The Emperor of Everything

The large young man was judged in similar swift fashion, but not positively. “You’re a joyless lout,” said Hemerthe. “I wonder at your temerity, to present yourself to us.”

He sat in shock for a moment. But when the mechs seized him in their padded clamps, he struggled and shouted out. “But you took the old man — that dried-out relic, who hasn’t been stiff in more years than he can remember.”

Contempt glowed in Hemerthe’s elegant face. “Do you imagine that one’s capacity to love depends on the health of one’s glands? His body can be made new; your mind will never rise above its present brutish level.”

The mechs dragged him away, cursing and flailing.

The judges disposed of the beautiful young couple quickly, but more gently. Hemerthe told them that they were too young, and had led lives of excessive comfort. “Still, should you someday escape or receive manumission, return to us. You may need nothing more than the experiences you will have as slaves to make you fit to join us.”

They took it bravely, Ruiz thought — and they appeared to take Hemerthe’s advice seriously. They were young.

The Gench touched Flomel, who jerked away and then fell limp as the Gench seized his nervous system.

The judges seemed to recoil in revulsion, faces stiff with suppressed reaction. “No,” said Hemerthe, without explaining. “But we will wait a bit before we send you to the block — the circumstances of your group are unusual — you did not volunteer for eternity.”

Flomel shuddered and gasped when the Gench released him.

It moved on to Molnekh.

“No,” said Hemerthe again — but this time she spoke in good humor. “Your passions are different from ours. If instead of Deepheart this were Deepstomach, you would be our king.”

To Ruiz’s surprise, the judges conferred at length over Dolmaero. But finally Hemerthe, shaking her head unhappily, pronounced him unfit.

“You were a beautiful young man, and could be so again, and you have the mind and spirit to dwell among us, but your loyalty is already given… and you cannot take it back.”

Nisa clutched at Ruiz’s arm as the Gench moved toward her, eyes wide with fear. Ruiz patted her hand. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It’s painless and soon over.”

The tendril sank into her forehead and she froze.

The judges crowded close to the readout slate, smiling and whispering among themselves.

“There’s no doubt with this one,” said Hemerthe, after lingering over the data. “She’s very well suited to eternity. She has always been beautiful, a creature of sensuality. Her cultural matrix is fascinatingly alien. And she has the depth of one who has died a death. Delicious. We must have her.”

Ruiz felt a bleak mixture of relief and loss. Surely, her existence in Deepheart would be better than the other possibilities that she faced — far better than her original fate, which was to play the phoenix for Flomel’s conjuring troupe until she had died too many times. Better than dying with Ruiz in some SeaStack dungeon. Better than standing on the block in the slave market, to be auctioned off to some downlevel harlotry.

But she would no longer be his. And he was certain she was capable of a wider life, that Nisa possessed more important talents than her enthusiasm in bed. Would it not be a form of bondage, to spend the eons rutting in Deepheart? No matter how much pleasure it brought, might there not come an emptiness, finally?

The Gench withdrew its tendril from Nisa and came toward Ruiz. He felt the cold sting as it penetrated his skull, and then nothing.

When he awoke, it was a slow painful process. He struggled toward consciousness, as though he swam up through some dark viscous substance.

He opened his eyes and saw that he had been returned to his apartment/holding cell. Hemerthe sat beside him, a look of grave concern on her elegant features.

“You didn’t tell us you were League,” she said.

He coughed and cleared his throat. “I’m freelance. Contracted.” The weakness of his voice frightened him.

“In any case, we almost killed you. The old Gench disturbed the mission-imperative, and it claims it triggered the death net. For some reason it stabilized before it went critical. You’re lucky to be alive — and I have no explanation for your survival.”

Ruiz coughed again. “I’m wearing it down,” he said.

Incomprehension masked her. “Whatever. At any rate, we want you. You and the woman.”

“Why would you want me?”

Hemerthe looked at him oddly. “You don’t know? You have no introspection? You have a strange and rich mind, Ruiz Aw. We have nothing in Deepheart like you. You’re a sensualist and a stoic, a libertine and a Spartan. You make love and deal death with equal facility. You are that most intriguing of candidates, a genuine mystery.

“Some of us fear you; these would have destroyed you while you recovered. They say you will loose a cancer of nihilism among us that will eat away our collective soul. But most of us are eager to learn from you. Come to us and you will never be alone again.”

“No,” said Ruiz.

“No? The alternative is slavery.”