“Hunkie-some time before you go back to Washington, can I flip you over to the DQ for
a private conference that we know will be private?”
Her beautifully dimpled smile flashed on. “I should say not! You know I’m not that kind
of a. . .” she began; then, as she perceived how much in earnest be was, she changed
tone instantly and went on, “Of course, Blackie. Any time. Just give me time to pack a
toothbrush and my pajamas. Top Secret, or can you give me a hint to allay my ‘satiable
curiosity?”
“Hint; large economy size. Every time I think of what those damned observers are doing
to you-feeding a mind like yours with an eye-dropper instead of a seventy-two inch
pipeline-it makes me madder and madder. I can give you everything that Seaton, I,
Crane and half the Norlaminians know, and give it to you in five hours.”
“You can what?” The thought was a mental scream. She licked her lips, gulped twice,
and said, “In that case we needn’t wait for either toothbrush or pajamas. Do it now.”
He laughed deeply. “I wasn’t sure that would be your attitude, but I’m glad it is. But I
can’t do it this minute. I have to help Sleemet finish building his planetoid, watch him
very carefully for a while on course and do a couple of other crash-pri chores. Three or
four days, probably. Say Saturday, seventeen hours?”
“That’ll be fine, Blackie, and thanks. I’ll be here with my ears pinned back and my teeth
filed down to needle points.”
30 EMPEROR
THE Fenachrone bad taken off and DuQuesne had watched them go, taking extreme
precautions-none of which, it turned out, had been necessary-that they did not eliminate
either him or the rest of the party as soon as it became safe for them to do so. He had
taken Stephanie de Marigny and all her belongings aboard, saying that he was going
close enough to Tellus so that it would be no trouble at all to drop her off there. And
lastly, when Seaton and Crane had insisted upon thanking him for what he had done:
“Save it,” he had sneered. “Remember, that time on XWorld, what I told you to do with
that kind of crap! That still goes,” and he had taken off at full touring drive on course
one seven five Universal. This course, which would give the First Galaxy a near miss,
was the most direct route to a galaxy that was distant indeed; the galaxy lying on the
extreme southern rim of the First Universe; the galaxy in which the DQ had been built;
the galaxy that DuQuesne had surveyed so thoroughly and which he intended to rule.
DuQuesne and Stephanie were in the DQ’s control room, which was an exact duplicate
of the Skylark of Valeron’s. He placed her in the seat that on the Valeron was Crane’s,
showed her how to elevate herself into his own station.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re going to give me the whole gigantic Brain?”
“That’s the best and easiest way to do it. I boiled down about ten thousand lifetimes of
knowledge and experience into ten half-hour sessions. The ten tapes on that player
there are coded instructions for the Brain-what to give you and how. There are minds
who could take the whole jolt in seconds, but yours and mine aren’t that type-yet. But
you’ll get it all in five hours. Every detail. It’ll shock you all hell’s worth and it’ll scare you
right out of your panties, but it won’t hurt you and it won’t damage your brain. Yours is
one of the very few human brains that can take it. I’ll start it and in five hours I’ll be
back. Ready?”
“As much so as I ever will be, I guess. Go.”
He started the player; and, after waiting a few minutes to be sure that everything was
going as programmed, he left the room. . .
He came back in just as the machine clicked off, lowered her “chair,” and lifted her to
her feet. “Good-God-In-Heaven!” she gasped. Her skin, normally so dark, was a
yellowish white; so pate that her scattered freckles stood out sharply, each one in bold
relief. “I don’t . . . I can’t . . . I simply can’t grasp it! I know that I know it, but . . .” She
paused.
He shook his head in sympathy. Which, for Marc C. DuQuesne, was a rare gesture
indeed. “I know. I couldn’t tell you what it would be like no possible warning can be
enough. But that’s the bare minimum you’ll have to start with, and it won’t take you very
long to assimilate it all. Ready for some talk?”
“Not only ready, I’m eager. First, though, I want to give you a vote of full confidence. I’m
sure that you’ll succeed in everything you try from now on; even to becoming Emperor
Marc the First of some empire.”
“Huh? Where did you get that?”
“By reading between the lines. Do you think I’m stupid, is that why you gave me all
this?”
“Okay. You’ve always known, as an empirical, non-germane fact, that the Earth and all
it carries isn’t even a flyspeck in a galaxy, to say nothing of a universe; but now you
know and really understand just how little it actually does amount to.”
She shuddered. “Yes. It’s … it’s appalling.”
“Not when viewed in the proper perspective. I set out to rule Earth, yes; but after I
began to learn something I lost that idea in a hurry. For a long time now I haven’t
wanted Earth or any part of it. Its medical science is dedicated whole-heartedly to the
deterioration of the human race by devoting its every effort to the preservation of the
lives of the unfit. In Earth’s wars its best men-its best breeding stock-are killed. Earth
simply is not, worth saving even if it could be saved; which I doubt. Neither is Norlamin.
Not because its conquest is at present impossible, but because the Norlaminians aren’t
worth anything, either. All they do -all they can do-is think. They haven’t done anything
constructive in their entire history and they never will. They’re such bred-in-the-bone
pacifists-look at the way the damned sissies acted in this Chloran thing-that it is
psychologically impossible for any one of them to pull a trigger. No; Sleemet had the
right idea. And Ravindauyou have him in mind?”
“Vividly. Preserve the race-in his way and on his terms.”
“You’re a precisionist; that’s my idea exactly. To pick out a few hundred people-we
won’t need many, as there are billions already where we’re going-as much as possible
like us, and build a civilization that will be what a civilization ought to be.”
The girl gasped, but her eyes began to sparkle. “‘In a distant galaxy’, as Ravindau
said?”
“Very distant. Clear out on the rim of this universe. The last galaxy out on the rim, in
fact; five degrees east of Universal south.”
“And you’ll be Emperor Marc the First after all. But you won’t live long enough to rule
very much.”
“You’re wrong, Steff. The ordinary people are already there, and it’s ridiculous for a
sound and healthy body to deteriorate and die at a hundred. We’ll live ten or fifteen
times that long, what witli what I already know and the advances our medical science
will make. Especially with the elimination of the unfit.”
“Sterilization, you mean?”
“No; death. Don’t go soft on me, girl. There will be no second-class citizens, at least in
the upper stratum. Testing for that stratum will be by super-computer. Upper-stratum
families will be fairly large.”
“Families?” she broke in. “You’ve come to realize, then, that the family is the sine qua
non of civilization?”
“I’ve always known that.” Forestalling another interruption with a wave of his hand, he
went on, “I know. I’ve never been a family man. On Earth or in our present cultures I
would never become one. But skipping that for the moment, it’s your turn now.”
“I like it.” She thought in silence for a couple of minutes, then went on, “It must be an
autocracy, of course, and you’re the man to make it work. The only flaw I can see is that
even absolute authority can not make a dictated marriage either tolerable or productive.
It automatically isn’t, on both counts.”
“Who said anything about dictated marriage? Free choice within the upper stratum and
by test from the lower. With everybody good breeding stock, what difference will it make
who marries whom?”
“Oh. I see. That does it, of course. Contrary to all appearances, then, you actually do
believe in love. The implication has been pellucidly clear all along that you expect . . .”
“‘Expect’ is too strong a word. Make it that I’m ‘exploring the possibility of’.”
“I’ll accept that. You are exploring the possibility of me becoming your empress. From