CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Prometheus (Sigma Draconis II), 4334 C.E.

Sigma Draconis was dipping below the western horizon when Corin landed his AF-7 on the esplanade. The smoke had largely dissipated, and the red-veined crescent of Atlas had appeared in the twilit sky, looking down as though with approval on the new chapter that had just been written in Prometheus' dark and bloody history.

He emerged from the cockpit and stood with the seawall to his right, staring at the vast intruder in the familiar scene. The fallen palace lay canted like an impossibly huge beached ship, with the waves lapping at one edge and a row of ruined buildings holding up the opposite edge like cracked toothpicks. Between the two, it had crushed a mile of the esplanade beneath its inconceivable weight, breaking its own back across the seawall. The blackened wreckage of what had been its architectural superstructure was silhouetted against the setting sun: a tangle of toppled towers and broken domes.

No one knew how many had died. Early indications were guardedly hopeful, for quite a few of the palace's denizens had had time in the final minutes to get to aircars, which had swarmed away from the landing flanges like bees from a falling tree. Likewise, the attack on the pressor-beam projectors had sent most people fleeing from the beach and the nearby buildings in panic before the sky had fallen on them.

Still, there were enough injured and dead to overload Dracopolis' hospitals and morgues. Enough, and more than enough. Corin advanced through a vista of makeshift dispensaries, improvised command posts, and a constant coming and going of aircars, most of them ambulances for the less-than-critical cases who hadn't been earmarked to be transposed. But there were none of the signs of civil demoralization. The Emperor, safe aboard the battlecruiser Steadfast in orbit, had broadcast an address assuring the planet—and, via tachyon beam, the Empire—that he was alive, and that those who'd sought his life had been crushed. That news, delivered in his customary tones of granite assurance, had had the hoped-for salutary effect.

Of course, Ivar had made the broadcast before learning the details. . . .

Corin saw Aline Tatsumo up ahead, standing beside the balustrade in an area kept clear by unobtrusive guards. He waved a greeting. Their onetime animosity had long since faded to an occasional memory, like the damp-weather ache of an old broken bone. At this moment, it was even less than that. She beckoned to him. Beside her, a figure in a flight suit like Corin's leaned on the balustrade, staring fixedly out to sea, focusing on infinity.

"Roderick?" Corin ventured hesitantly. This man had seen his brother's aircraft vanish in the fireball of the missile he himself had launched a split second before he'd known who had piloted that aircraft. He'd watched helplessly as Teodor's gravchute had carried him down to the oceanfront beneath the palace. And he'd watched the palace fall. And now . . .

Roderick spoke without turning around, in a voice that had passed beyond pain into a dead realm where nothing could hurt. "He won't see me."

"Roderick," Corin said urgently, "you've got to go up there and talk to him. Make him understand—"

"He won't see me," Roderick repeated dully. His state was shocking to Corin, who had never imagined he could be inadequate in any conceivable set of circumstances.

"It's true," Aline Tatsumo confirmed. And he's in no shape to face Ivar anyway, her eyes added. She moved closer to Roderick and placed a hand on his hunched shoulder. He flinched slightly from the human contact. "Corin, somebody's got to talk to the Emperor. And I'm needed down here. That leaves you."

"Me? But what makes you think the Emperor will—"

"Maura will get you in to see him. And this is important, Corin. Right now, Ivar's still in shock. When he comes out of it, his initial impression of what's happened is going to be set in concrete . . . unless you can change that impression."

Corin shook his head. "I can't. Rod could, if he were allowed to try."

"Then maybe you can persuade Ivar to receive him."

"All right. I'll see what I can do. Go ahead and signal Steadfast." 

The transposer room of HIMS Steadfast appeared around Corin. As he stepped off the dais, Maura Brady-Schiavona advanced to meet him. Garth and Janille followed, wearing grimy and—in Garth's case at least—bloodstained combat dress that contrasted cruelly with Maura's crisp gray space-service coverall.

Corin spared a moment to exchange a quick, wordless hug with Janille, then turned to Maura. "How is he?"

"About as you'd expect. Right now, I don't think he can even summon up a command to keep you out of his presence. So let's hurry." She led Corin through the battlecruiser's passageways to a hatch guarded by Marines. They passed through into a briefing room where a dismal collection of surviving officials and courtiers stood in a silent half-circle around a table. Hunched over the table in a fashion strangely reminiscent of the downfallen palace on the planet below was a solitary figure in a plain planetside uniform. The overhead lights glinted off his broad bald scalp and the little golden dragons on his shoulders.

"Father," Maura said quietly, "here is Vice Admiral Marshak. He's come up from Dracopolis to report to you personally. He was with Rod."

With her last four words, something seemed to stir to life in the Emperor. His massive bald head lifted, and his bloodshot eyes took in the sweat-stained flight suit Corin hadn't taken time to change.

"With Rod? You mean with him when . . . ?" Ivar couldn't continue.

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty. He and I arrived at the spacefield earlier today. We were in AF-7's set to be released from our specially reconstructed shuttle, for we had advance knowledge of the attempt on his life. We shot down our two attackers." Corin took a deep breath. Best to have this out now. At any rate, there was no point in trying to conceal what Ivar already knew. "One of them was your son Teodor. Roderick shot him down."

The Emperor's eyes squeezed shut and his face contorted around the wail he couldn't release. "So I've been informed. I can hardly . . . no, I can't believe Ted was involved in any assassination attempt." He rose shakily to his feet and assumed the ramrod posture that was natural to him. His voice rose, as though trying to recapture its old resonance by sheer loudness. "I'm going to order a full investigation, to find out what really happened today. Ted would never have conspired against me! Never!"

"No, sir. Our best information is that he had no direct involvement in the plot to bring about your death by causing the palace to fall. That was Chewning and Liang, acting without his knowledge. The only death he sought was Roderick's."

"But Rod killed him! You just said so."

"Yes, sir . . . in self-defense. And not intentionally. He had previously given very explicit instructions that his brother was not to be killed. He launched the missile but didn't know the identity of the pilot he was shooting out of the sky until too late."

For the first time, the Emperor seemed to become aware of Corin as a separate individual. His eyes narrowed, as though his grief was coalescing into rage and zeroing in on an available target. "You keep using words like `previously' and `advance knowledge.' If you and Rod had reason to think there was some kind of plot, why didn't you come to me with it? Answer me that!"

Corin's spirit wavered momentarily—this wasn't just the Emperor, it was also Ivar Brady-Schiavona—but then firmed up, and he spoke in a voice that held respect but no apology. "Because you wouldn't have believed it, sir. We had to act on our own to preserve Rod's life—and yours."

"It's true, sir." Jason Aerenthal stepped forward from the group around Ivar, where he'd stood so inconspicuously that Corin hadn't noticed him. "We couldn't compromise ourselves by involving the established security apparatus, for we had no way of knowing how deep the conspiracy ran. And, in fact, events have shown that the Imperial Guards were thoroughly penetrated."

Ivar turned to look at the agent. "So you were part of it too," he said in a voice that was dull with lack of surprise.

"So was I, Father," Maura spoke up. "And Aline Tatsumo. And General Krona. The only military resources we used were those of the Permanent Task Group for Special Operations, of whose loyalty we could be certain."

"And which rescued you just before . . ." Aerenthal let his voice trail off, and glanced downward as though toward the unarguable evidence of the fallen palace below.

"But Ted didn't have to be killed! If you'd told me, we could have acted in time to prevent all this. We could have stopped Chewning and Liang . . . and Ted would still be alive!"

"No, sir. Vice Admiral Marshak is absolutely correct. It would have been an impossible conundrum for you. In order to accept the existence of the conspiracy, you would have had to face the fact of Teodor's involvement in it."

"But they were using him! He was only a dupe!"

"You know better than that, sir." Everyone present gasped. But Aerenthal went inexorably on. "Granted, he was ignorant of the fact that you yourself were a target. But he was a willing participant—indeed, the trigger man, as it were—in the attempted murder of Roderick. And if his life had been spared, how long would it have been before someone else made a `dupe' of him? As your heir apparent, he would always have attracted intriguers like a light attracts moths—especially since he'd shown himself unable to resist their blandishments."

Corin, standing in shocked silence like everyone else, wondered if Aerenthal's audacity had anything to do with . . . but no. The Emperor always wore mind-shield devices, miniaturized to the point of near invisibility. Besides, exercising telepathic control over the Emperor was a concept his mind shied away from, rejecting out of hand the very possibility. A physical attack upon the Imperial person was a trivial crime by comparison.

And yet . . . when Ivar spoke, it was not with the expected bellow of rage. Instead, his voice held a note which Corin would only later come to recognize as one of pleading. "But he was loyal to me! He . . . he loved me."

Aerenthal's look of compassion was equally out of character. "No, sir. You loved him. He wasn't actively disloyal to you in his own mind, but loyalty as you feel and understand the concept was beyond the scope of his character. Eventually, just as being heir apparent wasn't enough for him, being the officially designated successor wouldn't have been enough either. There would have been no lack of sycophants to point out to him that after Roderick's death, your death was the logical next step. When Roderick acted in self-defense, he was defending you as well."

Ivar sank back into his chair. "I wish I could be sure of that," he whispered. "All I know for certain is that he killed Ted."

"Not by design, sir," Corin reminded him. "And . . . well, I've seen him, down on the planet. I'd never thought anything could destroy him, but this very nearly has. The fact that he unintentionally killed his brother, and . . . your refusal to receive him."

"I can't."

"You must, sir." Corin didn't let himself think consciously about what he had just said, and the Emperor seemed barely aware of it anyway. "He's the heir apparent now. You—and the Empire—can't afford to have him go to pieces."

Something seemed to reawaken in Ivar. His voice was still low, but it was no longer a whisper. "Very well. Send for him."

Roderick entered, still flight-suited like Corin, and walked—no, marched—to where the Emperor sat upright. He came to attention, and for some fraction of eternity their eyes met in silence, looking out of immobile faces.

"Ah, Your Imperial Majesty," a minister jittered, "shall we leave you and your son—that is, Admiral Brady-Schiavona—alone?"

Ivar's massive head shook ponderously. "No. This isn't just a private family matter. It concerns the Empire. Especially inasmuch as I have an announcement to make." He turned his brooding gaze back to Roderick. "Admiral, it is my understanding that you admit to having personally killed my . . . your . . . that is, the heir apparent. Is this correct?"

Roderick had gone from his position of attention to an "at ease" that was barely less stiff. Now, fresh pain caused his frozen features to shiver anew. "That is correct, sir. I acted—"

The Imperial hand waved Roderick to silence. "You needn't explain. Admiral Marshak and Inspector Aerenthal have made matters clear to me. I have been brought reluctantly to an understanding of the events leading to the death of . . . of . . ."

Corin, standing inconspicuously off to the side alongside Maura, Garth and Janille, had a clear view of the Emperor's right cheek. Unbelievably, a single tear was making its slow way downward.

Roderick's features worked convulsively, as though emotions were battling behind them. No, Corin corrected his initial impression. Not fighting. Struggling to get out. Then, as though he'd forgotten the presence of everyone save the two of them, Roderick spoke to his father in a rush, the outpouring of years of pent-up hurt. "Why, Father? Why? It's always been this way, all our lives. After what's happened, with all you know now, you're still . . . Damn it, if I had tried to kill him, and died in the attempt, would it be the same? Would it?"

Everyone stood paralyzed, wishing to be somewhere else.

"I don't know," Ivar whispered dully. "I don't know whether it would or not. And I don't know why. All I know is that you're wrong in one thing. You're wrong in accepting the responsibility for his death. In fact the responsibility is mine. You see, if this had been handled through official channels, it might have been possible to spare him. But it couldn't be handled that way, could it? You and your friends had no choice but to act as a secret cabal. You couldn't come to me, because you were absolutely right about my blindness and stupidity and . . ." As everyone in the room watched, stupefied, the Imperial features crumbled. It was like granite dissolving—an offense against the natural order of things.

"Stop, Father," Roderick gasped. "Don't say that. Don't talk as though there's something wrong with wanting to believe the best about your own son, with not wanting to see him killed. God knows I . . . I didn't want him killed either." And his tears were flowing as freely as his father's.

Ivar's head lifted and his voice solidified into its rigid formality of old. "My attitude may have been a natural one. But I cannot allow myself any form of self-deception where the security of the Empire is at stake. Nevertheless, I did. I failed. You had to save me—and the Empire—from my own folly. I proved myself unfit to be Emperor. Therefore, I take this opportunity to announce my abdication in your favor, effective immediately."

For what seemed like a long time but wasn't, there was absolute silence in the room. Then a hubbub of astonishment and consternation arose. Roderick's voice rose above it and halted it.

"No! Father, I won't accept it! You're not thinking clearly. The Empire needs you. You're the symbol of the restoration—the personification of what people want the Empire to be. You can't quit now. It would be . . . desertion."

Ivar flinched as though the word was a slap in the face. Aerenthal spoke smoothly into the silence. "He's right, Your Imperial Majesty. Our newly restored unity is fragile. Your personal prestige is one of the things holding it together."

"But I can't continue to function as Emperor, knowing what a sham that `prestige' is."

Corin doubted he had any business speaking up. He did anyway. "You may consider yourself inadequate, sir, but no one else does."

"Furthermore," Aerenthal resumed, "aside from your own personal stature, a new dynasty needs continuity. A change of Emperors now would be a hurtful jolt—especially in the present confused circumstances. Coming before the dust of today's extraordinary events has settled, your abdication could be made to look like the result of a palace coup. It would place a permanent cloud over Roderick's reign."

"You see, Father?" Roderick stepped closer and placed his hands on the dragon-bedecked shoulders. "You have to stay on." Sounds of agreement arose on every side.

"Very well," Ivar responded, firmly but with no enthusiasm. "I'll remain on the throne for a couple more years. That should be enough to let the dust settle, as Inspector Aerenthal put it. But I'm going to immediately designate you as my heir, and begin involving you more and more in the actual business of ruling—especially on the civilian side. By the time I do abdicate, you'll be practically the co-Emperor. I mean for this to be the smoothest succession in history."

"Are you absolutely certain of this, sir? Given your excellent anagathic susceptibility, you have a lot of good years left. Whereas I . . ." Roderick's voice limped to a halt.

Ivar's face, still wet with tears, formed a smile that was, in its way, as astonishing as its earlier collapse into grief. "All the more reason for me to get out of your way without unnecessary delay, Rod. I wish the Empire—and I—could have you longer. But a few decades of you will be better than a century of someone else. You see, Rod—it doesn't matter."

Heedless of everyone present, father and son fell into a long-belated embrace.

After a moment, Ivar held Roderick at arm's length, and something besides grief seemed to awaken to tentative life behind his eyes. "Still, you've raised an important concern. This transition period should give you time to marry and produce an heir of your own. You need to get busy on that, you know."

Involuntarily, Roderick's eyes met Aline Tatsumo's across the room.

Corin and Janille weren't altogether sure what sort of courtesies to render when they stepped through the door into Roderick's office. He still held the rank of full admiral, but was on an indefinite leave of absence from the Fleet. And he was wearing civilian clothes, as was now fitting.

There were only a few officials with automatic access to the Imperial presence. The Inspector General—a title Aerenthal continued to refuse, preferring his freedom of action—and the Grand Admiral were two of them; but these were essentially dead-end positions, reserved for distinguished elderly wheelhorses of Inspectorate and Fleet respectively. More vital was the three-member Grand Council: the Chancellor and Grand Secretary—largely honorifics by now, but whose countersignatures were needed to authenticate any Imperial decree—and the Prime Minister, who oversaw the ministries that actually administered the Empire. Those ministries' heads traditionally came from the ranks of the career civil servants, but the Prime Minister did not. This was the office to which Ivar had appointed Roderick shortly after declaring him the heir designate.

As they advanced toward his desk, Corin and Janille became aware that the new Prime Minister wasn't alone. Garth stepped out from the shadows off to the side.

"Come on in," Roderick greeted them informally. "Sit down. Sorry to drag you in here so abruptly. But I've been talking to Garth, here. I pointed out to him that . . . well, that Father and I owe him a special debt, inasmuch as he was the one to realize the full dimensions of what Chewning and Liang were up to."

"The fact is, Admiral," said Garth, who'd remained standing and who obviously had no truck with Roderick's new civilian title, "you owe all three of us. But I'm not complaining that you picked me as the first to ask what you could do in return."

"Well, yes, I did. And," Roderick continued, turning to the two newer arrivals, "I do plan to put the same question to the two of you, as well. But in the meantime, he asked to have you here when he gave me an answer."

"Right," Garth affirmed. "I thought you ought to hear it."

"The suspense is unnerving me," Janille remarked.

Garth began to pace in his massive way, as though finding unexpected difficulty expressing long-formulated thoughts. "Admiral, the Restoration Wars are over. The recent unpleasantness was their final flicker. You don't need the Permanent Task Group for Special Operations anymore. I'm requesting that you deactivate it and let me reconstitute the Deathstriders Company with all its personnel who're inclined to go along with the idea—the overwhelming majority, I have reason to think."

Roderick frowned. "Garth, you know I can't do that. We're going to enforce to the hilt the ban on free companies with space-combatant ships and weapons of mass destruction. What made sense for Armand Duschane makes sense for us, now that we're running a unified Empire. No serious government can allow that kind of capability in private hands."

"I understand. But what I have in mind won't present that kind of problem."

Roderick's frown intensified. "Are you telling me you'd be willing for the Deathstriders to revert to being strictly a ground-assault outfit? But by now the powered-armor component is a relatively minor operation."

"Oh, no. I want to keep all the outfit's present combatant and support ships I can make up crews for. And, to repeat, I think that will be most of them."

"But Garth, I just got through explaining that nobody but the Fleet is going to be allowed to have that kind of stuff anywhere within the Empire."

"That's the whole point," the big heavy-planet man explained patiently. "We won't be within the Empire."

Janille was the first to break the perplexed silence. "Do you mean you're going . . . outside?" Corin shared her astonishment, although he knew with his forebrain that the feeling was logically indefensible. It was only a culturally learned response, inherited from generations of ancestors who could imagine no reason for any civilized human to venture beyond the Empire's completely immaterial boundaries.

"Yes, I am. You see, the Empire is going to be at peace now. There's going to be no place for mercenaries any more. Even the ones who abide by the restrictions are going to get squeezed out eventually. But out among the Beyonder stars, it'll be a different matter."

"Not as much as it used to be," Roderick cautioned. "The Tarakans have gotten their part of space relatively organized."

"True. Sooner or later, either they're going to create a genuine empire out there or—more likely—the new dynasty will incorporate them into ours. So I mean to steer clear of them. But on the far side of the Empire, out beyond the Serpens/Bootes frontier, it's still chaos and anarchy. There'll be plenty of work for us there. Also . . . Um, I don't think I ever told you this, but before we met I was resolved to make myself Emperor."

"No, I can't recall you ever mentioning that," Roderick acknowledged drily.

"Well, just before our first meeting I . . . learned that I'd been wrong about my destiny. It wasn't to put myself on the throne but to help put you there."

Roderick's eyes narrowed. "How, exactly, did you `learn' this?"

"Never mind. The point is, now that I've fulfilled that purpose there's nothing left for me in the Empire. And yet I still feel I have a destiny, if you want to call it that, of some kind. I need to go and find out what it is."

Janille spoke up, in the tones of one asking a question whose answer is already known. "Why did Corin and I have to be here for this announcement?"

"You deserved to be the first to hear it. And also . . . I wanted to personally offer you the chance to come with me, if you want to." He looked at both of them, one after another, and it may have been that his gaze rested on Janille longer.

And yet, his voice had held the same note hers had. And his face wore no surprise when she replied, "I'm staying." Then she corrected herself. "We're staying."

"Yes," Corin affirmed. "We have something to stay for, now. We grew up thinking we did. Then we got disillusioned. People generally do. But not many people have the chance, after that disillusionment, to recover in fact what they'd once thought they had. This is a gift. We're not about to throw that away—or each other."

"I thought that might be the answer. But I had to ask." Garth was smiling. Corin saw that Janille was smiling too. So, he realized, was he. After a moment, Roderick cleared his throat.

"Well, Garth, I think it ought to be possible to accommodate you—on one condition. Before you go, I'd like you to get together with Jason Aerenthal and work out a method by which you can deliver occasional information packets to some out-of-the-way system on our frontier out there, to be picked up by his people." Roderick raised a forestalling hand as Garth started to speak. "Calm down! I don't mean to imply that you'll be working for the Fleet. You'll be a free agent. All I ask is that you occasionally send us any information you think we can use—including your own opinions, which I've learned to respect—about conditions out there. The Empire has always had miserable intelligence concerning the Beyonders. Lethal surprises like the Zyungen and the Tarakans have seemed to burst on us out of nowhere. It's one of the things I want to change. I'm asking your help in that, as a favor."

"I suppose I could do that—as long as it's a strictly one-way communication, with no directives or `suggestions' coming back in my direction."

"Then it's settled." Roderick flashed his famous grin. He'd been able to do that more and more lately. "And now, I think we could all use a drink."

They went to the bar, which gleamed polished mahogany in the afternoon light of Sigma Draconis. That light streamed through a wide window that overlooked Dracopolis. Not as much light as they'd been accustomed to, of course . . . but Corin somehow doubted if Roderick would ever build another floating palace. . . .

He dismissed the thought as they busied themselves with drinks: brandy for Roderick, vodka for Garth, local whiskey and soda for himself and Janille. As they prepared to raise their glasses, something in Roderick's expression made them all pause.

"You know, Garth," Roderick said with careful casualness, "a little earlier, I started to ask how you'd found something out. The subject got changed. But the fact is, the three of you often seem to have bits of unique knowledge—premonitions, almost. I've always wondered how that is." He paused, leaving a silence to be filled.

The three looked at each other. As though by common, unvoiced consent, Corin spoke for them. "Rod, you mentioned that you'd planned to ask each of us if there was any favor you could do us."

"Yes, I did say that," Roderick acknowledged, caught off balance by the seeming irrelevance. "And I meant it. As Garth said, I owe all three of you."

"Well, I'm prepared to give you my answer right now." Corin held the eyes of the man to whom he could never reveal their curious relationship, and all lightness dropped from his voice. "My favor is that you never ask us that."

Janille spoke before the silence could stretch. "That's my request too. So you've got it double."

For an instant, Roderick said nothing. But his curiosity couldn't have been plainer if he had blurted out the question of why they thought him unworthy to share any secret they might possess.

But I don't, Corin thought at him, wishing for once that he'd had Aerenthal's gift. That information is something I'd have to deny to you. And I never want to deny you anything. 

Then Roderick smiled again. "Very well. You've asked; and, to repeat, I owe you. We'll say no more about it."

He lifted his glass, and the amber liquid it held caught the light of Sigma Draconis and glowed the color of the Imperial dragon.