Star of Gypsies

I went away in despair and I was a long time recovering. All I had left was my place on Xamur. I hid there for a while and then I did some traveling. I made attempts to locate Esmeralda and the children, but nothing came of them. After a time I married again, and then yet again. They weren't good marriages, but they were marriages. I wasn't meant to live alone. There were other children, many of them. My first family began to fade from my mind; the wound healed.

In the end I did find Jacko Bakht living under another name at the Capital, earning a meager livelihood running pathetic minor scams at the expense of the less perceptive imperial princes, and he confirmed that Esmeralda had indeed perished when the first implosion bombs went off. My children? They had died too. Jacko Bakht seemed like a dead man himself. I left him by himself and I didn't see him again. I suppose he was telling the truth, because though I made some further inquiries I never heard anything more about any of them, Esmeralda, the children. Nobody ever vanishes completely, in this galaxy, unless he's dead. So they must really all be dead, as Jacko Bakht had said. All but one, that is.

By some monstrous malfunction of karmic justice Shandor had survived the cataclysm of our family. Twelve years old, and cunning as ice. It was years later that I began hearing stories about a daredevil starpilot, Shandor by name. He was Rom, of course, although he seemed to be mixed up with a lot of glamorous and celebrated women and they were always GaJe women. That's a bad sign right there, a Rom who fools with Gaje women. The stories they told about him were horrifying stories but I didn't pay close attention. I had begun to forget my firstborn son. It didn't occur to me that this man Shandor could be my Shandor. The stories kept cropping up, though. Shandor this, Shandor that, this lunatic pilot who did things that anyone else would have been severely punished for. Somehow he never was. People seemed only to admire him for what he did. As I had admired him for laughing in his own father's face when I tried to discipline him. In his boldness, in his ruthlessness, this Shandor made a habit of taking unacceptable risks, and on one occasion-the infamous Djebel Abdullah affair-he had actually lost an entire starship, causing it to be wrecked on one of the nastiest planets known. He denied any negligence. Worse, there were monstrous charges that there had been cannibalism among the survivors and that he, as the senior surviving officer, had not only condoned but even had organized that. He denied that too.

Now it came to my attention that this man was named Shandor son of Yakoub and that he had been born on Xamur. I was stunned. I tried to re ect the whole idea. But there could be no coincidence in that, Shandor son of Yakoub. I remembered the red-faced babe screaming and biting Esmeralda's breast. I held high posts in our government now -Cesaro o Nano was getting old and sick and they were beginning to talk of me as the next king, though I discouraged the mere thoughtand the deeds of this Shandor were hard to hide from, and after a time I had to acknowledge that he was my son. It was a great shame to me, though all my friends stood by me when he was brought before the kris and charged with the crimes of Djebel Abdullah. And found guilty and expelled from our nation. Although even there he managed to exonerate himself somehow, later on. I don't know how. He was charming, I suppose. Or just wicked. I had as little to do with him as possible. And he with me. It is the only good thing I can say for him. At least he kept far out of my way, when I was king.