"Certainly, I was. Nothing suspicious about that, is there?"
"Who said anything about suspicion?" Sten asked. He gave Douw a quizzical "Why are you acting so guilty?" look.
"Quite right," Douw said. "I mean, you didn't. I mean—"
"Yes, Sr. Sten. We were all in attendance," Menynder broke in.
"Odd," Sten said.
"Friendly gathering only," Diatry said. "Is strange to have friendly gathering only where you come from?"
Sten ignored this. "And the Khaqan gave no sign he was ill?" he asked. "A little pale and weak, perhaps? Or... maybe a show of temper?''
"Why'd he be angry?" Youtang yapped. "It was merely a social evening."
"I think he very happy before he die," Diatry said. "Not angry. Tell big joke. We laugh. Ha. Ha. Then he die. We all very sad this happen. Cry boo hoo."
Sten shifted course again. "I've gone through his appointments calendar," he said. "And the dinner wasn't listed."
"It was, uh, a last-minute thing," Menynder said quickly.
"I guess that explains that little mystery, then," Sten said.
"That's what was bothering you?" Menynder asked. "The appointments calendar?"
"Not me," Sten said. "The Eternal Emperor. Remember?"
"Yes. Of course," Menynder said. He took his glasses off and wiped them with the kerchief from his pocket. "Any other little mysteries we can clear up?"
"No. I don't think so. Oh. Yes. One more thing. The place where this famous dinner occurred? Who'd it belong to?''
"A friend of mine," Menynder said. "The Khaqan wanted privacy. I arranged it."
"In a Tork neighborhood?" Sten asked.
"Why not?"
Sten stared at Menynder. He let that stare linger until Menynder began to sweat. Then he moved his gaze from face to face, studying each being closely. He wound up the tension until it was a supertight ball of kinetic energy just waiting to be released.
Then he let it go. "Why not, indeed," Sten said.
He pretended not to notice as four very worried beings whooshed out air.
"Now, for the main reason I've called you all together," Sten said.
Douw, Menynder, and the two others bent close to hear Sten's words. He had their complete attention.
"After careful study and long consideration, the Emperor has found a solution to your dilemma. And I think you will all agree it's pure genius on his part."
"I'm quite sure it is," Douw said, not giving a damn at that second.
Menynder was wiping sweat from his brow while Diatry and Youtang were busy mentally ticking off the sins Sten had failed to sniff out.
"Gentlebeings," Sten said, "I'm pleased to announce the Emperor has handpicked the being who will lead you into a new era of good fortune...
"His name, gentlebeings, is Iskra. Dr. Iskra." Sten looked mildly around the room.
His game plan had worked. There was not the slightest sign of objection.
"Good choice," Menynder said. "In fact, I remember his name being mentioned the night of that dinner we were discussing earlier. Isn't that so, General Douw?"
Douw shuddered. That clottin' dinner again! "Yes, quite so. And, we're honored the Emperor took a personal interest in our small affairs."
"When is he expected?" Menynder wanted to know.
At that moment, a big ship smashed overhead and plunged for the spaceport. The crack of a shattered sound barrier rocked the embassy. Oh, clot, Sten thought. Just in time. He continued, however, without missing a beat.
"As we speak, gentlebeings. As we speak."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dr. Iskra arrived with an impressive amount of pomp, even if the circumstance was a bit premature. Sten would have preferred that this construct of the Eternal Emperor, this dictator-in-waiting, would have arrived a few cycles after the various in-place schemers had figured out that none of them were about to be the nominated replacement—and had time to decide how they would play the new hand.
But Sten had learned eons before, early in his Imperial Service, that it was a valuable lesson in real life to wish in one hand, crap in the other, and then watch to see which one filled up first.
That rumble portending Dr. Iskra's arrival was fortunately an overflight. Sten had time to scrag Alex and the Gurkhas and have Cind find enough nonstregged Bhor to present an Impressive Package at the spaceport. He also made sure to bring two livie operators from the embassy, in case no one else remembered to Document this historic event.
Two heavy cruisers hung over the landing field, McLean generators hissing, their destroyer screens and picket tacships darting around them. Four fleet transports settled down on the field. Ramps dropped and gravlighters flitted out, scattering a rim of security troops as they went. Other troops formed an inner shield within the square formed by the transports.
Sten, Alex, and Cind watched with a critical eye.
"Th' Guard," Alex said, "still dinnae hae recov'rd frae th' war an' th' priv'tations ae th' privy council."
"Alex," Sten observed mildly, "did it ever occur to you that no unit we've ever been assigned to is now qualified to hold the billocks of the lowliest private we knew? At least the way we remember it?"
"An' whae's th' matter wi' thae?" Kilgour asked in injury. " 'Tis nae but th' truth, aye?"
"Aaargh." Sten stalked forward—flanked by an Impressive of Gurkhas and Bhor—as the largest of the cruisers landed in the middle of the square formed by the transports.
A rigid color guard had doubled out of the cruiser and was drawn up, on line, by the time Sten arrived at the cruiser's ramp. The cruiser's commander and the commander of the Imperial Guard battalion saluted Sten. The battalion came from the Third Guards, a unit Sten had never operated with, nor knew much about. Once, a long time before, his cover on a Mantis operation had been as a dishonorably discharged officer of the Third Guard, and he wondered, amused, if that cashiering was somewhere in the unit's records. Imperial Intelligence tended to set up cover stories very carefully. Sten hoped not—he never wanted to explain to this Guard's colonel, an efficient-sounding if somewhat thick individual named T'm Jerety, why the Imperial ambassador plenipotentiary had in the dim past been cashiered for atrocities, ambiguity, and angst, or whatever crimes his cover identity had required.
A dry, hot wind swept across the field as Dr. Iskra walked down the cruiser's forward ramp.
No one's expression changed. On the part of the newly arrived Imperial forces it came from familiarity. Sten was impressed, however, with the professionalism of his own crew. All he heard was a low sigh from Kilgour, a suppressed sinusoidal squeal from Otho, and a sotto voce comment from Cind, who was going to have to relearn her Bhor-taught freebooting ways and dreadnought tongue:
"Clot," came the whisper. "He looks a hanging judge who wears rubber panties under his robes. Rubber and pink lace."
Her description was apt.
Dr. Iskra at twenty meters was very unimpressive. He was not tall. He was thin. He wore nondescript, baggy civilian attire that any zee-grade livie would have costumed its absentminded professor in. A professor, Sten decided, of Undercurrents of Subconscious Thought and Priapic Imagery in Agrarian Nonrhyming Poets You Never Heard Of. Balding, in an age when natural body hair was an easily added or subtracted cosmetic item. What hair he had was combed or slicked over his pate as if to hide it.
At twenty meters, a figure of fun or pity.
At three, the image changed, Sten thought.
Dr. Iskra menaced. Sten could not tell why. It might have been the hard gray glare from eyes that never seemed to blink or look anywhere but into your guts. Or it might have been the tiny pinch marks around Iskra's lipless mouth. Or that none of the lines on his face would fit a smile.