The Emperor of Everything

The pilot turned to her, opened his catlike mouth in a parody of a smile. “Yess, misstresss. We can go fasster. If the Shardss are watching, as they alwayss are, we can become a lovely flaming comet for about, oh, ssix hundred meterss. But then I fear we’ll sstop.” His eyes glittered with appreciation for his own wit.

She made no answer — she had learned to accept Lensh’s sarcasm as the price of his service to her. Apparently such insolence was a hard-wired part of his enhanced feline-based brain — not even the Gencha could root it out, without impairing Lensh’s intelligence and effectiveness.

Of course she knew that the Shards were watching. Sook’s alien owners enforced their peculiar rules with astonishing rigor. They prohibited certain modes of travel, large warships, large military units, nuclear weaponry, and many other useful elements of modern warfare. From their orbital platforms, they punished transgressors instantly and severely.

Occasionally this was inconvenient. On the other hand, were it not for the Shards and their unreasonable proscriptions, the pangalac worlds would long ago have exterminated the criminal enterprises that now flourished so vigorously on Sook.

“Patience,” Corean said to herself.

Beneath the sled, the pink veldt flowed past. The blue mountains where Ruiz Aw had wrecked her airboat were still only a smudge against the horizon — and the sun was very low. They would never get there by dark, and the survey sled was unequipped for the slow ground-level travel the Shards allowed after dark. She would be forced to land, and so Ruiz Aw would have to wait until the morning for his reward.

For a while Corean lost herself in pleasant visions of what she might do to that troublesome person. Ruiz had stolen her boat and several of her most valuable slaves, had killed two of her most useful henchmen, had almost murdered poor Marmo. Marmo was in the cargo bay now, being attended by Lensh’s littermate, Fensh. A medical limpet was busy healing the scraps of flesh that remained to him, and Fensh was directing a repair mech in the replacement of Marino’s damaged mechanisms. Corean cursed herself for a sentimental fool. If she hadn’t stopped to pick up Marmo’s wrecked chassis, and then had to backtrack to find his missing power cell, she’d have reached the wreck well before dark.

At the back of the cabin, the Mocrassar shifted, its claws clicking on the plastic deck. Fresh from the molting cell, its stink was particularly vile, but Corean had long ago learned to ignore the odor. It was, after all, the stink of wealth — no one but the very rich possessed Mocrassar bondwarriors.

She descended to the cargo bay, where Marmo lay clamped in a repair frame. The lower half of the cyborg’s face showed pale sweat-beaded flesh, but he had regained consciousness and a faint smile trembled on his thin lips. “How are you doing?” Corean asked curtly.

“Much better, thank you,” Marmo answered.

Corean sniffed. Her feelings toward the old pirate were ambiguous. He had been with her for a long time, he was the closest thing to a friend she possessed, he had always found ways to be useful. On the other hand, he must have committed some act of incompetence. How else could Ruiz Aw have managed to take the boat?

“What happened, Marmo?” She strove to contain her annoyance.

The cyborg’s oculars shifted focus with a tiny whine, as if he were no longer looking at Corean, but at some memory. “He bested me. I know nothing of what happened to Ayam and Banessa, except that they must both be dead.”

“Yes.” Corean had found the giantess’s vast corpse and Ayam’s smaller remains, covered with gorged carrion birds, near the place where she had recovered Marmo’s power cell. “Can’t you be more specific?”

“It was Ayam’s watch, just after midnight. I was in the control blister, Banessa in her cabin. The next thing I knew, Ruiz Aw jumped through the hatch, grinning like a demon, whirling some primitive weapon at me. I got off a burst — I carried a splinter gun — but somehow I missed and the chains snapped tight around me. I was helpless for a moment, then Ruiz Aw fired some chemical-energy ballistic weapon at me, which knocked the gun out of my hand.” Marmo drew a deep breath. “It went downhill from there, and soon I was on my back and Ruiz Aw was sawing through my neck with a dull knife. He gave me no choice but to cooperate.”

“You might have chosen to die — rather than betray me.”

Marmo sighed. “Perhaps. But I must tell you, I don’t think it would have helped much. The man is not entirely human. Are you certain you wish to pursue him? It might be more trouble than it’s worth.”

Corean stared at him. What was wrong with the old monster? In his pirate days, he must have suffered more grievous defeats — the scarce flesh that still clung to his mechanisms testified to terrible wounds. What was Ruiz Aw but a clever trickster with good reflexes?