deemed necessary in Monopolitan systems closer to their domain. This was believed to lie beyond the neutral imperium-conglomerate of Good Yrich, a fact of some importance to the man in the black masque. Another stab of love and conscience assailed him. For a moment he regretted the adamancy of his resolve.
Perusing this morning's event summary, an enthillement for the Ceo's Drectors hand-delivered before dawn by liveried couriers, he had noted the arrival of one of the stiquemen's interstellar ships, driven by starsails like human vessels, yet proportioned weirdly and possessing improvements not well understood by the few Hanoverians motivated to sufficient curiosity to investigate them. It was not that the stiquemen attempted to keep their technology a secret. Those beings— three measures tall and, preferring to go naked, thille-thin not just in their extremities (of which they possessed six, not counting short manipulators growing in hornlike pairs upon their fist-sized heads) but in their torsos as well—claimed they were no more than simple explorers and traders. Trade they did, driving hard bargains and yielding interesting and valuable commodities in exchange. It was clear that they hailed from a vital, expanding civilization, innocently eager to share what it knew for information about how other species did things.
Even after all this time, few within the byzantine environs of the 'Droom were willing to take the stiquemen at their word. To whatever extent they were believed open and honest in their protestations, for that very honesty they were held to be—by the more twisted Monopolitan minds he was compelled to deal with every day—especially enigmatic and inscrutable! He took a breath. Twisted Monopolitan minds? Who was he to criticize, even in his thoughts? Unless he found a third alternative in his personal affairs which respected the rights, wishes, and personal sovereignty of an individual whom he loved, and for whom he wished nothing but—
"Why bind me!" He was distracted by the sound of a too-familiar voice. "If it ith not the Executor-General himthelf, hanging back here with all of uth mere rabble! Pray tell me—and pray tell my eagerly awaiting lithenerth,
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Drector-Advithory old boy, as Piotr Megrim-Boutade would put it, what ith it to be with the gell, gavage or gavelleth?"
The individual who had spoken, pushing an autothille into his face and diverting the current of his thoughts, was none other than Percival Keynes-Bovril, Esquire, an obnoxious snoop employed by one of the many nongovernmental equivalents of the news service he received each morning. Keynes-Bovril wore sky-blue satin tunic and trousers, lace-trimmed at cuffs and collar. Rather than the gainesborough which might have been expected, the masque he had chosen was of himself, and quite transparent.
Lowering his own masque a moment, that this professional back-biter could appreciate the hostile intensity of his expression, Drector-Advisory Sedgeley Daimler-Wilkinson, Executor-General to Ceo Leupould IX of the Monopolity of Hanover, held before his chest the ebon dumaspere he had adopted when, for reasons of significance to himself and no one else, he had retired his ivory truman years before.
"Keynes-Bovril, the lisp you have begun affecting lately— you will remain silent when addressed by your betters! —may be all the rage, but it inspires in me an impulse to rearrange your dentition. This may not improve your elocution, but it would work wonders with my blood pressure!"
Keynes-Bovril stepped backward, stumbling against a tray-laden yensid. "I—"
The Drector-Advisory interrupted. "I shall yield to the impulse should I hear you utter her name, or refer to any of my family, in public or in private, ever again. Is my meaning clear enough, even for you?"
Keynes-Bovril lowered the autothille, gulped behind his masque, bobbed his head in intimidated acknowledgement, and glanced about to see whether they had been overheard. Raising his eyebrows as if spying some familiar face, he turned, thrust the autothille before him, and hurried away. The Executor-General resumed his own ebon masque and his even blacker thoughts.
The masque was esoteric, but not altogether obscure. Dumas and other nineteenth-century writers were still admired, although the present age, he thought, bore greater resemblance to the sixteenth or seventeenth. Even now he
cherished hope that it might provoke revealing inquiry. For a while, having given up the truman, he had considered Odysseus, nevadasmith, dreyfus or zola, the more pointed edmonddantes, even the accusing countenance of his dead brother, Clyve. He was acquainted with a widower who wore the likeness of his deceased wife, even a madwoman who had adopted that of a dead pet. Each of these, whatever their respective merit, offered disadvantages with regard to his position at the *Droom, or might have proven disquieting to his niece, who, in this matter, was blameless. How dearly he wished he could say the same for her more recent and embarrassing lapse. He shook his head, realizing he would not be able to avoid thinking about it, Keynes-Bovril or no Keynes-Bovril.
The fact was that, where her single, and, he regretted, most conspicuous shortcoming was concerned, Daimler-Wilkinson felt himself to blame. His greatest error was that he had not caused the dance to be more emphasized in her education. Perhaps someday he would attempt to tell her this. Was she capable of understanding? Thirty-first-century Hanover, he often reflected, was a milieu of complex, interweaving dances. While Lx)reanna had grown to acquit herself admirably at the literal sort of dance—even Brougham and his cosapients, suffering utter tone-deafness, adored watching her—he feared his failure had been total when it came to teaching her the figurative.
He reached into a pocket from absentminded habit and an example came to mind. Each day, within the glittering *Drooms and council chambers of many imperia-conglom-erate (according to elaborate and stringent protocol), the most brilliantly conceived, carefully polished, sarcastically pointed pleasantries were exchanged between limp-wristed, expensively perfumed, richly overdressed diplomats and ministers plenipotentiary, in every respect (he admitted with the wry honesty which the privacy of his thoughts afforded him) like himself.
He withdrew his hand, and the object it sought, from his pocket. Almost to the man, each availed himself of one or more perforate-ended inhalers which had originated aboard early starships where smoking with an open flame might prove disastrous. Handsomely hand-wrought, exquisitely
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embellished, containing a broad spectrum of aromatics— stimulants and stimulus-barriers—according to the tastes of their diverse and various owners, they were the thirty-first-century equivalent (he was aware from his own historical studies which had provided example for Loreanna's) of eighteenth-century snuffboxes. Daimler-Wilkinson raised his own engraved inhaler to his nostrils, breathing the narco-stimulant he preferred. His mind cleared (or he had the impression it did) and he went ahead with his thoughts.
These tokens of conspicuous sophistication were often tucked into lace-ruffled sleeves beside diminutive, elegant, but quite deadly thrustibles. This, he thought, told the tale for an era entire. He himself had soldiered with distinction (and a murderous reputation which still served him) as a youth in the Ceo's wars. Likewise, the perfumed, effeminate DeFender-Gibson, he knew, had commanded the first devastating assault against the poison-atmosphered d'Kram-nampach. Keynes-Bovril was rumored to have sired fifty bastards upon Hanover alone, manifesting a differing but undeniable virility.
Dance is an art, he reflected. The medium common to all art is contrast, discernible in the dance being practiced at the *Droom as effete affectation versus forthright brutality. Those were the parameters of the age, sweeping outward off" the pampered, savage capital worlds of each respective imperium-conglomerate, through the dark and endless Deep in concentric rings of apparent—and deceptive—contradiction, like the alternating peaks and troughs which a cast stone sends across a body of calm water.
Thus, at one end of a long, complicated chain of events, powdered, perfumed, and polished politicians promulgated protocol and policy. At the other, in the unutterable blackness of the Deep, starfleets clashed under the iron-spined command of lace-uniform
ed and lisping officers, re-formed and clashed again. Controlled by the same sort of men—soft at the most superficial level, brutal at the most fundamental— slave-armies clawed and blasted one another for fee-simple ownership of the known galaxy. Oplytes, dreaded devourers, disminded devastators, marched across the screaming faces of entire worlds, raping men, women, and children alike, feeding upon their violated bodies, looting whole civiliza-
tions for their mincing masters, destroying whatever remained, leaving nothing behind but cinders. And—even Daimler-Wilkinson was astonished to think it—regardless of the particular styles in vogue, it had been this way ten centuries, a dozen lifetimes, fifty generations, a hundred decades, a thousand years. Possibly it had been this way from the beginning of human history.
The man in the black masque sighed. He had made the right decision after all. It had been extremely difficult, particularly when his niece happened to be a beautiful, intelligent, talented, sweet miniature girl-child of fourteen for whom his love was most unstylishly sincere, just as he had loved her father, his own brother, and had later come to love her mother, his brother's wife. But Loreanna, who sought to disown the facts of reality, was acting out a part whether she intended so or not. When, upon her account, the Drector-Advisory and Executor-General to the Ceo of the Monopolity could be accosted, here upon the floor of the 'Droom, by an insect like Keynes-Bovril, survival itself demanded that an end be put to such intransigence.
A blare of enthilled trumpets announced entry of the Ceo and his retinue. Movement was visible at the opposite end of the 'Droom, as dozens in gorgeous attire—ministers, coattail-hangers, sycophants—were outshone and dwarfed by the magnificent form of Leupould himself. The Executor-General shouldered his way through the crowd. He, as the Ceo's advisor, perhaps even as his best friend, had a place upon the upper dais. The masses buzzed with anticipation.
And, of course, he could always claim he was doing it for her own benefit. He was, in a cruel way, the way which prefers euthanizing its own injured housepets to leaving that distasteful chore to some poor servant.
Another concentric ring-ripple. Another pair of contrasts. Another set of apparent contradictions. Love—and something other than love. Loreanna would have to be disposed of, sent away for her own benefit, if not for that of the Monopolity, even if to a purgatory system like Baffridgestar.
Chapter XXXIII: Leupould Imperator
"Thank the Powers—*' the fat man sighed with satisfaction and weariness, "—principally myself, that all the noise is done with for another day. The menagerie's sent away, and I can be plain Leu Wheeler again."
The Ceo of the Monopolity of Hanover interiaced his long, thick fingers behind his bullish neck, stretched his legs, and leaned back in the upholstered chaise his body almost concealed. He was a man of middle years well carried, hirsute to a remarkable degree from the straight black, rather long hair atop his great head, past the curly pelt upon his massive shoulders and chest, to a fur only lighter by comparison adorning his legs and ankles, even down to his toes. Heavy mutton-chop whiskers bedraped his jowls. He turned his fleshy blue-cheeked face, which he was compelled to have shaven twice daily, to address his Drector-Advisory and Executor-General, smiling as he did so, and giving him a broad wink. ^
"The truth is that I love it, Sedgeley. Each dawn I awaken filled with more enthusiasm than I could ever claim as a younger man, rememberin' all over again who I am, and, long before my appointment aide appears to nag me, precisely what lies before me upon the momin's schedule."
Daimler-Wilkinson, for all that he had served the Ceo upon an intimate basis more than twenty standard years— and the man's late father another six before that—never felt altogether comfortable seated in his imposing presence. At the moment they were alone. The Drector-Advisory occupied the front edge of a straight-backed chair a few measures away from Leupould, having arrived with him in these less grandiose chambers, as he did every morning at this time, after the mass audience had ended. In a few minutes, a working luncheon with a dozen other Drectors would be served.
Daimler-Wilkinson had long been aware that "plain Leu Wheeler" enjoyed being Ceo much more than his late father, Winthorpe XVII, ever had. Perhaps as a consequence, Leupould had, in his advisor's opinion, proven the exceptional ruler these times demanded. The Executor-General, however, was not accustomed to hearing him proclaim it, even in so private a setting.
The room they occupied was four measures by six, most of it taken up—so it seemed to the more modestly proportioned Executor-General—by the huge individual who was, whatever the history behind his title, absolute ruler of the mightiest empire in the history of any known species, comprising more than a million planet-bearing suns. It was an unremarkable room with a low ceiling and walls the color and texture of an eggshell. It had no windows, a fact of which Leupould often complained, but which gave those responsible for his safety considerable relief when he retired each day from the 'Droom, a crowded, dangerous setting representing the fulfillment of every bodyguard's nightmares. Two doors opened into one of these walls, that upon the left leading (by a long, circuitous route, for this was part of an annex thrown up bit by bit over several hundred years for the convenience of Ceos and those serving them) from the 'Droom itself. That upon the right led to a chamber with large, well-guarded windows, where they would soon eat while making a start upon the day's real business.
The man whose room it was, however, was far from unremarkable. "Plain Leu Wheeler," ninth of that given name to wield power as Ceo of Hanover, stood taller than many an Oplyte charged with protecting his life. To the inexperienced eye, he appeared obese, an appearance he cultivated, since it had the salubrious effect of putting an opposing politician or would-be assassin off guard. Daimler-Wilkinson was one who knew better. He had often observed Leupould lifting weights (until he grew fatigued from watching it) and afterward swim lap after lap to soften the visibility of what weightlifting had given him. Another reason Leupould appeared fat was that it required an inhuman load to give his muscles definition. At either pursuit, Leupould might have been a champion, although he belittled his skills in the scheme of things. He had once
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informed his shocked Drector-Advisory that striving for such a championship was like demonstrating in pubhc that he was better than anyone at breathing or going to the toilet. However that may have been, next to none of his impressive bulk was fat. He had killed half a dozen of those would-be assassins himself, three his Executor-General knew of with his bare hands at moments when no better weapon was available.
Daimler-Wilkinson shook his head at the remembrance. This was the same man who, "sitting out" his father's long and less-successful reign (while attempting to give every appearance to the contrary), had taught economics at one of Hanover's principal academies. In those rare moments he could spare today, without aid of microscope or any other sort of magnification, he wrote poems with a single-haired brush upon grains of rice, or played the xitherin with such an exquisite touch (it had been claimed; Daimler-Wilkinson had never been any judge of music, himself) as to make grown men weep.
Opposite the doors stood a dozen floor-to-ceiling shelves spreighformed the same color as the wall so as not to detract from items Leupould kept upon them. Among these were autothilles of his family, friends, acquaintances, bits of minerals, botanical and zoological specimens, small sculptures and alien artifacts, other souvenirs from this world or that, and a handful of ancient page-books, each more valuable, the Executor-General guessed, even than the garments Leupould had just cast aside. Entering these chambers, as he did every morning, he had thrown off his spectacular robes, as usual with some deprecating comment. This morning, what he had worn to the mass audience had been delivered from a fashionable old capital-world tailor who affected never having heard of spreighformery, let alone employing it. The price might have supported an ordinary family for a decade. Leupould's quip had been something about "the Imperator's new clothes."
Daimler-Wilkinson had heard him make the same remark upon previous occasions and had given it the chuckle it had once—perhaps—deserved, in part because Leupould did think of new jokes to tell from time to time. Daimler-Wilkinson had never been able to decide whether he served
this enormous and diflftcult man because he was predictable, as consistent and reliable as his father, or for those other moments when, unlike his father, he was unpredictable and brilliant.
The latest addition to the shelves this morning was an elaborate and novel chronometer, a recent gift from offplanet which Leupould had mentioned to him during the audience. Daimler-Wilkinson was uncertain whether it was a genuine antique or a cunning reproduction. A circular display face the size of a man's hand was decorated about its circumference with ancient tally-numbers which scholars called "Roamin'.'* Two pointers, one short and broad, one long and slender, both embellished to the point of indecency, somehow indicated the hour. This was not the principal novelty of the timepiece. Below the face swung a pendulum which made a rather annoying tick-tock noise, its lower edge fashioned in the shape of a head-knife such as he had seen in the hands of laborers upon certain primitive worlds.
Beneath lay a miniature figure in clothing a thousand years out of date, ankles and wrists bound by fine rings. As it put up a mechanical struggle against its restraints, each swing of the pendulum brought the sharpened lower edge closer to its chest. Tick, lock, tick, tock, tick . . .
So clever was the mechanism that he believed he could see the mannequin's eyes widen with each minuscule drop of the descending blade, its mouth forming a tiny O as it "realized" its struggle was in vain, that the hour, and evisceration, approached rapidly. With effort, Daimler-Wilkinson wrenched his own eyes from the hideous timepiece. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick. . .
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