The Emperor of Everything

Corean required all her meager store of patience to listen to Flomel’s account. The conjuror’s recollections included constant references to the outrages perpetrated on his dignity. Several times Corean had to interrupt before Flomel entirely lost the thread of his narrative. He seemed unable to grasp that she was uninterested in his personal feelings, but she summoned all the forebearance she possessed, and continued to smile and nod sympathetically at appropriate points.

When Flomel told about the judging in Deepheart, her interest quickened.

“He flailed about, convulsing and drooling in a most vulgar manner,” said Flomel. “There he revealed his low origins again. Perhaps he’s dead; he was very still when they took him out, and his face was a bit blue.”

“Wait,” she said. “Try to remember — did they rush him out, or was it a leisurely process?”

Flomel frowned. “What difference would that make?”

She ran out of tolerance. She shot out a hand and gripped Flomel by the throat, squeezed with the augmented muscles of her slender fingers. He tried to speak, could only wheeze. He half raised his hands, as if to claw at her, and she clamped down a little tighter, so that his eyes bulged. “You,” she said, “are my property. You do not ask me for explanations. Do you understand?”

He nodded painfully. She eased the pressure on his throat slightly. “So, tell,” she said.

“Fast,” he gasped. “They took him out quickly.”

She released him, and stood. “Then he’s probably still alive. I think I would feel it if he died — we’re connected now, somehow. Perhaps it’s my need for satisfaction…. What else, Flomel?”

He rubbed at his throat and coughed. “There’s not much else to tell, Lady. They took me to my room, and in the morning brought me to this place. I didn’t see the others again, and you’re the first person I’ve seen here.”

She turned away from him and spoke musingly to Marmo. “I wonder… is he still in Deepheart? What did you find out about them, Marmo?”

“I spent last night hooked into the datastream, but useful information is difficult to come by. They’re a self-development corporation, chartered on Dilvermoon but entirely contained within their facility here. They espouse a cult of sexual diversity….”

“I’m not interested in their philosophy, Marmo. What I want to know is: How well defended is their facility? How difficult to infiltrate?”

Marmo was silent for a moment. “Recall what I said about useful information. But I can infer a probability: They are well defended. In the nearly two thousand standard years since the present facilities were completed, the data-stream records no successful hostile incursions into Deepheart. This is somewhat surprising, since they are reputedly a very wealthy corporation; presumably they would attract the avarice of the pirate lords.”

“Discouraging,” said Corean, thinking. She refused to accept that Ruiz had found a hiding place where she could not reach him. “But we must do what we can, eh, Marmo? Come, let’s visit a friend.”

She turned to Lensh. “Collar the mage and take him to a suitable holding pen; Diamond Bob’s has a good reputation. Then meet us back at the hotel.”

Ruiz leaned back, set his goblet carefully aside. “I’m not an assassin,” he said.

“Oh?” said Publius, bright-eyed. “Since when?”

“I’ve never been an assassin.”

“Oh, of course not, of course not. But you were always willing to kill anything that got in the way of your job, whatever it might be. Tell me, how many corpses have you left behind this trip out?”

Ruiz had no answer.

Publius laughed in a jolly manner. “You see? What difference does one corpse more or less make? Eh? And I assure you, he’s a very evil man, almost as evil as I am — he deserves killing almost as much as I do. Help me out, and I’ll get you offplanet, no matter what it takes, money or time or blood. But if you won’t do this little favor for me, I’ll take you and chop you up and make toys out of your pieces. I’m tired of worrying about your foolish little blackmail; a man like you will eventually perish, probably sooner rather than later, so why not get it over with? In a hundred years, who will care? Not I.”

Ruiz tensed his muscles and prepared to leap at Publius. The monster-maker had once been formidable, but perhaps his skills had deteriorated, perhaps Ruiz could subdue him, could hold him hostage until he had escaped the laboratories.

Publius raised his hand in an odd gesture, and stunner muzzles slid from the wall behind him, pointed at Ruiz. “Don’t be silly, old friend — and please, don’t make me wonder if you consider me so stupid as to sit and chat with you, protected by nothing but your famous goodwill. I must tell you, I’d be terribly insulted, if I ever imagined you thought such a thing. And you know what a temper I have.”

Ruiz sagged back in his chair. A feeling of futility came over him; what had he expected? That he would walk in and Publius would help him, out of the nonexistent goodness of his monstrous heart? Foolish, foolish.

“Who is the man?” Ruiz asked.