by Mack Maloney
“Mind what exactly?”
“That I take her out a bit, for a bit of a test ride,” the Prince stuttered.
“You’re unbelievable, sire!” another bodyguard said, disgusted. “No self-control at all…”
But the Prince was now ignoring his entire entourage.
It was up to Echo to break the impasse.
“You should let him run his test,” she finally cooed to Hunter. “It doesn’t take very long.”
The Prince let out a yelp of victory. Then he put his arms around Echo, pushed the device’s main control button — and they both disappeared.
“What happened?” Hunter asked, astonished. “Where did they go?”
Erx pushed a mug of wine toward him. “Just wait a few seconds,” he said.
Sure enough, there was a quick yellow flash… and the Prince and the Echo 323 were back. Not ten seconds had passed.
Echo looked the same, but the Prince’s appearance had changed completely. There was now more hair on his head, about a half inch of additional growth, and on his face as well. He was noticeably thinner, and his eyes were bleary. But he looked extremely content and calm. Very, very calm. Like a man who’d just spent a month or so on a deserted island somewhere with a very beautiful female. Which was exactly what had happened. Sort of…
“They went into the thirty-fourth dimension,” Erx explained. “Or is it the thirty-fifth? Either way, the Echo-323 is programmed to bring you to some paradise setting — wherever it is, it’s all projected anyway. She’ll morph any way you want her. Echoes have a large memory. That means you can just go… go far away, for a bunch of time. Days, weeks, however long you can stand it — then be back here before I take another sip of my drink.”
“What I miss?” the Prince squealed in delight.
But before anyone could reply, the club was suddenly filled with a blinding white light. The crowd was stunned. There were a few muffled screams and squeaks.
The bright light slowly condensed into a very powerful yellow beam that became focused on a spot about three feet away from Hunter’s table. The light began twirling, turning, forming a tunnel of sorts. Just barely visible near the source of the beam Hunter could see a translucent face. It was radiating a very warm, soothing light. The face seemed to be at the end of this very long tunnel.
The Prince shielded his eyes and finally got a good look at what was happening. “Oh, shit — it’s my father…”
Flash!
The Prince disappeared.
Echo took one look at the situation, kissed Hunter on the cheek, pushed her own button, and then flash!
She disappeared.
Most of the crowd scurried away. Erx and Berx were frozen in place, though. So was Hunter.
The light finally dimmed a bit, enough for the figure at the end of the tunnel to be seen.
It was indeed the Emperor.
Or at least it looked like him.
He lifted his hand and pointed down at the table.
Flash!
Hunter disappeared.
The next thing he knew, Hunter was standing in the middle of a desert.
Or at least it looked like a desert. It was flat for the most part, though there were some mountains directly to the east. It was dry and hot, too. But the “sand” beneath his feet felt more like tiny glass globules than authentic silica. This gave everything the same shimmering effect that Earth was famous for.
Floating two feet off the ground next to Hunter was the Emperor — or at least some approximation of him. He was dressed in a flowing, all-white gown with a golden aura surrounding it. His face was a complete blank. His arms were raised out on front of him, as if he were sleepwalking. The wind was blowing, yet his hair and clothes were not moving at all. In fact, Hunter could see right through him, clear to the other side.
What’s up with this? Hunter thought. Like many things in the Fourth Empire’s Galaxy, it seemed as if the great O’Nay was there, yet at the same time, not really there at all.
Suddenly a viz-screen appeared out of nowhere. It nearly split Hunter’s forehead in two. He had really bad luck with these things. They always seemed to want to hurt him no matter where they popped in.
The man on the viz-screen looked as weird as the ghost hovering next to him. He had long white hair, a blank face, and that “Special” look in his eyes. He wasn’t an exact twin of the Emperor, but he was close.
An Emperor wannabe?
The man in the viz-screen spoke to Hunter: “As the victor of the Earth Race, you will be allowed to cast eyes upon the holiest of holy things in the Empire. This is the Emperor’s wish.”
“You do all his talking for him?” Hunter asked innocently.
The man in the viz-screen seemed insulted. “The Emperor does not talk directly to his subjects,” he told Hunter, his voice dripping with arrogance. “Especially in the form you see before you.”
“There’s more than one of him?” Hunter asked, looking up at the motionless apparition.
“The Emperor has three modes,” the man in the viz-screen replied. “This one is his ‘sacred spirit.’ He’s calling to you now.”
Sure enough, the ghost was pointing to something over Hunter’s shoulder. He turned to see that they were actually standing near a group of plain white structures built astride a huge, flat, dry lakebed. The buildings looked absolutely ancient.
Flash!
Suddenly they were standing at the front entrance of the largest building. A faded sign next to the door read: Domain 51.
Flash!
Now they were inside the building itself, looking down at the entrance to a huge amphitheater contained within. There were dozens of soldiers in stark black uniforms standing at rigid attention around this sizable portal. The only means of illumination that Hunter could see was by candles; there were hundreds of them everywhere. Their flickering cast odd shadows on the Z-gun turrets built into the walls of this place.
Flash!
Hunter was now inside the chamber itself. It, too, was lit only by candlelight. In the middle of the chamber was a huge black monolith. It was about a hundred feet high and the same measurement square.
It stood alone. A huge seamless, impenetrable presence.
Hunter didn’t have to ask what this was. He knew already.
It was the Big Generator.
It was guarded by another small army of black-uniformed soldiers. They were standing at attention in small groups scattered around the inner chamber. They did not seem to notice that Hunter and the Emperor’s ghost were there.
The chamber had a definite religious air to it. There was no sound. Hunter could see no means of access to the huge black box. There were no dials or switches or panel lights on the thing. No cables or wires running into or out of it. No controls, at least anywhere nearby.
The viz-screen appeared again. This time Hunter was able to duck before it brained him. The same guy, with the same blank expression, began talking to him again.
“From the Big Generator everything is possible in our Galaxy,” he said without a nanoiota of emotion. “It is a gift from on high. The power it generates goes everywhere and encompasses the realm. It runs our spaceships. It runs our planets. It runs everything on our planets. From the dimmest panel bulb on the most distant world to the prop core of our largest M-Class Starcrasher. All of the energy comes from here.”
“Fascinating,” Hunter said. It was hard not to be impressed. “How does it work?”
The man in the viz-screen suddenly looked nonplussed.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Hunter shrugged. Could he have been any clearer?
“I mean, ‘How does it work?’ ” he asked again.
The man in the viz-screen started stammering. “Well… that’s a closely guarded secret… the most closely guarded secret in the Empire…”
But Hunter persisted because he really wanted to know.
“Do you mean how it works is a secret?” he asked. “Or the fact that no
one knows how it works?”
Even the Emperor’s ghost turned slightly red on that one.
The man in the viz-screen started to say something.
But before he could answer—
Flash!
Hunter now found himself standing inside a huge apartment.
It was empty of furniture except for one couch and a floating bed. There were windows everywhere, and judging from the harsh glare flooding in on him, it was easy to guess that he was atop a building somewhere deep in downtown Big Bright City.
His new home.
But before he could take one step or have one more thought, there came a stern pounding on the apartment’s front door. Hunter quickly walked down the hallway and activated the security screen next to the main entrance.
He saw a small army of Imperial Guards looking in on him.
Damn…
Could these be the Emperor’s bodyguards coming for him? Maybe to arrest him on a charge of insolence or blasphemy?
No… these guys were wearing different uniforms than the ones he’d just seen out in the desert. They were carrying bigger guns as well.
He slid the door open.
“Can I help you?”
The six monstrous soldiers didn’t say a word. Instead, they stepped aside to reveal that someone was with them.
It was a woman.
A very beautiful woman.
She was dressed all in black. Black jacket. Black miniskirt, black stockings. Black boots. Her low-cut black top showed a hint of substantial breasts. Her hair was blond and flowing over her shoulders. Even with the heavy makeup, her face was stunning.
Hunter heard himself say: “Wow…”
His first thought, of course, was that Erx and Berx had arranged for another Echo 323 to be delivered to him. They were such great guys!
But then it dawned on him — holo-girls had no need for a royal escort. Could someone this beautiful be the real thing?
She smiled. “I’m sorry, Mister Hunter. Am I disturbing you?”
Hunter fumbled for a reply. “That would be impossible, I think,” he finally said.
She smiled again. Her coterie of guards popped out.
That’s when Hunter realized just who this was. He recognized her from the race earlier that day.
It was the Empress. The wife of O’Nay. Alone. Standing at his apartment door.
“Well, are you going to invite me in?” she asked him.
Hunter stumbled back a foot or two. She wiggled by him, allowing the door to close behind her.
She walked into the apartment, took a look around, and smiled. “Nice place — though I should say you need some more furniture — and it could use a woman’s touch. Even a holo-girl might help out here.”
“I still don’t know how to work those things…” Hunter said, regretting each word as it floated from his mouth.
But she just smiled again. She was stunning, if several years older than he.
“You must be the only man left in the Galaxy who doesn’t,” she said.
She took a seat on the couch; he did too. Five words kept spinning around in his head. What is she doing here?
“I hear you were off with both my husband and my son today,” she said. “Did my son behave himself?”
“I can’t imagine he ever misbehaves,” Hunter answered as politely as he could.
She laughed. “No need to be nice about it. It still happens on a daily basis.”
Hunter looked around his place helplessly. “I’m sorry… I don’t have anything to offer you… that is, I’m not sure if you even—”
She reached over and touched him on the knee. He felt a jolt of something go right through him.
“Relax, Mister Hunter,” she told him. “An Empress can have a sip of wine every once in a while.”
She gently snapped her fingers, and a bottle of wine was suddenly in her hand. Another snap, two goblets appeared. But this was not a bottle of extravagant ‘cloud wine she was holding. It was slow-ship.
Hunter just looked up at her and laughed. “You’ll never convince me that you actually drink that stuff.”
“Should I take that as a challenge?” she asked him.
Hunter began stuttering some reply. Jessuz, what was going on here? One moment he’s at a party in the sky, the next he’s inside a mountain somewhere — and now he was sitting next to the Empress of the Galaxy.
This sure ain’t Fools 6, he thought.
“My husband took you to that awful place in the desert, I suppose?” she asked, pouring him some wine.
“We went to the desert, yes…”
She rolled her eyes. “With all those guards. And the security. And that Big Generator thing?”
Hunter nodded. “That was the tour.”
She sighed dramatically and handed him his wine. “But I insisted he bring you someplace interesting.”
“Well, it was interesting, especially…” Hunter began to say.
She tapped his knee again, gently interrupting him. “Please!” she said. “There’s interesting… then there’s really interesting…”
Finally a light was dawning somewhere deep in Hunter’s brain. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes off of her.
“And you know one from the other?” he asked her.
She seemed delighted. “You might be shocked to hear this, but I am here to make up for any amount of boredom my family has caused you today. You ran such a magnificent race, you deserve more than a ride on that very tacky Vegasus or a trip to stare at a big black box in the wilderness.”
Hunter sipped his wine. His hand was shaking. “What are you suggesting exactly?”
“I’m suggesting you let me take you to my favorite place… the place I think is interesting…”
“You? Take me?”
“That’s right…”
“Where?”
“Venus,” she said with a laugh.
“Venus? The planet Venus?”
“Yes, the planet Venus…”
Hunter tried to sip his wine again. But it was a no-go. He could barely bring the cup to his lips.
“When?”
She stood up. “Well, right now, of course.”
He looked up at her — she was absolutely gorgeous, in that regal sort of way. And he suspected her bodyguards were lurking just once dimension away. And it was probably not prudent to refuse the Emperor’s wife anything.
“How can I say no?” he finally replied.
She smiled again.
Flash!
17
Venus was the second body in the solar system that the Ancient Engineers had puffed. Only Mars had come first.
The morning planet had taken to its terraforming right away, completely transforming itself in a then amazing five hundred years. These days a planet could be made habitable in hours. Several thousand years ago, a five-hundred-year puff was considered absolutely speedy.
So Venus was no longer enshrouded in thick clouds and raining hydrochloric acid. Like Earth, its cloud cover was 30 percent at any given time. Also like Earth, it had one ocean that spread around the planet, pole to pole. This one surrounded two massive continents and several smaller ones. One of these was the island continent of Zros.
These days Earth’s sister planet served as a very exclusive getaway for the extended Imperial Family — even the Very Fortunates weren’t allowed here. The planet featured tens of thousands of summer palaces, seaside resorts, vineyards, and spas. Zros was the numero uno place to be, though.
Sitting just north of the equator in the middle of the western part of the ocean, its irregular shape looked not unlike a human heart. With lush forests and thousands of miles of exotic beaches dotted with towering, castlelike resorts, Zros pandered only to the cream of the Specials. It was awash in Holy Blood.
Hunter found himself at the top of a very tall building, looking west onto a beautiful jungle and the sea beyond.
This building was the tallest of a vast complex of luxurious châteaus tha
t spread out over high cliffs for at least twenty miles in each direction. This place was called La-Shangri.
It was a three-tiered palace, bigger than the other châteaus by a factor of ten. They had popped in on a balcony atop the highest spire of the place; a cadre of Imperial bodyguards appeared right after them.
The palace roof was already crawling with Imperial soldiers. The airspace surrounding the complex was thick with patrol craft and even some larger, armed culverins, corvette-size warships more commonly used in space.
The Empress ignored all this commotion and led Hunter down a passageway and into a huge room. This room was made of sheer superglass and hung out over a cliff nearly half a mile above the ocean.
A huge party of the Specials was in full swing here; indeed, it appeared to have been going non stop for some time. Heads turned when the Empress walked in, Hunter just behind her. Most of the revelers simply nodded in her direction and then went back to their dancing, drinking, and general merriment.
Hunter guessed there were more than a thousand people on hand, most of them beautiful young women.
Unlike the Vegasus, the atmosphere here was subtle, sensuous. Sexual.
“Every person in this room is related to me,” the Empress whispered in his ear. “Half of them snobs, the other half are slobs. It makes for an interesting mix, don’t you think?”
Before Hunter could answer, she began dancing away from him. He found a goblet of sparkling blue liquid in his hand. The Empress had one, too. She drained hers in one gulp. My kind of Empress, Hunter thought. Then her jacket came off. The music got louder; the mixture of pulsating bass and ethereal strings was hypnotic. She floated away, kicking off her boots and allowing the crowd to take her over.
She was quickly swallowed up by the mass of arms and legs and lips. Hunter felt a sensation run through him; it was not entirely due to the cool blue liquid he was drinking either. The Empress came back into view, dancing slowly, eyes closed. Hunter took a gulp of his drink. Was it his imagination, or could he see right through her tight black top?
Hunter blinked — and a very strange thought went through his head. Was it possible that he was still in the race? And that this, and everything that had happened before, from reaching the finish line to this moment, was really happening inside one of the blue screens?
