Flint said grimly, "Who would dare?"

  Orgulus said, "Ah! Well… The Ministers don't trust the Empress, neither do the Science Police, because she was raised on a rebel planet her whole childhood. Only Lord Famine is eagerly on her side, but what can he and his locust legion of tax-gatherers and publicans do? He is being sent away on some long-term spook mission involving Urnain social disintegration predictions. Stirring up crime rates on rebel planets, spreading discontent, undermining the rebel leaders. Making them poor instead of us. That man has a genius for poverty. Long-term project. He will be kept away from the Court for two decades with this. Or longer."

  Flint was puzzled. Decades? The war could not be expected to last for as long as that, not when the rebels were outnumbered, blockaded, and on the brink of starvation. He said, "What is the number of rebel planets still able to maintain active resistance?"

  Orgulus said, "Ah! Well … are you asking the exact number?"

  "Yes."

  "Classified."

  "A rough number."

  "Classified."

  Flint shook his head slowly. Grimly, he said, "We are not winning the war, are we?"

  "Ah! Well … that is also classified."

  "That bad, eh?"

  " Ah! Well … are you asking the exact badness of how bad it is?"

  "Also classified. I get it."

  Orgulus said, "It is bad enough that every bloody bugger is blaming and backstabbing each other at court. I am loyal to the Empress. To her, personally. She has a different vision for the outcome of the war."

  "Different?" Flint did not like the way this sounded.

  "She has lived both amid the rebels, and amid the loyal worlds. She knows both them, and us. She loves us and them. She seeks peace."

  Flint had a stern face and hard eyes, and so was nearly unable to look shocked. But his voice crept into a higher pitch, and cracked a bit, which betrayed how deeply he was stung. "Peace? Peace?! With the rebels? That is treasonous!"

  "The Empress cannot be treasonous. She cannot be disloyal to herself. She is herself."

  "They murdered her father!"

  "A ceasefire would allow us to rest, to wed, to raise children. We need peace."

  "You mother-born and your children! Clonetroopers are not so sentimental."

  That made Orgulus smile. "I cannot argue with that. I just think sentiment keeps us sane."

  "Keeps us weak. Clonetroopers live for war! We live to die!"

  Orgulus turned his eyes toward the overhead. "The Empress wants the old regulations tossed out the airlock. She wants the clonetroopers to be allowed to wed. No more comfort women."

  Flint was flabbergasted.

  Orgulus grinned at him. Now his smile actually was genial and winning. "Sentimentality is not all bad, my poor motherless friend. You have no idea what dwells in the darkness beneath the dreams of men, trying to drive us mad. A little healthy sentiment, love of motherhood, of home, of life, let it be as saccharine and cloying as you like, is the sword of an angel: hordes of nightmare flee at the approach of one virgin maiden pure. They scream at the sound of a child's prayer."

  Flint stared at him. "What are you talking about? Angel? Prayer? Nightmares? Dreams are random electrochemical neural action, caused by fatigue."

  "Ah! Well, I thought you had read further along in that old book I got for you. As servants of the Inquisition, it behooves us to understand the enemy's weapons and tactics. And!" Now he raised a finger. "As servants of the Empress, it behooves us to serve her, even if her other servants stand in the way."

  "Serve her how?"

  "Lord Famine wants to be able to checkmate his brother who is about to come out of retirement. In case the Warmoon falls into the wrong hands, or comes under the influence of false ministers."

  "Who is this brother of Lord Famine?"

  "Lord Pestilence."

  "He died before you were born, or I was decanted. Killed by Lady Jade, the Ralline pirate queen with green wings."

  "She is a Pavo. So I assume. Ralline are humble. Pavo are proud."

  "Pestilence is dead."

  "His name and legacy lives on."

  "Tell me all," said Flint.

  Orgulus said, "Before I tell you, you must Know. We are doing this for the Empress, you and I. I am loyal to her alone. You are like me."

  Flint said, "How can you tell? Are you a mind reader?"

  Sir Orgulus smiled once more, "Ah! Well, that would be illegal, wouldn't it? But I see the look in your eye when we speak of her and I was there, standing on stage, when you saved her life and I did not. I have never envied anyone before in my life, nor will I hereafter, but you."

  And at that moment, Flint realized he would follow wherever this man led. He was not sure why. It was as if, on some world of eternal cloud cover, there was a break in the endless storm overhead, a bright patch of blue, and one golden beam of sunlight struck only one man among the many dark figures filling his life. Sir Orgulus was that man.

  But, in his imagination Flint saw a brighter, smaller, more beautiful figure.

  She was the Empress.

  Chapter 5: In The Hall Of The Philosopher King

  Galactic Year 12821, Septentrion

  1. Straight from the Duck's Crooked Beak

  Hogarth was full of wrath. His feathers were ruffled, his eye gleamed and stared, his yellow beak clapped and clattered, gargled and frothed. He upended his beermug in lavish gulps into his bill, and tossed a brimming shotglass of vodka chaser after it.

  A drunk Duck overwhelmed with anger is not a pretty sight to see, and Napoleon was surprised. Hogarth was usually a figure of self control. Any show of ill temper was usually just for show.

  The High Bar Raw Bar and Bistro was in the basement of the Elliptical Venture Archology in the Aventine district. This had once been the penthouse of the Proxima Skyscraper, centuries ago, back when no building of Septentrion was allowed to be taller than the Quaestor's Spire. It had been at the towertop, that is, before the surrounding buildings outgrew, overshadowed, and incorporated it, making its roof the foundations for three and nine more levels of edifice. The lower levels of the buried skyscraper fell into disuse, and, to prevent squatters and vagrants from forming a colony, all the lower levels, corridors, and cubicles were filled with self-hardening synthetic, and paved over.

  The bar itself was famous for incorporating all the luxury dishes and mixed drinks of Proxima, a nearby world that, for a few brief centuries, had once been the capital of the galaxy rather than Septentrion, and the center of high fashion and high cuisine. Every prime minister of Proxima made it a duty to visit the High Bar Raw Bar and Bistro during annual pilgrimages to the financial centers of the Aventine District, and dine and drink as their ancestors did in days of glory long past.

  The foppish Fox plutocrats of that era made a point of using hominids as manservants and Iss serpent-maidens as bodyguards, so the waitresses here were curvaceous fair-skinned Sinanthropes dressed like parlor maids, and the bouncers were slender Lizard-Women in flex-armor, with spikes affixed to their spines and spurs affixed to their high-heeled thigh-boots.

  But, more to the point, the light was dim, kept at a level comfortable for night-seeing Foxes, the staff discrete, and each booth was equipped with a sound-dampening field and a zone that could be polarized to opaque.

  In relative privacy, then, Hogarth could sputter with rage.

  Hogarth had been sputtering for quite some time, skipping from topic to topic. "Things were not so crooked in the old days, during the War, when your dad was consul. Not so many bad eggs! Corruption of senators and politicians suddenly became much worse after Jaywind left. A new spirit seemed to grip the people, a bad spirit. The crime rates spiked. Bribery! Blackmail! Lascivious harlots tempting the weak — well, that part is not so bad. We had four major scandals just in one year, my first year here.

  "Jaywind was a strange man, but there was something — I dunno — pure and whole about him. Ever stood on a planet with just trees and grass, no people, no animals, and the oxygen content is higher than normal? I did once. Got up early and saw the sunrise. Theguius was the planet's name. Perfectly empty except for one public house, the famous the Eschaton Tavern. Used to be a monastery where a holy brotherhood brewed booze. The walls are warded against Kirlian rays, or so they say. I went there to hide from my dad. Jaywind was like that planet. Like a sunrise. When he left, night fell. When he moved out, something unholy moved in.

  "My granddaddy, Cedric the Spooky, started having bad dreams. He pulled on his flying pants and flew off like a jet-boy, went and hid in a hole on some star-forsaken planet beyond the backside of nowhere, mumbling over his beads!"

  Napoleon scowled. He knew what Hogarth had not guessed. Vindamiatrix was the world to which Cedric had retreated, driven away from Septentrion by the evil aura of the planet, and dark omens. When Cedric arrived on Vindamiatrix as his father's guest when Napoleon was still a boy in knee pants, and was given a cabin in remote location in the mountains. Napoleon had doted on him, for the two were the same height then. When he was older, after the Academy of Mira expelled him, Napoleon returned home, and sought out Cedric in his mountain cabin once more.

  Vindamiatrix was a rustic world, with villas and ranch-houses scattered between roaming herds. A beautiful world! Hardly the backside of nowhere!

  Hogarth paused to throw back an alarming volume of malted beer into his beak, chasing it with a shot-glass of vodka, which made him cough and snort and snap.

  He pointed a feathery finger at Napoleon, and spoke in drunken wrath. "Crime and crookedness are drowning this sad old scrapheap of a world! What idiot paves a whole planet and pulls out the parks and puts up skyscrapers? But I tell you, if it were not for this Nightshadow spook putting the fear of hellfire into them, the gangland rings would have taken over Septentrion by now!

  "No one can catch this fellow — he is a black ghost of some sort — with the power to cloud the minds of men! Not many folk could work such witchy power as that! It is Duck Witchery, mark my words! So he must be a Duck. Stands to reason! The police cannot lay a finger on him. Why, just last month, someone wanted to use Naval Intelligence assets to track down this Nightshadow vigilante, find him, flush him out!"

  Napoleon stiffened in his seat. "I saw no such motion. It was not in the record."

  "Because I squelched the motion before it even was introduced — no spies spying on civilians! Do you want the Empire to come again?"

  Napoleon was wary of conversations about Nightshadow, for he did not want anyone to dwell on the topic, lest sudden insight strike, or some overlooked clue be recalled.

  So he brought back what had started Senator Hogarth on his long rant. "The Empire will return unless men of integrity prevent it. Senator Donner is a man of integrity, or so I thought. But he broke his promise to me, and recorded his vote with the registrar." Napoleon stared down at his drink in weary anger. "There is no point in talking to him, even to find out his reason — assuming he has one to tell us — because the registrar cannot retract or amend a vote once cast, except on a showing of fraud or Ophidian crime, confirmed by a Consul's writ. It's done. Can't be undone."

  Napoleon took a swig himself, then scowled at his glass, wishing he had ordered something stronger. A peach martini was a girly drink.

  He continued, "You are not worried about the Constitution collapsing — which it will if the Walrus World falls. When that happens, the galaxy starts whispering how feeble and fickle free men are, how chaotic constitutional government is, compared to a strong and potent police-state."

  Hogarth belched, exuding an impressive stench of beer-breath, and said, "How else? Those who remember firsthand the horror of those years are gray-feathered old coots by now. The young eggs know nothing! Who was it called each new generation an invasion of smelly barbarians?"

  "You did, earlier this evening."

  "Ah! Wise words from Hogarth Tripe Norbertegg! Hear yourself quoted, proves your head is square and fair set straight on your shoulders."

  "You seem unusually disturbed, if I may say so, Senator."

  "That is because you are an egg yourself, Nap-taker! Donner never changes his mind. Not never, not nohow, not for nothing, not for no man! Rubs my feathers backward, it does — how is a man to play the game right, if someone is capsizing the chessboard, benighting the knights, rooking the rooks, pawning the pawns for cash? Besides, if your side just gets skunked, where does that leave me?"

  Napoleon leaned back and narrowed his eyes. The dim table-lamp reflected from his gold cat's eyes like shining pennies. Something in the drink was disagreeing with his stomach. He felt a cold twinge below his belt buckle. Napoleon said, "Where does that leave you, indeed? You play your cards close to the vest, but even I can see you don't give a brass groat for the doings in the distant sectors of space. I thought — I had hoped — that we were allies in this, if not friends."

  "We're both," said the Duck, lifting his mug. "A toast! To friendship! May we each profit by it in our own way!" He guzzled his drunk, and then, heaving a sigh, wiped the back of his wrist along his bill, flinging lingering foam-drops aside.

  Napoleon, with a fingertip, pushed his girlish drink away from himself.

  Hogarth said expansively, "Friends do not need to fraternize; just prove useful. But if the vote here is not close, no one pays me to vote his way. I am not useful, and then I have no friends. See?"

  "That is no definition of friendship I ever heard."

  "You should read more Equine philosophy. Some of those ancient thinkers have it all laid out, level and square. Friendship of utility is the lowest form. Mutual admiration is next step up. It is one better, but you have to earn it. Want my admiration?"

  Napoleon said, "You have to be admirable yourself for your admiration to be worth winning, I'd say. We are facing issues of war and peace, planetary genocide, perhaps the downfall of the Commonwealth itself — and you see this as opportunity for self-advancement? Were you anyone else, I'd call it despicable."

  Hogarth put his empty mug aside, and took a moment to fiddle with his pen knife, trimming the tip from a cigar he took from a pocket humidor. He spoke in an idle tone, eyes half-shut, looking at his cigar, not at Napoleon. "Given my druthers, I'd vote with you, old monkey boy, old pal, but I got six expensive ex-wives back home to take care of. Now, the way I count it, you ain't got the votes. Do the star-blasted math, egg-brain."

  "Zethes vote is aye. Donner is nay. Those are definite. Evro, Scunxa, and apparently Ksar will be nay. Yours and mine makes it three to four."

  "Two to four, because you can't count on me."

  Napoleon said, "I prefer to say you are not a man to be taken for granted, but whose good opinion must be won."

  "That's a diplomatic way to put it. You're learning. You know what's wrong with fighting a local war to stop a galactic war? It's the logical thing to do. Too logical for politicians. — or so I would say if I was cynical and callous, and not a sweetheart like I am. Approach Senator Celarent. Just give him facts, numbers, estimates. Don't try to smooth-talk him — flattery, rhetoric, emotional appeals won't work, and he won’t comprehend what you're saying, and he wouldn't care if he did. Silver tongues don't work on quadrupeds. They don't got proper hands, them Horses, so they do everything with their brains. That's the line to take. See him soon. See him this afternoon. Him first."

  Napoleon said, "I've tried. His mules won't let me see him. Equines are an elder race. They disdain us. We were their client-race once. Their wards."

  Hogarth lit his cigar with a great flourish of his igniter, and puffed out a great cloud of smoke. He said drily, "Do tell? I hear some folk get over old woes."

  "The Equines still think of us as sub-creatures, yahoos, and ragamuffins."

  "Everyone thinks of humans as sub-creatures. It's part of your charm. But you are still the best talkers in the galaxy. Got the gift of gab. Put it to good use."

  "Who second?"

  "Eh?"

  "You say see Celarent first. Whom do I see second? Another go at Ksar? Try to drive a wedge between Evro and Scunxa? There is no one else left."

  "There is one, aside from Celarent."

  "You mean, Qa'a?"

  "Yes."

  "The Iss?"

  "Yes! I mean Qa'a the Iss. The scaly Lizards are so old that the Horses, who are older than sin, are spring goslings compared to them." Hogarth drew on his cigar, so the tip glowed red, then puffed out a blue cloud. The Duck stared at the smoke swirls as they caught the dim lamplight and drifted upward. "Qa'a is mysterious as all get out – a great, big, fat, unknown. Not sure why he even shows up to committee. He never debates, never questions witnesses, won't show off to the newshounds. Qa'a abstains from voting unless he has direct instructions from the Elder of Elders on Thuban."

  Napoleon scowled, pondering. It was well known that the Equine were one of the few races welcomed to visit the dark and antique worlds of the Lizard-men, and allowed access to the secrets of their ultrascientific technology. The two were known to fraternize.

  Hogarth puffed meditatively, "If you put your wee monkey-brain to work, and get the Horse and the Iss both to shoulder your side, that will tie things up four-to-four — whereupon, ipso facto, ergo, if I save my vote for last, I can force some concessions out of Ksar Glorion the Old Lion. The dispute over the deep-layer gas mining rights of the Algebar system, for example, is up before the Antiquities committee!"

  Napoleon was staring down at the last swallow of his martini, not paying close attention to Hogarth's cynical assessment of the situation. Napoleon, being frank with himself, had to admit that he had not even considered the possibility of winning the vote of the senator from the archaic and aloof world of the Iss.

  Their civilization was the most ancient known, rising to the stars and falling back to barbarism over the course, not of thousands of years, but tens of thousands. Septentrion itself, at some point during the five mythic ages from which no reliable records survived, had been colonized from the primeval and primordial swamp-world of Thuban: mysterious, unvisited Thuban, dark beneath a blanket of eternal cloud. Some of the most antique edifices on Septentrion still bore the cryptic stamp of Iss architecture: massive domes with rooftrees shaped like the ribcages of a leviathan, buttresses like crooked bones, branching towers like horns of a behemoth.

 

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