The Emperor of Everything

Publius sat silently, but a sneer trembled on his mouth. Ruiz knew what Publius was thinking: that the Gench was still his, since he would soon control the enclave that had belonged to Yubere. Ruiz didn’t care. His act of cautious mercy had, oddly enough, made him feel better. And already the air in the sub smelled cleaner.

Ruiz went to the control panel, activated the sonar, and watched the green dot of Publius’s sub rising away from the stackwall. He heard the lock clang shut again, and the clatter as Albany dogged it tight.

Albany returned, cast their own vessel off from the stackwall, leaving the repair bubble in place to protect the tunnel from flooding. “Course?” he asked.

Ruiz gave the coordinates for the Diamond Bob Pens, and Albany punched them into the autopilot. The sub shuddered and began its slow rise to the surface.

“Now,” Ruiz said. “Let’s talk about your pirate friend.”

Publius raised his hands, made a warding gesture. “Would you winkle all my secrets from me?”

A great weariness was stealing over Ruiz. He hadn’t slept for days, he felt, abruptly, slow and vulnerable. He wondered if he still had enough of his strength left to deal with Publius. “Don’t start,” he said. “I want to know everything, now. If you haven’t yet worked out the details of our escape from Sook, then now is the time to begin scheming.” Besides, Ruiz thought, any time and energy Publius spent on such a scheme would reduce the time and energy he could devote to tricking Ruiz.

Publius rubbed his chin. “You’re determined then to leave Sook?”

“Yes, yes. Have I not said this too many times to count?”

“I could offer alternatives,” Publius said brightly. “Wealth beyond your imagination, a secure stronghold in SeaStack, a new body. Many other desirable things. Later, when the crisis among the pirate lords has abated, you’d find it easy to get offworld, if you still wanted to go.”

“Please, don’t incite me to rage, Publius. In my present state of mind, it might be fatal to both of us. Tell me all about your plan, or let us make one.”

Publius shook his head doubtfully. “Do you insist?”

“I do.”

“All right. All right. Do you know Ivant Tildoreamors?”

“By reputation.” Tildoreamors was one of the bloodier pirate lords, head of a very old family of corsairs, the members of which had troubled the pangalac worlds for many centuries. To him was attributed a single-minded rapacity that was unusual even in SeaStack, where everyone who survived and prospered must be accounted some sort of monster.

“Ah? Well, Ivant owes me a large favor, and I happen to know one of his great secrets, which I now share with you. Ivant maintains a launch ring a hundred kilometers eastward down the coast, and one of his shuttles presently waits there.”

Ruiz was skeptical. “East are the FireBarrens. The Blades of Namp allow no infidels to penetrate the Barrens.”

“True, in general. However, Ivant supplies the Blades with their sacrament.”

“I see. And how will we get there?”

“We’ll take a barge, of course.”

“Come now, Publius. No bargers in their right minds would go east.”

Publius looked pleased with himself; perhaps he enjoyed revealing to Ruiz that he had actually formulated a plan to get them offplanet — an exemplary case of deviousness, when he had obviously never intended that Ruiz survive his visit to Yubere’s stronghold. “You’re wrong, Ruiz — for once. One barge goes east, twice a year. And the solstice is near.”

Ruiz felt a queasy apprehension. “Elaborate.”

“Oh, you’ve guessed what I mean. The Immolators even now prepare for the voyage. We have only to don the appropriate robes, tear our hair, dirty our faces, practice our wailing a bit, and we’ll fit right in. My guess is that the pirates will never think to check the Immolators — after all, they go to die, either in the abattoirs of the Blades or among the fires of the Barrens.”

“And how do you propose we avoid a similar end?”

“Simple! We wear Tildoreamors’s livery under our Immolator robes; when we reach the Barrens, we’ll doff the robes and announce ourselves as Ivant’s emissaries. We’ll carry a few kilos of ganja as tokens of our identity, and deliver the weed to the mullahs. The Blades will conduct us to the shuttle, and we’ll be gone!”

Ruiz considered. If Publius were telling the truth, the plan seemed feasible, if uncomfortable. The prospect of sailing several hundred kilometers on a leaky old tub — penned up with several hundred suicidal fanatics — was hardly an appealing one — but compared to the difficulties they had already survived, it seemed not too terrible. I’ve led an eccentric life for far too long, he thought.

He allowed himself to think of Nisa and their pending reunion. An involuntary smile crossed his face.

Publius smiled back, apparently mistaking his expression for approbation. “You like it, eh? I thought you would.”