"I'm not sure that's possible, sir."
"Dusable is one fat and sassy system right now, is it not?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"I've made you guys a principal AM2 depot. Which means you get to skim all you like."
"I protest, Your Majesty. The good citizens of Dusable—"
"Knock it off, Kenna. If you weren't stealing I'd be suspicious. Point is, I've been giving you all the goodies. Made you one of the top jewels in my crown. Now it's time to pay the piper. And get out the vote."
"I'll do my best, sir."
"That's not good enough. Theft is required. And arm breaking. I want this Parliament brought into line. At least until it recesses. I can always pack it with more of our own people afterward."
"Consider it done, Your Highness."
"Bleick."
"Yessir."
"You're working with Poyndex on that high priestess character, aren't you? What was her name?"
"Zoran, sir. High priestess of the Cult of the Emperor."
"That's the fruitcake I mean."
"Yessir. I have that assignment."
"What's going on? I was expecting a few godheads in my pocket by now. I badly need to boost my image with the ignorant masses. Damn, but the poor can be hard on a ruler. We've got riots all over the place. Bad for business.
"A few temples built in my honor could restore faith in the economy, and seriously trim this depression."
"To be frank, sir... I haven't had much luck with the woman. She's either not available, or, when she is, she talks in circles and giggles a lot. I think she's crazy."
"Like a fox, Bleick. She's a nut, for sure. But she's smarter than most people in this room. Tell her I'm getting tired of pouring credits into her organization. With no return."
"I spelled that out for her, sir. In absolute no-nonsense terms."
"Hmmm. I smell a skunk. Fine. Forget her. Exile her or something. Tell her it's time for her to reflect on the Spheres. Tell Poyndex to have her sent to her proper reward. Something quick, and not painful. Then suborn her second-in-command.
"If that doesn't work, keep going down the list until you find somebody with big eyes and a small brain. Talk to Poyndex. He'll know what I mean."
The door hissed open. Poyndex entered—with the pinched bad-news look on his face again.
The Eternal Emperor made immediate motions for his staff to make themselves scarce. They did.
"Sit."
Poyndex obeyed, sitting stiff in his seat, almost at attention. The Emperor pulled a bottle of Scotch from his desk. The ancient Earth whisky had taken him years to reinvent. He poured a glass and braced himself with a long swallow. The Emperor pointedly didn't offer Poyndex any.
"Okay. What's happening this time?"
"It's Sten, sir."
"I figured that. What about him?"
Poyndex leaned forward across the desk. The man was honestly bewildered. "Sir. My people have been over every connection you gave us a hundred times. And we've come up with many more. But, it's no dice, sir. No one, but no one, knows him, sir. Except in passing. We've brainscanned people. Had them worked over by experts. But as near as I can tell... Sten doesn't have a friend in the Empire."
The Emperor wooshed, then took another heavy slug of his drink. Poyndex noted that his once-clear features were getting puffy and there was a small red web of a blemish beside his nose.
"That doesn't scan," the Emperor said. "Even the lowest being in the Empire has at least one friend. Even the misguided attract their own. Or, I should say, especially the misguided."
Poyndex turned his hands palms up. "It's true, just the same, sir. The real trouble is, with all the records on Sten and Kilgour wiped... we don't have much to go on."
"Except my memory."
"Which is excellent, sir. The few breaks we've had have all come from you."
The Emperor stared at Poyndex, reading his face. No. The man wasn't catering to his ego. He meant it. The Emperor won-dered for a moment if maybe he was beginning to lean on Poyndex more than was healthy.
Beings could get very dangerous ideas... if one depended on them too much. Only Poyndex, for example, knew of the bomb that had once been planted in his gut. A bomb wired to that... that thing.
That great ship, out there beyond the Alva Sector, through the discontinuity.
The great ship that controlled him.
The Emperor's mind shuddered at the thought of the ship with the white room and the disembodied voice that spoke to him.
He shivered. Took another drink. Then he remembered. Correction: former controller. It was Poyndex who'd set up the special surgical team that had removed the bomb from his body and cut his link with the controller.
Another drink. Yesss. Much better now. He was the last Eternal Emperor. Until the Empire's end... Which would be?
Never.
He pulled himself together. "There's only one thing to be done, then," he said. "Somehow, I have to make more time. Get an interrogation team on standby. Every spare second I have, I'll devote to my memories of Sten. Any detail the team digs up from me, you can get cracking on immediately."
Poyndex hesitated. "Are you sure that's wise, sir?"
The Emperor frowned. "I know it's not wise. I've already fallen into the jimmycarter, for crying out loud. Micromanaging every detail in my empire. Next thing you know, I'll be going over the damned newyear's greeting list with Bleick. But... dammit... what choice do I have?"
"Sten is just one being, Your Majesty," Poyndex said. "Let us deal with him."
"I can't take that chance. Sten is the symbol of everything that's gone wrong. Citizens have no faith. They won't follow orders. They question my every pronouncement. When I'm the only one who really cares about them.
"Who else can take the long view? I mean the really long view. I see things not in years, but generations."
The Emperor fell silent a moment. "No. This is something I have to do," he finally said. "Damn his eyes!" And the Eternal Emperor drained the glass.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOME.
It was strewn across a thousand thousand kilometers of space, a slowly whirling sargasso of industrial junk.
Vulcan.
Sten stared at the ruins through his suit's faceplate. The sound of his breathing seemed loud.
This was the hellworld where Sten had been born, an artificial factory planet built and run as a violent, dangerous industrial plant by The Company. His parents, Migrant/Unskilled laborers, and his brothers and sisters had died here, killed by an executive's callous decision about secrecy.
The boy that was Sten exploded into futile rebellion. He was caught, and sentenced to Exotic Section, an experimental area where the workers were assured of a slow, painful death. But Sten survived. Survived, learned to fight, and—his fingers touched the deathneedle sheathed in his arm—"built" his knife from alien crystal.
He had escaped Exotic Section, and become a Delinq, living in the secret ducts and deserted storehouses of the planet, trying to stay one theft ahead of The Company's Sociopatrolmen and brainburn. He had met Bet here, his first real love. And here he had been saved from death by Ian Mahoney, coldcocked after a blown raid and drafted into the Imperial Guard.
Mahoney had again "volunteered" him—this time from infantry assault training into Mahoney's own covert force: Mantis—where he learned the dark alleys of intelligence and the darker skills of secret violence. How to kill any being without leaving a mark. Or, more importantly, how to seduce or corrupt them into your service, without them ever realizing they'd been used.