"Haven't you learned your lesson, yet?" Kyes said. "The Emperor's secret died with him. We're never going to find it. At least, not the way we've been going about it."
Then he told Lagguth what he had mind.
Sr. Lagguth violently protested. He did not say he thought Kyes was mad-although that certainly might have been hinted at. But he did say he would immediately have to report the matter to the rest of the council, and he would have to get their permission to abandon his search and to take up the new one.
Kyes did not explode, or threaten, or call the being all kinds of a fool. Instead, he rang for a clerk, and in a moment or two she appeared, wheeling in a great stack of readouts on a cart. The readouts were copies of the report Lagguth had delivered not too long before to the privy council, the one in which he said that the AM2 would be located within thirteen months.
Kyes strolled about the room while Lagguth stared at the report, considering his many sins.
"Would you like to change your conclusions in that report?" Kyes asked finally.
Lagguth remained silent.
"I had a team of my own people go over it. They found it... interesting," Kyes added. Lagguth's mouth gaped-he wanted to speak-then snapped shut again. What could he say? Every page of the report was fiction. He might as well have said two months, or six months, or-never.
"Shall we try it my way?" Kyes purred.
The logic was impeccable. Sr. Lagguth was convinced.
The old woman was a delight. She wore her gray hair long and tumbling down to her waist. It glowed with health. She had a high-pitched giggle that charmed Kyes, especially since she let it ring out at his weakest jests. Even then, there was no falseness in it. Despite her age, which the investigators estimated at 155, her figure was good and she filled her orange robes in a pleasing manner. From what he knew about such things—if he had been human, Kyes assumed he would have found her still attractive. Her name was Zoran. She was the elected leader of the Cult Of Eternal Emperor, insofar as they had real leadership.
Zoran and her group had been shadowed by his investigators for some time. They were a puzzling lot. Most of them lived ordinary lives and were employed at ordinary jobs. During that time they dressed and mostly behaved like everyone else. The only main difference was their attitude. They were absolutely cheerful beings. There seemed to be no setbacks or disappointments that disturbed them. His chief detective swore that if the immediate demise of Prime World were announced, they would giggle wildly and then go on about their duties. They would probably only add a "Last chance for the word" when they donned their robes, kicked off their shoes, and wandered the streets preaching their peculiar beliefs.
Zoran explained away some of the misconceptions about their thinking to Kyes, giggling all the while.
"Oh, we certainly don't think of the Eternal Emperor as a god." Giggle. "Or, at least a god, per se." More giggling. "He's more like an emissary—you know—" giggle—"a representative of the Holy Spheres."
Kyes wanted to know what a Holy Sphere might be.
"Very good question," she said. "They're, well, round, I suppose, (giggle) And holy. (Thirty seconds of sustained giggling) Actually, it's just concept. One you accept, or don't. If you accept it—you can see it. In your mind. But, if you don't (massive giggling)... well, of course you won't see it at all."
Kyes laughed himself—the first real laughter from him in ages. "I suppose I'm one of the blind," he said.
"Oh, no. Not at all. At least, not completely," Zoran said. "Otherwise I wouldn't be here talking to you."
Kyes puzzled at that. How could she be so trusting? His motives were far from pure. In a mad moment—the giggling got to a being after a while—he almost confessed this. But he didn't.
"Of course, there might be some who would say that you were thinking of using us," the old woman said. This time, when the giggle came, Kyes jumped. "But how could you? All I have is this poor vessel." She dramatically drew her hands down her robes, outlining her body. "And it is filled with the joy of the Holy Spheres, (small giggle) Use us if you wish, (bigger giggle) There's more than enough joy for everyone."
"But wouldn't the joy be even greater," Kyes answered, trying to avoid being too smooth, "if more beings believed as you?"
That time, there was no giggle from Zoran. She studied him, her eyes sharp and clear. Kyes could feel himself being measured.
"You were correct in your assumption that my feelings are not far apart from yours," he continued. "I know nothing about Holy Spheres. Or gods. Or godly representatives. But I do believe one thing. Very firmly. And that is the Eternal Emperor is still with us."
Zoran was silent. Then, she said quickly, "Why is it necessary for you to believe this?"
Kyes did not answer-at least not directly. He was starting to come up to speed with the woman.
"You've stopped laughing," was all he said.
"What do you have in mind to help others hear our thoughts?" the old woman asked. "Money?" Kyes said there would be money for her order. "Temporal support?" Kyes said that as a member of the privy council, his support could hardly be thought of as anything else.
"What do you want in return, then?" she asked.
"Only what you would give me, even without my support, " Kyes said. "I want information. I'd like to be notified when any of your members-no matter where they reside in the Empire-report a sighting of the Emperor. "
"You're right," Zoran said. "None of us would withhold that kind of information. It's what we're trying to convince others of, isn't it?"
It wasn't necessary for Kyes to answer.
"You'll be deluged," she said after a while. "Our religion-if it can be called that-tends to attract many individuals with, shall we say, frantic minds."
"I'm aware of that," Kyes said.
Zoran stared at him for a long time. Then she let loose with one of her wild, ringing giggles.
The bargain was set.
Kyes continued to extend his net across the dark waters. As he did so, he could not help but keep peering into the murk hoping to catch sight of the great, silver shadow of the Eternal Emperor lurking in the depths. The exercise was pointless and agonizing. He was very much like a starving being who had bought a lottery ticket. The hope the action generated seemed harmless enough. At least there was something to dream about for a while. But the hope was just a thin coating on a tragic pill.
But Kyes was an old master of self-control. He recognized the glooming for what it was and continued apace. As his colleagues scrambled frantically about with their bloodletting at home and in the Honjo worlds, he put all of his marks into secret play.
How there was only one mark left, one key being to suborn. Potentially, the most difficult and dangerous of alclass="underline" Colonel Poyndex, the chief of Mercury Corps. But when he finally determined what the cost would be, Kyes did not hesitate for a moment.
The colonel was as chilling in person as he had been on the screen when the assassination plot had been announced. Poyndex listened intently to every word Kyes had to say. He never blinked or smiled or even shifted in his seat once he had settled.
Kyes carefully skated around his own beliefs and merely restated the logic. The Emperor had reportedly disappeared—he didn't say "died"—before. And he had always returned. Also, the supply of AM2 always followed the same course: diminished during the alleged absence, plentiful when he came back. That part could be charted—and had been by Lagguth's staff and Kyes's computer. The great historical shifts in the AM2 supply appeared to match the times when rumor and myth held that the Emperor was gone.
Finally, Kyes was done. He eased back in his seat, keeping his own expression as blank as the spy master's.