Domus Publica
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Before the Emperors
A summons to appear before the Imperial Ruling Council was rather like a summons to private audience with the Galactic Emperor himself.
They both involved appearing in one’s finest clothes, passing through innumerable security and weapons checkpoints — most of which were
so unobtrusive that one never even noticed them — and entering a dark chamber wherein waited the summoning party. And they both
invariably left one with a clear idea of one’s true place within the vast Galactic Empire, an empire of millions of worlds and trillions upon
trillions of sentient beings.
The difference, of course, was that a private audience with the Galactic Emperor was usually a reward, an imperial attaboy, a royal pat on the
head for a job well done. A summons to the Ruling Council was something altogether less pleasant.
And so it was that one of the most undesired messages an official in His Imperial Majesty’s service could receive was the notification that
Their Excellencies the Members of His Imperial Majesty’s Most Serene Ruling Council requested and required one’s attendance upon them at
such and such time on such and such date.
Moff Carlinson resisted the urge to fidget, to adjust his uniform unnecessarily. It was something most officers did when they were nervous,
and those who spent their time as the unseen, unnamed, and unthanked near the circles of power had learned to recognize it as such. It was
best, Carlinson judged, not to give his driver the impression that he was nervous. Certainly his driver was one of the unseen, the unnamed, the
unthanked, and would know the meaning of that habitual flick of dust from the cuff, or the straightening of the tunic. No, nervousness would
not do; it would imply that the godlike Carlinson was not fully in command of himself. He would sooner die than let a mere flunky think that.
And so it was that Aleksandr Moff Carlinson sat unmoving in the comfortable leather seat of his speeder, affecting a seemingly unaffected
pose of total ease and self-complacency. To any who might have seen him, he seemed the lord of all he surveyed. There was no hint of unease
in the godlike Carlinson as his speeder drew nearer to the Palace of Justice, where Their Excellencies commanded his presence.
He wore his best full-dress uniform, resplendent in his dazzling white and glittering gold, bemedaled and immaculate. It would be remembered,
he had decided, that Aleksandr Moff Carlinson had — as always — been the epitome of style and perfection, even when summoned to
appear before Their Excellencies. He’d always been an actor on that grandest of stages, and if this were to be his final curtain... well, it had
always been his motto that if one had to die, one ought at least be well-dressed.
Carlinson passed through the main hall of the Palace of Justice in the same exactly measured cadence he had always used, his head held high,
paying no attention to the underlings and lackeys and proles who took to their heels to move out of his way. It simply did not to do to
inconvenience one of the Galactic Emperor’s own, even if he were in a state of disgrace. Any Moff was a powerful figure, not to be taken
lightly, and the godlike Carlinson’s power and influence had made his a face well known all across the galaxy.
Finally he came to the Ruling Council’s audience chamber. A pair of liveried bailiffs stood at attention on either side of the huge doors, and
mechanically moved to open them, revealing a black, impenetrable abyss waiting for him just beyond the threshold. One of the bailiffs turned
smartly and called into the darkness, “His Excellency Aleksandr Moff Carlinson, as commanded!”
There was a brief pause, and then Carlinson stepped past the threshold into the vast, empty room — and cringed despite himself as the
enormous doors slammed shut behind him.
He knew all about the design of the room, of course. An ambitious man, Carlinson had made it his business to study the Ruling Council, with
a view toward someday joining it, and at the same time with the idea that it is best to know what one is facing.
It was a cavernous chamber — no one seemed to know how large, in fact — and perpetually in a state of pitch darkness. In classical Imperial
style, it was appointed in a sparse and Spartan decor, with no chairs or seats for the Council’s “guests.” Somewhere in the room, either in the
center or at the far end — again, no one seemed to know — Their Excellencies waited.
It was all designed to instill a feeling of insignificance into those who entered. The long silent walk in the darkness — during which the sound
of one’s own footsteps was one’s sole companion — left one with more than enough time to contemplate the awful power of those men who
commanded — commanded! — that a man like the godlike Carlinson attend upon them. They were few and far between that could command
a Moff — one of the Galactic Emperor’s own! — to do anything at all, let alone stop whatever it is he was doing and rush to attend upon
them.
But these men could do precisely that, and so much more. For they, as much as the frail, old Galactic Emperor — perhaps even more so —
ruled the Galactic Empire. They could make and break Moffs and Grand Moffs, Senators and Privy Counsellors, according to a passing fancy.
The fates of trillions of beings rested on their whims. Indeed, Their Excellencies the Members of His Imperial Majesty’s Most Serene Ruling
Council — the Serenissimus, as it was often called — were commonly referred to simply as “the Emperors.”
He could not see anything, and it occurred to him that he had no idea how long he’d been walking. It was an unsettling sensation – made
worse, of course, by the knowledge that there was any number of the Emperors’s countless killers following him invisibly and inaudibly in
the darkness. They gave no indication that they were there – but then, they never did, did they? No, they were there, and that was a fact. His
death could come at any moment, without warning, and there was not a single sapient being called into this chamber who was not painfully
aware of it.
Finally he drew near a circle of light projected into the deck. There, he finally saw them, seated in their finery.
The Emperors.
They sat in a gentle semicircle, their desks part of a panel well over three meters tall. As a result they towered above their “guest,” and it was
impossible to look at them without inclining one’s head, forcing one to make a symbolic gesture of inferiority. The twelve of them were
garbed in formal black and scarlet vestments, with immaculate white cravats and black miters, their steely eyes set and their faces grim and
forbidding. The only lights in the seemingly infinitely huge chamber — aside from the column in which he was standing — were projected
from behind them, giving them each a halo of their own, auras that lent them suitably impressive appearances that only befitted their lofty
rank and perch.
Carlinson brought his heels together with a neat click and stood at attention. He lowered his head and shoulders stiffly in the short, formal
bow so beloved of the Imperial hierarchy, and then resumed his position of attention, standing in dutiful silence, waiting for the Emperors to
deign to speak to their lowly “guest.”
“Moff Carlinson,” one of the Emperors said. It was the President of the Council, of course — the President was always the first to speak —
and Carlinson recognized his voice immediately. Only whereas it was normally so soft, so reserved, it now echoed through the chamber, its
enormity startling the Moff and causing him to flinch involuntarily.
A neat trick, that. Carlinson immediately resolved to copy it some time.
“Your Excellencies,” he answered immediately, bowing again.
“Do you know why we have commanded your presence this day?” Carlinson managed with great effort not to bristle at the word commanded.
“I can only assume that Your Excellencies require my report on Operation Iron Hand.”
“We have read the report already, sir,” one of the Emperors purred. The mild remark carried an implication chilling in its own right.
Carlinson kept any trace of uncertainty from his face, and immediately made a guess. “I must therefore conclude that Your Excellencies
require a more personal explanation from me.”
“You conclude correctly, valued servant,” another Emperor said, with such natural, silken condescension. Carlinson’s heart burned with rage
— and with envy: to be able to talk like that to a member of the College of Moffs! Never before in all his years had he lusted for one of the
Emperors’ chairs so much as he did now, at that very moment.
He licked his lips – and immediately cursed himself for it; a weakling’s crutch, that was. “Your Excellencies, I overestimated the fighting
ability of the forces assigned to my command, and underestimated the fighting resolve of the Fe— ”
“‘Overestimated,’ you say?” Carlinson had not been cut off in conversation in years. It stunned him.
“Indeed, that is the word I find most appropriate, Moff Carlinson,” said another Emperor. “But I would apply it to another party altogether.”
“It was you whom you overestimated, my honest friend,” said the Emperor with the purring voice. Carlinson felt still more rage build up in
his chest; “honest” was one of the most insulting and condescending words in a Senex Lord’s vocabulary.
“And your unjustified self-confidence has cost Our Father the Emperor — ” the current President almost always called him that — “quite a
good deal, not only in terms of manpower but also moneys and matériel.”
Carlinson weathered their criticisms as patiently as he could; he was simply not accustomed to being so abused.
“With respect, Your Excellencies, although I admit that Iron Hand was unsuccessful — ” one of the Emperors snorted at this mild description
— “I maintain that the underlying concept remains both sound and viable. With adequate preparation and support, my objectives remain
wholly feasible.”
“Oh, indeed,” one of them agreed quietly. “But it is not you who will command Iron Hand’s successor.”
At that very moment, the godlike Carlinson’s blood ran cold.
“This Council has determined,” the President said, “that Our Father the Emperor no longer requires your services, sir.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed an eternity before he found his voice. “I — Your Excellencies, with respect, I do not believe that
to be — ”
“Your opinion has not been asked, Mr. Carlinson,” the President interrupted icily. “This Council is not interested in the words of private
citizens. It is ours to command, and yours to obey.”
Carlinson was speechless. No one had dared to call him mister in decades.
From the darkness beside Carlinson, one of the Galactic Emperor’s personal bodyguards, the Imperial and Royal Guard, appeared. He
extended his hand, offering something to the once and former Aleksandr Moff Carlinson. The godlike Carlinson swallowed against a lump in
his throat when he saw what it was that he was being offered. He had heard of the practice of course; who hadn’t? Yet never in his wildest
dreams had he ever imagined that it would happen to him.
It was a dagger, the handle toward his hand.
“With the compliments,” whispered the President coldly, “of Our Father the Emperor.”
They both involved appearing in one’s finest clothes, passing through innumerable security and weapons checkpoints — most of which were
so unobtrusive that one never even noticed them — and entering a dark chamber wherein waited the summoning party. And they both
invariably left one with a clear idea of one’s true place within the vast Galactic Empire, an empire of millions of worlds and trillions upon
trillions of sentient beings.
The difference, of course, was that a private audience with the Galactic Emperor was usually a reward, an imperial attaboy, a royal pat on the
head for a job well done. A summons to the Ruling Council was something altogether less pleasant.
And so it was that one of the most undesired messages an official in His Imperial Majesty’s service could receive was the notification that
Their Excellencies the Members of His Imperial Majesty’s Most Serene Ruling Council requested and required one’s attendance upon them at
such and such time on such and such date.
Moff Carlinson resisted the urge to fidget, to adjust his uniform unnecessarily. It was something most officers did when they were nervous,
and those who spent their time as the unseen, unnamed, and unthanked near the circles of power had learned to recognize it as such. It was
best, Carlinson judged, not to give his driver the impression that he was nervous. Certainly his driver was one of the unseen, the unnamed, the
unthanked, and would know the meaning of that habitual flick of dust from the cuff, or the straightening of the tunic. No, nervousness would
not do; it would imply that the godlike Carlinson was not fully in command of himself. He would sooner die than let a mere flunky think that.
And so it was that Aleksandr Moff Carlinson sat unmoving in the comfortable leather seat of his speeder, affecting a seemingly unaffected
pose of total ease and self-complacency. To any who might have seen him, he seemed the lord of all he surveyed. There was no hint of unease
in the godlike Carlinson as his speeder drew nearer to the Palace of Justice, where Their Excellencies commanded his presence.
He wore his best full-dress uniform, resplendent in his dazzling white and glittering gold, bemedaled and immaculate. It would be remembered,
he had decided, that Aleksandr Moff Carlinson had — as always — been the epitome of style and perfection, even when summoned to
appear before Their Excellencies. He’d always been an actor on that grandest of stages, and if this were to be his final curtain... well, it had
always been his motto that if one had to die, one ought at least be well-dressed.
Carlinson passed through the main hall of the Palace of Justice in the same exactly measured cadence he had always used, his head held high,
paying no attention to the underlings and lackeys and proles who took to their heels to move out of his way. It simply did not to do to
inconvenience one of the Galactic Emperor’s own, even if he were in a state of disgrace. Any Moff was a powerful figure, not to be taken
lightly, and the godlike Carlinson’s power and influence had made his a face well known all across the galaxy.
Finally he came to the Ruling Council’s audience chamber. A pair of liveried bailiffs stood at attention on either side of the huge doors, and
mechanically moved to open them, revealing a black, impenetrable abyss waiting for him just beyond the threshold. One of the bailiffs turned
smartly and called into the darkness, “His Excellency Aleksandr Moff Carlinson, as commanded!”
There was a brief pause, and then Carlinson stepped past the threshold into the vast, empty room — and cringed despite himself as the
enormous doors slammed shut behind him.
He knew all about the design of the room, of course. An ambitious man, Carlinson had made it his business to study the Ruling Council, with
a view toward someday joining it, and at the same time with the idea that it is best to know what one is facing.
It was a cavernous chamber — no one seemed to know how large, in fact — and perpetually in a state of pitch darkness. In classical Imperial
style, it was appointed in a sparse and Spartan decor, with no chairs or seats for the Council’s “guests.” Somewhere in the room, either in the
center or at the far end — again, no one seemed to know — Their Excellencies waited.
It was all designed to instill a feeling of insignificance into those who entered. The long silent walk in the darkness — during which the sound
of one’s own footsteps was one’s sole companion — left one with more than enough time to contemplate the awful power of those men who
commanded — commanded! — that a man like the godlike Carlinson attend upon them. They were few and far between that could command
a Moff — one of the Galactic Emperor’s own! — to do anything at all, let alone stop whatever it is he was doing and rush to attend upon
them.
But these men could do precisely that, and so much more. For they, as much as the frail, old Galactic Emperor — perhaps even more so —
ruled the Galactic Empire. They could make and break Moffs and Grand Moffs, Senators and Privy Counsellors, according to a passing fancy.
The fates of trillions of beings rested on their whims. Indeed, Their Excellencies the Members of His Imperial Majesty’s Most Serene Ruling
Council — the Serenissimus, as it was often called — were commonly referred to simply as “the Emperors.”
He could not see anything, and it occurred to him that he had no idea how long he’d been walking. It was an unsettling sensation – made
worse, of course, by the knowledge that there was any number of the Emperors’s countless killers following him invisibly and inaudibly in
the darkness. They gave no indication that they were there – but then, they never did, did they? No, they were there, and that was a fact. His
death could come at any moment, without warning, and there was not a single sapient being called into this chamber who was not painfully
aware of it.
Finally he drew near a circle of light projected into the deck. There, he finally saw them, seated in their finery.
The Emperors.
They sat in a gentle semicircle, their desks part of a panel well over three meters tall. As a result they towered above their “guest,” and it was
impossible to look at them without inclining one’s head, forcing one to make a symbolic gesture of inferiority. The twelve of them were
garbed in formal black and scarlet vestments, with immaculate white cravats and black miters, their steely eyes set and their faces grim and
forbidding. The only lights in the seemingly infinitely huge chamber — aside from the column in which he was standing — were projected
from behind them, giving them each a halo of their own, auras that lent them suitably impressive appearances that only befitted their lofty
rank and perch.
Carlinson brought his heels together with a neat click and stood at attention. He lowered his head and shoulders stiffly in the short, formal
bow so beloved of the Imperial hierarchy, and then resumed his position of attention, standing in dutiful silence, waiting for the Emperors to
deign to speak to their lowly “guest.”
“Moff Carlinson,” one of the Emperors said. It was the President of the Council, of course — the President was always the first to speak —
and Carlinson recognized his voice immediately. Only whereas it was normally so soft, so reserved, it now echoed through the chamber, its
enormity startling the Moff and causing him to flinch involuntarily.
A neat trick, that. Carlinson immediately resolved to copy it some time.
“Your Excellencies,” he answered immediately, bowing again.
“Do you know why we have commanded your presence this day?” Carlinson managed with great effort not to bristle at the word commanded.
“I can only assume that Your Excellencies require my report on Operation Iron Hand.”
“We have read the report already, sir,” one of the Emperors purred. The mild remark carried an implication chilling in its own right.
Carlinson kept any trace of uncertainty from his face, and immediately made a guess. “I must therefore conclude that Your Excellencies
require a more personal explanation from me.”
“You conclude correctly, valued servant,” another Emperor said, with such natural, silken condescension. Carlinson’s heart burned with rage
— and with envy: to be able to talk like that to a member of the College of Moffs! Never before in all his years had he lusted for one of the
Emperors’ chairs so much as he did now, at that very moment.
He licked his lips – and immediately cursed himself for it; a weakling’s crutch, that was. “Your Excellencies, I overestimated the fighting
ability of the forces assigned to my command, and underestimated the fighting resolve of the Fe— ”
“‘Overestimated,’ you say?” Carlinson had not been cut off in conversation in years. It stunned him.
“Indeed, that is the word I find most appropriate, Moff Carlinson,” said another Emperor. “But I would apply it to another party altogether.”
“It was you whom you overestimated, my honest friend,” said the Emperor with the purring voice. Carlinson felt still more rage build up in
his chest; “honest” was one of the most insulting and condescending words in a Senex Lord’s vocabulary.
“And your unjustified self-confidence has cost Our Father the Emperor — ” the current President almost always called him that — “quite a
good deal, not only in terms of manpower but also moneys and matériel.”
Carlinson weathered their criticisms as patiently as he could; he was simply not accustomed to being so abused.
“With respect, Your Excellencies, although I admit that Iron Hand was unsuccessful — ” one of the Emperors snorted at this mild description
— “I maintain that the underlying concept remains both sound and viable. With adequate preparation and support, my objectives remain
wholly feasible.”
“Oh, indeed,” one of them agreed quietly. “But it is not you who will command Iron Hand’s successor.”
At that very moment, the godlike Carlinson’s blood ran cold.
“This Council has determined,” the President said, “that Our Father the Emperor no longer requires your services, sir.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed an eternity before he found his voice. “I — Your Excellencies, with respect, I do not believe that
to be — ”
“Your opinion has not been asked, Mr. Carlinson,” the President interrupted icily. “This Council is not interested in the words of private
citizens. It is ours to command, and yours to obey.”
Carlinson was speechless. No one had dared to call him mister in decades.
From the darkness beside Carlinson, one of the Galactic Emperor’s personal bodyguards, the Imperial and Royal Guard, appeared. He
extended his hand, offering something to the once and former Aleksandr Moff Carlinson. The godlike Carlinson swallowed against a lump in
his throat when he saw what it was that he was being offered. He had heard of the practice of course; who hadn’t? Yet never in his wildest
dreams had he ever imagined that it would happen to him.
It was a dagger, the handle toward his hand.
“With the compliments,” whispered the President coldly, “of Our Father the Emperor.”
This short story was originally published in January 2005, under the title “The Emperors.” It was republished under the new title “Before
the Emperors” on 26 January 2007.
the Emperors” on 26 January 2007.
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