Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [37]
One of the Chairman's predecessors, Miguel Byron, had imitated the hedonism of ancient Rome here in the administrative levels. Chairman Byron had chosen attractive young men and women as servants, dressing them in scanty togas to wait upon the planetary representatives. Byron's "staff meetings" had been legendary, often conducted in steam baths.
Basil, on the other hand, had no patience for distractions when work needed to be done. And there was always work to be done. Back on their respective worlds, his envoys were powerful enough to have all the sex, drugs, or gourmet foods they might like. But not during one of his meetings.
He did make concessions to comfort, though, holding his discussions in a loose, relaxed setting. He hated tightly scheduled, stiffly formal groups; they reminded him of classes conducted by an unimaginative schoolteacher. Such situations resulted in little innovation, usually serving to reaffirm conservative nonprogress. He wanted to make the most of each person's input.
Basil stood with his back to the balcony, looking into the meeting room so that he was silhouetted by the bright afternoon. Seeing everyone settled, he said, "Before I get to more frustrating business matters, let me congratulate everyone involved in the test of the Klikiss Torch. The new Oncier sun appears to be a resounding success. Dr. Serizawa has remained there with his observation team, and the first crew of terraforming engineers will be arriving within weeks to assess the geological state of the four moons."
Admiral Lev Stromo, a line officer who served as the EDF political liaison, smiled with pride, as if he were personally responsible for the success. "We now have the ability to create suns wherever we wish."
"How often will we do this, Mr. Chairman?" asked the languid envoy from Relleker, a pleasant planet that had begun to show promise as a resort world, given its comfortable climate and numerous hot springs. The man had black hair oiled into showy curls against his head.
"That will be up to us," Basil said. "Most important is the knowledge that we can. We may even have impressed the Mage-Imperator."
"Who can tell when Ildirans are impressed? We still know so little about them," said the Dremen envoy, a milk-pale man whose dim and cloudy world had left him unaccustomed to the sunlight of Earth. "What if they take the demonstration as a threat?"
"We've stated no aggressive intentions whatsoever," Basil said, "but the Klikiss Torch is like a big 'Beware of Dog' sign in our yard. Let them draw their own conclusions."
Admiral Stromo added some new business to the discussion. "We've received a field report from my superior, General Lanyan, informing us that the criminal pirate Rand Sorengaard has been neutralized near the Yreka system. He and all his Roamer corsairs were captured and executed."
The redheaded Yreka representative sitting next to Stromo sighed in relief. "Now we can get back to normal trade relations," she said. "I'll instruct the grand governor to end rationing and enforce price controls to avoid economic chaos."
"There's bad news for every good news," Basil said. He liked to keep his meetings balanced so they didn't degenerate into a succession of complaints or rousing self-congratulations. "Despite my best efforts, I have made no progress with the Theron rulers. They are maddeningly aloof and don't care a whit for the needs of interstellar commerce and government. We'll have to make do with however many green priests they send us at their whim."
The oblivious Theron leaders had no comprehension of the size of the galaxy. A normal electromagnetic transmission—radio waves traveling at the speed of light—took decades, sometimes even a century, to go from place to place. It was an intolerable hindrance to running large-scale military operations, providing planetary defenses,