The Emperor of Everything

“Now,” said Remint, regaining that lambent intensity. “Tell me about the other slaves he escaped with.”

So she did. He allowed her no privacy, he wanted to know everything, including her plans for Ruiz and the Pharaohan woman Nisa. As she described what she now perceived as her mindless lust, Remint betrayed no sign of disapproval or scorn or titillation, which further reinforced his inhumanity.

Then he asked her about Flomel, and what the mage had told her of Ruiz Aw’s activities since the escape. Then he asked Marmo about Deepheart, and Marmo silently handed the slayer a charged dataslate showing the results of Marmo’s earlier search of the datastream.

Hours later, he abruptly stopped asking questions. He sat back and a veil seemed to fall over his face — it was as if he had stepped out of his body and gone elsewhere.

Corean waited with what equanimity she could summon, but another hour passed before Remint spoke again.

And all he said was: “I see.”

A vast annoyance filled Corean. “So what now, mighty Remint? What will you do with all the weighty conclusions you’ve reached?”

He looked at her, expressionless. “I’ve reached no conclusions,” he said.

“No? Well then, what’s your plan? Will you organize an attack on Deepheart?”

“Premature,” said Remint. “First I must interview your slave Flomel.”

“Why? I’ve told you everything he knows about Ruiz.”

“No, you’ve told me everything he told you about Ruiz. It’s unlikely that these are identical bodies of knowledge.”

“Go, then,” she said, getting up and moving toward her bedroom. “Lensh will take you to the pen.”

As it almost always was, Ruiz’s sleep was dreamless, but his mind must have continued to chew at the problem of controlling Publius, because when he woke, it was with a glimmer of a plan.

He tapped at the flatscreen communit; it came to life. One of Publius’s more subtle monsters appeared, a woman with a curiously elongated body. Her eyes had large violet pupils surrounded glowing red sclera. It was Ruiz’s theory that each of Publius’s monsters contained an equal portion of grotesqueness; this one evidently carried most of her strangeness within.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’d like to see Publius now,” Ruiz said.

“I’ll send a guide. Publius left orders that you were to be brought to him without delay, whenever you requested it.”

The guide was an eel-thin woman with gray elastic skin and the face of a predatory fish. She wore a bubbler over her gills and spoke through a vocalizer. “Come with me,” she ordered, and said nothing else.

Publius was working in his personal lab, bent over a microsurgery unit. An infant lay anesthetized on a tray, the skin on one side of its face peeled back; Publius was carving at the baby’s facial musculature, using resonating laser pinbeams.

Ruiz choked back his revulsion and waited until Publius finished and turned the closing over to the machine.

“I do a little freehand work, from time to time,” said Publius. “It keeps me from becoming overly dependent on the tech, keeps my fingers bloody, so to speak.”

“Let’s talk about this job you want me to do,” said Ruiz.

“Certainly. Have you devised a way of reinforcing my promises?” Publius seemed vastly amused, as if he was certain that no matter how clever Ruiz was, Publius would be able to thwart him.

“Not a completely satisfactory one. But first, tell me how exactly you intend to get me offworld.”

Publius shrugged. “I’d intended to retain my flexibility, Ruiz. You know me, a creature of opportunity. I’ll do whatever seems best, at the time.”

Ruiz gave him a wry look. “Unsatisfactory. I must ask you to be more specific, Publius.”

Publius drummed his fingers impatiently on the infant’s gurney. “All right, all right, if you must be so compulsively suspicious, I’ll tell you what I had in mind — though I must say your attitude is rather unfriendly.”

Ruiz laughed sourly. What could he answer?

“When you return, Ruiz, crowned with success, I propose to cash in a favor owed to me by one of the pirate lords. He will transport you to one of the Shard platforms, where you can get commercial transport back to Dilvermoon.”

Ruiz frowned. “So, now I must trust not only you but some starpirate? I’m not reassured.”

Publius made an exasperated sound. “Really, you try my patience with your endless suspicions. Well then, if you cannot trust me, I will offer to wear madcollars with you, and accompany you up to the platform and into Shard jurisdiction.”