Ural grabbed him by the front of the shirt, hauling the preman to his feet. He slapped him twice, once on each cheek.
Franco went limp.
Ural sighed as his anger dissipated. He’d struck the preman too hard, rendering the drunken fool unconscious. He lowered the bleeding preman onto the couch. Ural had struck Franco’s nose in passing, and it bled profusely.
The couch and rug were ruined in any case. He would replace them. Maybe he’d given the lieutenant a place in his estate too soon. The preman likely thought far too highly of himself and hadn’t learned proper abasement yet. Ural chided himself. Franco was a preman, and for some reason, he felt sorry for the slow-witted fool. He shouldn’t have struck him either, as he’d used the preman to take out his frustration with—
Ural’s upper lip curled. For whatever reason, he wanted Venna, had secretly wanted her for some time. Either the Emperor had subconsciously divined that or Strand had used his Methuselah Man wizardry to discover the truth. He would have to walk carefully during the journey. Strand would likely try to use Venna against him. He would have to guard against his own emotions and desires. He would not plot his cousin’s murder in order to take one of his women. That was evil, and Ural did not want to become evil.
Therefore, I will purge myself of this lust. How to do this, I don’t yet know. But I must discover a way or I will become undone.
If Ural believed in gods or a higher power, he might have prayed for assistance. But he was far too rational to believe in such entities. There was matter, this life and that was it. There was nothing more.
He frowned. How then had concepts of good and evil originally developed? What did those concepts really mean?
Ural smiled wryly and shook his head. He hadn’t drunk enough wine earlier to let himself indulge in such juvenile thoughts. He was Ural, and he would continue to enjoy the good life even as he played the ultimate game of survival in what was quickly becoming the dangerous court of the Emperor of the Throne World.
-32-
The next morning, Ural left for the Emperor’s palace, arriving to find many other highly ranked dominants escorted to the large audience hall. It troubled Ural that the Emperor hadn’t informed him there would be an assembly and that no one had taken him to see the Emperor to learn the details of the meeting.
Instead, Ural endured looks and side-glances from those who realized the same thing. He could see the calculation in their eyes. Once, Golden Ural had been the Emperor’s confidant. He’d led the Invasion Fleet into “C” Quadrant and years later had led the fleet against Lord Drakos as the Throne World joined a Star Watch fleet to deal with the renegade. Now, Ural sat in a cushioned chair in the assembly like the rest of them.
The assembly hall was like a small old-style theater, with a raised stage before the two hundred ornate seats.
At least I’m in the front row, Ural thought. If he’d been placed in back…
He turned to study the assembled. They were the most dangerous and talented dominants of the Throne World, the elite of an elite race. Look, there was Artaxerxes Tar, a lean dominant with scars on his face: a clever tactician who many believed was too bold for his own good. The scars attested to that. Ural saw Samos of Thetis with his white hair and large hands. Samos had the thickest shoulders of all here and a larger harem than even the Emperor. It was said Samos could impregnate a woman simply by looking at her. Ural could have named everyone in attendance. These were calculating and deadly intriguers, and they would be watching the Emperor for any sign of weakness, for any misstep.
A horn blared, and a hush descended upon the assembled.
Ural sat forward, noting the ruffling curtain on the stage. The curtain parted and moved as it opened to a bare stage. In the back of the stage, a door opened, and the Emperor stepped out. There was no fanfare to announce that, just the single horn to gain their attention.
The Emperor wore black garments and boots with a blaster holstered at his hip. He did not have a saber or even a knife. He walked toward the front of the stage, gazing upon the waiting dominants. There was nothing on his face to indicate his mood.
Ural approved of the performance so far. It was understated, showing, hopefully, a balanced mind.
“Soldiers of the Throne World,” the Emperor said. “I come to you today as your captain, as your leader in battle.”
Ural noted the easy and confident manner of the Emperor’s speech, and that it reverberated throughout the hall. That indicated a hidden pickup, which was good. There was no sign of hubris or megalomania as he’d shown the other day.
“Gentlemen, we have a situation,” the Emperor said. “It is not an obvious or quickly apparent situation. Yet, it is there just the same, waiting to trip us so we fall into the dustbin of history. We are by design the deadliest humans in the universe. We all know the tale of how our forbearers left the Commonwealth, desiring to create a master race. Well…” he said, touching his lip. “That isn’t completely accurate. Many of our forbearers had altruistic ideals, wishing to form a race of defenders to watch over the buffoons and retards left behind in the Commonwealth of Planets.”
The Emperor paused, and he smiled. “I’m going to upset many now, but I ask you to bear with me. There is an explanation for our situation, an important one, a critical one, the reason I’ve asked you to attend this session.”
He fell silent as his gaze took in those seated before him. Then he turned to the side and said, “Strand, show yourself.”
Methuselah Man Strand walked onto the stage. He wore red clothes, including red shoes and a red hat. He cringed as hisses and boos rose from the assembled. Even so, Strand continued forth until he stood beside the Emperor, who towered over him.
Ural felt his gut twist and seethe upon sight of Strand. He wanted to boo and hiss with the rest. It was an automatic and primitive reaction upon seeing the evil Methuselah Man.
At last, the Emperor raised his hands, motioning the crowd to silence.
Ural panted along with many others.
“I understand,” the Emperor said smoothly, in a calm voice that showed he was unruffled by their reaction. He acted like a dominant above the rest, and he rested his left hand on Strand’s right shoulder.
The snake of a Methuselah Man looked up as if in gratitude like a dog loving its master.
This is an act, Ural realized. Was it Strand’s or the Emperor’s idea?
“Listen,” the Emperor said, “as I wish to explain my reasoning to you, the paragons of the Throne World.”
The chamber quieted until once more silence reigned.
“We are the New Men, so called by the premen of the Commonwealth of Planets,” the Emperor said. “In ways, the premen have the right of it. We are new. We are superior. But, alas, we have a fatal flaw. That flaw has caused us to fall from our former preeminence. We have dithered these past years, becoming aimless and divided, weakening ourselves in countless ways. Before, we had vision. Now, we seek purpose, and that causes us to choose a hundred different paths. I propose to rectify our single flaw and ensure that we and our descendants rule the stars forever as we follow the righteous path to glory.”
The Emperor smiled coldly. “Years ago, we attempted a quick fix to our flaw when we invaded “C” Quadrant. Because we are who we are, we came within inches of success. However, one of our blood foiled us. I speak of Captain Maddox, he who bears the genes of my cousin Oran. In the end, we struck too soon, too boldly and without thinking through the longer-term consequences. It was my error as much as anyone else’s. Perhaps that is why I feel bound to lead the expedition that will solve our deepest problem and thereby help bring about our eventual and overwhelming victory.”
The Emperor turned and motioned to someone behind the curtain on the stage. A moment later, a young dominant carried a chair, setting it before the Emperor. Then the youth backed away, bowing as he went until he disappeared behind the curtain.
The Emperor sat on the chair, using his left hand to force Strand do
wn beside him, who collapsed suddenly, sitting on his ass at the Emperor’s feet.
There was a soft sound from the crowd, not a sigh, but something akin to a communal sigh of contentment.
Trahey still has the touch, Ural realized. Whatever else has happened to him, he still knows how to speak to a crowd.
“Hand-to-hand, one of us can defeat any ten premen, perhaps as many as fifteen or twenty of the subspecies,” the Emperor said. “With modern weapons, advanced weapons, we can increase that four or five times over. However, given the number of premen—veritable cockroach hordes of them in the galaxy—we cannot hope to defeat them in a sledgehammer contest of war. We must mass and industrialize, and do that again, and again, on countless worlds before we can permanently smash the premen hordes. Yet, to do that, to colonize as I envision, we need millions and then billions of fertile young women. If we attempt to take the women as we have in the past from the lesser premen, it will mean full-scale war against the Commonwealth. Yet, without the masses of nubile young things, we cannot sire enough offspring to colonize hundreds of new worlds. That means we must change the basic equation, fix our flaw.”
The crowd grew more than silent. They were hungry to know his answer, many of them leaning forward.
“Strand was our genetic creator,” the Emperor said. “He failed grotesquely in this one critical area. He allowed us to develop into supermen—compared to the submen hordes back home—but failed to rectify the problem of our lack of a X-chromosome in our sperm. If each of us had X-chromosomes in his sperm, we could sire females as well as males. If we could sire females, they would be superior women to the ones we now possess. Think about that. Each of us has superlative beauties and in great numbers. But if we had female dominants like ourselves, we would have even better mates. They would be more like us, and our offspring could improve to something more than our fathers before us.”
The Emperor looked down at Strand. “This frail old creature used to lord it over the Throne World. He used to enslave our brethren with foul brain implants. We captured and imprisoned him. The reason we didn’t slay him then was for such a day as this. He knows of a world far away from ours. It is a repository of ancient Builder lore, known by him as the Library Planet. If we stormed this world and plumed its depths, we could return to the Throne World with ancient wisdom. Strand could repair what he broke, and we then could begin a new era of colonization. We would change the basic nature of our civilization as we readied for the Great War against the premen.”
Many of those in the audience looked at their neighbors. Strand had always screwed with them. None of them trusted the Methuselah Man snake. Perhaps most of those assembled wondered why the Emperor would trust the most faithless of beings that any of them knew.
“Listen,” the Emperor said from his chair, as if he spoke to each of them in person, as if he confided in each of them separately. “I know that Strand is a snake, a veritable devil. I know he will attempt to trick us. I have debated putting an implant in his mind…but I have thought of a better way. We will use him like a man uses a rag until it is a dirty soiled piece of trash. We will always guard the devil of a Methuselah Man. All of us will join in this sacred task.”
The Emperor leaned forward, and Ural found himself leaning toward the Emperor, and he noticed others around him did likewise.
“This is the great adventure that will remake the Throne World into the seat of a mighty star empire. We will change with it, becoming the nobles of a great era of war and expansion. We will create an army of genetically enhanced space marines and use the ancient science of the Builders to construct mighty spacecraft that will sweep away Star Watch, the Spacers and anything Methuselah Woman Lisa Meyers can cobble together. She made Merovingian warriors that could defeat us. That will never happen to our genetic space marines. They will be superior foot soldiers and yet obedient to the new nobility of the Throne World.”
The Emperor laughed. “The nobles will be called Paragons. That will become a great title indeed. I have asked you here today so that you can voluntarily join the expedition to the Library Planet. I know I’ve told each of you separately that you will join. But I have reconsidered that. I only desire to have brothers in arms who dare. Those who come and explore the Library Planet with me will become the Paragons, will become the new rulers of a thousand worlds. This, gentlemen, is the dawn of a new era. We will build it together and forge an empire in the stars that has no use for Earth. This will be our new Earth. This will be our paradise that will expand in colonized conquest. We will fulfill the destiny of our ancestors and become great. No more will we suffer the indignity of asking premen to aid us. No more will we aid them. They will fall, and we will sweep aside everything else as we grow and consolidate.”
The Emperor stood, and his eyes shined with fanatical power. He laughed. It was an infectious sound. “Strand came to me on his knees. He did so in order to gain his freedom. He begged that I release him from permanent prison, and he cobbled together a reason why I should. He did not know that I would see through his cunning, but he has done us a good service despite himself. He has given me the germ of an idea, that with your help, with your sweat and struggle, we will turn into enteral glory as our names shine down through the ages.”
“Yes!” Artaxerxes Tar shouted.
“That is a noble plan, Sire,” said Samos of Thetis.
Many others cheered.
“It is a great dare,” the Emperor said. “I now ask you, who dares to travel to the Library Planet with me?”
A roar arose as those in the chamber leapt to their feet. Ural was among the last to jump up, but he pumped a fist in the air with the rest of them. He could feel the Emperor’s eyes on him, and then he felt soiled as Strand looked at him.
I’ll join, Ural told himself. I’ll become a Paragon, and if the opportunity arises…
He hated that he thought of Venna lying on corridor tiles looking up at him. He’d tried to put her out of his mind. Well, he would make the decision stick later. For now, he envisioned her in all her glory…and he caught Strand smile smugly.
No, Ural told himself. Don’t even think about murdering Strand or Trahey. Figure out their hidden plan. He knew they had an ulterior motive. But until he discovered it, he would remain the loyal cousin…until Trahey or Strand forced him to act otherwise.
-33-
Far from the Throne World and weeks later, Starship Victory left the Commonwealth and soon exited Human Space as it traveled into the Beyond.
During that time, nothing strange or unusual occurred. Valerie trained her darter crew, and Maddox ran the starship. Balron did not reappear, nor did Half-Life teleport back. Ludendorff hadn’t yet developed a weapon to deal with the ball-of-light entity, although he hadn’t given up trying. Maddox and Meta spent time with the former Iron Lady, and at times, she told them stories about Sandra: her daughter and Maddox’s mother.
Another week passed as Victory maneuvered from one star system to another through Laumer Points. Many of the systems were unexplored, and teams cataloged the basics as fast as they could.
“Really,” Valerie told Maddox a day later over a comm. “I should be taking the darter out. We are a Patrol vessel, and this is the uncharted Beyond.”
“No time for that,” Maddox said, and for him that was the end of the matter.
Nine days later, the starship was a mere 32 light-years from the nexus, if Ludendorff had recalled its galactic location correctly. The last week and a half, they’d come across evidence of Spacers, such as expelled junk drifting in space, a buoy with their signature and a mining balloon collecting deuterium in a gas giant’s upper atmosphere. The evidence did not show recent Spacer voyages, however, as the junk was old, the signal from the buoy sixty years out of date, and the deuterium tanks full and likely had been for some time.
Still, they traveled with sensors straining in every direction. Maddox debated having Valerie take the darter ahead to add to their sensor net but finally nixed the idea.
If Victory had to move fast, he didn’t want to have to worry about picking up the Tarrypin first.
“Sir,” Galyan said later in the day, “I think you should come to the professor’s science laboratory.”
Maddox was speed-skipping rope in a gym, having counted 372 rotations in a row. He did several double spins—two rotations in a single jump—and stopped with a grunt. He hung the rope on a wall peg and turned back to Galyan.
“What’s the professor doing?”
“You should see for yourself, sir.”
Maddox raised an eyebrow, shrugged and headed straight there, still in his gym clothes, deciding he could shower later. Galyan floated along next to him.
Soon, Maddox tried the professor’s lab hatch, but it was locked.
“Open it,” Maddox told Galyan.
There came a click, and the hatch opened. Maddox walked in, finding Ludendorff on a tall stool, hunched over a device at one of the tables. Maddox glanced at Galyan, as nothing seemed out of place.
“Professor,” the holoimage said.
Ludendorff looked up, surprised to see them. He scowled a second later. “I locked the hatch for a reason. I don’t want to be disturbed, as this is delicate work.”
Maddox was staring at the steel-colored band around the professor’s head. It had a small unit attached above the left ear. The unit purred softly.
“What are you wearing?” Maddox asked.
“What?” Ludendorff asked. “Oh, that. I’m surprised you don’t recognize it.”
Maddox cocked his head, and then he did recognize it from the time they faced the Liss cybers with their mental domination abilities. “It’s a telepathic blocking band?”
Ludendorff nodded.
“Is this what you wanted me to see?” Maddox asked Galyan.
“What?” Ludendorff demanded, glaring at the holoimage. “You saw me like this? Were you spying on me?”
“The correct definition is keeping tabs,” Galyan said.
The Lost Secret Page 18