A satin-sheathed young figure turned as he passed.
“Dance with me, Admiral.”
The face that smiled wistfully at him was senile, artificially aged to that of a ninety-year-old’s, though the girl was in fact about twenty. Her cheeks and jowls were wrinkled and sagging, caked with cosmetic, her green eyes spiteful and rheumy. The combination of an ancient face and a young body was to be seen throughout the salon; it was the current fashion in feminine beauty, a concept that changed rapidly in all sophisticated societies. It said much for the strength of social conditioning that the sight of the sexually trained girl children had aroused Archier hardly at all, but when the withered decayed cheek of his dance partner was placed against his, a thrill went right through him.
He considered asking her to his table, even though he knew the current fad in her age group was to refuse all sexual liaisons. She had been made pure virgin, her hymen surgically restored, all memory of past sexual encounters expunged from her mind. However, when the tune ended and they ceased to dance a wheezing voice accosted him from behind. “Ah, there you are, Admiral!”
A pig whom he recognised as Acting Fire Command Officer of Fleet Weapons Division had come bustling into the salon. A trifle wearily, he acknowledged the creature. By the regulations officers of command rank were supposed to be human, but human personnel were so scarce it had become the practice to give animals acting rank instead. Pigs appeared particularly suited to this role, and indeed eager for it.
Archier’s Fire Command Officer seemed exasperated. He grunted, raising a bristled snout. “Not a very successful day, Admiral!”
Murmuring a polite goodbye to the old-faced young woman, Archier sauntered with the animal towards the buffet. “The times we live in cause much confusion,” he admitted ambiguously.
“Confusion? I suffer from no confusion!” The pig thrust his snout in a trough to root for tidbits, while Archier surveyed the delicacies laid out on the buffet tables. He picked up a tiny flask and sipped a cool, creamy, thick purple fluid from it through a straw. The cannabis-based drink made him feel better almost immediately.
The pig, on the other hand, seemed only to grow more agitated. He took his head out of the trough as though unable to contain himself any longer. “Admiral, I waited and waited for you to order a strike. And what happened? We simply left and did nothing!”
“We were ordered away,” Archier said amiably. “There was no time to complete collection.”
“Even so, we should have left them something to remember us by!” spluttered the pig. “Vapourise a city or two. Beam a disintegration trail across the main continent. These worlds need to be shown who’s master!”
Thoughtfully Archier sucked up the rest of the purple drink. “It wouldn’t really have been fair. They hadn’t actually refused payment yet. It wasn’t their fault we had to leave.”
“It was their fault we were there at all! By the Simplex, Admiral, what’s going to happen to the Empire if all we’re going to be is fair? Firmness is what’s needed!” The pig shook his head and let out a long, troubled snuffling sound. “Sometimes I despair of you humans!”
He waddled away. A voice spoke near Archier. “I wonder if the appointment was wise in that pig’s case. I’ve noticed he gets upset when he doesn’t get a chance to play with the fleet’s firepower.”
With a shrug Archier acknowledged a young man in the sheened dress uniform of the Drop Commando. “People naturally like to do their job—animals more so than humans, if you ask me. Anyway, a post like that calls for keenness. It needs a pig or feline.”
The commando nodded. “My cheetahs and dogs strain at the leash every time we invest a planet. It’s difficult explaining why we can’t go, sometimes.”
“What we really need are more humans.”
“Don’t we all know that!” The commando laughed and helped himself to a leaf-dish of crunchy diced vegetables. “At least, in the Force we do. But try telling civilians.”
Tossing the empty flask into a waste slot, Archier turned away. In his mind he saw Galactic Diadem, laid out like a map. Imperial worlds trailed out of the glowing starbank like ragged tentacles from some monster octopus, merging and dissipating into the fringe worlds—planets where Imperial control had become weak of late.
In theory the Empire claimed sovereignty over the whole galaxy, anticipating a time when mankind would be present throughout the galactic disk. In fact, if the galaxy were viewed from afar the extent of Imperial power would be seen as a fairly small though visible blotch, and whether that blotch would now be further extended was becoming, to many minds, problematical.
One, and perhaps the chief difficulty, was the drastically declining birth rate of Diadem and its close environs. The human population of Diadem, which could be thought of as ruling mankind much as one imperial country would once have ruled other countries (though it was never admitted that any such thing as political division existed), was about one million. To that could be added a few tens of millions of animals with artificial intelligence who assisted in the administration of the Empire, and of course some hundred of millions of robots who were vital economically but were denied citizenship.
But neither animals nor robots were artistically or scientifically creative, and one million people, spread over such a vast region, offered too small a reservoir of creative talent to encourage confidence in the future. What was more, the situation was getting worse. The next generation would see an Empire manned by only seven hundred thousand. Eventually the population might stabilise, but Diadem would lose the mental strength necessary for its self-appointed destiny.
The remedy was typical of the Empire’s methods: a levy of artists, scientists and philosophers drawn from the fringe and vassal worlds which mainly had their own governments and whose total population could be measured in the hundred of millions. Whether the personnel tax was succeeding in its aims was debatable. Some of the dragooned artists and scientists certainly found their carefree lives in Diadem to their liking and stayed—particularly those from social regimes which, while more vigorous, were also more restrictive. But the total liberty inalienable to full Imperial citizens in Diadem—and that included anyone with 90 per cent or more human genes—virtually made it impossible to prevent anyone from clandestinely leaving, should they be so inclined. Not even the threat to punish the home worlds of defectors had always proved effective.
And so Diadem provided a narrowing base of human resource from which to rule the galaxy. Neither was the task taken on by those few determined to maintain the Empire made any easier by the disinterest shown by the majority of humans in Diadem. Hence the preponderance of youth to be found among the crews of Star Force.
Yet is said much for the Empire’s self-confidence that Diadem’s one million inhabited nearly a thousand planets, and still managed to hold sway over a yet higher number whose populations were much larger. True, the Empire’s integrity outside Diadem was sustained only by permanent deployment of the star fleets (in their heyday there had been thirty-six of them; now there were only five) whose role it was to suppress rebellion, collect taxes from defaulters—and, most important, try to prevent secessionist-minded worlds from acquiring star fleets of their own.
The commando officer trailed after Archier. It was as if he shared his thoughts, for he touched his elbow and said, “I hope you don’t mind my asking, Admiral, but I’ve been meaning to ask you how old you are.”
Archier paused. His eye had caught the coloured incoming lights glowing over the intermat kiosks at the far end of the salon. Guests were arriving from other ships in Ten-Fleet, making use of the matter transmission facility the fleet was able to use while in fast feetol formation. Gorgeous finery, ostentatious dress uniforms (officers of third rank and over were permitted to design their own) burgeoned from the kiosks as the visitors stepped forth.