Admiral Read Free

you deserve? Keeping in mind, of course, that neither of the others would've gotten anywhere without you?"
     
    Suddenly my own smile was gone. "I… Uh…"
     
    "I've spent hours thinking about it, David. Hours on end, day after day and week after week. So have the rest of my personal staff—it's not an insignificant matter, given your stature. Especially among the Rabbits." He sighed and shook his head. "In the end, we found no fully satisfactory answer."
     
    A breath I hadn't realized I was holding escaped from my lungs. "Sire, I'd prefer that nothing at—"
     
    "No, David!" he cut me off, grinning again. "It's not going to be that easy. Just because we were unable to find a satisfactory answer doesn't mean that we didn't find any answer at all." He rose to his feet and looked me directly in the eye. "You're my brother, David, in every way that really matters. In the beginning, some of we Marcus's found that a bit embarrassing. But I never, ever did. Nor did Uncle Robert, once he got to know you. We always planned to move you up as high in the family structure as we possibly could, given the handicaps we knew you were working under."
     
    I nodded. "For a while, you were considering making me an estate manager."
     
    "Yes," he replied, still meeting my eyes. "But that was long ago, before any of us even dreamed that you…" He looked away, but only for an instant. "Anyway… You've risen high and fast, David. There's only one proper place for you, and that's at my side. I won't Command you to do this—it wouldn't be right. And I won't accept an answer for at least forty-eight hours. But… Commodore David Birkenhead, Friend of the House of Marcus and my brother, will you permit me to create a new office for you? I wish to name you the first-ever Prince of the Realm, with the special responsibility of acting as Lord Protector for all of my non-human subjects. And before you tell me you won't, I'd like you to ask yourself something. If you don't represent and protect the interests of the ex-slaves, then who shall?"  
     

2
     
    Forty-eight hours might sound like a long time to make a simple decision, and apparently to those who wouldn't actually be stuck wearing the crown the answer was obvious. "It'd be for the good of us all," Uncle Robert declared when I asked his advice. This wasn't too surprising, since he was one of the Royal advisors who'd made the recommendation to begin with.
     
    "It's the only way to match your actual, real-world power and influence to your social rank," Professor Lambert replied. "I don't think there's any other workable solution, save for you to retire from public life entirely. But you're too young for that, David. And we still need you far too badly." 
     
    Nestor, of course, simply started calling me "Your Highness" and bowed and scraped every chance he got while we were alone together. Though he did also suggest a book on the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who'd divided the leadership of Rome four ways and thereby, along with the help of other reforms, brought about an amazing rebirth of what'd been a decaying corpse. In fact, had there been any justice in the universe and if Machiavelli hadn't been so fundamentally correct about humans and the pursuit of power his actions might well have preserved the Empire for another thousand years. "Diocletian faced a lot of the same problems we do, sir," Nestor explained as he handed me his battered old reader. "His Empire was large and ungainly and internally divided as well. Perhaps it's for the best on more levels than are obvious."
     
    It was the book that decided me in the end. That and the fact that soon I'd be negotiating for all practical purposes face-to-face with the Emperor himself. If I was going to be empowered as James's alter ego in such an important matter, then perhaps I needed to be titled accordingly. It was how these things were done in our culture, was all. Ending the war and all the mindless—and now largely