Actually, Hotsco's smuggling ship was parked fifty meters underwater in the city's great bay near the Isle of Pelicans. One beep from Hotsco's transponder, and robot rescue would be inbound.
Playing tourist, they took lodgings in one of the new pseudo-Victorian guest houses that were being built in the wilds atop the Twin Peaks. They marveled that there had once been a bridge across the headlands, and listened as visionaries told them one day the straits would be bridged again. They declined an invitation to hunt a man-eater in the overgrown jungles of what had once been a park. They listened to arguments as to whether the foothills of the Mission District should be cleared—some swore the low mounds were rubble from high-rise buildings that had fallen in some great quake. They danced in the restoration of a huge clifftop mansion patterned after one that had been destroyed pre-Emperor and three monster earthquakes ago.
They politely refused an invitation from two rather lovely human females to join them in sexual ecstasy, in the Lovedance of the Ancient Merkins. Free. Alex thought Hotsco looked interested and then somewhat disappointed when he reminded her that, generally, new lovers are in love for a while before kinks occur. He did make a mental note to himself that the woman appeared to have interesting recreational ideas.
And they ate. Crab they caught themselves with a rented pot near another ruined bridge which led directly across the bay. Long loaves of wonderfully sour bread. Broiled fish. Raw fish artfully arranged on pats of rice. Rack of lamb. Chicken roasted under a brick. Alex, never a sybarite, let alone a gourmand, thought of changing his ways.
And they talked. Talked to anyone and everyone. Especially in the bars and hangouts around the small spaceport just south of the city. Alex claimed to be a free-lance import/exporter in the luxury trade, and Hotsco his new business/life partner. What, they wondered, did people think could be exported from Earth, considering that it was Manhome, that would interest customers throughout the Empire? More specifically, what could be exported—legally and morally?
Six E-days—and Alex smiled to himself: these really were Earth-days—later, without anyone seeming to realize that they had been grilled, Kilgour found his being. A customs official, someone with a sense of mission—which meant a built-in nose for a grievance, especially when it meant that someone had used higher authority to avoid proper procedure. Tsk, Kilgour assured her. Neither of them would ever... kind of thing that's despicable... business must be run in a proper manner... matter of fact, Ms. Tjanting... one of the more terrible things about my own profession... some traders... even heard stories of very high officials bending the laws...
The pump didn't need much priming.
Very high officials, indeed. Straight from Prime, in fact. And during the time frame Alex was interested in.
Customs, through Earth Spaceship Control, had been notified that the province of Oregon was closed to all nonstandard in-atmosphere and nearspace traffic. Which mattered not at all to Tjanting. She knew that the Emperor had his estates up there, and what he, or his people, chose to do was none of her concern. She might have been curious, being a good citizen, if the Emperor had been present. But of course, he had not been there.
How did she know that, Alex wondered?
Well, there would have been something on the livies, wouldn't there? But that wasn't why she was red-arsed, though. If the Eternal Emperor knew what liberties had been taken in his name, Tjanting knew, he would not be pleased.
About two weeks before the announcement, Tjanting went on, a commercial transport had grounded at San Fran, intending to clear customs at this entry port and then proceed immediately to its final destination—the Imperial Grounds some hundreds of kilometers away. She boarded the ship and immediately found things unusual. The ship was immaculate, and the crewmen followed orders as if they were in the Imperial Navy. But that was sheer conjecture. What had upset her was the cargo.
The skipper of the transport had, at first, refused to allow her access to the hold, claiming that what it contained was a classified cargo—property of the Imperial Household. But there was no paperwork to verify his claim. He could be carrying any sort of basic supplies to the river complex, supplies that the Emperor, like any other citizen, would have to pay duties on to the Earth government.
Tjanting insisted he open the hold—or else she would call for security and impound the ship and cargo and arrest the crew. The captain yielded gracelessly.
The cargo was medical—sophisticated equipment and supplies, as if someone were establishing a very small, but very superb, surgical ward. Or so, Tjanting said, a colleague specializing in med supplies had told her when she called back and read him the bill-of-lading fiche.
The problem wasn't that the cargo was dutiable—it probably wasn't, under humanitarian grounds. The question Tjanting had, and the one that wasn't answered, was why was this equipment necessary? Customs was also responsible for quarantine and health. Was someone in the Imperial Household ill? Or needing some kind of surgical help? For all she knew, there was a plague breeding.
She reported the matter to her superiors and was told to wait. They would contact the Emperor's staff in Oregon. That took minutes—no one in Oregon knew of such an incoming shipment. Tjanting was sure she had uncovered a strange sort of smuggling ring whose members had the maximum amount of gall.
Then another call came from the north, and before her shift ended, she was hauled in and reprimanded severely for what her supervisor called "unwarranted snooping into the business of the Eternal Emperor." Tjanting was also told she had a nasty reputation for being a busybody, and had best correct this character flaw lest it cause a downgrade on her next efficiency hearing.
By now the woman was seething, and Alex soothed her, and bought her another drink—a truly awful concoction of a sweet liqueur called Campari, charged water, and a brandy float on top. It was a monstrous waste of cognac, Alex thought, but said nothing.
So, while Hotsco covered for him with chattered sympathy, Alex mused: Jus' afore th‘ Emp dances on, some laddie wants't' set up an OR. An‘ it's gowky to conceive th' Emp's retreat nae has a wee medical kit an‘ such. So, somethin' special mayhap wae intended, aye? An op'ration?
On th‘ 'Ternal Emp'rer himself?
A wee bit ae surgery time's carefully kept under th‘ rose... ?
Aye. ‘Tis odd. "Tis ver' ver‘ odd, Kilgour thought.
Actually, ‘tis ver' simple, he realized, considering the presence of the bomb-disposal experts at the Emperor's compound. Surgically implanting a bomb in somebody wasn't unknown to Kilgour—the ruse had been used successfully by fanatics before. Kilgour had also heard of brave beings having a bomb installed inside them before they went on a suicide mission, to prevent any possibility of capture, torture, and exposing their fellows.
However, taking a bomb out was a new twist. And this is what he now thought had happened.
Mmm, Alex mused. So. Noo we‘ ken where th' boomie thae goes off whae th‘ Emp dies com't frae, aye? I's installed i' th‘ loonie's gut, p'raps where th' ‘pendix was. I' dinnae matter. Th‘ real puzzler i' who put th‘ clottin' thing in, i‘ the first place!
Th‘ further an' further Ah dig an‘ delve, Kilgour mused, th' less an‘ less Ah knoo thae's f'r certain.
Ah well. I‘ y' want'd a life where thae was naught but th‘ abs'lute, y' coulda been a WeeFreesie. Or stay'd a common so'jer.