“Good,” Sarns said. He was as much an amateur commander as she was an aide, but the raw courage of their student volunteers made up for much of their inexperience. The youngsters fought as if they were defending holy ground-and so in a way they were, Sarns thought. If Gilmer’s men wrecked the University, learning all over the Galaxy would take a deadly blow.
“What will Dagobert do?” asked Egril Joons. Once University dietitian, he kept an army fed these days.
Sarns had no way to soften the news. “He’s going to run.”
Under the transparent flash shield of her helmet, Maryan Drabel’s face went grim, or rather grimmer. “Then we’re left in the lurch?”
“Along with everyone else who backed the current dynasty.” Two generations, a dynasty! Sarns thought. The way the history of the Galactic Empire ran these past few sorry centuries, though, two generations was a dynasty. And with a usurper like Gilmer seizing Trantor, that history looked to run only downhill from here on out.
Maryan might have picked the thought from his mind. “Gilmer’s as much a barbarian as if he came straight from the Periphery,” she said.
“I wish he were in the Periphery,” Egril Joons said. “Then we wouldn’t have to deal with him.”
“Unfortunately, however, he’s here,” said Yokim Sarns.
The thick carpets of the Imperial Palace, the carpets that had cushioned the feet of Dagobert VIII, of Cleon II, of Stannell VI-by the space fiend, of Ammenetik the Great!-now softened the booted strides of Gilmer I, self-proclaimed Emperor of the Galaxy and Lord of All. Gilmer kicked at the rug with some dissatisfaction. He was used to clanging as he walked, to having his boots announce his presence half a corridor away. Not even a man made all of bell metal could have clanged on the carpets of the Imperial Palace.
He tipped his head back, brought a bottle to his lips. Liquid fire ran down his throat. After a long pull, he threw the bottle away. It smashed against a wall. Frightened servants scurried to clean up the mess.
“Don’t waste it,” Vergis Fenn said.
Gilmer scowled at his fleet commander. “Why not? Plenty more where that one came from. “ His scowl stabbed a servant. “Fetch me another of the same, and one for Vergis here too.” The man dashed off to do his bidding.
“There, you see?” Gilmer said to Fenn. “By the Galaxy, we couldn’t waste everything Trantor’s stored up if we tried for a hundred years. “
“I suppose that’s so,” Fenn said. He was quieter than his chieftain, a better tactician perhaps, but not a leader of men. After a moment, he went on thoughtfully, “Of course, Trantor’s spent a lot more than a hundred years gathering all this. More than a thousand, I’d guess.”
“Well, what if it has?” Gilmer said. “That’s why we wanted it, yes? By the balls Dagobert didn’t have, nobody’s ever sacked Trantor before. Now everything here is mine!”
The servant returned with the bottles. He set them on a table of crystal and silver, then fled. Gilmer drank. With all he’d poured down these last couple of days, he shouldn’t have been able to see, let alone walk and talk. But triumph left him drunker than alcohol. Gilmer the Conqueror, that’s who he was!
Vergis Fenn drank too, but not as deep. “ Aye, all Trantor’s ours, but for the University. Seven days now, and those madmen are still holding out.”
“No more of these little firefights with them, then,” Gilmer growled. “By the Galaxy, I’ll blast them to radioactive dust and have done! See to it, Fenn, at once.”
“As you would, sir-sire, but-” Fenn let the last word hang.
“But what?” Gilmer said, scowling. “If they fight for Dagobert: they’re traitors to me. And smashing traitors will frighten Trantor.” He blinked owlishly, pleased and surprised at his own wordplay.
To his annoyance, Fenn did not notice it. He said, “I don’t think they are fighting for Dagobert any more, just against us, to hold on to what they have. That might make them easier to deal with. And if we-if you-nuked the University, scholars all over the Galaxy would vilify your name forever.”
“Scholars all over the Galaxy can eat space, for all I care,” Gilmer said. But, he discovered, that wasn’t quite true. Part of being Emperor was acting the way Emperors were supposed to act. With poor grace, he backpedaled a little: “If they acknowledge me and stop fighting, I suppose I’m willing to let them live. “
“Shall I attempt a cease-fire, then?” Fenn asked.
“Go ahead, since you seem to think it’s a good idea,” Gilmer told him. “But not if they don’t acknowledge me, understand? If they still claim that unprintable son of a whore Dagobert’s Empire, blow ‘em off the face of the planet.”
“Yes, sire.” This time, Fenn did not stumble over the title. He’s my servant too, Gilmer thought.
The new Emperor of the Galaxy took a good swig from the bottle. He made as if to throw it at one of the palace flunkies, then, laughing, set it down gently as the fellow ducked.
Gilmer went down to the command post in the bowels of the Imperial Palace, the command post from which, until recently, poor stupid Dagobert VIII had battled to keep him off Trantor. Gilmer’s boots clanged most satisfactorily there. Whoever had designed the command post, in the lost days of the Galactic Empire’s greatness, had understood about commanders and boots.
The television screen in front of Vergis Fenn went blank. He swiveled his chair, nodded in surprise to see Gilmer behind him. “Sire, we have a cease-fire between our forces and those of the University,” he said. “It was easy to arrange. Our troops and theirs will both hold in place until the final armistice is arranged. “
“Good,” Gilmer said. “Well done.”
“Thank you. The leader of the University has invited you to meet him on his ground to fix the terms of the armistice. He offers hostages to ensure your safety, and says he knows what will happen to everything he’s been fighting to keep if he plays you false. Shall I call him back and tell him no anyhow?”
“‘No, I’ll go there,” Gilmer said. “‘What d’you think, I’m afraid of somebody without so much as a single starship to his name? Besides”-he smiled a greedy smile-”like as not I’ll get a look at whatever treasures they’ve been fighting so hard to hang on to. If I can’t beat ‘em out of him, I’ll tax ‘em out-that’s what being Emperor is all about. So go ahead and set up the meeting with this-what’s his name, Vergis?”
“Yokim Sarns.”
“Yokim Sarns. What do I call him when I see him? General Sarns? Admiral? Warlord?”
Fenn’s expression was faintly bemused. “The only title he claims is ‘Dean,’ sire.”
“‘Dean?” Gilmer threw back his head and laughed loud and long. “ Aye, I’ll meet with the fierce Dean Yokim Sarns, the scourge of the lecture halls. Why not? Set it up for me, Vergis. Meanwhile”-he turned away-”I’1l check how we’re doing with the rest of the planet.”
Banks of televisor screens, relaying images from all over Trantor, told him what he wanted to know. Here he saw a platoon of his troopers carrying plastic tubs full of jewels back toward their ships; there more soldiers looting a residential block; somewhere else another squad, most of the men drunk, accompanied by twice their number of Trantorian women, some scared-looking, others smiling and brassy.
Gilmer grinned. This was why he’d taken Trantor: to sack a world unsacked for fifty generations, even more than to rule it after the sack. Watching his dream unfold made that came after seem of scant importance by comparison.
Watching…His gaze went back to that third screen. All the women there would have been heart-stopping beauties on a lesser world, but they were just enlisted men’s pickings on Trantor. With so many billions of women to choose from, the ones less than spectacular were simply ignored.
Smiling in anticipation, Gilmer took the spiral slidewalk up to the Imperial bedchambers. Not even in his wildest dreams had he imagined anything like them. Thousands of years of the best ingenuity money could buy had been lavished there on nothing but pleasure.