Profiteer

His doctor would curse him for not using a respirator. Dimitri, he’d say, your new heart has quite enough trouble with the stress of your job. Don’t burden it with a too-thin atmosphere.

 

His general staff would object to him being out in the open like this—even with the omnipresent Ambrose. Too much risk in his job without inviting assassins.

 

The Confed publicists wouldn’t like to have it public knowledge that Dimitri—the Dimitri—had a sentimental streak. They made much of the mythical Iron Man at the head of the TEC.

 

He could ignore them with impunity.

 

The Face, Dimitri could not ignore.

 

He was the most powerful human being in the Confederacy. He needed to remind himself that there were things bigger than he was.

 

Dimitri turned to look at his bodyguard-companion. Ambrose appeared unmoved by the alien structure filling a third of their horizon. But, then, he never was. Ambrose stood at parade rest, wearing less covering than Dimitri did, breath hardly fogging the Martian air. Ambrose was two and a half meters tall, hairless and tan, and stared out at the world from behind black irises that nearly swallowed his pupils.

 

“Ever wonder why they died out?” Dimitri swung his cane in the general direction of the dome that supposedly protected the ancient artifact from the oxygenating atmosphere.

 

“No, sir.” Ambrose shook his head.

 

Sometimes Dimitri wondered how much cognition really went on behind Ambrose’s dark eyes. Most of Ambrose was construct. Only a quarter of his original brain was left. Ambrose’s conversation had more to do with the computer programs that maintained the other three-quarters of his mind. Despite the brain damage, Ambrose was loyal, somewhat intelligent, efficient, and perfectly programmable—all without violating the Confederacy’s taboos on AIs or genetic engineering.

 

But Ambrose would never be a great conversationalist.

 

Dimitri hobbled forward on his cane. “Was it a natural flaw? Some inherent weakness?”

 

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

 

“They achieved so much ...”

 

The Face was one of only a handful of remnants of a civilization that flourished and died before any of the known intelligent races achieved sentience. Humanity had originally called them Martians, believing the Face to be the product of a dead Martian race—

 

That was before humans had discovered a carved starmap that led them to Dolbri. Dolbri was an inhabitable planet that absolutely could not have evolved naturally. It was only the first example of extraterrestrial terraforming. Mars, it seemed, was an example of a similar effort. However, Mars—unlike Dolbri—had stalled halfway. The biosphere never took, the atmosphere thinned, and the water froze or evaporated.

 

It seemed that the ancient Dolbrians had died out at their zenith, and no one could figure out why.

 

“Is there a problem, sir?”

 

Dimitri realized he had trailed off in mid-sentence. “No, no.” I’m just thinking, Ambrose. Not having a stroke. “It’s just the Dolbrians reached such a point—may have been gods compared to us—and still destroyed themselves. What chance have we got?”

 

“Do you know that, sir?”

 

Dimitri smiled bitterly. “It’s the nature of thinking animals to create Evil. And Evil is what destroys us.”

 

Ambrose stared at him.

 

“You should realize that, Ambrose,” Dimitri said. “We wade through it every day. Or I do. One hundred and sixty years of humanity’s collective Evil. “That’s what I am.”

 

“If you say so, sir.”

 

“Someday you may have to disagree with me, Ambrose.” Dimitri bent down and pulled a strand of green-webbed demongrass from the dirt. It came reluctantly, trailing chunks of partially-dissolved rock and some of the engineered symbiotes that supported its simple ecosystem. He rolled the strand between his fingers, crushing tiny white insects. “What would you do if I tried to kill myself?”

 

A pained look crossed Ambrose’s face. “Sir—”

 

“That would give you some problems. You’d have to leapfrog that programming of yours and use whatever judgment you have left.”

 

“Don’t.” Ambrose seemed to have trouble talking.

 

Dimitri let the strand tumble from his fingers. “Don’t worry. I’m cursed with the knowledge of what a succession battle would do to this Confederacy I’m supposed to protect. I will not allow myself to die.” Not until I know that my replacement isn’t going to be worse than myself.

 

The look of pain on Ambrose’s face seemed to fade somewhat.

 

“The nature of the beast. The head executive is going to be a monster. But the monster has to have a scrap of a soul.”

 

Ambrose had faded back into his natural mode, parade rest, nodding, saying, “Sir.”

 

Dimitri barely noticed. He stood up from his too-long squat and felt the joints of his knees pop. “Remember to serve my successor as well as you serve me, Ambrose. You’re going to outlive me.”

 

“Perhaps, sir.”