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Mid-Day
Brother Dusk, against his better judgment, finally gave in and prompted Brother Day to start his diatribe:
“Don’t simply furrow your brow at me. When we speak, worlds may move. Make your mind known.”
Cleon III inhaled, paused, then spoke:
“I don’t see why I should live my entire life in his shadow, toiling at his legacy; have my entire legacy subsumed into his.” Cleon III, said, gesturing at the imposing statue of Cleon I.
“We have had this discussion before.”
“And we will have it again.”
“If we must.”
“What if I don’t wish to finish building his Star Bridge? What if I want to take a spouse, and have my own family?”
“Do not posture. You do not want that. I know that we do not want it. And Empire does not need the tumult of our heart’s leaps and bounds. This entire civilization, Brother, is you. Is us. You can gnash and wail against our destiny, but do not doubt for a moment that it is the destiny you yourself would choose, did choose.”
“But we are not the same. When you taught me of the Kinóan Faith, you were the one who explained to me that they considered identical twins, triplets, quadruplets, holy because 'they are sacred proof, provided in the world-that-is that immaterial souls do exist, or else, at birth, the siblings could not be differentiated spirits'.”
Brother Dusk rose, and Cleon III could not tell if he was disappointed, quietly seething with anger, or simply tired. “Do not mistake the superstitions of the worlds we have conquered for wisdom. We study them; learn them…we master them because Empire requires it. They are fascinating as subjects of scholarship. But for us, they are a tool for governing the Ramastodon of an unruly state, as we ride and keep it tame. We must study and know them, whether outlawed heresies, tolerable dogmas, or mere curiosities. But we cannot mistake them for wisdom. The true wisdom is seeing and understanding his dream, our dream, and our role as both rudder and engine in the greatest achievement that has ever been produced: this Galactic Empire. You must come to understand this.”
Cleon III resigned himself to not getting the answers he wanted, but he did recognize that Brother Dusk was right about some things. This was not about the Star Bridge, or his role in this strange Genetic Dynasty. He was chafing at the feeling that he was not the author of his own destiny, while being told he was the most powerful person in the universe.
As Brother Dusk quietly walked away, Cleon III stared at the statue of his forbear, The Dreamer, and asked himself what he would do if he were forging his own legacy. In this idle daydream—this alchemy of his imagination—he found brief oases of peace he would return to in times of strife and frustration.
Early Dawn
There was strife and frustration at Empire's table. Brother Dawn, not yet seven years old, was resistant to trying the salad. And with good reason: it had a strong, bitter smell, and promised a similar taste. The table was partially set, as this was practice for a young Emperor.
The burgundy tablecloth had an inlaid honey golden floral print and was draped across the table. In front of Brother Day were the array of utensils, plates and settings expected at the most simple of ceremonial dinners. In front of Demerzel, of course, there was no place setting. And for Brother Dawn, there was just a single plate, and a fork. On the plate was the Emperor's favorite salad.
Cleon IX looked skeptically at the food on his plate. Even besides the intense odor of this sour plant—sautéed with nuts—there was its slimy texture, and muted coloring. He worried that he might gag on this dish, despite Demerzel and Brother Day’s assurances that he would one day relish it.
“It is an acquired taste, Brother Dawn. It will not taste good the first few times you eat it, but I promise you, it is a cherished meal.”
“Can’t I just continue to eat gnippa berries?”
Brother Day sighed. But Demerzel had been through this—or close approximations—seven previous times. She had not been there the first time Cleon I had eaten huerca root salad; nevertheless, she could even form a pretty good idea of his initial reaction to it.
“Eat up,” she said, “and next time will taste a little bit better. Eventually, it will be so tasty you won’t even remember why you ever wanted to eat the gnippa berries.”
Cleon IX forcefully shoved a fork into the salad, spearing some of the roots, and then jammed them into his mouth as quickly as he could. He tried to chew and swallow them without tasting, but the bitter taste swept through his whole mouth, immediately. The acrid juices of the roots coated his tongue and teeth. He knew it was very important not to gag or spit it out, so he kept chewing, and started to swallow.
He hoped they were proud of him.
When he finally swallowed, Demerzel smiled at him, genuinely.
He saw a subtle smirk on Brother Day’s face. He would remember Day’s smugness and resent it.
Fading Dusk
Unbidden, the memory of his own face smirking at him came into his mind, and Brother Dusk was briefly overcome with resentment. Elsewhere in the palace, echoes of a particularly unpleasant bit of ceremonial music cascaded throughout the hallways. This particular twee, discordant piece—native to one of the major colonies—with its irksome crystalline bells and featuring a children's choir, had to be endured at least once a year (even more often, any time the colony's “significant planets” were in conjunction).
“Demerzel, a moment, please.” Cleon VI asked, as he walked with her into the presence of the Mural of Souls.
“How may I be of service?”
“I…I fear I am becoming unmoored. I know he has ascended, already, but I have been unable to shake a feeling…I cannot even articulate the feeling properly.”
Demerzel paused, her heart sinking. She could detect the patterns, very clearly, even if they varied in the particulars each time.
Cleon VI paused and stared at the mural, overcome with bitterness at the thought of his predecessor’s patronizing attitude.
“What right did he have to judge me, to pity me, to hate me?”
Demerzel took his hand.
“It was not judgment, Cleon. It was recognition. He was not laughing at you; he was laughing at himself.”
“It was my cheeks that reddened with shame. He was looking at me, when he laughed!”
“In seeing your frustration with enduring the Chimes of Huizi, he recognized his own struggles the first time he had to quietly sit through the entire Galactic Parade of Honors—”
“Ugh, with those interminable speeches.”
“Those speeches are all to extol your glory.”
“Nevertheless, those speeches are long, and dull.”
“So, that was a moment, the moment where, to him, you were not some child who might one day become Empire, but rather, where he saw in you the child he had once been.”
Brother Dusk calmed, significantly. The tension left his body, even though the room was still bombarded by the distant tones of the overwrought musical procession. But then, Brother Dusk began to cry.
“So many years wasted…my mind gummed up with anger and resentment.”
Patiently, Demerzel began to walk, leading Brother Dusk down the hall. This part was, perhaps, the most difficult.
“I wouldn’t be a good servant of Empire if I let you waste years on anger and resentment, would I? You cleared things up with him well before his ascension. You always do. You always will.”
For a moment, clarity. Brother Dusk understood. He closed his eyes and addressed the practicalities.
“How long, then?”
“It is not my place to say, but likely Brother Day will have noticed something, and you can expect—”
He waved her off of finishing the thought.
The music had finally stopped, and suddenly, Brother Dusk looked over at Demerzel’s face, as if he had just drifted off and woken up again.
“You look forlorn. What’s the matter? Is there something I can do?”
Demerzel could not tell if this was saving face or further evidence of decline. Either way, her response would be the same:
“I apologize, I should not allow personal matters to interfere with the performance of my duties. Are you looking forward to the ceremony today?”
Daybreak
Brother Dawn was looking forward to the ceremony today. In fact, he was anxious for the ceremony. Today he was to become Brother Day, the primary sovereign of the Galactic Empire.
As he paced in his room with nervous excitement, he stepped on a tile that he would not normally have stepped on in the course of his day, which was slightly loose under his foot. It just wasn't a part of the room he ever walked around in, and even when he did, he wouldn't have happened on this particular tile. He had two hours before he had to—or rather, got to—be anywhere, and with his abundance of nervous energy, he did what pretty much anyone would do: he poked at the slightly loose tile.
The tile had been pried up previously, and put back down, but re-sealed imperfectly. Beneath the tile, which Cleon X had now pried up, was…flooring? Cleon X did not know much about basic floor construction. He grabbed the tile and used it to poke at the flooring. Two things became evident. One: flooring was probably supposed to be a lot sturdier than this (or else, he would have to do something about that, when he became Brother Day), and two: there was some sort of hole or cavity or something beneath this flimsy flooring.
After carving away enough of it to inspect the cavity, Brother Dawn found a scroll. An actual paper scroll! At first it was hard to tell how many people had written on it, because there were multiple batches of writing, but all the handwriting was the same. This, of course, revealed nothing. It was a sort of diary. Or manifesto. Or both? Suddenly, two hours was not nearly enough time.
Before diving into the scroll itself, Cleon searched the cavity and the surrounding area for clues. He found what looked like a simple scraped arrow carved on the back of the tile, but couldn’t tell which way the tile had been oriented originally, and none of the adjacent tiles were loose.
He gave up and started reading the scroll. It was as if he had written it. It contained eloquent paragraphs on the notion of the empty vessel. Genetics alone are not one’s destiny. His every frustration from throughout his whole childhood had been eloquently poured onto this page. And just as he had that thought, he realized the irony that the only possible author would have to be another Cleon. Which sort of undermined the point. Or did it? He glanced at the tile again. The simple scraped arrow could maybe just be a V? Perhaps a young Cleon V had signed the tile to indicate his authorship?
The scroll was obsessed with the old argument of nature vs. nurture. Since the Genetic Dynasty is entirely alike in the nature side of the equation, and even, as much as possible, in their upbringing, the question is, how much do the experiences one has throughout one’s life contribute to the question of who you are.
“After Cleon I, each of us has the same upbringing, and the same genetics, so the question becomes: when we face different choices, because the circumstances we face are different, is that just a manifestation of what the same person would do, in different circumstances, or is it revealing that the same person cannot really exist when circumstances are in any way different? Can someone who orders the completion of the Star Bridge be the same person as someone who grows up in the shadow of the Star Bridge? How could it not matter that Brother Day’s youth consisted of expanding the Empire considerably, and I am likely to reign over decades without expansion?”
Aha, Cleon X thought, that seems like pretty good evidence this was Cleon V.
The text rambled in places, but always focused on how the brothers would vary, or not:
“We had gnippa pie for dessert last night. It was far too sweet. I asked Demerzel if I could study baking, and then show the cooks what they were doing wrong. Brother Dusk interrupted and said it was beneath Empire to do the work of a kitchen servant. Will I have that attitude when I am Dusk, or will I encourage my Dawn to govern by knowing the work of those he rules? Brother Day joked that he would not need to study to improve upon the cook's performance. Demerzel defused the situation by saying she would speak to them about adjusting the sweetness of the pies.”
Cleon X was lost in the scroll and lost in thought about how many of his predecessors had had thoughts like this. As well as the implications of answers in any direction. If it was just the two of them, then this was a big deal. But maybe not such a big deal, because, after all, they were living in different scenarios. There had been major events—formative events?—that differed, for all the different Cleons. It would almost be shocking if they didn’t react to their lives differently. But outwardly they had to act as though they did not.
On the other hand, if they all had, it undermined some of the main themes of the scroll, even though each and every one of them could have written it. They weren’t nearly as individual—as individuated—as they felt, if this was something each and every one of them went through. If Brother Day, and Brother Dusk could always look back on some adolescent phase of frustrated independence, and shake it off, then, maybe they were really all the same person.
The soon-to-be Brother Day, was struck with panic, suddenly, as it dawned on him that this was a very dangerous situation. He had kept all of his thoughts and frustrations inside, but he was now holding a scroll that would be very difficult to explain, and he was not sure anyone would have the patience for him to make the case that they should check the age of the paper, or verify that he had not written the words himself (if that could even be verified in a way that would keep him from being dispatched and replaced with a backup Cleon). He cleaned up the floor, and put the tile back where it belonged, he could have someone properly repair the floor later.
He would have to destroy the scroll immediately, but he didn’t have any obvious way to do that. He couldn’t risk leaving ash, or scraps, or any other evidence. He couldn’t leave the room with it, and he couldn’t leave it in the room.
With silent apologies to Cleon V, and any past Cleons who had found it, and left it in place, as well as all future Cleons who would be denied the chance to read it, he began tearing strips off of the scroll and crumpled them as he placed them in his mouth. The paper left an acrid, sour taste, not unlike the first time he ate huerca salad. He furrowed his brow, and began to chew.