Admiral
Chapter Three
The Golden Elites
It was a lovely June, heated and steamy but golden with sun.
Eriol had been doing absolutely nothing since he had come home. His old lawyer-guardian had refurbished the old house, complete with servants, a cook, a chauffeur, two gardeners, and a butler. Eriol would never have to work again, as fame brought him monetary tribute, and the death of all family had brought him vast inheritances, and there was also a permanent honorary position as an Admiral of the International Fleet. He could have begun to command whenever he wished it, but for the last month, he had done little.
Fame took its turn with Eriol. He was never to be without guards from the International Fleet, for fear of kidnapping or hostage-taking, yet the enormous grounds of an inherited home with connections to the nets of the world would assuage the restriction of freedom somewhat.
Tomoyo visited him every day.
He had bronzed in the sun, and looked as much as a Roman god than ever. He had Alexander the Great's classically beautiful profile, the cold inky blue eyes and a wealth of dark hair. But his demeanor spoke of a quiet and private anguish, almost but not quite masked. He was every so popular with the young girls of the world. Of course, Ender was nearly as beautiful, but the fact that he had been sent as a colonist never to return diminished it a little.
There were always people at his gate. Two IF officers let her pass with courtesy; Eriol had demanded that she be treated as a princess and not a whit less. The requisite small groups of young girls were there, too. And she got her usual supercilious glares. They made her smile ever so slightly.
The massive home was as imposing but not nearly so impressive as its master. It should have been justly called a palace rather than simply a mansion; pale unhewn stone reared high into the pastel sky and shimmered in afternoon heat. Enormous oversized French windows marched in orderly lines across the façade, and the formal gardens were trimmed with an impressive mathematical precision.
She was escorted in with Eriol's normal flair, but he himself was nowhere to be seen. The vast marble foyer echoed with her soft footfalls and the tinkling of a little nymph pouring water into a seashell basin filled with goldfish, and she was taken to the extended back porches.
And there he sat, with an ignored screen connected to the nets that was currently displaying thick lines of script, obediently waiting his use. And he was staring at the clouds.
Tomoyo set herself upon a lavishly gold-embroidered burgundy cushion, sweeping the pale yellow skirts of her short sundress across the gargantuan cushion, the soft golden chantilly lace on every edge of the dress frothing like finely gold-colored mist. She fingered it absently. The eight golden filigree chains glittering coldly with diamonds chimed softly on her wrist, and she wondered at her mother's never-ceasing lavishness. The golden lace was real gold, woven so delicately and airily that it almost floated as much as the pale yellow silk. Diamond solitaires hung from her ears by golden chains, an unwieldy three carats each. Long chains of gold held her hair back from her face securely. More gold and diamonds glittered on her ankles, and little golden bells tinkled on them as she walked. She was drowning in gold.
His voice broke the gentle somnolence like a wave softly upon the shores.
"Do you know, Tomoyo, that I've never seen the clouds?"
She found her voice.
"So much we take for granted, don't we?" His smile was wintry dark.
"Yes. I never saw them until they were taken away, never cared for them much, not for their poetry or grace until it was decreed by the guardians of the world that I must sacrifice."
"But you never forgot earth. I know it. You see what makes it worth saving."
"Ender didn't, Tomoyo. He understood the sallying forces for three-hundred- and-sixty degree three dimensional interstellar combat, but he had forgotten earth. They brought him back to a lake to allow him to lay around for three months until he remembered."
"Is it so?" Tomoyo murmured softly.
Eriol had often began listless rambles. It were as if he had forgotten how to make conversation. He had forgotten life and replaced it with war.
His eyes dwelt upon the tops of the trees, and he quoted softly,
"Der Gipfel des Baumes waren eines echten grunen Farbe, und waren ringsum das Meer. Es war sonnenbeschienene und schon." The old words of the long- dead German writer brought forth a simple observation of what could have been Eriol's own lands, yet held quiet meaning with the preciousness of what earth provided. The human heart would always long for it, what those silently magical words held within them.
"But now, Tomoyo, I find that I have no purpose in midst of this precious earth. My purpose was finished with the annihalation of the Formics, and now they call me the Acolyte of Xenocide. Only a few now, but they will grow when the revelry in being alive grows dim."
"As it is always so." Her voice was golden, too, but rich with irony.
"Didn't Shakespeare know the nature of man very well? We are a truculent, flightly lot. Romeo and his Juliet would have hated each other had they lived, but theirs was an eternal love because they happily died in their beau geste. Brutus betrays Caesar, but only because he fears him to have too much power, but made a mess of everything in the end anyway. And his machinations for power make Othello weak and stupid, and of course he muddles everything even more than Brutus. And what petty suspicion can do, as that idiot Macbeth has shown us all."
Eriol laughed shortly.
"How simply you put it, Tomoyo. But people won't care about the fact that their actions and emotions are not the best to be had. They only care that they think I am evil and a mass murderer. That's all."
"Eriol, haven't you noticed that most people are stupid? We two are of a highly elite group, and perhaps there might be four or five thousand of us in the entire universe. That's almost twelve billion people, counting the colonists. If we'd only count the six billion or so of the earth, then that might be two thousand."
Eriol sat back with a deceptive ease. He was only wearing dark swimming shorts in the heat, and was perfectly bronze and beautiful. But his face told that he found himself far from beautiful.
"My soul is damned because I have destroyed, Tomoyo. I was raised up on it from the moment I entered that accursed Battle School. I was groomed for destruction. No matter how elite, how much above the average man I am, I will still be damned because it was my superior so-called intelligence that destroys and destorys."
"But you are not a man, Eriol. You're thirteen and you're supposed to be growing into an adolescent. You were tricked and deceived during every moment of the war. If you were ignorant, you cannot still insist on your damnation, you know."
"No, Tomoyo."
"Eriol, let it go."
"How can I?" He asked despairingly in his softly broken voice that still echoed power and command.
"How can I forget what I had done and what I am now? An admiral, Tomoyo. I'm thirteen and I've massacred an entire race and fought a war and now I'm an admiral. Sometimes I wish that I were normal, that I'm still learning what other children learn. I sometimes wish it when I have seen it all happened and over with."
Tomyo regarded him with her sagely violet eyes.
"But you would never be happy with it. It reassured you that you were superb, and you would be miserable to be mediocre. Be very careful what wishes you make."
A sardonic smile spread on his face.
"How well you know me, Tomoyo. I suppose that it is the truth. But why do I get no compromise?"
"Life is unfair, Eriol. Some say that we all start out the same, but that is a lie. There is never fairness, not even from birth or before it. Genetics take such a key role, for it has gifted you your intellect, your face, and luck has given you your fortune. But it will still never be fair. But do remember this Eriol, that although life is so blatantly unfair, it is our duty to make it more fair for ourselves. It is the only way."
Eriol looked at her with that startling blue gaze. His smile was ironic, too.
"I have missed you and these little chats, Tomoyo. You have no idea how much."
Tomoyo only smiled gently. Perhaps he would not drown himself in despair after all. The smile left. But there were other worse alternatives, so much worse. After all, did not people fear damnation worse than death?
Chapter Three
The Golden Elites
It was a lovely June, heated and steamy but golden with sun.
Eriol had been doing absolutely nothing since he had come home. His old lawyer-guardian had refurbished the old house, complete with servants, a cook, a chauffeur, two gardeners, and a butler. Eriol would never have to work again, as fame brought him monetary tribute, and the death of all family had brought him vast inheritances, and there was also a permanent honorary position as an Admiral of the International Fleet. He could have begun to command whenever he wished it, but for the last month, he had done little.
Fame took its turn with Eriol. He was never to be without guards from the International Fleet, for fear of kidnapping or hostage-taking, yet the enormous grounds of an inherited home with connections to the nets of the world would assuage the restriction of freedom somewhat.
Tomoyo visited him every day.
He had bronzed in the sun, and looked as much as a Roman god than ever. He had Alexander the Great's classically beautiful profile, the cold inky blue eyes and a wealth of dark hair. But his demeanor spoke of a quiet and private anguish, almost but not quite masked. He was every so popular with the young girls of the world. Of course, Ender was nearly as beautiful, but the fact that he had been sent as a colonist never to return diminished it a little.
There were always people at his gate. Two IF officers let her pass with courtesy; Eriol had demanded that she be treated as a princess and not a whit less. The requisite small groups of young girls were there, too. And she got her usual supercilious glares. They made her smile ever so slightly.
The massive home was as imposing but not nearly so impressive as its master. It should have been justly called a palace rather than simply a mansion; pale unhewn stone reared high into the pastel sky and shimmered in afternoon heat. Enormous oversized French windows marched in orderly lines across the façade, and the formal gardens were trimmed with an impressive mathematical precision.
She was escorted in with Eriol's normal flair, but he himself was nowhere to be seen. The vast marble foyer echoed with her soft footfalls and the tinkling of a little nymph pouring water into a seashell basin filled with goldfish, and she was taken to the extended back porches.
And there he sat, with an ignored screen connected to the nets that was currently displaying thick lines of script, obediently waiting his use. And he was staring at the clouds.
Tomoyo set herself upon a lavishly gold-embroidered burgundy cushion, sweeping the pale yellow skirts of her short sundress across the gargantuan cushion, the soft golden chantilly lace on every edge of the dress frothing like finely gold-colored mist. She fingered it absently. The eight golden filigree chains glittering coldly with diamonds chimed softly on her wrist, and she wondered at her mother's never-ceasing lavishness. The golden lace was real gold, woven so delicately and airily that it almost floated as much as the pale yellow silk. Diamond solitaires hung from her ears by golden chains, an unwieldy three carats each. Long chains of gold held her hair back from her face securely. More gold and diamonds glittered on her ankles, and little golden bells tinkled on them as she walked. She was drowning in gold.
His voice broke the gentle somnolence like a wave softly upon the shores.
"Do you know, Tomoyo, that I've never seen the clouds?"
She found her voice.
"So much we take for granted, don't we?" His smile was wintry dark.
"Yes. I never saw them until they were taken away, never cared for them much, not for their poetry or grace until it was decreed by the guardians of the world that I must sacrifice."
"But you never forgot earth. I know it. You see what makes it worth saving."
"Ender didn't, Tomoyo. He understood the sallying forces for three-hundred- and-sixty degree three dimensional interstellar combat, but he had forgotten earth. They brought him back to a lake to allow him to lay around for three months until he remembered."
"Is it so?" Tomoyo murmured softly.
Eriol had often began listless rambles. It were as if he had forgotten how to make conversation. He had forgotten life and replaced it with war.
His eyes dwelt upon the tops of the trees, and he quoted softly,
"Der Gipfel des Baumes waren eines echten grunen Farbe, und waren ringsum das Meer. Es war sonnenbeschienene und schon." The old words of the long- dead German writer brought forth a simple observation of what could have been Eriol's own lands, yet held quiet meaning with the preciousness of what earth provided. The human heart would always long for it, what those silently magical words held within them.
"But now, Tomoyo, I find that I have no purpose in midst of this precious earth. My purpose was finished with the annihalation of the Formics, and now they call me the Acolyte of Xenocide. Only a few now, but they will grow when the revelry in being alive grows dim."
"As it is always so." Her voice was golden, too, but rich with irony.
"Didn't Shakespeare know the nature of man very well? We are a truculent, flightly lot. Romeo and his Juliet would have hated each other had they lived, but theirs was an eternal love because they happily died in their beau geste. Brutus betrays Caesar, but only because he fears him to have too much power, but made a mess of everything in the end anyway. And his machinations for power make Othello weak and stupid, and of course he muddles everything even more than Brutus. And what petty suspicion can do, as that idiot Macbeth has shown us all."
Eriol laughed shortly.
"How simply you put it, Tomoyo. But people won't care about the fact that their actions and emotions are not the best to be had. They only care that they think I am evil and a mass murderer. That's all."
"Eriol, haven't you noticed that most people are stupid? We two are of a highly elite group, and perhaps there might be four or five thousand of us in the entire universe. That's almost twelve billion people, counting the colonists. If we'd only count the six billion or so of the earth, then that might be two thousand."
Eriol sat back with a deceptive ease. He was only wearing dark swimming shorts in the heat, and was perfectly bronze and beautiful. But his face told that he found himself far from beautiful.
"My soul is damned because I have destroyed, Tomoyo. I was raised up on it from the moment I entered that accursed Battle School. I was groomed for destruction. No matter how elite, how much above the average man I am, I will still be damned because it was my superior so-called intelligence that destroys and destorys."
"But you are not a man, Eriol. You're thirteen and you're supposed to be growing into an adolescent. You were tricked and deceived during every moment of the war. If you were ignorant, you cannot still insist on your damnation, you know."
"No, Tomoyo."
"Eriol, let it go."
"How can I?" He asked despairingly in his softly broken voice that still echoed power and command.
"How can I forget what I had done and what I am now? An admiral, Tomoyo. I'm thirteen and I've massacred an entire race and fought a war and now I'm an admiral. Sometimes I wish that I were normal, that I'm still learning what other children learn. I sometimes wish it when I have seen it all happened and over with."
Tomyo regarded him with her sagely violet eyes.
"But you would never be happy with it. It reassured you that you were superb, and you would be miserable to be mediocre. Be very careful what wishes you make."
A sardonic smile spread on his face.
"How well you know me, Tomoyo. I suppose that it is the truth. But why do I get no compromise?"
"Life is unfair, Eriol. Some say that we all start out the same, but that is a lie. There is never fairness, not even from birth or before it. Genetics take such a key role, for it has gifted you your intellect, your face, and luck has given you your fortune. But it will still never be fair. But do remember this Eriol, that although life is so blatantly unfair, it is our duty to make it more fair for ourselves. It is the only way."
Eriol looked at her with that startling blue gaze. His smile was ironic, too.
"I have missed you and these little chats, Tomoyo. You have no idea how much."
Tomoyo only smiled gently. Perhaps he would not drown himself in despair after all. The smile left. But there were other worse alternatives, so much worse. After all, did not people fear damnation worse than death?