Upsetting the Balance

As if by accident, his hands strayed along her body toward the joining of her legs. “How shall we seal it?” he asked slyly.

She hesitated, feeling him stir against her side and start to rise. She wouldn’t have minded another round, but-“Notlike that,” she said, and took his hand away. “Didn’t you listen to what I told you?”

To her relief, he didn’t sound angry when he answered, “I listened, but sometimes-often-people do nothing but mouth empty phrases. The Kuomintang, for instance, calls itself a revolutionary party.” His contemptuous snort showed what he thought of that. “But you, Liu Han, you mean what you say. This is something I need to know.”

“Good enough,” Liu Han said after a moment “We seal it like this, then.” Now she kissed him. “It is enough for now.”

The Emperor’s holographic image beamed down on the shiplords’ celebration aboard the127th Emperor Hetto. On three worlds of the Empire, billions from the Race, the Rabotevs, and the Hallessi were celebrating their sovereign’s hatching day at just this moment. Knowing that made Atvar feel part of the great community the Race had built, not the embattled outsider into which he sometimes seemed transformed by the pestilential war on Tosev 3.

Some of the shiplords were behaving so boisterously, he wondered whether they’d illicitly tasted ginger before their shuttlecraft brought them here to the bannership. He didn’t like to think high-ranking commanders could fall victim to the insidious Tosevite herb, but on Tosev 3 what he liked and the truth were often-too often-far apart.

There over to one side floated Kirel, his usual standoffishness forgotten, talking animatedly with a couple of males who had been of Straha’s faction back in the days when Straha was around to have a faction. Atvar was glad to see his chief subordinate happier than usual, less glad to see the company with which he chose to enjoy himself. On the other fork of the tongue, a considerable majority of males had voted for Atvar’s ouster after the SSSR set off its nuclear bomb, so for Kirel to ignore all of them would have left him on good terms with only a few shiplords.

And there was poor, hardworking Pshing. He had in his hand a squeezebulb filled with the fermented juices of certain Tosevite fruits. The Big Uglies, being unable to enjoy the intoxicating effects of ginger, made do with ethanol and various flavorings. Males of the Race found some of those vile-why anyone, even a Big Ugly, would drink whiskey, was beyond Atvar-but others might be worth exporting to Home after the conquest was complete.

Atvar drifted over to Pshing, checked himself by snagging a grab ring with the claws of one toe. “How does it feel not to be waking me up to report some disaster?” he asked.

Pshing’s eyes didn’t quite track. He’d probably had several bulbs full of red wine already. “Exalted Fleetlord, it feelswonderful!” he exclaimed, tacking on an emphatic cough that threatened to become a coughing fit “Stinking Big Uglies are quiet for a change.”

“Indeed,” Atvar said. “Now if only they remain so.” He floated toward the console that dispensed bulbs of potations brought from Home, and toward the local drinks kept in bins with lids alongside it. He didn’t want to celebrate the Emperor’s hatching day with a product of Tosev 3. The Emperor represented Home and all it stood for. Far better to drink hudipar-berry brandy, then, than wine.

The male who came into the chamber was conspicuous not only for his subdued body paint but also for the purposeful way he went about looking for Atvar. The fleetlord’s momentary good spirits flickered and blew out Rokois was Pshing’s subordinate, taking the duty for the adjutant so he could enjoy himself. If Rokois was here, instead of waiting in front of a communicator, something had gone wrong-again.

Atvar had a strong impulse to hide himself inside a floating cluster of males so Rokois could not spot his body paint. Just for once, he, like Pshing, deserved a respite from bad news. But even if he escape that, he would not be able to evade the Emperor’s eyes. Some trick of the hologram made them follow you wherever you were in the chamber. And had that trick not been there, he knew his duty too well to flee from it.

But oh, the temptation!

Instead of fleeing the adjutant’s assistant, Atvar pushed off the console toward him (he did carry along the bulb of hudipar-berry brandy). Rokois folded into the posture of respectful obedience and began, “Exalted Fleetlord, I regret to report that-”

Although he had not spoken loudly, those words were plenty to bring near-silence to the festival chamber. Atvar was far from the only male to have noted his arrival and to wonder what news was urgent enough to disturb the fleetlord at the celebration. Had Britain or Nippon or some other, previously discounted, Tosevite empire or not-empire touched off an atomic bomb? Had Deutschland or the United States or even the SSSR touched off another one?