Кристофер Банч - The Return of the Emperor

There was a tap outside, and the compartment door opened.

A man entered. Neither tall nor stocky, he looked to be in good physical shape. He was wearing expensive civilian clothes. He was not an ugly man, not a handsome man.

"Gentlebeings," he said softly. "I have been assigned as your escort and aide for the trial. "My name is Venloe."

Mahoney stormed into the Eternal Emperor's private office, spewing obscenities. He held a fiche in his shaking hand.

"Lord, Ian. What happened?"

"Some clottin' drakh-head on the Normandie ! Playing God! 'Prisoners managed to escape cell. Found way to lifecraft. Attempted to enter. Security officer tried to apprehend, but was forced to…'

" 'Shot while attemptin' escape!' Christ! Clottin' bastard can't even find an original excuse.

"All that work. Sten'll kill that clottin' moron—but I'll have beaten him to it! Jesus Mary Mother on a grav-sled! I'll crucify the clot! Have his guts for a winding sheet." He broke off. "I do not believe this. Clot!"

The Emperor picked up the fiche, put it in a viewer, and scanned the decoded message that had been transmitted in the Empire's personal command code.

He scanned it again, then grunted. "Not good, Ian. Not good at all."

"Not good… okay." Mahoney brought himself under control. "You're the boss. How high do we hang this—whoever did this? Not that it matters. What's the spin for damage control?"

The Emperor thought a moment. "None. What happened is what happened. And I'll arrange the proper way to deal with our ambitious gunman. But that's all. No investigation, Mahoney. That's an order." He paused. "So we've lost our war crimes trial. I don't think it matters. There's too much of the privy council's drakh left around for anybody to be much interested in what happened to Malperin and Lovett."

"That's it," Mahoney said incredulously. "Those two just… vanished?"

"Something like that. As I said, what happened is what happened. Pour me a drink, Ian. We'll drink their souls to hell, like Sten's hairy friends say."

Ian stared at the Emperor, then got up and went to a table, where he found the decanter of stregg.

The Eternal Emperor turned his chair and looked out the window at the once-blasted site of his palace, Arundel. Reconstruction had already begun.

Mahoney could not see his face.

The Eternal Emperor smiled.