And they were ready to carry the word back to the empire: that the telepaths, the Swipes, had committed an atrocity beside which all other cruelties of humanity in the past became negligible.
The empire would rock with the news, and mobs would hunt down known telepaths and tear them apart in vengeance for the vast crime their kind had committed. Almost a hundred thousand telepaths would die.
But for a brief moment, sitting in front of his starfinder, Captain Fil Treece of the imperial fleet could not figure out why anybody's life should have been any more valuable than Homer Worthing's, and why the murder of one person should be good policy, while the murder of eight billion should be an inhuman crime.
Instead, he remembered a practical joke he and Homer Worthing had played on a professor in pilot school. They had programmed the class battle computer to respond incorrectly to any program that would result in death or damage to any ship. For three hours the professor tried to force the computer to carry out battle instructions, but it would not. Finally the professor realized that the mistakes were not in his program, and he turned to Homer and Fil (since practical jokes usually originated in their little circle of friends) and said, "May every ship you pilot have a computer that acts like this."
At the time it had been a sobering thought-- almost a wish for their certain deaths.
But now, Fil thought, I wish to God it had come true.
He led his fleet from the dead star system and soon they were passing light as if it were standing still. On the way back toward Capitol, their ships woke them from their somec sleep-- an enemy colony ship was heading past them toward a distant star system. According to standing orders, the fleet dispersed: three ships blasted the colony ship out of the sky along with all three hundred or so sleeping passengers aboard the unarmed craft, while the rest of the fleet continued toward Capitol.
And back on Capitol they gave Fil and his fleet medals for having killed the rebels and citations for having destroyed the enemy colonists.
"But I never meant to kill anybody," Fil said to the official who had guided him through the ceremony.
"Shut up," the official responded quietly. "Everybody says that. But you bastards take the medals just the sqme."
"I hope a raise in salary goes along with it," Fil said. And it did, allowing him to purchase a permanent apartment on Capitol, much to his wife's pleasure. Shp decorated it in ancient Chinese style, and every time he was in port they drank tea together and made love afterward on a mat on the floor and Fil was as happy as a person can reasonably expect to be.
And the people of the empire, learning of the terrible crime of the SWIP-e33 fleet, murdered almost a hundred thousand known or suspected or (at least) accused telepaths. Almost everyone agreed it was just. After all, hadn't the telepaths committed an atrocity?
AND WHAT WILL WE DO TOMORROW?
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?
-- Henry IV part I, 3:1
Of all the people on Capitol, only Mother was allowed to awaken on her own bed, the bed where she had slept with Selvock Gray before his death eight hundred years ago. She did not know that the original bed had fallen apart centuries ago; it was always remade, right down to the nicks and scratches, so that she could awaken on it and lie there for a monient in solitude, remembering.
No attendants murmuring. No flush of fever. Of all the people in Capitol, only Mother was given the delicate combination of drugs that made waking a delight-- that cost more for each of her wakings than the entire budget of a colony ship.
And so she luxuriated in the bed, cool and not feeling particularly old. How old am I? she wondered, and decided that she was probably forty. I am probably middle-aged, she said, and spread out her legs until they touched both sides of the bed.
She ran her hands over her naked stomach, finding it not as flat and firm as it had been when Selvock had come to visit Jerry Crove and had, as an afterthought, seduced his fifteen-year-old granddaughter. But who had seduced whom? Selvock never knew it, but Mother had chosen him as the man most likely to accomplish what her grandfather was too good and her father too weak to accomplish-- the conquest and unification of the human race.
It was my dream, she mid to herself. My dream, that I needed Selvock to fulfil. He bloodied himself in a dozen planetside wars, sent fleets here and there at his command, but it was I who made the plans, I who set the wheels in motion, I who fired the starships and sent them on their way. I found the money by bribing, blackmailing, and assassination.
And then, on the day Selvock was confident of victory, that bastard Russian had shot him with (of all things!) a pistol and Mother was alone.
She lay naked on the bed, remembering the feel of his hand on her flesh, the tense, gentle hand, and she missed him. She missed him, but hadn't needed him after all. For now she ruled the human universe, and there was nothing she wanted that she could not have.
Dent Harbock sat in the control room, watching the monitor. Mother was playing with herself on the bed. If the people could only see a holo of this show! he thought. There'd be a revolution within the hour.
Or maybe not. Maybe they really did think of her as-- what had Nab called her? --an earth mother, a figure of fertility. If she was so fertile, how come no children?
Nab walked into the control room. "How's the old bitch doing?"
"Dreaming of conquest. How come she never had any children?"
"If you believe in a god, thank it for that. As it is, things are comfortable. The only royalty in the universe is a middle-aged woman we only have to wake up one day in every five years. No family squabbles. No war of succession. And nobody trying to tell the government what to do."
Dent laughed.
"Better start the music. We have a busy schedule."
The music started and Mother was startled into alertness. Ah, yes. It was time. Being empress wasn't all luxury and pleasant memories. It was also responsibility. There was work to be done.
I'm lazy, now that I'm at the pinnacle of power, she said to herself. But I must keep the wheels turning. I must know what is going on.
She got up and dressed in the simple tunic she had always worn.
"Is she really going to wear that?"
"It was the style when she ruled actively. A lot of heavy sleepers do that-- it keeps a touch of familiarity around them."
"But, Nab, it makes her look like a relic of the pleistocene."
"It keeps her happy. We want her to be happy."
The first item of business was the reports. The ministers had to make the reports personally, and the new ministers who had been appointed since her last waking were on trial as she talked to them. The minister of fleets, the minister of armies, and the minister of peace were first. From them she learned about the war.
"With whom," she said, "are we at war?"
"We aren't at war," said the minister of armies innocently.
"Your budget has doubled, sir, and the number of conscripts is also more than twice what it was yesterday. That's a lot of change for five years. And don't give me any merde about inflation. Whom, my dear friends, are we fighting?"
They glanced at each other, fury barely concealed. It was the minister of fleets who answered, affecting contempt for his fellows. "We didn't want to bother you with it. It's just a border conflict. The governor of Sedgway rebelled awhile ago, and he's managed to attract some support. We'll have it under control in a few years."