CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ganymede—A.D. 2212

ONE WAS THE prime minister of a commonwealth. He represented the big families. One was a businesswoman, a member of the board on two thousand blue-chip firms. Another represented Big Money. He controlled the skim on two-thirds of all electronically transmitted cash. The last was labor chieftain of three continents-

“Most of the military is behind us,” Labor said. “The rest will follow if we do a deal.”

“Amazing how timid generals can be,” Kea said.

“They would have come,” the prime minister said, “but they were worried—despite our assurances to the contrary—that they might be spotted… They send, however, their humblest apologies and warmest greetings.”

Kea snorted. “Like I said… timid.”

Big Money cut to the bottom line. “But still with us,” he said. “You know we wouldn’t be here, Mr.

Richards, if we didn’t have all our i’s dotted and’t‘s crossed.”

“The point is,” the businesswoman said, “the Federation’s presidential election is upon us. Time is short.

We need to know now if you’ll be our nominee.”

“I’ll have to be honest with you,” Kea said. “The other side has come to see me as well.” Labor laughed. “If you didn’t figure we already knew that, Mr. Richards,” he said, “you wouldn’t have let our shadows fall upon your doorstep.”

“We’re not amateurs,” Big Money said. “We came prepared to substantially increase the offer.”

“I think we had better stop right here,” Kea said, “while I explain my position.”

“Explain away,” Labor said.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. I don’t need this. I’m richer than anyone has a right to be. I’m forty-seven years old. I was thinking of taking it easy for a while. Resting on my laurels, as it were.” The businesswoman clapped. “Lovely speech. We’ll see the spin doctors use it.”

“The mink-piece writers will devour it with relish,” the prime minister said. “I can see the Op Ed headline now: ‘Hero who saved civilization spurns all offers from grateful public.’”

“We let that kinda thing bounce around for a week or so,” Labor cut in. “Then play up the mess the fat cats and back-room boys have got the Federation into. Before you know it, folks will be beggin‘ you to save ’em again.”

“Then you reluctantly… and humbly… agree to a draft,” the prime minister said.

The businesswoman graced him with her most charming smile. “Is that what you had in mind, Mr.

Richards? More or lessr

Kea laughed. “The others believed me just a little longer than you people,” he said.

“That’s why we’re number one,” Big Money responded.

“Number one… but without a candidate,” Kea said. “Which is the same boat your competition is in. At this rate, both parties will wind up in a tie out of sheer electoral boredom. And even if you win… The Federation is in a mess. You guys have put it in the crap house. What are you going to do about it? What are your big ideas?”

Dead silence greeted this. But Kea believed it necessary to drive his point home. ‘The current state of the Federation is no fantasy, my friends,“ he said. ”The economy is in shambles. You’ve got twenty wars of various sizes. Famine. Drought. Industry is stalled. Inflation running amok. Interest rates sky-high… if there was anyone with money to borrow. Besides that, lady… and gentlemen, you look in fine shape to me.“

“You must be interested,” Labor said, “or you wouldn’t have bothered to fill up your stone bucket before we got here. If you get my point.”

“I got it,” Kea said.

“Which brings us back to the price,” Big Money said.

“What could I want?” Kea asked. “I’ve got AM2. Which means I already control everything-—-from the stars on down.”

“You tell us, Mr. Richards,” Labor said. “What do you want?” Kea told them. Unlike the first group, there was no quibbling. No negotiation.

The deal was cut right there.

Port Richards, Tau Ceti—A.D. 2222

It was a gentle sloping hill, carpeted with a thick lichenlike plant—purple with green pinhead buds—that released a heady perfume every day at dusk. Kea breathed in the scent as he strolled up the hill—alone, except for the ever-present security screen spread out around him. He stopped to rest just before he reached the summit, puffing with effort.

Kea turned back to view his vacation campsite. The cynical street kid in him laughed. The encampment consisted of his personal tent—a two-story-high gold fabric pavilion, really—and more than sixty smaller tents to house staff, security, and other bits of his entourage. Kea snorted. Publicity had billed the trip as a simple camping vacation. A well-deserved rest from the awesome burdens of his office as President of the Federation. The fact that he had chosen to take his vacation upon a newly opened world—named in his honor—in the Tau Ceti system, was given much significance by his pet livie commentators.

“Is it not fitting,” one commentator had said, “that this simple man… this ordinary man of the people…

President Kea Richards… should seek to refresh his spirits in the stars?”

“Most analysts see this journey as symbolic,” another said. “Through Kea Richards, civilization has pushed its boundaries into the great beyond. Now, President Richards is reminding us that there are many more worlds to conquer. That our future is a never-ending frontier.” This trip to the frontier was just another stone mortared into the legend Kea had been building for ten years. The legend of the common man. A serf-made man. A man who remembered well the plight of the poor from whose ranks he had emerged. A genius in the rough, continually seeking new ways to better life for all.

Some of that was even true.

In ten years he had created a commercial empire greater than anything before. New ideas and renewed vigor had birthed industries that churned out goods—priced within easy reach of all. Food flooded out of giant agricultural combines in unprecedented volumes. Science and invention had exploded. Star probes were bridging vast distances. Terraforming engineers were at work on scores of worlds like Port Richards—adding territory to the Federation. Even the arts flourished in an atmosphere of free-flowing money and ideas. There was no denying Kea Richards was the engine that had made all those things possible. And AM2 was the fuel powering that engine. The robot delivery system had been tested and perfected. AM2 was being shipped regularly, and in large quantities—with zero chance of anyone learning the source.

Naturally, he had enemies. Many enemies. Kea watched one of his guards aim a sniffer at the path ahead, checking for booby traps. He divided his enemies into three groups: the idealists, the covetous, and the insane. The idealists he nurtured. Especially the weak. Free expression and open debate gave such a wonderful patina of democracy. The covetous he co-opted, or crushed. As for the insane… Kea saw two other guards swing to the top of the hill, weapons ready… well, there was not much you could do about them. Except take care.

Kea’s intellectual side insisted he’d accomplished a miracle in ten years—two terms in office. Fazlur had been a pessimist when he had predicted AM2 would turn the known world upside down. With Richards controlling it, Anti-Matter Two had also turned it inside out. But his gut twisted in revolt. Beware, it said.

If you stop now, all will be lost. All will be reversed. The Bargetas and their ilk will be running things again. And all will return to inbred stagnation. Some of the old families were still holding out on Earth.

These were a few of the covetous ones Kea had allowed their head. Let them have their outmoded factories. Let them continue spewing their pollutants across the planet. Let them break the back of the Earthbound poor. Each day hundreds were joining the migration off Earth. Climbing aboard ships powered by AM2 supplied by Kea Richards. Fleeing the chaos and misery Kea’s enemies had created to new worlds their president was opening up.

It’s going so fast, Kea thought. So fast and so well. In ten years, what I’ve built will easily double again.

In fifty more… who knows? Pity I won’t live to see it. A great yearning pit opened in Kea’s stomach. A yearning as deep as the one that had clutched at him when Fazlur first proposed that they enter another universe. God, he wished he could see how it would all play out.

He heard a thundering from the far side of the hill. Kea hurried to the hilltop. He saw an official Federation ship settle into its berth. Around it was the enormous raw wound of the new spaceport being hurled up on Port Richards. It was the official delegation from the Federation’s electoral college. Come to tell him that the people had begged him to stay on us as president. Not just for a third term. Not for another five years.

Kea Richards had been elected President For Life.

Surprise.

The boys in the back room had come through.

But that had been the deal.

On Ganymede—ten years before—the guy from labor had gawped. “Whaddya mean, for life?” The businesswoman had hissed at him. “Until he’s dead, stupid. Or wants to retire.” She had turned to Kea. “Right?”

“That’s the deal,” Kea had said. “If I’m going to run it… I want to run it like my own company. Elections every five years will tie my hands. I’ll always be forced to take the short view.”

“What’d the other side say?” Big Money had asked.

“They weren’t happy,” Kea had answered.

“Because they couldn’t swing it?” Labor’d guessed.

“Yeah,” Kea had said. “They said they couldn’t swing it.”

“I don’t see the problem,” the businesswoman had said. “Not for us, anyway.”

“We couldn’t do it all at once,” the prime minister had said. “We would have to smooth the way. Prepare the groundwork.”

“We could do it by the end of his second term for sure,” Labor had said. “He’s pretty damned popular.

If you get my drift.”

“If we agreed to this…” Big Money had ventured. “As your loyal supporters… and dearest friends…” Kea had bowed… almost kingly… “and soon to be trusted advisers…” he had added.

Big Money had smiled… acknowledging… “Yes. We would. And as your advisers, could we presume you would listen if we had a word or two about your policies on AM2?”

“Absolutely,” Kea had said. “As a matter of fact, I have been discussing my long-range strategy with my managers. It has become time for what people have termed a monopoly to end. We’re presently arranging a plan to license sales of AM2, Impe-rium X, and the modified drive engines to… the proper concerns.” He’d given them a meaningful look. “I’d be happy to listen to your suggestions… for individual cases.”

The room had brightened immensely. Aglow in the vision of new private fortunes to be won.

“Let me be the first to call you Mister President,” Labor had said. He stuck out a hand. Kea shook it.

That had been it. A presidency conferred with a handshake. Details to be filled in later by constitutional lawyers. It was the first time Kea had really tugged on the AM2 line and reeled in the fish. And as time had gone by, he had gotten better and better at it.

Kea watched the delegation descend from the ship. A gravlighter was waiting to take them to his encampment with formal word of his new title. Tonight they would all celebrate. Tomorrow he would pay off a few more lOUs.

Then it would all be his.

It was like an old-fashioned marriage, really. The monarchs of old had understood. A kingdom was the source of your greatest grief and happiness. You were wedded to it. For life. Kea was Emperor, now, in all but name. He didn’t have even a niggling of guilt for having bought and paid for it by keeping one of the greatest discoveries in history to himself. The Chinese emperors had kept the secret of the workings of time for centuries. What would the people do with it? they asked their court scholars. They do not have the skills or fortitude to take responsibility for its appointment. This should be left for us to decide.

This should be our burden, and our burden alone.

Kea remembered a line from his early childhood. “What’s time to a damned hog?” He thought of the piggish greed aboard Destiny I. Ruth murdering Fazlur and the Osiran. Her murder at Murph’s hands. Murph’s intentions on his own life. Kea had vastly refigured his concept of evil since that time. He had drawn up his own scale, and found civilization wanting. But shouldn’t these things be left to a Higher Authority? To God? Maybe. But Kea had been to another universe… and returned. And found no god in either place. Perhaps there was Something. A god on his throne far beyond the stars. But until that god was found, this world would have to make do with Kea Richards.

He started back down the hill. If he hurried, he would have time to change before he greeted the delegation. Kea picked up the pace. The guard beside him looked surprised. And began to lope. Kea ran faster. Feeling young… and lightheaded.

Suddenly, there was a sound in his ear of a thunderclap. Distant, but somehow very close. A red haze fell before his eyes.

His mind shouted, “Not yet! I’m not… done.”

Kea was unconscious before he hit the ground.

A panicked guard knelt beside him. Tumbled him over. Clumsily felt for signs of life. Found the faint hammer of the pulse. Frantically she keyed her com unit. In moments, the hillside was thick with frantically rushing vehicles and people— fighting to save the life of their new President For Life.

Ganymede—A.O. 2222

“Your doctors made no mistake,” the great physician said. “It was a stroke.” Her name was Imbrociano.

In the field of anatomical damage and regeneration, she had no peers.

Kea unconsciously gripped the numbness that was his left arm. Remembered his helplessness on Destiny I when it had been bound to him. This time, however, it was his whole left side that was useless.

Imbrociano nodded at his arm. “We can get that going again,” she said. “Nerve implants will do the trick.

Some rather complicated rewiring should take care of the rest. Although I should warn… you will be definitely weakened.”

Kea steadied himself. He needed courage now. “That was not my greatest concern,” he said. “What about the remainder of their diagnosis?”

The physician sighed. “Unfortunately for you, I have no quarrel with that either,” she said. “There is a good chance it will happen again. There’s no telling when. A week? A year?

More? I can’t say. But I can say… it is unlikely you will survive a second attack.“ Kea laughed. Harsh. “You’re not much on bedside manner,” he said.

Imbrociano shrugged. “Lies are time consuming,” she said. “And time is something you are definitely lacking.”

Kea laughed again. This time, it was a full-bodied chortle. The joke was on him. Hadn’t one of his last thoughts been about the emperors who held dominance over time? But not all time, he thought. Not biological time.

Imbrociano peered at him, then nodded, satisfied. “You’re taking it well,” she said. “No hysteria.”

“I’m not the type,” Kea answered.

“No. I guess you wouldn’t be… Mr. President.” She rose to go. Kea raised a hand to stop her. “My staff spoke to you about the need for secrecy?”

Imbrociano shuddered. “They stressed it… quite intensely. Really, sir. There was no need for threats.

President or not, you are my patient. I have my oath.”

“Forgive their enthusiasm,” Kea said. Dry. Thinking that if his enemies got wind of Kea’s illness, they could soon change her mind. “I’d be in your debt,” he said, “if you stayed on… until I decide what to do next.”

“You’re still considering surgery,” she asked, “even though the ordeal is most likely to be pointless?”

“I’ll let you know,” Kea said.

She left, a puzzled woman. But no more puzzled than Kea. What was he thinking? What could he do?

The best physician in the Federation had just told him he was doomed. His advisers were urging him to choose a successor. Meaning one of them. Unspoken—but implicit—in their constant hammering was that it was also time to reveal the source of Anti-Matter Two.

If I die now, he thought, the system—that perfect system—he had designed would automatically shut down. All traces wiped. And the secret of AM2 would die with him. The system had been the only real protection against his enemies. A shield of knowledge against their assassins. But what was the point of it now? Without AM2, the Federation would collapse. All his work for nothing.

So? Giving them the secret would be worse, wouldn’t it? There would be terrible wars over control of AM2. He’d run the progs countless times. Each time the death toll burst through the top of the scale.

It was too late to produce an heir. Besides, he had dismissed that prospect from the beginning. He knew too much about kings and their children. They lived miserable lives waiting to succeed. Sometimes plotting against their parent. Almost always overseeing the death of the kingdom that parent had built.

You had to look no further than the Bargetas to see the deterioration from generation to generation.

Enough wandering. He had to make up his mind. Who should succeed him? Who could he trust with the secret of AM2?

The answer came back: No one.

I must decide, he argued. I have no other choice.

There must be another option, came the insistent voice. There must be.

But… everyone has to die… Eventually.

But we’re different, the voice said. Special. We know a thing no one else knows. A great pure thing that sets us apart from anyone who lives now… or has ever lived before.

Kea wrestled with this insanity—for he thought he must have gone insane—for a long time. Finally, he slept. Floating. Dreamless. Aides and nurses monitored him. Noted the peacefulness of the bio charts.

He awakened. Refreshed. Alert. Ravenous.

He sent for his breakfast.

And he sent for Imbrociano.

She answered all his questions, then listened closely as he outlined his proposal. Calmly. Dispassionately.

“Yes. I could do it,” she finally said. “I could build a living body… a human form… exactly like yours.

There are theoretical obstacles, to be certain. But with the right team and sufficient funds… it could be done.”

“Then you’ll do it?‘ Kea asked.

“No. I won’t.”

“Why not, for godsakes?”

“You can’t deny death, Mr. President,” she said. “And that’s what you’re doing. You must see this whole thing is highly irrational. I can make a copy of you. Duplicate you. But… I can’t make that new organism be you’t”

“What would be the difference?” Kea pressed. “If it had all my thoughts… my knowledge… my motivations… identical cells… all the stuff that makes me… then it would be me. Wouldn’t it?” Imbrociano sighed. “I’m a doctor. Not a philosopher. A philosopher could better explain the difference.”

“I can make you very rich,” Kea said. “Bestow many honors.”

“1 know,” Imbrociano said. “Enough to overcome even my ethics. But if I participated in such an endeavor—and succeeded—I can’t help but think I would more likely be signing my own death warrant.

It would be dangerous knowledge, you must admit.”

“I thought of that,” Kea said. “However, for you to accomplish what I have in mind will most likely take the rest of your professional life. It will be a very secure, very lavish life. This I guarantee.” Imbrociano thought for a long time. Then she said, “If I don’t do this, you’ll find someone else. Albeit not as skilled.”

“Yes, I will,” Kea said.

“Which would once again leave me in jeopardy. For knowing too much.”

“This is true,” Kea said. Rat.

“We’d better get to work, then,” Imbrociano said. “We might not have much time.” Ganymede—A.D. 2224

His luck returned. Along with health, bestowed by Imbro-ciano’s talents. The nerve rewiring was simple.

The rehabilitation exercises torture. But it was worth it.

Richards rose from his chair and walked to the far end of his office. He was alone. He watched his progress in a mirror. Approved. Now, only a slight limp betrayed the lingering traces of his paralysis from the stroke. It had been easy to hide this from the public. Politics has long experience keeping those kinds of things hushed up. In FDR’s time, Kea recalled, few people were even aware he was bound to a wheelchair for life. He walked back to his desk. Eased his fifty-nine-year-old bones into the soft chair.

And poured himself a drink from a decanter on his desk.

It was Scotch.

He savored it. Just as he savored a few moments’ peace from the breakneck pace of his duties. Then he tensed as a headache twinged. His heart fluttered—was this it? But the pain fled along with fear. Thank God, he thought, that worry will be over soon. One way or the other.

Imbrociano was almost ready. Everything was in place. He only had to say the word and great, shadowy forces would be put in motion. Kea had worked feverishly to reach this point. Shifting staff. Pulling strings. Creating and collapsing whole bureaucracies. Covering his tracks in a hailstorm of governmental actions and decrees. Vast industries were at his disposal, with no one manager aware of what the other was doing. Starships had been flung here and there at his bidding. He had spun an elaborate, supersecret network, with cutouts and switchbacks and complex electronic mazes created by canny old spies. During that time Imbrociano and her team had worked at equally as furious a pace. With the entire Federation’s treasury at their disposal as a budget.

Kea sipped his Scotch, letting the warmth tease the kinks in his side.

The first part of his plan to cheat death had been relatively simple. Imbrociano would build a walking, talking, thinking duplicate of Kea Richards. The second part—yet to be put into motion—was simpler still. Horrifically so.

He steered his mind away from yowling terror. He’d have to deal with it when the moment came.

The third part of his plan was vastly complex. To begin with, he’d had new improvements of the old model in mind. Tinkering with several genes to make his alter ego invulnerable to disease and aging.

When the organism was in place, the aging process would be gradually reversed. He had picked thirty-five as the place to stop. Kea thought that had been the best time for him. His peak in many ways.

With the process spread out over many years, his people would barely notice their President For Life shedding middle age like a snake its skin. In theory, the new Kea Richards would be able to go on and on throughout the centuries without wearing out. Virtual immortality.

“In practice,” Imbrociano had said, “I doubt very much this is possible. An organism—especially a thinking organism—is too complex. Vulnerable to many things we are ignorant of. Not just physically vulnerable, either. There is the psychological to consider.”

“I could go mad,” Kea had said. With no emotion. Imbrociano had only nodded.

“I could also be assassinated,” Kea had said. “Or, held against my will. Forced to do and reveal things.”

“There is that, too,” Imbrociano had said.

These problems had led to the key part of the grand scheme. An engineer at heart, Kea had started with a machine. A judg-ment machine. Fitted with powerful reasoning programs. Remote sensors to monitor the alter ego. Judging mental and physical conditions, as well as outward threats. The organism itself would have a bomb implanted in its gut. Threatened by torture, brainscan, or fatal attack, the bomb would blow with an enormous force. Killing all within its range. The same would happen if the judgment machine decided he was no longer mentally fit to rule the Federation. Kea called it the Caligula Factor.

He had no wish to become a tyrant who ruled over an endless hell.

He had been proud of himself for thinking of that. Proud of it still, he thought, touching up his glass with Scotch. It was his own secret gift to his forever kingdom. If he was absolutely honest with himself, however, he would have to admit he was a little broad in his definitions of mental disturbance. But during these fits of honesty, he had rationalized that his future self might require some leeway to survive. It was impossible to imagine all the circumstances he might face over the centuries. What seemed insane today might be expeditious in the far tomorrow.

The machine orchestrating all of this was contained in a completely automated hospital ship; a ship not only built with redundancy on redundancy, constructed with bus bars a meter thick when a centimeter would give a lifespan of decades, but given complete self-analyzing and repair capabilities.

He had hidden it where no enemy could ever find it—the alternate universe. The source of his AM2

operation.

He thought of it as N-space.

And just in case his enemies ever tracked the ship down, it was defended by the best weapons of this age. It was unlikely anyone who attacked would survive. The hospital ship would sit in readiness, waiting for the signal to call it into full life. At that signal, the ship’s robotic staff would build yet another Kea Richards—to replace the one that had just been… removed. The flesh would be grown from the genes Imbrociano was even now stockpiling from frequent biopsies. The mind—the id of Kea Richards—would be perfectly reconstructed as well. Right up to the final thoughts before… death.

“This will take time,” Imbrociano had warned him. “A little more than three years before the duplicate is constructed. You’ll have to be aware of these gaps.”

He had overcome the problem by having an elaborate library computer installed. It would constantly monitor every newsfeed and knowledge resource in the Federation. All this data would be fed to the new organism after the awakening—during tutori-als. But he must be wary. The organism would be new.

Untried. Imbrociano’s psych techs told him too much pure knowledge without practical experience could doom it before it started.

The return to power would be gradual. A ladder of experience. With awareness fed hi along with each step upward. And at any point, the judgment machine could decide the new organism was lacking in some way and destroy it… to start again.

Oddly enough, the easiest of all his tasks in preparing for immortality had involved the political.

Because his hole card was AM2.

When he died, the AM2 shipments would automatically halt. There would be no more for a usurper until Kea’s rebirth and return. Economic chaos would result A three-year power drought. The throne stealer would be so weakened, he would topple at a touch when Kea Richards rose from the dead.

A hero reborn.

It was a powerful legend to build on.

Kea looked up at the antique clock on the mantel. It was time to start.

Imbrociano was waiting.

He finished his drink. Replaced the glass on the tray and pushed the whole thing away. And he buzzed for Kemper—his chief of staff. They went over the things to be done in his absence. Last-minute legislative details. Appointments to higher office. That sort of thing. His staff was grudgingly getting used to his mysterious absences. He had slipped away regularly to add to that tolerance. Sometimes in his guise as the common engineer—Raschid. Sometimes with a few chosen people for a little stealth diplomacy.

“What if there is an emergency, Mr. President?” Kemper said dutifully. He knew the answer, but thought he’d be remiss if he didn’t ask. “How can we reach you?”

Richards gave him the usual response: “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long.” After Kemper departed, Richards pulled a bulky travel kit from a drawer. Then he pressed a stud beneath his desk. A panel swung away in the wall. Kea plunged into the dark passage. The panel closed behind him. A short time later he was aboard a small spaceyacht, listening to the captain chatter with the first officer—waiting for tower clearance. He turned in his seat to see if Imbrociano and her people were comfortable. Imbrociano waved to him. Smiled. A sad smile. Kea waved back. Settled in for takeoff.

There was the shock of the thrust… a roaring in his ears… then weightlessness. Kea savored every sensation of the flight As if it were to be his last.

Imbrociano’s voice came in his ear: “Would you like a sedative?” He turned to her. Motioned for her to sit next to him. She did. Her eyes were hollowed from lack of sleep. “I’d rather not,” Kea said. “Somehow… I don’t know… I want to be aware.”

“I understand,” Imbrociano said. “But we won’t reach our destination until tomorrow. Why not get some rest?”

“If this doesn’t work,” Kea said, “I’ll have a lot of time for that. Permanent rest.”

“You can still call this off,” Imbrociano said. “Really. I urge you to.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” Kea said. “There’s no need for you to feel guilt.” Imbrociano grew silent. Picked at her sleeve. Then she said, “If it eases your mind any, there will be no pain tomorrow. No sensation. I’ll inject you with trancs first. So there will be no fear. The lethal dose will come next. You’ll inhale… and by the time you fully exhale, you’ll be… dead.”

“Reborn, actually,” Kea said with forced lightness. “Or, as some might say, exchanging one vessel for another.”

“But it can’t be really you’t” she exploded. “Perhaps by casual definition, yes. It will talk, walk, and think like you in all matters. But it still can’t be you. The essence in each of us. That makes us individual.

The soul.”

“You sound like a preacher,” Kea said. “I’m an engineer. A pragmatist. If it walks like a duck… talks like a duck… it must be Kea Richards.”

Imbrociano put her head back. Tired. Defeated. Then she patted his arm. Rose. And returned to her seat.

Kea felt genuinely sorry about what had to happen next. He fished out the travel case. Peeled away a small panel of material to reveal a depression. A heat-sensitive switch. He liked Imbrociano. Despite her stiff manner, she was genuinely human: afflicted with the curse of empathy.

His affection for her was the second reason he had chosen to alter the plan. The first reason was pragmatic. It was best to begin with maximum impact. A suspicious accident. Triggering finger pointing and political purges. Government in disarray. The cheers at his miraculous return would drown out many questions. Some of those he would get around with obscure hints of enemies in hiding. The rest he would erase by simply rewriting history.

He would have a long time to do it.

The second reason was pity. For Imbrociano. He could not bear to think how hurt she would be that he had lied to her. It was a terrible emotion for a person to be confronted with at the moment of his death.

Even worse than the betrayal itself.

He trusted her.

But he couldn’t take the chance.

Trust no one, an old king had once advised another. Not even me, your friend… Especially me!

Ah, well. The decision had been difficult. But deadly necessity had won the hand. But he knew he would always mourn Imbrociano. Just as he would mourn others. It was a king’s burden. One he would have to bear.

He moved his finger to the depression in the case. When he touched it, the bomb would destroy the ship.

Everyone would die. Instantly. Except for…

… Him?

He was suddenly sweat-soaked. His heart bruising his ribs with its hammering.

What if Imbrociano was right?

About what?

My soul?

Yes… Your soul. Goddamned y—

Kea shuddered in a long breath. Blew it out. Drew another. He closed his eyes. And thought of the gentle curtain of fire billowing in the cosmic winds. He was floating through it now. Saw the particles leaping about as if they were alive.

Now? Should he do it now?

No.

One more moment.

One more thought.

Kea sucked in stale cabin air. It tasted sweet.

I will be the forever king, he thought.

The Eternal Emperor.

He pressed the switch.