RJ Book 16 ebook First Steps, page 22
Those for the boy were melted down immediately, with only one copy kept for the mints museum. It would be the rarest coin in the world.
I thanked all the doctors, midwives, nurses, orderlies, and other maternity ward staff and guards. I gave each of them one of the commemorative coins that had been struck.
Coins would be sent to all world leaders, then released into general circulation. These would be of all denominations. One yuan, 1-2-5 jiao, and 1-2-5 fen. These would be in copper and nickel-clad silver. The ones I was handing out and sending to world leaders were one yaun in pure silver.
They would end up as treasured family items or in the hands of collectors.
One of the difficult decisions we had to make was what to call our new daughter. She was to have a bunch of names, which is typical in royal families.
Ping was her Chinese last name, always listed first by custom. Then Mary for my grandmother, Ann for May-lings mother, Elizabeth because it frequently appeared on both sides of my family, and Jackon as my last name.
Any boys would have London, John, or Richard from my Dad's side and Ernest or David from Mum. Chia-Hao or Chun-Chin for May-ling’s father and brother.
Halloran was never considered.
Though she had several names, one of them had to be picked for normal use. I had a sister Mary; Ann, though spelled differently, was a major Princess, and Elizabeth is a Queen or The Queen in the eyes of the world.
We decided on Beth. No one would dare call Queen Elizabeth Beth. Her reign name would be the kids' problem when assuming her throne. I was hoping to be dead and buried by then.
Chapter 46
The news that a girl child was born in excellent health was announced worldwide that day. In China, it was a day of rejoicing. There was cannon fire, fireworks, and general jubilation.
I knew May-ling was a popular ruler, but this drove the point home. On the moon, the news was taken more sedately. That is, rockets filled with gunpowder were launched. They were so large the show could be seen from earth with the naked eye.
Congratulations poured in from all over the world. The press was clamoring for pictures of the newborn. One picture was released with May-ling holding the baby. The official photographs would be released later.
There was only one sour note. The Chinese CIA had been watching the cleric who had issued the Fatwa on me. He now issued one for Beth.
When told this, I almost went berserk. After breaking a few things in our suite, no Ming vases, I thought it through.
I put my idea to May-ling, and she agreed.
The Fatwa and its sources were included in a news release. We asked that all good Muslims repudiate it. Within twenty-four hours, we had our answer. Not one Muslim cleric repudiated the Fatwa.
Our people theorized that no cleric would repudiate it because it would allow someone to repudiate any Fatwa they issued. They didn’t want to surrender power.
Some Islamic interfaith groups put out statements, but even those were weasel-worded.
This information was released to the Chinese people. We thought it would put pressure on the Clerics.
It did more than put pressure on them. Within another day, there was not one Islamic structure standing within China.
There were many incidents where citizens were killed because of their religion. May-ling had to make a plea from her hospital bed to stop the slaughter.
The destruction of mosques worldwide followed. Fortunately, only a few people were killed. Again a plea was made that major mosques serving as museums be spared.
I made that announcement during a press conference. As a follow-up, I was asked if the Cleric who issued the Fatwa should be spared.
My reply became famous everywhere.
“As Allah wills.”
Later that day, he was stoned to death by his villagers in fear for their own lives.
I thought that would settle everything down. I was wrong. The same day a suicide bomber exploded himself and the outer security station. Before the dust settled, a large group poured onto the grounds of the Forbidden Palace.
Another suicide bomber blew himself up at the main entrance to the Palace. This time they could not progress into the main body of the complex as hidden machine guns opened fire.
They were mowed down to a man.
May-ling and I called our advisors together after this incident. What could be done? No one had an answer. The only way to stop the radical Islamists was to destroy Islam itself.
To destroy Islam would require stamping out their entire education system, where young men were radicalized. Then those already radicalized would have to be hunted down and cut down root and branch.
Millions would have to die. Wholesale slaughter was not the answer we were looking for. Ninety-nine percent of Muslims were truly peaceful. Although they were hesitant to speak out, it was hard to think they supported the radicals.
One advisor suggested we hold some major Clerics as hostages against aggression. Hostages wouldn’t work as the radicals had no problem killing innocent children and claiming them to be martyrs.
Dad asked, “What if we held their major shrines in Mecca and Medina as hostages?”
A list included the Masjid-al Haram, the Quba Mosque, The cave at Hiram, al-Masjid an-Nabawi, and finally, The Kaaba and Black stone.
A carefully worded statement was released, which said these items would be destroyed one at a time if any further attacks were made on the Royal families of China or the Lunar Kingdom and the Solar Reaches.
If any attacks were successful, all the listed structures would be destroyed.
A Cleric from the Grand Mosque in Mecca declared that Alla would protect them. That resulted in a GC craft settling on one of the outer walls of the Grand Mosque and flattening it.
When asked, I used what had become my standard answer, “As Allah wills.”
That stopped all attacks. Another good thing about being known as a Tyrant it was known I would follow through on my threats.
Attacks against us, that is, the Shi'ites and Sunnis, continued their slaughter of each other. The Kurds also managed to weigh in occasionally, but we ignored it since it wasn’t national warfare.
A question was raised. What would Beth's religion be? May-ling had been raised to follow Confucianism, entwined with Taoism and Buddhism. I was nominally a Christian.
We answered that she would be raised with all those religions' combined common and good concepts. Boy, did that set the cat amongst the pigeons?
Theologians worldwide love a good religious argument. Overnight symposiums and congresses were set up to debate what the common and good concepts from the religions would be. This debate promised to last hundreds of years.
This debate was fine with us as it took the monkey off our backs. We were surprised when Hindu, Mualim, and Jewish scholars asked to be included. They wanted the good in their religions to be recognized. This debate could turn out to be a good thing.
A common religion based on kindness to others was a dream, but oh, what a dream. A small first step, but it was a step in the right direction.
In the meantime, without any fanfare, we moved to the moon. We had better control of our security there. No one was getting near my daughter!
When I say we moved to the moon, I mean our whole entourage. There were enough Doctors and Nurses and general help to provide twenty-four/seven coverage for mother and child.
It was two weeks before I was allowed to change a diaper. It would be much longer before I asked for a second opportunity.
Chapter 47
When we moved to the moon, it was like a military operation. There were over three hundred people between Beth’s caretakers, May-ling’s staff, and mine.
First, advance security ensured everything was in place and safe. Then we moved up, followed by the rear guard.
Baby presents were arriving at the Forbidden Palace. These were from all over. Many are from world leaders and rich celebrities or the simply rich or celebrities.
These gifts had value, some enough for a normal family to live for a year. These gifts were attempts to gain influence.
The ones we appreciated the most were given by the ‘common’ people. These were simple things like hand-embroidered blankets, stuffed toys, or baby rattles. The best of these were chosen for Beth's use.
All of the gifts were scanned for problems. I wish I could say none were found. Some of them were found to have poison in them. There were several bombs.
Security had kept track of the origin of each gift. Some of the dangerous ones were traceable. The senders were tracked down and held. Others weren’t traceable and of the most concern.
The ones that were caught had one characteristic in common. They were all raving mad and were locked up for life by their respective countries.
The ones we could track had files created with all the known information and shared with the major police forces of the world. Any future attempts would be compared with the existing files to see if a pattern could be developed.
Our staff sent out Thank You notes to each sender. May-ling or I signed world leader notes.
An office in the Forbidden Palace had taken on the task of keeping track of all of this. They also merged with my staff from Jackson Enterprises to maintain files on each person who crossed our lives. Birthday cards etc., were sent in our names.
More important life events required our signature. There were so many events nowadays from so many people it almost took a gold medal in the Olympics to get a handwritten note from either of us.
We still spent two hours a week on that exercise. A Tyrants job is never done.
Then there were the ribbon cutting ceremonies. Our colony or country was growing like crazy. It was like the wild west, without the wild. I had to help open a new business almost every day of the week.
I thought at least I would get Sundays off. No such luck. Sunday was a day off for most people, so new stores would want to open then to attract the largest crowds.
The first openings attracted people because I was there. Once people had seen me in public several times, I was no longer the draw. That was good for me but disappointing for the new businesses.
I was able to turn that around temporarily by bringing Beth along. By that, I mean Beth and her entourage. I thought that would wear off quickly, but it became apparent that the public wanted to watch Beth grow up.
May-ling would accompany us to hold Beth. I soon realized that my presence wasn’t necessary, but when I mentioned it, I was told to “Suck it up, Buttercup.”
May-ling was hanging around my Mum too much.
May-ling as Empress was above appearing at business openings in China. She soon learned from public opinion polls that the Chinese people wanted to see Beth as much as our Loonies.
Rather than go commercial in her public appearance, she started appearing at award ceremonies. Heroics, educational, and sports events were all attended. All with baby Beth along.
The public never got near the baby. Attendees would see her on CCTV or large screens. Some of the events were live broadcasts. May-ling soon realized that by doing these presentations, her popularity was also rising.
May-lings and my ratings were extremely high for any world leader, more than eighty-five percent. Beth could do no wrong.
She got positive numbers when she scrunched her face on the screen to poop. I don’t know what would happen if I tried that. Revolution in the streets is my best guess.
When Beth is older, we will have to withdraw her from public life. She will need to have as normal a childhood as possible. She would have to be around other children to socialize, but we had to be very careful about who was allowed near.
There would be many attempts to surround her with sycophants, and we had to forestall that as much as possible.
We made a joint public announcement that if anything happened to us, my parents would be her regents. That may have put a target on their backs, but they both knew and agreed to raise her if needed.
There would be no council of regents to despoil our daughter for their ends. Both Russia and China had horror stories about that.
Ivan the Terrible wasn’t born that way; such a group created him. When he came to power, they paid for it. It illustrated the saying, “Be careful of f what you wish for. You may get it.”
What wasn’t made public was an agreement that the King or Queen of England would step in if my parents couldn’t. Not the British government, but the Crown.
If anything, that family had experience in raising Royals. Even their track record could be better, but at least they knew the basics of royalty.
The more I thought about the changes in my life, the more I realized that I had come of age. It had crept up on me. I still felt like that kid from Bellefontaine.
I tried to picture myself in high school running a country. It didn’t compute. I wondered how much more I would change.
Chapter 48
My life had changed. It had snuck up on me. I had been reacting to events for so long that I didn’t think about it as I kept moving.
I am the ruler of a country, on the moon, no less. I blame that on my sister Mary. I wouldn't be in this position if she hadn’t come up with the equations that allowed gravity control.
I’m married with a child. I have no complaints about the wife or the child. That started with the lady in the dry cleaner. Who knew where that would end up?
Those two events led to me being a major world leader, if not the world leader. Between May-ling and I, we were The Superpower.
Strangely enough, these weren’t the changes that bothered me. It was the little things, like my wardrobe.
Harold, my valet, still controlled it all. It was way past the time that I could have duplicate wardrobes on a GC craft with me. To accomplish that would have taken one of the superbarges, as they were now called.
Causal clothes, military uniforms, and formal wear were what I wore. Now it was suits, suits, and more suits.
Each of my suits was now custom-made. Nothing of the rack for the King of the Lunar Kingdom and Solar Reaches.
I never knew they made suits where the buttons on the sleeves worked. There were two pairs of pants with each suit because of uneven wear. Each pair of pants had an internal silk liner that fell to the knees, like Bermuda shorts, for comfort.
There was a hidden pocket for your wallet, which I didn’t even carry anymore. There was a vest with each suit. My full name was stitched inside the jacket. Each suit cost as much as our first house. It was insane.
Then there were the ties, hundreds of them, Belts, only by the dozen. I always thought it was an affection for men to wear a handkerchief in their suit breast pocket. Now it was an everyday occurrence.
My shoes were made from my personal last. Any scuff would have a pair relegated to charity. I must have one of the largest expensive watch collections in the world. Cuff links beyond counting.
I only got to wear what I described as California casual: a sport coat and slack with a polo shirt was at Jackson House California. That was when I wasn’t going out. Going out meant a suit every time.
I wasn’t even surprised when I learned I had a personal jeweler who made the cuff links and ties clasps.
I never wore the same suit twice in the same month.
I complained about all this to Harold one day as he helped me dress.
“Sir, the Queen has a whole floor of Buckingham Palace for her wardrobe.”
“Yeah, but she's a woman.”
“She’s a Queen, and you are a King. More is expected of you.”
Then I made a comment that couldn’t be unmade no matter how much I tried.
“At least I don’t have a personal perfume.”
“Sir, I have been meaning to bring that up. Not a perfume but an aftershave and cologne.”
Why me, lord? Some battles shouldn’t even be fought.
“Obtain samples and pass them by May-ling. What she approves is what I will wear.”
“Sound thinking, Sir. We will also make certain they don’t offend the Princess.”
I wonder if I could hitchhike back to Ohio.
My valet has more control over my life than I do.
Another change was my body. Not long ago, I could run daily and do a morning workout. I still could work in pushups and situps, but the morning run was a thing of the past. My day didn’t have enough hours.
I hadn’t gained any weight but thought I could detect some flab. May-ling call it love handles. I called it fat.
The only reason I didn’t gain weight was that I had no control over my food. Cooks and waiters took care of everything. No grabbing a donut when passing through the kitchen. I wasn’t even certain where the kitchen was in my ever-expanding Palace on the moon.
Dietitians and my wife strictly controlled what I ate. Even when attending a state dinner elsewhere, it was circumvented if I tried to slip in an extra dessert. After the first time it happened, my wife informed me that it was unseemly for a King to pout.
I replied that it was my Kingdom and that I would pout if I wanted to. I have been listening to Lesley Gore lately. It cut no ice with my wife. Since we were in China then, it was her Empire, and she would bonk me on the head if she wanted to.
My life was now meeting after meeting, if not cutting a ribbon, on one of the many new businesses coming to the moon.
Then there were the press conferences. You would think the press would fear someone they described as a Tyrant. If so, they didn’t show it.
The Kingdom's government now had a press office with a secretary to answer questions and deliver announcements. I still had to appear once a month for a live grilling.
Last month the questions were my thoughts on the religious conference that broke out in fist fights. While some religious leaders found citations in their religious works to support the good things about their religion, others went over other religions to find bad things.
