Empire's End by Chris Bunch; Allan Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

into her chest, aye?”
    The caller was one of her assistants, in the luxurious quarters/ office she’d had lovingly built that some insensitive sorts compared to an arctic sea cave.
    “I do not,” Rykor rumbled, “particularly appreciate being interrupted in midmeal. Lunch, as the humans say, is important”
    “There is a priority message from Prime,” the assistant said, new enough to be somewhat awed by this communication from the Imperial capital. “It requires that you stand by for special duties, at the command”—and his tone grew more hushed—“of the Eternal Emperor himself.”
    Rykor stiffened. “What sort of duties?”
    “The message was not specific. But it said the duties would almost certainly be protracted, so you are advised to bring a gravchair and pack accordingly.”
    No mention of the late Ian Mahoney, Rykor thought. Nor of the recently outlawed Sten. Nor did the message suggest that perhaps the Emperor—or more likely his new head of secret police, Poyndex—might also be interested in why Rykor had conferred recently, in the greatest secrecy, with one Sr. Ecu, Diplomat Extraordinaire.
    Bad, bad, very bad.
    “And how am I to get to Prime?”
    “An Imperial ship has been dispatched. I have a confirm from the spaceport that its time of arrival is within two E-days.”
    Worse and worse, Rykor thought.
    “Shall I reply, or wait for your return?”
    “Advise that… advise that you are still attempting to contact me.”
    “Received. But…”
    “For your own sake, if you are recording this conversation, I would suggest you blank the record immediately. By the way, that is an order.”
    “Are you returning now?”
    Rykor thought hard. She had two E-days before the ship that could only be carrying Poyndex’s gestapo and an arrest warrant arrived. Time enough.
    “I am. But only momentarily. For these new duties, I shall require some time to myself, out here at sea, preparing and focusing my energies.”
    “Of course,” the still-bewildered assistant said. Like all aquatic races, Rykor’s race needed the sea not only for physical health and nourishment, but for psychic replenishment as well. “I shall have your usual travel pack ready.”
    “Very good. I am returning. Close transmission.”
    Rykor, without waiting for acknowledgment, shut the com off and bulleted back toward her home.
    Two days.
    Time enough for her to pack bare necessities and get to the in-atmosphere flier she had concealed underwater not far from the cave, the flier she had bought a few years earlier, when she sensed that somehow the Empire was going very wrong.
    All of her expertise about intelligence was theoretical, but she had spent long years advising Mahoney when he was head of Mercury Corps and then Sten. She knew any conspirator worth his cloak always had a back door.
    The rest of the back door was a small yacht she had hidden in a remote warehouse at a tiny spaceport on the other side of her world. She had two days until their arrival, then perhaps two more days while they fruitlessly searched the winter oceans for Rykor on her mythical wanderjahr—and then they would know she had fled.
    Long enough, she hoped.
    She even had a refuge—with the being that had first come to her with the horrid suspicion that the Eternal Emperor had gone insane.
    Sr. Ecu caught the updraft that rose close to the vertical, sunbaked cliff and allowed it to loft him out of the twisting canyon, high into the sky.
    Before him, centered in the vast valley, was the towering spire of the Manabi’s Guesting Center.
    Sr. Ecu had delayed his passage as long as he dared, follow-ing the course of the canyon as it wound its way toward the valley. He could dawdle no longer.
    He’d taken his time in responding to the summons not out of rudeness—among the Manabi’s qualifications as the Empire’s diplomats and negotiators was an overwhelming sense of what could only be termed decency—but so he could make sure his carefully prepared