Кристофер Банч - Empire's End

"But how?" Sr. Ecu wanted to know. "I'm afraid your argument has convinced me. I'm with Rykor. There is no hope."

"Maybe just a sliver," Sten said. "But forget about trying to make His Highness see reason. Emperors, he's told me time after time, don't need to see reason. They are the reason."

"Therefore, we either have to capture him… or kill him."

"This is the part I always like," Rykor burbled. "Goal setting. It makes one feel so satisfied."

Sr. Ecu said, "But you just explained—quite logically, I should add—that the Emperor is too powerful for us to defeat."

"We have to keep making his size work for us," Sten said. "Keep him in a reactive position as long as possible." He drummed his fingers on the table. "If we can draw his forces out… stretch them to the limits… then… in theory… size won't matter. We look for a hole—or make one, dammit—and punch through. We don't have to take all the pieces. We only need to kill the king."

"Assuming all these impossible things become possible," Sr. Ecu said, "we are still left with the same dilemma as the privy council."

"Without AM 2, the Empire will collapse. You know as well as I that all modern industry and transport is based on that substance. And only the Emperor knows its source."

"The privy council spent six years trying to find it," Rykor agreed. "And they didn't come close."

"I've thought about that before," Sten said, remembering a late-night talk with Cind after they had first suspected the Emperor had gone mad. "I'm not so sure it's that bad a fate. To live without AM 2, I mean. When we were running out—during the privy council's reign—things were bad, true. But at least a whole lot of beings were learning to fend for themselves."

"It will be the end of interstellar travel," Sr. Ecu said. "Which means we will all quickly become strangers again."

Sten shrugged. "Maybe it'll be good for us. Starting all over again. Besides, maybe someday somebody'll figure a way to synthesize AM 2."

He filled his glass with stregg. "Of course, it'd be easier if I can get him alive. Toast his toes, or something. To get the secret of AM 2out of him."

Rykor shifted her bulk. "One large problem… just to add to the others. What if you're wrong about the immortality aspect? What if there's another big blast—I'm assuming you'll take this in consideration and stay at a safe distance—and he disappears. Only to return. A few years later."

"I still think it's a trick," Sten said. "Sleight of hand. Or maybe he does it with mirrors. Whatever. If I can pull this chess match off—and pin his royal behind—I promise you that whatever cosmic misdirection he's been pulling won't make me look the other way."

"I see no other choice," Sr. Ecu said. "Speaking for the Manabi—and I do have that authority—I pledge our complete support."

"I'll need it," Sten said. "I'd appreciate it if you can lay the diplomatic groundwork. Obviously with total secrecy."

"As a matter of fact," Sr. Ecu said, "I put out a quiet word or two already."

"There are many natural allies… the kind that come with some successes. Your attack on the broadcast station was a good start. Actually, the fact that you are still eluding the Emperor's minions is an even better one."

"I'll try to keep it up," Sten said dryly.

"What about me?" Rykor asked. "How can I assist in this grand crusade?"

She burped daintily. "My, but that's an interesting potion, Sr. Ecu. I must acquire your recipe."

Sten rose to his feet. "Rykor, my gentle sot, you're coming with me. We're going to put that tricky brain of yours to work skewering the Eternal Emperor."

"Ah ha. I fight at last To arms! To arms!"

When they rolled her tank aboard the Victory , Sten's newest gallant warrior was snoring blissfully.

"We APPEAR," STEN observed, "to be trapped."

Cind grunted at him, still recovering her breath.

"Was this on the aerial?"

"Negative. Or if it was, I didn't pick it up on the viewer."

"Doesn't matter, really. Other than we're going to have to do some serious backtracking."

He slid out of his heavy pack, nearly falling on the steep icy slope. Backtracking? He glanced behind him.

Way, way, way down below, he could see the double herringbone tracks of their skis, leading up the slopes toward this clotting excuse for a mountain they were stuck on. About two kilometers before, the gradient had become too steep, and they had strapped their skis to their packs and put on crampons. A klick after that, the two of them had roped up as the grade grew steeper still.

Two klicks… one kilometer… that was the distance in a direct, near-vertical line. In actual travel, they had been off their skis since just after dawn, and the day was getting late. And they had better reach a decision on what to do next quickly—Sten would rather not spend the night in a sleeping bag that he would have to anchor to keep from sliding off the mountain.

If for no other reason than that he had designs on Cind's virtue…

Sten had arrived at his planned base of operations—the Bhor home worlds in the Lupus Cluster—without encountering any Imperial warships. Next, he would prepare his specific campaign and go to war.

He still had to get approval for using their worlds from the Bhor Council. But at least he had been greeted with cheers, invitations to drunken feasts, and volunteers who wanted to join him killing someone, anyone.

However, it took time for the Bhor elders to assemble, and even longer for them to reach a decision, given the Bhor tendency to endlessly explore any aspect of anything—all spokes Bhor welcome. Which was probably a legacy from the severe lack of entertainment in their primitive days during long arctic nights.

Rykor herself had wanted some time and privacy to consider what could be done, from her perspective, against the Empire.

Neither set of Sten's potential allies had materialized. Not that there was any guarantee they would—both the Rom and Wild's smugglers might have realized an alliance with Sten was more likely to produce death than freedom.

And Sten's troopies—from his embassy assistants to his Bhor and Gurkha heavies to the Imperial sailors—had suffered through a very long tour. Essentially no one had had any time off since they had arrived in the Altaics. Even the Gurkhas were tired and weary of blood.

Tired beings make mistakes, and Sten could afford none.

He spread his four ships out among the Wolf Worlds, hid them well on rural airports, and gave his troops some R&R. Sten worried his presence among the Bhor would be discovered by the inevitable Imperial agents, but Kilgour had told him not to fash. He already had a Plot, and would take care of that little matter before his own vacation. Which involved Otho, vast amounts of stregg, and whatever trouble he could get into.

Cind had the op order for Operation Vacation already drafted. A conventional lover might have looked for tropical oceans and romantic islands with ten-star resorts and twenty bow-n'-scrapers for each guest. But Cind was a descendant of the Jann, had grown up among the Bhor, and was a hard, experienced field soldier. To her, vacations meant the wilderness—and Sten's own ideas weren't that different.

The Bhor home planet was still glacial, even though the Bhor had reluctantly removed some of the glaciers as civilization and the birthrate increased. Scattered across the world were volcanic "islands"—oases in the midst of freeze. Most of them had been settled aeons ago by the Bhor, but there were still a few that were unpopulated.

Cind had planned on kidnapping Sten and taking him to one of those, and had been trying to figure out which of the possible areas could provide the best skiing and even some winter climbing. Sten had taught Cind rock scrambling, and she was determined to become at least his equal and, she hoped, his master.