Work Text:
Year Twenty-Two of the Shutdown
Anno Imperiī Conditae 729
Earth Common Era 2874
The Emperor returns to Elyseum to find that Oberon is still dead.
This had not been a sure thing. He had an extensive supply of cloning technology and Neo-N; it is this supply that the Emperor is counting on. Based on the way the Old Man had spoken—complained, really—it seemed as if he’d disabled his automatic resuscitation routine, sick of ruling a dying galaxy. But given how many setbacks the NS Odysseus encountered, optimism is dangerous.
Yet, the throne room looks much as it had when he left it several jumps prior. Cracked windows show the decaying splendor of the Imperial City. Outside, skyscrapers still glimmer with artificial light. And two loyal stewards, wearing masks that make them look almost as unapproachable as the dead OMNIs, flank the throne.
“You don’t have to do this,” the Emperor repeats. “I know how to be a monster. You deserve some happiness in your lives.”
“Flying squadrons makes me happy, Sir,” says Captain Lynch. “But with all due respect, what I was good at wasn’t the flying. It was the leading. And I think I still know how to lead.”
“Hawks and Ozu and Lean and all the others gave their lives so we’d have a chance at this,” says Lieutenant Bigelow. “They didn’t know how hard it would be. But the least I can do is make their sacrifice worth it.”
“All right, all right, enough with the sentiment. We have a lot of work to do.”
Year One
The first order of business is to drastically cut down the Securitization payments. Not curtail entirely. The people of Telos need to know that the Imperial Fleet requires their resources, and that they should not expect mercy from the new Emperor. But the value of scrap is not some quantized unit; it’s merely that it is metal.
The next order is to rescind any remaining all-points bulletins issued under Oberon’s rule. Any ships still calling themselves the Odysseus are not enemies and do not need to be apprehended or destroyed. This might be needless—few Strand A clones ever made it that far, and there will be no more Idahos and Kalibans leaving Gehenna. But just in case.
Then there comes the business of enforcing law. As greedy as the Akibara-Sungs and Kosh-Buendias are, as delusional as the Church of the Singularity is, the Empire cannot hope to control the entire galaxy as it once did. And anyway, starvation will deal with that soon enough. All they can do at the moment is ensure that the center near Telos remains secure, and hope to grow from there.
On the isolated planets, there will soon be tyrants and despots that build grand monuments while their people live in squalor, just as there were in the ancient days before the Empire. But between the stars, the Emperor’s power must be absolute. The Fleet is authorized to punish slavers by the loss of a hand, with the same punishment in store should any fools repeat their crime. If some pathetic pirates decide to sever their own limbs in order to look like outlaws beyond the Empire’s grasp, let them. It will tell the common people who to avoid.
Public opinion of the OMNIs cannot change too quickly. If it’s made known that they will never return, many humans will collapse in despair rather than commit to the labor of rebuilding their civilization. Instead, the Empire’s propaganda moves more slowly.
“Do gods need metal bodies such as these to serve us?” Lynch muses, in a pixellated video broadcast across the sector. “By no means! The OMNIs were kind to take forms that we would recognize, but when they return, they may be more majestic than before. But do not let their remains decay. Behold the wisdom of Tharlani!” The footage displays a swampy planet where a terraforming OMNI has been picked over, the tendrils that once extended from its back now mutilated. “In their devotion, they saved the relics of their OMNI, and offered them to Commander Bolzia when the Fleet passed through. In gratitude, she rewarded them with fine seeds.” Bamboo, which will replenish itself quickly and can be used for simple buildings as well as food. “When the gods return, surely they will reward Tharlani greatly for its prudence. Let each planet heed their example!”
The OMNIs won’t do any such thing. But in a few centuries, there might still be humans living on Tharlani and cursing the Emperor’s false promises, and that would be enough.
Year Five
Telos’ rivals are not conquered: they surrender. Once-grand ships from the outlying sectors limp in, having heard rumors that the Emperor still thrives. It’s almost comical. How many battles had he won as an Admiral, and here are his would-be foes lining up to beg for scraps!
“There is no mercy in this galaxy,” he says, “but there is justice, of a sort. Your children will not have access to genetic modifications or cyborg augmentations. They will think the OMNIs only myths, superstitions from an idle time. Is this the life you would pass down to them?”
All of them use different words to say the same thing. It’s too late for us. We are dying. Even if there was energy and technology and food, at our age, we’re too old to change. But for our children? Anything.
“Then go to these coordinates,” he tells them, “and you will find an inhabitable moon. My Commanders will travel with you to return your ship.”
Some of them are too beaten down to protest, but others balk. Surrender our ship? Our link to the stars? You already have more power and wealth than you know what to do with, and you would take this from us, too?
What he wants to say is: Keep it, then. Without Neo-N, without working folders, you will find you cannot eat hull plating. What he does say is: “The stars are no escape from the weaknesses of humankind. If you cannot live with each other on the moon, a ship will not do you any good.”
They curse some more. But they remember what they are fleeing from, and they accept.
Year Twelve
The ships still trickle in. Not many, and not directly to Elyseum, but faint radio broadcasts announce that the Telos worlds have taken in the desperate survivors of pirate bands who have nothing left to pick over. The Emperor allows himself silent satisfaction—the Old Man thought they’d be lucky to make another decade—but no more.
Everyone on Elyseum realizes that something has changed. Even if they never saw the Old Man in person, the capital is bustling with energy in a way it hasn’t since the Shutdown. But off-planet, accurate news is harder to come by. He receives a few taunts from Akees thinking they're mocking Oberon himself.
Had the Commanders’ extortion efforts been so successful that the entire sector bought into the lie, that all the “securitization” was at Oberon's behest? Do they still believe it now? Perhaps it doesn't matter. Humans desperate for fresh water don't bother to research the name of the autocrats who have failed them.
Year Seventeen
He’s no stranger to cloning machines, of course. Gehenna had more than enough of them for his liking. But it’s still a shock to emerge in the underground chamber, wet and foul-smelling, as if another Kaliban is about to emerge from around the corner.
It’s only Bigelow, though, and there seem to be as many new wrinkles in the lieutenant’s face as there are old ones miraculously removed from his own. “What happened?”
“You were looking at the sublight flight routes, sir.”
“I remember.” Pain in his chest, dizziness, and a dull relief that even if the galaxy perished, he would not have to do this again. Apparently that was an illusion, too. “How long ago was that?”
“Yesterday. The cloning machine is already tuned to your DNA.”
The Emperor shakes his head. Which lackeys had ever seen Oberon like this, shivering and raw?
“Sir, if I may make a suggestion?” Seeing no objection, Bigelow presses on. “You ought to confirm other trusted guards. Lynch and I aren’t getting any younger, and you don’t want an unproven subordinate’s first challenge to be what they do when you are...temporarily indisposed.”
The reminder that everyone else is subject to mortality does not faze him. Only the matter of his exception is daunting. “See to it.”
“Me, sir?”
“You and Lynch.” Delegating is one of the perks of his rank. Maybe Oberon used only OMNIs to see to his rebirth, the same models unchanging after centuries. This galaxy will not be so constant.
“Of course. Is there anything else you need?”
He considers his muscles, joints, extremities. They seem as capable as before, but they had grown—the very first time, before Gehenna—in a world where OMNIs assisted with every task. It would be useful to pick the brains of any of Oberon’s cronies, but none of them had survived the Old Man long. They were not casualties of the power change so much as they had succumbed to despair, too. “Not at the moment.”
“Understood. It’s...good to see you well.”
The Emperor acknowledges Bigelow’s concern with a nod. It is good to be alive. The alternative is worse.
Year Twenty-Three
There is no funeral for Captain Lynch, no missing-pilot formation in the skies above Elyseum. She faces death with the same coolness she had faced it countless times aboard the Odysseus, and after months of teetering decline, follows Lean and the others beyond the confines of the galaxy. She is buried in the palace courtyards, where wild seedlings have started to grow and overrun the once-neat arrangements. If the OMNIs, in whatever form they take now, notice that something has changed, they give no sign.
She has no individual replacement—who could replace her?—but Bigelow takes two apprentices under his wing. Tess has vague memories of the OMNIs, blurred images of a childhood when everything was provided for her; Krito was born after the Shutdown. They are briefed on the essentials: how to operate the cloning machine, what technologies the Empire needs to ration. Other details are unimportant. If the galaxy never finds out the truth about Ganyma, is anyone really worse off?
Two strangers might have found themselves deadlocked, but three legs form a stable basis. If one of the guards dissents, the other two can reach a consensus. Bigelow will be able to nominate his own successor, but Tess and Krito can see to the Emperor’s welfare in the interim. And like a lumbering tripod taking slow steps forward, the individuals who serve as his core assistants will come and go while the group’s duty remains the same.
Of course they don’t call themselves a tripod, but the Emperor doesn’t care what they call themselves, so long as it’s not a triumvirate.
Year Forty-Eight
When the Emperor hears of the birth rates on Cuvindor, he thinks it’s an error. Somewhere, in the radio waves bouncing off distant stars, a bit has been flipped, and several trailing zeroes have been appended where they do not belong. But later transmissions confirm the news. Thousands of humans, born into a future Oberon never imagined, in the last year alone. And Cuvindor is only one small planet.
Later he realizes that the figures, while accurate, are not necessarily good news. Under the OMNIs, resources were allocated astutely if invisibly. Now, without even reliable birth control, humans have all of their evolutionary impulses with none of their modern contrivances. They are just another species, entangled in the food webs of Cuvindor or whichever planets they happen to inhabit. The OMNIs never warned of the end of life in the universe, after all: only biological sapience. If these apex predators go extinct, other species will evolve to fill their niches.
“We can send them aid,” suggests Krito. “Medical kits to reduce deaths in childbirth and infancy.”
They could. And teach the other planets what? That indulging in mammalian gratification will earn the Empire’s pity? That health and prosperity are plentiful on Elyseum, free to whoever is in need? “Tax them.”
“We already did,” says Jovi Sandar. “They don’t have any OMNI corpses left.”
“Not in metal,” says the Emperor. “In blood. Any family with three or more living children must give one to be trained as an officer. It will keep our ranks strong, and teach unruly planets the cost of having too many mouths to feed.”
His advisors stare in horror, but they comply. The first generation of janissaries are lifted from starvation on Cuvindor to what seems vast wealth in Elyseum. Back home they slashed with spears and arrows; here they can call down death from the sky. Of course their rations and weapons are meager beside what students would have had at the old Imperial Academy, but they are not there to learn history. They are there to create a future, by fire and sword.
On Cuvindor, those who are slender enough to survive on crumbs or cruel enough to commandeer their neighbors’ food will survive. A generation or two is not enough time for evolution to alter the human genome, of course. Most of what happens will be due to chance alone, as has been the case for millions of species before. But for the first time, it occurs to the Emperor that Oberon’s genetic meddling may not have been too far-fetched. Whatever nudges he had given to generations of Idahos—or Calvins—were far kinder than the normal vagaries of natural selection.
Of course, it hadn’t done the Old Man any good, in the end.
Year Ninety-Two
Some of the old houses still exist. They have no power, of course, but people take pride in being able to trace their heritage to an identity that predates the Shutdown, to a happier time when metal gods served humanity’s every need.
But people either don’t know, or don’t care, who the major houses were. The Akibara-Sungs were defined by their DNA modifications as much as, or more than, their common ancestry; ditto the Kosh-Buendias and cybernetic augmentations. Without OMNI technology, there is no way for these houses to recapture what made them grand.
And Telos? They had needed no posthuman tinkering to be the envy of the galaxy; they were the heart of the Empire, from which Oberon himself bestowed his largesse on his fortunate subjects. Now, even people who know little of the galaxy beyond their sun know that Oberon was an indolent fool. There must have been times that were better than this; how else could humanity have spread throughout the galaxy? But whover came before this monstrous Emperor must have been a failure.
Instead, it is names that meant little to Oberon that now echo with resonance. House Sandar boasts of its officers who have earned places in the Emperor’s inner circle. And above all, House Vicarelli is a name to wear with honor. To be a Vicarelli is to have a noble lineage, a link in a chain that spans centuries.
Nobody remembers that the Vicarellis were the laughingstock of the galaxy, to humans and OMNIs alike, under Oberon’s rule. Perhaps not even the Vicarellis themselves. Back on the Odysseus, the Admiral—not the Emperor, not yet—had speculated that House Vicarelli was the perfect culprit to carry out the Shutdown. They were so paltry as to be beneath the rest of the galaxy’s notice, and had more than any other House to gain from the collapse of the social order.
He was wrong, of course. But seeing what has become of the galaxy since only makes him feel more vindicated in his theorizing.
Year One Hundred Forty-Three
Jeppli has a strong magnetic field, strong enough that positronic brains occasionally glitched. That hadn’t stopped the humans there from relying on OMNIs, of course, but they were slightly more resourceful than neighboring planets at backup plans. Now, the survivors are proficient at mapmaking, tracing migratory paths of birds based on the polar fields. By following the lodestones—half-magic, half-tradition—they are able to fill their stomachs.
Zinor was once mountainous and difficult to traverse; OMNI terraforming made it a smooth plateau with few intervening landforms or forests to block visibility. The ruthless Queen Dahast now rules the planet, and her network of guards boasts many signal flags to communicate across vast expanses. In rationing food to her loyalists, she is every bit as callous, and effective, as the Empire on a miniscule scale.
Tebruw had been overrun by Church of the Singularity zealots after the Shutdown; they forced their followers to surrender their scrap and Neo-N in the hopes of attaining purity and a rich reward in the Garden of Light and Metal. There are no believers there now, but the descendants of those priests still remember how to subside on fungi and insects.
It is easy to rationalize, in retrospect, why some planets have endured while most die, but even the Emperor is far from omniscient. He could not have guessed which planets would be the lucky ones any more than he could have guessed which technologies would prove to be the most useful. None of these people seem likely to contemplate abstraction and deduce that a squared plus b squared equals c squared—and yet, had human science advanced or atrophied under the OMNIs’ guidance?
Even read-only digital computers would be tremendously useful, to give these planets some knowledge of where they came from and what they can discover. But how to power them? Fossil fuels and Neo-N, while not utterly destroyed by previous generations, are still too inefficient to de-entropize and reuse. The OMNIs have optimized and harnessed the power of the suns too precisely to allow human siphoning.
Nuclear fusion is cheap and plentiful. And yet, seeing how many Dahasts have risen to power, the Emperor is not inclined to teach his subordinates how to split the atom.
Year One Hundred Seventy-Seven
On Ocosir, the nomadic clans have developed a new food source. Men and women, young and less-young—no one lives to be old on Ocosir—go hunting sandworms. They forge arrowheads from the bones of fallen beasts and the ruins of abandoned cities. They stand in formation and take their shots in waves. Those who have seen such things might compare it to drones that took turns assaulting an enemy battleship, but these words are meaningless on Ocosir.
Once a giant is slain, they drag it underground, through deep tunnels that are built to withstand the storms above. Then they strip it, making use of nearly every organ. What cannot be eaten or hewn or carved as a trophy to be worn by the chieftains is returned to the surface during the cold nights. Some say that before Chieftain Sura united the clans, foul offal unfit for humans was buried near other tribes’ oases, so that even dead sandworms could make war on humankind. But the out-tribes were weak and rotted away from poison. Now there is no one on Ocosir but Sura’s people, and they cannot make war on each other when they are busy mastering the planet.
A few of the archers believe that Sura rests with her ancestors, but most of them doubt this. How could Sura, who was so warlike in life, know rest in death? They trust that she does not sleep, but has been sent by the mighty Chieftain-of-Stars to subdue the other worlds and conquer their monsters. The Chieftain-of-Stars has never grown old and never known peace; he has given each world sandworms or earthquakes or plagues to forge strong warriors, and his armies flash like lightning from the heavens. For every star that shines, there is another world where Sura has been called to unite the worthy and subdue the weak.
Like many religions, this is wrong in most particulars, and right about the crux of things.
Year Two Hundred Thirty-Seven
It is not a surprise when the Labyrinth—originally a portable forge, now refitted as a warship—is captured by pirates upon landing at Nesross and most of the crew is killed. It is a surprise when one of the officers comes limping back, literally; Milux Sandar somehow survived the amputation of his leg, thanks to a local remedy involving banling herbs and orzee root. The Emperor is privately skeptical that it would hold up to controlled experimentation, but the scientific method is not something Nesross can afford.
“Permission to be discharged, sir?” Milux gives a good-natured smile.
“Denied.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but even the youngest janissary moves faster than me.”
“I did not order you to return to the front lines.”
He nods deferentially, too bemused—or terrified—to ask questions.
“You will create a written record of your experience, including a map to Nesross and as much detail as you know about the medicines that you used.”
“A record? You mean, in one of the ship databases?”
If all the Empire’s pilots are as incompetent as the Labyrinth’s, technological decay will be the least of their concerns. “No, in a paper book. The old library should have some.” It had been more spacious when OMNI archivists could digitally query any information needed, but now it’s filling up with durable manuscripts in increasingly-gibberish scripts.
“I’ll—see what I can do. Sir.” But he sounds more nervous than he had at the prospect of being sent into battle again.
“Captain?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know how to write? Answer honestly.”
Milux’ fear of being caught in a lie outstrips his fear of incompetence, because he says, “I’m...afraid not, sir. Wasn’t considered an important part of training.”
“You’re not in trouble. I’ll have one of the guard give you instructions. Start by going through the books in the library now, and if there are any they can’t make sense of, stack them for recopying.”
“Of course, sir.”
After the ordeal on Nesross, Milux values his life—as he should—too dearly to waste by challenging the emperor. But the look on his face is the same as that of useless commandos sent to recon inhospitable planets. Meaningless gruntwork for useless grunts.
If they succeed, the Emperor thinks, Milux’ work here might be even more valuable than his skill in battle. But it is not just his military background that makes the dream too absurd to voice.
Year Two Hundred Fifty-Five
The first assassination attempt—at least, the first one that the tripod doesn’t squelch behind his back—is pretty effective, all things considered. Moive Yinsti is from Elyseum, and manages to hear the fact that the Imperial Palace is hoarding untold quantities of Neo-N. This itself might not be a fatal disclosure; the palace, after all, hoards rare quantities of many resources and technologies that mere subjects would not know what to do with even if they had access to them. And Yinsti certainly has nothing resembling a spaceship capable of making FTL jumps.
But she has heard just enough mangled rumors to know what else Neo-N can do. In the years after the Shutdown, there was a creature—maybe more than one—in the outer sectors who had been so poisoned by Neo-N that she no longer knew past or future, but babbled prophecies and memories that were not her own. To the Emperor, this fate sounds horrific. No childhood has been tranquil since the Shutdown, but most of them have preserved some semblance of humanity.
To Yinsti, however, the Neo-N child is a legend. If she could see through space and time, what did it matter if she was bound to one ship or one planet? Enough Neo-N, in the right hands, could transform a mere human into a seer, comforting others with promises of a glorious future or tales from a resplendent past. This, Yinsti concludes, is her destiny. And if the Emperor is standing between her and this cache of Neo-N, well, the Emperor will just have to fall.
It makes her challenge harder than someone like Janua 9S, who merely wished to burn the system down rather than living to see what came next. A more impulsive regicide might have sought an audience with the Emperor and buried a blade in his stomach before being slain. But Yinsti is more patient. She infiltrates the garage and cuts the brakes of the ground transport.
The transport doesn’t get much use, and only travels between the decrepit spaceport and less-decrepit palace. And while its fuel system is pathetically wasteful, it doesn’t require any digital components to operate. So when the Emperor schedules a trip to Breson, he and Gwenaëlle Vicarelli don’t get farther than a couple kilometers from the palace before the transport careens into an abandoned building that might once have been a theater or a museum or lecture hall.
It takes the Imperial guard six days to find Yinsti. It only takes one for the Emperor to emerge in the cloning chamber, panting and piecing together what had happened. The remaining two legs of the tripod are torn on how to proceed; Libisia wants him to remain hidden in case the killer has accomplices, but Kjava thinks he needs to show his face to the city and make it clear he fears nothing. He sides with Kjava. If it’s taken his people two centuries to kill him, the remaining Neo-N isn’t going to run out any time soon.
Yinsti is expressionless when she faces him again in the courtyards; she is not important enough to use the throne room. The trees that had been mere seedlings when Lynch and Bigelow were interred are now giants whose limbs cast long shadows on the palace walls. “It is true,” the Emperor says coldly. “There is Neo-N in this palace. Do you know what it is for?”
Of course, she doesn’t respond. He had expected no less. In the unlikely event she had allies, she will be resolute for them.
“For this.” He waves at his body; it was not an unusually young one, by pre-Shutdown standards, and yet these cells are merely days old. “There is no need for visions under the rule of an immortal.”
She remains silent, but does not meet his eyes. It must be frustrating to kill a man only to watch him condemn you. The ships that fought the Odysseus still had weapons when it met them again; Yinsti has only her rage.
“I could imprison you and let you rot—” He almost says freeze. “—for decades. And when you staggered free, old and sick, you would see me again, just as I am today. It would be fitting, don’t you think?”
She rolls her eyes. They both know he won’t, and she wants him to get it over with already. He understands that, too.
“But the galaxy must know that a traitor’s fate is not food and lodging from the Empire’s purse,” he continues. Behind them, a guardsman knots a length of rope from a massive tree.
It has been centuries, the Emperor thinks, when Yinsti’s feet stop swinging. Surely one of the larger planets has reinvented the blaster.
Year Two Hundred Eighty
The only thing stranger than what humanity has forgotten is what it remembers.
“Once there is a pirate,” the ballad goes—on several dozen planets—
“The mighty pirate Hax.
He never flees from battle
He always first attacks.
He never hunts the giant
He never grows a farm
There plenty ships is sailing
With enemies to harm.
And when his crew has triumph
They take their knives and carve.
They feast on vanquished foe-flesh
And so they never starve!
Now when your sun burns torrid
And when you parch of thirst
You trust, of all the planets,
The one you live is worst:
Just pray to Hax the pirate,
Your pain he swiftly stop.
He drink a toast from fresh blood
He never waste a drop!”
“They don’t even have reliable interstellar comms,” the Emperor fumes. “How are they spreading gossip about Hax of all people.”
“Are you all right?” asks Shlomi Kobue.
“Fine,” says the Emperor. “Just great.”
Year Three Hundred Thirty-One
And this:
“Silly human, don’tcha drool,
Mother gonna steal you some rocket fuel.
If that rocket fuel don’t spark
Mother gonna steal you a beauty quark.
If that beauty quark don’t spin
Mother gonna show you your time-lost twin.
If your twin grows gray and old
Mother gonna steal you the taxman’s gold.
If that taxman’s gold don’t shine
You still my love, little human of mine.
Silly human, take your nap,
Mother gonna steal you some metal scrap.
If that metal goes to rust
Mother gonna steal you some comet dust.
If that dust is gone too soon
Mother gonna steal you a frozen moon.
If that frozen moon should melt
Mother gonna steal you an asteroid belt.
If that belt don’t fit your hip
Mother gonna steal you an Empire ship.
If that Empire ship don’t sail
Mother gonna bust on out of jail.”
The pirate Mother hasn’t been a threat since before his time, and even then, she never threatened the inner sectors. Why now?
“It’s just a song,” Thandolwethu Akee tries to assure him. “I mean, ‘beauty quark’? That’s just some nonsense that people made up to rhyme with ‘spark.’”
Or what if it isn’t about the pirate? They say that on some planets, it’s sung as a lullaby, a false promise that human parents can provide for their offspring. In the past, however, it was the OMNIs who nursed and fed and provided for their biological counterparts. Surely they had not seen themselves as an older generation; if anything, they were children who would outstrip their forebears, but they did not like to think of themselves as of human make at all. Yet words and memories change over time. To humans alive today, it might make perfect sense.
Year Three Hundred Ninety-Four
And this:
“Lissa puts in at each port,
Trades for scrap and food and more.
‘Lissa, gonna furl your sail?’
‘Home port on another shore.’
Lissa has a sturdy hull
Fore to aft and cross the beam.
‘Lissa, foes could pierce your walls.’
‘Home port on another stream.’
Lissa mounts her weapons high.
They scares the beast and cheers the free.
‘Lissa, ya gon stay in peace?’
‘Home port on another sea.’
Lissa never springs a leak
None can sink her, come what may.
‘Lissa, bless our ships as well.’
‘Home port on another bay.’
Lissa’s crew will never change.
Death don’t follow where they are.
‘Lissa, can your anchor drop?’
‘Home port under another star.”
“Lotsa worlds have got ships,” says Ryna Kovol. Her accent is not as thick as some of the other planets’, but even Elyseum is changing. “Every world has death. Ain’t nothing weird about believing in a ship that’s never known death.”
“I heard it too,” says Vestro Camba. “But the ship was a man, named Odie.”
“When I learned it,” says Niewul San-Elli, “there was a verse about sandworms.”
The Emperor sighs. “Sandworms are very evocative. Their stories spread on lots of planets.”
“You don’t need to worry bout it,” Vestro says. “You got your magic. Worrying, that’s our job.”
“Ballads aren’t for making sense,” Niewul says. “If you got a ship that sails on the streams, how’s it getting from star to star?”
Ryna nods. “Just something to scare your kids. ‘You be good, or Pirate Hax gonna eat you.’”
“I don’t know who came up with ‘Lissa,’” says the Emperor. “But Hax was real.”
The guards exchange glances. Pirate Hax is a silly old song, but this is the Emperor they’re dealing with.
“I’m as surprised as you are,” he adds. “I guess people just really like singing about cannibal pirates.”
Year Four Hundred Twenty-Eight
Lord Attenho of Gelpa is as cruel as any planetary tyrant. He arranges for any potential rivals to be eliminated in “hunting accidents”—which isn’t difficult, the avian creatures known as Dunde being as intimidating as they are nutritious—and then arranges for their children to be adopted by his eunuchs. At a stroke, he consolidates the potential heirs to authority, and prevents his inner circle from having biological children of their own that would trigger the janissary draft and get the Empire involved in his business.
Merciless, but admirable. If the galaxy had a hundred men like Attenho, they wouldn’t need an Emperor.
But when the day comes that there is no one left to challenge him on Gelpa, he is still left with an army of insatiable soldiers. And he wants more.
He wants the stars.
The RKI-6 isn’t a warship; it was an automated shuttle that transported academy students to and from planetary excursions. But Attenho doesn’t know that. To him, it is a miracle, a gift from the deep past. That it has been found on Gelpa of all places is a sign; he is destined to rule. He will fill the ship with his grunts, and it will take him to the other planets in Gelpa’s system. Whatever weak people live there, they cannot withstand his flying machine!
“You gotta stop him,” says Jucio Raz-Pek. “Ain’t no rock king should have magic ships.”
“And did we do anything when Attenho was murdering on Gelpa?” Tevilion Korde retorts. “When he went chopping his allies’ balls? You know what the Big Man says: he’s a brute, but we need brutes.”
Big Man—that’s Elyseum’s name for the Emperor. He doesn’t mind. It’s easier to understand than a lot of the modern jargon. And it fits better than Old Man; Oberon, in the end, was almost twice as old as he is now.
“Rocks are just rocks,” Jucio says. “The stars is ours. If he takes another planet, he won’t stop, he’ll come here next.”
“So what if he does?” the Emperor points out. “What’s he going to do, kill me?”
Kensi San-Elli rolls her eyes. “The ship won’t come to teloworlds, not at first. Attenho will start at his star, and turn the other worlds into Gelpa. Build a big army before he strikes.”
What if he does? If Attenho, or someone else, is strong enough to rally more than one world to him, what’s to say he won’t make a better emperor than the one who rules from Elyseum? For so long, the Emperor has been telling himself, in the OMNIs’ voice, that he leads by terror because he must. There were other leaders during the Shutdown—pirates, Akees, KBs—and none of them could have kept civilization intact for centuries.
But is that really true, or just something he echoes to let himself sleep at night?
“Ready a Green-Spectrum drone,” he orders. It’s flimsy even by drone standards, but it has a built-in artillery system. More importantly, it too has managed to survive this long. “This requires my personal attention.”
He expects Gelpa to be temperate, rich in plant and animal life. A world worth fighting over. Instead it is brutally humid, and insects swarm in every direction out to the mountains on the horizon. Well, maybe that’s why Attenho wants another planet. Or maybe he’s just the kind of person who always needs to conquer and never thinks of what he might sustain.
“Gah-reat Em-ahperor,” says Attenho. This is a different accent than the common ballads; an affected attempt at what he thinks the ancient dialect sounded like. Which it didn’t, of course, but how would he know? “You are very wel-ahcome to our pah-lanet.”
“You bow!” Jucio hisses.
But the Emperor waves him aside. “Thank you. I understand that Gelpa has become strong under your leadership.”
“Thank you. Sir.”
“I have a gift for you, in honor of your success.”
“No!” Jucio starts.
Again, the Emperor glares at him. “Do you presume to know better than I what sort of service ought to be rewarded?”
“Nosir,” he stammers.
“Good. Make a display of the drone’s ranged power. Nothing close by—that mountain in the distance should do.” The Emperor regards Attenho. “Are there any human settlements between here and the mountain?”
“No,” says Attenho, hesitant.
“Very well.”
Chugga-chugga-whakwhakWHAKWHAKWHAK!
The drone is synchronized to rotate in time with its firing, so it only shoots in the direction of the mountain. The burn-frequency lasers are crude, but they need no physical ammunition. It would be even more impressive on the vast, three-dimensional scale of a space battle, but even so, it is like nothing Attenho has ever seen. After it shuts off, all of them gaze at the mountains for a moment, as if the planet itself will crumble upon witnessing such a feat.
Attenho makes no attempt to conceal his desire. “Ours?”
“Even better,” says the Emperor. “Manufacturing rights.”
“Um? Thank you. Sir.”
“Let your finest engineers and scholars study it. Then you may build as many as you wish. My units will take the RKI-6 scrapheap off your hands.”
“We wouldn’t want to be tah-roubling you,” says Attenho.
“No trouble at all! It’s the least we can do, as long as we’re here.”
Attenho’s entourage of generals and eunuchs quickly crowd around the drone, making a show of their research. Some caress the wires as if their power is contagious, while others argue about whether it could be used to shoot down flying Dunde. It only takes a few days for someone to try dismantling the rotors.
And when he does, Kensi is there. “Ah-ah. The big man wants to see you about that.”
The Emperor’s judgment is swift. “If Lord Attenho had truly valued the machine, he would not have let his counselors take it to pieces. Even had they admitted their ignorance, they might have learned to respect such treasures as they ought. But this negligence cannot be overlooked.” The next time the drone fires, it is with Attenho in the path of the laser, and Wervia Thu-Kats of Brongal is flown in to become Lady of Gelpa.
“That test wasn’t fair,” Tevilion points out, when they ride the RKI-6 back to Elyseum. “You knew they didn’t have any tech.”
“Yes,” the Emperor admits. “But they could have been honest. Shown me something they did value, besides power for its own sake.”
“People like Attenho don’t value nothing but power.”
“Usually, yes. But they deserved the chance to surprise us.”
“We could have just taken the drone back. We didn’t have to kill him.”
“People like Attenho,” the Emperor repeats, “would rather die than live with defeat. This way there’s a secure power transfer. Remind the galaxy that anyone can be a lord, but the ships are ours.”
Year Four Hundred Seventy-Three
The tornado comes from the northwest with about two hours’ warning. The sky turns an unfamiliar shade of green, and even city folk know something isn’t right about that hue. Without meteorological equipment, though, there’s nothing much to do except hunker down underground and ride out the worst.
When morning comes, the Emperor finds himself as he has many mornings in the past; beneath the palace, secure in his cloning chamber. Except this time, he’s huddled with the tripod. Soft-hearted Wenar spends the night complaining that they couldn’t bring more civilians in to shelter with them, while Utslan snores through the whole thing.
Dakili ventures out and reports that the palace is mostly intact. One of the outer ballrooms where Oberon used to host galas had the roof fall in, but nobody’s bothered to loot it; they’re either too afraid of the Empire’s wrath or, more likely, are too busy taking stock of their losses to find anything valuable there. The courtyards fared less well; the enormous trees have been splintered by lightning and half-uprooted, limbs and branches raining chaos on the roofs of buildings downtown. The Odysseus had been rebuilt countless times, but even Bigelow and Lynch don’t have to restart from this.
The chamber itself is as sturdy as ever; in spite of himself, the Emperor is grateful for Oberon’s foresight. Even with OMNIs waiting on him hand and foot, the Old Man had been appropriately cautious.
Elyseum was a pleasant enough planet, before the Shutdown, that even now there aren’t many floods or fires that can penetrate the chamber. Sometimes once-in-a-century freak storms really are just that. Or maybe once-in-several-centuries. He should know.
As fate would have it, it’s a stroke that gets him only a few weeks later. These are, while never enjoyable, still preferable to assassination. “This,” he says, when Wenar comes to retrieve him, “is why we didn’t invite anyone in during the storm.”
Wenar blinks. “The storm?”
“Never mind.” If Wenar has already moved on, so much the better. It is his job to live in the present, not to obsess over the past and future. And if he’s foolish enough to believe the people revere them, would not tear them to shreds if they knew it would stick...Well, that’s a pity. But he hasn’t sabotaged the cloning machines himself, which is good enough.
Year Five Hundred Four
Elyseum doesn’t have a cold season, but trees go through a cycle of putting forth flowers and fruit. Perhaps when Oberon built his palace here, the first machines’ rudimentary climate control produced more seasonal variance. Then again, for all he acted like there had never been anything before the Empire, he had not come up with any standard for a galactic year other than the ancient calendar.
Most of the trees that had stood when Yinsti had been hung have now been felled by storms or rot. A new forest has emerged, this one putting forth sweet-smelling fruits and bright green leaves. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” marvels Teria Ajenlekoko.
The Emperor gazes at the tree, then squints at the fruit. Acherus trees dare to invade everywhere, even the Empire’s heart. “Cut them down, all of them.”
“Sir?”
“Was I unclear?”
“It’s only—they grow rapidly, they might return.”
“That’ll be a problem for future guards, then, won’t it?”
“Of course. Sir,” says Teria. It’s not a very glamorous job for the tripod, but if nothing else, it’ll keep troublemaking draftees busy for a few days.
Perhaps he is being overzealous. The people alive today know no other galaxy than this; they cannot be jealous of luxuries they cannot fathom. But he remembers, too well, how many settlements had simply given up after the Shutdown. He will not allow his subjects to believe that abandoning the universe will bring them peace. Even—or especially—if some miniscule fragment of himself is jealous of those silent worlds.
Year Five Hundred Sixty-Two
When rumors spread of “Vivors,” in a clipped accent with distorted vowels, the Emperor does not need to engage in sophisticated linguistics to guess what they’re talking about. Vivar the Elder and Younger were both powerful Kosh-Buendia leaders in the aftermath of the Shutdown. Some trace of the KB house must have persisted, and the name of their heroes resurfaced, to create a new identity for members to rally around.
But these Vivors are not a military threat, nor do they claim common descent. Rather, they claim to believe in a universe outside the Empire, kinder galaxies where humans thrive and coexist in peace. And now their name rings differently in his ears. Survivors. Survivalists. Some twisted fragment of the Earth legend has been dredged up, and people chafing under his yoke are desperate enough to believe in a free world, in this life or another.
“Ignore them,” the Emperor orders his guards. “Do not give their frivolous myths validation.”
“But what if they move against us?”
“If they pose a military threat, we can wipe them out.” He harbors no expectations this will actually work—if Ganyma hadn’t eradicated the Survivalists, none of their remaining weaponry will. “But we do not strike first.”
“And if they try to flee the Empire? Escape to this Earth-place in some relic ship?”
A smile plays across his lips. “So much the better.”
The galaxy will see this as yet another of his sadistic pleasures. There is no authority outside the Empire. There is no justice outside the Empire. There is no inhabitable world outside the Empire, and for the Vivors to waste their lives and ships looking for an impossible utopia is only fitting. He cannot devise a more prolonged torture for them than the one they have voluntarily imposed upon themselves.
And if—if—there is an Earth-place, if humanity’s fabled homeworld has managed to survive not just the creation of the Empire and their exile from the Fold Net but all the centuries of Oberon’s rule, and all those since the shutdown, and if one of those archaic ships is lucky enough to stumble upon it in real space—
The Empire’s resources are scarce. It is imprudent to waste them on dreamers.
Year Six Hundred Three
“Request from Tepatepa,” says Lucand Elgost. “Civil war.”
The Emperor rolls his eyes. “What’s new.”
Lucand misses the sarcasm. “The previous lord, Kevena, died without heirs. His foremost general, Ravivi, has seized the capital and controls most of the weapons. However, there is an aristocrat named Iorudu who is believed to be the illegitimate son of Kevena. Many of the rural areas are rallying to him and want him to proclaim himself king. And that was only what was happening when the ship left—in the time it took to reach here, the violence may have devolved further.”
The Emperor considers the matter. “Whose ship is it?”
“What?”
“Who sent the ship? Was it someone from Ravivi’s faction, or Iorudu’s, requesting our aid?”
“Neither, sir. They come from Tepatepa’s smaller moon, Kalanala, which has been swarmed with refugees.”
The Emperor gives a satisfied nod. “Send a couple squadrons to Kalanala with the ship. Tell them that whoever’s in charge of the moon—their lord mayor or governor or what-have-you—is now responsible for the planet, by Imperial decree. Execute the high commanders on both sides and unite the rest of the population under lunar control.”
“Sir?”
“The planet-siders will be annoyed, but most of them will hate Kalanala less than they hate the other planetary faction. That will buy the moon some time to quell the violence.”
“You don’t...think either Iorudu’s claim or Ravivi’s is stronger?”
“Slings and bows against hungry crowds? That ship is worth more than a thousand of the finest warriors the planet could produce. The Empire’s focus should be on preserving that.”
“Kevena’s ancestors have ruled Tepatepa for generations.”
“And?”
“I just thought...you’re the emperor. Aren’t you supposed to care about inheritance and succession, that sort of thing?”
He gives an empty laugh. “That’s not the kind of emperor I am. I don’t need an heir.”
If he’d had children when he was still an ordinary man he might have had countless descendants, all of whom would have lived and died resenting him for not leaving them the throne. Or grateful that they wouldn’t be stuck with the thankless task. And mistresses are out of the question: who is there in the galaxy that could relate to an ageless monster? Even the tripod struggles to understand what he says sometimes. Keeping the galaxy in balance was enough for Oberon, so it will be enough for him, too. There is no alternative.
Lucand looks as if he has never considered these facts before. “Don’t worry about what’ll become of the empire, after I run out of Neo-N,” the Emperor continues. “That’s not your problem.”
Somehow, this fails to cheer Lucand up. “Kalanala,” he echoes. “I’ll get right on it.”
Year Six Hundred Forty-One
“Once there was a snowman
He built a jail of snow.
When humans would betray him
Into the cells they’d go!
When snow angels went snowblind
Got lost and fell to land
He put them in his ice box
Didn’t even chop a hand.
He thrilled to call it mercy
The stars decreed it nice.
His eyes were frosty crystals
His heart a blade of ice.
The painful heat of summer
He never once has felt.
We prayed to all the suns
His frigid pride to melt.
But still the suns ignore us.
The prisoners still freeze.
The cold and silent snowman
Alone still holds the keys.
How long will he stand watching
Before the walls come down?
Till snow and ice and power
In floodwaters will drown?”
“Catchy,” says Ni-hun Jashlen.
“It’s from Ocosir,” says the Emperor. “They should not be singing about snow or ice on Ocosir.”
“So what?” says Grawho Thu-Kats. “I think it’s a funny song and I’ve never heard of a snow angel.”
“It’s a pattern formed by—never mind. The point is, it’s seditious. They wouldn’t have mentioned hand-severing if it wasn’t supposed to be a jab at my authority!”
Ni-hun and Grawho look nervously at each other.
“What? Speak up, you’re safe here.” As tempting as it would be to execute smart-mouthed guards, they know where his Neo-N is.
“If they were making fun of you,” Ni-hun says, “I don’t think they’d mention putting people in prison. You aren’t...exactly known for imprisoning your enemies.”
The Emperor reflects upon this, and admits that she has a point.
If mildly-seditious songs were the most difficult thing to understand in the galaxy, he would be content to let his subjects sing. But it’s increasingly challenging to even have a simple conversation with anyone outside of a small clique on Elyseum. When Oberon entered his eighth century of life, every part of the Empire had instantaneous communication with every other; there was no need for translators when the same words were spoken, signed, written, projected, encoded, decoded, and parsed on thousands of worlds. Now, planets within the same system can’t easily speak to each other. Even if the galaxy grew peaceful enough to appreciate pre-Shutdown culture, would there be anyone left to read ancient texts?
It’s not just a question of literary aesthetics. He needs to be able to speak to his own people, if only a few. Once, being part of the palace guard had been a coveted role among the janissaries—it was a safer position than common troops. But now, he requires a larger bureaucracy just to translate his orders to ordinary grunts. Who would settle for staying on Elyseum and making sense of an outdated dialect when front-line Imperials are essentially the only people who can travel the stars?
And then it occurs to him. The way memories have blurred together, it may be that the people who sing the ballad now do it to mock this emperor. But there was another dictator, before him, who chose to imprison some of his enemies. Not in walls of stone or iron, but frozen in time. And whatever technology sustained the cryoprison was not dependent on OMNIs, because it was still functioning two decades after the Shutdown.
He is disgusted with himself for considering the prospect, but once his initial revulsion has passed, cold calculations resume. It is likely that some of the people Oberon imprisoned there really did merit punishment. But if so, they will be overwhelmed by the new era, and without any of the technologies they relied on in the past, will hardly be able to resume treasonous behavior before they are silenced for good.
And certainly, at least some of the people Oberon chose to punish harshly had not merited such treatment. Perhaps, over the years, there had been others who dared to express sympathies with the Survivalists, or challenged the need for the OMNIs’ lightspeed censor.
Most of all, it is highly likely that some wire will have rusted or some storm caused power loss within the last six centuries, and if so, the entire point is moot. And if it is the case—wouldn’t it be better to know that now, instead of in a still-distant future? It is hardly as if that knowledge, or any other, could cause him to abandon his schemes. If mere despair were enough to thwart him, the new empire would never have risen.
As much as he would like to send troops without him, there is still too much he can’t explain. So he accompanies a small platoon to Lazarus 9. “Oberon was capricious and weak. He punished others for questioning him, even when to do so may have been...wise. We are here primarily to see if this is a viable recruitment strategy, and secondarily, to right some of his wrongs.” If this is revenge, it is certainly of the cold variety.
The cryoprison is harder to find than it was before; the intervening years have seen shrubs and grasses overtake the planet’s surface. But the geothermal energy system is still functional, and once they hack away an entrance, the inside looks just as it did last time.
If Oberon had kept hard-copy records, there might have been some way of knowing who was too dangerous to parole. Instead, he’s forced to leave it to chance, and the name drawn is that of Echalum Nahi.
He’s fought innumerable battles, the Emperor tells himself, as a nervous technician begins testing the manual interface. He can interrogate an unarmed stranger.
The selected crate is lowered to the floor, but it does not open. Has there been some failure? Is it missing some component that is necessary to proceed? Or does the length of Nahi’s hibernation require a proportionally long awakening?
But the box is translucent, and they can watch as the material inside gradually turns to a rippling liquid. As a mechanical syringe traces a path over Nahi’s body, piercing him over and over. And then, after nearly three hours, the liquid begins to be pumped out, and the top of the box slides away.
Nahi’s limbs react by instinct, beginning to tread before his head has even moved up. “Don’t just stand there,” the Emperor snaps, “drag him out if you have to!” They have not spent this much Neo-N only to watch Nahi drown in his own ice.
If the technician was nervous, the two troops that shuffle over to the cell are terrified. But when they grab Nahi at the shoulders, he starts to scream, a ragged and desperate scream that of course would have made him take on water if the soldiers hadn’t hauled him up instead.
He looks around the room wildly, and the Emperor strides forward. Better to get this over with as soon as possible, no matter how unpleasant it is for them both. “We need to make sure we have the right person. Identify yourself.”
“L-Lieutenant Echalum Nahi. Second officer of the Calliope.”
Well, that’s something. “Year of birth?”
“632.”
The technician suppresses a giggle. The Emperor is in no mood to laugh. “Year of imprisonment?”
“684.”
“Sentence effective till?”
“At—at Oberon’s leisure. Sir.”
“Sentencing crime?”
“C-conspiracy to treason.”
“Elaborate.”
“Sir, it’s all in the records, you can—”
“Nahi, you are—” He almost says fortunate, but is he? “Alive and conscious at our discretion, but that can change any moment. I suggest you answer fully.”
Nahi shakes himself. “I am a loyal Telos man. I had—often found it hard to believe that the Akees and KBs were allowed so large a share of the positronic chip quota. They are wasteful Houses, and their people fear them. Occasionally—when my inhibitions were lowered, after long shifts—I made suggestions that the Empire would be better off if Telos were to directly absorb some of the systems in adjacent sectors. I have never taken up arms against Oberon or his Empire! Rather, I fear that my pride in Telos may have seen me—unjustly accused by sycophants.”
The Emperor exhales. Of all the possible forms of treason in the galaxy, this is a mild one. “Lieutenant Nahi, you are hereby granted conditional pardon for any crimes you were convicted of under Oberon’s rule. Your release comes under the condition that you accept an extraordinary commission as an officer in the Central Imperial Corps, and serve with your utmost loyalty in any combatant or non-combatant duties as assigned. Whether or not you accept this position, you will not be reincarcerated. However, your crimes may still be subject to further punishment.”
Nahi snorts. “So I do what you say or you’ll have to get the blasters out. I don’t mind taking on combatant duties, but at least do me the honor of skipping the bullshit.”
The Emperor, in spite of himself, cracks a smile. “I can do that, Lieutenant. I think you’ll find you’ve chosen well, for both our sakes.”
“So what in all the galaxy is so important you need me? I don’t suppose there’s been a...reconsideration of the chip quota?”
“Not exactly. Your first order will be to pick up these grunts’ dialect until you can translate our conversation for them.” The Emperor waves his hand to indicate the grunts, the technician, and the rest of his astonished crew, who he suspects are picking up one word in three of Nahi’s.
Nahi squints. “That’s OMNI work.”
“Insubordination already? Pity.”
“Of course it’ll be an honor to step up, sir.” He rapidly bows. “May I have the, uh, honor of a formal introduction to these…grunts?”
“This is the second batallion of the Central Imperial Corps. I’m the Galactic Emperor.”
It’s Nahi’s turn to give a harsh, instinctive laugh, like the sound had been choked in his lungs and slept for six centuries only to be spat out now. “The Old Man’s got lots of tricks, but Face Changin’ ain’t one.”
There will be time for Nahi to come to terms with countless losses—the centuries he’s missed, centuries’ worth of technology and spacecraft and infrastructure and terraforming and, above all, sapient lives. For now, it won’t hurt to brag. “Oberon was pathetic and craven and couldn’t protect the Empire when it needed him most. So I killed him on his throne.”
And if the look on the batallion’s faces had been stupefied, the one on Nahi’s tops them all.
Year Six Hundred Ninety-Eight
The ambassador kneels formally. “Sir,” he says. “Please do us the honor of accepting these Chitayfa orchids. While they are not as fresh as one might hope, they have journeyed a long way to reach you.”
The Emperor remembers the planet as being called Jiteavo, but its flowers were famed for their beauty and fragrance even then. What varieties have evolved since, as abandoned human structures have been reclaimed by the planet’s other life? “Thank you.”
Is Chitayfa rich enough that they can afford to send a ship as a mere tribute? Or will they have a boon to require of Elyseum in return? The flower petals appear lifeless, pressed red and pink, but that they have maintained their color through an increasingly-rare folder journey is remarkable.
Still, even non-OMNI tech can be durable. Officer Nahi had lived fifteen more years after his thaw, and managed to give countless lessons in that time about pre-Shutdown language and culture. The Emperor had told him to skip technological asides—humanity would have to rediscover that on their own, or not at all—but at times he’d drop in a reference like “higher than a Vicarelli on Special-H” or “about as distant as the Garden” and the Central Corps would press him for more. It helped that they saw him as a man like other men, who swore and grumbled and defecated and died. If one of their peers, with a thick accent but mortal nonetheless, believed in a time before this empire, they could trust him.
Nahi was survived by a coterie of students and hangers-on, each varying degrees of fluent in the archaic dialect, each passing on that knowledge to their own colleagues. It meant that the Emperor could space out the other revivals, maybe even do two at once. Fuel was a precious commodity.
Which brings him back to the orchids and the distance they’ve come to Elyseum. He leaves them on display in the audience chamber; it seems the least he can do. Except the next morning, one guard has broken out in hives.
“Those were meant for you!” panics Nelzho ro Haptin. The irritations on her brown skin are not quite as red as the petals, but just as startling. “It must have been an assassination attempt!”
“Don’t be rash,” says Akhadi Utsa, just enough a protege of Nahi’s to giggle at his own pun. “Those flowers have been in storage on the ship ever since it left Chitayfa. They’d have poisoned the whole crew if they were that toxic.”
“All the same, you can’t let him live after that. We have to send a message to the other planets.”
The Emperor hardly needs to speak their contemporary dialect if his philosophy has permeated Elyseum so thoroughly.
“You said this planet was famous for its flowers, before,” Nelzho continues. “You’d have mentioned if they were poisonous, right?”
He has no idea how long it takes for the flowers to reproduce. The years since the Shutdown have been eons in human terms, but in evolutionary ones? It seems unlikely that they could have changed so much. Unlikely, but not impossible.
“Bring the ambassador here,” he orders.
It doesn’t take long for the ambassador to be summoned, and he gives no notice of Nelzho’s face. There are more horrific sights on every planet.
“This,” the Emperor explains, “is your doing.”
“Forgive me, sir. I only—”
“Spare me your protestations. I understand that you may have meant no harm, that on Chitayfa these are seen as signs of honor. The greater Empire does not have such luxury. We cannot seek beauty while we grapple for the essentials of survival.”
Is this true for the distant sectors? As ordinary subjects endeavor to hunt sandworms and keep their children healthy and hand over whatever useful metal has survived, do they not also see grandeur in the heavens? They certainly have more than enough time to make up stupid songs.
But not him. “You will do me the honor of taking these back. Not to decorate your ship, but to consume. If they are truly as innocuous as you claim, perhaps you will survive.”
“Sir—”
“Or shall I assume your treachery was intentional?”
The ambassador grimaces as he swallows, each petal crumbling into dust on his tongue. By the time he is finished, the only evidence that the orchids were there is the swelling, and the shame, on Nelzho’s face. It does not matter whether the ambassador survives the outward journey or not; there is no antidote for the poison in his spirit.
Year Seven Hundred Seventy-Five
Upon his parole, Dylunius Vicarelli is happy to learn of Oberon’s downfall. Dylunius’ crime, he says, had been conducting independent research into the positronic laws that governed OMNIs and getting ideas above his station. “Of course I would never have wanted to allow OMNIs to harm humans,” he says. “They are our tools, as is only right. But consider how stupendous the system of FTL travel is! Surely the Empire could be even stronger if its servants could communicate with each other instantaneously.”
Unwittingly, he had realized the importance of the lightspeed censor. He had not been close to reaching the Master Node, of course; he claimed not even to know that there was a Master Node. But even the suggestion, from a mere Vicarelli technician, was unacceptable to Oberon. Instead of a formal execution, he had “mercifully” imprisoned Dylunius indefinitely, hoping—correctly—that his case and the entire notion of adjusting the OMNI programming would be quickly forgotten.
Dylunius is another wellspring of knowledge; his friends in the guard soak up tales of the OMNIs, and his memories take on mythic dimensions. Once, humans were as gods, creating living beings out of nothing to serve them. One wise man thought they could do more than rest, content with their triumphs, and sought to bend even the laws of space and time. But the Emperor, fearful of any threats to his rule, silenced him. The OMNIs chose to punish the Old Man’s insolence by rebelling, unwilling to serve a creature too cowardly to push the limits of knowledge even further.
It bears only a superficial resemblance to the truth, but so did the worship of OMNIs as gods. More accurate are Dylunius’ lessons in coding, showing how any formal language can be reduced to vast strings of zeroes and ones, and how those bits can be used to perform elaborate computations. “You could use this to figure out the coordinates of a projectile launch,” Quevar ro Eluso says.
“Not very effectively,” says Bletki Spart. “By the time you figured out where to aim, and how high, your enemies would have moved.”
“They would if you were doing it manually,” Dylunius says. “But remember, the OMNIs did it with digital components.”
“What?” Quevar asks. These words have not survived into his dialect.
“Like...very small lightning strikes in their frames. Very fast. They could aim for a ship moving between planets and account for the fact that it would still be travelling while their weapons were charging.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bletki says. “That’s impossible.”
“Well, yes,” says Dylunius. “Their programming would have forbidden it.”
A few days later they find his body, accompanied by a half-eaten acherus fruit and a note in a calligraphic script that none of the guard can read. Oberon’s prison was painless, the Emperor translates. But I cannot endure any longer, in a galaxy that has forgotten so much.
The Emperor fumes for the knowledge that was lost, for everything the corps could have learned from him. But he cannot blame Dylunius, knowing how many defeated ships had demanded the Odysseus destroy them.
Year Eight Hundred Fifty-Nine
“You’re looking well today,” offers Scipion Espida.
Her crimes had been more dangerous than Nahi’s and Dylunius’. She’d mutinied against a commanding officer, stolen a ship, and embezzled a decent amount of electronic currency in the process. The only reason Oberon hadn’t been harder on her was that, as she put it, “even he realized my officer was incompetent.” The Emperor had thought twice about whether to keep her in the Corps, but ultimately decided to give her a chance, if only because it would be impossible for her to reoffend.
“Skip the flattery,” he says. They have a busy day ahead of them, entertaining a delegation from Dhovit. They claim that they’d gotten a long-decrepit craft to fly again using a complicated steam-and-gear elixir; this doesn’t seem remotely likely, but they had arrived on Elyseum under their own power, so it’s worth getting to the bottom of either way.
Espida blinks at her tripod fellows. “You don’t see it?”
“See what?” asks Handili Spart.
But Oropa Beljim laughs. “Every time he dies, he comes back like this.”
“You can die?” Espida asks.
“Of course,” says the Emperor. “I’m human, aren’t I?” Scipion has also taught her contemporaries about the OMNIs, although her attitude towards them is a bit more irreverent than the other parolees’; they hadn’t managed to prevent her crimes, after all.
“How should I know? I’ve only been back for a few years.”
“There’s still some Neo-N left,” he says, briefly. He considers summarizing the story of Gehenna and the travels of the Odysseus, but it feels like it is no longer his to tell; it belongs to the past, and those who exist outside of time. “If I ever go missing, check the cloning chambers.”
“We’ll show you where it is,” says Oropa. Handili tilts his head, as if skeptical, but demures.
The Dhovit ship quickly occupies the palace’s attention. Finding out how it runs is a challenge, as the gears are so intricate that the Emperor doesn’t want to pick it apart, on the off chance that they really are the operative component. But after many tests from various angles, they detect a hollow chamber near the cockpit, and inside, a small modular reactor. It must have been an experimental model; anything that had been produced at scale would have been dependent on OMNI technology from the start, and become useless after the Shutdown. Dhovit is neither dangerous nor miraculous, just extremely lucky. In a large enough galaxy, coincidences will occur.
The next morning, however, Oropa awakens him in a panic. His first thought is that the ship had crashed on takeoff, that fiddling with the reactor had jeopardized it, and they both need to catch their breath before she can lead him down to the cloning chamber. Handili is keeping guard over Espida’s unconscious body.
“I went to look for her,” he explains, “and she was here, playing with your...machine.”
“Playing with it how?”
“I don’t know! How should I know? I told Oropa and we thought it might be dangerous, so we conked her.”
The Emperor sighs. Of course, Oropa and Handili can no more explain the workings of the cloning machine than they could have diagnosed the Dhovit ship’s flight mechanism. This should be Espida’s job, to bridge the past and the present. But upon discovering the Neo-N, her first instinct was to hack it. Maybe sync her DNA to it, rather than his.
“You did the right thing,” he says. “Don’t let her wake.”
Year Nine Hundred Fifty-One
Nelhi Chauve hails from a sect of scholars, or a commune of utopians, or a cult of star-worshippers. They are located on the far side of Elyseum and have no aspirations beyond the planet’s surface, as far as outsiders can tell, which makes them relatively accessible and pleasant company. Still, a few minutes of her babble—“behold, I have perceived how even the mighty sandworm is carried by the ripples as it chases its own tail!”—and the Emperor has had enough.
Fortunately, she isn’t offended by the dismissal. Quite the contrary. “These grand cities and their lanterns are not to my liking. It would be a far greater honor were you to come to Eaventown, and not by day when we labor, but at night when we contemplate.”
“The Emperor does not come to the summons of mere stargazers,” snapes Roudi ro Ahsat.
“Leave her be,” he says dismissively.
But the ensuing months are peaceful enough that the Emperor sees fit to pay an unannounced visit to Eaventown. If nothing else, it will remind the populace that he can drop in on them at any occasion. Even Roudi is too polite to insinuate anything.
Nelhi, to her credit, is buoyant with excitement despite the lack of sleep. “The galaxy is much more vibrant here, without the lights,” she says.
It is planets’ worth of city lights that laid the groundwork for ships that could make the galaxy small, but he concedes the point. “And these are what you worship?”
“Not worship, only observe,” says Nelhi. “See the head of the sandworm, off to the north?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, there aren’t any sandworms on this planet.”
Nelhi laughs. “Not this planet, sir. The pattern formed by the stars to the north—we call that the sandworm. See the outline of its head, the length of its tail?”
It could only be called a sandworm by someone who had never seen anything remotely resembling a sandworm in her life, but considering how the ballads have crossed the galaxy, the Emperor supposes the people of Eaventown are merely uncreative namers. “I suppose.”
“No matter where you are, the eye of the sandworm is always due north. But it was not always so! The records of Saralie, my grandmother’s grandmother, they speak of a time when north was closer to the sail of the pirate ship.”
The Emperor does not attempt to puzzle out which assemblage of stars could, if one squints, be said to resemble a ship. No doubt in reality, they are not near each other anyway.
“Just as this planet spins about from north to south, so does its axis trace a mighty arc in the heavens. But while we see the turning of the world with each new day, the spinning of the axis proceeds among years no one can number—except you, noble sir. And therefore I thought it right to show you this marvel, so that you may know even the stars grow and change under your unfailing rule.”
“The precession,” he says. “You’ve discovered the axial precession.”
“I am but a simple counter of days, and do not know such grand words as befit an emperor.”
“Never mind. Your...great-great-grandmother took these measurements too?”
“Yes. And if I should be lucky enough to have a daughter, I will teach her how to read them and add her own in time.”
He is grateful for the moonless night. Even if she hears the hoarseness in his voice, she cannot see his face. No one should know that even an emperor can feel wonder. And since he cannot see her, he does not have to worry about what it would mean to him to admire a beautiful woman after so long.
Year One Thousand Twenty-Four
The Emperor’s head has bothered him for several months, since that incident with a brick-throwing protestor, so he is pleasantly surprised when he awakens one day and feels no pain, not even from the brightness of the sun outside. Then he realizes he’s in the cloning chamber.
Then he realizes there’s a message scrolling on an ancient sixteen-segment display. He’s glad the tripod aren’t here to read it, although they might not know how, anyway. WARNING: NEO-N SUPPLY CRITICAL. REFUEL.
No one else knows that their hated tyrant is just like them, now. Another mortal in the galaxy. When he dies, for the last time, they will cheer—but perhaps they will first doubt, needing the tripod to convince them that it’s not a trap.
So he will need to explain to the tripod that their responsibilities are slightly different than those of their predecessors. Carefully, at first, so as not to startle them. But he has time.
Or does he? What if one of the guards, once they become aware of his secret, decide to curry favor with the resentful populace by hastening his demise? His body is not particularly hale, and obstacles that posed minor inconvenience before are now, literally, life-or-death. How do ordinary people stand it, never knowing which day might be their last?
He treads carefully for a few days, and if the tripod see any difference in him, they don’t let him know. Finally, he accosts Aiyash Threteb. “Do you appreciate this life?”
She gives a practiced bow. “It is a deep honor to serve you, sir.”
“Not here in the palace. I mean, in the galaxy. Do you like being alive?”
“Well, um, yes. I do. I hope my service is pleasing.”
“I don’t need you to bow and scrape. I just need—to hear from someone normal.”
“I would advise against that, sir,” says Kinely Arki. “The last petition from the citizens of Elyseum didn’t exactly go well.”
“Well, you’re the next best thing.”
“I don’t think this is a trap,” Kinely tells Aiyash. “I think he...isn’t threatening to kill us.”
“If I was threatening to kill you, I wouldn’t waste time on philosophy. Do you regret being born?”
“There’s a...a bit of sampling bias in that methodology, sir,” points out Linusa Altzno. “Seeing as how people who were never born, you can’t ask them anything.”
“I’m aware.”
“I like it,” Kinely says. “Being alive, I mean.”
Linusa nods. “Some of the religions, they say that after we die, we’ll get to compare, and maybe death will be better. But as of now, this is the only data point I have. I like it.”
He does not bother to ask whether these are the ancient religions or new ones, or some of each. What matters is that they have spread even when spaceships are scarce, sending words of hope from one star to another. Across the galaxy, humans are sharing their knowledge.
What the tripod is able to hear from Elyseum, and report back to him, is only a fraction of what humanity has accomplished. He cannot know that on Tharlani, farmers have created hybrid strains of bamboo that produce more nutritious food for the growing population. That on Cuvindor, midwives have discovered new treatments for childbed fever and are saving the lives of thousands of mothers and children. That on Ocosir, chieftains have learned from the sandworms’ metabolism how to purify water to survive long space transits. That on Jeppli and Zinor and Tebruw and a hundred other worlds, humans are archiving data in strings of ones and zeroes, in decimal digits, in written alphabets, in compact logograms, and piecing together the bits of their planets’ histories into a larger whole.
The humanity that lives now has done more than survive. It is not the civilization that existed before the Shutdown, but then, it is not so foolish as to think it could forge sapient beings to serve its will. When he dies, no one force will be able to centralize the galaxy within its grasp; the worlds will be on their own, but knowledge and faith will flow between them as surely as those stupid ballads did. He has won.
“Ready a shuttle,” says the Emperor, “for Lazarus 9.”
“You have someone to parole?” Aiyash blurts. “Now?”
“Not a prisoner. A promise, that I made to a dear friend, a long time ago.”
His body may be old, his mind older still, but Emperor Okonkwo knows he is the one being set free.