He took a chair facing the enormous wooden desk and watched his father as he sat heavily behind it. Javas tilted back as fully as the chair would allow, then rubbed his face with the palms of his hands and sighed before tilting the chair forward again and leaning on the desktop. Why was he so troubled by this? To be sure, the person responsible for this horribly cruel murder must be apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of Imperial law; but just as surely his father must have dealt with problems of this severity—and worse—before. Why did this one weigh so heavily upon him? Why, for that matter, had Glenney even felt the necessity of bringing it to his father’s attention so quickly?
“Father?”
He looked up, seeming to see Eric in the room for the first time. He rose, opening a set of doors mounted flush into the paneling, and selected a bottle and two glasses from the well-stocked interior. He poured two drinks and replaced the bottle, closing the cabinet so that the doors became virtually invisible in the paneling once more. He handed one of the glasses to him and took the other for himself.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” he said. “Not much of a ‘happy birthday,’ is it?” He regarded the glass in his hand for several moments, then sipped at the contents. Eric sipped tentatively at his own, the smooth brown liquid wanning his throat as it went down.
“Who was she?”
His father had been about to lift the glass to his lips again, but stopped, lowering his arm to the desk in front of him and looking squarely into Eric’s eyes. “She was a friend.” Javas sighed, then pushed abruptly away from the desk. He leaned now against the bookcase, and must have issued a silent command through his integrator, because the viewscreen snapped suddenly to life, displaying a panoramic view of Armelin City. The old construction was obvious from this aerial perspective—older, grayer, more compact with a scattered added-on-later look to many of the domes and modules making up the lunar city—but the Imperial section, occupying fully a third of the image on the viewscreen, appeared as a connected single unit constructed as a fully functioning city unto itself.
“Do you see that, Eric? I built it in ten years. Ten years.” Javas paused, sipped at his drink. The picture on the viewscreen expanded as it panned back for a satellite view from many kilometers up. “I didn’t know your mother well when we came here from Corinth; we had barely met, once you take into account the inconsistencies of interstellar travel. We spent the entire voyage here in cryosleep, and on arrival we each went about our own tasks—hers to begin the Sun project, mine to establish the seat of Empire here in Sol system while your grandfather was in transit from Corinth. Looking back on it now, I don’t think we spoke to each other more than a dozen times over the first five years here.
“My first priority was the landing bay; everything else that was to follow demanded that it be up and running. But more importantly, it had to be running independently—with everything else I had to do, it had to be as nearly self-sufficient as I could make it. Mila Kaselin was one of the first people I assigned here, one of the first I trusted.” The screen blanked as his father issued another silent command then crossed back to the desk and sat, still nursing the glass in his hand. “She and I were close, in those early days here.”
There was a sudden beeping from the room system; not loud, but it startled Eric all the same. Javas looked to the side for a moment, his brow deeply furrowed, and the beeping stopped, then he continued as if nothing at all had happened to interrupt them. When he faced him again, the hint of an apologetic smile was on his lips.
“But that is only a part of what I’m feeling now.” He finished his drink, reaching back to set the glass on a low shelf behind him. “More important than a decades-old memory of what seemed a simpler time when I was only acting Emperor is the fact that someone I’ve considered untouchable has been murdered.” Javas sat up straight in the chair and looked at Eric with an intensity that made him squirm uncomfortably.
“Son, more than twenty years have passed since your grandfather was murdered, and we still do not know who was responsible. Certainly there were many against our goal who plotted to take not only his life but my own as well as your mother’s. He who allowed your grandfather to die was pardoned, and he now—well, he is watched.” Anger glowed briefly in the Emperor’s eyes, frustrated anger fanned by years of fruitless efforts at this one goal.
Eric had never seen his father so disturbed. He set his glass—the drink untouched but for the single sip he’d taken earlier—on the front edge of the desk and pivoted the chair. “And you’re afraid,” he said, “that those behind my grandfather’s death have now renewed their effort to change the leadership of the Empire. And, in doing so, change the Imperial stance involving the project to save the Sun.”
“Bomeer was right,” he replied. “You are sharper than we give you credit.” He took a moment to smile appreciatively at his son. “Yes, then; I believe that the inner workings of the Imperial structure have been breached.” He closed his eyes briefly in a way Eric had come to associate with his father using his integrator, then faced the door. “Security Chief Glenney has been waiting for several minutes; let’s hear what he has to say.”
The panel door slid aside and Glenney entered, taking a step inside the room and stopping with the door sliding closed mere centimeters behind him.
“Sire?” The expression on the man’s face showed surprise, and more than a little concern, at seeing Eric still with his father.
“Be seated. Your report?”
“Sire, as you know, we found—”
“Do not tell me what I already know!” The Emperor banged his fist violently on the desk and glared at his Chief. “A murder has been committed in one of the highest security areas in the Imperial section. It goes without saying, therefore, that we have been breached. It’s just as obvious that this was not a random event, but rather something that has been accomplished over an extended time, perhaps years. Tell me what I do not know.”
Glenney paused, a disconcerted gaze shifting from the Emperor to Eric, then back again. He straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. “We’ve checked and double-checked the records of anyone who could possibly have had access to the area where Director Kaselin was working at the time of her death—Sire, I’ve personally gone over them, going back more than twenty years, and have found no discrepancies. This is something that goes back to your arrival here, someone who has remained in place since that time and has only now chosen to act.” He glanced at the Prince again.
Eric was immediately on his feet, feeling as though some metallic claw had just wrenched his stomach from him. He ran a hand through his long, dark hair, then leaned with both hands on the desk, confronting his father.
“It’s me, isn’t it?” he burst out. “It’s because I’m here that this has happened. My God, this is my fault.” He turned away, trying to hide the shame he felt.
“Sit down, Eric.” His father’s words were soft, yet firm. He waited until the Prince was seated, then added, “No, it’s not you… it’s us.” Javas stood and came around the desk to stand next to Eric, then bluntly faced the security man. “Tell him.”
“I’m afraid your father is correct, Your Highness,” said Glenney, now also on his feet. “The two of you, together, may have been enough of a lure to draw out whoever has been in place for all these years.”