The Emperor of Everything

Albany shifted uneasily. “Our former employer… he’s a firecracker, isn’t he? He’s been telling me about his art, trying to throw a scare into me. He’s succeeded, I have to tell you. I see now why you’d rather be dead than his.” He sighed and looked at Ruiz with weary eyes. “Me too. I hope you can control him, Ruiz.”

“I think I can,” said Ruiz, summoning a confident tone. “If anyone can.”

“I guess so.” Albany sighed and shut his eyes. A moment later his breathing deepened and he began to snore.

Ruiz stretched, then went to the comm panel and slipped Diamond Bob’s wafer into the analyzer slot.

Remint called again, shortly after dawn, and woke Corean from an uneasy slumber, in which she had dreamed of ruin and flight The dreams had been colored by dreadful images from the raving corridors of Dobravit — seepage from her locked-away childhood memories.

Marmo took the call, but Remint insisted he could speak only to Corean. By that time, Corean stood in the doorway, scratching at her sleep-tousled head. When she saw whose face filled the vidscreen, she moved to the comm panel.

“What is it?”

“Another sighting.”

“Where?” She was completely awake now, her bad dreams forgotten in the heat of her hatred.

“At the pens. He arrived in a small submersible, went inside for a few minutes, then emerged, reboarded the sub, and left.” Remint’s expressionless face told her nothing.

“You took him?” She was filled with elation.

“No. We expected him to arrive in a surface vessel — the gunboat — and arranged our subterfuges and devices accordingly. We had no way to strike at him within the pen’s lagoon; we had great difficulty in even getting a spymote inside. The pirate lords are incandescent with outrage; they’ve staffed the pens with numerous killmechs, they search for me everywhere. I fear my usefulness to my brother is permanently diminished.” At this digression, something kindled deep behind the slayer’s eyes.

“But you’re following him? Surely?”

“No. Outside the entrance, the sub dove, before we could get a transponder on it. It descended to a great depth, then went silent, and our detectors were unable to maintain contact.”

“You idiot!” Her elation had mutated into sizzling rage. “I ought to cut your throat and feed you to the margars.”

Remint seemed unaffected by her outburst. He leaned back and brought a sonic knife into the camera’s field of view. He activated the knife and touched the roil of displaced air delicately to his throat. “Do you so order?” As he spoke, the blade bit, just a little, and a flutter of blood ran along the edge of the knife’s envelope and spattered the camera’s lens with tiny red specks.

“No! No, don’t be foolish.” She watched him switch the knife off and put it away, apparently unconcerned with the red rivulet that trickled over the corded muscle of his throat. He was, she thought, a creature completely outside her experience, even though she had possessed a number of Genched slaves. None had displayed such frozen intensity; Remint must have been a remarkable man before his deconstruction.

He looked up, his eyes empty of emotion. “Shall I continue?”

“Yes.”

“Then: Ruiz Aw is considering what he learned in the pens. My belief is that he will seek me in my once-favorite place, a fabularium in a stack near my brother’s stronghold. Already the pirate lords have visited the Celadon Wind, as the place is called; their agents still infest every room and rathole. He will know this, but my assessment of the man is that he will believe that he can discover some vital information that the lords were too stupid to find. He is an egomaniac, as I once was. We were very much alike, in many ways.” His detachment seemed impossible, even for the robot of flesh and bone she knew him to be.

Corean considered. “You’re waiting for him there?”

“I hide myself and several slayers in an adjacent joypalace.”

She made a decision. “Send me a guide, and I’ll join you.”

His gaze was cool and full of evaluation. “Your passion may be a liability to my success.”

She snarled and said, “Just do it.” Then she cut the connection.

She sat back and thought about Ruiz Aw and his inexplicable luck. From somewhere a memory rose to torment her. She remembered that she had wondered aloud about Ruiz Aw, about whether his confidence arose from a foolish ignorance of the dangers of his situation, or whether it came from a strength so overpowering that he truly didn’t need to fear her.

A chill came over her, and she shivered involuntarily. No, no, that was ridiculous. Several times she had held his life in her hand, several times she could have snuffed him out effortlessly, and he couldn’t have resisted at all.

But still, a tiny voice whispered, deep inside her heart, but still, Ruiz Aw lives and thwarts you. And ignores you as he goes about his business.