at the time,
made him glad the details were still unpublic. “No. But that was, uh,
twenty-two years ago. And amounted to what? An admiral who revolted
against Josip’s sector governor for personal reasons. True, this meant
he had to try for the crown. The Imperium could never have pardoned him.
But he was beaten, and Josip died in bed.” Probably poisoned, to be
sure.
“You consider the affair an isolated incident?” Desai challenged in his
temperate fashion. “Allow me to remind you, please–I know you
know–shortly afterward I found myself the occupation commissioner of
McCormac’s home globe, Aeneas, which had spearheaded the uprising. We
came within an angstrom there of getting a messianic religion that might
have burst into space and torn the Empire in half.”
Flandry took a hard swallow from his snifter and a hard pull on his
cigar. Well had he studied the records of that business, after he
encountered Aycharaych who had engineered it.
“The thirteen following years–seeming peace inside the Empire, till
Josip’s death–they are no large piece of history, are they?” Desai
pursued. “Especially if we bear in mind that conflicts have causes. A
war, including a civil war, is the flower on a plant whose seed went
into the ground long before … and whose roots reach widely, and will
send up fresh growths, … No, Sir Dominic, as a person who has read and
reflected for most of a lifetime on this subject, I tell you we are well
into our anarchic phase. The best we can do is minimize the damage, and
hold outside enemies off until we win back to a scarred kind of unity.”
” ‘Our’ anarchic phase?” Flandry questioned.
Desai misheard his emphasis. “Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish
to call it. Oh, we may not always fight over who shall be Emperor; we
can find plenty of bones to contend about. And we may enjoy stretches of
peace and relative prosperity. I hoped Hans would provide us such a
respite.”
“No, wait, you speak as if this is something we have to go through,
willy-nilly.”
“Yes. For about eighty more years, I think–though of course modern
technology, nonhuman influences, the sheer scale of interstellar
dominion may affect the time-span. Basically, however, yes, a universal
state–and the Terran Empire is the universal state of Technic
civilization–only gives a respite from the wars and horrors which
multiply after the original breakdown. Its Pax is no more than a
subservience enforced at swordpoint, or today at blaster point. Its
competent people become untrustworthy from their very competence; anyone
who can make a decision may make one the Imperium does not like.
Incompetence grows with the growing suspiciousness and centralization.
Defense and civil functions alike begin to disintegrate. What can that
provoke except rebellion? So this universal state of ours has ground
along for a space of generations, from bad to worse, until now–”
“The Long Night?” Flandry shivered a bit in the gentle air.
“I think not quite yet. If we follow precedent, the Empire will rise
again … if you can label as ‘rise’ the centralized divine autocracy we
have coming. To be sure, if the thought of such a government does not