Asimov’s Future History Volume 15

by Isaac Asimov

  “I thought you understood. I have to. Cleon’s called this meeting–”

  “At Lamurk’s instigation.”

  “Sure, it’s about this Dahlite business.”

  “And that man I knocked down at the reception, he might have been instigated to do it by–”

  “Right, Lamurk.” Hari smiled. “All wormholes lead to Lamurk.”

  “Don’t forget the Academic Potentate.”

  “She’s on my side!”

  “She wants the ministership, Hari. All the rumor mills say so.”

  “She can damn well have it,” he grumbled.

  “I can’t let you go in there.”

  “This is the palace.” He swept his arm at the ranks of blue-and-gold in the vast portal. “Imperials all around.”

  “I do not like it.”

  “Look, we agreed I’d try to bluster past–and it failed, just as I said. Fair enough. You would never pass the weapons checks, anyway.”

  Her teeth bit delicately into her lower lip, but she said nothing. No humaniforrn could ever get through the intense weapons screen here.

  He said calmly, “So I go in, argue, meet you out here”

  “You have the maps and data I organized?”

  “Sure, chip embedded. I can read it with a triple blink.”

  He had a carrychip embedded in his neck for data hauling, an invaluable aid at mathist conferences. Standard gear, readily accessed. A microlaser wrote an image on the back of the retina-colors, 3D, a nifty graphics package. She had installed a lot of maps and background on the Imperium, the palace, recent legislation, notable events, anything that might come up in discussions and protocols.

  Her severe expression dissolved and he saw the woman beneath. “I just... please... watch yourself.”

  He kissed her on the nose. “Always do.”

  They patrolled among the legions of hangers-on who thronged the vestibule, snagging the appetizers which floated by on platters. “Empire’s going bankrupt and they can afford this,” Hari sniffed.

  “It is time-honored,” Dors said. “Beaumunn the Bountiful disliked delay in consuming meals, which was indeed his principal activity. He ordered that each of his estates prepare all four daily meals for him, on the chance that he might be there. The excess is given out this way.”

  Hari would not have believed such an unlikely story had it not come from an historian. There were knots of people who plainly lived here, using some minor functionary position for an infinite banquet. He and Dors drifted among them, wearing refractory vapors which muddled the appearance. Recognition would bring parasites.

  “Even amid all this swank, you’re thinking about that Voltaire problem, aren’t you?” she whispered.

  “Trying to figure out how somebody copied him–it–out of our files.”

  “And someone had requested it, just hours before?” She scowled. “When you turned it down, they simply stole it.”

  “Probably Imperial agents.”

  “I don’t like it. They may be trying to implicate you further in the whole Junin scandal.”

  “Still, the old anti-sim taboo is breaking down.” He toasted her. “Let’s forget it. These days, it’s either sims or stims.”

  There were several thousand people beneath the sculpted dome. To test the man-woman team shadowing them, Dors led him on a random path. Hari tired rapidly of such skullduggery. Dors, ever the student of society, pointed out the famous. She seemed to think this would thrill him, or at least distract him from the meeting to come. A few recognized him, despite the refraction vapors, and they had to stop and talk. Nothing of substance was ever said at such functions, of course, by long tradition.

  “Time to go in,” Dors warned him.

  “Spotted the shadows?”

  “Three, I think. If they follow you into the palace, I’ll tell the Specials captain.”

  “Don’t worry. No weapons allowed in the palace, remember.”

  “Patterns bother me more than possibilities. The assassination tab delayed detonation just long enough for you to discard it. But it did make me wary enough to attack that professor.”

  “Which got you banned from the palace.” Hari completed the thought. “You’re giving people a lot of credit for intricate maneuvers.”

  “You haven’t read very much history of Imperial politics, have you?”

  “Thank God, no.”

  “It would only trouble you,” she said, kissing him with sudden, surprising fervor. “And worry is my job.”

  “I’ll see you in a few hours,” Hari said as casually as he could manage, despite a dark premonition. He added to himself, I hope.

  He entered the palace proper through the usual arms checks and protocol officers. Nothing, not even a carbon knife or implosion nugget, could escape their many-snouted sniffers and squinters. Millennia before, Imperial assassination had become so common as to resemble a sport. Now tradition and technology united to make these formal occasions uniquely safe. The High Council was meeting for the Emperor’s review, so inevitably there were battalions of officials, advisors, Magisterials Extraordinary and yellow-jacketed hangers-on. Parasites attached themselves to him with practiced grace.

  Outside the Lyceum was the traditional Benevolent Bountiful–originally one long table, now dozens of them, all groaning beneath rich foods.

  Largess even before business meetings was mandatory, an acceptance of the Emperor’s beneficence. Passing it by would be an insult. Hari nibbled at a few oddments on his way across the Sagittarius Domeway. Noisy crowds milled restlessly, mostly in the series of ceremonial cloisters that rimmed the domeway, each cut off by acoustic curtains.

  Hari stepped into a small sound chamber and found a sudden release from the din. There he quickly reviewed his notes on the Council agenda, not wanting to appear an utter rube. High Court types watched every deviation from protocol with scorn. The media, though not allowed in the Lyceum, buzzed for weeks after such meetings, reading every gaffe for its nuances. Hari hated all this, but as long as he was in the game, he might as well play.

  He recalled Dors’ casual mention earlier of Leon the Libertine, who had once arranged an entire faux-banquet for his ministers. The fruit could be bitten, but then snagged the unwary guests’ teeth, which remained firmly embedded until released by a digital command. The command came, of course, only from the Emperor, after some amusing begging and groveling before the other guests. Rumors persisted of darker delights obtained by Leon from similar traps, though in private quarters.

  Hari brushed through the sound curtains and into the older side halls leading to the Lyceum. His retinal map highlighted these ancient, unfashionable routes because few came this way. His entourage followed obediently, though some frowned.

  He knew their sort by now. They wanted to be seen, their processional parting the crowds of mere Sector executives. Sauntering through dim halls without the jostle of the crowds did nothing for the ego.

  There was a life-sized statue of Leon at the end of a narrow processional corridor, holding a traditional executioner’s knife. Hari stopped and looked at the heavy-browed man, his right hand showing thick veins where it held the knife. In his left, a crystal globe of fogwine. The work was flawless and no doubt flattering to the Emperor when sculpted. The knife was quite real enough, its double edges gleaming.

  Some considered Leon’s reign the most ancient of the Good Old Days, when order seemed natural and the Empire expanded into fresh worlds without trouble. Leon had been brutal yet widely loved. Hari wanted psychohistory to work, but what if it turned into a tool to rekindle such a past?

  Hari shrugged. Time enough to calculate whether the Empire could be saved on any terms at all, once psychohistory actually existed.

  He went into the High Imperial chambers, escorted by the ritual officers. Ahead lay Cleon, Lamurk, and the panoply of the High Council.

  He knew he should be impressed by all this. Somehow, though, the air of high opulence only made him more impatient to truly
understand the Empire. And if he could, alter its course.

  11.

  Hari wobbled slightly as he left the Lyceum three hours later. Debate was still in full cry, but he needed a break. A lesser Minister for Sector Correlation offered to take him to the refreshment baths, and Hari gratefully accepted.

  “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he said.

  “You must accommodate to tedium,” the minister said cheerfully.

  “Maybe I will duck out.”

  “No, come–rest!”

  His ceremonial robes, required in the Lyceum, were close and sweaty. The ornate buckle dug into his belly. It was big and gaudy, with a chromed receiver for his ritual stylus, equally embellished and used only in voting.

  The minister chatted on about Lamurk’s attack on Hari, which Hari had tried to ignore. Even so, he had been forced to rise to defend or explain himself. He had made a point of keeping his speeches short and clear, though this was far from the style of the Lyceum. The minister politely allowed that he thought this was rather an error.

  They went through the refresher, where blue gouts of ions descended. Hari was grateful that talk was impossible through all this, and let an electrostat breeze massage him until they evolved into decidedly erotic caresses; apparently Council members preferred their vices readily to hand.

  The minister went in pursuit of some private amusement, his face alive with anticipation. Hari decided he would rather not know what was about to transpire and moved farther, into a vapor cell. He rested, thinking, as a ginger-colored mat cleaned his chamber; elementary biomaintenance. His muscles stretched as he reflected on the gulf between him and the professionals of the Lyceum.

  To Hari, human knowledge was largely the unarticulated experiences of myriads, not the formal learning of a vocal elite. Markets, history showed, conveyed the preferences and ideas of the many. Generally, these were superior to grandiose policies handed down from the talent and wisdom of the few. Yet Imperial logic asked if a given action were good, not whether it was affordable, or how much was even desirable.

  He truly did not know how to speak to these people. Clever verbal turns and artful dodges had served well enough today, but surely that could not last.

  These ruminations had distracted him. With a start he realized he should get back.

  Leaving the refresher, he angled off the obvious route, which was thronged with functionaries, on through acoustic veils and into the small processional hall, consulting his palace maps. He had used Dors’ carrychip a dozen times already, mostly to follow the quick, cryptic Council discussions. The microlaser-written 3D map on his retina rotated if he rolled his eyes, providing perspective. There were few staff around; most clustered in attendance outside the Lyceum.

  Hari reached the end of the hall and glanced up at the statue of Leon. The executioner’s knife was gone.

  Why would anyone...?

  Hari turned and hurried back the way he had come.

  Before he could reach the acoustic veils, a man stepped through their ivory luminescence. There was nothing unusual about the man except the way his eyes flicked around, finally fastening on Hari.

  There was about thirty meters between them. Hari turned as though he were admiring the baroquely festooned walls and walked away. He heard the other man’s boots crisply follow.

  Maybe he was being paranoid and maybe not. He had only to get back to a crowd and all this would dissolve away, he told himself. The footsteps behind him got sharper, closer.

  He turned and ducked down a side passage. Ahead was a ritual room. The footsteps sped up. Hari trotted across the circular room and into an ancient foyer. No one there.

  Down a long hallway he could see two men who seemed to be casually talking. He started toward them, but they both broke off and looked at him. One reached into his pocket and produced a comm and began speaking into it.

  Hari backed away, found a side passage. He bolted down it.

  What about the surveillance cameras? Even the palace had them. But the one at the end of this passage had an unusual cap on it. Running a fake view, he realized.

  The ancient portions of the Lyceum perimeter were not only unfashionable, they were unpopulated. He trotted through another extravagant ritual room. Boots were coming fast behind him. He turned to the right and saw a crowd down a long ramp.

  “Hey! “he yelled. Nobody looked his way. He realized they were behind a sound veil. He started toward them.

  A man stepped out of an alcove to block the way. This one was tall and lean and started toward Hari with a muscular nonchalance. Like the others he said nothing, drew no attention to himself. Just kept coming.

  Hari angled left and broke into a trot. Ahead lay the refresher; he had circled back. Plenty of people there. If he could reach it.

  One long passageway led directly toward the refreshers. He took it and halfway down saw that a party of three women were talking in a decorative niche. He slowed and they stopped talking. They wore familiar staff robes. Probably they worked in the refreshers.

  They turned toward him, looking a little surprised. He opened his mouth to say something, and the nearest woman stepped smartly forward and grabbed his arm.

  He jerked back. She was strong. She grinned at the others and said, “Fell right into our–”

  He yanked his arm to the side and broke her grip. She came off balance and he took advantage of that to shove her into the other two. One lashed a kick at him. She twisted her hip to get momentum into it, but she could not get fully around her companion and it stopped short, futile.

  Hari turned and ran. The women were obviously well trained and he did not have much hope of getting away. He plunged ahead down the long passageway. When he glanced back, however, all three were standing and watching him go.

  This was so odd that he slowed, thinking. They and the men were not attacking him, just boxing him in.

  In these public corridors, casual witnesses could easily pass by. They wanted him somewhere private.

  Hari called up his palace map. It placed him as a red dot in the nearby floor plan. He could see two side alleys up ahead before the end of the passageway

  –where now two men stepped into view, arms folded.

  Hari still had two ways out. He went left into a narrow lane lined with antique testaments. Each winked on and began its narration of vast events and great victories, now buried beneath millennia of indifference. The 3Ds flickered with colorful spectacles as he pounded past them. Sonorous voices implored him to attend to their tales. He was puffing heavily now and trying to focus his thoughts.

  Intersection coming up. He shot through it and saw men closing in from the right.

  He dodged down a slight side exit, under a participatory mausoleum to Emperor Elinor IV, and sprinted toward a set of doorways he recognized. These were the refresher booths, pale doors marked only with numbers. The Minister for Sector Correlation had pointed them out as the very best, suitable for private appointments.

  Hari had to cross a small piazza to reach the nearest door. A man came running from the right, saying nothing. Hari tried the first door; it was locked. So was the second. The man was nearly on top of him. The handle on the third door turned and Hari went through.

  It was a traditional door on hinges. He threw his weight back into it to slam it shut. The man hit the door heavily and got a hand around the edge. Hari heaved against the door. The man held fast and jammed his right foot between the door and the casing.

  Hari shoved hard. The gap between door and casing narrowed, trapping the hand.

  The other man was strong. He grunted and shoved back hard and the gap widened.

  Hari put his back against the door and thrust with his legs. He had nothing to help him and the ridiculous ceremonial robes didn’t help. Nothing in the refresher was nearby, no tool–

  Hari reached into his buckle. The ancient voting stylus slipped into his palm. He took it in his right hand and twisted against the door, shoving with his
right shoulder. Then he passed the stylus to his left hand and brought it down with a savage stab into the man’s hand.

  The stylus was inscribed and embellished, but it tapered to a slender point. Hari struck between the third and fourth knuckles. Hard.

  A small arterial pumper squirted. Short pulsating arcs shot onto the door, vivid red. The man cried “Ah!” and let go of the door.

  Hari slammed the door shut and fumbled with the lock. Magnetic grids clicked on. Panting, he turned to survey the refresher.

  It was one of the best, ample. Two soothing booths, a lift couch, an ample stock of refreshments. Several vapor wells–where luxuriant dalliances often occurred, as rumor had it. Against the far wall, a percussive nook for the athletic. And a thin slit-window, also traditional, open to a ceramic-and-sand garden. It was kept as a reminder of eras when being trapped in here with unsavory persons was best avoided by a quick exit.

  Hari heard a slight snick against the door. Probably a depolarizer fitting into place to unlock the magnetics. He considered the slit-window.

  12.

  A man came carefully into the refresher chamber. He wore a simple Imperial servant’s tunic, which allowed freedom of movement. Perfect for quick work. He carried the knife from the Leon statue.

  He closed the door behind him with one hand and locked it, all the while keeping his eyes on the room and the knife at the ready. Though he was large he moved with an easy grace. Methodically he checked in the booths and vapor wells and even the percussive nook. No one there. He leaned out the slit-window, which was thrown fully open. The narrow window was not large enough to let him pass; he was massive beneath his light blue staff uniform.

  He stood back and spoke into his wrist comm. “He got out into the garden. Can’t see him from here. You got that blocked?”

  He paused a moment, listening to an internal voice, and said curtly, “Can’t find him? ‘Course you can’t, I told you we shouldn’t cut the snoops in this area.”

  Another pause. “Sure I know it’s a secure job, even got its own RD number and all, no recording snoops, but–”