might be from some part of Hermes. Even when hiring humans, the
majordomos of the new Emperor’s various households were under orders to
get as many non-Terrans as was politic.
Whoever the summons was from, and whether it was terrible or trivial, he
was free of the Duke before he could otherwise have disengaged. The
noble nodded a vague response to his apology and stood staring after
him, all alone.
His Imperial Majesty, High Emperor Hans Friedrich Molitor, of his
dynasty the first, Supreme Guardian of the Pax, Grand Director of the
Stellar Council, Commander-in-Chief, Final Arbiter, acknowledged supreme
on more worlds and honorary head of more organizations than any man
could remember, sat by himself in a room at the top of a tower. It was
sparsely furnished: a desk and communicator, a couch upholstered in worn
but genuine horse-hide, a few straightbacked chairs and the big
pneumatic that was his. The only personal items were a dolchzahn skin on
the floor, from Germania; two portraits of his late wife, in her youth
and her age, and one of a blond young man; a model of the corvette that
had been his first command. A turret roof, beginning at waist height,
was currently transparent, letting this eyrie overlook an illuminated
complex of roofs, steeples, gardens, pools, outer walls, attendant
rafts, and finally the night ocean.
The courier ushered Flandry through the door and vanished as it closed
behind him. He saluted and snapped to attention. “At ease,” the Emperor
grunted. “Sit. Smoke if you want.”
He was puffing a pipe whose foulness overcame the air ‘fresher. In spite
of the blue tunic, white trousers, and gold braid with nebula and three
stars of a grand admiral, plus the pyrocrystal ring of Manuel the Great,
he was not very impressive to see. Yet meditechnics could not account
for so few traces of time. The short, stocky frame had grown a kettle
belly, bags lay beneath the small dark eyes, the hair was thin and gray
on the blocky head: nothing that could not easily be changed by the
biocosmetics he scorned to use. Nor had he ever troubled about his face,
low forehead, bushy brows, huge Roman nose, heavy jowls, gash of a mouth
between deep creases, prow of a chin.
“Thank you, your Majesty.” Flandry settled his elegance opposite,
flipped out a cigarette case which was a work of art and, at need, a
weapon, and established a barrier against the reek around him.
“No foolish formalities,” growled the rusty, accented basso. “I must
make my grand appearance, and empty chatter will rattle for hours, and
at last when I can go I’m afraid I’ll be too tired for a nice new wench
who’s joined the collection, no matter how much I need a little fun.”
“A stim pill?” Flandry suggested.
“No. I take too many as is. The price to the body mounts, you know. And
… barely six years on the throne have I had. The first three, fighting
to stay there. I need another twenty or thirty for carpentering this
jerry-built, dry-rotted Empire into a thing that might last a few more
generations, before I can lay down my tools.” Hans chuckled coarsely.
“Well, let the tool for pretty Thressa wait, recharging, till tomorrow
night. You should see her, Dominic, my friend. But not to tell anybody.
By herself she could cause a revolution.”
Flandry grinned. “Yes, we humans are basically sexual beings, aren’t we,
sir? If we can’t screw each other physically, well do it politically.”
Hans laughed aloud. He had never changed from a boy who deserted a
strait-laced colonial bourgeois home for several years of wild adventure
in space, the youth who enlisted in the Navy, the man who rose through
the ranks without connections or flexibility to ease his way.
But he had not changed either from the hero of Syrax, where the fleet he
led flung back the Merseians and forced a negotiated end to a short
undeclared war which had bidden fair to grow. Nor had he changed from
the leader who let his personnel proclaim him Emperor–himself
reluctantly, less from vainglory than a sense of workmanship, when the
legitimate order of succession had dissolved in chaos and every rival