«We are ten years out of date with the affairs of the Empire,» she answered. The smoldering expression on her face made it clear that she believed her father-in-law deliberately plotted to keep her as far from the throne as possible.
«You can easily catch up,» the Emperor said, ignoring her anger. «In the meantime, you have kept your youthful appearance.»
«I shall always keep it! You are the one who denies himself rejuvenation treatments, not me.»
«And so will Javas, when he becomes Emperor.»
«Will he?» Her eyes were suddenly mocking.
«He will,» said the Emperor, with the weight of a hundred worlds behind his voice.
Rihana looked away from him. «Well even so, I shan’t. I see no reason why I should age and wither when even the foulest shopkeeper can live for centuries.»
«Your husband will age.»
She said nothing. And as he ages, the Emperor knew, you will find younger lovers. But of course, you have already done that, haven’t you?
He turned toward his son, who was still standing by the balustrade.
«Kyle Arman is dead.» Javas blurted.
For a moment, the Emperor failed to comprehend. «Dead?» he asked, his voice sounding old and weak even to himself.
Javas nodded. «In his sleep. A heart seizure.»
«But he is too young—»
«He was your age, Father.»
«And he refused rejuvenation treatments,» Rihana said, sounding positively happy. «As if he were royalty! The pretentious fool. A servant … a menial.»
«He was a friend of this house,» the Emperor said.
«He killed my brother,» said Javas.
«Your brother failed the test. He was a coward. Unfit to rule.» But Kyle passed you, the Emperor thought. You were found fit to rule … or was Kyle still ashamed of what he had done to my firstborn?
«And you accepted his story.» For once, Javas’ bemused smile was gone. There was iron in his voice. «The word of a backwoods Earthman.»
«A pretentious fool,» Rihana gloated.
«A proud and faithful man,» the Emperor corrected. «A man who put honor and duty above personal safety or comfort.»
His eyes locked with Javas’. After a long moment in silence, the Prince shrugged and turned away.
«Regardless,» Rihana said, «we surveyed the situation on Earth, as you requested us to.»
Commanded, the Emperor thought. Not requested.
«The people there are all primitives. Hardly a city on the entire planet! It’s all trees and huge oceans.»
«I know. I have been there.»
Javas said, «There are only a few millions living on Earth. They can be evacuated easily and resettled on a few of the frontier planets. After all, they are primitives.»
«Those ‘primitives’ are the baseline for our race. They are the pool of original genetic material, against which our scientists constantly measure the rest of humanity throughout the Hundred Worlds.»
Rihana said, «Well, they’re going to have to find another primitive world to live on.»
«Unless we prevent their Sun from exploding.»
Javas looked amused, «You’re not seriously considering that?»
«I am … considering it. Perhaps not very seriously.»
«It makes no difference,» Rihana said. «The plan to save the Sun—to save your precious Earth—will take hundreds of years to implement. You will be dead long before the first steps can be brought to a conclusion. The next Emperor can cancel the entire plan the day he takes the throne.»
The Emperor turned his chair slightly to face his son, but Javas looked away, out toward the darkening forest.
«I know,» the Emperor whispered, more to himself than to her. «I know that full well.»
He could not sleep. The Emperor lay on the wide expanse of warmth, floating a single molecular layer above the gently soothing waters. Always before, when sleep would not come readily, a woman had solved the problem for him. But lately not even lovemaking helped.
The body grows weary but the mind refuses sleep. Is this what old age brings?
Now he lay alone, the ceiling of his tower bedroom depolarized so that he could see the blazing glory of the Imperial Planet’s night sky.
Not the pale tranquil sky of Earth, with its bloated Moon smiling inanely at you, he thought. This was truly an Imperial sky, brazen with blue giant stars that studded the heavens like brilliant sapphires. No moon rode that sky; none was needed. There was never true darkness on the Imperial Planet.
And yet Earth’s sky seemed so much friendlier. You could pick out old companions there; the two Bears, the Lion, the Twins, the Hunter, the Winged Horse.
Already I think of Earth in the past tense. Like Kyle. Like my son.
He thought of the Earth’s warming Sun. How could it turn traitor? How could it … begin to die? In his mind’s eye he hovered above the Sun, bathed in its fiery glow, watching its bubbling, seething surface. He plunged deeper into the roiling plasma, saw filaments and streamers arching a thousand Earthspans into space, heard the pulsing throb of the star’s energy, the roar of its power, blinding bright, overpowering, ceaseless merciless heat, throbbing, roaring, pounding …
He was gasping for breath and the pounding he heard was his own heartbeat throbbing in his ears. Soaked with sweat, he tried to sit up. The bed enfolded him protectively, supporting his body.
«Hear me,» he commanded the computer. His voice cracked.
«Sire?» answered a softly female voice in his mind.
He forced himself to relax. Forced the pain from his body. The dryness in his throat eased. His breathing slowed. The pounding of his heart diminished.
«Get me the woman scientist who reported at the conference on the Sun’s explosion, ten years ago. She was not present at the conference, her report was presented by a colleague.»
The computer needed more than a second to reply, «Sire, there were four such reports by female scientists at that conference.»
«This was the only one to deal with a plan to save the Earth’s Sun.»
Medical monitors were implanted in his body now. Although the Imperial physicians insisted that it was impossible, the Emperor could feel the microscopic implants on the wall of his heart, in his aorta, alongside his carotid artery. The Imperial psychotechs called it a psychosomatic reaction. But since his mind was linked to the computers that handled all the information on the planet, the Emperor knew what his monitors were reporting before the doctors did.
They had reduced the gravity in his working and living sections of the palace to one-third normal, and forbade him from leaving these areas, except for the rare occasions of state when he was needed in the Great Assembly Hall or another public area. He acquiesced in this: the lighter gravity felt better and allowed him to be on his feet once again, free of the power chair’s clutches.
This day he was walking slowly, calmly, through a green forest of Earth. He strolled along a parklike path, admiring the lofty maples and birches, listening to the birds and small forest animals’ songs of life. He inhaled scents of pine and grass and sweet clean air. He felt the warm sun on his face and the faintest cool breeze. For a moment he considered how the trees would look in their autumnal reds and golds. But he shook his head.
No. There is enough autumn in my life. I’d rather be in springtime.
In the rooms next to the corridor he walked through, tense knots of technicians worked at the holographic systems that produced the illusion of the forest, while other groups of white-suited meditechs studied the readouts from the Emperor’s implants.
Two men joined the Emperor on the forest path: Academician Bomeer, head of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and Supreme Commander Fain, chief of staff of the Imperial Military Forces. Both were old friends and advisors, close enough to the Emperor to be housed within the palace itself when they were allowed to visit their master.