Star of Gypsies
- Автор: Силверберг Роберт
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Star of Gypsies». Краткое содержание книги:
The palace was guarded by level upon level of fantastic defenses. A ring of deflector screens, first, casting a purple glow over the whole place. Within that, a row of gleaming tanks, all eyes and cannons. Then a phalanx of robots. An android militia. A vast host of human soldiers too-or, more likely, doppelganger-soldiers, hastily stamped out to meet the emergency. Scanners. Sky-eyes. Floating clouds of lethal antipersonnel pellets held in check by webs of magnetic force. And more, much more. State-of-the-art stuff, all of it, a wondrous and preposterous array of technological wizardry. Naria's incredible defensive deployment told me as much about Naria as it did about the current state of military preparedness in the Imperium.
It took more than an hour for us to be escorted through all the checkpoints. But at last we entered into the presence of the man who for the moment held the title of Sixteenth Emperor.
No throne-platform now, no crystalline steps. An immense cube of what looked like glass, but probably wasn't, had been set up in the enormous high-vaulted council-chamber of the palace. A warning line of blue fire rose from the stone floor on all four sides. High above, scanner beams searched constantly through the air. And deep within the cube, enthroned like a pharaoh of old in absolute inaccessibility, sat the self-proclaimed Emperor Naria, motionless as a statue, taut and slender as a whip, solemn as a god. Darkness surrounded him but he himself was illuminated by a confluence of spotlights that imparted a fierce blaze to his shoulder-length scarlet hair, his dark purple skin, his implacable yellow eyes. He wore a richly brocaded garment of some stiff green fabric that rose up behind his head like a cobra's hood, and the crown imperial floated above him in holographic projection.
All very impressive. All very ludicrous.
I saw Polarca struggling with a smirk. The phuri dai was smiling seraphically; but then she often does that, in all sorts of contexts. "We are grateful for your coming here, Rom baro," Naria declared in slow, measured, absurdly pretentious tones. His voice emerged from behind the glassy walls of that cube out of a thousand speakers at once, and went rebounding dizzyingly around the vast room.
Such ridiculous theatricality! Who did he think he was talking to? And the royal we again. For century upon century the Empire had managed to survive and even thrive without any such idiotic affectations. But suddenly these uneasy lordlings were reviving it as they made their little snotnosed forays toward the throne. I felt sorry for them. That they should need to inflate themselves that way.
Still, I gave Naria the formal gesture of submission that a Rom baro traditionally makes to the emperor. Even though he had not offered me the traditional wine. It cost me nothing and might win me a point or two with him. And it rarely pays to be discourteous to megalomaniacs when you're standing in their living room.
Then I said, gesturing at the glass cube and everything that surrounded it, "How sad that all this should be necessary, Majesty." "A temporary measure, Yakoub. It is our expectation that peace will be restored within a matter of days, or even hours. And that there will never again be such a breach of it, once we have completed the task of imposing our authority upon the Imperium."
"Let us all hope so, Majesty," said I most piously. "This war is an agony for us all."
The solemn bastard! Saw himself as savior. Well, meet hypocrisy with hypocrisy, if you have to.
He gave me his grave-and-thoughtful-ruler look. "There is much damage in the city, is there not?"
"Too much, I'm afraid."
"The Capital is sacred. That they should dare to harm it-! Well, we will make them pay for it, every minim, every obol." He studied me in frosty silence for a time. I returned his glare, unfazed. He wasn't a likable man, this scarlet-and-purple Naria. Reptilian. Dangerous. This was the man, after all, who had taken it upon himself to ratify Shandor's unlawful appropriation of my kingship, even while the old emperor still lived. What was it about our unhappy era that had loosed these Shandors and Narias in it?
Then he said, his tone changing entirely, shifting from stiff imperial pomp and bluster to sly and almost intimate insinuation, "Do you know where Sunteil is hiding?"
That was a really unexpected shot. I'm afraid I let myself show my surprise.
"Sunteil?" I said idiotically.
"The former high lord, yes. Who is now in rebellion, as you certainly must know, against the legally constituted government of the Imperium. He's here at the Capital. I wondered whether you happen to know where."
"Not a clue, Your Majesty."
"Not even an unfounded rumor or two?"
"I've heard that he's somewhere south of the city. More than that I couldn't say."
He looked at me like a bomb that was deciding whether it wanted to go off.
"Or rather, more than that you don't choose to say."
"If the emperor thinks I'm concealing things from him-" "You've had no dealings whatever with Sunteil, then?"
The interrogation was starting to slide into new and perilous territory. Carefully I said, "I have no idea where Sunteil may be." Which was true. But it wasn't the answer to the question that Naria was asking.
He let my little evasion pass without comment. Reverting now to his loftier imperial voice, he said, "When Sunteil comes to you again, Yakoub, you will seize him and deliver him to us. Is that understood?" Amazing. Rolling right over me like an avalanche. "This is war, and we can allow no niceties. You will have a second chance to capture him, and this time you will take it." When he comes to you again? How much did Naria know? I heard Polarca gasp in astonishment, and Bibi Savina lost her smile. Seize and deliver him? I had expected to hear Naria beg me for an alliance, not give me orders.
I stared. For a moment I was at a loss for words. Actually speechless. Me!
Naria went on serenely, "The hand of Sunteil has been raised against his emperor, which is to say that it has been raised against every citizen of the Imperium. He is the enemy of us all. He is as much the enemy of you Rom as he is the enemy of-of-what is it that you call us?" "Gaje, Majesty."
"Gaie. Yes."
I said, "And why does Your Majesty think that I will be visited again by Lord Sunteil?"
"Because you will arrange it." That simple. I will arrange it.
The response of Yakoub is the dropping of the jaw, the gaping of the mouth. Only metaphorically, of course. Calm on the surface, I am.
Taking all this very casually. Mustn't let him see how astounded I am. What a marvel you are, Naria.
"Ah. Because I will arrange it."
Saying it very lightly. Merely repeating what should have been obvious to any moron. You will lure my rival into your clutches, Yakoub, and then you will nail him for me. Of course, Your Majesty. Of course.
He said, "There will be a meeting, at some carefully devised neutral point. By your invitation. Another part of the planet, or perhaps some other world entirely. At which you and he will discuss the prospect of an alliance between the Rom Kingdom and an Empire led by Sunteil. You will charm him, as you do so well. You will lull him off his guard. And then you will capture him and turn him over to us.
I felt almost like applauding. Bravo, Naria!
He was speaking to me, to the King of the Rom, as though I were nothing more than some minor phalangarius of his staff. That took daring. Audacity. Stupidity.
"And Periandros?" Polarca said suddenly, a wicked gleam coming into his eye. "Are we to catch him for you too, Your Majesty?" Within his cube of glass Naria remained as motionless as before, but his eyes turned toward Polarca and there was no look of amusement in them. It seemed to me that a chill wind had begun to blow through the council-chamber.