Dalin Shar did not precisely understand what was going on.
Despite the counsel of Prime Minister Faulkner and a half dozen other advisers, despite his close monitoring of the news broadcasts, it seemed that his empire was crumbling around him. From the shores of the Black and Red seas to the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea, civil unrest seemed to have risen up like a nest of sores from everywhere at once. Even on the far outskirts of the empire, in places like Athens and Manchuria, riots had broken out over food and work conditions. These in turn had given birth to further riots over government attempts to control what little stores had not been hoarded or destroyed in the rioting.
But still, after weeks of escalating trouble, Dalin was loath to use the iron fist.
"Your father would have done so without hesitation!" Minister Faulkner counseled, with the mixture of mild exasperation and calm reserve that characterized him. "It's obvious that rebel cells have been at work within the various governorships—you must let the army do its job!"
There had been, that morning, a bomb scare in the palace itself, and this meeting was being held underground, in the lower chambers Dalin's father had had built during the early consolidation of the empire, when threats had been a daily occurrence. Dalin vaguely remembered playing down here: the hushed, tense voices around him while he ran from dank room to dank room with toy soldiers clutched in his fist.
The present room was little different than it had been in those days; the years of disuse had inspired disrepair, though, and there were dusty paintings on the dented walls and stacks of abandoned and broken furniture in the corners. Dalin's advisers had had to sift through this mess to arrange a table and chairs for Dalin and his ministers to occupy.
Somewhat to his chagrin, Minister Faulkner discovered that the ancient wall Screen, an early and small model, did not work at all, depriving them all of the minister's ever-present data—a development which did not bother Dalin in the least.
"You must not, under any circumstances, use the army, Sire!" Defense Minister Acron shouted, red-faced. "It would only make you look like a tyrant!" Acron was a man who almost never acted calmly, and Dalin had tried to keep him away as much as possible, which had been impossible lately.
"I disagree with Minister Acron utterly," Faulkner said.
"I had no doubt you would," Dalin answered.
Acron's face reddened to deep ruby. He pounded his fist on the table, which shook on its three good legs, the fourth being propped on a stack of old aluminum cartons.
"There is no rebellion as Minister Faulkner keeps suggesting! Merely a bit of civil unrest in reaction to the events on Mars!"
Minister Faulkner shook his head at this last suggestion.
Down the short table, Minister Besh nodded.
"I agree with Minister Faulkner," he said quietly. "There is more than enough evidence to prove that Prime Cornelian is behind the Afrasian uprisings. I believe the military should be used without delay."
Acron turned on the new voice with sarcasm. "That is why you are finance minister, Besh! Tend to your ones and zeros, please!"
There were a few titters, but mostly silence. Besh said, "And how have we handled the current shortages in food and supplies?"
This last question was directed at Labor Minister Rere, a stout man with a deep voice, who now cast a malevolent glance at Besh and said, "I authorized a discreet holding back of certain items to prevent hoarding and further rioting. This is standard practice."
"Is it standard practice to ration water and wheat?" Besh said.
Rere turned his hands palm upward. "When necessary—yes!"
"Where did the rioting begin?" Dalin Shar asked.
Minister Faulkner answered, "In Canton, Sire. A week ago yesterday. As you know, there was an attempt on the governor's life, followed by a general labor strike. This led to shortages and then Minister Rere's attempts to bring those shortages under control."
"What prompted the labor strike?"
Minister Faulkner hesitated before answering. "We had . . . certain information that rebels had infiltrated many of the guilds. This influence has spread. That is why I believe that immediate military measures
Dalin found his anger level beginning to rival that of Minister Acron, though he was able to keep it under control for now. "Am I correct in concluding that this was not brought to my attention earlier 'for my own good'?"
There was silence at the table, and not a few downcast eyes. Only Minister Besh looked at Dalin Shar and nodded. "This seems an altogether fair charge," the minister said.
Minister Acron suddenly stood up, his face nearly purple, his finger pointing at Dalin. "This ... boy is not fit to rule! He is not old enough nor wise enough!"
Instantly Prime Minister Faulkner rose and turned to the imperial guard standing by the doorway. "Remove Minister Acron and place him in detention. As f this moment he is under house arrest."
Two guards, burlier and taller than Acron, approached and took the defense minister by either arm, pulling him up out of his chair.
"Let go of me!" Acron demanded, but the guards, at Faulkner's motion, took an even firmer grip and dragged the beet-faced, shouting man from the room.
"I apologize, Sire," Faulkner said, bowing toward Dalin Shar.
Dalin said, "You have much to apologize for, as do the rest of my ministers." Dalin let his anger build slowly, and let Faulkner and the others see it. "Why do I seem to know nothing of what has been happening in my own kingdom?"
He pounded on the table. "Why?"
Minister Faulkner looked calmly down at his nails for a moment and then looked at Dalin Shar. "Do you wish the truth, Sire?"
"Of course!"
Minister Faulkner said quietly, "Because for the last weeks, it has seemed like you have been behaving like a lovesick puppy, incapable of action."
Dalin Shar's face reddened, not in anger but in embarrassment. He began to shout in protest but then held his tongue, chastened for the moment.
Minister Faulkner continued quietly, "I apologize to you, Sire, for speaking this way, but you did demand the truth from me."
Choking on his mortification, Dalin Shar studied the faces of his ministers and saw by their aversion to his gaze that this was true.
"All right," he said finally. "Be that as it may. What, then, can we do?"
"We should follow our present course of controlled shortages," Labor Minister Rere said without hesitation. "And we should allow Minister Acron's replacement to take military action against the colonies—and in the cities, if necessary."
Still red-faced, Dalin began to speak, but then Faulkner caught his eye with a well-known glance that said, Speak with me. Alone. Now.
"I ... will think on this and make my decision as soon as possible," the king said.
The meeting was adjourned.
The Imperial security detachment advised that the upper levels of the palace had been cleared of danger; no explosive device had been found.
Dalin thought he would be asked to accompany the prime minister to a conference room, where his cherished wall Screens and data could be put to use; it therefore came as a surprise when Faulkner asked to walk in the garden with the king.
"You? Outside?" Dalin said with amusement. "In all my years I don't believe I have seen you in sunlight, Prime Minister."
Faulkner tried not to look sour. "It would be a welcome change," he said unconvincingly. "And besides . . ."the prime minister motioned with his hand as if they should proceed to the garden now.
When they reached the rose trellises—in fact, when they stopped at the precise spot where Dalin had first kissed Tabrel Kris—Faulkner said, "There are things I wish to tell you that other ears should not hear."
"Do you mean the palace is not safe for speaking?"
"Not these days, Sire."
"I see."
Faulkner allowed slight impatience to creep into his voice. "You are a burden to me, Dalin Shar! I have never known when you are not being frivolous. I have tried my best to counsel you in all things. these past years. But your attitude . . ."
Dalin allowed a bigger grin to cross his face. "I have made you angry! It has been my life's work!"
"Please, Sire! Let me speak of these things!"
"Go ahead. But you know very well we are being watched and listened to here as well."
"Yes, but by people loyal to you."
Dalin's manner immediately sobered. "Has it gotten that bad, then?"
Faulkner drew a weary hand across his face. "Sometimes you vex me, Dalin. Your father was not like this."
"You miss him, don't you?"
Faulkner seemed mildly startled. "Yes, I do."
"I didn't know him very well myself. A bounce on the knee, a pat on the head. And then he was gone."
"He was a good man. A great man."
"As are you, Minister Faulkner."
Again Faulkner seemed startled. "Perhaps . . "Tell me, then, of these plots and intrigues. As long as I can remember we have had plots and intrigues."
"This is different. This may mean your life. I'm afraid Acron was only the beginning. I'm not even sure of his part. At the least he is a pompous fool who needed airing out. At worst . . ."
"Tell me, Faulkner. As I told you in that meeting, do not treat me like a boy."
"But you are a boy! And you act like a boy! Acron was not wrong with that."
The prime minister pointed to the riotous colors of the roses surrounding them; their bright reds and pinks made the afternoon air thick with perfume.
"I, of course, witnessed what happened here between yourself and Senator Kris's daughter on that afternoon three weeks ago."
Anger began to fill Dalin, but Faulkner held up a stern hand. "Hear me! It has been my job to watch over you since your father's death; it has been my existence."
"Arid have you watched my other assignations in this garden?" Dalin hissed. "Have you peeped into my most private moments like a lewd voyeur with sweaty hands? Is everything recorded on a data card?"
Dalin's hands were balled into fists, but the hardness he now witnessed on the prime minister's face—iron beneath the surface which he had only beheld a rare glimpse of before—made his fists relax and made something like fear crawl into his gut.
This was a man who, Dalin Shar was suddenly sure, had killed before, possibly in his, Dalin's, name.
"Listen to me," Faulkner said, with a coldness Dalin had never heard from either the minister or anyone else; he realized that he was seeing a man on the edge, at the limits of himself.
Dalin managed to keep his composure and summon a measure of courage. "All right," he said. "But I tell you that no one has ever spoken to me like this, and I will not forget."
Faulkner spoke between gritted teeth. "I have watched you, yes, King Shar, I have watched nearly your every move since you were still soiling your underclothes. On the day your father was butchered, I lifted you from your daybed and hid you in my cloak, while murderers passed by me with bloodied knives. I hid you in a place no one knew about, not even your father. Did you know he was tortured before he was slaughtered? They wanted you, Dalin; they wanted to end your father's line and destroy his empire. But I saved your life."
Faulkner's face belied an inner rage, a cauldron that must have been building for years. "I saved you, when I could have let those dogs have you that day. And every one of those traitors I tracked and brought down. For your father. For you.
"And in the years since, while you grew and frolicked and fancied yourself becoming a man, I pulled the strings for you in this government, because you did not yet seem ready for that mantle to be placed upon you. I would be lying if I said I did not welcome rule by proxy it is what I do best and what gives me most pride.
"But all these years, through all the crises, the trouble, the petty insurrections and betrayals, I have managed for you, I have waited for you to flower not with manhood, but with your father's capacity for rule. I have steeled myself, waiting for the day when I could see your father in yourself.
"And that day has not come."
Suddenly there was more than just rage in Faulkner's words; there was sadness and resignation. "I fear it may never come."
"I am sorry I disappoint you, Minister Faulkner."
"Disappoint! That is a stupid word! A useless word! There is a burden, a . . . weight . . ."
Suddenly it seemed as if Dalin could see that burden which Faulkner had carried; the weight of an empire bearing down on his stiff shoulders, the weight of years and rule which was not rightly his own, and which he would gladly dispense with.
"And now," Faulkner said, his voice filled with weariness, "when the biggest crisis has come and you are needed most of all, you choose this time to fall in love."
Dalin was about to explain himself when the minister suddenly placed his hands on Dalin's shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. Here, then, was the root of the man, shown in those recesses behind even the iron.
Back there, Dalin saw fear.
"It is beginning now, Dalin," Faulkner said. His hands were like talons digging into the king's shoulders. "And it will come swiftly. There will be a move against you, very soon. And I don't know who it will be. What I did with Acron was merely a feint; the fact that no one protested my action worries me greatly. At most Acron is a co-conspirator, an affordable loss; but the real master remains hidden. I could have Acron tortured, but I doubt he even knows who is pulling the strings; he is stupid enough to think he is pulling them himself. And I don't know who it is.
"Listen to me, and very carefully. Trust no one, from this moment on. For the past two weeks, while you sulked, I have used every power I have to find out who has plotted against you arid, if that plot was enacted, to give you a back door to pass through. I have failed in the first enterprise, and now I fear we are very close to an attempt on your life. There are very specific things you must do, if and when this attempt comes. And you must not think of me if it happens."
Faulkner removed his grip from Dalin's shoulders and sat the young man down on a nearby bench. "Now listen to me very carefully. . ."
There followed hours of discussion. When Dalin looked up, he saw that the stars and a sickled moon had risen above the trellises and that it was now night air that was scented with the sweet, languid odor of roses. At times he thought Faulkner had gone mad and was ranting with fever; but finally the discussion ended and the prime minister took his leave.
In the faintness of moonlight, Faulkner's face looked ghostly and pale; he seemed a diminished man, unburdening his strength along with his plans and advice.
"Take care, my king," Faulkner said, melting into the night. "With another meeting I have this hour, we may know who is friend and who is foe."
The prime minister was gone then; and Dalin, suddenly aware of the chilled night, felt as if he should have said good-bye.
It did not come as a complete shock, then, when Dalin Shar was awakened deep into the same night, with the sliver of moon edged down the west, to be told that Prime Minister Faulkner had been found that night murdered in his own chambers, his eyes and tongue cut out, his severed head still resting upon his pillow but robbed of all but eternal sleep.
"It makes little difference to me, you understand," Prime Cornelian said languidly, "but I really would like to know where your daughter is."
As he spoke, the High Leader took lazy pulls from the hookah borne by a rolling assistant. The machine had been designed expressly for this purpose and no other; it was, in effect, a hookah on wheels with a primitive brain. As Cornelian slowly circled the upright field where Senator Kris was held tightly suspended—so tightly that the yellow light of the field protruded not a bare millimeter from his crushed chest; his chest produced great pain each time the senator breathed, which was not that often. The field commenced a bare meter off the ground and held the senator in a suspended state with no movement possible. The room, in one of the higher towers of the residence of the former High Prefect, gave a stunning view through its open window of much of the Arsia Mons region in the distance—though Cornelian had made sure that the senator, when placed within the field, had been facing the bare opposite wall.
"Oh, do talk, Senator!" Cornelian chided, taking another pull and letting the smoke out in precise O's, which floated through the field and made Kris cough painfully. "I'll find her nevertheless, and it would be so much easier on you for me to let you die today—think of all the pain to come tomorrow and the day after, otherwise!"
Kris, through torment, muttered, "You know I won't tell you."
In the middle of another string of smoke .O's, Cornelian said, "Correct! That is why I should tell you that she is safely on Titan, a guest of my good friend Wrath-Pei, and that she will soon be on her way back to see you!"
Kris sought to struggle within his confines, gasping, "He said he would protect her! Wrath-Pei promised—"
Cornelian hooted, "A promise? From Wrath-Pei? Did you really think you could believe anything that monster told you?"
Kris abruptly stopped struggling and let the pain subside before he panted, his eyes steady, "Wrath-Pei won't return her." Something like a smile came briefly to his lips, before the agony in his rib cage wiped it from his face. "I don't care what he's told you, he won't let her go. She's too valuable to him politically."
The senator hissed in pain as his ruined heaving chest pushed out against the steel-like wall of yellow light. "And ... not because of her union to .. Jamal Clan."
Moaning in pain, Senator Kris fainted away in his upright cage.
Prime Cornelian stood tapping one long digit against his cranium in thought.
"You're wrong, of course, Kris, but as always, your political instincts are in the right place. That's what made you so valuable to me as a tool. I must think on this."
Prime Cornelian passed through a soft shaft of afternoon sunlight, which played across his angled body like a caress before hitting the far pink wall again after the High Leader's passage.
On his way from the room, Cornelian paused in his thoughts long enough to tweak the containment field a fraction tighter; Senator Kris immediately came back to consciousness, fighting for breath and groaning in discomfort.
"You realize, of course, Kris, that Tabrel will return for your sake?"
A long moan escaped the senator, which followed the High Leader happily from the room.
A demonstration had been prepared in the city of Shklovskii, in the Acidalia Planitia, in the northern hemisphere. Though bored with the trip, Prime Cornelian relished the destination.
Pynthas, who had regrettably been put in charge, had the shuttle pilot fly high enough so that he could ogle the Tharsis Montes ridge; to the High Leader, they were dead cones on the ground, of no importance. A thin salmon haze at the edge of the world was more interesting to Cornelian; in his mind, he thought that if only they could find a way to punch selective holes in that haze, which represented the tenuous atmosphere of the planet, then none of these other, messier methods would be needed. Just extract a neatly sliced area of atmosphere—including, of course, all the oxygen, like cutting a cylindrical wedge from a melon—and voila! no more problems in the city below.
"Look at Tharsis Tholus from this angleohhhhh!" Pynthas said, straining his unnaturally large eyes to look below as the shuttle made its turn east. Below, the volcano lay wide, high, and majestic, one side of its shadowed caldera filled with frost.
In his enthusiasm, Pynthas turned from the window, grinning, and sought to pull at one of Prime Cornelian's appendages to make him look; but he shrunk back in horror immediately at the High Leader's harsh gaze.
"Dead mounds of dirt," Cornelian said, in response to which Pynthas began to bob his head madly.
"Of course, High Leader—of course!"
"How much longer?" Cornelian called up to the pilot, who immediately replied, "Not twenty minutes, High Leader."
"Very well."
The High Leader snorted, seeing that Pynthas had once again turned to the window to gaze wide-eyed and openmouthed at swirls of sand, spare forests of pale green, and bits of rock below.
At Shklovskii, Prime Cornelian's interest picked up, even as Pynthas's waned. For the final ten minutes of the journey there had been little sightseeing to do: only a vast plain of unsheathed rock, vestigial craters, and intermittent desert. Vegetation was sparse, and only when the shuttle lowered toward the nearing city was any life visible on the surface. They might be on any habitable desert area anywhere, except that here the brush grew taller than a man, the flowers were wan shades of blue and yellow, and the sands were some of the darkest on the planet, a deep rust approaching red.
"That's Shklovskii?" the High Leader sniffed, as a ragtag cluster of bland two-story sandstone buildings ringed by water tanks came into view below them. At the northern perimeter, the ugly quarry cuts of a sandstone mine did nothing to brighten the picture.
Pynthas said eagerly, "It's one of the reasons it was picked, High Leader. No one will miss it."
His eagerness for landscape had been replaced by his equally unattractive eagerness to please.
"Where are the nearest towns?"
"Mutch and Sagan, fifty and a hundred kilometers away."
"And you're sure there'll be no spillover into those communities?"
"None."
As if sensing that Prime Cornelian wanted confirmation, General Ramsden, who had sat thus far silently in the copilot's seat up front, turned and said, "No possibility, High Leader."
"Good. I would hate to see anything happen to that museum near . . ."
"Chryse Planitia, High Leader," the general said. His eyes were as blank as his tone, his leathery thin face impassive. Through experience, Prime Comehan knew that the man's reptilian qualities were only skin deep; otherwise, he would not be alive.
"Good. You may proceed."
"Very wel—"
"One more question. You're sure this will be seen live?"
General Ramsden said impassively, "Every Screen on the planet, High Leader. With an appropriate message condemning Shklovskii as the center of civil disobedience and a rebel stronghold. I believe the message will be clear, High Leader."
"It's not necessary for you to believe anything, General. The fact that there is no rebel resistance on Mars is no concern of yours. Proceed."
"Very well."
General Ramsden spoke a few words, and the Marine cruiser which had been following the shuttle pulled overhead and in front of them. As it did so, a bay in its sleek golden belly opened, revealing a glint of brilliant light within.
"May we get closer to the ground?" Cornehian asked.
Pynthas began to say no, but General Ramsden cut him off and said, "Of course, High Leader."
The shuttle lowered, leaving the hovering needled length of the cruiser above and ahead of them.
"Is this all right, High Leader?" the general inquired.
They were three hundred meters above the city; at this height, Prime Cornelian could see the thin upturned faces of the curious citizens who had come out into their yards and into the single paved street that ran the length of the town to look at the wonders in the sky over them. At this height, Cornelian could see the whirls of dust devils caught in various dry yards and open lots.
"Do they know?" Cornelian asked.
"No," the general answered. "We thought they would flee into the desert if they were warned."
"Of course. Tell them now."
"As you wish."
General Ramsden again spoke, and there was a momentary lack of action. Below him, Cornelian watched as the citizens of Shklovskii seemed to cock their heads as one, listening to others who had listeners or Screens.
Before long, the High Leader had the response he wanted, as more citizens rushed from their homes, some comically carrying belongings, others bearing children.
"They look like . . . insects, don't they?" Cornelian said, which brought dead silence in the shuttle. "You may proceed," Cornelian said, chuckling.
General Ramsden spoke a single word, and the Marine cruiser opened its bay doors wide, letting out a startling light. It seemed not so much a ray as a fall of blinding sunlight, which dropped into the town below.
There was a snap of sound, like air too suddenly being let out of an overinflated device; and when the eye cleared of blinding light it-beheld human skeletons caught in a rapidly expanding and flattening bubble, a kind of smoke ring of bright pressure that blew out from the center of Shklovskii to beyond its farthest edges. At the inside perimeter of the sandstone mine the edge of the expanding circle dipped to conform to the landscape; a bare moment later it climbed rapidly out the other side and resumed shape, even as it began to dissipate.
In a matter of ten seconds it was over, and Shklovskii was a circle in the desert, brushed clean of everything.
"My!" Prime Cornelian said. "I'm impressed!"
"Sam-Sei thought you would be pleased," General Ramsden said, his tone never changing. "Of course, the weapon has its limitations."
"Doesn't everything?" the High Leader said, almost gleefully. "It will be a wonderful instrument. We must play with it again soon. And now," he said, boredom creeping suddenly into his speech, "I'd like to go home."
"Of Course, High Leader," General Ramsden said.
On the journey back to Lowell, Prime Cornelian's mind was so occupied that he heard none of Pynthas's catcalls of pleasure as one dead rock or another was flown over.