"This is your final test, young Captain Sten," he said. "Your final, ninety-cycle-on-the-job test. Pass this one and I okay you for the Imperial health plan."
The Emperor slugged back the 180-proof alcohol and then slammed down the glass. He watched closely as Sten picked up the glass, sniffed it briefly, shrugged, and then poured white fire down his throat.
Sten set the glass down, then, with no expression on his face, slid the glass toward the bottle for some more. "Pretty good stuff. A little metallic..."
"That's from the radiator," the Emperor snapped. "I distill it in a car radiator. For the flavor."
"Oh," Sten said, still without expression. "Interesting... You wouldn't mind if I tried some more..."
He poured two more equally full glasses. He gave a silent toast, and the Emperor watched in amazement as Sten drank it down like water.
"Come on," the Emperor said in exasperation. "That's the most powerful straight alcohol you've ever tasted in your life and you know it. Don't con me."
Sten shook his head in innocence. "It's pretty potent, all right," he said. "But—no offense—I have tried something stronger."
"Like what?" The Emperor fumed.
"Stregg," Sten said.
"What in clot is Stregg?"
"An ET drink," Sten answered. "People called the Bhor. Don't know if you remember them but—"
"Oh, yeah," the Emperor said. "Those Lupus Cluster fellows. Didn't I turn a system over to them, or something like that?"
"Something like that."
"So what's this Stregg swill like? Can't be better than my pure dee moonshine—you got any?"
Sten nodded. "In my quarters. If you're interested, I'll send a runner."
"I'm interested."
The Emperor raised the glass to toast position.
"By my mother's," he said through furry tongue, "by my mother's... What was that Bhor toast again?"
"By my mother's beard," Sten said, equally furry-tongued.
"Right. By my mother's beard." He shot it back, gasped, and held on to the desk as his empire swung around him.
"Clot a bunch of moonshine," the Eternal Emperor said. "Stregg's the ticket. Now what was that other toash... I mean toast. By my father's..."
"Frozen buttocks," Sten said.
"Beg your pardon. No need to get—oh, that's the toasshtt—I mean toast. By my father's frozen buttocks! Sffine stuff." He lifted his empty glass to drink. He stared at it owlishly when he realized it was empty, and then pulled himself up to his full Imperial Majesty. "I'm clotting fried."
"Yep," Sten said. "Stregg do that to you. I mean, does that you to—oh, clot. Time is it? I gotta go on duty."
"Not like that, you don't. Not in this Majesty's service. Can't stand drunks. Can't stand people can't hold their liquor. Don't trust them. Never have."
Sten peered at him through a Stregg haze. "Zzatt mean I'm fired?"
"No. No. Never fire a drunk. Have to fire me. Sober us up first. Then I fire you."
The Emperor rose to his feet. Wavered. And then firmed himself. "Angelo stew," he intoned. "Only thing save your career now."
"What the clot is Angelo stew?"
"You don't need to know. Wouldn't eat it if you did. Cures cancer... oh, we cured that before, didn't we... Anyway... Angelo stew's the ticket. Only thing I know will unfreeze our buttocks."
He staggered off and Sten followed in a beautifully military, forty-five-degree march.
Sten's stomach fumbled hungrily as he smelled the smells from the Eternal Emperor's private kitchen. Drunk as he was, he watched in fascination as the equally drunk Emperor performed miracles both major and minor. The minor miracles were with strange spices and herbs; the major one was that the Emperor, smashed on Stregg, could work an antique French knife, slicing away like a machine, measure proportions, and... keep up a semi-lucid conversation.
Sten's job was to keep the Stregg glasses full.
"Have another drink. Not to worry. Angelo stew right up."
Sten took a tentative sip of Stregg and felt the cold heat-lightning down his gullet. This time, however, the impact was different. Just sitting in the Emperor's super-private domain, added to the fact that it was indeed time to get his captain's act together, had the effect of clearing away the boozy haze.
The kitchen was four or five times larger than most on fortieth-century Prime World, where food was handled out of sight by computers and bots. It had some modern features—hidden cabinets and environmental food storage boxes operated by finger touch. It also was kept absolutely bacteria free and featured a state-of-the-art waste disposal system that the Emperor rarely used. Mostly he either swept what Sten would have considered waste into containers and returned them to storage, or dumped things into what Sten would later learn were simmering stock-pots.
The most imposing feature of the room was a huge chopping block made of rare hardwood called oak. In the center of the block was an old stainless steel sink. Set a little bit lower than the chopping block, it was flushed by a constant spray of water, and as the Emperor chopped away, he swept everything that didn't make Angelo stew into the sink, where it instantly disappeared.
Directly behind the Emperor was an enormous black cast-iron and gleaming steel cooking range. It featured an oven whose walls were many centimeters thick, a single-cast grill, half-a-dozen professional-chef-size burners, and an open, wood-burning grill. From the slight smell it gave off, the stove obviously operated by some kind of natural gas.
Sten watched as the Emperor worked and kept up a running commentary at the same time. From what Sten could gather, the first act of what was to be Angelo stew consisted of thinly sliced chorizo—Mexican hard sausage, the Emperor explained. The sausage and a heaping handful of garlic were sautйed in Thai-pepper-marinated olive oil. Deliciously hot-spiced smells from the pan cut right through the Stregg fumes in Sten's nostrils. He took another sip from his drink and listened while the Emperor talked.
"Never used to think much about food," the Emperor said, "except as fuel. You know, the stomach complains, you fill it, and then go about your business."
"I understand what you mean," Sten said, remembering his days as a Mig worker.
"Figured you would. Anyway, I was a typical young deep-space engineer. Do my time on the company mission, and spend my Intercourse and Intoxication time with joygirls and booze. Food even seemed to get in the way of that."
Sten understood that as well. It was pretty much how he had spent his days as a rookie trooper.
"Then as I went up the company ladder, they sent me off on longer and longer jobs. Got clotting boring. Got so the only break you had was food. And that was all pap. So I started playing around. Remembering things my dad and grandma fixed. Trying to duplicate them."
He tapped his head. "Odd, how all the things you ever smelled or tasted are right up here. Then all you got to do is practice to get your tongue in gear. Like this Angelo stew here. Greatest hangover and drunk cure invented. Some old Mex pirate taught me—clot, that's another story..."
He stopped his work and took a sip of Stregg. Smiled to himself, and tipped a small splash in with the chorizo. Then he went back to the task at hand, quartering four or five onions and seeding quarter slices of tomatoes.
"Jump to a lot of years later. Way after I discovered AM2 and started putting this whole clottin' Empire together..."
Sten's brain whirled for an instant. AM2. The beginning of the Empire. What this mid-thirties-looking man was talking about so lightly was what one read about in history vids. He had always thought they were more legend than fact. But here he was having a calm discussion with the man who supposedly started it all—hell, nearly twenty centuries in the past. The Emperor went on, as if he was talking about yesterday.