The Victory, escorted by five cruisers and eleven destroyers, was orbiting an unpopulated world less than twenty light-years from Seilichi.
Not that there was much to say in this meeting—it'd all been gone over time and again. Sten wondered about Alex, who'd been unnaturally quiet for the past few days, keeping his own counsel.
Sten poured a glass of herbal/protein drink, and sipped. He shuddered at its taste. Why were things that: were supposedly good for you so frequently abominable?
"I wonder," he said, "just how long it will be before the Emperor double-crosses us?"
"It will depend," Rykor said, "on how we handle the first crisis after the Emperor grudgingly moves over on his throne to allow your presence, whatever it might be. If our solution coincides with the Emperor's, and in no way detracts from the perception that he alone really holds the reins of power... two E-years from that date.
"If there is a divergence of views, and ours becomes the plan operated on... three cycles.
"In any event, there will be an attempted counterrevolution within five E-years, either planned by the Eternal Emperor himself or, possibly, honestly mounted by his loyalists.
"But we should be, given foresight and proper planning, as well as an ocean and a half of pure luck, able to survive the first attempt to destroy the new government"
"All those estimates," Sten said dryly, "give the coalition more time than we would have if we'd accepted battle. Time enough to figure how we're going to RF the Emperor before he does it to us."
Kilgour shook his head. "Ah'll noo be rain't on th‘ marchpast, but Ah'm sittin' here rec'lectin‘ a place called Glencoe, a clan called Campbell, an' a pol named Dalrymple."
"Which means?" Otho rumbled.
"Naethin" ‘cept m' own buddin't fears, lad. Whae dealin't wi‘ a madman, y' cannae use logic."
"We've gone through this before," Sten said. "The Emperor is hardly going to try a double cross now. He proposed the meet in the first place, so it'd be his flag of truce that'd be dishonored. Of course he's mad, and of course he wants my skin for his drumhead—but he certainly would not try anything while we're all under the protection of the Manabi."
A com whispered, and Alex crossed to it and read the message onscreen. He keyed an answer and blanked it.
"Ver‘ well," he said. "Y'r ride't' th‘ conference's inbound."
"And why will we not descend from the Victory!" Otho asked. "Should Sten arrive like a beardless one? Perhaps on a trading ship?"
"Close," Alex agreed. "He'll be usin't a transport. Ah‘ bor-row'd a liner frae th' Zaginows. An‘ dinnae be sayin't 'we,‘ less y' think Sten hae a mousie i‘ his pocket. Sten'll be descendin' ae a man of peace, which i‘ whae we want ae th' perception frae all. Aye, Rykor?"
Rykor wallowed in her vat, considering.
"How dimwitted of me," she said. "And I am the being who prides herself on not automatically making assumptions. Yet I've always taken for granted Sten would land from the Victory, properly escorted by his allies.
"However... what exactly do you propose, Sr. Kilgour?"
"Sten arrives on Seilichi wi‘ but one aide. M'self. We'll hae a tightbeam frae th' liner't‘ the Vick, which we'll hae offworld, an' well awa‘ frae th' Emp's fleets.
"We'll nae look like bloody-handed rebels, but ae wee an‘ Ah do mean wee, peacelovers, i' y‘ ken. Dav'd agin' th‘ Phar'sees, or howe'er thae tale goes.
"It'll make a braw point, frae th‘ livie crews, Ah wager."
Rykor closed her eyes and ran the visuals. Yes. It would look impressive. Sten, one small man standing victoriously against the Emperor.
"Rykor, we'll hae y'rself oop here, listenin't‘t' all thae haps, an‘ keepin't ae clear mind."
Cind was on her feet. "Sten isn't going down there without any escort."
"Well spok't," Alex said. "But he will. Y'r Bhor an‘ th' Gurks cannae stand up't‘ a laserblast frae a battlewagon. An' thae's noo point i‘ a martial show, solely't' be showin't th‘ size ae our claymores, noo is there, lass?"
Cind was about to go on—but Alex moved his head slightly to the side. She stopped cold.
Sten, too, was looking at Kilgour. Alex just stared back, expressionless. Ah, Sten, thought. And is there any harm if he's right?
"We'll do it Alex's way," Sten said, before Otho could come in with a bellowed rejoinder.
‘The Emperor wears plain dress whites when everybody else is in full dress uniform. We'll play another version of the same card.
"Somebody grab one of my dogsbodies, and make sure I've got a Boy Virgin Outfit. Now, I'm going to run everyone out. I want something disgustingly dull to eat and some more sleep. We're ready."
Sr. Ecu hovered in the center of the huge landing field within the "crater" of the Guesting Center. His senses were at their finest tune. This meeting, and the subsequent series of conferences, could be not just the culmination of his own life, but that of the Manabi as well.
His race had always viewed the Emperor, and Empire, with skepticism and a measure of dislike. His authoritarianism brought continuity, a degree of peace, and a degree of plenitude, to worlds beyond worlds. But at a price. The price of tyranny. Sometimes it had been somewhat benevolent, sometimes it had been otherwise, such as the terrible conflicts like the Mueller Rising and the Tahn war, which, when all the rhetoric died, had been only fought to guarantee the rule of the Emperor. Ecu had long wondered whether it could be possible to correct the Eternal Emperor's excesses and still maintain the benefits.
Could this be the chance?
How romantic, his brain said. This, from a being whose life has been spent in the labyrinth of diplomacy, trying to ferret out true meaning from babble.
You expect Eternal Peace to come from a meeting between a being you believe to be quite mad and a young rebel who not many years ago was that madman's assassin? Who—knowing the nature of humanity and its lust for power—will take only a short time before he sees himself as the Emperor?
But still.
The livie cameras scattered along the "rim" of the Guesting Center had gotten tired of the nearly dead air—motionless footage of the Manabi's red-and-black bulk hovering over bare tarmac—and had returned to a pursuit they seemingly never tire of—interviewing themselves as to what anything and everything meant.
A sonic lash broke into their circle game, and, overhead, the Eternal Emperor's ship lowered toward a landing, with a small scoutboat as its landing guide. Ecu recognized the Normandie— the Emperor's old, heavily armed secret transport. How odd. Ecu would have expected him to make as impressive an appearance as possible, and arrive aboard his new superbattleship, the Durer. He knew that overhead, just offplanet in a geosynchronous orbit, hung a full Imperial battlefleet as cover.
Ecu felt a flicker of hope. Perhaps the Emperor didn't want to present a warlike image.
But that was not the case, he realized seconds later, as a landing ramp sliced out and heavily armed Internal Security humans in their black uniforms doubled out in squad formation and took up position around the ship.
No one else came down the ramp.
Overhead, a whine, and Sten's ship—the civilian liner Ecu had been told to expect—lowered down toward the field. It shifted from Yukawa drive to its McLean generators, and grounded on its sponsons.
A wide portal yawned in one of them, and two beings stepped out. Sten and Alex Kilgour.
Kilgour wore the full regalia of an Earth Scots laird, from bonnet to cloak to kilt to sporran. But there was no sgean dubh in his stocking, no daggersheath at his belt, and the scabbard for his great broadsword was empty. Kilgour did not even have a pistol concealed in the sporran worn over his crotch.