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imperial family and their guests were growing steadily more appalling as the dinner progressed. The
men drank at a pace which could only be described as businesslike, and talked far too loudly,
sometimes shouting over the ladies seated between them. Down the table, the young Grand Duchess
Xenia had done nothing but complain that the Tchaikovsky ball had delayed their normal summer
progress to the shore and the pleasures which awaited her there. Trevor had no doubt that she would
not have tempered her displeasure with this inconvenience even if she had been seated beside the
composer himself. His own dining companion had just sucked a clam from its shell with all the
finesse of an East End whore and now sat gazing at him in the manner of one who has seen the worst
of the world and fervently hopes to see it soon again.
“Our ultimate aim, of course, is to unite the two shores of our land,” the young Nicholas was
saying, with such palpable enthusiasm that it rang out to all within earshot. Trevor, with yet one more
smile of apology at his dinner mate, had to incline his head and strain to hear him. With his entire
table in respectful attendance, Nicholas went on to extol the virtues of the half-completed Trans-
Siberian Railway. To hear the young tsesarevich speak, you would think that no previous nation had
ever struck upon the idea of building a single continuous track from one end of their country to the
other, cutting across deserts, rivers, mountains, prairies, and whatever else it found along the way.
Trevor suspected the project was in fact a mimic of the famous railways of the American west and
wondered if the Trans-Siberian system, upon its conclusion, would have a similar impact. It seemed
that if Russia had truly found a way to create reliable transport from the European-influenced St.
Petersburg all the way to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, taking in Moscow, Siberia, and Mongolia
along the way, then Russia would be…
Unstoppable.
The word struck Trevor like a thud to the chest. As it now stood, Russia’s massive size could
be deemed as much a disadvantage as an advantage, rendering the country difficult to govern with
borders far too expansive to defend. But what would happen if the country did find a means of
marshalling its staggering wealth of resources? If so, they truly would become another America – so
vast and rich that no nation in Europe could begin to match their collective power. Trevor was not
sure the civilized world could handle a second America. It had barely survived the first one.
“And I shall tell them so the next time the committee meets…” Nicholas was saying. He trailed
off at this point, betraying himself by glancing nervously in the direction of his father. It was evident
that Nicholas had not yet found a seat on this much-acclaimed Trans-Siberian committee, and was
thus not yet in a position to tell anyone anything. But it was just as evident that he fervently wished to
be. The boy has a desire to matter, Trevor thought. If not on this committee, then on some other. He