He aimed the gun at Egon and pulled the trigger. A look of shock came over Mordecai's face. He went rigid, then fell. The gun dropped from his hand and clattered across the floor, coming to rest at Hieronymous's feet.
Hieronymous picked up the weapon. He bent over Mordecai for a moment, then looked at Egon. "He's dead."
Egon said, "We seem to have a new Emperor."
"We do indeed,"' Hieronymous said, and handed the gun to him butt-first.
Gleister Emperor Line No. 2:
"That's good of you, cousin," Egon said, hefting the weapon. "You have no imperial ambitions, then?"
"Ambitions, but not imperial ones. Besides, Egon, I've had a premonition."
"I'm not Egon anymore," the Chairman said. "For the sake of symmetry, I'm renaming myself Mingus...What was your premonition?"
"I thought I heard a voice say: 'The Emperor is the slave of time.'"
"Just that and no more?"
"That's all I heard," Hieronymous said.
"How strange, dark and ominous," the new Mingus said, grinning. "How do you interpret it?"
"It hints at something unpleasant, but I don't know what. Take it for what it's worth."
"Well," Mingus said. "You have given me an oracle and an empire, and I thank you most kindly for both, but especially the Empire. Now, what can I do for you?"
"You grant me an imperial boon?"
"Yes, anything."
"Then go rule your Empire, and let me and the rest of us do what we have to do."
"It's doubtless unwise," Mingus said, "but I'll do it. God knows what complications would ensue if I started killing Gleisters. Just remember---"
Mingus stopped. A man had just materialized onto the stage beside him.
Main Lines Junction No. 3:
The man was old, he had a gray beard and a ravaged face. His eyes were shadowy and lined.
"Who are you?" Mingus demanded.
"I am you, Egon. I am Mordecai, I am Hieronymous, I am the others. I am the Emperor you will become. I have come here to beg you to abdicate now and change what still can be changed."
"Why should I do that'" Mingus asked.
"Because the Emperor is the slave of time."
"That makes no sense whatsoever, old man. Who are you really? Hieronymous, this looks like the sort of theatrical stunt you might come up with someday."
"I can give no promise for the behavior of my old age, if that's what this is."
"Abdicate," the old man said.
"Nobody likes a nag," Mingus said, aimed his gun and fired.
There was no apparent effect. The old man shook his head irritably. "I can't be killed---not here, not now, not by you! Reality is positional, as you will learn when you grow up. Now I must return to my work."
"What work is that?" Hieronymous asked.
"All slaves perform identical meaningless work," the old man said, and disappeared.
Mingus rubbed his chin irritably. "Nothing like a ghost to keep the comedy moving! Hieronymous, are you going somewhere?"
Hieronymous had been adjusting his time machine. He looked up and said, "I'm going on a trip."
"Where?"
"To visit an old friend."
"Who? What are you talking about?"
"You'll see, in good time."
Mingus said, "Wait, Hieronymous! Stay with me and help me build a true civilization. We'll do it your way."
"No," Hieronymous said, and pushed the button.
Main Lines Junction No. 4:
This time Gleister came out near Krul in the late years of the Mingus Imperium. He bartered clothing for money and took the day coach to Washington. From the station he walked to the White House, seat of Imperial power and now a Byzantine city within a city. He told the sergeant of the Exterior Guard to announce him to the Emperor.
"What kind of a joke is this?" the sergeant said. "Put your petition through proper channels."
"Announce me for the sake of your own continued welfare," Gleister said. "Tell him that Hieronymous is here."
The sergeant was skeptical, but unwilling to take a risk. He rang up the captain of the guard, who contacted the commandant of the guard. Nothing happened for ten minutes, then things began to happen very quickly.
"I beg your pardon," the sergeant said. "I'm new at this post. I hadn't received the standing order concerning you. Please come this way, sir."
Hieronymous was led through winding gray corridors, into an elevator, through more corridors, to a steel-plate door painted crimson. The sergeant let him in and closed the door behind him.
Hieronymous was in a small white audience room. There was a man present, seated at a small table. The man stood up when he entered.
"It's good to see you again," Egon-Mingus said.
"Good to see you, too," Hieronymous replied. "How fares the Empire?"
"Well...it's not too successful, as you perhaps foresaw. In fact, it's disastrous." Mingus smiled painfully. He was old now, a tall man with a gray beard and ravaged eyes.
"What's the trouble?"
"Don't you know?"
Hieronymous shook his head. "I had a premonition, not a vision. Are Gleisters still trying to overthrow you?"
"Yes, yes, of course," Mingus said. "I don't even bother trying to stop them. Our family possesses a deep-seated ineptitude where politics are concerned. The Gleisters have no head for intrigue! They come into my empire in their twentieth-century clothing, brandishing strange weapons and talking in concepts the populace can't understand. People think they represent some mad foreign overlord, or are just plain crazy. At the first opportunity they turn them over to the police."
"And what do you do with them?"
"I educate them."
"Ah!"
Mingus made a face. "I hope you don't think I'm using a euphemism for violence. I assure you that I educate them most conventionally, with lectures, guided tours, films and books. Then I find some place in the Empire for them to stay."
"Do they all choose to live here?"
"Most of them. One must live somewhere, after all, and their original places in their own time are occupied by other Gleisters."
"Well...That sounds all right. What's the trouble?"
"Hieronymous, you need some education yourself! Maybe you should go on the guided tour."
"Just tell me about it."
"Very well. It's actually quite simple. The first or original or Ur-Gleister built a time machine and went into the future. Nature, which tolerates a paradox but abhors a vacuum, was left with a hole in the space-time fabric. A Gleister was missing from his normal position. Nature, therefore, supplied an identical or near-identical Gleister from wherever she keeps the spare parts."
"I know all of this," Hieronymous said.
"You haven't thought it through to the end. Each time a Gleister uses a time machine there is a displacement, another hole in the space-time fabric, which Nature fills by producing yet another Gleister."
"I'm beginning to understand," Hieronymous said.
"Now we have numerous Gleisters," Mingus went on, "all whizzing around on their various missions. We have a Gleister-sequence that becomes the Emperor, another sequence that forms an organization against the Emperor. And there are other sequences. Each sequence involving time travel results in the duplication of a Gleister. Each new Gleister time travels and is instrumental in the creation of more new Gleisters."
Mingus paused to let that sink in, then said: "Gleisters are being produced at a geometric rate."
"Well," Hieronymous said, "that's a hell of a lot of Gleisters."
"You still don't grasp the scale," Mingus said. "Geometric progressions tend to get out of hand very early. Hundreds become thousands, thousands become millions, which become trillions and quadrillions. Do you get it now?"
"I get it," Hieronymous said. "Where do they all go?"
"They come here," Mingus said. "There's really no other place for them to go."