The Emperor of Everything

The doors slid aside, to reveal Publius standing in the foyer with arms spread in welcome. Or he thought it must be Publius, though the body Publius wore was unfamiliar — a tall lean body with a supercilious aristocratic face. Surely it was Publius; who else had that uniquely demented gleam in his eye?

“Ruiz,” shouted Publius gladly. “Can it be? My old friend, come to visit me at long last?”

Ruiz stepped cautiously from the elevator. “Publius?”

“Who else?”

Ruiz allowed Publius to fling his arms around him, and managed a brief embrace in return. Publius apparently didn’t notice his lack of enthusiasm; he held Ruiz by the shoulders and examined him, eyebrows jiggling up and down with curiosity.

“Still beautiful, I see,” he said to Ruiz approvingly. “You’re wasted as a leg-breaker for the League. I always tell you this, I know, but I’ll tell you again: find a way to become notorious, then sell your clones. You’d be a rich body-source in no time. I’d buy one myself, make a pretty snakeweasel of you, sell you to some wealthy old woman for a lapdog.”

Ruiz swallowed his revulsion. “I’m not a League contractor anymore, Publius.”

Publius laughed, a low-pitched sound, oddly reminiscent of water draining into a sewer. “Oh, sure. Don’t worry. I’d never tell anyone you’re League — though I don’t blame you for being cautious — this is SeaStack, after all.”

“No, truly,” said Ruiz. “I’ll never work for them again.”

“Oh? I’m astonished — an adrenaline addict like you, swearing off murder and pillage and high wages? What in the world has happened? Are you dying? Have you fallen in love?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Ruiz, straining for conviction.

“You’re right, you’re right. What could I have been thinking of?” Publius laughed again. “You’re the famous Ruiz Aw, a paragon of mindless self-sufficiency, never tempted by the softer things of life, ruthlessly devoted to your own intermittently flexible code of ethics.” There was a sour undertone to Publius’s voice now, and Ruiz feared that he was remembering their time on Line, when Ruiz had deserted the cadre of freelance emancipators commanded by Publius.

“Ah…” said Ruiz, grasping for a diversion. “How have you been?”

“Well might you ask,” shouted Publius in a booming voice. “How long has it been since the last time you came crawling to blackmail me into doing you yet another favor? Thirty years? Forty? Much has happened, my art has flowered, my fortunes have waxed, my power is substantially enhanced, though not enough, never enough.” Publius had discarded his pose of good humor, and his ugly essence shone through his new flesh. “But what’s that to you, eh? What do you want of me now, Ruiz Aw? Old friend.”

“Nothing too elaborate, Publius,” said Ruiz. He strove to show no fear or resentment, though he was terrified.

“No? I’m astonished. So, what is this ‘nothing too elaborate’? And what can you pay for it?”

Ruiz took a deep breath. “I need transport up to the Shard platforms, for myself and three slaves. I can pay a fair price.”

Publius made an airy gesture of dismissal. “Nothing more than that? The simplest thing!” His face writhed into a mask of disbelief. “Are you mad? What makes you think I could do such a thing for you. The pirate lords are currently in the grip of a massive paranoiac hysteria; did you not know this? My customers fume in their hostelries, unable to leave, and their goods stink up the place until the customers are driven to try to return them. I’ve had to kill a baker’s dozen of complainers in the last twomonth alone — can’t have them tarnishing my reputation.”

“I hadn’t realized,” said Ruiz dismally.

“Just got into town, eh? Well, how grand that you thought of me first. Come, come… we’ll four the labs and talk.” Publius pasted a grotesquely sly look on his face and winked, apparently finished with his brief rant. “Things are never so bad as they might become, eh?”

He put his arm around Ruiz’s shoulders, and tugged him from the foyer, into a world of white tiles, stainless steel, and horror.

Publius’s laboratories were extensive, covering thousands of square meters — and always teeming with activity. The monster-maker’s creative passion was only matched by his lust for wealth; the two drives conspired to push the labs to their maximum output. It always astonished Ruiz that the pangalac worlds’ appetite for monsters could keep pace with Publius’s mania for production — it was another illustration of the ungraspable immensity of the universe and the unknowable diversity of the countless folk who crowded it.