"I’m going down to the house to think for a while. Consider unavailable unless there’s so kind of ergency," I told Joe. "And no communications unless I call you. I need to be alone with my thoughts for a while."
I stepped onto the elevator disk and willed myself to the ground. I started walking back to my house. As I walked, I asked myself what does it really an to be king? It can an whatever the king says it ans, was my first thought. I discarded that answer, even while knowing that so kings would say it was the right answer. It had to be sothing more, or what was the point.
Heroic kings lead their troops into battle, charging at the front of their armies straight into the teeth of the enemy forces. In the real world, that would an they would soon be replaced by soone who survived the battle. Anyway, it didn’t really apply here, we weren’t likely to engage in hand-to-hand combat with space aliens. Of course, as king I could be targeted for assassination either by individuals or by existing Earth governnts, staying anonymous to the people of Earth might lower the odds of that. There was really no benefit to announcing my self-appointed status until I had a stronger case for why I should hold the title.
Bad kings often were cowards and cared only for themselves, willing to sacrifice their people for their own safety and comfort. I would not be that kind of king, I resolved. Not ever.
A good king puts the welfare of his people above himself... above everything. That’s not to say a good king will attack other kingdoms to gain wealth for his people, but he must be willing to defend them, to preserve their lives, their well-being, and perhaps most importantly, their future. Yes, it seed to that the only reason I could justify being king was if I could improve the lives of the people I served. Furthermore, I must be capable of doing that at least as well as any other candidate. What did that an, really, though?
I know there are smarter people than I on Earth, people who are better negotiators, better planners, better military strategists, better economic strategists, and even people who are probably better at all those things at once, than I. But could I be absolutely sure they would have the best interest of the greater population at heart? The saying goes that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Could I find soone who was both more capable and completely incorruptible? Probably, I thought, but I could never be really sure of anyone but myself. Could I be sure of myself, for that matter? Yes. Right now, I was certain that I would always put the needs of the people of Earth ahead of my own needs.
I realized that I had been doing a pretty bad job of that so far. How was the life of any single person on Earth, other than myself and my family, better today than it was when I declared myself Earth’s leader to the aliens? Not one bit. Sure, Earth had so new business interests in the Galactic economy and a year of protection from alien invasion, but these were temporary things according to Joe, and they really had no impact on the quality of life for anyone on Earth. People still starved, died of illnesses, even died of illnesses that Earth knew how to cure. They fought. They killed each other. They hurt each other. They wasted their lives in prisons. They worked their whole lives to make other people rich. So people were happy. So were even rich and happy with access to the best health care, but not many. Certainly not everyone.
I had at my disposal, a pretty vast amount of Earth money, enough to make a difference for a large number of people. I needed to start putting it to work. I could donate it to charities, but people had been donating to charities forever. While they may have helped so, it’s hard to see how they were really making life on Earth better. Even if they did, which charities were better? One that provided pre-school breakfast for hungry kids in Boston or one that provided Ebola prevention and treatnt services in the Congo? Drug addiction treatnt in Brazil or drilling wells in rural communities without access to clean water? Maybe I should fund rcenaries to protect families trying to draw water from communal wells claid by bandits, rebels or even governnt forces who brutalized them, demanded paynts, or worse.
There were lawless places where any aid sent would be commandeered by local thugs and used for their own purposes or sold to the highest bidders rather than put to its intended purpose. Unfortunately, and not by chance, these places were often the ones where people were most in need of assistance.
I got all this from web searches. I had beco proficient at finding, authenticating, and analyzing data from diverse sources. It was part of the implanted mory skills that had been required before I could even begin the science or economics training sessions. Vocabulary, grammar, reading skills, and a host of other basic knowledge were all required to understand the complex subjects. While there were no licensing fees for the learning of Earth-based skills like vocabulary, there was a royalty due for any knowledge or technology owned by various galactic union entities. These were summarily deducted from my GU credit account where profits from coffee and chocolate were being held. Using the telepathic learning systems was expensive, but a necessary expense if I was to deal effectively with the Galactic Union sharks. The mind transfer technique itself also carried royalty fees for its use, but it could also be purchased with an option for infinite use, single user license fees prepaid. Most of the treehouse was given to with the latter type of prepaid licenses for the use of the equipnt included. Knowledge or tech transfers, however, were always billed for each use.
Profits from coffee and chocolate were low to date. Initially, I understood, there were marketing expenses while the quadrillions of people throughout the galaxy were made aware of these new exotic flavors from the newly contacted world called Earth. There were a fair number of GU citizens who had alerts set for such new introductions and quickly sought them out to be on the forefront of anything new. These kinds of custors provided our earliest revenue stream, but most of them would move on to the next thing or the next world’s offerings fairly quickly. Many others would try it on impulse once the marketing efforts of Earth Friend’s companies found them. So wouldn’t like them and would be one-ti purchasers. Others would like them well enough and buy them a few tis, or just occasionally. Our real goal was to find custors who loved the products and added them to their daily or weekly routines. If we could get the people of a thousand worlds to drink one (or five) cups of coffee every day, and perhaps flavor it with a chocolate additive, or start celebrating important events with chocolate cake, or treating their kids with milk chocolate candies, then we’d have good long-term inco streams.
Then there were hybrid products, adding coffee flavor in a blend with so other world’s exotic flavor or proprietary food. Fortunately for our product line, we could offer coffee and chocolate separately in a large number of varieties, then combine the two for an almost equal number of varieties. As product lines, these two flavor families were a veritable ho run, or would be if they developed a broad and devoted following.
I had an early hint of the eventual success they would find when Earth Friend offered to buy Earth’s remaining share of the profits on both items, shortly after their introduction. He offered an amount that would right away allow to pay off the existing balance of the Refueling Station construction cost loan. Having seen his willingness to take advantage of , and guided by Joe Torres’ advice, I declined the buyout and elected to continue collecting royalties for both products. I could have imdiately flooded the market with every flavor and fragrance known to humanity. It would have been a huge payday, but then the Galactic Union could bump up their protection fees to a rate that would drain our coffers as quickly as they filled and then remove our protection entirely. They would have no reason left to protect Earth once the rights to all our valuable, original products had been traded away, especially if we retained ongoing royalties they could keep if we were destroyed. I wanted to play for ti and release new products as slowly as I could to give ti to build Earth’s technological base to a level near that of other GU mbers. Not to ntion ti to find a way to escape the usual plundering of new worlds that seed to have taken place with every newly contacted civilization in the last 1500 years, according to Joe.
I discovered that it wasn’t only new flavors and slls that could find a market in the wider galaxy, but the hunger was really for new experiences, new ideas, new knowledge, new entertainnt. Galactic dical expertise led to extrely long lives for many intelligent species. Boredom was a constant enemy for many of them. As a result, I found original movies and books, at least those that could be understood without growing up on Earth (or with a quick contextually illuminating mory implant) would be highly sought after, though more limited in their long-term revenue potential. This led to question how to allocate royalties to the original authors/ rights-holders of each work that would be offered to the GU. I decided they should definitely receive a royalty from each viewing or reading, but that a portion should also be allocated to Earth as a whole for the common good. I put that aside for another ti, and didn’t offer any creative works for sale on the galactic market. I would get to it.
It occurred to that a raiding military force destroying our cities and infrastructure might have a harder ti looting a copy of Citizen Kane or Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (and differentiating their value from 10,000 episodes of Wheel of Fortune and 500 volus of Richie Rich comic books) than they would finding the molecular profile of bananas from a single surviving leaf. Perhaps holding back so of the more esoteric things Earth had to offer would buy us more ti under the protection of the Galactic Union, I mused.
I realized that I had let myself get distracted again. I needed to focus on finding ways to improve the lives of my people. After spending far too much ti dwelling upon the various degrees of suffering being experienced on Earth, I made my decision. My efforts would serve two purposes. First, making the Earth a better place for people who live here. Second, beginning my journey to beco the recognized King of Earth. I knew my choice was going to result in so hard decisions. I would face strong opposition, and I would have to deal with it, one way or another. Unfortunately, I knew that even if things went well there would almost certainly be violence. If things didn’t go well, if I didn’t plan and execute well enough, things could go very, very bad, with even more suffering and even more violence.
As the words "heavy is the head that wears the crown," echoed again in my mind, I realized that the reason it was so heavy was that every decision and every judgent I made would hang around my neck like a millstone for the rest of my life. That’s a pretty sobering thought when you’re only eight years old. I wondered if I could bear such weight. Eventually, I’d need to tell soone, to confide in others, not so they could share my burdens, but so they could help to be strong enough to carry them myself.
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