Empire of Two Worlds

Suddenly he seemed to be advancing towards me, expanding to fill my vision, his smile growing more and more weird.

Then he was gone.

For what seemed like an age I did nothing but stand trembling. I became aware of the sound of running feet outside. Reeth burst into the room holding a repeater. He looked at me, then at Bec’s corpse.

I stood him off with my handgun, trying to control myself. “I had to do it, Reeth. He was going too far.”

“You mean the plague?”

I nodded. He stared in awe at the body, then slowly put up his gun.

“Yeah, it was pretty bad,” he said with a sigh. “But the agents are already out. What are we going to do now?”

I let my own gun hand drop, the weapon hanging loosely in my fingers. Somehow I couldn’t even find the strength to return it to my holster.

“We’ll make out,” I said. “We’ll go along with Bec’s original plan, the one he drew up years ago, and modify it according to circumstances. …”

Now that there was communication with Earth we could break the tyranny of the tanks once and for all, I thought. We could bring in any amount of fresh nutrient. We could import millions of tons of topsoil to grow natural food. At first some people might die due to Bec’s meddling, but the situation would stabilise in time. There would be rapid air transit, between all cities. There would be commerce with Rheatt and the rest of Earth. It would be a two-planet empire where a man could act freely without fear of starving. As for the Rotrox, they would be dealt with.

Reeth shook his head regretfully. “And Bec promised me a dozen cities all of my own.”

“You can have them,” I told him. “There’s going to be a lot of organising to be done. But they won’t be cities peopled by slaves.”

More footsteps sounded. Heerlaw came into the office, backed by one of his countrymen. His eyes fell on Bec and the thin ribbon of blood that was creeping across the floor; then at the handgun that still hung limply in my fingers.

He stood stock-still before he spoke.

“You were right to kill him,” he said at last. “For all his genius, he was a man of blood and violence. But will you be any better?”

“I hope so,” I answered tiredly. “You’d better hope so, too, because you can’t do without me now.”

That was true: Rheatt, the Rotrox, and now Klittmann, were all joined in a contradictory web of hostility and mutual support which would collapse into a gruesome bloodbath without someone to co-ordinate it. Bec had been that man, and I was the only one who could step into his shoes. It was going to take all my energy and skill to sort this mess out.

But then, I’d had the best of training.

There was one more thing.

The Klittmann tanks, naturally, had been the first to get hit by the plague. As soon as the television landline was complete I put through calls to Rheatt to locate the food stocks Bec had mentioned. And after I had found them, I gave myself the time to put through a call to Palramara.

Her face came up on the screen. The colours never seem to come true on Earth television and her face had a pinkish, rather than a green tinge. Briefly, if it’s possible to put such things briefly, I told her what had happened and that Becmath was dead.

She received the news without any visible sign of emotion. “And what now?” she asked.

Did she mean politics — or us?

Us. That was the problem I had been wrestling with since I had killed Bec, when I hadn’t been too occupied with more important matters.

I knew I could have Palramara again if I wanted her. And I did want her. With Bec out of the way we could come together again. The attraction was still there and it would still work for us. But I also knew that I could get Dalgo off Merame if I tried hard enough. The choice was mine.

Her enlarged pupils stared at me distantly out of the screen. I swallowed.

“I’ll do what I can to get your husband released,” I said quickly. Her expression didn’t change. I looked away.

“Goodbye, Palramara.”

Abruptly I cut the connection.

I’d always been fairly lonely. I could be lonely again; it was no sweat.

For the thousandth time I wondered if Becmath’s doppelganger had ceased to exist when it vanished, or if it had been drawn off into some other part of the universe. I hoped it had been annihilated, because I didn’t like to think of him wandering around somewhere, lost and also alone.

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Also by Barrington J. Bayley

Age of Adventure

Annihilation Factor

Collision with Chronos

Empire of Two Worlds

Sinners of Erspia

Star Winds

The Fall of Chronopolis

The Forest of Peldain

The Garments of Caean