Mahoney had worried that the ship could be traced by its numbers. Sten was glad to find that his ex-boss did not know everything. The ship and every serial-numbered item on it was trebly sterile—another product of Sten's professional paranoia that was now paying off.
So they arrived on Poppajoe and were greeted by Messrs. Moretti and Manetti as if they were both long-lost cousins and complete but respected strangers.
Poppajoe may have been surviving, but Farwestern was not. Commercial travel was a trickle. Between the fuel shortages and the cutbacks in the military, even Imperial ships were a rarity. A lot of orbital stations had sealed their ports, and their people had gone dirtside to one of Farwestern's planets or moved on.
"But we will make it," Moretti explained. "We're like the old mining town that struck it rich. A group of йmigrйs moved in and discovered that no one likes to do his own washing. They were willing to provide the services. Eventually the minerals played out and the miners headed for the next strike. However, the laundrybeings stayed—and all became millionaires doing each other's laundry."
He found that quite funny. Sten did not. What he saw, and had seen from the time he and Mahoney had fled Smallbridge, was the slow grinding down of the Empire. He had felt it going on even in his isolation on Smallbridge, but witnessing it was another thing. Beingkind was pulling in its horns—or was being forced to. Entropy was well and good as a thermodynamic principle. As a social phenomenon it was damned scary.
Mahoney gave him as big a picture as he could—which was hardly complete, he admitted. Worlds, systems, clusters, even some galaxies had slipped out of contact. By choice, rejecting the hamwitted leadership of the council? By war? By—barely conceivable—disease?
As Sten well knew, AM2 had been the skein holding the Empire together. Without the shattering energy release of Anti-Matter Two, star drives were almost impossible to power. And of course, since AM2 had been very inexpensive—price determined by the Emperor—and fairly available—depending on the Emperor, once more—it was easy to take the lazy way out and run anything and everything on the substance. Interstellar communications... weaponry... factories... manufacturing... the list ran on.
When the Emperor was murdered the supply of AM2 stopped. Sten had found that hard to swallow the first time Mahoney had said it. He was still having trouble. Back on Smallbridge, he had assumed that the privy council—for profiteering reasons of their own, as well as base incompetency—had merely been keeping the supply at a trickle.
"Not true," Mahoney had said. "They haven't a clue to where the goodies are. That's why the council wanted to pick you up—and anybody else who might've had a private beer with the Emperor—then gently loosen your toenails until you told them The Secret."
"They're clottin' mad."
"So they are. Consider this, boy. The entire universe is bonkers," Mahoney said. "Except for me and thee. Heh... heh... heh... and I'm slippin' away slowly if you don't find a bottle and uncap it."
Sten followed orders. He drank—heavily—from the bottle before handing it to Ian.
"Ring down for another one. If your prog circuits are DNCing now, it will get far worse."
Again, Sten followed orders.
"Okay, Mahoney. We are now on the thin edge."
Mahoney chortled. "Not even close yet, boy. But proceed."
There was a tap at the door. "Y'r order, sir."
Mahoney was on his feet, a pistol snaking out of his sleeve. "A little too efficient." He moved toward the door.
"Relax, Fleet Marshal," Sten said dryly. "It's open, Mr. Kilgour."
After a pause, the door came open, and Alex entered pushing a drink tray and wearing a disappointed expression.
"Did I noo hae y'goin't frae e'en a second?" he asked hopefully.
"You gotta do something about the way you talk, man."
"Thae's some think it charmin'," Alex said, mock-hurt.
Sten and Alex looked at one another.
"How close did they get to you?" Sten asked.
Kilgour told them of the near-ambush and the battle in the icy streets.
"Ah'm assum't," he said, "frae the fact th' warnin' wae in gen'ral code, nae whae Sten and I hae set up, y're responsible f'r tippin' me th' wink."
"I was," Mahoney said.
"Ah'm also assum't, sir, thae's reason beyon' y'r fas'nation wi' m' girlish legs an' giggle. Who d'ye want iced?"
"Quick thinking, Mr. Kilgour. But sit down. You too, Admiral. The debriefing—and the plan—will take awhile. You'll guess the target—correction, targets—as I go along. The suspense will be good for you."
Mahoney began with what had happened to him from the day of the Emperor's funeral, when he had looked at the Council of Five standing on the grassy knoll that was the Emperor's grave and knew that he was looking at five assassins.
He hesitated, then told them the impossible part. After the funeral, he had gone into the Emperor's study, dug out a bottle of the vile swill the Emperor called Scotch, and planned a quiet, private farewell toast. Stuck to the bottle was a handwritten note:
"Stick around, Ian. I'll be right back."
It was in the handwriting of the Eternal Emperor.
Mahoney stopped, expecting complete disbelief. He got it, masked on both men's faces by expressions of bright interest—and a slow shift by Sten toward Mahoney's gun-hand.
"That's—very interesting, Fleet Marshal. Sir. How do you suppose it got there? Are you saying the man who got assassinated was a double?"
"No. That was the Emperor."
"So he somehow survived getting shot a dozen or so times and then being blown up?"
"Don't clot around, Sten. He was dead."
"Ah. Soo he ris't oot'n th' grave't' leave ye a wee love note?"
"Again, no. He must've left instructions with one of the Gurkhas. Or a palace servant. I asked. Nobody knew anything."
"Let's ignore how the note got there for a sec, Ian. Are you listening to what you've just been saying? Either you're mad—or else you've joined up with that cult that goes around saying the Emperor has lived forever. And remembering six years plus is a long time for you just to be sticking around. Which is how long it's been."
"Neither one—or maybe I am bonkers. But will you keep listening?"
" 'Mought's well. Whae's time't' a clottin' hog?" Kilgour said. He poured himself a drink of quill—but still kept a wary eye on Mahoney.
Mahoney went on. He had made his own plans that day. He was going after the privy council.
"Did you consider maybe they'd think you were the type to carry a grudge?" Sten asked.
"I did—and covered my ass."
Mahoney put in for early retirement. The privy council, in the mad rush to get rid of the bloated and incredibly expensive military after the Tahn wars, was more than willing to let anyone and everyone out, few questions asked. Sten nodded—that was exactly how he and Kilgour had been able to slip into retirement and obscurity.
The council was especially happy to be rid of Mahoney, who was not only the Emperor's best-loved Fleet Marshal, architect of victory, but also once head of Mercury Corps—Imperial Intelligence—for many, many years.
"But I didn't want them to think I was going to create any mischief. I found a cover."
Mahoney's cover, loudly announced, was that he planned to do a complete biography of the Eternal Emperor, the greatest man who ever lived. That plan fit quite well into the council's martyr-building.
"What I was, of course, doing was building my stone bucket. Hell if I knew what I would do with it—but I had to do it."