“Grawl!” screamed Kiru, and she grabbed hold of Norton, clinging on tight.
Grawl was wearing a gangster suit. Instead of a tie, the heart-shaped silver amulet hung around his neck. The crown of the cake was balanced on top of his hat, the two tiny figures twisting and tilting as he turned around. Cradled in his arms was a gun.
The alien tax delegates gazed up at him. Grawl knocked the hat off his bald cranium, then looked across at Diana.
“I’m dissolving the partnership,” she said.
Standing on the table, Grawl took aim.
“Nobody move!” shouted a voice which echoed around the plaza. “Drop that gun!”
Grawl’s dark suit became speckled with bright white spots, the targeting beams from a score of weapons focused on him.
“Drop that gun! Now!”
Grawl obeyed, letting his weapon fall to the table.
The square was surrounded by an army of small, broad figures, all heavily armoured and heavily armed. They looked familiar.
“What are they?” said Kiru.
“What are they?” said Norton.
“Algolan hailstorm troopers,” said Diana.
“They’ve come to kill me!” gasped Kiru.
She was still holding onto Norton, and now she held him even tighter. Kiru had been terrified of Grawl, but that was nothing compared to her fear of the Algolan soldiers.
“Why?” said Norton.
“Because they think Janesmith is here,” said Kiru.
“So?” said Norton.
“They think I’m Janesmith,” said Kiru.
“Why?” said Norton.
“Because Travis made me say I was.” Kiru looked at Diana. “It’s his fault. Her fault.”
The troopers marched nearer, closing the noose on those who remained in the plaza: Kiru and Norton, Grawl and Diana, the seven alien tax assessors.
“Is that how you treat our gifts of affection, Duke Wayne?”
Norton spun around. One of the Algolans had stepped within the ring of bronze-plated armour. Taller and slimmer, this had to be the commander. Clad in black battle armour, instead of a ridged helmet the figure wore a circle of barbed spikes on her head.
Her hair was white, her ears were pointed, her face was oval, her skin was blue, her feline features dominated by her huge, sloping eyes.
“Who’s that?” said Kiru.
“Janesmith,” said Norton. “The real Janesmith.”
Kiru clutched him even tighter. “She’s here because I pretended to be her.”
“Silence!” ordered Janesmith, gesturing at Kiru with a gauntleted fist. “Pick those flowers up. Give them to Duke Wayne.”
“Do it,” Norton whispered, “and move away.”
Kiru bent down for the nettles and thorns. “Ow!”
Janesmith glared at her.
Kiru handed the bouquet to Norton, then slowly stepped back.
Janesmith kept looking at Kiru, before her gaze took in the seven seated figures, then Diana, until she finally gazed at Grawl. She growled with pleasure. Grawl was still standing on the table, and he stared down at his spats, not meeting the Algolan’s huge, sloping eyes.
“This is a nice surprise, Princess,” said Norton. “What brings you here? Just passing by?”
“Our imperial warfleet brought us here,” she said. “But your information is obsolete. We are not a princess. Our sister Marysmith is dead and the throne is ours. We are the Empress of Algol.”
That explained the black spikes; it was her imperial crown. Norton wondered what the usual protocol was. What did one say to an empress?
“Er… congratulations.”
Janesmith halted in front of Norton, staring at him.
“Turn around,” she ordered. “This deserves a long painful death.”
“What!” said Norton, and he spun back to face her.
“Who’s your tailor?” said Empress Janesmith, gazing at Norton’s suit. “The fabric makes a mockery of the classic design.”
“Er… yeah,” Norton agreed.
“Nobody move!” yelled the echoing voice again. “That means you! Or you will be nobody!”
Diana must have tried to make a discreet exit, because she was now in a different position. She froze instantly.
“You are not of noble blood, we understand,” said Janesmith, looking away from Norton so she didn’t have to see his outfit. “You attempted to deceive us.”
“No,” he said. “Never. Not at all. It was a misunderstanding.”
“It’s of no consequence,” said Janesmith.
Norton heard another distant splash and turned his head, guessing what it must have been. An Algolan hailstormer had dropped out of the sky and into the ocean, immediately sinking below the surface because of the weight of his armour.
“Your soldiers are drowning,” he said.
“They live only to die in our service. Would you not willingly die for us, John Wayne?”
“You know who I am?”
“Yes. You are why we are here.”
Norton said nothing, slowly considering what the Algolan had said. He was the reason she was here; she had come for him.
The new Empress of Algol had travelled across the galaxy to find him.
“But,” he asked, “why…?”
“We are the Empress,” she said. “We need an Emperor.”
The universe dissolved. Every planet and every atom was shattered. Wayne Norton was left totally alone, shivering in ultimate zero.
Emperor of Algol…?
“That was the idea,” said the Empress of Algol. “An alien Emperor. A virgin Emperor.” Her gaze travelled to Kiru. “But we’ve changed our mind. We don’t need you, what we need is—”
She paused, turned, pointed a chain-mailed finger.
“—Grawl!”
“Grawl?” said Norton. “You know Grawl?”
“We have had the honour of knowing the most handsome being of all,” said Janesmith, gazing up at Grawl.
Grawl was still standing on the table, within the demolished ruins of the wedding cake, his arms raised in surrender. Janesmith glanced away as if dazzled by his radiance.
Norton suddenly realised why the Algolan troops seemed so familiar. Small and squat, they were like armoured versions of Grawl. Janesmith had claimed that she was ugly and that Norton was deformed, but Grawl must have matched the Algolan ideal of the perfect male.
“Grawl,” said Kiru, hesitantly, “is going to be Emperor of Algol?”
The Empress growled, and Kiru stepped back.
“Show us your genitals,” Janesmith said to Grawl.
And Grawl cowered down. A look of total horror, of ultimate fear, contorted his face. It was an expression he had never shown before, a feeling he had never known before.
“Let’s go, our love,” said Janesmith.
Grawl jumped from the table. He grabbed his gun—and turned it on himself. Before he could fire, he was rushed by a group of Algolan troops. They dived on him to prevent his suicide, then carried him away.
“You shouldn’t have left,” Empress Janesmith said to Norton. “You don’t know what you missed.”
Norton was glad he didn’t know. He remembered what he’d seen, briefly, when Janesmith had been naked. Whatever lay ahead of him, for Grawl it was a destiny worse than death.
Janesmith gestured contemptuously, dismissing Norton. Her eyes passed over Kiru, ignoring her. She stared at the palefaces for a few seconds, then focused her attention on Diana.
“You are someone of importance on this world?” she said.
“Yes, yes, I’m—”
“We will establish a diplomatic embassy here,” said Janesmith.
“Great, great,” said Diana. “I look forward to a lasting and cordial relationship.”
“You will be our puppet. This world will become part of our empire.”
Then the Empress of Algol turned. Escorted by the rest of the bronze hailstormers, she strode imperially away, vanishing between the spiralling red buildings on the far side of the plaza.