“You know how I said my little brother, Kaezar, was jealous of us reaching Bronze?” Kato said.

“Yeah?” Antonias said.

“Well, you have no idea how much. Trashed his room complaining that our parents didn’t put enough advancement pills, training resources, time with instructors in for him. Claimed he could have done it easily if I did it. Then he started trying to prove himself stronger than me and I nearly punched his skull off when he tried to jump me in the middle of the night.” Kato said.

“Bronze reflexes.” I remarked. “They’re a bitch. Glad to hear you didn’t off your little brother, even if he is a pain.”

“Yeah, I still love him, even if he is annoying. I just barely managed not to kill him.” Kato said, shaking his head.

“You could offer to have him train with those we leave behind.” I offered. “He might still have a shot of Bronze if he trains hard with them.”

“I’ll mention it to him.” Kato said. “I don’t think he’ll bite though.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because it would be training with people you trained and he doesn’t want to admit that you’re the reason why I advanced. He likes to think I did it on my own or would have done it without you, Adrias.” Kato said.

I was confused. “Why does he not want to admit I’m the reason you’re all Bronze? It’s pretty obvious. I’m the first Bronze to ever come from Sunburst Station and then I start training people and in less than a month I have three Bronze students.”

“Yeah. He’s in denial. Like it or not, you fighting in the arenas isn’t very popular with a lot of Imperators on the ring. I’ve heard my parents compare you to a lowly Servus or a raging animal for lowering yourself to doing so and fighting like a gladiator. Kaezer picked up on it, I guess. He’d rather think you were lucky than right about fighting with Servi and Infernal Beasts being a valid path to Ranking up to Bronze when the rest of us have been high and mighty and reserved.” Kato said.

“The amuse-bouche.” The Hetaira girl announced, setting down plates. The course was celery soup in little bowls and fish eggs on the side. The soup was thick and bitter and frothy with green foam. A stray garnish leaf floated in my bowl, and I pushed it in circles with my spoon before taking a second cautious sip. The figs eggs were a dark emerald with a yellowish outline, and they popped satisfyingly in my mouth as I chewed. They tasted less like fish and more like what I had imagined the ocean would taste like, being all salt water. I had never had caviar before. There were no oceans that had been terraformed on my home planet of Lavinius and thus no fresh fish to be had, the Dominium’s imperial atmospheric engineers and bioforming corps had only installed a number of large lakes dotting the planets surface that could not truly be called even small inland seas. Just enough bodies of water in just enough size to keep up a functional water cycle. Most of the fresh drinking water came from drilling in the poles of clean ice, rain catcher basins for the periodic rainstorm, and industrial moisture trappers which pulled water droplets out of the mere air to make liters and liters of cool fluid to drink.

“My sister wasn’t happy either, I’ll say that much.” Caesia said.

I turned my head to her. “I didn’t know you had a little sister, Caesia.”

“Older sister, actually, which rubbed more salt in the wound that I advanced before she did which pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of whatever pipedreams she had of reaching the second rank of Imperator.” Caesia said.

It became harder to Rank upwards as you got older. Prodigies were the name of the game. Someone who hit Bronze for any Path at fourteen had a much better shot at Gold than someone who hit Bronze at twenty. The system advantaged the wealthy and connected of course, and that applied whether you were a Servus or a Faber or an Imperator. Rich families could have their children genetically and chemically engineered to have stronger Foundations to fuel advancement, could given them nothing but time to train their bodies and minds and study their Paths, could afford things like the Refounding pills I had had Antonias take to restore his body from the damage he had done from drugs and sloth and excess if their children strayed from wholesome activities, and could provide tutors and instructors to ease the transition. Of course, most Imperators didn’t reach Bronze because no matter how wealthy and privileged they were, our Path needed legitimate victories to be come by and the lifestyle of most on the Path of the Emperor wasn’t conducive to actually doing anything at all besides drinking and partying and lording over their lessers.

Next, the waiter brought us tomato soup. I stuck my spoon into the succulent, red liquid and blew on it to cool it. I supposed I didn’t really need to cool it down to consume it, but habits were habits. It was rich and hearty. Kato picked up the bowl with his fingers and drank it straight down, and Caesia wrinkled her nose at his lack of manners. He shrugged and smiled.

We idly chatted about the current styles of fashion on Sunburst Station. Caesia like the return of more archaic clothing to the forefront.

“So I did more research about the Scholarium.” Caesia remarked.

“Oh?” Antonias said. “Adrias already looked into it a good bit.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I probably already got whatever you heard. But feel free to say what you read.”

She shook her head. “I talked through contacts of my parents and got information that’s not readily available.”

“Go on.” Kato encouraged.

“For one, the testing. The rumors online is that its all combat stuff, but that’s apparently only a very minor part of it. They know we’re all strong, everyone’s a Bronze, so they don’t really care about that. Most of it is mental and psychological testing. They’re training officers, not brutish warriors. They care about emotional temperament, and quick thinking, and leadership skills.” Caesia said.

I frowned. I had mostly been training my body. “We’ll have to put in additional work over the course of the travel by starship to Iulius on knowledge of officer-based skills.”

“I hate book learning.” Kato complained. He put a fist into his palm. “I prefer the parts of our Path that involve punching stuff.”

“Well, you’ll have to learn if you want to not have to go back home in shame.” Caesia said.

“Here you go.” The Hetaira waiter said, bring us our appetizer. The appetizers were small crabcakes with horseradish dipping sauce. I took one in hand and munched on it. Caesia took two crabcakes, Antonias didn’t eat any, and Kato avoided the horseradish sauce.

“What else did you learn?” I asked Caesia.

“The Net is wrong about where the Scholarium is.” She said.

I raised an eyebrown. “It’s not under Iulius’s North Sea?”

“No. The entry point is there, but it’s a distraction, a kind of obfuscation of purpose and location. Ships dock on a platform in the North Sea of Iulius but when you descend to the sea floor, you’re taken to a tunnel that drills through the earth all the way back to Pallea, the capital city of Iulius. It’s right underneath the main city, the Scholarium that is, and is kept close to governmental control.” Caesia said.

“What’s the purpose of hiding that knowledge?” Antonias asked.

“Prevents terrorist attacks by Servi rebels. If it was common knowledge where the school of the most powerful and privileged Imperator youths went, there would be attacks. Making people think its in a secure location underwater far from any other cities and beneath restricted airspace protects the school from intrusion.” Caesia said.

The green skinned Hetaira girl brought us small plates of salad next, passing them one by one to us.

“What else have you learned?” I asked the Imperator girl.

“We all get Silicon Daimon headjacks if we get in.” Caesia said.

“What are those?” Antonias and I asked together.

“Silicon Daimons are artificial intelligences. Usually, they run capital ships, but officers of the Solar Guard get one surgically implanted into their brain.” Caesia said.

“What do they do for the user?” I asked.

“Perform calculations, enhance judgement calls, interface with technology and exosuits.” She said.

“Why not just use wormwires?” I questioned her. That was what I had used as a Servus in the mines on Lavinius prior to my ascension to Imperator.

“Wormwires can’t penetrate and worm their way into a Bronze Imperator’s skin. It’s too hard and durable for them to do it. The headjacks are painstakingly attached by specialized cutting and drilling equipment cutting through our Bronze bone and then stitching the Silicon Daimon’s chip to our neural tissue for interfacing purposes.” Caesia said.

I rubbed the back of my head, imagining a piece of metal permanently attached to me for the rest of my life, whispering calculations in the back of my mind.