The Emperor's own quarters were a large bedroom, a kitchen that resembled a warship's mess area, a conference room, a monstrous computer center/briefing room, and a personal library. These were also fairly simply furnished, not so much to continue the command center image but because the Emperor had little real interest in the tide of pomp and thrice-gorgeous ceremony.
The wallscreens normally showed scenes from the windows of one or another of the Emperor's vacation homes. But now three images formed a motif throughout his rooms: the ruins of Arundel above him, a shot from space showing the Tahn home world of Heath, and a still of the twenty-seven-member ruling Tahn Council. The three images, he explained, helped focus his attention.
Sullamora spent only a few minutes in an anteroom before being escorted into the Emperor's library.
The Emperor looked and was very tired. He indicated a sideboard that held refreshments. Sullamora declined. The Emperor started, without preamble. "Tanz, I've just requisitioned ten of your high-speed liners."
Sullamora's eyes widened, but the capitalist managed to bury any other reaction. The Emperor, after all, had called him by his first name.
"Sir, any of my resources are yours. You have only to ask."
"No drakh," the Emperor agreed. Then he asked, seemingly irrelevantly, "How long have you been arming your merchant ships?"
"Pardon, Your Majesty? Almost all of my ships carry weapons."
"Come on, Sullamora. It's been a long night, and I'd like to get my head down before dawn. You've got some ships booming around out there that're armed better'n my frigates."
"I did," Sullamora admitted, "take the liberty of increasing the weaponry on some of my vessels. Those, you understand, that were routed near any of the Tahn galaxies."
"Good thinking," the Emperor said, and Sullamora relaxed. "And that's why I'm grabbing ten of them. I'll tell you why shortly. The other reason I wanted this meeting is that I'm requisitioning you."
Sullamora's response was a not particularly intellectual. "Heh?"
"From twenty minutes ago, you're now my minister of ship production. You'll have a seat on my private cabinet."
Sullamora was startled. He hadn't even known that the Emperor had a private cabinet.
"I want you to build ships for me. I don't care which contractors build them or how. Your orders will be A-Plus category. You have Priority One on any raw materials or personnel you need. I need more warships. Yesterday. I don't have time for all this bidding, bitching, and backbiting that's been going on. Pour yourself a drink. I'll have some tea."
Sullamora followed orders.
"We are hurting," the Emperor continued to Sullamora's back. "The Tahn are taking out my fleets faster than I can commission them. You're going to change all that."
"Thank you for the honor, Your Majesty. What kind of administration do I have?"
"I don't care. Bring in all those hucksters and sharpies from your own companies if you want."
"What will my budget be?"
"You tell me when you're running out of credits, and I'll get you some more."
"What about the accounting oversight?"
"There won't be any. But if I catch you stealing too much from me, or buying junk, I'll kill you. Personally."
The Emperor was not smiling at all.
Sullamora changed the subject slightly. "Sir. May I ask you something?"
"GA."
"You said you'd explain why you need ten of my liners."
"I shall. This is ears-only, Tanz." He paused. "I made a bunch of mistakes when this war started. One of them was thinking that my people out in the Fringe Worlds were better than they were."
"But, sir... you sent the First Guards out there."
"I did. And they're my best."
"And they're winning."
"The clot they are. They're getting their ass whipped. The Guard—what's left of it—is hanging on to a teeny little perimeter of one world. About a week from now, they'll be overrun and destroyed."
Sullamora swallowed. This was not what the livies had been telling him.
"I put the Guard out there to hold the Caltor System, because sooner or later things are going to change, and I'm going to need a jumping-off point to invade the Tahn systems.
"I blew it. I thought that I'd get more backup from my allies than I have. I also didn't know the Tahn were stamping out fleets of warships like cheap plas toys. Mistakes. Now I've got to save what I can.
"There's a whole bunch of Imperial civilians on the capital world of Caltor, Cavite. I want your liners in to get them out. Get them out—and some other people I'll need."
The Emperor read Sullamora's face and smiled grimly. "Things look different when you're on the inside, Tanz. You're going to see a lot more ruin and damnation in the next few days."
Sullamora recovered. And asked the big question. "Are we going to win this war?"
The Emperor sighed. This was a question he was getting a little tired of. "Yes. Eventually."
Eventually, Sullamora thought. He took that to mean that the Emperor was very unsure of things. "When we do..."
"When we do, I shall make very damned sure that the Tahn systems have a very different form of government. I do not ever want them to return to haunt me."
Sullamora smiled. "War to the knife, and that to the hilt!"
"That wasn't what I was saying. I want the way the Tahn run their government changed. I don't have any quarrel with their people. I'm going to try to win this war without dusting any planets, without carpet bombing, or any of the rest. People don't start wars—governments do."
Sullamora looked at the Emperor. He thought himself to be a historian. And just as he collected heroic art, he admired heroic history. He sort of remembered a statement a heroic Earth sea admiral had made: "Moderation in war is absurdity."
He wholly agreed with that. Of course, he wasn't enough of a historian to know that the admiral in question had never commanded his fleet in anything other than a minor skirmish, or that by the time the next war occurred both he and the superships he had ordered built had been obsolete and retired.
"I see, Your Highness," he said coldly.
The Emperor did not understand Sullamora's frigidity. "When the war is over, you'll be given the appropriate awards. I assume some sort of regency appointment might be in order, covering the entire Tahn areas."
Sullamora suddenly felt that he and the Emperor were speaking entirely separate languages.
He stood, leaving his drink barely tasted, and bowed deeply, formally. "I thank you, Your Highness. I shall be prepared to assume my new position within the week."
He wheeled and exited.
The Emperor stared after him. Then he stood, walked around his desk, picked up Sullamora's drink, and sipped at it thoughtfully. Possibly, he thought, Sr. Sullamora and I may not be communicating on the same wavelength.
So?
He set the drink back down, went back to his desk, and keyed the com on for the latest disaster reports. He was worried about his Empire. If he held it together—and in spite of his bluffness, the Eternal Emperor was starting to wonder—he could worry about individual people later.
The hell he could, he realized.
He put the com on hold and activated a very special computer. There was one individual he had to talk to. Even though that conversation would be one-sided.