Flash!
Suddenly they were standing at the front entrance of the largest building. A faded sign next to the door read: Domain 51.
Flash!
Now they were inside the building itself, looking down at the entrance to a huge amphitheater contained within. There were dozens of soldiers in stark black uniforms standing at rigid attention around this sizable portal. The only means of illumination that Hunter could see was by candles; there were hundreds of them everywhere. Their flickering cast odd shadows on the Z-gun turrets built into the walls of this place.
Flash!
Hunter was now inside the chamber itself. It, too, was lit only by candlelight. In the middle of the chamber was a huge black monolith. It was about a hundred feet high and the same measurement square.
It stood alone. A huge seamless, impenetrable presence.
Hunter didn’t have to ask what this was. He knew already.
It was the Big Generator.
It was guarded by another small army of black-uniformed soldiers. They were standing at attention in small groups scattered around the inner chamber. They did not seem to notice that Hunter and the Emperor’s ghost were there.
The chamber had a definite religious air to it. There was no sound. Hunter could see no means of access to the huge black box. There were no dials or switches or panel lights on the thing. No cables or wires running into or out of it. No controls, at least anywhere nearby.
The viz-screen appeared again. This time Hunter was able to duck before it brained him. The same guy, with the same blank expression, began talking to him again.
“From the Big Generator everything is possible in our Galaxy,” he said without a nanoiota of emotion. “It is a gift from on high. The power it generates goes everywhere and encompasses the realm. It runs our spaceships. It runs our planets. It runs everything on our planets. From the dimmest panel bulb on the most distant world to the prop core of our largest M-Class Starcrasher. All of the energy comes from here.”
“Fascinating,” Hunter said. It was hard not to be impressed. “How does it work?”
The man in the viz-screen suddenly looked nonplussed.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Hunter shrugged. Could he have been any clearer?
“I mean, ‘How does it work?’ ” he asked again.
The man in the viz-screen started stammering. “Well… that’s a closely guarded secret… the most closely guarded secret in the Empire…”
But Hunter persisted because he really wanted to know.
“Do you mean how it works is a secret?” he asked. “Or the fact that no one knows how it works?”
Even the Emperor’s ghost turned slightly red on that one.
The man in the viz-screen started to say something.
But before he could answer—
Flash!
Hunter now found himself standing inside a huge apartment.
It was empty of furniture except for one couch and a floating bed. There were windows everywhere, and judging from the harsh glare flooding in on him, it was easy to guess that he was atop a building somewhere deep in downtown Big Bright City.
His new home.
But before he could take one step or have one more thought, there came a stern pounding on the apartment’s front door. Hunter quickly walked down the hallway and activated the security screen next to the main entrance.
He saw a small army of Imperial Guards looking in on him.
Damn…
Could these be the Emperor’s bodyguards coming for him? Maybe to arrest him on a charge of insolence or blasphemy?
No… these guys were wearing different uniforms than the ones he’d just seen out in the desert. They were carrying bigger guns as well.
He slid the door open.
“Can I help you?”
The six monstrous soldiers didn’t say a word. Instead, they stepped aside to reveal that someone was with them.
It was a woman.
A very beautiful woman.
She was dressed all in black. Black jacket. Black miniskirt, black stockings. Black boots. Her low-cut black top showed a hint of substantial breasts. Her hair was blond and flowing over her shoulders. Even with the heavy makeup, her face was stunning.
Hunter heard himself say: “Wow…”
His first thought, of course, was that Erx and Berx had arranged for another Echo 323 to be delivered to him. They were such great guys!
But then it dawned on him — holo-girls had no need for a royal escort. Could someone this beautiful be the real thing?
She smiled. “I’m sorry, Mister Hunter. Am I disturbing you?”
Hunter fumbled for a reply. “That would be impossible, I think,” he finally said.
She smiled again. Her coterie of guards popped out.
That’s when Hunter realized just who this was. He recognized her from the race earlier that day.
It was the Empress. The wife of O’Nay. Alone. Standing at his apartment door.
“Well, are you going to invite me in?” she asked him.
Hunter stumbled back a foot or two. She wiggled by him, allowing the door to close behind her.
She walked into the apartment, took a look around, and smiled. “Nice place — though I should say you need some more furniture — and it could use a woman’s touch. Even a holo-girl might help out here.”
“I still don’t know how to work those things…” Hunter said, regretting each word as it floated from his mouth.
But she just smiled again. She was stunning, if several years older than he.
“You must be the only man left in the Galaxy who doesn’t,” she said.
She took a seat on the couch; he did too. Five words kept spinning around in his head. What is she doing here?
“I hear you were off with both my husband and my son today,” she said. “Did my son behave himself?”
“I can’t imagine he ever misbehaves,” Hunter answered as politely as he could.
She laughed. “No need to be nice about it. It still happens on a daily basis.”
Hunter looked around his place helplessly. “I’m sorry… I don’t have anything to offer you… that is, I’m not sure if you even—”
She reached over and touched him on the knee. He felt a jolt of something go right through him.
“Relax, Mister Hunter,” she told him. “An Empress can have a sip of wine every once in a while.”
She gently snapped her fingers, and a bottle of wine was suddenly in her hand. Another snap, two goblets appeared. But this was not a bottle of extravagant ‘cloud wine she was holding. It was slow-ship.
Hunter just looked up at her and laughed. “You’ll never convince me that you actually drink that stuff.”
“Should I take that as a challenge?” she asked him.
Hunter began stuttering some reply. Jessuz, what was going on here? One moment he’s at a party in the sky, the next he’s inside a mountain somewhere — and now he was sitting next to the Empress of the Galaxy.
This sure ain’t Fools 6, he thought.
“My husband took you to that awful place in the desert, I suppose?” she asked, pouring him some wine.
“We went to the desert, yes…”
She rolled her eyes. “With all those guards. And the security. And that Big Generator thing?”
Hunter nodded. “That was the tour.”
She sighed dramatically and handed him his wine. “But I insisted he bring you someplace interesting.”
“Well, it was interesting, especially…” Hunter began to say.