Calling himself the First Emperor after China's unification, Qin Shi Huang is a pivotal figure in Chinese history, ushering nearly two millennia of imperial rule. He undertook gigantic projects, including the first version of the Great Wall of China, the now famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of numerous lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed and burned many books and buried some scholars alive.
– Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
A week passed with few issues, and Jem felt considerably more relaxed and confident when she walked into the simulation laboratory. “How are we doing?” she asked, shrugging off her backpack as she joined Kir and SimOne by their planet. She put her backpack down and kicked it out of the way to keep it out of the orbital path of the red planet.
Kir flashed her a grin. “Still alive. Always a good thing.”
“What are the humans doing?” she asked.
“Keeping busy. Empire building,” Kir said.
“Already?”
Kir shrugged. “I don’t think we can blame Atlante for it. It’s happening everywhere. Something in the water, perhaps?”
“Or in their genes,” Jem said. “You know, I was thinking—”
“Uh oh, should I sit down?”
“Not funny, Kir. I was wondering whether we should be actively intervening as our humans go to war. We could pick the winners and losers.”
“As opposed to letting skill and strategy decide that?” Kir asked.
“You’re the one who believes in luck.”
“Chance. I believe in chance,” he corrected meticulously.
“Whatever. My point is that we need to start intervening actively. The occasional touch here and there hasn’t helped all that much in directing our wayward humans.”
“What’s wrong with skidding on the edge of daily disaster?” Kir asked. When she glared at him, he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, all right. What are you suggesting?”
“I intend to take a more active role, at least with some portion of the planet.” Jem’s eyes narrowed when she saw the flicker in Kir’s expression. “You don’t approve?”
“I’m not a big fan of ‘divine intervention,’ especially when we’re not even sure what we’re doing half the time.”
“If we keep sitting back and letting SimOne run the planet, we’re unlikely to ever figure it out.”
Kir looked over at the android. “This isn’t about SimOne.”
“It isn’t,” Jem said. “It’s about us taking charge, as we should.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that taking charge could be about holding back and letting those munchkins grow up on their own and learn their own lessons?”
Jem tilted her head. “No,” she said finally. “Can’t say I have.”
“Look, you do whatever you think you have to on your side of the planet. I’ll just sit and watch the other side play out. It’ll be a good exercise in different management styles.”
Jem smiled. “A contest of sorts?”
Kir grinned back at her. “I should have known it would appeal to you. Yeah, call it a contest. We’ll see where it leads.”
“All right. SimOne, send me a list of human groups that are starting to get acquisitive. I’m going to pick one group to manage.”
“After she picks hers, send me the remainder, SimOne. I’m going to ignore them.”
“This contest will be entertaining,” SimOne said.
Kir chuckled. “Did you ever get that sarcasm module added to your programming, SimOne?”
“My scheduled maintenance is next week.”
“Never mind.”
The contest with Kir infused energy into Jem’s busy days. The apartment that she shared with Rio was no more than a place to sleep and shower; she spent most of her waking moments at the simulation laboratory.
She did, however, run into her boyfriend late one afternoon; he had returned to the apartment just as she was leaving.
“Hey, Jem,” Rio greeted, his smile wide.
“Hey, Rio.” She stood on tiptoes to plant a quick kiss on his lips. “I’ll see you later.”
“But I haven’t seen you in days. You leave early, come back late—”
“It’s the simulation. There’s too much to do. I have to get to the lab and get SimOne to execute some of my decisions before my other classes start.”
“I’ll walk with you.” He grabbed the jacket he had tossed aside. “So, what’s keeping you in the lab?” he asked as they walked down the stairs together to wait for the campus transporter.
“Kir and I have a competition going. We’re going to manage the rise and fall of different human empires. Actually, I’m going to manage it. He’s going to watch it happen in true Kir fashion. We’ll see who has the better outcome.”
“How would you know when you’ve gotten there? Have you defined the better outcome?”
Jem looked at him.
Rio shook his head. “I can see an argument just waiting to happen. If you don’t agree on what to work toward, how will you know if you’ve achieved it? You may be thinking it’s the biggest empire; he may be thinking it’s the longest period of stability. You need to agree on these things before you get started.”
“Right. We’ll do that. The transporter is here.”
Rio kissed her again. “Winter break is in two weeks. You’re still coming back home with me for vacation, right?”
“Yes, of course. Wouldn’t miss it.” She jumped on the shuttle as it paused for her. The winter vacation was the last thing on her mind. She had an empire to build.
To her surprise, Kir was in the simulation laboratory when she arrived.
“You’ve been spending lots of time in here,” Kir said.
“There’s lots to do.” Jem shrugged. “And you’ve been slack, as usual.”
“There’s not that much to do when you let them do their own thing.” He grinned. “I’m on empire number four.”
“Four? What have you been doing? Eating them for breakfast?”
Kir laughed. “It’s like watching a soap opera. Do you remember where we dumped the first few humans, the ones that we wanted to start out fresh, away from possible fights?”
“Yes, that valley with four rivers.”
“The valley is down to two rivers now. The other two rivers went underground. Anyway, the first empire started there—I thought there was some poetic justice in it. That empire worked out for about a hundred star revolutions, and then one of its neighbors took over. That second empire did better. One of its kings was very acquisitive. He defeated three smaller kingdoms and landed up owning half of the land across the largest continent at one point.”
“That must have kept him busy.”
“It kept him and his descendants busy for about two hundred star revolutions, until another empire that had been simmering in the west swept in and took over.”
“Why didn’t it before?” Jem asked.
“Some kid called Alexander ended up taking the throne, and I guess he didn’t have anything else to do. He probably found adolescence fairly trying.” Kir eyes darkened. “We need to talk about that though.”
“The kid?”
“No, his empire. Six hundred star revolutions is a long time for an empire. I think they had outside help.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Jem turned to SimOne. “Did something else infect our planet?”
“No. There have been no interplanetary interactions since the Atlante humanoid,” SimOne reported.
Kir’s lips twisted. “The Atlantean’s descendants, the ones that got away—”
Jem held up her hand. “No, wait, don’t tell me. They went there, and started that third empire.”
“Not precisely. They went there, and were worshipped as gods.”
Jem’s eyes narrowed. “Not cool, Kir. So when were you planning to tell me about it?”
“You’ve been so busy with your empire the past week, I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Hah, you’re stalling. So, they’re worshipped as gods and…?”
“And I think they’ve been interfering,” Kir admitted.
“Stop them.”
“I didn’t have to. The other empire from the west did.”
She was losing count of the empires in Kir’s on-going soap opera. “So that’s empire number four?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do your empires come out of the west?”
“Well, yours is sitting in the east, and any ambitions in that direction are thwarted by that very large mountain range.”
Jem glanced down at the planet and grinned. “I like mountain ranges.”
“I can see that. You’re building your own, apparently.” Kir pointed down at the planet. “What is that thing that can be seen from up here?”
“A wall.”
“A wall?”
Jem’s smile was smug. “To keep nasty things out and protect the boundaries of an empire.”
“People build walls around cities, but whole empires?”
She snorted. “I’ll keep my empire running for longer than you will, Kir, and it will have a lot to do with that wall.”
“You told them to do that?”
“Of course.”
“So, stability is your goal? Are you going to have one family rule the empire forever?”
“Of course not. Talent can run dry. If it does, I’ll replace the ruling family with someone else, but the boundaries of the empire will stay intact. Stability is my goal.”
Kir shook his head. “Wow, that’s a lot of interference, and the absence of anything even remotely resembling free thought.”
Jem’s face tightened. “It was necessary.”
“You’re a philosophy major. How can you say that? Book burning’s never necessary. It’s how we transmit information across generations, remember?”
“It’s a temporary measure, just for stability. My people have been at war for centuries. I’m not going to let it fall apart in under a hundred star revolutions just to hold on to a principle.”
An unfamiliar voice cut through their lively debate. “You goddamned interfering jerks!”
Jem looked up sharply. Her eyes widened with alarm when she saw two people stalking toward them. “It’s Dri Zabra and Sani Mudo from Atlante.”
Kir stood up and placed himself between them and Jem. “Inserting a humanoid from your planet on another…that’s interfering. What we did was merely self-defense. The civilizations on our planet figured out how to develop steel a week ago. We’re not ready to get dragged into your fight with a galactic empire.”
“The Shixar wiped out our planet. It’s gone, do you understand? It’s gone. Every shred of life on it…gone!” Dri shouted. Pain and rage vibrated in his voice.
Jem swallowed hard. Gone? She could not imagine losing everything she and Kir had invested so much time and energy in creating and nurturing.
Kir shrugged. “That’s a risk you took when you decided to go up against the Shixar.”
Dri shook his head. “We didn’t decide to go up against the Shixar. The humanoids on our planet did. The infants they sent to your world and others…we didn’t decide that. The humanoids acted on their own!”
“What?”
“We weren’t watching closely. We didn’t realize they had ambitions for expansion, that they were stupid enough to think they could take on the Shixar.”
“You should have come to us,” Sani added. Her voice was quieter than Dri’s, but it trembled nonetheless. “We would have fixed it. We would have recalled all the humanoids. There was no need to aggravate the Shixar.”
“How couldn’t you have known that your humanoids were escalating the war?” Kir asked.
“Do you know everything that’s happening on your planet?” Dri shot back bitterly. “Is your life so intimately entwined with theirs? Do they consult you on everything? We didn’t know everything. We didn’t know enough, and now they’re all gone.”
“Can’t you start over?” Jem asked quietly.
“Yes, but what’s the point? We evolved our humanoids though millions of star revolutions, and they’re completely gone. The Shixar destroyed the other planets too. The Shixar wiped them all out.”
Jem looked at Kir. He hesitated briefly and then nodded.
She spoke for the both of them. “The humanoid you sent here is dead, but he has descendants. They’re not pure-blooded, of course, but they’re still far more exceptional than our planet’s natives,” she added hastily when Dri and Sani gaped at her. “Here, they’re apparently worshipped as gods and demi-gods. I know it’s not the same thing as what you’ve lost, but if you wanted them back—”
“You’ll let us have them?”
Kir nodded. “If you were going to try repopulate your planet, yes.”
Dri and Sani exchanged a glance. “We will take them home.”
“All right. SimOne, can you coordinate with their android to repatriate them back to Atlante?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Sani said, stepping away. “We won’t forget what you’ve done.”
Jem and Kir waited until Dri and Sani were out of earshot. “I don’t know if that was gratitude or a threat,” Kir said.
Jem exhaled a sigh. “Probably both. We screwed up, didn’t we?”
“I think they did when they lost control of their people, but there are millions and millions of people. How can they be responsible for everyone?”
“That’s what government is for, Kir. You control the people by controlling its leaders.” Jem shook her head, her thoughts drifting back to Dri and Sani. “What have we done?”
Kir’s voice was quiet. “We secured the Shixar as allies and guaranteed the freedom of our planet from their galactic expansions.”
“And now we’ve given the half-Atlanteans back to Atlante. Isn’t it going to make the Shixar furious?”
“Probably, but we’re at least partly responsible for getting Atlante wiped out; I think it was the least we could do. As for the repercussions…” Kir gazed into the darkness of the universe. Out there, the Shixar Imperium was growing and expanding. “We’ll just have to deal with it when they find out.”