Star of Gypsies
- Автор: Силверберг Роберт
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Star of Gypsies». Краткое содержание книги:
"They showed Periandros, did they?"
"In his funeral clothes, yes. Looking very peaceful. He's lucky to be out of this mess."
Polarca turned to Chorian. "Was it Sunteil who arranged Periandros' death?"
"Of course. An artifical wasp in his bath-chamber. And then Sunteil would land and claim the throne. I tried to send word to Yakoub of what was going to happen, but there was no way to get through-the imperials were monitoring everything-"
"Monitoring the communications channels of the Rom king?" Polarca cried, outraged. "The little shit-ass! The sneak! Doesn't the man have the slightest shred of decency in him?"
"The man is dead," said Jacinto.
"Don't be so sure of that," Biznaga said. He was pointing at the screen again.
"Lolmischo Melalo Bitoso Poreskoro," muttered Damiano in horror and amazement, making the signs of protection against demons. A moment later I was doing the same. For there was Periandros staring straight out of the screen, glum and dour as ever, telling us that he was most certainly alive and very much in charge of the government, and calling on all good imperial citizens to deal mercilessly with the traitors. "How can this be?" Chorian asked. "The wasp-"
"Killed one of his doppelgangers, maybe?" I suggested. "Impossible. It was a homing wasp, programmed to be life-seeking. There was a metabolism tropism built into it: it wouldn't ever have attacked a doppelganger. I don't understand how Periandros could still be alive, if he-"
Polarca laughed. "He isn't. This is the doppelganger."
"Making a speech?" Damiano said. "A doppelganger, making a speech, claiming to be emperor?"
"Why not? Yakoub thinks it was a doppelganger of Periandros that held the audience with him. But even so he wasn't sure. Periandros may have been using some new improved kind of doppelgangers, yes? And at least one has survived the assassination, and is trying to hang on to the throne-"
"Why would a doppelganger want to be emperor?" Biznaga asked. "It can only live a couple of years."
"It may not know that," Polarca said. "It may not even know that it's a doppelganger. It's just doing what Periandros would have done." "Jesu Cretchuno Sunto Mario," I muttered. "Three emperors at once! And one of them not even alive. "
From the shining streets of the imperial center came the sounds of warfare, louder and louder, closer and closer.
THINGS GREW QUIETER TOWARD EVENING. THE GOVERNMENT news channel kept its focus almost exclusively on Naria, who appeared every hour or two to urge people to be calm. Now and again the broadcasts were interrupted by the faction of Periandros, asserting that he was still alive and in command. Whenever the Periandros image was on screen I peered close, trying to determine whether or not it was a doppelganger, but there was no way of telling, not on screen. If the assassination had been carried out the way Chorian claimed it had, though, then most likely Periandros was really dead and what we were seeing was his doppelganger, all right. Either way, Naria seemed definitely to be on top at the moment. He was at the imperial palace. Periandros, or Periandros' doppelganger, wasn't saying anything about his own location. From Sunteil nothing at all had been heard since his original speech at the starport.
We kept ourselves snugly defended at the Rom palace and awaited further developments.
In the middle of the night came word that Julien de Gramont was on the screen and wished urgently to speak with me. At that hour I didn't wish urgently to speak with him, but these were unusual times. I rolled over and switched on my screen.
Julien looked woeful. His eyes were puffy, his beard was askew, his collar was drooping. He offered me none of his usual little jaunty French pleasantries, only a perfunctory sign of respect for my royal rank.
"The Sixteenth Emperor," he said, "requests a conference with the Rom baro at the Rom baro's earliest convenience."
"Which Sixteenth?" I replied, pointedly and undiplomatically. "The former Lord Periandros, of course," said Julien in a tired, deflated way.
How very much like Julien to continue to regard his patron and hero as the one and only Sixteenth, at a time when two other lords were claiming the selfsame title and when Periandros himself was in fact dead. Julien had always been obstinate about lost causes, I reminded myself. Why shouldn't he go on calling Periandros the Sixteenth? What else could you expect from someone who in the privacy of his own soul still dreamed of strolling the mirrored halls of Versailles as true successor to the grandeur of Louis XIV?
"The report is that Lord Periandros was assassinated earlier today, Julien."
"I have spoken with him within the past hour, Yakoub." "With him or with a doppelganger of him?"
"You are making this very difficult for me, mon vieux." "I can't negotiate with a doppelganger, Julien."
"He appeared to be real and alive, to me."
"And the body that Naria displayed in the council-chamber of the palace?"
Julien shrugged. "A dummy, perhaps? A projection? Some sort of image? How would I know? Nom d'un nom, Yakoub, I tell you I have spoken with Lord Periandros within the past hour! He lives and he rules."
"But Naria holds the palace?"
"So it seems. Yet the Lord Periandros is emperor. There has been a great disturbance, but the Lord Periandros is emperor. I beg you, mon ami, do not put me through any more of this. This has been a terrible day for us all. Will you speak with him?"
I nodded and Julien put Periandros on the line. Or what purported to be Periandros.
A funny thing. Adversity seemed almost to agree with him. He looked a good deal less gaunt, less haggard, than the Periandros I had seen in the throne-chamber a few days before. Almost the ripe sleek Periandros of old, matter of fact. That had me suspicious at once, of course. Then too he seemed a lot calmer than I would have expected from a man who had been pushed out of his own imperial palace in a coup that very morning. I put my nose close to the screen, scanning for the telltale flickering which would tell me that I was dealing with a doppelganger. And quietly I keyed in Polarca's extension and Damiano's: I wanted them scanning too.
"We have regretted your silence this day," said Periandros right away. Plunging in without the little niceties. At least he hadn't forgotten his royal we. "We had hoped a statement would have been forthcoming from you concerning the anarchy that has erupted in the Capital."
He sounded good. He sounded convincing. That ponderous solemn Akraki style of his. Could this be the real Periandros after all? The one who had been skulking in the background while I went up the crystalline steps to pay my obeisance to a doppelganger?
I said, "I've had very little reliable news of what's been going on. Seemed to me the best thing was to wait and see what was real and what wasn't. In any case it's inappropriate, wouldn't you say, for the Rom baro to comment on imperial matters of state?"
Not a difficult question. But it drew a momentary pause, a sort of mental shifting of gears. Doppelgangers sometimes do that. They aren't really wonderful at the give and take of conversation. But neither are Akraki.
I still didn't know what to think.
Then Periandros replied, "It might have been possible for you to have acted as a force for stability. It is still not too late for that. "
Was that a flicker, just then? A loss of definition around the edges? A little difficulty keeping the underlying bony structure intact?
And why did he look so damned sleek?
I asked him what he seriously thought I could accomplish. Would a statement from me persuade Naria to relinquish the palace, or get Sunteil to go back to Fenix?
"It would contribute toward the restoration of order," Periandros said. "That you continue to recognize us as the rightful emperor. That you call upon your own subjects everywhere to deny cooperation to the rebels. That you urge the rebellious lords to surrender for the good of all humanity."