Stardogs by Dave Freer Read Free Book Online Page B

agent nodded. “And offworld. On Phillipia they’ll find and kill you, sooner or later. Not even in the league Dacha would you be safe. But we have hidden facilities elsewhere. We have the perfect vessel to get you out on too. The Princess Royal’s barge. They’ll be searching elsewhere very diligently.”
    “Shari… “ he detested his aunt. “She is with the League?” That information could be traded, perhaps for his life.
    The league man smiled nastily, obviously guessing his mind. “No. She is above suspicion and search, that’s all. We have someone in her retinue. Viscount Brettan and one of the stewards will see to your welfare, once we have you aboard.”

CHAPTER 4
THE WIENAN LEAGUE

A vine, should it be unpruned, yet given access to water and fertilizer in unlimited quantities will produce poor and watery fruit. The Wienan League is such a vine.
    The Upanishad of the Gardener-Dewa Celine
    The descendants of the nine powerful political families who had formed the Council of the Space Exploration and Development Control League lived in the kind of sybaritic luxury that even their wealthy ancestors could never have dreamed of. The hereditary councillors of what now openly called itself the Wienan League, skimmed the cream off the interstellar Empire they’d created. For the Empire itself had begun as a puppet, a means by which the Wienan League could repress their former puppet, the Council of Planets.
    The new puppet too had begun to become uppity in the last hundred years or so. The League now politely requested audiences with the emperor. A mere 120 years ago they’d sent the man peremonitary orders, which were obeyed with alacrity. Now… the League didn’t like this diminution of its power. The Wienan Oligarchy planned to replace the present ruling house with yet another puppet. But the League remained small, controlling a slowly decreasing pool of Stardogs, and the Empire was vast. And even with their declining numbers of Stardogs the League had been obliged to accept some loyal outsiders into their ranks. Offspring of their own were just too few these days.
    The core of power remained with the hereditary-Wienans however. One child of this bloodline was Johannes Wienan XXIII. He could never rise to be League Chairman, because his father had foolishly married outside the League, but he was still a powerful young man in the year 2505. Well, he was not powerful in the physical sense anyway. He was already, at twenty, unfit and rather plump. The power came from his birth, and from his Great Aunt Mariet. She was Chairman of the League Board, and when she summonsed him, even though he was in the middle of a luxurious bath, he responded with commendable alacrity.
    “She wants me?” He fumbled for the switch of the mechanical massager. A skilled masseuse-slave would have done a better job, but the antique gadget was a symbol of Wienan wealth and power. People were cheap, machines expensive.
    His neat-featured brunette slave switched the device off for him, without allowing the least sign of her disdain to show in her face or her voice. “Yes sir. But only at seventeen thirty. You have nearly half an hour.”
    “Well, even so, I can’t hang about, Lila. Get a move on, girl. Hand me that towel, and go and get my formal clothes ready,” he said hastily, surging naked out of the bath.
    She handed him the large fluffy towel. He made no attempt to hide the fact the massage had aroused him “Yes master,” she said calmly, hiding her relief that there would be no time for sex.

    Twenty seven minutes later, at exactly 17h29, he tapped politely on the open door of the audience chamber. Mariet Wienan looked at him with narrowed eyes from under her carefully manicured eyebrows. She raised one eyebrow. Then without giving him the least acknowledgement, she looked at the large ornamental clock on the far wall. It read 17h37.
    He advanced, smiling confidently, ignoring the clock. He had been trained to manipulate