"It wasn't that difficult," Sten said. "You can thank Kilgour again." He fixed the Emperor with a hard look. "Just like it wasn't hard to figure out the rest Of course, Mahoney gave us a big leg up. Ian had just about everything figured."
"I miss him," the Emperor said, voice very low.
"I'll bet you miss a lot of people," Sten said sarcastically.
The Emperor surprised Sten. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I do. Mahoney, especially. He was my friend." He gave Sten an odd look. "And once... I thought you were, as well."
Sten barked laughter. "Is that how you tote up your friends?" he scoffed. "Put them on a death list and then number them from one to finish?"
The Emperor sighed. "It's harder being me than you think," he said "The rules are different."
"Yeah, I know," Sten said. "The Big Picture. The Long View. The funny thing is, where you were concerned, I used to believe that stuff. Or at least didn't question it."
"There really is no other way to run things," the Emperor said. "I've done this for the good of all. There's been suffering. True. But life is suffering. Mostly, if you average it all out over a few thousand years, there's been a great many more good times than bad."
He reached for his Scotch, took a drink, and set the glass down again. "You should have seen what it was like before I... got started."
"Before you found the AM2?" Sten asked.
"Yes. Before then. You should have seen the inbred brain-dead clots who ran things. Hell, if it wasn't for me, civilization would still consist of a few stars and planetary systems."
"I'll take your word for it," Sten said.
The Emperor stopped, staring at him. "You think I'm crazy, don't you? Go ahead. I won't be offended."
Sten answered, not caring whether he was offended or not. "I don't think—I know it!"
"Perhaps I was... once," the Emperor said. "But, no more. Not since that meteor blessed this ship. As soon as I was... aware... I knew something was... different. Much different! And vastly superior."
"Superior to the old model?" Sten guessed, remembering the room with the biological vats and surgical equipment.
"I suppose you could put it that way," the Emperor said. ‘The chain was broken. It was time to begin anew. With fresh ideas. To build a new order. Of course, there are sacrifices to be made. Nothing good ever comes without sacrifice."
"As long as it's not your own," Sten said.
"Do you really think that? Do you really think... I don't suffer as well?"
"The guy pulling the trigger," Sten said, indicating the gun, "never suffers as much as the person on the receiving end."
"You're too cynical." The Emperor laughed. "You were around me too long. But facts are facts. My... predecessor... had let things go into the drakh-house.
"Letting the Tahn get out of hand, for a start. And the privy council! How the clot did... he... allow those fools so much power? It was weakness, I tell you.
"The Empire was allowed to get too fat. Too sloppy. It was time to pare things to the bone. Put things back on the right footing. An Empire is no different than any business. The rules of capitalism require a periodic shakeout."
"Business leaders don't usually declare themselves God," Sten said.
The Emperor snorted. "Don't be stupid," he said. "The image was getting rusty. It wanted brightening up. Besides, there's a long tradition in rule by divine right."
"Then, you don't actually believe you are a god?"
The Emperor shrugged. "Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. However, last time I checked, immortality fits the definition."
"Gods don't climb out of vats," Sten said.
"Oh, really? Perhaps I was misinformed. But, since you've obviously met so many gods, I bow to your wide experience."
The Emperor took another drink, then replaced the glass on the tray. "You won't live to see it," he said, "but I do promise you things will be better. You can take comfort in that."
"Better than what?" Sten growled. "You're just a new wrinkle on an old, ugly face. I've led too many kids to their graves for that face. Hell, I've filled whole fields of graves, myself. For what? Twenty or thirty centuries of lies?
"You like to think of yourself as unique. The greatest Emperor of the greatest Empire in all history. Well, from where I stand—poor mortal that I am, with only a few years to spend— you're no better... or worse than any other tyrant."
"This is a very stimulating conversation," the Eternal Emperor said. "It's been a long time since I've had such an enjoyable exchange. I wish there were some other way. I really do."
He raised the pistol. Sten's mind shrilled alarms. Wait! What about the brainscan? There was supposed to be more time.
"I've decided," the Emperor said, "that it would be too risky for me to move you from this room. So, to be absolutely safe, I'll have to make one of those sacrifices I was mentioning... by killing you now."
His trigger finger tightened.
At that moment a voice blared out, "The two organisms aboard this ship are ordered to stand in place."
Sten gaped. What the clot was going on? He saw the Emperor's face. Bewildered... and frightened. But the gun remained steady.
"An analysis of the intentions and makeup of these organisms is now complete," the voice continued. It had to be the ship's command center talking.
The Emperor's judgment machine.
"The Prime Organism's directive to permit the intruder organism's presence has been found in error and has been overridden. The alien organism is an enemy. And shall be killed."
Big clottin‘ deal, Sten thought, a little wild. Dead by the gun. Or dead by the ship. What's the difference?
"The Prime Organism has also been found wanting," the ship's voice said. "It has been declared flawed. And it, too, shall be killed."
Sten saw the Emperor jump in even greater surprise. The gun drooped.
It was Sten's first and only break.
He dove for the Emperor.
CHAPTER FORTY
STEN TUCKED IN middive, shoulder scraping the deck, sending him in a backflip to one side as the Emperor fired and the AM2 round blew a jagged hole in the deck and metal shrapneled. Feet first, he slammed into the Eternal Emperor and sent him tumbling. The Emperor took the fall, pistol aiming. Sten scissor-kicked and the gun spun away. The Emperor double-rolled and was on his feet, wrists instinctively up in a V-block as Sten's knife came out of his arm and slashed. The block caught Sten's knife-hand and he lost balance, recovering his stance by dropping into a momentary crouch.
Sten lunged... and the Emperor threw himself back, across the tabletop, whirling, and was on his feet.
Feint... bob...
The Emperor doublefist-smashed the table and the plas shattered. Sten's knife flicked out... and first blood ran down the Emperor's forearm.
The Emperor backed away, hand scooping up a razor fragment of the tabletop, nearly forty centimeters long. He held it low, close to his right side. Sten chanced a look away from the Emperor's eyes. Noted the Emperor held the shard in the relaxed thumb-forefinger fencing grip of a trained knifefighter.
Shiphum. Feetshuffle as each of them moved, circling toward his opponent's offside.
Sten realized he was being maneuvered... and caught the Emperor's goal. The pistol. The Emperor sliced at Sten, and Sten back-leaned... away from the cut... chanced a riposte of his own, missed, recovered.
The Emperor's eyes flickered, giving away his next strike, and Sten's arm wasn't where it'd been a moment earlier. Too long, Sten thought. You haven't been in a real brawl in too long.