by C. J. Ryan
Dexta! Empress! She smiled to herself and thought, Do I want to be a Lady or a Tiger? Which door should I open, which should I close?
THE BROCKINBROUGH ESTATE SPRAWLED ALONG the cliff top north of Central, overlooking the narrow straits. The main building looked like a medium-sized museum, with columns and arches and domes, while the many outbuildings made Gloria think of a feudal village surrounding a castle. The LASS settled onto a vast greensward in front of the main building, and the occupants debarked amid much bowing, scraping, and fussing by the Brockinbroughs’ liveried attendants. Black-clad Imperial Security personnel were much in evidence, but they didn’t seem to have a lot to do. The Emperor’s arrival was routine in every respect.
Larry and Gareth led Charles and Gloria into the building, playing at being tour guides. Larry explained that the original building had been constructed five hundred years earlier, with various new additions and appendages added as the centuries passed. Some artwork and sculptures by renowned artists were worthy of particular note, especially a life-size rendering of the Spirit that had been done in the early 2900s by Komari. “The Imperial Museum in Central has been begging us to let them have it,” Larry said. “Good thing we didn’t.”
Charles nodded distractedly. Larry noticed the Emperor’s lack of interest.
“Perhaps we should save the grand tour for another time,” Larry said. “I can see that you and Gloria have other things in mind.”
“Can’t slip anything by you, can we?” said Charles, who had his arm around Gloria’s waist.
“Allow me to conduct you to your quarters, then.” It took nearly five minutes to reach them, but it was worth the wait. The bedroom was huge, with high, ornate windows overlooking the strait, and furnishings that would have done Louis XIV proud. The adjoining bathroom gleamed with late-Roman-era decadence.
“And then,” Larry said, conducting them through another door, “there’s this.” He ushered them into a smallish room that was covered—floor, walls, and ceiling—in a deep blue plush fabric that was soft and bouncy. There were no windows or furniture, and only the single door. “A null-room built for two,” Larry explained. “Enjoy. Gareth, let us leave our distinguished guests to their own devices—I’m sure they’ll manage without us.”
“The null controls are voice-activated,” Gareth said as he and Larry left the room and closed the door behind them.
Charles turned to Gloria. “There, now,” he said. “And you always say that Larry is a thoughtless and selfish jerk.”
“He’s probably got peepholes hidden somewhere around here,” Gloria said.
“Then we should give him something to peep at, shouldn’t we?” Charles pulled her close and pressed his lips against hers. When he began pulling at the thin fabric of her dress, Gloria backed away.
“One second,” she said. She opened her handbag and spoke into her pad. “No messages or calls for the next three—make that four—hours. No exceptions.” Then she put the bag down on the soft floor and looked at Charles. “I’m all yours, Chuckles.”
“For four whole hours. I’d much prefer to measure our time together in years, Glory. Or decades.”
“We’re both too young to understand what decades mean,” Gloria said, thinking of Mingus’s five decades of anguish. “Maybe we should just concentrate on the present.”
“I’m willing,” Charles said. “But I need an answer, Glory. If not now, then soon.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. It’s just that there’s so much to think about.” She grinned at him. “For what it’s worth, I think you got Petra’s vote last night.”
“Charming young woman,” he said. “I can see why you like her so much. But if I have the Petra Precinct locked up, perhaps I should do some more campaigning in your district.”
“What did you have in mind? An Imperial Poll?”
“Interest is already rising,” Charles said, “and I predict an imminent eruption of popular support. I intend to stuff your ballot box, my dear.”
“Vote early and often,” Gloria urged him.
Their garments were soon scattered around the room. They wrestled and writhed on the soft floor for a few minutes. Then Charles said, “Computer. We’d like to float about four or five feet off the floor.”
There was a sudden soft hum, coming from all around them, and they clutched each other’s bodies as the null field engaged and gently lifted them into the air. The field stabilized, and Gloria felt the soft pressure from above and below, caressing her like a warm bath. Charles skillfully orbited her, his fingers, tongue, and lips precisely mapping her prominences, bays, and declivities until, his circumnavigation complete, he made his final approach and accomplished his landing with confidence and finesse. They spun and twirled together, locked in a celestial embrace, like ancient gods or randy avian creatures. Gloria raked her fingernails across his back, inspiring redoubled Imperial ardor, until, at last, Charles grunted, growled, and gasped in the ecstasy of release, and Gloria followed him a moment later.
They clung to each other as the tide receded, content to float on the aimless currents like driftwood after a hurricane. Gloria sighed happily and wondered why it couldn’t always be like this with Charles. Maybe, she thought, it could. Maybe…
She abruptly became aware that the door had opened, and Larry and Gareth were standing there, staring and grinning at them. Charles raised his head and snarled, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Larry?”
“What do I think I’m doing, good cousin?” Larry asked. “Why, I think I’m assassinating you!”
Before Charles or Gloria could respond, Larry manipulated some controls on a small electronic device in his hands, and suddenly the air pressed down on them. They fell to the floor with a heavy, jarring impact, but the pressure from above never relented. Gloria felt it crushing her downward against the soft blue of the floor, squeezing the very air out of her lungs. She fought against it, but she was immobilized by the tyrannical, invisible weight. Beside her, she could sense but not see Charles fighting his own futile battle against the enveloping force. She gasped for air but could find none.
“You’re smothering them, Dad,” said Gareth. “Here, let me.” A moment later, Gloria felt the pressure lessening around her head, and she was able to open her mouth and gulp a hard-won breath. But the pressure on her chest and limbs never relented.
“Sorry,” said Larry. “Gareth is much more adept with these gizmos than I am.” Gloria managed to tilt her head upward enough to see that Gareth now had the control device in his own hands. Father and son continued standing just beyond their feet, smiling at them.
“Are you out of your mind?” Charles demanded in a labored gasp.
“Not in the least,” Larry assured him. “I’m in complete possession of all my faculties, and I’m about to accomplish something that has never been done before. In the long and bloody history of our glorious Empire, many have assassinated one Emperor, but I shall be the first to have dispatched a second.” He shook his head. “A pity the history books will never give me the credit I deserve.”
Gloria was able to look toward Charles. “What is he talking about?”
Charles gritted his teeth and said nothing.
“He never told you?” Larry asked. “Not surprising, I suppose. Still, I think you should know the truth before you die. Do you want to tell her, Charles, or shall I?”
“You bastard!” Charles growled.
“Calling me names will get you nothing,” Larry said. He looked at Gloria. “Haven’t you ever wondered about the Fifth of October?” he asked her. “Haven’t you ever asked yourself why Charles was fortuitously away on Luna when the conspirators were doing their bloody work in Rio? Didn’t it ever seem a trifle too convenient? No? Well, no matter. It never occurred to anyone else, either, thankfully.”
“I don’t believe it,” Gloria said flatly.
“You should…shouldn’t she, Charles?”
“You
incredible son of a bitch! Let us go now and I’ll forget about this.”
“I think not,” Larry replied. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the Fifth of October. You see, Gloria, I planned the whole thing. And, of course, Charles was in on it.”
“I never did a thing, Glory!” Charles protested. “I swear it!”
“That’s true,” Larry conceded, “in a sense. I told him what I was going to do, and he never lifted a finger to prevent it from happening. He was content to let events take their course, and even cooperated to the extent of arranging to be elsewhere at the crucial moment. No, he never actually did anything—and that was his crime. My own crime was much more elaborate. Over the course of more than a year, I carefully set the whole thing in motion. I recruited and coerced my assassins, and gave them a vision of the glorious destiny that awaited them once they disposed of the dour and despicable Gregory. The coup would elevate them to power and end the corrupt dynasty of the Hazars, once and for all. I planned it out for them to the finest detail, and convinced them that they would be fools not to play the roles I had assigned them. Ah, it was a true thing of beauty!”
Gloria couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her fear multiplied as she realized that Larry was entirely serious.
“And,” Larry continued, “once my cast of conspirators was in place, I assembled a second band of plotters whose task it would be to betray the first. Then—and here is the true genius of the thing—still a third group, to dispatch the second once their work was done. That third group, small and tightly organized, professional killers all, knew only what little I told them and vanished into the depths of the galaxy once their own job was concluded. The result of it all, of course, was a dead Emperor, with two dead sons and three dead nephews, and a stage full of dead and eternally silent conspirators, plus some living but embarrassed Imperial Security men who imagined that it was their own efforts that had aborted the coup. All of which left the throne to none other than the callow youth who now lies beside you, awaiting his own demise. Clever, don’t you think?”
Gloria wanted to believe it was a lie, but couldn’t. She could just glimpse Charles out of the corner of her eye, his face furrowed in impotent rage.
“Now,” said Larry, “you might well ask yourself why I did all of this for the benefit of a young cousin whose company I enjoyed but whose rise to the throne would do me little good. That’s a question you might have asked, as well, Charles. If you had any sense, you would have had me killed, but I was reasonably certain that you wouldn’t. You’re really a little too softhearted for your job. But you were convenient.
“I, of course, could never be Emperor, given my scarlet past. The Council of Lords would never have approved of it, nor would Parliament have confirmed my accession. Gareth was too young, then, so the throne would have passed to Cousin Andrew. He would have made far too clever and competent an Emperor—for my purposes—so it had to be you, Charles. You would serve as a competent placeholder until the time drew nigh for the second act of my little drama. Which it has.”
“I almost did have you killed,” Charles breathed. “Spirit help me, I should have.”
“But you didn’t, and now it’s too late. We had some fun, cousin, but now it’s time for you to die. Gareth, you see, is now of age. I’ll step aside, and the Council of Lords will be so relieved to have me out of the way that they’ll anoint my son without a second thought. Parliament will go along with it, and the people of the Empire will happily accept Gareth the First as their new Emperor, then get on with their lives.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” Charles said.
Larry shook his head dismissively. “Of course I will,” he said. “I did before, and this time it will be much simpler, much cleaner. No messy bodies lying about, no inconvenient doubts about what happened. Oh, I would have preferred not to have done it in my own home, but the opportunity was just too good to let pass. You see, the deaths of Emperor Charles V and his once and future wife will not be the result of assassination. No, it will be the tragic outcome of their well-known propensity for self-indulgence and sexual excess. Show them, Gareth.”
Gareth held up a small, flexible bulb with a long tube extending from it.
“You know of Orgastria-29, of course,” said Larry. “Well, this dispenser contains a new drug called Orgastria-48. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s not generally available yet because it can have some unfortunate side effects—death being one of them. When people crunch down on a dose of it, the sudden shock to their system, the sudden overload of sensory input, can be fatal. Some sort of neurological spasm, I gather, resulting in the shutdown of the autonomic nervous system. The brain stops functioning, the heart stops beating, breathing ceases, and death results within a few minutes.”
Gloria managed not to cry out in joy and relief. She already had the neutralizer! It was right there in her handbag, just a few inches away from her left hip. But her relief died stillborn when she realized that it might as well have been on Earth. She was completely immobilized, and could not possibly reach the lifesaving antidote.
“Just to be sure, what we have here is a concentrated saline solution with what would probably be three or four times the ordinary dose, for each of you. I’m assured that this will be more than sufficient to terminate the vital processes. You see how it will look, don’t you? When your bodies are found and examined, it will seem that our randy young Emperor and his famously lascivious ex-wife overindulged themselves, and tragically fucked each other to death. Lovely, don’t you think?”
Charles seemed to strain against his invisible bonds but could make no headway. Finally, he relaxed and whispered, “I’m sorry, Glory.”
Sorry didn’t seem to cover it. Gloria said nothing and concentrated on trying to move her left hand. She managed to flex her fingers slightly, but true motion was still impossible.
“What else?” Larry absently asked himself. “Oh, yes. This room is soundproofed, so it will do you no good to yell or scream—but feel free. It’s also shielded against electromagnetic emanations of any sort, so your wrist-coms will be entirely useless. About two minutes after the drug is administered to you, the null field will automatically relax, so that your spasmodic death throes will look realistic. By then, of course, you won’t even know what’s happening. And, naturally, Gareth and I will be elsewhere at the moment of your death, with plenty of respectable witnesses to attest to our innocence and purity. That, I believe, covers just about everything. Any final words?”
Charles said nothing. Gloria strained against the null field to move her hand, but couldn’t.
“No? Good, I wasn’t looking forward to hearing them. Well, then, Gareth? Be a good boy and go kill your uncle and his slut.”
“Yes, Dad,” Gareth said obediently. “Just a second, I gotta adjust the field first.” He fiddled with the controls, and Gloria felt a slight contraction of the field. It seemed that the pressure along her left side had lessened, as if she were now on the very edge of the field’s restricting influence. With a supreme effort, she managed to move her left hand an inch.
Gareth walked around them, skirting the field, then knelt next to Charles. “You’ll never have an easy night’s sleep, Gareth,” Charles told him.
“Who the fuck cares?” Gareth asked. He reached out and clamped Charles’s nostrils together between his left thumb and forefinger. Gloria watched, helplessly, as Charles pursed his lips together and held his breath as long as he could. But eventually, inevitably, he had to gasp for air, and when he did, Gareth quickly stuck the long tube into his mouth and squeezed the bulb.
Charles didn’t react for the first few seconds, then suddenly jerked in a convulsive spasm. Only his heels and shoulders made contact with the floor as his body stiffened, arched, and quivered. He gave a strangled cry that sounded like Gloria’s name, but then words gave way to mere animal sounds.
Gareth circled around Charles and approached Gloria. She tried to ignore him, ignore the convulsing man at her side,
and place herself in a Qatsima mind-set. She retreated inward, reaching out for the center of herself, where time and distance, matter and energy were all one. She felt Gareth squeezing her nose and readied herself for the precise sequence of actions she had plotted. There would be no more than a few seconds to act. When she knew she was as ready as she could make herself, she opened her mouth as if to gasp for air, even though she did not yet need to breathe. She felt the warm, salty liquid spraying against the back of her throat, and at the same instant consciously closed that passage. Another second went by, and she arched her body in an imitation of what Charles had done. Her left hand shot out and thrust into the open handbag. She continued to jerk and writhe in her fake convulsion as she frantically fumbled in the bag for the feel, the shape, of the neutralizing lozenges.
Meanwhile, Gareth had gotten to his feet and made his way around the null field, back to his father. They stood together watching for another moment, then Larry nodded and they left the room, closing the door behind them.
Gloria had to breathe. Had to. As her fingers closed around what she hoped was the neutralizer, she tried to spit the deadly fluid out, but did a poor job of it. She instinctively gasped for air and felt the liquid trickling down her throat. She focused all her concentration, all her strength, on bringing her left hand up to her mouth. It was almost there when the spasm struck. She stiffened and felt a surge of vast, infinite pleasure, far beyond sex or any other sensation she had known or imagined. It pulled her ever onward into a gaping vortex. Not yet, not yet…
Without even seeing what was in her hand, she managed to force the lozenge between her teeth. It might have been the neutralizer, it might have been more Orgastria-48. Whatever it was, she crunched down on it.
The vortex pulled her in…then, just as suddenly, spat her out. She gasped for air, felt it flowing into her like life itself. Her body sagged down to the soft floor, and for a long moment, she simply lay there and breathed.
Charles! Next to her, he was still convulsing, still making urgent, animal noises. She reached into her handbag and came out with another lozenge, but it was Forty-eight. She dropped the lozenge, tried again, and saw that she had the neutralizer. With all the energy that remained in her, she tried to pull her hand up and reach toward Charles. But she couldn’t make it. In the center of the null field, the force was simply too strong.