"Even if you desired to indulge your whim..." Kyes lifted a transmitter from his belt. "Standard vital-signs transmitter. If it ceases broadcasting, my support team will move in. I do not think that you could escape their net."
"You are making some large assumptions, Sr. Kyes. I have been known to indulge myself on occasion. Privilege of the purple and all that."
"True. At first, when I established where you were headed, I thought of an ambush—while I remained safely in the wings. Tranquilizer guns... gas... whatever. Instantly immobilize you, hold you in a drugged state until mind control could be accomplished. But I did not think any plan I conceived would work. You've slipped through too many nets in the past.
"Besides... if I offered you violence, you would be almost certain to reject my offer."
"I am listening."
"First, I offer you my complete, personal loyalty and support. I will do anything—either from within or without—to remove the privy council.
"I am not trying to convince you that my assistance would in any way decisively ensure the outcome which I see as inevitable. But I could make their downfall happen much more rapidly, and probably decrease the amount of havoc they can wreak as they are destroyed.
"Once your Empire is restored, I offer you my continuing loyalty and support."
'"Riming one's coat," the Emperor said, "tends to be habit-forming."
"It will not happen. Not if you fulfill your part of the bargain.
"But that is as may be. You might choose not to be reminded of... what has happened by my presence. In which case I accept exile, which in no way will lessen my offer to assist in any way conceivable.
"However, I can offer something still more important. My entire species as your freely consenting—'slaves' is not a correct word. But that is, in essence, what we would be if you can conceive of any slave leaping into chains.
"This, too, is easily achieved."
"Your people," the Emperor observed, "certainly would be welcomed if they chose to become total supporters of my Empire. Not, unless I am missing something... easily achieved, as you just said."
"You are wrong."
"Very well then. What, specifically, am I to deliver?" the Emperor asked, although he was suddenly, sickeningly aware of what the answer had to be.
"Life," Kyes said hoarsely, almost stammering. "Immortality. You perhaps understand the tragedy of death. But what if it occurs at a preset, biologically determined time, a time when a being is at the full height of his powers and awareness? The tragedy of our species.
"I want—and I want for my people—eternal life. The same immortality you have.
"I offered to make a bargain. I will better it. I will now guarantee everything I said. As your subject, I ask for this gift."
And Kyes awkwardly knelt.
There was silence—a silence that lasted for years.
"You poor, sad bastard," the Emperor finally said.
Kyes rose. "How can you reject this? How can you ignore my logic? My promises?"
The Emperor chose his words carefully. "Logic... promises... have nothing to do with it. Listen to what I am saying. I am immortal. But—" He tapped his chest. "This body is not. You are asking a gift I cannot give. Not to you, not to any other being of any other race or species."
Kyes's eyes were burning lances. "This is the truth?"
"Yes."
And Kyes believed. But his stare continued. Uncomfortable, the Emperor turned away. Again, there was the long silence. The Eternal Emperor reached deep into his bag of tricks.
"Perhaps... perhaps there is a compromise. I am willing to make a counteroffer. You help me destroy the privy council, and I will find the resources to commit to a research program, funded and supported as a Manhattan Project.
"It might take generations. Such a program—if a solution can be found—will not help you or your generation. But that is the best offer I can make."
He turned back. Kyes had not moved.
"It is unsatisfactory," the Emperor started, "compared to what—" He stopped.
There was no response whatever from the Grb'chev. The Emperor moved out of Kyes's line of sight. Neither Kyes's head nor eyes shifted. The Emperor went to him and moved his hand across Kyes's field of vision. No response.
Perhaps it was the shock, realizing that there was no Holy Grail for Kyes or his species. Perhaps it was less dramatic—he was far beyond his time.
Kyes's mouth fell open. Digestive fluids dribbled from it.
The Emperor quickly checked the vital-signs indicator on Kyes's belt. All physical indicators... normal.
He snapped his faceplate closed and hurried toward the exit, then turned back.
The idiot that had been Kyes still stood as it had, held erect by the weight of his suit.
"Poor, sad bastard," the Emperor said again.
It was the best epitaph he could manage—and the only one he had time for.
BOOK FOUR
"MORITURI TE SALUTAMUS"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The scholars of Newton wore a perpetual puzzled expression that an agro-world student once compared to a cow who had just had an inseminator's burly fist jammed up its behind. As the Tribunal neared its opening, Sten saw the puzzled look jump to open, smiling surprise. Kilgour said it was as if the fist had been replaced by the real thing.
Never in its dusty, academic history had the thousands of professors who toiled on the university world been paid so much attention.
When word was purposefully leaked of the events about to unfold, livie crews from all over the Empire raced to Newton to beat the expected privy-council crackdown. Newton's administration was nearly buried by requests for permission to attend, not just from news teams, but from political experts, legal scholars, historians, and the merely curious.
Sten, Alex, and Mahoney scrambled like mad beings to set up a security system to sift through the millions of requests. The task was especially difficult, because the whole idea was to give maximum exposure to the Tribunal's proceedings. They managed to get it all in hand—plus hundreds of other details—before the public opening.
Meanwhile, Dean Blythe, his faculty, and the millions of students who attended the many colleges that made up the university system, were besieged for interviews. No dull fact, boring reaction, or drab bit of color was too lowly for the news-hungry media. For a short time every resident of Newton was a livie star.
The information hunger was particularly intense, because although Sr. Ecu had revealed the general purposes of the Tribunal—sitting in judgment of the privy council—he had kept the nature of the charges secret to all but the judges. Everyone believed the bill of indictment involved the AM2. In other words, conspiracy to defraud. Sr. Ecu could only imagine the surprise when the real charges were announced: Conspiracy to murder.
Sr. Ecu had chosen Newton because of its long history and reputation for impartiality. He had expected, however, tremendous difficulty in getting Dean Blythe to agree to host the Tribunal. Instead, once the security precautions had been detailed, the agreement was quickly reached. It helped that Dean Blythe had been an Imperial general before he had taken up the life of a scholastic. More importantly, one of the first places the privy council had chosen for its budget cuts was Newton. Those cuts had been followed by a host of others as the Imperials trimmed and trimmed to keep the economic ship afloat.
A hefty donation of the AM2 Sten had stolen smoothed the rest of the way.