Empire's End

by Chris Bunch

  The skipper of the transport had, at first, refused to allow her access to the hold, claiming that what it contained was a classified cargo—property of the Imperial Household. But there was no paperwork to verify his claim. He could be carrying any sort of basic supplies to the river complex, supplies that the Emperor, like any other citizen, would have to pay duties on to the Earth government.

  Tjanting insisted he open the hold—or else she would call for security and impound the ship and cargo and arrest the crew. The captain yielded gracelessly.

  The cargo was medical—sophisticated equipment and supplies, as if someone were establishing a very small, but very superb, surgical ward. Or so, Tjanting said, a colleague specializing in med supplies had told her when she called back and read him the bill-of-lading fiche.

  The problem wasn't that the cargo was dutiable—it probably wasn't, under humanitarian grounds. The question Tjanting had, and the one that wasn't answered, was why was this equipment necessary? Customs was also responsible for quarantine and health. Was someone in the Imperial Household ill? Or needing some kind of surgical help? For all she knew, there was a plague breeding.

  She reported the matter to her superiors and was told to wait. They would contact the Emperor's staff in Oregon. That took minutes—no one in Oregon knew of such an incoming shipment. Tjanting was sure she had uncovered a strange sort of smuggling ring whose members had the maximum amount of gall.

  Then another call came from the north, and before her shift ended, she was hauled in and reprimanded severely for what her supervisor called "unwarranted snooping into the business of the Eternal Emperor." Tjanting was also told she had a nasty reputation for being a busybody, and had best correct this character flaw lest it cause a downgrade on her next efficiency hearing.

  By now the woman was seething, and Alex soothed her, and bought her another drink—a truly awful concoction of a sweet liqueur called Campari, charged water, and a brandy float on top. It was a monstrous waste of cognac, Alex thought, but said nothing.

  So, while Hotsco covered for him with chattered sympathy, Alex mused: Jus' afore th' Emp dances on, some laddie wants't' set up an OR. An' it's gowky to conceive th' Emp's retreat nae has a wee medical kit an' such. So, somethin' special mayhap wae intended, aye? An op'ration?

  On th' 'Ternal Emp'rer himself?

  A wee bit ae surgery time's carefully kept under th' rose… ?

  Aye. 'Tis odd. 'Tis ver' ver' odd, Kilgour thought.

  Actually, 'tis ver' simple, he realized, considering the presence of the bomb-disposal experts at the Emperor's compound. Surgically implanting a bomb in somebody wasn't unknown to Kilgour—the ruse had been used successfully by fanatics before. Kilgour had also heard of brave beings having a bomb installed inside them before they went on a suicide mission, to prevent any possibility of capture, torture, and exposing their fellows.

  However, taking a bomb out was a new twist. And this is what he now thought had happened.

  Mmm, Alex mused. So. Noo we' ken where th' boomie thae goes off whae th' Emp dies com't frae, aye? I's installed i' th' loonie's gut, p'raps where th' 'pendix was. I' dinnae matter. Th' real puzzler i' who put th' clottin' thing in, i' the first place!

  Th' further an' further Ah dig an' delve, Kilgour mused, th' less an' less Ah knoo thae's f'r certain.

  Ah well. I' y' want'd a life where thae was naught but th' abs'lute, y' coulda been a WeeFreesie. Or stay'd a common so'jer.

  Alex refused to continue. Reasoning from insufficient data almost invariably produces suspect conclusions. He would think more on this later.

  They fed Tjanting a couple of drinks, then announced that they had to get back to their hotel.

  Tjanting watched them leave. After a moment, she frowned, and a queer expression crossed her face.

  Halfway across the Empire, two men were drinking raw alk and knocking the shots back with homebrew in a portabar not far from a construction site. One man was a contact welder, the other a bank vice president, slumming.

  "You heard," the welder began, "about what happened when the Eternal Emperor picked up a joygirl? First time he says I'm gonna ravish you and make you moan. He does and she does.

  "Then he says I'm gonna ravish you and make you scream. He does and she does.

  "Then he says I'm gonna make you sweat. And the joygirl pulls back and says Huh? And he says because the next time's gonna be midsummer…"

  The banker chortled politely. "Way I heard it, the Emp just thinks that there's some things a man's gotta take care of himself. And in his case, it's th' little stuff."

  The welder returned the compliment of laughter, turned serious. "You never notice, Els, that the Emperor never shows up on a livie cast when he's somewhere doin' something ceremonial with a woman?"

  "Why should he?"

  "No reason," the welder said. "But if you was top dog, I'd assume there'd be a ton of honey trying to lurk on you, right? Like if you got promoted Chief Suit tomorrow?"

  "Maybe. But my wife'd have words about that."

  "Something else the Emperor's lacking."

  "Maybe that's why he lives forever," the banker suggested. "He's just saving his precious natural resources."

  "Assumin' he's got any."

  Both men snickered, and attention was drawn to the livie screen and the gravball match's third quarter just beginning.

  Both "jokes" were the work of Rykor's staff. Funny or not, they were intended to accomplish just what they were doing: to reduce the Eternal Emperor's image of omnipotence. In this particular instance, quite literally.

  These jokes, and a hundred hundred others, coupled with some really nasty whispered rumors and legends, were moving through the Empire at a speed slightly above stardrive.

  The nighttime ritual was for Alex to check their room to see if they had been blackbagged or bugged. Then he would wash up in the fresher. Afterward, Hotsco would get showered and powdered and join him in the great, old-fashioned feather bed. But only to sleep. Alex, the professional and the moralist, would never dream of taking advantage of a cover. Nor was he attracted to the slender young woman. Not at all his type.

  Or so he lied at increasingly frequent intervals.

  He lathered and scrubbed, luxuriating in the soft water that needled against his body, remembering times and missions when there was no water for anything but drinking, and barely enough for that. He turned to adjust the shower from NEEDLE to BLAST, and a giggle sounded in his ear, a giggle whose Alex's expert ear sonared at two centimeters' distance.

  "Move over," Hotsco said "And give me the soap. Your back needs washing."

  "Uh, lass…"

  "I said, move over."

  Alex did as he was told. Hotsco began scrubbing his back, soap moving in slow, sensual circles.

  "I'm not looking," she said. "But I have a wager on what a Scotsman has under his kilt"

  "Aye?" Alex said, a smile beginning to grow across his face. "An' y'd like't' feel someat thae's twenty-five centimeters? Reach under m' sporran twenty times."

  Hotsco laughed. Her fingers moved on. Traced a red, ragged trough on Kilgour's biceps.

  "What's that?" she wondered.

  "Thae's where Ah zigged like a clot when Ah should'a zagged. Wounds are a good way't' keep y'r ego frae gettin' overweenin't.

  "Lass, thae's noo m' chest y're scrubbin't"

  "That's all right," Hotsco said dreamily. "That's not the soap, either."

  "If Ah turn aroun'," Kilgour said, his voice a little husky, "Ah'll be startin''t' take th' wee game a bit seriously."

  "Mmm."

  Alex turned, reached down, and lifted Hotsco in his arms. Their lips met, and her legs closed around his thighs.

  A bit later, they got out of the shower. They had to use Kilgour's robe as a towel, since the fresher looked like the site of a water-main explosion.

  Outside was the moon shining on the bay and the dying lights of San Francisco.

  "An' noo," Alex said, "we'll hie ourselves't' th'
feathers, an' Ah'll noo hae't' worry aboot whether m' McLean powers are runnin't dry."

  "Is that what you call it," Hotsco wondered. She crossed to her dresser, picked up a tube of aromatic oil, and slowly began rubbing it into her skin, smiling over her shoulder as she did.

  "'If y're th' lass wi' th' soap," Alex volunteered, "dinnae it be justice if Ah'm th' lad whae goes slip-slidin' away?"

  He took the tube from her, squeezed some oil on his fingers, and then, suddenly, his instincts cut through the lust. He flipped Hotsco sideways, across the bed. She thudded into the feathers, too startled to shout—and the dressing-table mirror exploded.

  Kilgour backrolled to the door, came up, pistol magically in hand, kneeling, braced… three rounds crashed as one… and out on the balcony the assassin's chest exploded.

  Someone or something crashed against the door, and Kilgour sent three more AM2 rounds through it, the wood wisping and charring. There was a scream outside.

  Alex grabbed the tiny transponder that was their only back door, shoved it in his mouth, and scooped up Hotsco in one arm. He took two gigantic steps across the room, shattering what remained of the balcony door's framework, high-stepped onto the balcony, and jumped. Hotsco yelped.

  It was seven meters to the grassy turf below, and as Alex fell, he twisted his body, feet together, and used the uniformed cop who was gaping up at him as a trampoline.

  The cop's ribs snapped, and he screamed a bloody gargle. Kilgour collapsed to his knees, absorbing the shock of the landing. Then he sprang back up, and, without pausing or dropping either Hotsco in one hand or his pistol in the other, hurtled toward the brushy cover around the inn.

  An AM2 round exploded turf next to him—so, i's th' Emp's boyos, Kilgour recognized—and he spun and, without bothering to aim, pumped four rounds back up into the room they had just vacated.

  Then he was juggernauting again.

  By the time the pickup/hit squad of San Francisco cops and Internal Security operatives recovered, the white blur that was the naked heavy-worlder had vanished into the scrub.

  Sirens ululated then, and lights flashed and coms crackled.

  But Kilgour was gone.

  Two kilometers away, Alex stopped running. He estimated that he was somewhere in that great jungle close to the end of the peninsula, where tigers who had been freed from the zoo aeons earlier stalked the night

  The tiggers, he decided, would hae't' take their risks.

  "Ah'm in no mood't' be trifled wi'," he announced softly. "Ah had plans f'r th' remaind'r ae th' evening."

  Even though Hotsco had grown up on the far side of what most beings called the law, she was not used to this sort of thing—especially when it came at a blur of lightspeed. But she was clotting damned if she would lose face in front of Alex.

  "I assume," she said, "the Empire just caught up with us."

  "Aye," Alex said. "Thae hae willyguns. Th' custom's lass narked on us. Ah dinnae catch her last name, Hotsco. Dinnae y' ken i' it wae Campbell?"

  He seemed completely oblivious to the fact they were both stark naked—and that their sole assets, against a city and a world that would be raising a hue and cry against them, were a pistol and a transponder.

  "What next?" Hotsco asked.

  "W hae twa choices," Alex said. "First, an' most palatable, i' w' hunt doon th' two lassies ae th' Lovedance ae th' Merkins. Thae'll noo blanch ae th' sight ae a couple ae young lovers comin't't' them ae th' Laird made them. An' we c'n continue whae we barely—sorry, lass—begun't till th' heat dies doon. I' y' hae their card?"

  "I left it back there," Hotsco said. Her shock had died away, and quite suddenly she found this whole situation funny. "In the hotel. You want me to go back for it?"

  Alex considered.

  "Nae," he said, straight-facedly. "Twas nae but a passin' fancy. Option two. We'll work our way't' th' docks, an' either steal a curragh, or else swim oot't' thae island ae th' big-jawed birds. Alcatruss?"

  "Swim. I can't swim."

  "Nae problem, lass. Ah'll need but one arm't' be bashin't th' sharks away. Ah'll hae y' wi' th' other, an' th' bangstick between m' fangs. A braw measure ae a Scotsman.

  "Kickin't wi' m' feet an' steerin' wi' th' rudder th' Laird provided. It canna be more'n a klick 'r twa awa'. Brisk, refreshin' dawn swim. Ah hae a strong desire't' gie back't' th' wee game y' w're teachin' me wi' a minimum ae time loss. Shall we?"

  He bowed formally, took her arm, and they started south, toward the fishing village.

  Fleet Admiral Anders, the Imperial Chief of Naval Operations, looked at the progs on the five wallscreens, then at the sixteen fiches projected across his desk. His face was impassive, just as he had learned a proper war leader should look in his moment of decision.

  He was not sure what he thought, since he was, or so his Intel chief had assured him, the first to see, let alone have the chance to analyze, this data. After all, there was just the possibility, his mind thought vaguely, that the Eternal Emperor had not been jesting when he said some time ago that when the Sten problem was over, Anders would find himself in command of two rowboats and a tidal bank on some forgotten planet. He really didn't want to make another mistake.

  He decided to start with skepticism. Because he was a man of lists, that was the way he worded his doubts.

  "Give me," he said, "three reasons why I should believe that this system—Ystrn—will be the jumping-off point for the traitor Sten's next raid? And why, in fact, does your intelligence suggest that Al-Sufi is, in fact, the target?"

  Anders's Two, Sheffries, wondered whether she was supposed to come up with three reasons or six, considering that he had asked two separate questions. In either case, she was disappointed in her clot of a boss. She had three threes ready.

  "One: Al-Sufi is one of the three largest AM2 distribution centers in the Empire. Two: Sten has already hit one such depot. Three: Revolutionaries with limited means, such as Sten—"

  "That should be the traitor Sten," Anders interjected.

  "Beg pardon. Traitors like Sten, who have little in the way of combat ships and troops, normally become enamored of spectacular targets. Particularly if those targets appear to provide the maximum damage to the enemy, sorry, the home worlds, they're rebelling against. The term is 'panacea targets.' In other words—"

  "In other words," Anders went on, "he somehow had a small measure of success against Dusable, which is why he'll hit Al-Sufi next."

  "Thank you, sir. You summarized my thinking admirably. Four The Al-Sufi/Durer battle, commonly called Durer by the masses, was one of the Emperor's biggest victories during the Tahn war. Therefore it makes perfect sense that the traitor Sten would want to ruin this image.

  "Five. Since Sten was evidently, although we still have incomplete data, not serving with the Imperial forces during the Al-Sufi/Durer battle—"

  Anders waved Sheffries to silence. "Very well," he said. "You have convinced me.

  "Three fleets will be required for this operation. Alert my staff. I shall brief them on what the oplan shall consist of."

  "Three fleets, sir?"

  "Exactly. I propose to obliterate, at one stroke, this rebellion. So I shall wish all of my sailors to be aware of their participation in this moment of destiny."

  "Sir. My plus/minus of accuracy on the prog is only eighty percent. And I haven't run any progs as to whether Sten—I mean, the traitor Sten—would be personally in charge of the raid."

  "Of course he would," Anders said impatiently. "I would. You would." He smiled. "The Eternal Emperor will be very glad of this news. When the traitor Sten is finished, Sheffries, I shall personally see that you are rewarded with flag rank."

  Sheffries managed to express delight, saluted, and was gone. Wonderful, she thought glumly. And if anything goes wrong, it'll be, Commander Sheffries, would you mind crossing your legs? We only have three nails…

  Sten was plotting the "raid of Al-Sufi," and just how the rendezvous point in the Ystrn system should appear, when the E
YES ONLY message from Sr. Ecu, on Seilichi, was hand-carried up from the message center.

  He swore, found a decoding machine, and keyed in pore pattern, retina flash, personal code, and all the rest.

  Then he scanned the covering message and that appeal from Marr and Senn.

  Clot. He knew who the other being was. Haines, of course. Yes, he remembered only too well, his body stirring, the party and the garden and the black ball against the moon.

  It made sense that the madman who called himself the Eternal Emperor would be rounding up anyone who knew Sten for brainscan.

  He was glad that somehow Haines had escaped the net. Then he wondered if the Emperor and his satrap Poyndex had cast again, and gotten her. Or if they had widened their quest and gone after Marr and Senn, after they had sent the "flier." Yet a third and even more likely possibility was that Poyndex's IS elements had discovered Marr and Senn's amateur attempt at cryptography and had laid an ambush.

  First response. Saddle up and go for a rescue.

  Stopped cold in its adrenaline rush.

  Like hell. You are beyond that, now. You have had the gall to stand up and declare yourself outlaw and rebel against the Empire. Which is fine. Any being is entitled to find his own suicide.

  But there are others who've joined you. You're responsible for them, aren't you? So you sure as hell can't head out on some forlorn hope, can you? You've got to worry about the bigger things.

  Besides, this wouldn't be the first time that you've had to abandon a friend or even a lover to accomplish the mission, right?

  Of course.

  The com buzzed. Sten slugged the contact switch.

  "GA."

  "Mister Kilgour," the com officer reported. "Inbound. ETA one E-hour. Mission accomplished. I have him onbeam now."

  Sten started to say that he would talk to Alex when he grounded, then stopped.

  "Sealed?"

  "Of course, sir."

  "Patch it through."

  The screen cleared. Onscreen was Alex; to one side of him was a demurely smiling woman. Oh yes, Sten thought. That must be the smuggler captain who volunteered to insert Kilgour onto Earth. Sten looked at his friend.